September 4, 2013

Swimming for kids: sport or safety measure? Or both?

Filed under: Sports by Orangemaster @ 10:47 am

Swimming organisations in the Netherlands are arguing about which stroke should be taught first to children. The organisation responsible for teaching children, the national swimming pool organisation, is a fan of the breast stroke because it can be sustained for longer and is easier to learn. The national swimming organisation is all for the front crawl and the back stroke and plans to introduce their own swimming certificates for children next year. The national swimming pool organisation is not happy about having some competition.

Why are they at odds? The swimming pool peeps believe in teaching children in the event that they fall into a canal, while the national swimming peeps see swimming as a sport. The chances of a child falling into a body of water and having to swim ashore for a long time are not very likely and so the breast stroke make sense. However, if a child wants to learn how to swim as a real skill, then the front crawl is usually a good primer.

As a well-versed swimmer (my butterfly stroke sucks), I can tell you that besides the strokes, staying afloat by treading water or floating on your back is very important for safety. As a child I also learnt how to give mouth to mouth and rescue someone while in the water, skills that people regularly use when you’re a Canadian on a lake in a canoe in the forest in a pre-mobile phone era, not a small child falling into a canal.

Why can’t these organisations coordinate their efforts? Then kids will learn how to excel at swimming and what to do if they or a friend falls into a canal. Only being able to save yourself doesn’t sound very noble.

(Link: www.dutchnews.nl, Photo looking across the nearby Wolderwijd from Harderwijk to Zeewolde, Flevoland, by Sjaak Kempe, some rights reserved)

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September 3, 2013

Moving in Amsterdam, an animated trip

Filed under: Film by Orangemaster @ 4:28 am

“Harry and his huge, oblivious son run a moving company together. When they help a girl move apartments, their dull, tiny lives are disrupted.”

‘Gracht’ (‘Canal’) was made for the Utrecht School of Arts in Hilversum as a graduation project by four students. The process took six months, and the four guys not only graduated but were also honoured with a ‘staff pick’ on Vimeo.

I like the mover’s watch and the somewhat trendy yet anachronistic use of the compact cassette with Dutch gabber music.

Gracht from Gracht2013 on Vimeo.

(Link: www.amsterdamadblog.com)

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September 2, 2013

Prosecutor wants carless woman imprisoned for not paying car insurance; judge protests

Filed under: Automobiles,General by Branko Collin @ 4:49 pm

An unnamed Dutch woman was threatened with imprisonment for failing to insure her non-existent car in March of this year.

She was saved from that fate by a sympathetic judge in Noord Brabant who felt that the way the justice department hid behind its automated processes lacked care. The justice department should have noticed that something was amiss when they tried to repossess the uninsured and, most importantly, non-existent car. After all, why would a person own license plates but not a car?

Instead of stepping in and finding out what was going on, the justice department let its automated systems do the thinking and had the system pile up fine after fine until the computer said that now might be the time for imprisonment.

It is unclear if the accused will be taken out of the system or if the justice department will try and jail her again. The justice department seems to think that if the computer says so, you’re guilty, regardless of what a buttinsky judge thinks.

The blogosphere seems to believe this mess is the result of failing automation. I side with judge Wim Verjans who feels the humans hiding behind the computers are ultimately responsible.

Keeping the remainder of a punishment after the original punishment fell away because there were no grounds for punishment is a classical Dutch meme. The saying ‘Barbertje moet hangen’ (Babs must hang) stems from this principal. It was novelist Multatuli who wrote the story that started the meme—his Max Havelaar took a stand against the Dutch colonial system in 1860, but the underlying bureaucracy that pushes people around like they are nothing lives on. The unjust law with which alleged traffic offenders are pushed into this bureaucratic mess is called the Wet Mulder and was only introduced in 1989.

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August 31, 2013

Fresh couple needed at Castle Loevestein

Filed under: Architecture,General by Orangemaster @ 8:00 am
Loevestein

Back in 2010 Slot Loevestein (‘slot’ means ‘castle’ in Dutch) was looking for new castle watchers, preferably a couple to also run its bed & breakfast. Loevestein is remote, tends to flood in the winter and the right couple is required to stay in the castle à  la The Shining, come hell or high water, quite literally. Loevestein is again looking for a new set of castle watchers and we actually know people who are going to try and get the job.

This 14th century castle used to be a prison, and one of its most famous inmates was lawyer, poet and politician Hugo de Groot (Hugo Grotius) often protrayed as the ‘father of modern international law’. In 1621 Hugo de Groot pulled off a very cool escape in a book chest, an idea he got from his wife, Maria van Reigersberg who was living in the castle, albeit probably not locked up.

Some 400 couples have applied for the job this time around. Another common job opening that has this kind of response is for fort watchers on the artificial island of Pampus where being a couple and staying put is also a requirement.

(Link: www.amsterdamherald.com, Photo of Castle Loevestein by StimpsonJCat, some rights reserved)

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August 30, 2013

Bad haircut shaming: funny or cyberbullying?

Filed under: Fashion,Online by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am

I was on my way to the hairdresser’s once when a Dutch friend warned me as a joke not to get one of those easy to manage short haircuts that tired women over 30 get after they’ve given up on their looks. Today I am pretty sure he meant the ‘daring’ haircuts featured on the Facebook page of Henk’s Fashion.

Henk’s Fashion has chosen to make fun of Dutch women with certain types of short haircuts that are deemed unflattering at least by the 13,500 people who have liked their Facebook page so far. And then there’s those cockatoo mullets and matching white capri leggings that also fit the bill, style-wise.

