November 22, 2011

Mayor of Haarlem got his bling stolen

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 2:12 pm

Bernt Schneiders, the Mayor of Haarlem, or Burgomaster (‘Burgemeester’) as it is called in the Netherlands, has had his silver livery collar stolen from his office. Schneiders knew about the theft, but kept it quiet, hoping someone would return it. That plan obviously failed.

Amsterdam City Council has tweeted that it was willing to lend out their spare livery collar. I mean otherwise this appointed and not democratically elected mayor couldn’t do his job, right? He’s the man who wrongly lectured the Chinese about the printing press a few years back.

It’s only worth about a couple of hundred euro (in my ‘hood that’s a lot of cash) and yeah, it can’t be that easy to pawn off in the Netherlands.

The concerned citizens of Haarlem are brainstorming ideas to get it back:
– Offering a 1,000 euro reward (sure).
– Throwing it at night in Town Hall’s mailbox – that’s not about getting it back.
– Sending it to the Haarlems Dagblad newspaper – that’s not about getting it back either.

Let’s think out of the lunch box now.

(Links: www.haarlemsdagblad.nl, Photo of the mayor of Haarlem, Mr. Bernt (B.B.) Schneiders)

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November 19, 2011

“On the beaches of Texel only left shoes are ever found”

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 12:16 pm

The producers of the above video write:

Flotsam & Jetsam is a documentary based around the beachcombers of Texel, one of the largest Frisian islands north of Holland.

Due to Texel’s geographical position, tidal system and strong winds, an estimated two tons of Flotsam & Jetsam washes up on its beach each day.

The film follows the lives of the beachcombers (or Jutters as they are known), exploring their relationships and history as extraordinary people in extraordinary situations.

Beachcombers are people who ‘harvest’ flotsam and jetsam from beaches. I am not quite sure what the legal status is. Wikipedia claims beach combing is illegal in the Netherlands, but the only law text I could find (Book 8 of the Burgerlijk Wetboek, articles 550 and onward) seems to suggest that beach combing is a form of marine salvage, meaning that the owner of the goods can come and collect them up to two years after they were found, but must pay a decent wage in return.

The documentary is only 13 minutes long, and well worth your time.

‘Jutter’ Jan Uitgeest (73): “There are only eight of us left. Beachcombing is getting less popular because there aren’t that many finds any more. We are dependent on storms. Last year Terschelling had a large find of wood, and a container filled with snacks. On Ameland and Schiermonnikoog they found a container with mountain bike wheels and a couple of thousand coats, so that now the inhabitants of Schiermonnikoog are walking around in coats with nice fur collars.”

Link: Trendbeheer. Video: Vimeo / Flotsam and Jetsam.

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November 17, 2011

‘Knitting graffiti’ wins best neologism for 2011

Filed under: Art,General by Orangemaster @ 1:32 pm

The Dutch verb ‘wildbreien’ (literally ‘wild knitting’, but really meaning ‘knitting graffiti’) was chosen as the neologism (new word) of 2011. Instead of something negative or lowbrow, knitting graffiti should makes us all feel warm and fuzzy inside. I know I did when I snapped pictures of it in Amsterdam’s Jordaan district. It is also referred to as ‘straatbreien’ (‘street knitting’) because it livens up the streets.

If only it could keep them warm.

(Link: inl.nl)

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November 10, 2011

The Schokker, a new Dutch currency

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:50 am

The municipality of Noordoostpolder in the province of Flevoland run by the Christian Union (‘centrist’ Christians) and SGP (fundamentalist Christians) is seriously considering issuing their own currency, the Schokker. The name comes from a type of Dutch ship that comes from Schokland, a village in the Noordoostpolder.

An April Fools’ Day joke it isn’t: “our own currency in the municipality would strengthen the local economy, as residents would spend more locally. Of course, you could still pay in euro.”

It wouldn’t be the first time zealous Christians closed themselves off from the real world to cause more problems for themselves and others, so we’ll keep you posted.

