February 28, 2012

Bam! First roller derby bout in the Netherlands

Filed under: Dutch first,Sports by Branko Collin @ 10:43 am

Last Saturday the entire 24 Oranges team (yes, all two of us!) were at the first official roller derby match (’bout’ in derby jargon) of the Netherlands, held in Amsterdam between the Amsterdam Derby Dames and the Roller Girls of the Apocalypse (Kaiserslautern, Germany).

Roller derby is a full contact sport on wheels in which designated scorers need to pass a pack of blockers for points. We covered the basics before in an article about the first unofficial match (‘scrimmage’) last year.

Oohs and aahs ensued in the packed and beautiful Apollohal (on regular days a basketball venue) whenever Amsterdam’s Abs of Steel stepped on the floor, as even those among the visitors who had never been to a bout saw how she tossed unwilling opponents aside like rag dolls. You can see her earn that Most Valuable Player award in this video by Paul Siegman:

Despite heavy resistance from the German women, the Amsterdam Derby Dames kept adding to an early lead and in the end won the match 105 – 69. Our very own Orangemaster could not compete because of a broken leg she got in a practice match in Antwerp, but this did give Nasty Moves (her derby name) a chance to keep people entertained with music and informed on Twitter of the score.

Currently there are 12 roller derby leagues in the country. The women-run sport was re-started and re-imagined around 2001 in Texas, USA, and has made great strides ever since in that country, and is slowly and steadily growing in popularity in the rest of the world.

As always I will be adding a photo impression to our Flickr account later on (see the sidebar).

Update: the photos have been uploaded to Flickr.

(Video: Youtube / Paul Siegman)

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August 15, 2011

First ever Dutch roller derby bout in Essen, Germany

Filed under: Sports by Branko Collin @ 12:48 pm

This weekend the Amsterdam Derby Dames (of which Orangemaster is a member) went to Essen for their first ever official match (there was a scrimmage of mixed Dutch and Belgian teams a couple of weeks ago, which is a practice match). This also made it the first ever bout of any Dutch team.

The hosts, the Ruhrpott Roller Girls from Essen, Germany, beat the Dutch ladies handsomely, 165 – 83. Still it was a great game, and I assume, a great learning experience.

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June 19, 2011

Man gets driving ban in Germany for having a confusing address

Filed under: Automobiles by Branko Collin @ 3:42 pm
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During a routine check in Germany a man from Nijmegen had his driver’s license revoked and received a driving ban as he still had an outstanding ticket for going 40 kilometres over the speed limit in 2009.

Ronnie Gashi argued that he never received the ticket. The police ignored this popular excuse, but the Dutchman managed to have his driver’s license returned on the spot when he pointed out that the police officer was writing down his address incorrectly, and that this could conceivably also be what had happened the last time. The Nijmegen neighbourhoods of Dukenburg and nearby Lindenholt are numbered instead of named—rare for the Netherlands, and apparently also for Germany.

The Gelderlander reports that the police contacted a public prosecutor who advised clemency.

For some reason, the driving ban was upheld, the paper does not tell why. Gashi is still fighting the month long suspension. I am also not sure why “Lankforst 5336” instead of “Lankforst 53-36” would confuse the mail, in fact that is how I wrote my address when I lived there.

(Link: gelderlander, Photo of back of Dutch driving licence)

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April 28, 2011

Dutchman to become mayor of German town

Filed under: Dutch first,General by Orangemaster @ 1:12 pm

The way it’s going, Frans Willeme, 58 and Dutch, is gearing up to become Germany’s first-ever elected Dutch mayor. He speaks fluent German with a Dutch accent, like famous Dutch entertainer Rudi Carrell whose career was pretty much in Germany.

Some people in the town of Nordhorn, very close to the Dutch border, where he is running are against the idea of having a foreigner run, but then the elections are open to any member of the EU, so too bad. Those who think further than their prejudices see the town of Nordhorn as going international and writing German history.

(Link: depers.nl, Photo of train station in Tegernsee, nowhere near Nordhorn)

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February 26, 2011

Bad Google! Germans want their harbour back

Filed under: General,Online by Branko Collin @ 3:19 pm

The citizens of the port of Emden want their harbour back. A minor snafu with Google Maps makes it appear that the harbour belongs to the Netherlands, not to Germany, Sueddeutsche.de reports. The city has tried to rectify the error. Spokes person Eduard Dinkela told the paper: “Google is one of the largest communications platforms on the Internet, yet I do not seem to be able to reach them.”

Although everybody agrees that it is silly to suggest the border runs through Emden’s harbour, the actual position of the border is disputed, Radio Netherlands writes:

Historically, the exact location of the border was never properly settled between the Netherlands and Germany, although nobody has ever suggested that Emden’s harbour is actually Dutch. Germany says that the border runs through the Dollard estuary, close to and just below the Dutch dykes that line it. The Dutch claim the border runs down the middle of the estuary. The issue is theoretical rather than contentious.

