October 7, 2013

Funny website lets designer Niek Gooren look for a job

Filed under: Design by Branko Collin @ 12:59 pm

Multimedia designer Niek Gooren from Weert in Limburg lost his job earlier this year. Applying for new jobs the traditional way did not help, so he decided to set up a website full of funny hyperbole to show the world why it should hire him.

Next to a photo of Niek begging in the street a banner admonishes would-be employers: “As a citizen of the Netherlands you contribute to Niek’s unemployment benefits. Surely it would be better to hire him. That way you and he both benefit.”

Overlayed on a photo of Niek watching noise on the television is the text: “While you are reading this, Niek lies on the couch at home, lonely and unemployed, eating crisps.”

Also: “Did you know that Niek likes his coffee black? That makes him cheaper than the average coffee drinking employee because you will save on sugar and milk.”

Gooren’s campaign appears to be a success. He told Bright.nl that he has got a day job, figuratively speaking, in going to job interviews on the basis of his website. He’s already been interviewed by Banbao (toys), Wehkamp (mail order), Air France KLM (airline) and De Bijenkorf (department store).

Gooren’s website is at helpniekuitdeww.nl, ‘help Niek off the dole dot nl’. The illustrations are screen shots of that site.

Tags: , , , , ,

October 5, 2013

Krol under fire after exposure as pension fraud

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 11:04 pm

Yesterday the leader of 50PLUS quit his seat in the Dutch parliament over allegations that he had failed to pay pension premiums for his employees when he was still editor-in-chief of Gay krant, a recently collapsed monthly magazine for the gay community.

50PLUS is a political party that claims to represent the elderly. Stronger pensions are one of the main issues for the party as exemplified in a Ben Cramer / Peter Koelewijn song that goes like “Keep your hands off my dough / This is my last warning / Keep your hands off my pension / I won’t vote for you again.”

Law professor Evert Verhulp told Volkskrant that not paying premiums counts as breach of contract.

An Elsevier blogger headlined today: “Irony flirts with Henk Krol.” Former member of parliament for the Christian Democrats Ger Koopmans tweeted “Henk Krol not paying pension premiums is like Geert Wilders converting to Islam.” The elderly as a group are among the most affluent of the country, even though the babyboom generation that Krol represented put remarkably little into the pension funds as Sywert van Lienden and others point out. According to Van Lienden the babyboomers worked four-day weeks. The generation before worked harder and the generation after will have to work longer. In 2023 the Dutch legal retirement age will be 67, ten years later than the early retirement age that was possible from the mid 1970s until approximately ten years ago.

(Photo by Sebastiaan ter Burg, some rights reserved)

Tags: ,

October 4, 2013

Tombstones holding hands circumvent religious rules

Filed under: Religion by Orangemaster @ 10:25 am

Two segregated graves, joined together by a connected pair of hands, looks romantic by today’s standards. However, buried here are a husband and wife that couldn’t be put into the earth near each other back in the 19th century because the man was Protestant and the woman was Catholic. Marrying them wasn’t a problem apparently, but their eternal peace was.

The man died one day, and his wife died eight years later. She didn’t want to be buried in her family’s tomb, but as close as possible to her husband. This pair of hands was a compromise and is today a reminder of the important religion played in people’s beliefs. If I read correctly it was only in the 1960s that it was acceptable to mix and match religions in graveyards, something I’ve seen in military graveyards in the Netherlands.

Up until the 1960s (and still today in many Dutch institutions like schools and political parties), the Netherlands was segregated based on religion, which was called ‘pillarisation’ (‘verzuiling’): Protestants, Catholics and anything that didn’t quite fit those two (atheists, liberals, etc.). Muslims were not even a blip on the radar at that point, which is the beginning of a big discussion on why they never had a pillar and why their integration is happening haphazardly.

(Link: nowiknow.com, Photo of Tomb by Frank Janssen, some rights reserved)

Tags: , , ,

October 3, 2013

Drug sniffing dog finds stash of cash instead of drugs

Filed under: Automobiles by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am

Last week during a major traffic check on a motorway in Emmen near the German border 191,000 euro was found in the roof of a car. A 33-year-old male driver whose car reeked of marijuana was pulled over and searched by a drug sniffing dog. The traffic check was a joint operation of the Dutch cops, German cops, royal marshals, tax office and border guards.

Instead of finding what could have been marijuana, the Dutch cops found 191,000 euros stashed in the roof of the guy’s car. It was later confirmed that the man had been suspected of money laundering. He’s already walking around free, but he’s still a suspect.

All I can say is if you’re going to try not to attract attention to yourself for money laundering and then hide the money in your car, smoking dope in your car is akin to having a sign on the side of it that says “hi, the money is in here, please pull me over”.

(Link: crimesite.nl)

Tags: , ,

October 2, 2013

Woman walks through artwork and wrecks it

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am

The Rijswijk museum in South Holland has been holding the Textile Biennial 2013, which runs until 27 October. However, last Friday a woman walked right through an artwork made up of blue and yellow sewing string and trashed the showcase piece Plexus No. 23 (watch him create it) by American artist Gabriel Dawe, saying that she was blinded by sunlight and didn’t see the installation.

Before you judge her, here’s the description of the artwork: “Gabriel Dawe captures light. He makes one-off site-specific installations of coloured threads. Clusters of threads fan out, stretching between floor and ceiling, reminiscent of captive rays of sun or a piece of the rainbow”.

Since the artwork cannot be restored, the artist will create another piece for the museum this week.