(Link: datditkaninnederland.nl)

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November 9, 2011

The well-off like free and cheap weddings, too

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 1:07 pm

First, Beuningen boasted about its free quickie marriage between 8:45 and 9 am, now the city of Arnhem down the road is whinging about ‘rich’ people abusing their freebie wedding time slot. Ironically, newspaper De Telegraaf doesn’t write ‘rich’ (self-censorship, anyone?), but ‘highly educated’, as some sort of clever euphemism for people with actual jobs versus the state subsidised couch sitting set.

In Arnhem the waiting list for a free ‘I do’ is more than six months. Offering free weddings was to let the ‘less fortunate’ marry with or without a ceremony, common fare around the country, but come on, if you’re offering it for free in a country that thrives on free stuff, you have to expect your altruistic ideas to fail.

The Monday morning speedy wedding is popular with the ‘richer’ folks, although it’s very dressed down. To marry at another time costs 99 euro and the full monty service with separate room and guests costs 399. Just expecting people with more money to spend more is cute, but not realistic, crisis and all.

There’s really no story here except that some journalist apparently cannot wrap their brain around the fact that people with actual money have choices. They should either bone up on the finance section or move to a communist country.

(Link: telegraaf.nl, Photo by Anthony Kelly, some rights reserved)

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November 6, 2011

Internet thugs Realnetworks lose case against Hilbrand Edskes

Filed under: General,Online,Technology by Branko Collin @ 4:53 pm

In what looks like a typical case of trying to silence somebody, American company Realnetworks with the aid of the Dutch public prosecutor, the Dutch police and the Dutch courts has managed to bully webmaster Hilbrand Edskes into running up over 66,000 euro in legal costs, losing all his spare time, and putting off his hopes of one day buying a house.

What Realnetworks did not manage to do is win its lawsuit against Hilbrand Edskes. The latter won last Wednesday. Edskes had a link to software (Real Alternative) competing with Realnetworks’ product (Real Player) on his website, which the company alleged was illegal. The court thoroughly dismissed all of Realnetworks’ claims.

Realnetworks won an ex-parte case against Edskes in August. An ex-parte case is one where the defendant is not allowed to defend himself, so it wasn’t strange that Realnetworks managed to ‘win’ that one. Remember how Louis Vuitton tried to keep the world in the dark about its involvement in the Darfur genocide? They used the same legal crowbar.

Realnetworks, you may or may not remember, used to produce a piece of software called Real Player with which you could play videos and music. Almost nobody uses it because it is not nearly as good as VLC or Quicktime. One wonders if perhaps suing small fry is Realnetworks’ latest business model.

That a supposedly democratic country like the Netherlands lets anyone with deep pockets abuse the court system to bully others is a disgrace, and judges who see no problem with ex parte cases ought to be deeply ashamed of themselves.

The court only awarded Edskes 48,000 euro in damages, because both parties had agreed to this amount beforehand, according to the verdict (Dutch).

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November 3, 2011

Too many women in big cities, not enough men around

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:19 am

Well, we can’t just shoot women as if they were unwanted animals in the wild (at least not in the Netherlands) and we can’t tell them to go and live in smaller cities and ‘spread out’ (pardon the pun) like some politicians tell immigrants to do.

There are too many young women in big cities, as they go off to study and young men stay behind in the smaller towns, according to a professor in newspaper NRC. Statistic Netherlands backs this up too, saying that Utrecht and Rotterdam (as well as Amsterdam and The Hague if we count the four big cities) are full of females, too.

Knowing that more women study than men helps me believe this is true, but I think a better story would be why there are not enough men in the big cities, or that’s just me as a woman thinking out loud. In the regions of Oost-Groningen, large parts of Friesland, the Achterhoek, Limburg (not the South) and a few other patches, there are too many young men. Why do the men stay behind? If they don’t study more, don’t raise families and don’t take care of the elderly, are they, what, gaming all day? Of course not, hopefully, but I would like to know why.

