January 29, 2018

Dutch orchestra LUDWIG wins Grammy award

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 2:21 pm

On Sunday, 28 January 2018, Dutch classical music orchestra LUDWIG won a Grammy in the category Best Classical Solo Vocal Album with ‘Crazy Girl Crazy’, directed and sung by Canadian conductor and soprano Barbara Hannigan, aka the ‘conducting soprano’.

Peppie Wiersma, artistic director of the collective, qualified this feat as ‘quite incredible’. “We’ve only been doing this for a few years and this is our first CD. The fact that we’re the only Dutch winners makes it extra special”. The album Crazy Girl Crazy includes the Girl Crazy Suite, with music written by George Gershwin and lyrics by his brother Ira Gershwin.

Despite receiving no subsidies or not really doing any fancy marketing (a very big point of contention in the Netherlands), LUDWIG was very quickly successful and has won many Dutch prizes since their debut in 2014.

The only other Dutch person to be nominated for a Grammy this year was conductor Reinbert de Leeuw in the category Best Classical Compendium, but unfortunately, he did not win. The 79-year-old De Leeuw was said to have been ‘a bit disappointed’.

Here is LUDWIG performing in concert.

(Link: nos.nl, Photo of Carlo Antonio Testore violin, Milan, 1738 by Jason Hollinger, some rights reserved)

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January 25, 2018

Dutch florist to donate kidney to competitor

Filed under: Health,Science by Orangemaster @ 1:13 pm
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A florist in the town of Oostvoorne, South Holland has agreed to donate one of his kidneys to his competitor.

Jan, 62 and a florist, has a genetic kidney disease, inherited from his father who died at age 69. Jan’s problems are not yet critical, but he’ll need a kidney soon. Dick, 55 and a competing florist, is a match and is willing to donate his kidney to Jan. Sadly, Jan’s two sons also have the same genetic disease, but at least they’ll have a father for a much longer time if all goes well, and hopefully more resources to solve their predicament.

Everybody who knows Jan and Dick in Oostvoorne are impressed with the gesture. “I barely take aspirin. I can do without one of my kidneys”, says Dick. Jan was speechless when he found out that Dick was willing to donate one of his kidneys. “You’re not going bankrupt are you?” said Jan to Dick when Dick came over to tell him the good news. “No, I came to tell you I’m going to give you a kidney”.

Dick found out that Jan needed a kidney through two social workers. And although he did talk about donating with this wife, he says he went behind her back to the hospital first to see if he was a match.

You can bet the media will be covering this when it happens.

(Link: waarmaarraar.nl)

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January 24, 2018

Sexist carnival theme gets students’ funding cut

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 1:07 pm
carnaval

The Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Eindhoven University of Technology, Jan Mengelers, ‘blew up’ at a student association for using a sexist and ‘rapey’ carnival themed party on campus entitled #nietoo intended as a play on words and a rhyme of #meetoo.

Translated into English, the theme is ‘What women want doesn’t count’ (‘De wil van de vrouw doet er #nietoo’), with a wonderful image of a young woman with tape over her mouth and #nietoo stamped on it. These are future engineers in the making; their parents must be proud.

Mengelers gave the representatives of this student association, which I have a feeling has little or no women in it, a stern talking to on the same day he found out and in true straight up Brabo style told them this conversation wasn’t going to be a long one and told them their annual funding has been cut off.

The student association plans to publicly apologise, cancel the party and investigate internally. In one month, these morons will have to talk to Mengelers again and see if they’re still the cavemen they’ve shown us they can be.

update: The poster in question (see link), which was a bit tough to read, also reads ‘for 18 years and up and 5 years and under’ which shocked a lot of people more than the sexist remarks.

(Link: omroepbrabant.nl)

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January 22, 2018

Hanging off a Dutch train is dangerous

Filed under: Weird by Orangemaster @ 3:58 pm

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There’s possibly (but hopefully not) a new trend in jackass land, and it’s about hanging onto a moving train on the outside like James Bond, but then for real and purely for shock value.

