January 16, 2017

Fashion made from waste found in the sea

Filed under: Animals,Fashion by Orangemaster @ 1:53 pm

Delta works

The Deltapark Neeltje Jans, a Dutch theme park near the Delta Works, is currently hosting the Healthy Seas Fashion Exhibition, featuring fashion created by Greek students from waste found in the sea.

The exhibition tells the “journey from waste to wear, the problem of ghost nets, recycling, circular economy and see what fashion design students created from the recycled fishing nets”.

The Netherlands is home to the Healthy Seas organisation, and the combination of the Neeltje Jans and Delta Works gives the exhibition an additional dimension, according to them, as they also claim that 10 percent of the waste found in water is fish nets, which explains the fish net fashion.

Find out more about how it all came about (in Greek with English subtitles):

(Links: bright and healthyseas.org, Photo of Delta Works by Coanri/Rita, some rights reserved)

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April 5, 2016

Lots of women for Captain Iglo job

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 9:59 pm

Volendam

Dutch frozen fish company Iglo’s search for the new Captain Iglo (Kapitein Iglo) continues with 30 candidates wanting the job, including 10 women and even a 9 year old girl. The rest were men, young and old, with and without beards. The candidates were subjected to a jury of children during a boat trip around Amsterdam.

Tiemen, the oldest man who applied, was 72 and resembled the already existing bearded captain, but one of the favourites with the jury was 30 year old Samira, a Dutch-Moroccan woman. Part of the selection process included handing out fish sticks to kids, and Samira went one further and brought her own homemade dipping sauce.

Knowing that the Netherlands has never had their own Captain Iglo, going with Tiemen would mean nothing new for the brand and although a safe bet, would reinforce the idea that women and men without beards were wasting their time applying. However, choosing a woman could really spice up the brand’s image and give the marketing people lots of new angles. Let’s see how that plays out.

(Link: www.deondernemer.nl, Photo of Volendam by quantz, some rights reserved)

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January 25, 2016

Fishing for a Dutch Captain Iglo

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 1:24 pm

Volendam

Headquartered in Utrecht, Dutch frozen fish company Iglo is looking for a new Kapitein Iglo (Captain Iglo). It’s a real job with requirements and everything. From 1967 to 1998 well-known British actor John Hewer was the face of Captain Birdseye, as it’s either Birdseye or Iglo depending on where you buy the products in Europe. German taxi driver Gerd Deutschmann played the captain from 2008 until his death in 2012.

There’s never been a Dutch captain and since there’s no time like the present, Iglo wants someone to hand out fish sticks, sail around a bit and show up at sea-related festivals. However, it doesn’t say they want a man because that would be illlegal as women are technically allowed to apply as well, if they feel like wasting their time that is.

The job vacancy cleverly uses the Dutch word ‘gastheer’ (‘male host’), which automatically excludes women the same way ‘gastvrouw’ (hostess) always excludes men. On a darker note, wouldn’t a Dutch captain be expected to be Caucasian? One could argue that the captain should look the same as he (not she) always has, so then you’d get an older white man with a full white beard. The vacancy says “candidates of all ages may apply”, which is odd because technically you can’t exclude anyone based on age unless the salary is such that it fits the complicated ageist EU rules of paying younger people less and older people more in certain roles. In other words, they’ve overtly omitted specifying a man or a skin colour, which means women and non-Caucasian can apply and waste their time, but they have no problem telling us they’d be willing to pick a younger man by highlighting something that’s already a legal given. It smells a bit fishy.

If you’re casting a Dutch film and you need a Russian gangster type, you can then specify you want a man who looks Russian, is bad ass and 30 without any bad feelings. In this case, why don’t they just come out and say that Caucasian and male would be preferable? My money says the winner is going to be a man as white as the inside of a fish stick.

(Link: www.waarmaarraar.nl, Photo of Volendam by quantz, some rights reserved)

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May 24, 2010

Walking across the Wadden Sea

Filed under: Nature,Sports,Weird by Branko Collin @ 11:40 am

Legend has it that when God created the Groninger, the Groninger said: “Get off my land.” And as if to prove a point, Groningers (and Frisians) still walk across dozens of miles of sea each day, as New York Times reporter David Corn attests:

After about an hour, Mr. Kraster comes to a stop. He says he has some good news and some bad news. For the next stretch, the ground will be less muddy — but the water will be higher. He points in the direction we’ll be heading. I still see nothing but sky and water before us. He could be leading us anywhere — including into deep water. He takes a step, and the water is close to his waist. The rest of us realize we are standing on a ridge and about to take a plunge.

The activity described here is mudflat hiking, wadlopen in Dutch, and is possible because of the unique properties of the Wadden Sea. At high tide the area is a sea, at low tide it is land—partly—and you can cross from the mainland to the Wadden Islands over some of the muddy watersheds. This is exactly what 30,000 people in the Netherlands do each year. Mudflat walking is also possible across the Wadden Sea portions of Germany and Denmark.

(Photo by nl.wikipedia user Marieke78, some rights reserved.

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May 14, 2008

Miffy and the village marketing scheme

Filed under: Design by Branko Collin @ 10:21 am

A little over 50 years ago Miffy, one of the Netherlands’ biggest export ‘products’, was introduced to the world by her creator Dick Bruna in a book that described how she lived in the dunes of Egmond aan Zee. The village now wants to turn itself into a “Nijntje” village (Dutch for Miffy and pronounced somewhere between NAYN-CHE and NINE-CHE). To do this the village association will place direction signs with a Miffy motif on the beach, and will build a Miffy boat that will be placed on the Nijntje aan Zee Pleintje. The latter is a pun, for “pleintje” is the diminutive of “plein,” square. The city of Utrecht already has a Nijntje Pleintje which was designed by Bruna’s son Marc.

The Nijntje aan Zee Pleintje will be located at the main beach entrance. The boat will be a pinck, a type of flat-bottom fishing vessel that was developed locally and used from the 17th through the 19th century when it stopped being competitive.

Via webregio.nl (Dutch). Source image: nijntje.nl.

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April 16, 2008

Watercity to be built in Zeeland

Filed under: Architecture by Branko Collin @ 11:54 am

[Visualisation of the new city]

Architect Taco Tuinhof proposes this city on piles to be built in the sea near Goes in Zeeland according to Bright (Dutch). The city would be called Westerschelde Water Stad. Tuinhof is currently looking for investors.

Image: Bright/RDH.

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October 5, 2007

Peeping ‘Tons’ at the beach

Filed under: Weird by Orangemaster @ 12:41 pm

toilet-beach1.jpg

One-way rest room mirror is a ‘good joke’

The new toilets at popular beach pavilion Parnassia close to Bloemendaal have a one-way mirror which allows men to spy on women using the ladies’ rest room, the Parool reports.

Owner Hans Slewe tells the paper he does not see what all the fuss is about. ‘We’ve not seen any naked women,’ he says. And no, he says, the mirror has not led to more men using the toilets.

‘It is not a peep show,’ he argues. ‘You look through a window and you can see the dunes and women washing their hands and checking their hair. The actual toilets are closed off. It is not sexist.’

But women, cannot look into the gents, the paper points out. And nor are the women aware that they are being looked at.

‘That’s the joke,’ says Slewe. ‘And 99% think it’s a good laugh. We’ve got 30 to 40 women working here and none of them have complained.’

(Link: Dutchnews.nl)

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