(Link: www.telegraaf.nlPhoto of Plexus No. 18 by Gabriel Dawe by ellenm1, some rights reserved)

Tags: ,

October 1, 2013

Scooping up toy cars to win a real one

Filed under: Automobiles,Online by Orangemaster @ 10:11 am

‘Grab a small one, win a big one’: Amsterdam advertising agency Brandbase placed 100,000 miniature cars on Rotterdam’s Binnenrotte street near the local market. One of the toy cars had a marking under it with which you win a real car. Dutch advertising agency Brandbase patiently placed all of these cars, which were scooped up in 23 minutes. Marktplaats, a Dutch auction site also sell cars. Since it has a lot of competition, this was as an attempt to position the site as the ‘quickest route’ to getting rid of your car.

It was definitely the fastest way to get rid of one real car and 100,000 small ones. My childlike brains says it’s also nice to have all those toy cars to play with even if you don’t win.

(Link: www.amsterdamadblog.com, Photo of Matchbox toy cars by sarflondondunc, some rights reserved)

Tags: , , ,

September 30, 2013

Dutch law turns solar panel owners into entrepreneurs

Filed under: Sustainability by Branko Collin @ 8:08 pm

It sounds like a win-win plan for everybody: the government subsidizes the purchase of solar panels for private families who use the panels to generate clean energy and sell any left over electricity to the public utilities.

Strictly speaking, selling electricity is a commercial transaction over which value added tax must be paid. The Court of Justice of the European Union confirmed this in a ruling in an Austrian case earlier this year. Dutch junior minister Frans Weekers confirmed last week that the ruling also applies to the Netherlands, Z24 reports. Owning a solar panel and selling electricity to the public utilities automatically makes it impossible, the minister told parliament, “to deny one’s status as an entrepreneur” where value added tax is concerned.

This is problematic for a couple of reasons. Solar panel owners rarely get to see how much they have sold back; the utilities just charge them for the balance. Paying VAT also means you have to start bookkeeping. You can ask for an exemption if you expect to pay less than 1,345 euro a year which also releases you from the obligation of bookkeeping.
According to Vereniging Eigen Huis, minister Weekers considers the judgement undesirable and will ask the European Union for a change in the regulations. In the meantime he will initiate talks with the utilities.

I remember when I started freelancing. I made so little money that the people from the tax office laughed at me when I told them I wanted to register for paying added value tax. The difference between me and solar panel owners was of course that I wanted to be an entrepreneur and saw keeping accounts as part of the cost of entry.

According to Dutchnews earlier this year, “solar panels in the Netherlands produce some 100 million kilowatt hours of power” whereas “Dutch solar panel makers had a turnover of over € 490m in 2010”. A quick calculation using the rates of a local supplier shows that solar panel using home owners lowered their electricity bills by 6.5 million euro in 2012, making the solar panel manufacturers the big winners.

(Photo by Mhassan Abdollahi, some rights reserved)

Tags: , , , ,

September 29, 2013

If you see this ad, the model has died

Filed under: Health by Branko Collin @ 2:53 pm

Two years ago the Dutch ALS Foundation (ALS is also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease in North America) started a bold advertising campaign to call attention to the disease.

The campaign consists of portraits of ALS sufferers on posters and in videos. New ads are released only after the model has died. The caption printed on the posters, “ik ben inmiddels overleden”, means “by now I have died”.

In 2010 the foundation made portraits of 9 patients which it expects to distribute in the next few years. It generally takes 3 to 5 years from the onset of the first ALS symptoms to the death of a patient. In 2011 the campaign kicked off after two patients had died, a woman called Conny Deenik and former hockey player and Olympian Theodoor Doyer (photo).

There is no cure for ALS. The disease causes nerves to die, after which the respiratory system breaks down.

(Photo and story: Adformatie / Stichting ALS Nederland)

Tags: , , , , , ,

September 28, 2013

The gifts her neighbour brings her

Filed under: Comics,General by Branko Collin @ 11:02 pm

Merel Barends is a cartoonist from Amsterdam. Her neighbour, J., “visits us almost every day. Sometimes he is drunk. Sometimes he is not. Often he brings a small gift.”

Sometimes that gift is an old newspaper or a roll of peppermint. Sometimes he brings fenugreek or chocolate, because he feels Merel is too thin. Once it was statuettes: “if you look up on the Internet what they are worth, then we will split the profits.”

Link and photos: Merel Barends.

Tags: ,

September 27, 2013

Mike Dalhuisen debuts with the New York Islanders

Filed under: Dutch first,Sports by Orangemaster @ 9:36 am

In the Netherlands when anyone says ‘hockey’ they mean ‘field hockey’ and when I say ‘hockey’ I mean the burly guys on the ice like Dutch defender Mike Dalhuisen. Dalhuisen played his first professional game last week with the New York Islanders (often subtitled as ‘Highlanders’ on Dutch telly — please stop doing that) in an exhibition game against the New Jersey Devils.

Dalhuisen started his career when he emigrated to Ontario, Canada and played at junior level with the Lindsay Muskies, then with Chicago Steel and Lincoln Stars (United States Hockey League) and eventually at Quinnipiac in Connecticut for four years at the National Collegiate Athletic Association level. Now playing for the New York Islanders makes Dalhuisen the first-ever Dutchman to play for the NHL, (National Hockey League), which includes Canadian teams as well despite its name.

“For me field hockey was never an option; it’s not physical enough”, says Dalhuisen this week in a Spits newspaper interview. Here’s what he sounds like in a quick locker room interview: he sounds like a real North American.

Besides the fact that Dalhuisen is a rising star from a country that understands baseball way better than hockey, he’s gone viral for having a gloves off fist fight with the Devils’ Ryan Carter, despite a 5-3 win for the Islanders. The defender spent 11 minutes on ice and five in the penalty box.

(Links: www.quinnipiacbobcats.com, www.quinnipiacbobcats.com, Photo of hockey sticks by kicksave2930, some rights reserved)

Tags: