November 26, 2013

Tunnel racks up 24,000 fines yet off limits to cars

Filed under: Automobiles by Orangemaster @ 8:51 pm

In Ede, Gelderland there is a tunnel that cars and motorbikes are forbidden to drive through, but public transport buses and bikes are allowed to use. The warning signs are clear to drivers, but still, cars and motorbikes keep driving through the tunnel to the tune of 24,000 fines at 90 euro a piece since 3 December 2012. Cars and motorbikes used to be allowed to drive through the tunnel, but that was more than a year ago, which is ample time to get used to a new traffic situation one would think.

It boggles the municipality’s collective mind why cars and motorbikes keep driving through, especially since there’s a speed camera that captures them in the act. To find out what’s up with that, they’ve called upon university students to document people’s behaviour. To soften the barrage of fines being issued, the municipality has agreed to turn off the speed camera half of the day, although at random.

(Link: www.waarmaarraar.nl, photo by Heiloo Online, some rights reserved)

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November 25, 2013

Dutch cars on the road are black, grey and white

Filed under: Automobiles by Orangemaster @ 11:38 am

Recently the Dutch Road Transport Directorate (RDW) has made some information about car registration accessible as open data, which means you can have a look at types of cars, license plates and even car colour.

In 2013 black, grey and white cars accounted for 80% of all cars sold. In Munich, Germany I was once told that most cars, besides being German brands like BMW, Audi, Mercedes and Volkswagen are usually dark blue, black or grey. The only exception would be Porsche as it is more high end, and then red, orange and yellow come into the mix.

The reason for the drab colours according to no statistics whatsoever and a decent amount of beer was that ‘neutral’ colours are easier to sell second hand than red, yellow and green cars. And when I think of a red car, I picture a Ferrari and if I think Lamborghini I picture a bright yellow car. I’ve seen a dark blue Ferrari and a grey Lamborghini and not only are they both boring, but they actually seem less expensive.

I heard a few times that pink cars get stolen more often as do red and white Opel Kadetts, which practically had their own column in Nijmegen’s regional paper De Gelderlander when I used to live out there.

(Link: sargasso.nl, Photo of Coen Tunnel by Erik Tjallinks, some rights reserved)

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November 24, 2013

Artists photograph grandparents the way grandchildren draw them

Filed under: Photography by Branko Collin @ 1:20 pm

Two artists from Eindhoven, photographer Nick Bookelaar and designer Yoni Lefévre, teamed up to create Grey Power, a photo series in which grandparents act out scenes thought up by their grandchildren.

The children made drawings of their grandparents going about their daily activities. Props and outfits from the drawings were then transplanted to real life and used for a photographic portrait of the grandparents. Lefévre explains that modern society considers old people to be sidelined, but “children do not regard their grandparents as grey and withered, but as active human beings who add colour to their lives”.

A Petapixel commenter pointed out that Korean photographer Yendoo Jung had a similar project called Wonderland five years ago, although Jung’s intention seems to be almost the opposite of that of the two Dutch artists. Instead of viewing reality from a different perspective his aim seems to be to recreate fantasy worlds.

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November 23, 2013

It almost never rains in the Netherlands

Filed under: Bicycles,Nature by Branko Collin @ 10:33 pm

At hetregentbijnanooit.nl (it almost never rains dot nl) avid cyclist Gerard Poels from Grave near Nijmegen keeps track of how many of his bicycle commutes get rained on.

In the past five years it rained during an average of 9.4% of Poels’ rides, each of which took 40 minutes each way. Poels counts every little shower even if it rains for just a few minutes. He claims it happens only 4 or 5 times each year that it rains during the entire ride. During those five years Poels rode his bike to and from work 1,482 times.

Poels set up his site to counter the excuse “I am not going to take the bike to work because it always rains [in the Netherlands]”.

Eamelje.net points out that Peter Siegmund of the Dutch meteorological office (KNMI) calculated the probability that you will get wet if you stay outdoors (PDF). If you stay outdoors for an hour in the Netherlands, there is a 12% chance that you will get rained on. If you stay out for four hours, that probability increases to about 25%, and you will have to stay out for at least a fortnight to be absolutely sure to get wet. Siegmund adds that fans of camping are most likely to stay dry in June. Even then the probability of rain during a single week is still 91%.

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November 22, 2013

Dutch third most proficient in English as second language

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 9:55 pm

According to the third edition of the EF English Proficiency Index the Dutch are the third best in the world in speaking English as a second language.

Language educators EF tested the skills of over five million English speakers in 60 countries. The number one and two spots were taken by the Swedes and the Norwegians.

The South Americans and Asians are catching up the fastest. In Europe the English of the French actually got worse. Their proficiency was rated ‘low’. The countries that improved their English skills the most since the previous edition of the index were Turkey, Kazakhstan and Hungary.

The illustration is a silly visual pun. The Dutch call this type of train a dubbeldekker.

(Link: ANS)

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November 21, 2013

Archaeologists dig up the oldest city seal of Rotterdam

Filed under: History by Orangemaster @ 12:55 pm

Archaeologists are claiming to have found the city of Rotterdam’s oldest city seal from 1351 on the site where the country’s biggest covered market is being built. The seal is made of beeswax and was discovered in a copper box. On the seal can be read “clavis sigilli de rotterdam”, or ‘key seal of Rotterdam’, and was used to seal the back of documents.

