December 31, 2012

Branko’s favourite 24 Oranges’ postings of 2012

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 8:21 am

Here are some of my favourite stories of the past year.

1. Asylum seekers in abandoned church: what it’s actually like

This is one where we went out and got the news ourselves.

2. Man cannot stop laughing after an operation

It could have happened anywhere on the globe, but Dutch telly had it on tape. The video link is broken though, here is a new one.

3. Laura Dekker ignored by Guinness, but still a winner

We had a whole raft of postings about the ‘sailor girl’. She lives in New Zealand now. I wonder why…

4. Mobile euthanasia units to perform home deaths

Although euthanasia is legal, some doctors refuse to perform it. Mobile units run by the Dutch Association for a Voluntary End to Life (NVVE) help the patients of these doctors.

5. Etymology of Dutch word for bicycle cracked after 140 years

I am not convinced, but it is a plausible explanation. What do you think?

6. Lab produced meat ready to grill this autumn

Although professor Post said in February he would have an artificial hamburger ready in October, I haven’t actually heard about him (or his burger) since. Could in-vitro meat turn out to be the flying car of science?

7. A ‘Truman show’ village for dementia sufferers

In this home people with dementia live in a fake village in which the staff pretend to be shopkeepers, friends, servants and so on. Really cool, and do check the video if you are not afraid of a bit of German.

8. Dutch TV cannibals won’t be prosecuted

Turns out that our micromanaging politicians were too busy ‘solving’ other tiny problems and forgot to forbid voluntary cannibalism between two consenting adults (does licking count?).

9. Diehard elderly Frisian man finishes 240 km bike race

Lovely story of a guy who chose his own path.

(Photo by me, paper craft Christmas angel by Pien Douw)

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December 24, 2012

Elfstedentocht fever explained

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 8:32 am

It is dreary and wet and not that cold, and this year the weather report even predicted the dreariness and not-coldness to last beyond the apocalypse, the perfect time to read about the mad panic that would sweep the country if winter were coming:

And then abruptly and over the protestations of our doubts it becomes apparent that the fate of our very society is placed into the hands of a tall, blond, probably very sober and severe man most likely called Siebe or Wiebe or Hidde or Fedde.

[…]

And our Siebe will look very sternly into the camera and solemnly proclaim ‘no’, because that’s his favourite word, further tests need to be performed, the thickness of the ice will be continuously monitored, and same time tomorrow. And the next day will be the same, the press conference live on every network, a solemn ‘no’, and DAY TWELVE OF THE PANIC CRISIS.

[…]

And all the nation’s eyes will have turned North, to a province so obsessed with ice they just went ahead and called the place Freezeland, like a theme park for masochists, and our man Siebe will appear again, with all the journalists in the land having run out of questions to ask him, and it’s just as well, because he makes a face as if he is about to be forced to eat something disgusting, and says,

and says, and says … you will have to read the rest of Paul G. Hunt’s wonderful explanation of how Dutch Elfstedentocht fever works to find out.

(Photo by Paul van Eijden, some rights reserved)

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December 22, 2012

Winning words, the most popular words of 2012

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 2:12 pm

Project X-feest, a Project X party, has been voted the Dutch word of the year by dictionary maker Van Dale, Onze Taal reports.

The word refers to a spontaneous party to which everybody is invited, and is named after the movie Project X which tells the story of a similar party. In September this year the small town of Haren suffered over 1 million euro in damages after looters and rioters visited Project X Haren.

The second place was awarded to the word bangalijst, a list of girls that are considered ‘easy’.

Some other words from the West considered good, influential or popular, all from Onze Taal:

  • Omnishambles (English word of the year according to Oxford Dictionaries): “a situation that has been comprehensively mismanaged, and is characterized by a string of blunders and miscalculations”.
  • GIF (American English word of the year according to Oxford Dictionaries): type of image format, popular because it allows for simple animations.
  • Yolo (German word of the year according to Der Spiegel): abbreviation for ‘you only live once’.
  • Watture (French word of the year according to Le Point): electric car (watt + voiture).
  • Frietchinees (Dutch word of the year in Belgium according to Van Dale): a French fries stall run by a Chinese person.
  • Pandapunten (most beautiful Dutch word says the Instituut voor Nederlandse Lexicologie): points you get for abstaining from sex.

