April 26, 2013

Marijuana seeds with orange tops for the Queen

Filed under: Nature,Weird by Orangemaster @ 9:27 pm

Coffeeshop owner Theo Buissink of Groningen wants to launch a bunch of orange-coloured helium balloons with marijuana seeds in them with the text ‘Thank you Majesty’, referring to Queen Beatrix who will abdicate the throne on 30 April. When the balloons burst at high altitude, the seeds will spread and marijuana plants will grow all over the country. The plants will have orange tops, as the owner claims to have had those specially cultivated for the occasion. The first plants should start appearing in September 2013. The coffeeshop is appropriately called ‘De Vliegende Hollander’ (‘The Flying Dutchman’).

The whole thing makes for a nice animation video in your head using your imagination.

“When Willem-Alexander was 18 we sent him joints for his birthday. Now he will get an empty container that he can fill up with weed in our shop during his visit to Groningen.”

Here’s the story in Dutch:

(Link: opmerkelijk.nieuws.nl)

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March 9, 2013

Lack of women in top management roles in the Netherlands

Filed under: Weird by Branko Collin @ 2:55 pm

In the Netherlands 11% of all senior management positions are occupied by women.

Trouw likens the Netherlands to an emirate when it comes to the number of women in top management positions. (I believe they intend that to be an insult, which would be interesting in itself.) For comparison, the United Arab Emirates also sits at 11%. Since this year corporations and government agencies in the UAE are required to have women on their boards.

Of the developed countries (for want of a better word) only Japan fares worse. It has 7% women in management roles. The most emancipated country in the world is China with 51% of all big bosses being women. In fact the top ten of countries has seven nations in it that either are or used to be communist. (The word ‘socialist’ and ‘communist’ are oddly lacking from the Grant Thornton report (PDF) that Trouw bases its article on.)

Dutch women do not seem to be very interested in having careers, although they do like having the opportunity of having careers. In 2010 the United Nations voted the Netherlands the most gender equal country in the world.

(Illustration: public domain version of the symbol of feminism, via Wikimedia Commons)

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January 27, 2013

Man puts 60,000 euro on car roof for a moment, forgets about it

Filed under: Weird by Branko Collin @ 3:39 pm

What do you do if you don’t trust the banks? You keep your money under your mattress.

What do you do next if you don’t trust the locks on the doors of your house? According to Noordhollands Dagblad, this was the dilemma that faced a businessman from Sint Pancras near Alkmaar.

Last week the man claimed he decided to bring the 60,000 euro he had saved over the years to the bank. The man claimed he left the envelope with what he claimed were 120 bills of 500 euro on the roof of his car, after which he walked indoors to answer a phone call, or so he claimed.

The envelope with 60,000 euro may be lying somewhere along the road to Alkmaar. Whoever finds the envelope and its contents can expect a 10,000 euro reward says the newspaper. Noordhollands Dagblad has a couple of interviews with treasure hunters on video.

Today the thaw has set in, so if the envelope is going to be found, it will be today or tomorrow.

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January 9, 2013

Fire brigades buy trucks that are too big for stations

Filed under: Automobiles,Weird by Orangemaster @ 10:30 am

The fire brigades of the province of Flevoland have purchased 14 new trucks, five of which do not actually fit in the intended fire stations. The vehicles are just too high, and the decision-makers knew that in advance, but still wanted 14 shiny new trucks so the region would all have the same trucks.

The municipality of Noordoostpolder where the five trucks don’t fit has to modify their fire stations, which will cost hundreds of thousands of euro.

Do the decision-makers have friends in the contracting business for the rebuilding of fire stations? Possibly. Couldn’t they have chosen another type of truck? Possibly. Maybe the fire stations are too old-fashioned anyways so what’s the problem? Possibly. Was money saved by buying 14 trucks at once? Possibly. Was the PR on this decision well-spun in the media? Not really.

(Link: www.omroepflevoland.nl)

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January 5, 2013

Son pays Canadian’s fine after 54 years

Filed under: Weird by Branko Collin @ 2:28 pm

A Canadian tourist tried to pay a 54-year-old fine at the police station in The Hague during Christmas, but the police forgave his debt.

In 1956 Augustinus “Guus” Johannes Maria Niesink travelled with his sister Jo and her husband from Terborg in the Achterhoek region of the Netherlands (the -ink in the last name is a dead give away) to Maastricht in the South, when between Nijmegen and Venlo they were stopped by a policeman. It turned out Guus had faulty brakes on his Kaptein Mobylette (a discontinued Dutch moped brand from after the war when manufacturing mopeds was cheaper than importing them) and a fine was quickly drawn up.