While the Facebook page is meant to be funny, it does point fingers at people and has been deemed akin to cyberbullying, even though it is legal to use Facebook photos of others on Facebook according to the social network site’ own terms and conditions. Whether or not the photos used are from Facebook is difficult to check. I would very much like to understand why some women (we could use a page for the men as well) get a haircut that is arguably unflattering, but also a stereotype in gender, age, background and social status.

(Link: nos.nl, Photo of Hair salon by Travel Salem, some rights reserved)

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August 29, 2013

Ties Leenstra is the new children’s poet laureate of Groningen

Filed under: Literature by Branko Collin @ 5:00 am

The city of Groningen elected 11-year-old Ties Leenstra as its new children’s poet laureate last Saturday, Poëziepaleis reports.

No examples of young master Leenstra’s poetry are given, but apparently his points of view are surprising and his words expressive. Leenstra, who recited his entries from memory, follows in the footsteps of Groningen’s first children’s poet laureate, 12-year-old Sifra Kramer who was also a member of the jury. Asked if he wants to be an important poet when he grows up, Leenstra answered: “No, I’d rather do something else.” Leenstra’s duties involve writing four poems a year.

Kramer’s poems can be read here.

The national young poet laureate Joanne Hoekstra from Augsbuurt in Friesland was elected earlier this year on 2 June.

(Photo by Enric Martinez, some rights reserved)

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August 28, 2013

Foreign birds make history upon arrival in the Netherlands

Filed under: Animals,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am

Last May 11 Iago Sparrows flew aboard the MV Plancius on 6 May 2013 from the Cape Verde Islands. In the end, four birds (two male and two female) stayed on board until Hansweert, Zeeland, making them the first known individuals of that species (endemic to the islands off West Africa) to have reached Europe, and therefore writing history.

Once docked in Hansweert on 19 May, the sparrows stayed on board to eat breadcrumbs and hang out with the captain.

All four sparrows were timid and passive, up until the moment I released the male from his confinement on the bridge. The other male then sought the company of the Captain’s sparrow, and the two cocks started a fight. The aggressive display ended in a clear attempt to copulate. One male definitely mounted the other and tried to copulate. The male that was mounted did, however, not assume the classic submissive solicitation posture (crouched, neck drawn in, wings slightly drooped), a posture known from observation of female House Sparrows (Passer domesticus) that solicit copulation.

Please feel free to insert all kinds of good-humoured jokes in the comments.

(Links: www.improbable.com, moeliker.wordpress.com, Photo of Iago Sparrow by Hans Zwitzer, some rights reserved)

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August 27, 2013

Essay: who cares about Unesco?

Filed under: Architecture by Branko Collin @ 7:00 am

When I wrote Unesco pulls trigger on Amsterdam in 2010 I was unaware that a day later urbanist Michiel van Iersel would tackle the same subject a day later in NRC.

At the time Unesco had added Amsterdam’s historic city centre to its famous World Heritage List. Critics feared that Amsterdam would fare the same way as Bruges, a city in Belgium that has a lot mediaeval architecture still intact, but that also has the reputation to be staid and boring. They were afraid that the municipal government would turn the city into a museum in which nothing could be changed.

In an essay called Who cares about Unesco? Van Iersel counters these criticisms by saying that “in fairness it should be pointed out that the Belgian town was well on its way to being a museum exhibit before it was included on the list in the year 2000”. He adds that a Unesco listing is unlikely to act as a Trojan horse because if anything, Unesco’s rules are vague and ambiguous.

So, should Amsterdam embrace its Unesco listing? Van Iersel doesn’t seem to care either way. He feels the great number of sites on the World Heritage List has made it the Starbucks of distinctions. He proposes that Amsterdam should “pretend that UNESCO does not exist.” It doesn’t seem to matter much if you’re on it, because everybody else is, too. In fact, when Unesco dropped Dresden from its list for building a bridge, the joke was on Unesco: “in opting for innovation Dresden gave up its place on the list, while UNESCO lost one of its sites and also the support of some of its partisans.”

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August 26, 2013

Double toilet stage for photographic antics

Filed under: Photography by Branko Collin @ 10:48 am

The Toilet Diaries is a photo series by two photographers from Utrecht, Gerben Grotenhuis and Marc Marselje, in which they themselves and the toilets of the former bank building they used to live in are the heroes.

One Friday night they thought it would be funny to do the dishes in the toilets and apparently that is when the fun started. The duo recently gave an interview to SLR Lounge in which they explained the background of some of the photos and what their next project is going to be. In the meantime, the Toilet Diaries is being sold as a calendar and apparently there is also a coffee table book in the works.

(Photos: toiletdiaries.nl)

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August 25, 2013

Dutch house owners spend their holiday bonuses on mortgage payments

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 4:11 pm

ABN Amro’s mortgage portfolio has decreased by 0.3 billion euro because house owners have been making extra payments using their holiday bonuses, the troubled bank writes in its interim financial report for 2013 (PDF, page 41).

Z24 discovered this titbit and adds that according to TNS Nipo (a polling company) 1 in 5 home owners would like to make extra mortgage payments. Dutch banks generally penalize extra payments above a threshold of 10% to 15% of the loan.

Dutch employees have a right to a holiday bonus of 8% of their annual salary. Employers usually pay this bonus in May before the summer holidays start.

House prices in the Netherlands have been declining for a couple of years now, resulting in a negative balance: home owners, especially young ones, owe the bank more money than their home is worth. Z24 says that home owners use their holiday bonuses to help pay off their mortgages partially because the interest on savings accounts is at a very low point. These extra payments are not enough, the financial news site says, to counter the declining house prices.

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