Some of the ugliest words:

  • Throughput (Dutch, the ugliest word in education).
  • Grexit (ugliest Dutch word says the Instituut voor Nederlandse Lexicologie): the expulsion of Greece from the Eurozone.

One of my personal favourites, after watture, is the German word komasutra, the result of drunk people attempting to make love.

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December 18, 2012

Firemen’s almanach fans the flame of sexism

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 12:32 pm

Many fire brigades just sent this firemen’s (and firewomen’s) almanach back, calling it distasteful. The head of regional safety for Rotterdam-Rijnmond said even though tastes differ this was inappropriate for their line of work and understands why people would send it back.

A firewoman also wondered if the people who designed the cover knew that women were firefighters in this country, expressing her disgust.

The cover is fugly, poorly photographed (smartphone?), the girl is badly styled to say the very least without sounding like a misogynist, it’s not representative of this unique and dangerous line of work, and looks more like an advert for a low budget strip club. It’s not a Pirelli calendar with hot models, it’s trash and belongs in a bonfire.

(Link: frontpage.fok.nl, Photo: bliub9)

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December 15, 2012

Best bosses give women equal career opportunities

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 3:52 pm

The best employers in the Netherlands give employees the feeling that they are appreciated, Effectory and VNU Vacature Media claim.

The two companies polled employees in 269 organisations. Employees in the companies that were rated the highest gave the biggest marks for the following qualities:

  • Being appreciated by the boss
  • Being able to balance work and private life
  • Women appreciated equal career opportunities
  • Clear goals for both the individual employees and the company
  • Feeling proud of the organisation
  • Customer care

The top three of the companies with 1,000 employees and more were:

  1. Stichting Buurtzorg Nederland
  2. KLM
  3. Vanderlande Industries

Stichting Buurtzorg Nederland, a home care foundation, won the Best Employer Award for the second year in a row. CEO Jos de Blok is a former nurse.

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December 6, 2012

‘Dutch send the most Christmas cards in Europe’

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 1:08 pm

Dutch postal company PostNL surveyed 18 European countries and it’s the Dutch that apparently send the most Christmas cards, at an average of 40 a household. The Brits, Danes, Fins and French also send a lot of Christmas wishes through the mail, at an average of 17 to 30 cards, while Southern Europeans send the least amount of cards.

Almost all European countries have special Christmas stamps at a reduced rate. In the Netherlands they’re called ‘decemberzegels’ (‘December stamps’, more generic) and ‘kerstzegels’ (‘Christmas stamps’).

Interestingly, Germany actually has Christmas stamps that are more expensive, costing 55 euro cent with 25 euro cent extra going to a good cause.

The photo above are Environmentally incorrect Santa Claus cards I scored at the cheap Asian import store down the street two years ago. However, while researching this piece, these blonde Caucasian German angels jumped out at me.

(Link: www.telegraaf.nl)

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December 5, 2012

Asylum seekers in abandoned church: what it’s actually like

Filed under: General,Religion by Orangemaster @ 2:59 pm

Put aside what the media is saying, forget what people think, good or bad, about the group of mainly Somalian rejected asylum seekers who cannot go back to their country, and ignore Sinterklaas, your gift giving urges, your ‘aah how sad, those cold asylum seekers’ and let me tell you what it’s like. This national drama is playing out 5 minutes from my warm office, so I gathered some food and beauty products for the women (more fearful of going out than the men) and took a walk.

