August 21, 2018

Carpentry, Dutch style: a hammer, a nail, some wood

Filed under: General,History by Orangemaster @ 1:38 pm

According to Wikipedia, Rembo & Rembo was an absurdist Dutch TV show for kids written by Theo Wesselo and Maxim Hartman that aired from 1987 to 1995. In casual conversation with Dutch folks, bits of sketches from Rembo & Rembo are often quoted or alluded to. I was lucky enough to attend a Rembo & Rembo themed-party once with one of the two guys, I don’t remember which one, and was probably the only non-Dutch person there. People were dressed up like the characters in their sketches, including about six carpenters, which is why I’d like to share this beloved Rembo & Rembo sketch with you and my English translation below the video.

Recently I had to get a carpenter (‘timmerman’, ‘timmervouw’ if it’s a woman) and this sketch was the first thing that popped into my head. Funny enough, the ‘timmerman’ was called Tim.

Here’s what old school Dutch humour looks and sounds like.

Carpenter: Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting!

Carpenter: Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting!

(Background: Carpenter: Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting!)

Carpenter: Yes, hello!
Man: I’m here for the advert about becoming a carpenter…
Carpenter: No, no, no, I’m not here today, tomorrow I’ll be in. OK? Tomorrow.
Man: Oh… Bye!
Carpenter: Bye!

(sign says ‘Carpenter’)

Carpenter: Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting!

Carpenter: Yes, hello!
Man: I’m here for the advert about becoming a carpenter…
Carpenter: Sorry, I got it wrong, I’m not here today either. Tomorrow I’ll be here for sure, tomorrow for sure.
Man: Oh…
Carpenter: Bye!

Carpenter: Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting!

Man: Hello, I was here yesterday already for the advert about becoming a carpenter…
Carpenter: Hey, that’s great, fantastic! Come in! You can start right away!

Carpenter: Come over here and I’ll show you how to hammer. This is a hammer, this is a nail. Head up, point down, a piece of wood: Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! It’s in.
Man: Yes.
Carpenter: Yes? One more time: Hammer, nail, head up, point down, a piece of wood: Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting!Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! It’s in. Yes? Do you understand or should I do it again?
Man: If you could show me once more…
Carpenter: OK, what is this?
Man: A nail.
Carpenter: This is a hammer!
Man: Ah yes, the hammer of course.
Carpenter: And what’s this again?
Man: That’s the hammer then.
Carpenter: This is the nail, yes?
Man: Yes.
Carpenter: Head up, point down, a piece of wood: Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! It’s in, yes?
Man: Yes.
Carpenter: Try it yourself, OK?
Man: OK.
Carpenter: I’m not going anywhere, I’ll be back.

Man: Head up, nail, point down, hammer, a piece of wood: Ting, ting… Hey! This one has the head facing down!
Carpenter: Hey, hey, hey, hey! What are you doing, man? Why are you throwing out the nail?
Man: It’s no good, the head is facing down and the point is facing up!
Carpenter: You’ll also find these types of nails as well, but you’re not supposed to throw them out!
Man: Oh no?
Carpenter: No! You need to save them for ceilings!
Man: Sorry.
Carpenter: No worries. If you’re here at 7 am tomorrow, you can start right away.
Man: OK. And how much can I earn?
Carpenter: 2,50 [guilders, 1,34 euro] an hour, but it will be more later.
Man: OK, then I’ll come later.
Carpenter: OK.

The funny parts: The ting ting ting is a classic. The carpenter keeps looking left and right when he opens the door possibly because he hires people and underpays them or is just plain dodgy. The nails for ceilings is also a classic.

(Image: wikipedia.org)

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August 20, 2018

Sprinter train finally being fitted with toilets

Filed under: General,Health by Orangemaster @ 7:35 pm

Back in 2011 we told you about the Sprinter trains, short distance train that stop at ‘every big tree’ as the Dutch say, that didn’t have any toilets, but claimed to have ‘pee bags’ for anybody needing them. Of course, nobody knows anybody who has ever used them.

We also told you we’d update you if that changed, and it finally did.

Two weeks ago – seven years down the tracks – existing Sprinters are finally being fitted with bathrooms. Dutch railways also admits it was stupid not to have toilets on these trains. There will also be a large wheelchair-accessible toilet, a place for two bikes and a slide-out platform at the door.

It’s not over yet though: the first two trains are on the rails now and all 131 trains should be fitted with proper facilities by 2021.

