March 4, 2016

Dutchman receives compensation for Nagasaki bombing

Filed under: History by Orangemaster @ 11:24 am

Dick Büchel, a 95-year-old man from Waalre, Noord-Brabant has received the equivalent of 8800 euro in damages from the Japanese government for surviving the atom bomb that hit Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.

He served in the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army on the island of Java where was taken prisoner by the Japanese, and the bomb exploded just 1700 metres from his prisoner of war camp.

Interestingly enough, Büchel believes in the use of weapons of mass destruction by the Americans, claiming that the bomb saved him. Some Koreans in the Netherlands were also given compensation, although everyone had to file a law suit in Japan to get it.

(Link: www.omroepbrabant.nl)

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March 3, 2016

Serial letter writer sentenced to jail

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 5:35 pm

In 2013 a court told Mustafa Karasahin to limit his unrelenting letter writing to Dordrecht city hall to 10 letters a month, which he didn’t do. After fining and even detaining him twice, the message ironically didn’t get through and now he’s finally being thrown in jail for two years with eight months probation for writing harassing letters.

Karasahin got into it with the city for illegally renting out rooms and was marked as a slum lord, not winning him any sympathy once he finally went bankrupt. And since he’s broke, he won’t have to pay any compensation for damages. According to the court, his flow of letters between 2013 and 2015 cost the city a whopping 1.24 million euro, not counting another estimated 250,000 to 300,000 euro for 2016.

Enjoy your new small room, dude, and don’t write.

(Link: www.binnenlandsbestuur.nl)

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March 2, 2016

Painstakingly made animation about Vincent Van Gogh

Filed under: Art,Film by Orangemaster @ 9:34 pm

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An animation film entitled ‘Loving Vincent’ directed by Polish director and painter Dorota Kobiela tells the story of the last days of Vincent Van Gogh’s life. Every frame of this 80-minute film features an entire painting, each made by about 100 painters in Gdańsk, Poland, which adds up to about 56,800 frames.

The team of painters are learning to paint in Van Gogh’s expressionist style for three months, and need to paint 12 paintings for each second of film, each of which takes two days. It would take one person about 9,600 days (26 years) to do this all on their own. The paintings are then photographed using PAWS technology (Painted Animated Work Stations) and are being produced by BreakThru Films that won an Oscar in 2006 for their short feature Peter and the Wolf.

‘Loving Vincent’ isn’t finished and painters are still busy learning until August. The idea is to release the film at the end of this year. Check out the trailer, you won’t regret it:

(Link: thecreatorsproject.vice.com, Image: extreme close-up of The Harvest via Van Gogh Museum)

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March 1, 2016

Dutch Twitter row over chocolate Easter eggs

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 9:58 am
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It’s time for another holiday controversy, one that revolves around chocolate Easter eggs sold at Dutch chain store HEMA. The store calls one type of its milk chocolate Easter eggs ‘eggs for hiding’ for the purpose of an egg hunt, but omitting the word ‘Easter’ has led to hate-filled comments from Dutch Twitter conspiracy theorists living in their own echo chamber. ‘The H in HEMA stands for Halal instead of Holland’ and other hateful nonsense is doing the rounds, effectively helping the rest of us weed out the nutters just in time for some online spring cleaning.

Part of Dutch Twitter went down the rabbit hole claiming, with no proof whatsoever, that HEMA was pandering to Muslims by removing the word ‘Easter’ in their ‘eggs for hiding’. HEMA claims it has been calling one type of its milk chocolate eggs ‘eggs for hiding’ for 10 years now because there’s a gold one and that makes them great for Easter egg hunts. After one ‘offending’ picture on Twitter, people jumped on the bandwagon because it sounded plausible if you ignore the pesky facts that get in the way of blind hate.

HEMA sells pork products, Christmas stuff, Easter stuff, Sinterklaas stuff, even head scarves that offends absolutely nobody.

(Links: nieuws.nl, www.volkskrant.nl)

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February 29, 2016

Amsterdam Central Station’s shared space is successful

Filed under: Bicycles,General by Orangemaster @ 1:06 pm

First the media complained about how dangerous it looked, with opinions ranging from ‘completely bonkers’ and ‘sign this petition’, which have now turned into ‘yeah, but don’t be in a rush’ (video) and ‘hey, it actually works for 39,000 commuters a day’.

After a major redesign of the space behind Amsterdam Central Station, where the many ferries take commuters across the IJ river to Amsterdam-Noord, cyclists and pedestrians need to navigate a sea of each other in a no-traffic-rules-figure-it-out-among-yourselves zone. The idea is that a shared space avoids using traffic lights, and if it had been a total disaster full of accidents, the city would have changed it, but now the shared space is deemed successful.

People coming off ferries on bikes and scooters are definitely to be avoided as a pedestrian, then again, if I’m in their way, it’s up to them to go around me. I’ve actually been there on roller skates at night and that went well. According to Het Parool newspaper, in three months, there has been one ‘incident’ where a cyclist hit a scooter and got back on their bike and buzzed off. They say that cyclists are a bit less aggressive and more polite to pedestrians there as well, and all the naysayers, including us, although we kept it down the pub, have been proven wrong.