There’s some snow falling from the sky on a dark and dreary Amsterdam day in December. A neighbourhood church abandoned for a long time is currently housing a group of about 30 asylum seekers who have exhausted their right to appeal. The church is just a cement block and it’s cold. There are tents being set up inside for the men and the women have separate quarters with beds. There are no children. The mood is neutral and grey, much like the inside of the church. Some Dutch women are serving hot soup, there’s a café bouncer at the door of the church to make sure the ‘wrong people’ don’t come in. There’s a Dutch girl bundled up in a chair next to him who I suspect is doing the Twittering. I run into an acquaintance bringing food.

I had a few laughs with one of the men heading out to the supermarket with a young Dutch woman and said he should tell her what he wants for dinner so they could get more rice and less macaroni. I wished him good luck and thought about coming by again, hopefully with more useful supplies.

Follow what’s going on in De Vluchtkerk on Twitter as well, especially to find out what they need.

(Link: De Vluchtkerk)

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November 26, 2012

New design to go live today

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 10:29 am

Sometime during the day we will introduce a new, temporary site design.

We needed a redesign first and foremost to give space to advertisements. Fortunately we have found a way to do this without sacrificing editorial space. In fact, we have managed to put our main menu and search bar in a much more prominent place than before, and as a result all our other editorial sidebars have moved up a bit.

The biggest victim of this redesign has been the large photo of oranges at the top of the page. The main content column has remained exactly the same.

All in all we hope you will be satisfied by the result.

We hope to bring in a professional designer in the near future who can take a look at the entire site.

If you notice any problems using 24oranges.nl, please let us know.

The old design (2007-2012) started to look a bit long in the tooth.

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November 20, 2012

No more weed pass, but registering patrons remains

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 1:13 pm

Many people thought that a weed pass for NL residents only implemented earlier this year was not going to make it nationally on January 2013 — and they were right. After forced down the throats of the provinces of Zeeland, Brabant and Limburg, giving other provinces an unfair business advantage, the cities of Haarlem and Amsterdam in North Holland started poking holes in the legislation, finally watering it down. Yesterday, the Minister of Justice Ivo Opstelten scrapped the plans and has decided to let municipalities deal with it locally.

Asking a coffeeshop owner to keep a database of weed smokers already raised privacy issues as did a legitimate business refusing customers based on their nationality and residence status. Now that bigger cities with more tourists have said they can’t be bothered to burden coffeeshops with screening clients, some NL residents will still have to prove their status to buy weed by way of a proof of residence document obtained at city hall, which costs some 10-12 euro.

Since such a document is only valid for a few months, the law would imply that smokers have to continuously stand in line and pay to get this document in order to continue to buy weed, which sounds like a bureaucratic waste of time. As well, some argue, it means the city knows you smoke weed legally, while ordinary smokers, fans of prostitutes or alcoholics, also legal habits, don’t have to register themselves anywhere.

Regardless, it was all a big waste of time and we’re back to square one seven months down the road.

(Links: www.elsevier.nl, www.nu.nl)

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November 18, 2012

Rumble in Limburg over fake accents on children’s TV show

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 2:39 pm

Yesterday the city of Roermond in Limburg played host to the official reception of Saint Nicholas in the Netherlands, and the city was the centre of attention in the week before in children’s news show Sinterklaasjournaal.

One of the features of the show are street interviews with a band of jolly Limburgers that turned out not to be Limburgers at all, but actors from Holland that could not be bothered to learn the local accent well.

Sinterklaasjournaal broadcaster NTR told De Gelderlander that they asked all of two (!) actors from Limburg to appear on the show, “but they both couldn’t come. The list runs out at some point.”

Limburg has a rich stage tradition, producing many great actors and directors. Perhaps these actors were too expensive for a two-bit (but still tax-funded) operation like NTR?

Children from Roermond told another public broadcaster, NOS, that “they are mocking us, and that is just wrong.” Another child had a practical solution to help heal all wounds: “I think Saint Nicholas should give more gifts to the children of Limburg this year.”

(Photo: screenshot of Sinterklaasjournaal. Link: Marc van Oostendorp)

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