(Link: nos.nl)

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August 17, 2018

Crime still pays for many Dutch fugitives

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 3:52 pm

According to RTL Nieuws, dozens of criminals in the Netherlands with an outstanding prison sentence wrongly continue to receive benefits. Although the justice department and police cannot find them, the UWV (Employee Insurance Agency), responsible for handing out benefits, doesn’t seem to have any problem finding baddies at all, much to the irritation of the Dutch government trying to put the kibosh on this absurd practice since 2011.

It can takes month before benefits are stopped owing to bureaucracy, but what really grates is that as many as 13 judges have still ruled in favour of these criminals, citing that ‘not serving one’s sentence is not a good enough reason to stop benefits’. They first need to see if the person is ‘purposely avoiding incarceration’ and then more pressure is put on the police to catch this person.

There’s even a case where a man took off to Australia with permission from the UWV and in doing so avoided his sentence. His sentence was then set at 10 weeks. However, Australia won’t extradite a Dutch person for any sentence of less than six month, so the man can chill down under while receiving money from the Netherlands and not go to prison.

Every time you hear that the Dutch are soft on crime, well, yes they are.

(Link: rtlnieuws.nl, Photo by Ken Mayer, some rights reserved)

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August 16, 2018

International students flatly turned down for housing

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 5:18 pm

According to RTVUtrecht, tons of advertisements for student housing (usually rooms in a house that has been subdivided for that purpose; they don’t live on campus), are flatly and illegally turning down internationals. It’s also not news that this group, maybe more than the Dutch, are also falling prey to dodgy landlords.

In this Dutch video, the chairman of a student rights association explains that international students should not be turned away, but quickly adds that he understands why this is done since it is so difficult for the Dutch to find housing, and that ‘there is a language barrier and many obstacles to be able to live with an international student’.

The thing is, major universities have been encouraging foreign students to enrol at their establishments to make money, but have no plans to deal with the strain that this causes on society, which in turn is then becomes the government’s problem. And since there’s a constant state of housing shortage that has existed at least in the big Dutch cities such as Utrecht for decades, it seems to be nobody’s responsibility, leading to this kind of self-protecting behaviour.

The chairman in the video blames the government and the universities and not the international students for the problem. A quick Internet search has students living on camping sites, caravans, hostels, refugee centers and even their cars for a bit until some of them get lucky, find a couch, or actually give up their studies. People are still willing to pay just more than regular people renting an entire flat to get a room because they don’t have many options.

This article is from last year, but paints a picture of what internationals go through here to try and find a room to live in.

And we wrote about students living in containers in Amsterdam a few years back.

(Link: rtvutrecht.nl, Photo of Multi-storey container housing by Rory Hyde, some rights reserved)

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August 13, 2018

What’s your pick for ugliest Dutch word?

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 9:49 pm

Marc van Oostendorp, a well-known Dutch linguist, decided to ask foreign students recently what they thought was the ugliest Dutch word.

In the video below (in Dutch), a Polish student said ‘geheugen’ (memory) because it does sounds like a Dutch cat trying to cough up a hairball. A Hungarian student, who sounds more Belgian than Dutch, said ‘überhaupt’ (‘as a whole’) because it’s straight up German, much to the amusement of everyone in the video. Another student from the United States, came up with ‘vruchtbaarheid’ (‘fertility’), but didn’t offer up an explanation as to why. A Spanish student came up with ‘ziekenhuis’ (‘hospital’) “because nobody likes to be lying in the hospital”, which means the meaning was more interesting to her than the sound of the word. An Argentinean student who learnt Dutch in Belgium chose ‘tureluurs’ (‘loopy’), a word that is probably used in written form more often than common speech.

Funny enough, all the students interviewed were women: what’s up with that?

Feel free to tell us if you can and want to: what Dutch word is the ugliest for you? I think mine would have to be any word that starts with ‘sj’ like ‘sjalot’. It sounds like your teeth are in the way of pronouncing ‘shalot’ properly, but to each their own.

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July 27, 2018

Dutch heatwave breaks a bunch of records

Filed under: General,History by Orangemaster @ 12:11 pm

Dutch weather, which is usually measured in De Bilt, Utrecht by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) tells us we’re officially experiencing a national heatwave. Yesterday, temperatures hit 30 degrees at 11:20, the third consecutive day of ‘tropical’ weather, which here means above 30 degrees. And it’s only considered a heatwave if there are five consecutive days of 25 degrees or higher, with three days of 30 degrees or higher.

