July 13, 2011

No more ‘no-blow zones’ for Amsterdam

Filed under: Architecture,General,Health,Weird by Orangemaster @ 2:20 pm

The city of Amsterdam has been told today by the Council of State (no more appeals can be made) that it is breaking the Opium Law by putting up signs that designate certain places as ‘no-blow’ zones (‘blowen’ in Dutch is smoking pot). The first ever area of Amsterdam was around a public place called Mercatorplein, 800 metres from my place.

Mercatorplein is notorious for being regularly overhauled (love the last job, with a play fountain and trendy restaurant) and having been designed by famous artist H.P Berlage (with a tower that was broken down in 1961 and rebuilt in 1995). In recent times, it has been the backdrop for a riot between the Dutch Moroccan community and the police, as well as a hit and run where the driver ran over a known female cabaret artist, but the licence plate of his car fell off.

Way back some residents in the East of the city asked for the ban to keep their kids’ playground clean. They actually didn’t get the ban, only because the city thought it was a bit harsh.

In the Netherlands and contrary to all the tourist websites, soft drugs are illegal, as stated in the Opium Law. But yes, we go to the coffee shops and buy pre-rolled joints just like you buy a pack of smokes at the shop. The law is simply ignored and soft drugs are ‘tolerated’.

The crazy logic is because soft drugs are forbidden, you don’t need a sign to forbid them again. Of course, this is not in tune with reality, but then again neither is the Opium Law.

(Link: blikopnieuws.nl, Photo of No-blow (and no drinking) sign by Erik Joling, some rights reserved)

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July 3, 2011

Amsterdam parking rates slashed

Filed under: Automobiles by Branko Collin @ 12:29 pm

Amsterdam is the most expensive city in the world to park in. The city’s policy of driving car owners away from the centre by making their stay too expensive seems to be so successful that now an operator of private car parks has started slashing its rates.

In a bid to lure customers away from the competition P1 Parking has lowered its daily rate from 55 euro to 20 euro. The only snag is that you have to make reservations at least two in days in advance.

Competitor Q-Park and others are studying their options. Bloodthirsty financial news site Z24 is already announcing a price war.

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June 30, 2011

Amsterdam roller derby team’s first ever bout

Filed under: Dutch first,Sports by Orangemaster @ 12:03 pm

Back in January, we told you how the originally American all-female sport roller derby was taking off in the Netherlands. Now, the Amsterdam Derby Dames, one of the Netherlands’ eight teams (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Eindhoven, Enschede, Arnhem, Groningen and Limburg), will be playing its first ever bout (official competition) in Germany against the Devil Dolls Essen team of the Ruhrpott Roller Girls league.

The moment everyone has been waiting for has finally arrived: the Amsterdam Derby Dames will be playing their first official bout! Your dames are busy forming the first official team to represent the Amsterdam Derby Dames league and training hard. We’re so excited, we want to bring everyone along with us. Friends, family, loved ones, supporters, fans. We want you there! And what better way to get everyone there than to organize transportation for everyone? Well, that’s exactly what we would like to do.

There is a sign up form if you want to ride the ADD bus, but you absolutely have to fill in the form (form link here) so that they have an idea of how many people might be interested.

(Disclaimer: Orangemaster, aka Nasty Moves #76, is a member of the Amsterdam Derby Dames. Photo of mixed Dutch team scrimmage (unofficial competition) in Antwerp, Belgium)

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June 21, 2011

‘Amsterdam second largest anglophone city’

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 10:47 am

According to business facilitator Iamsterdam, the high level of English proficiency in the Netherlands is only surpassed by that of Norway’s. All the Norwegians I have ever met speak English, even foreign national Norwegians.

The Netherlands ranks second in a proficiency index carried out, reflecting the fact that almost the entire Dutch population speaks English, especially in the greater Amsterdam area, a fact attributed to all the foreigners living there.

Some 80% of the workforce speaks English, making Amsterdam the largest anglophone city in continental Europe. Some 90% percent of the workforce speaks two or more languages.

To all the blind policy makers that keep saying you need Dutch to get a job in the Netherlands: it’s not true: thousands of expats, foreign nationals and immigrants live and work for years without learning proper Dutch and do just fine, whether you like that or not.

(Link: iamsterdam, Photo taken from Dunglish, a site with Dutch-English mistakes)

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May 12, 2011

Art Amsterdam 2011 sneak preview

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 10:37 am

It’s true, this year’s edition of Art Amsterdam held at the RAI exhibition centre was indeed very international, with galleries from all over the Netherlands as well as ones from Paris, Montréal, Seoul, Berlin and more. 24oranges was lucky enough to walk around on VIP night before the fair opens to the general public today, running until 15 May, courtesy of a sponsor of art site Trendbeheer.com.

Instead of just selling art like the other galleries, Trendbeheer are doing something cool, they call ‘For The Love of Money’. Managing Director Niels Post, an artist himself (we saw his stuff in the 1500 euro or less art lounge) explained the plan to sell 150 unique works at 150 euro a pop with a frame and box. The works themselves (seen in the pic) are hi-resolution pictures taken of works of art at the fair with a red dot, meaning they have been sold. Photographers are taking turns running around the fair ‘dot hunting’ and snapping pics of sold works, printing them out, framing them and then selling them. Almost all the ones in this picture were sold and from the moment they started, it was going fast.