The Climbing Dutchman is pissing off Dutch rail operator ProRail with his extremely dangerous stunts, but he couldn’t care less, and has done it before. While ProRail says that this is ‘intolerable behaviour and against the law’ and has filed a complaint with the police, The Climbing Dutchman’s answer was, “go ahead and complain to the police again”, implying that he doesn’t think he’ll ever be caught.

ProRail is trying to have this video deleted from YouTube, but of course, it can still easily be found, which says a lot about YouTube.

Update December 2018: new video, as the old one had been deleted.

(Link: ed.nl,Photo by Flickr user Kismihok, some rights reserved)

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January 20, 2018

Former Dutch Prime Minister has his first joint

Filed under: Dutch first,Health,History by Orangemaster @ 12:33 pm

Dries van Agt, 86, served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from late 1977 until late 1982. Of all his achievements, the one that stands out for many is the introduction of ‘turning a blind eye’ (in Dutch, ‘gedoogbeleid’) to the use of marijuana and hash 42 years ago as of January 17, 2017, which was a world’s first.

Van Agt was Justice Minister before he was PM, and together with Irene Vorrink the Minister of Health at the time, they are the reason why the world assumes pot is legal in the Netherlands when it fact, it is absolutely not. They are also the reason why the Dutch have been making a distinction between soft drugs and hard drugs since 1976.

In November 2009 Van Agt received the Cannabis Culture Award of the Hash, Marihuana & Hemp Museum in Amsterdam, but this week he was awarded the Koos Zwart Award in Tilburg, an annual award given to people who have been instrumental in moving towards legalisation and normalisation of cannabis in the Netherlands. The award is named after hash activist Koos Zwart who died in 2014 and who happens to be Irene Vorrink’s son. The former premier held a speech in 2016 at the Cannabis Liberation Day in Amsterdam to plead for the legalisation of marijuana.

And on January 17, Van Agt smoked his first ever joint (pic).

(Link: www.vice.com)

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January 18, 2018

Films of things blowing away in Netherlands

Filed under: Architecture,Automobiles by Orangemaster @ 1:54 pm

Trains have stopped, planes are grounded, a lot of public transport is interrupted, a lot of bikes and scooters outside 24HQ have tipped over, and there’s a whole lot of Dutch reports of different things being blown around. Here’s a selection:

Here’s a video of all kinds of stuff blowing over.

See what happens to these solar panels.

And who needs the gym when you can do exercises with your car door.

Some people couldn’t take their train this morning because a trampoline rammed a train in South Holland.

UPDATE: This roof blowing off in Rotterdam Charlois is quite spectacular.

(Photo of solar panels by Mhassan Abdollahi, some rights reserved)

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January 16, 2018

Gross drinks people order in Dutch bars

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 11:59 am

In an article about gross drinks people order in Dutch bars according to the bartenders who work there, one drink that came up a lot was red wine or white wine with cola. I’m thinking the wine has to be really cheap and used purely to put some alcohol in the cola, but the person ordering it is too cheap or broke to ask for rum, vodka or something else half way decent to go in their cola. Or it’s really great and/or very popular and we’re missing out.

Another questionable combo was alcohol with any kind of dairy: Malibu (coconut flavored liqueur) with chocolate milk or Safari (liqueur flavoured with exotic fruits) with Fristi (Dutch dairy drink with red fruits, usually for kids). Both drinks tell me you’ll still a child, but want alcohol to help you grow up. Unscientifically, since the 1990s more and more young people start drinking alcohol by way of sweet drinks, and as you get older, you move into more normal tasting alcohol.

Last weekend I was in a bar in Amsterdam and a couple from London was trying to ask for a glass of half Amaretto and half brandy. I didn’t mind my own business and asked why they wanted to drink that, if it had a name and what it tasted like. The answer came from the woman: “this is what my grandmother used to drink at Christmas and it reminds me of her”. The drink had no name and she just said, “here, try it” and I did. It’s OK, but the story is much better.

