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 24, 2011

‘Leave Napoleon and his white horse alone’

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 4:33 pm

The Amsterdam Museum has managed to raise 12,500 euro for the restoration of the huge painting ‘The Entry of Napoleon in Amsterdam’ (pic), representing the submission of Amsterdam by the French 200 years ago. They need 30,000 euro to complete the restoration and the money so far has come from crowd funding.

The ‘battered’ painting can currently be seen for free at the museum’s Schuttersgalerij (Civic Guards Gallery), along with a collection of portraits of prominent Amsterdam people, something to do if you’re downtown Amsterdam and you need a break from the tourists and your shopping.

“Each year, the citizens involved in the Civic Guard would pay a high price to have their portraits painted. Only the wealthy could afford such a luxury and so developed this portrait collection of wealthy Amsterdam citizens. Many of the famous artists from the 17th century were commissioned to paint these artworks, including Rembrandt.”

The general view seems to be ‘leave the painting alone’. The cracks and wear are part of the painting’s history and the faded colours have their charm. If anyone wants to see the painting in its current state, visit the museum before the end of the year.

(Links: www.nieuwsuitamsterdam.nl, cityscouter)

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October 17, 2011

Occupy Amsterdam: some impressions

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

“Give us our money back, dude!”

Following in the footsteps of Occupy Wall Street and other recent big city protests in London, Rome and Brussels, Amsterdam started its ‘occupation’ on Saturday, 15 October with some 1500 people. On Sunday, 16 October, only some die hards in tents were left, with many people visiting and listening to speakers in circles sitting on the ground telling stories about capitalism. There was also food and people singing Bob Dylan songs.

Some Dutch tweeps (Twitter users) were wondering how long the people on the Beursplein (our Wall Street, if you will) would 1) stay camping 2) be allowed by the police to keep camping. By Dutch standards, it’s getting cold outside and today some people will have to go to work at some point.

And yes, it looks more like a student protest, but in all fairness, the slogans were good and very much to the point: banks are totally screwing us. The Dutch have had bank troubles with DSB (bankrupt in 2009), ABN Amro (acquired and broken up by the government in 2009) and ING, although the latter paid its debt back in full, if I am not mistaken. The Belgians had a nasty fight with Fortis (partially Dutch owned at the time) and are now in a crisis with Dexia, partially owned by the French.

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September 29, 2011

Four of the 10 dirtiest hotels in Europe are in Amsterdam

Filed under: General,Health by Orangemaster @ 4:37 pm

Amsterdam has four hotels on the 2011 Dirtiest Hotels list on Tripadvisor.

First and second place are in Turkey, 3rd, 4th and 5th are in London, 6th and 7th are in Amsterdam, 8th is in London, and 9th and 10th are in Amsterdam. Recap: Turkey = 2, London = 5 and Amsterdam = 4.

Last year’s list is mostly shameful for the UK with 8, Italy with 1 and the Netherlands (Amsterdam) with 1.

“Free mice with every room!” and “All the sheets were spotted with hundreds of red dots.” sound quite disgusting to me.

(Link: welingelichtekringen.nl, Photo is of a reputable, bicycle friendly hotel away from the nasty downtown hotels)

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August 28, 2011

Weather prediction for the next ten years—rain, rain, rain

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 12:09 pm

It’s been raining a lot here this summer—I thought I’d share the pain (and the view from my window) a bit.

Meanwhile, Noordhoff publishers and the Dutch weather office, KNMI, presented a climate atlas last week. Some interesting tidbits:

* Worldwide the temperature has risen 0.7 degrees Celsius over the past 50 years, in the Netherlands that was 1.4.

* The temperature in Amsterdam averages 11 degrees Celsius over the past thirty years, which is the same average as Lyon (in the South of France) had thirty years ago.

* The rainiest places in the country are the Veluwe (the nature reserve in the middle of the country) and the North of Amsterdam.

* The skies released 850 litres water per square metre on average; 100 years ago that average was 700 litres.

Since we’re in the middle of a period of global warming, it is expected that these trends will continue (though KNMI is hedging its bets).

Update August 31, 2011: Dutch News: It’s official: this is the wettest summer since 1906.