And then there’s the ‘conclusion’ that “many women in their thirties are still single”, whereas my female brain reads that there are too many men who are taken at that age (and — surprise — many of them will be divorced soon enough).

Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Half baked.

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

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November 2, 2011

Being a radio bitch is not what you think

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am

Dutch radio presenter Frederique de Jong of BNR (Business News Radio) has decided to refuse her nomination for this year’s ‘Radiobitch’ Award. The ‘RadioBitches Award’ (yes, all in Dunglish, I can’t help it) are serious radio awards for female presenters, with a jury and not public awards. They also have ‘BackstageBitch’, ‘NewsBitch’ and ‘TalentBitch’.

Questions from the audience?

1) Nope, the men don’t have Radio Jerk/Asshole/Douchebag awards. They have serious awards too with boring normal names.

2) That’s true, swearing in another language is not as blasphemous sounding as in your own. Bitch sounds cool and a little more neutral to the Dutch. It’s more like being a tough and cool person than a nasty person. It also proves many people don’t understand that it’s a bad word and related to a female dog. Frederique de Jong doesn’t want to be a ‘radioteef’ in Dutch, either.

3) Yes, other people have had issues with the name and want it changed, but the media people in Hilversum (where all the media is) can’t be bothered. The women have not protested much or else the name could change, but hey.

So if women complain they’re not playing the game and if they say nothing, they’re just being female doormats. It’s a lose-lose situation. I think it’s not an empowering name for an award and doesn’t sound serious at all: having to make sure we know it’s a serious award proves how inappropriate the name is.

(Link: radio.nl)

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October 27, 2011

Hardcore brown rats run amok in posh Amsterdam

Filed under: Animals,General by Orangemaster @ 4:42 pm

Amsterdam and surely many other Dutch cities have lots of rats, what with these damp, age-old canals and all. And no, not the cute little grey mice that could adorn some Anton Pieck painting, but the bigguns that a posh neighbourhood like Amsterdam South is not expected to have running around.

According to newspaper De Telegraaf, the Marie Heinekenplein is “swarming” with them. The square has many outdoor cafés as well as a supermarket where a woman claimed to have seen about 30 of them in one go. As usual, businesses and locals have complained about the situation, but are being ignored by the city. Although everyone is responsible for making sure there’s no food left around, the city apparently does not pick up the trash often enough, which doesn’t help. Amsterdam’s innercity garbage collection is mostly done by stacking it someone twice and week as if it were the suburbs, which is not something other big European cities do.

And poisoning them is an option, but apparently about 39% of these rats can take it. “Research done by Wageningen University shows a large number of rats in the Netherlands have a genetic make-up which allows them to develop resistance more quickly.”

(Links: telegraaf.nl, www.dutchnews.nl, Photo of Brown rat by Jean-Jacques Boujot, some rights reserved)

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October 22, 2011

Phone companies may not let thugs force teenagers to buy subscriptions

Filed under: General,Technology by Branko Collin @ 4:03 pm

A type of crime that I had not heard of before is that Dutch teenagers are being forced by peers to buy them expensive mobile phone subscriptions. Back in February consumer watchdog show Kassa reported that this sort of thing happens on a large scale.

Stores that sell these subscriptions tend to close their eyes to this problem. Arnoud Engelfriet reported two weeks ago that in a surprising verdict, a judge said that even though they are not a party to the crime, telecom companies can still not hold the victims to these crimes to the contracts they entered into.

An eighteen year old girl from Rotterdam was forced under threat of violence to enter into several contracts with KPN subsidiary Telfort. Dutch law says that if you entered a contract under threat, you can rescind the contract. The court also weighed heavily that forcing teenagers to buy cellphones and mobile subscriptions is a common enough practice that Telfort should have been suspicious, especially now the victim bought five subscriptions at five different stores in a single day, which is uncommon.

(Photo by Macinate, some rights reserved)

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