A month later Guus boarded a ship of the Holland America Line to emigrate to Canada. He never returned, but he always kept his paper fine. He started his new life in Ottawa, and that is where he died a couple of weeks ago. On his deathbed Guus asked his son Patrick (50) to grant him one last wish: if Patrick found himself in the Netherlands, he would finally pay the fine.

(Photo: the police. Click the image for a larger version. Link: Der Westen)

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January 4, 2013

Power company covers up butt cleavage

Filed under: Fashion,Weird by Orangemaster @ 1:26 pm

In Dutch they call it ‘bouwvakkersdecolleté’ (‘construction worker’s décolletage’), which pertains exclusively to men, in English it is better known as ‘butt cleavage’, which actually includes both men and women. And in 2013, the male version should be a thing of the past if we can believe Dutch power company Eneco.

About 500 technicians — assumingly all male, but we don’t know for sure — are getting new uniforms that don’t show their unsightly butt cracks when they bend down. The trousers will have a higher waistline and jackets will be longer. I personally can understand the trousers, but most of the year they will not be wearing the jacket because it’s too warm. As well, the clothing will be more ‘sweat resistant’, which will surely enhance any experience with having burly men work in your house on your power supply.

What I do not like about the Dutch expression is that it automatically assumes that only men are technicians in the Netherlands, which is often the case, but surely not always. It also gives me the idea that female butt crack is acceptable, which leads to more inequality. Whale tails went out a few years ago (someone please pass this memo around, a lot of girls didn’t get it) and a technician with butt crack comes off to me as being less competent and desperately in need of attention.

(Link: www.ad.nl, Photo of Female shipyard workers by BiblioArchives / LibraryArchives, some rights reserved)

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December 28, 2012

Gorilla had a good 2012 on the stock exchange

Filed under: Animals,Weird by Orangemaster @ 2:24 pm

Although gorilla Jacko had a bad year in 2011 for the first time, this year Jacko was back on track, outperforming the AEX (Amsterdam Exchange index), as he has done 12 years of out 13.

The stocks picked by Jacko using bananas rose 12% in value over the year, while the AEX rose by 10%. “Jacko’s profits are largely due to Heineken, Aegon and Aalberts, which rose sharply in value. Unfortunately he sold Ordina and Aperam with a large loss.”

So if a gorilla can do it, maybe we can too.

(Link: www.dutchnews.nl)

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November 13, 2012

A hand grenade pops up in potatoes

Filed under: Food & Drink,History,Weird by Orangemaster @ 7:38 pm
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It’s déjà  vu time, as grenades like to hide in potatoes.

A standard fragmentation hand grenade used by Americans in WWII was found in a bunch of potatoes at a potato processing plant in Dronten, Flevoland today. Dozens of bombs, bullets and grenades from the war are found every year in this area.

Here’s an upbeat video about finding grenades in potatoes in Europe, with an interesting find at the Netherlands’ biggest amusement park the Efteling earlier this year.

(Link: www.dutchnews.nl, Photo of grenade by macspite, some rights reserved)

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October 24, 2012

Dance company’s pointe shoes ruined by mealworms

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

About 150 of the 200 pointe shoes of the Introdans dance company in Arnhem have been chewed up by mealworms. The mealworms apparently got into the glue that holds the point part of the shoe together, which probably happened during a supplier’s shipment from somewhere like Russia, France, the UK or the US. Just a few mealworms can easily plague a whole lot of shoes.

A spokesperson for the dance company estimated the damage at 10,000 euro for which they are not insured. Apparently other Dutch dance companies are checking their shoes out now as well just in case.

(Links: www.gelderlander.nl, www.nu.nl, Photo of Ballet shoes by craiglea123, some rights reserved)

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October 9, 2012

‘Two strikes and the government will make you homeless’

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 12:23 pm

While everybody has been distracted by other news, the Dutch Senate quietly passed two laws that allow the government to enter into people’s homes on suspicion on fraud without having a shred of proof. The second law states that anybody caught committing fraud for the second time will see their entire income automagically disappear for five whole years.

Anybody on benefits of any kind is ‘at risk’ of having a pencil pusher at their door at any time now. As well, anybody who receives money in the form of a government allocation (kids, housing, etc.) is also a candidate for a pencil pusher’s visit. Old people and parents are not amused.

All kinds of organisations are saying it’s disproportionate and highly controversial. Sure, the government wants to crack down on fraud, but this seems to go too far, even legally. If someone were to commit fraud twice and get caught, they’d have no benefits anymore to live on and will be forced to find a job, is the ‘logic’ behind the law.

I think they’ll force people into crime and poverty, and the media is going to have fun compiling the sob stories.

(www.ed.nl)

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