December 14, 2016

Almere misspells historical Dutch street sign

Filed under: General,History by Orangemaster @ 11:07 am
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This street sign is from Amsterdam in 2007, with an extra ‘r’, wavering between ‘brug’ and ‘burg’.

A lot of people don’t care about spelling unless it’s their name being butchered. The city of Almere messed up the last name of former Dutch Prime Minister from 1973-1977 Joop Den Uyl by going with ‘Uil’. It was noticed by a politician of the Labour Party, of which Den Uyl was a member – he’s now deceased.

The park where the ‘path’ (‘pad’) actually is, is called ‘Den Uylpark’ where there’s a statue of Joop Den Uyl with what I’m sure is a plaque with his name also written as ‘Joop Den Uyl’.

Almere apparently has a reputation of messing up its colourful street names. In 2011 it took the city three tries to get ‘Chicagostraat’ right: first it was ‘Chigacostraat’, then ‘Chigagostraat’ and finally ‘Chicagostraat’. In 2008 ‘Popeyestraat’, named after the American cartoon character Popeye was ‘Popeystraat’, and the character ‘Marsipulami’ from the Belgian Gaston Lagaffe comic strips was first ‘Marsipulamihof’ instead of ‘Marsupilamihof’.

(Links: nos.nl, nu.nl, Photo of a misspelled street name in Amsterdam by Herenlunch)

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February 22, 2011

Mural from Gaston Lagaffe comic comes alive

Filed under: Art,Comics by Orangemaster @ 3:22 pm

Artist Rufus Ketting recreated a mural from the famous Belgian comic strip Gaston Lagaffe (known in Dutch as ‘Guust Flater’) because he liked the idea of paintings that could wreck important business deals.

Created by Belgian comics writer and artist AndrĂ© Franquin in 1957, Gaston Lagaffe works at French-language comics publisher Spirou in Brussels whose ultimate goal is to sign contracts with the rich Flemish Mr De Mesmaeker, seen here running away, as he often does. Prunelle (crying at the desk) is one of Gaston’s bosses, always desperately trying to get those contracts signed.

The mural can be viewed at Frank Taal gallery in Rotterdam until March 12.

(Link: Via Trendbeheer. Photo by Pim Top, used with permission.)

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