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June 14, 2010

Poking more fun at the Germans

Filed under: Sports by Branko Collin @ 11:01 pm

Dutch World Cup ads continue to rib the Germans. Paint manufacturer Histor came up with a ‘paint whisperer’ who can tell how happy a room is:

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June 2, 2010

Anti-German sentiments in World Cup commercials

Filed under: History,Sports by Branko Collin @ 10:16 am

Among the tidal wave of World Cup themed commercials, a disturbing trend emerges. Several Dutch companies have come out with TV ads that prominently feature German bad guys.

Heineken’s ad is perhaps the mildest, featuring a representative of the German football association proudly presenting earplugs to counter the noise of the Pletterpet, an orange cap. It paints Germans as rather dull folk, not quite the traditional stereotype over here.

Supermarket C1000 on the other hand goes the full nine yards, as it has a Cruella de Ville look-alike announce that she has to take one for the German team. Utilities company Nuon lets a ‘typical’ arrogant German fan get his comeuppance when his T-shirt turn orange, the Dutch national colour, while standing among his fellow fans.

Both Germany and the Netherlands participate in the upcoming World Cup in South Africa. Anti-German sentiments were alive in the Netherlands from World War II onwards to well into the 1990s, but kids these days just don’t seem to see the point. Which makes it even odder that these ads are so blatantly anti-German.

Something I heard a lot this year, now that Dutch coach Louis van Gaal and Dutch players Mark van Bommel and Arjan Robben have had such a successful year at Bayern Munich: “I never thought I would say this, but I am actually supporting the German side.”

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April 24, 2010

Dutchman ‘accidentally’ buys historic German bridge

Filed under: Architecture,History by Branko Collin @ 1:44 pm

Toni Bienemann from Arnhem is an avid collector of vintage cars, but having acquired about 40 automobiles he decided it was time for a change. And so he bought an old rail bridge in Germany—only to find out that this particular bridge is a symbol of German reunification. The Germans would get very upset, for instance, if he were to strip the thing for scrap metal.

Bienneman told Duitslandweb:

I had expected perhaps a small article in a local news paper, but not this much attention. Spiegel, ORF, Berliner Zeiting, they all called me to ask me why I bought the bridge. So I told them a story which I had made up afterwards. Originally, the bridge just seemed a nice symbol for my company, Dutchi Motors.

The Dömitz rail bridge (1873) used to be one of the longest bridges in Germany. It spanned the river Elbe, and was bombed by the alies in World War II. Afterwards, one side of the bridge became East German territory and was scrapped.

Wendland-net faithfully reproduces some of Bienneman’s spin:

“It would have been a pity if such a symbolic bridge had fallen into the wrongs hands.” This is the fear that drove Toni Bienemann […] to buy the historic construction for 305,000 euro from Deutsche Bahn in an auction.

Bienemann has now proposed the Germans come up with suggestions on how he could use the bridge in such a way that its symbolic value won’t get lost. He doesn’t need to make much profit right away, according to Duitslandweb, but if running the bridge is going to take him too much time, he will sell or lease it. Some of his own suggestions are to turn it into a bicycle bridge and run an ice-cream stand from it.

(Link: Sargasso. Photo by R. Kirchner, some rights reserved.)

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October 7, 2009

Amsterdam-like scent leads to destruction German cannabis field

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

German police destroyed a marijuana field in Ruhrauen near Duisburg after they were tipped by a passer-by that it smelled “just like Amsterdam” there, writes Der Westen (German).

When the police checked out the nearby water protection area, they discovered and impounded 47 plants with a sum weight of 117 kilos. The plants were chopped up by city employees for “easier transportation” and further processing.

(Photo by Eric Caballero, some rights reserved.)

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January 14, 2009

Dutch to profit from German bailout plan

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 11:43 am

Angela Merkel’s 50 billion euro plan for propping up the German economy might very well benefit the Netherlands, Z24 analyst Mathijs Bouman argues. The German Prime Minister’s plan consists mainly of Keynesian measures that should let money trickle up: tax cuts and insurance premiums cuts and inceased child support are all part of it. There will also be a car wrecking premium of 2,500 euro for cars older than 9 years which is supposed to help the famous German car industry, but which also sounds like a recipe for car theft to me. Still, I guess it is a lot better than giving the money straight to the people who got us into this mess, as some countries do.

According to Bouman, similar measures would be less useful for the Netherlands, since we are a trading country and much of the money our government would pump into the economy would simply flow across the border. However, Germans spend much of their money domestically, but Bouman believes that still plenty of it will end up abroad. And with 25% of all Dutch trade conducted with its large neighbour Germany, Bouman figures that plenty of the German bailout cash will end up here.

Bouman quotes economist Wim Suyker of the Centraal Planbureau (CPB) who estimates that a 50 billion euro plan in Germany leads to a growth of 0.6% of the Dutch economy.

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