(Links: Parool.nl, Vereniging voor Weerkunde en Klimatologie)

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August 19, 2011

DNA sequence of cannabis online thanks to Dutch lab

Filed under: Nature,Science by Orangemaster @ 9:07 pm

Run by American Kevin McKernan, with a laboratory in Amsterdam, the Mecca of cannabis, the company Medicinal Genomics has deciphered the genetic identity of cannabis, DNA sequence and all.

Apparently, Cannabis sativa“has 84 other compounds that could fight pain or possibly even shrink tumors. But anti-marijuana laws make it difficult for scientists to breed and study the plant in most countries. That’s one reason he decided to publish his data for free on Amazon’s EC2, a public data cloud.”

The idea is of course to produce all kinds of ‘good’ products without the nasty side effects of getting high. And then you can’t grow plants just anywhere to conduct experiments in many countries, and so the Netherlands is quite convenient sometimes.

(Links: gizmodo.com, npr.org, Photo by Eric Caballero, some rights reserved)

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July 26, 2011

A night view of the Art Zuid sculpture exhibition

Filed under: Photography by Branko Collin @ 9:41 pm

Last Sunday I revisited the ArtZuid exhibition, armed again with my camera, but this time at night and while it was raining.

I added the photos I made to our ArtZuid 2011 Flickr Set; the night photos start here.

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Oldest Amsterdam resident reaches 106

Filed under: General,Health by Orangemaster @ 11:37 am
birthdaycake

Local TV station AT5 recently reported about the oldest resident of Amsterdam, Mrs Huizinga de Vries, who just turned 106. And in true straight up in your face Amsterdam style, she answered, “I may be the oldest woman in Amsterdam, but I can’t buy anything with it.” She has 40 grandchildren, calls them regularly and knows all of their phone numbers by heart.

According to the Dutch statistics bureau, in 2010 the Netherlands had 1,743 centenarians, with an increase in male ones. As most of you may know, women live longer than men, which makes this noteworthy. The Dutch age record, set in 2005 stands at 115, which the bureau says will not be broken in the near future.

If I were to think back to all the articles written about centenarians, they always seem to encourage being cheerful, surrounded by family (happy) and having some sherry or gin once a day before bed (some kind of happy).

(Link: www.dichtbij.nl)

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July 19, 2011

Bargain fashion tricks its way onto the catwalk

Filed under: Fashion,Weird by Orangemaster @ 2:56 pm

(video in Dutch) at 3:00, the audience finds out they’ve been fooled. Imagine this was Walmart or some other cheap brand.

Bargain clothing and household linnen brand Zeeman pulled a guerilla move that has the whole Dutch fashion world buzzing. At the recent Amsterdam International Fashion Week, they posed as a ‘serious’ fashion brand, Frank (my guess a play on words for ‘frank’ or ‘straight up’), and made it onto the catwalk.

The whole point was to show that fashion does not have to be expensive. However, I can tell you that although this is a valid point, Zeeman clothing often falls apart after a few washes. I have no qualms about their towels, and their stores are ghastly. But yes, they are cheap, although they had bucks for this one prank.

And the fashionistas blogs are pissed because they were fooled. Be sure to look at their faces in the video.

Apparently, while the work of independent designers is judged beforehand, no demands are made of companies which cough up the full fee of 15,000 euro for a show with lighting and make-up thrown in. “We’re just pleased to get the money,” [event director] Mr Maussen admits. “But maybe we should be a bit stricter in future.”

Money talks and cheapness walks.

(Link: rnw.nl)

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July 14, 2011

Mice running amok in Amsterdam hospital

Filed under: Animals,General,Health by Orangemaster @ 4:34 pm
consult

No, not the lab rats, but actually little grey mice that are not a symbol of hygiene in Dutch folklore. The VU medical centre is being overrun by mice. They’ve always had some mice, but now there are a lot more. The hospital blames the nearby construction, which sounds plausible. “They are digging, and the mice flee and find somewhere else to hide.”

Other gripes include the hospital’s pneumatic tube system that carries patient files get stuck, and when that happens, patients waiting for an operation are at risk. A doctor even said that, ”sometimes, the system works so poorly that a blood sample gets broken and blood pours out when we retreive the post.”

All of Amsterdam, those cute houses on the canals, and apparently hospitals, have mice.

(Link: spitsnieuws.nl)

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