Heat records were broken at 15 of the country’s 33 weather stations in the Netherlands yesterday. Arcen in Limburg was the hottest, with a maximum of 38.2 degrees. Terschelling’s record was broken with the biggest difference, 1.6 degrees higher than the previous record.

Temperatures in De Bilt have been 25 degrees or higher since July 15, which makes it 13 days running if you count today. The record is 18 days, from July 29 to August 15 in 1975 and many people believe it might be broken.

There’s no airco at 24HQ, just the occasional breeze from an open window and excellent music.

(Link: nu.nl)

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July 24, 2018

Dutchman keeps breaking Rubik’s Cube world record

Filed under: Dutch first,General by Orangemaster @ 12:06 pm

Rubik's cube-fake

Mats Valk from Amstelveen (he probably lives and studies in Amsterdam), who broke the Rubik’s cube record in 2016 with 4.74 seconds, has just broken it again at the 2018 World Championships in Madrid with an average in the final of 7.24 seconds. There are many different competitions, including one contestants seem to do with their feet.

When he was 11 years old, his [female] teacher gave him a Rubik’s cube to solve and the rest is history. Valk’s best tip is ‘be patient’. Sometimes he trains a few hours a days, sometimes he doesn’t train at all. However, he always trains

(Link: parool.nl)

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July 21, 2018

Van Gogh house can stay for autistic son

Filed under: Art,General,Health by Orangemaster @ 1:40 pm

A couple in Florida has painted the outside of their entire house as a huge mural of Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘The Starry Night’ for their autistic son, and has just just won an almost year-long battle with the city to keep it that way.

The commissioned painting works as a beacon for their adult son who has problems communicating and occasionally wanders away from home. By making their house a landmark, which their son refers to as T’he Starry Night house’, he can tell people which house he’s talking about when he gets lost and people will know where it is.

When the mural was started, the city told them it was considered graffiti if the wall didn’t match the house, so they went the whole hog and painted the entire outside of the house. Then, they got fined 10,000 USD (about 8,528 euro) for doing so. While the city said the house was a distraction and improper, the coupled expressed their constitutional right to free expression and won.

Parents are ready to fight for their children under normal circumstances, but if your kid also has a developmental disorder like autism, you’re probably going to fight anybody who tries to make your life more difficult. The city gave the family $15,000 USD (about 12,793 euro) and an apology, which was a big deal for this family who grew up in socialist Poland.

(Link and photo: cbc.ca)

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July 20, 2018

Dutch Railways deceitful about separating its waste

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 1:41 pm

Train travellers have the option of throwing their waste in separate bins at Dutch train stations, but apparently it all gets pick up together in the end at most stations, including Amsterdam Central Station.

The only notable exception is Rotterdam Central Station where they make extra efforts to pick up the rubbish in several rounds, something that apparently cannot be done in Amsterdam due to having some 250,000 travellers passing through the station. I don’t quite understand that excuse: if it wasn’t possible to start off with, deceiving the public is not the best PR.

Berlin’s train station, which, without checking must get the same if not more travellers than Amsterdam does, manages to separate its garbage into four categories: waste, paper, packaging and glass, and, I’m guessing they make sure it’s not all thrown together in the end. My recent travels to Berlin as well as Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Munich and a few other Germany cities showed me that it can be done, so why is Dutch Railways failing so hard?

The separation and reduction of waste at stations, on trains and in retail (shops) are part of the Green Deal agreement between the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment and NS [Dutch Railways]. The goal of this agreement is to reduce the waste produced by passengers by 25% and to separate 75% of waste on collection so that it can be recycled by 2020.

Dutch Railways’ excuse is that it costs too much money to pick it up separately and in practice, it doesn’t really work. I still want to know why other European countries can do it and I also want to know how they plan to achieve their goals the way they are going.

(Links: parool.nl, NS sustainability)

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July 19, 2018

Dutch police start using expandable batons

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 12:58 pm

The Dutch police are learning all about a the expandable or telescopic baton that has the ‘desired effect’, that the shorter, older ones didn’t have. The expandable baton is more modern and more effective, according to pilots carried out in Deventer and Zwolle. A lot of other police forces around the world use them as well.

The expandable baton is being phased in, just like with other weapons, and the cops need to be trained to use them properly. At the end of this year if all goes well, all Dutch cops will be sporting the new baton. Trainer Michael Huijs seen in the video below assures us that although this is a new weapon, the rules on how and when to use violence haven’t changed.

Check this Dutch video for how the Dutch police train their folks on using these new batons:

(Link: politie.nl, Photo of Expandable baton by Dmg ie, some rights reserved)

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