Have a look at this time-lapse video and see for yourselves:

Timelapse van de shared space bij Centraal Station from Gemeente Amsterdam on Vimeo.

(Links: www.parool.nl, citinerary.net)

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February 27, 2016

Monks eye move to Schiermonnikoog after 400 years

Filed under: History,Religion by Orangemaster @ 7:23 pm

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Schiermonnikoog, one of the Wadden Islands in Friesland, originally named after Cistercian monks in grey robes who lived there centuries ago, will be home to monks once again after some 400 years.

With a population of about 830 people, Schiermonnikoog (‘Grey Monk Island’), will get a small Cistercian monastery for seven brothers who plan to leave their abbey in Diepenveen near Deventer, Overijssel and ‘retreat in simplicity’ on the island. Their current abbey in Deventer can house 100 monks, and they feel staying there doesn’t make much sense any more. Four of the seven brothers are already on Schiermonnikoog, while three of them are in Belgium waiting to join the rest.

(Links: www.nu.nl, www.frieschdagblad.nl, Photo of Coat of arms of Schiermonnikoog by Arch, some rights reserved)

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February 26, 2016

Groningen University wins bullshit bingo slogan award

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 10:31 am

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Last November we told you about the Dunglish/bullshit bingo fest that made up Dutch university slogans, and we even had a favourite horse in the running.

“One sticks out above the rest in our view, it’s the RUG with ‘Born Leaders Reach For Infinity’ that has the flow of an acronym, but the appeal of an overflowing bin bag with rotten food begging to be taken out.”

We proudly picked a winner. I even did a search using the word ‘infinity’ to find our original posting.

The second place goes to the University of Amsterdam with ‘We are U’, ‘U’ here is the Dutch word for ‘you’ and a nod to the word university, which is oddly quite North American. Third place was taken up by Leiden University and their ‘Excel in Freedom’ albeit actually in their own language ‘Excelleren in vrijheid’, which is airy, like the clouds in the sky.

These awards are part of a debate about university financing because someone paid someone good money to come up with these ridiculous slogans while universities waste money badly mimicking businesses rather than act like proper universities.

(Link: platform-hnu.nl)

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February 25, 2016

Singing off-key is also a thing in the Netherlands

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 10:39 am

The Netherlands has had the imported idea of a choir for people who can’t sing since at least the summer of 2015, according to newspaper AD. The band of bad singers is called Geen Gehoor, a great Dutch double entendre roughly meaning ‘nobody hears you’ (also ‘not getting an answer on the phone’) and ‘it sounds terrible’. The choir mostly attracts the 50 plus set, and the choir practices in the Westland area near The Hague.

Founder Nico Meijer makes an excellent point: people who can’t sing should be able to sing somewhere. And the Internet will tell you how much singing is good for your mood even if you sing off-key. It also makes for a great comedy show.

Have a listen to their first ever live show:

(Links: www.ad.nl-1, www.ad.nl-2, Photo of Microphone by visual dichotomy, some rights reserved)

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February 24, 2016

Gourmet popcorn shop hits Amsterdam high street

Filed under: Dutch first,Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 7:48 pm

Popcorn-machine

I’ve recently noticed an increase in popcorn flavours besides salty and sweet at my local supermarket, such as fancy popcorn with cheese and chives and what not from the UK as well as Dutch attempts at making popcorn that reminds me of American Cracker Jack.

This time Italians are bringing the popcorn to downtown Amsterdam, with the opening of FOL Gourmet Popcorn, the first ever popcorn shop of the country. Flavours will include bacon, chili pepper and white chocolate with pretzel. You can also sit down and have a beverage with your popcorn.

I love popcorn and every time I reach for some I say ‘popcorn!’ and picture of James Brown getting down.

(Links: nieuws.nl, www.vastgoedmarkt.nl, Photo: Popcorn Monsoon by Dutch designer Jolene Carlier)

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February 23, 2016

Elderly woman sews bags from abandoned umbrellas

Filed under: Fashion by Orangemaster @ 6:33 pm

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After heavy wind and rainfall, Lil Jaunzems, 92 and from Amsterdam, goes out and collects abandoned umbrellas to make trendy bags out of them. When collecting umbrellas, newspaper Het Parool makes it sound like Jaunzems is out picking unwanted fruit that needs to be janked out of a branch or shell, saving the good bits to be brought home safely as raw material. People apparently look at Jaunzems funny when she’s out, like she doesn’t get that an umbrella is broken, but in true Amsterdam style, Jaunzems couldn’t care less and knows exactly what she’s getting up to.

Many of the bags have symbols of Amsterdam, from Heineken to cannabis and everything in between, so friends and family can ask for specific-looking bags. Before retiring Jaunzems used to sew jackets as a single mom with two children, but now she does this for friends and acquaintances for free and to pass the time.

(Link: www.parool.nl, some rights reserved)

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