Of all the stuff I saw, this German work of art from I totally forgot to write it down shame on me caught my eye, probably because it had words on it.

If you’re up to buying art for your office or design studio, you have to check this art fair out. They also have books and there are presentations and even tours of the exhibition. If you just want to look at cool stuff, this is not quite the right venue, but it will give anyone with artist’s block some good ideas.

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May 11, 2011

Buy an electric car, get a free parking spot in Amsterdam

Filed under: Automobiles,Bicycles,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 4:34 pm

The goal of this ploy is to get residents of Amsterdam to buy an electric car so they can get a free parking spot with a free electricity charger near their house until 2012, which could be extended. Getting an actual designated parking spot in Amsterdam can easily be a 5-year to 10-year affair.

Amsterdam wants 5% of cars to be electric by 2015, which would be about 10,000 cars. The city’s freebies cover electric cars but won’t cover hybrids until the electric–only range of hybrids rises above 60 kilometres.

I wouldn’t get an electric car just yet, I’d keep biking, roller skating, taking public transport and walking like I already do.

Amsterdam’s green ethos seems very much intact. But one unintended consequence: in it’s enthusiasm for electric vehicles, the popularity of electric bikes is undermining pollution goals, as owners of foot-powered bikes upgrade to electric models.

The same way this implies that electric bikes are trumping electric cars, the fact that I work at home and don’t travel for work makes me less green than owning a car and not using it, which is plain stupid defeats the purpose.

(Link: smartplanet via presurfer)

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May 5, 2011

American film expert publishes book on Amsterdam cinemas

Filed under: Film,Literature by Orangemaster @ 10:44 am

Originally from Kansas, Jeffrey Babcock has been living in Amsterdam for over 20 years and often reminisces about how Amsterdam, the city were you could once do anything artistic, has become quite regulated in his time. However, if there’s one person keeping the dream alive and well as far as unknown films are concerned, it’s him. I myself watched a film shot partially in my hometown of Montréal and partially in Amsterdam that I had never ever heard of and was blown away. Babcock gives the audience an explanation beforehand, like the cool teacher at school that probably has the same extra curricular activities as you do.

Together with Rietveld Academy art student Agata Winska, Babcock has published a book entitled ‘The Illicit Cinemas of Amsterdam’, with stories and an interview about the more ‘undergound’ cinemas where Babcock presents films to small yet packed audiences around the city. They purposely made 300 copies of the book, hand bound in Poland and kept the price as low as possible, something Babcock believes in strongly with his easily affordable movie screenings. “Even if I were to up the price by a euro, people would come, but it wouldn’t be the same people. Polish squatters now talk to people from Dutch television station VPRO, which wouldn’t happen if the price went up.” Safe to say, it’s never about the money, it’s always about film.

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March 30, 2011

All fallen football players look alike

Filed under: Photography,Sports by Branko Collin @ 12:32 pm

Photographer Hans van der Meer wanted to express how football players feigning injuries all look alike:

The look of grown men on the football pitch often takes the form of little theatre pieces, lying down ‘injured’ being a remarkable sub-category of this art. […] The way we ‘died’ as children playing Cowboys and Indians is how we now see our heroes in the Champions League go down on TV. […] When somebody has actually been injured they usually keep pretty still.

To that effect Van der Meer took photographs of football players acting injured, and these photos now adorn the pitch of ASV Arsenal in Amsterdam, near the old Olympic Stadium. They are part of an art project for the club called Terreinwinst, involving 11 artists and which is still in the process of being finished.

I am a great admirer of Van der Meers earlier series of European and Dutch football pitches, in which the football field was shown in its sometimes adverse surroundings. The strength of his new work, Ten Ways to Lie Down Injured, is that it paves the way for amateur photographers to add context themselves. My tip: bring a telephoto lens, as the photos are all mounted across the field.

(Submitted by Nienke van Beers)

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March 11, 2011

Amsterdam to pay hookers and marijuana parlours to quit

Filed under: Weird by Branko Collin @ 5:56 am

The downtown district of Amsterdam will start offering subsidies to ‘undesirable’ companies if they change their type of business. The district lists so called coffeeshops (marijuana parlours), currency exchanges, massage parlours, prostitutes, small supermarkets, and other businesses that draw tourists to the city as eligible for a subsidy.

The borough wants to kill all kinds of economic activities in order to increase the variety of economic activities. Don’t ask me, I just live here.

See also: Unesco pulls trigger on Amsterdam.

Link: Plein Plus. Photo by Wikimedia user Bachrach44 who placed it in the public domain.

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February 24, 2011

Slideshow: brown cafés in Amsterdam

Filed under: Food & Drink,Photography by Branko Collin @ 11:54 am

Reader Jeniece Primus alerted us to this “visual poem dedicated to the traditional Dutch bar” she created called Stolen Moments: Dutch Brown Cafés.

(Video: Stolen Moments: Dutch Brown Cafés by Jeniece Primus at Vimeo)

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