For all the newcomers, if you want to blend into a random Dutch bar, order a ‘kopstoot’ (a head butt): a shot of jenever (aka genever, no, not gin) and a beer (don’t specify any further). If you’re feeling adventurous, ask for ‘zeer oude jenever’ (very old genever) and skip the beer altogether.

(Link: munchies.vice.com)

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January 13, 2018

‘Dutch produce tons of food, but it’s bland’

Filed under: Food & Drink,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 9:42 pm

Saying that this small country can feed the world sounds very impressive, but when the crops are only for profit, you wonder what you’re buying. Subjectively, most people who live in the Netherlands and who are either not of Dutch origin or have lived abroad wonder very often on social media and at parties why Dutch-grown tomatoes and cucumbers taste like water. Google ‘Wasserbombe’ and find out what Germans think of these red-coloured ‘water bombs’.

“A country [like the Netherlands] can become an agricultural powerhouse without having a rich food culture, but the focus on price, efficiency, and practicality has undermined how the Dutch both consume and produce their food”, says Pinar Coskun of Erasmus University of Rotterdam, also echoed by Leo Marcelis, Professor of horticulture at Wageningen University, according to Yes Magazine.

In September 2016, National Geographic sung the praises of Dutch agriculture, with no discussion at all on taste, purely on output, saying that “more than half the nation’s land area is used for agriculture and horticulture.” Sure, if it’s just about feeding people like in a sci-fi series, sure. But if you want some sort of quality, that’s the not the point. To be fair, that’s possibly the case in many countries around the world.

There was also the onion-shallot war between the Netherlands and France. The Netherlands produce cheap shallots by replanting shallot bulbs and harvesting mechanically, while the French plant seeds and harvest manually. The Dutch shallots are cheaper, that’s for sure.

(Link: yesmagazine.org, Photo by FotoosVanRobin, some rights reserved)

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January 12, 2018

Dutch chain uses ‘ethnic profiling’ for training

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 7:52 pm

Using a series of illustrations, Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn teaches its new employees, many of which, according to my shopping experience, are not white, that ‘Premium’ clients are represented by ‘white men with glasses’ (‘the good clients’) and that ‘Budget’ clients are represented by ‘black women with children’ (‘the poorer clients’). Albert Heijn is considered the pricier shop by the general Dutch public. The goal of pointing out which clients are which is to make sure their shops stock food suited to the neighbourhood.

After a complaint from an anonymous employee saying this was discriminating, Albert Heijn pulled it offline right away and ‘didn’t mean anything by it [didn’t realise it internally themselves], but because employees have been offended, they will have a good look at it’. Their system has been in use for two years, but it took an employee’s anonymous tip to the press to wake up the management who teach their young impressionable employees that white folks are desirable clients and others, not so much.

(Link: ad.nl, Photo of wilted tulip by Graham Keen, some rights reserved)

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January 11, 2018

Carnival song targets violent former minister

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 5:39 pm

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Dutch carnival season always brings out the best of the cheesiest carnival songs, and this year we start with an on topic tune that pokes fun at Camiel Eurlings, former Minister of Transport and CEO of KLM who has been prosecuted for assaulting his former girlfriend, “giving her a concussion [that still is an issue today], a broken eye socket and a broken elbow”.

With the name ‘Blond & Blauw’ (‘Blond and Blue’, instead of ‘Black and Blue’), the woman sings ‘Losse Handjes’, (‘loose hands’, which in Dutch implies ‘flying off the handle quickly using one’s hands’ = hitting someone. Eurlings is not explicitly mentioned, but it is very much about him. As well, Eurlings happens to come from Limburg, a part of the country that celebrates carnival wholeheartedly and recently quit his cushy side gig at the International Olympic Committee trying to not become the Dutch #metoo poster child, but it’s too late.

All kinds of good jibes in there: ‘if a woman says no, keep your paws/mits to yourself’ and ‘it’s always the same song [story]’. And this video is really not about the music.

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