Driving down the Dutch highway I have seen overpasses for deers and I have heard of frog overpasses and tunnels, but this is a first for me too: the very first beaver tunnel in the country.
Yes, as of today, the wee village of Panheel (189 villagers) in Limburg has opened a 30-metre-long tube, 70 centimetres in diameter so that beavers don’t wobble down a busy street and get turned into road pizza. Not only have many beavers died, but they damage cars when then do because they are bigger and bulkier than they look.
The people and animal lovers involved believe that other small woodland creatures will use this tunnel as well. It cost 40,000 euro and was paid with contributions as well as tax money.
I have only respect for beavers, and OK, this one is darn cute. I spent part of my youth at summer camp tearing down their dams only to see them fully rebuilt days later. It was either portaging (carrying a canoe over your head because of lack of water or obstacles), with two 9-year-old girls lifting an aluminium canoe of 45 kg over their heads with backpacks for 2 kilometers through the woods being eaten by mosquitoes or tearing down a beaver dam that grows back like weeds and canoe on the water like normal kids.
On February 6th, Dutch singer Stef Bos was awarded a prize in Pretoria, South Africa for his contribution to the Afrikaans language and music. It was the first time ever that a foreigner has received such an award.
His new CD ‘Kloofstraat’ which will be out in March will have songs that are almost completely written in Afrikaans, a language Stef must speak quite well since he lives half the year in Cape Town. The rest of the year he lives in Antwerp, Belgium, as do many Dutch people.
Here’s Stef Bos singing his first Dutch hit from 1990, ‘Papa’ that seems to be a classic song dedicated to fathers.
Here’s a fine Dutch example of necessity being the mother of invention. Two students from Delft University of Technology designed a delivery tricycle (’bakfiets’) that acts as a moving van. It is powered by two people pedaling in front of the load carrying box as opposed to one person pedaling behind it. The idea is that it’s perfect to move students from one flat to another, couch and all, without having to use a car. “My parents had to drive 200 km to help me move a couch 2 km down the road,” explains Onno Sminia, one of the designers. In other words, very ineffective.
Onno Sminia and his friend Louis Pierre Geerinckx already found their first client: the City of Delft. The ‘vrachtfiets’ (’freight bicycle’) was unveiled on 3 February and pedaled around town full of big furniture.
These lads are off to a good start when they finished their studies this summer.
“One of the Netherlands’ eight most wanted criminals has turned out to be in jail in Belgium since 2008. To the embarrassment of the Dutch justice authorities, the fact that man is serving a 10-year sentence there only became known after they had released their ‘most wanted’ list.”
Seven more to go!
A few days ago, there was a whole discussion about whether publishing the list was a good idea, the pros, the cons (darn those puns) and the usual round table discussion that fuels evening television in the Netherlands. The irony was that releasing a list of eight heavy duty criminals was a first and the goal was to let the public help.
I can picture it now. After not having received any info in 2007 from Belgium on the whereabouts of this bad man once he was off the Dutch radar, some employee checked off the box ‘AWOL’ or something and that was that. Somehow, the bad man landed in jail in Belgium and no information was given on that and the box ‘AWOL’ remained checked. Don’t you just love this European Union thing sometimes.
I’d like to take this opportunity to wish everyone Happy New Year! Our resolutions for 2010 are to take more pictures and make more videos, and continue to post the good stuff. Please send us more stuff, too!
While the first ever Latin American same-sex couple recently got married in Argentina and another one got arrested for doing so in Malawi, Amsterdam will hold its first ever wedding fair for gays and lesbians on February 14, Valentine’s Day 2010. The fair will feature some 50 stands at the Westergasfabriek in West Amsterdam. Already married same-sex couples can visit the fair for free upon showing their marriage certificate.
Since 1st April 2001 gays and lesbians have been allowed to marry in the Netherlands and it was the first country to allow same-sex marriages.
Filed under: Art, Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 11:12 am
A painting entitled ‘Portrait of a man, half-length, with his arms akimbo’ by Rembrandt, which has not been seen in public for nearly 40 years sold at Christie’s auction house in London for a record € 22.3 m on Tuesday 9 December according to our Dutch source, while other sources, including British paper The Guardian quotes it at € 20.2 m. Either way, it’s a record. “It was painted during one of Rembrandt’s most artistically inventive periods, and is believed to be one of only two of the artist’s paintings from 1658 in existence.” It was also sold when he went bankrupt.
The Dutch version of British television series Antique Roadshow called Tussen Kunst & Kitsch (’Between Art & Kitsch’) has landed the most expensive item ever in its 25 year history. The ’spectacular discovery’ is a brooch by Frenchman René Lalique, which has apparently never been seen publicly (seen here is Dragonfly by René Lalique, as he was also a glass maker) and is said to be worth EUR 100,000. The owner, a woman, has already sold it. The show will air on Wednesday 18 November.
The brooch ended up in her family by way of Saint Petersburg, Russia, as her grandfather fled during the revolution and brought it with him to the Netherlands.
United Nude, the design agency run by shoe designer Galahad JD Clark and architect Rem Koolhaas has expanded its on-line shoe store with an off-line version on the Spuistraat in Amsterdam. No, that is not the Rem Koolhaas, it is Rem D. Koolhaas, his cousin.
Koolhaas told De Pers it took six years to open a bricks and mortar store because only now is the collection big enough. Also, the crisis made the rent right.
Family doctors Erik Jansen and Bart Brandenburg from Nijmegen have taken their pratice online and become the Netherlands’ first Twitter doctors. By following @tweetspreekuur you can ask questions about your health. They provide as much advice as they can, and will tell you to consult your own doctor or to call an emergency number if they think something is really wrong.
Of course, you can also get some privacy by getting a login at tweet.webspreekuur.nl (type it in your search engine).
And I’m very happy the working stethoscope I bought for EUR 0,20 on Queen’s Day from a nurse this year was put to good use.