The seal is said to depict the Rotte river, while the vertical bar is a dam. However, in this modern day and age the ‘international sign of friendship’ (aka ‘the bird’ or ‘three-finger salute’) does come to mind more quickly than a river and a dam.

Back in 2011 we told you about the oldest graves of the Netherlands discovered in Rotterdam.

(Link: www.ad.nl, Photo: BOOR)

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November 20, 2013

Racist remarks on television fuel discussion over Dutch intolerance

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 6:10 pm

The racist sounding jury of televised talent show Holland’s Got Talent has actually managed to outdo itself stupidity-wise after recently failing to recognise one of their most established singer-songwriters.

This time a Chinese immigrant speaking better English than the Dutch jury was poked fun at purely because of his ethnicity. Xiao Wang is asked his name before singing an opera aria by Verdi and once he says his name, a woman on the jury answer’s “no matter”, reassuring him that his Chinese is not a problem. The crowd sounds shocked, but laughs. A little later, Gordon, the same pop singer we mentioned earlier this week , asks Wang, “what are you going to sing? Number 29 with rice?”, obviously referring to the fact that many Chinese run take away restaurants in the Netherlands. After Wang’s performance which was surprisingly good, Gordon says “that was the best Chinese I’ve had in weeks”. I stopped watching after that.

This video has decent English subtitles, which will have you facepalming in no time:

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November 19, 2013

Dutch student addicted to travelling

Filed under: Aviation,Weird by Orangemaster @ 8:00 am
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The Germans refer to it as ‘Wanderlust’, and the technical term is dromomania, “an uncontrollable psychological urge to wander”. Dutch tax law student Valentijn Kuperus is not only constantly on the go, but tries to do it as cheaply as possible. I can imagine that if you’re on a student budget and have the urge to travel that saving money as well as planning is something you excel at very quickly. And what a lawyer he is going to make, but he’ll never be in his office.

Kuperus knows all about saving air miles, bonus programs and travel sites. He has learned all about online travel booking by spending three to four hours a day looking for deals. Last month Kuperus flew to in Abu Dhabi, UAE and Cape Town, South Africa. However, he spent all of 90 minutes in Abu Dhabi, but was very happy to accumulate thousands of frequent flyer miles by stopping there.

Simply put, Kuperus is clearly addicted to travel and needs it like a fix, a lot like a record collector needs to constantly dig crates to score a great record for next to no money.

Contrary to most of us who like to fly as directly as possible to our destination, Kuperus would rather pile up as many layovers as possible because that’s how he can score the most points to then be able to travel some more. He has even taken flights that earn him more air miles than they cost. He once landed a deal flying from Paris to Sri Lanka for 7,50 euro, a mistake on the part of the airline and a great find for him.

Kuperus has already visited 57 countries, with about 11 more coming up soon. His passport is so full of stamps that he needs to get a new one every two years. This year’s Christmas trip reads as follows: Brussels-Ljubljana-Istanbul-Cairo-Abu Dhabi-Bangkok-Singapore-Beijing-Seoul-Taipei-Ho Chi Minh City-Taipei-Hong Kong-Amsterdam.

He plans to do some studying while flying as well. He has good travel tips on his frequent flyer blog.

(Link: www.waarmaarraar.nl)

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November 18, 2013

Photo report of the Saint Nicholas parade in Amsterdam

Filed under: History by Branko Collin @ 8:02 pm

Yesterday I went to the Saint Nicholas parade in Amsterdam.

The bishop of Myra visits the Netherlands, Belgium and other parts of Europe each year to give gifts and candy on his birthday (6 December) to children that have been good and to take children that have been bad back to his palace in Spain.

Recently the appearance of Saint Nicholas’ helpers, the Black Petes, has drawn criticism for its uncanny resemblance to a black caricature.

As a response to the criticism, the city of Amsterdam promised to tone Black Pete down a bit. I did not see much evidence of that, the lips were caricaturally red as ever, although golden earrings seemed to have disappeared.

(more…)

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Talent show jury ignorantly trash established singer-songwriter

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 11:05 am

The show may be called ‘Holland’s got talent’, but the jury recently made it clear that they don’t exactly have proper knowledge of their own musical culture. Jury member Gordon himself a Dutch pop music singer basically told Joop Visser, who has been performing since the mid 1960s, that he sucked. “The lyrics are reasonably well thought up”, which was not said very nicely and “your voices are horrible together”, which is harsh. In this video Joop sings with Jessica and yes, the song is very well written, which is why anyone should listen to Joop Visser in the first place.

To understand the full extent of the cock-up, imagine if Bob Dylan with nobody recognising him went on stage and sang a new song and got told that his voice range was poor and that his look was outdated. Or imagine telling Leonard Cohen that he doesn’t have any moves and needs to get a makeover, something crass like that.

Visser seemed to have had a good laugh once they realised that the jury had no clue who Joop was and didn’t hesitate to be flippant right back at Gordon. Gordon also asked them both how old they were and when Jessica answered ‘old’, as in, it’s irrelevant, Joop said how old he was and Gordon told him he looked older. All I can say is Gordon was never particularly smart and just got dumber and ruder.

Here’s a Dutch song many of you can relate to called ‘Heineken is een harddrugs dealer’ (Heineken is a hard drug dealer):

(Link: www.welingelichtekringen.nl, Screenshot: YouTube)

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