September 17, 2009

Preserved junk food collection on display

Filed under: Food & Drink,Weird by Orangemaster @ 10:48 am
Snack

Fons Biemans, a deceased snack bar owner from Tilburg, left behind an entire collection of Dutch junk food favourites preserved in jars, which promptly reminded me of the Chamber of Curitosities Tsar Peter the Great had in Saint Petersburg, Russia, but with food instead.

Biemans used the preserved food as a menu, never having to display fresh product which could just stay in the freezer. A teacher discovered the collection in a cellar, during a move.

And there’s a website called Snack-O-Theek where you can look at the collection online. You can play ‘guess that snack’, too.

(Link: vleesmagazine.nl, Photo: Snack-O-Theek)

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September 7, 2009

World record for watching telly now a Dutch record

Filed under: Dutch first,General by Orangemaster @ 11:46 am

Last weekend, the world record for watching television was broken by Efraim van Oeverenzondag, a 28-year-old student from Tilburg. He watched a whopping 86 hours of television in the building of media archive Beeld en Geluid in Hilversum and he only got 45 minutes of sleep. Since April of this year, the world record for watching television was held at 80 hours by a man from New Delhi.

(Link: destentor.nl)

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April 30, 2009

Tilburg to give 1.5 ton park bench to Changzhou, China

Filed under: Design by Branko Collin @ 9:30 am

When mayor Vreeman of Tilburg goes to Changzhou in China next September, he will present the sister-city with a so-called Socialsofa, reports Brabants Dagblad (Dutch). The Social Sofa is an invention by local comedian Karin Bruers who wants the outdoors to be a place where people talk to each other again.

Meanwhile real Tilburgers shun the English, marketing-friendly name and call the thing ‘benkske’ (little bench).

The Socialsofa is made of concrete, weighs about 1,550 kilo, and can be illustrated using paints or tiles. The bench in the photo is one of eight placed in The Hague in October last year.

(Photo by FaceMePLS, some rights reserved. Design of this bench’s mosaic by Wouter Stips. The text reads “If You Love I Hope It’s Me.”)

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March 17, 2009

Ring your bells later, father

Filed under: Religion by Orangemaster @ 2:15 pm

Way back in August and December 2007, we posted about a Tilburg pastor who rang his church bells way too early and who got fined for doing so.

And since I love a good trinity, the city council has now ruled that the bells can only be rung after 7:30 am.

Priest Harm Schilder claimed the right to call the faithful to prayer as part of religious freedom. OK, but city council thinks the neighbours have a right to be woken up with their own alarm clocks at a time of their choice.

(Link: dutchnews.nl, Photo: bells, Valkenburg, Limburg)

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February 7, 2009

Mayor from government party smokes at the office

Filed under: Design,General by Branko Collin @ 3:15 pm

The War on Fun is all nice and dandy, but apparently it shouldn’t impede on the little pleasures that its proponents enjoy. Mayor Ruud Vreeman of Tilburg, member of the PvdA (Labour) party that’s in the fun-hating government coalition that banned smoking in bars last year, lights up a cigar now and then in his office. According to Brabants Dagblad (Dutch), the mayor was found out because the stench of his cigars was noticed by a visitor.

A city spokesperson told Revu (Dutch): “‘Vreeman knows it’s not allowed. He will stop immediately. He regrets smoking in the building and will never do it again.”

Well, until next time.

Photo by Jan Lapère, used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License version 1.2. Via Jong Nieuws (Dutch), which has been writing way too little about Tilburg lately.

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February 1, 2009

John Körmeling designs Tilburg draw bridge

Filed under: Architecture by Branko Collin @ 11:16 am

Architect John Körmeling has just won (Dutch) the pitch for a new bridge to the Pius harbour in Tilburg, beating two other agencies. His open design has a large, rotating counter weight house and big friendly illuminated letters that spell the name of the area. City hall thinks the view from the counter weight house will be “attractive.” Körmeling is the man from Eindhoven who designed and built the controversial rotating house artwork in Tilburg.

Building of the bridge should start in 2010. A small exhibition of the design will be displayed starting next Tuesday at Hoevenseweg 2 in Tilburg, near the other bridge across the harbour canal.

More imagery and background at Architectenweb (Dutch). Via Trendbeheer (Dutch). Photo John Körmeling.

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October 16, 2008

New world fire-breathing record in Eindhoven

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 8:56 am
Fire breathing

On Wednesday 15 October, students of the Eindhoven University of Technology set a new world record for simultaneous fire-breathing. The Eindhoven campus got 267 people breathing fire simultaneously. On 14 March 2007, a world record for fire-breathing was set in Tilburg, Brabant, with 115 people breathing fire simultaneously. All fire-breathers used Roman oil as fuel under the watchful eye of the local fire brigade. As well, every participant followed a fire-breathing course the week before.

Will Tilburg try again next year? Will Eindhoven hold on to their world record? Stay tuned.

(Link and photo: omroepbrabant.nl)

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May 8, 2008

Biking through Tilburg

Filed under: Bicycles,Music by Branko Collin @ 2:30 pm

Biking through Tilburg on a bakfiets. Just a sweet little tune by Batiste and David to say hello to the Spring.

Via Jong Nieuws (Dutch).

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April 5, 2008

Rotating house as artwork

Filed under: Architecture,Art by Branko Collin @ 1:43 pm

John Körmelings’ house on rails was unveiled yesterday in Tilburg. The artwork is an actual, yet uninhabited house on rails that travels along the inside of a roundabout, the Hasseltrotonde. Originally the speed was planned at one round per hour, and currently it is turning at that speed for testing purposes. However, the city council thought that was too fast and the house will be slowed down to 0.000758 RPM (or 1.09 rounds per day) later on.

Körmeling’s idea behind the house was to reverse roles: at a roundabout the cars tend to run circles while the background remains static.

Via Jong Nieuws (Dutch) and Eindhovens Dagblad (Dutch). Photo: Stinkfinger Producties. More photos here and here.

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January 22, 2008

Using husband’s name costly affair

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 12:13 pm

Researchers at the University of Tilburg (Dutch) have discovered that married women who use their husband’s family name are generally seen as more dependent, less ambitious and less intelligent. Subjects were told that they were introduced to Peter and Helga Bosboom at a party (Helga using her husband’s name), and when asked rated Helga as caring, dependent, less intelligent and emotional. Using a hyphenated last name has the same effect.

The researchers estimated that using the “wrong” last name could even cost a woman EUR 361,708 during her life time. In an experiment in which subjects were asked to take the place of a human resources manager, women that used their husband’s name were generally rated for jobs that paid EUR 861.21 less than those for women that retained their maiden names.

According to Dutch law, both men and women keep their own family name when marrying, but both the wedded and divorced are allowed to use their own name and that of their (ex)partner in any combination in public.

(Via Jong Nieuws.)

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