August 23, 2010
If we can believe these pictures (here and here), the world famous Anne Frank tree has blown over and is broken in two.
In 2007 we wrote about it being possibly saved by a judge and not cut down, but fate has decided otherwise.
The tree has been sick for years. It is famous for having been described in Anne Frank’s Diary.
Tags: Anne Frank, Anne Frank House
In 2006 this poster was elected best political poster of the Netherlands of the past 90 years. It was used in 1971 by the Pacifist Socialist Party (PSP), one of the predecessors of GroenLinks, for the lower house elections. The caption reads ‘Disarming PSP’.
The photo was originally taken for sexual reform magazine Sekstant, but designer George Noordanus surmised that it could also help create a storm of protest among Christians whose political parties supported the Vietnam war, but opposed innocent nudity, thereby exposing their hypocrisy.
Although it did just that, the raised profile did not help the PSP as it lost half its seats in the lower house after the elections. Support for the poster was also divided within the party, as some members considered it sexist. Ironically enough, it was the sexist argument that in the end helped seal the deal. As one member put it, “workers like naked chicks.”
Both Ayaan Hirsi Magan (ex VVD, liberal) and Femke Halsema (GroenLinks, ‘green left’), political opposites, see the poster as a symbol of their ideals.
See also this site about election posters in the Netherlands.
Tags: 1971, cows, Pacifism, politics, posters, public nudity, Religion, Socialism
August 22, 2010
The second Dutch football league may not exactly be known for the defensive capabilities of its teams, but when the oldest Dutch professional football team Sparta Rotterdam (1888) relegated last year they probably did not expect the red carpet either.
Yet in its second game this season Sparta routed Almere FC 12-1, and 25-year-old striker Johan Voskamp scored 8 of those goals. Voskamp had just been bought from Helmond Sport who play in the same league. A video of his goals can perhaps be viewed at Youtube.
The second division is called Eerste Divisie (‘first division’) because the first division is called Eredivisie (‘honorary division’).
Henk Schouten scored nine goals for Feijenoord in 1956, in what was then still called the Hoofdklasse. The Eredivisie and Eerste Divisie were introduced a season later. All time top scorer for a single match in the Eredivisie is Afonso Alves (Heerenveen) with 7 goals in a match against Heracles in 2007. The previous record holders for the Eerste Divisie were Jerry Taihuttu (1997) and Ugur Yildirim (2003), with 6 goals each. Both players went on to play in the top tier the next season.
(Photo by Kralinger, some rights reserved)
Tags: football, Johan Voskamp
Naarden design studio Brand van Egmond (William Brand and Annet van Egmond) came up with these chandeliers. Their website doesn’t say if and where you can buy them. Check out the Milan video, it shows the chandeliers in use.
(Link: Trendhunter)
Tags: chandeliers, lamps, Naarden
August 21, 2010
ProRail, the Dutch railway network operator, wants to diminish the number of suicides committed by people jumping in front of a moving train. The organisation aims at a reduction of 5% over the next four years. Currently, 200 people kill themselves by jumping in front of a moving train, which is 12% of the total number of suicides, the highest ratio in the region.
According to ProRail, about half of all suicides are committed by people who are undergoing psychiatric care. The network operator has already experimented by placing gates near psychiatric hospitals and by turning level crossings into viaducts.
The current policy of the Dutch Association for Psychiatry (NVvP) is to advise its members to send the suicidal out into the street. This policy is much to the dismay of the Union for Train Drivers and Conductors (VVMC) who point out that people jumping in front of moving trains are very traumatic experiences for their members.
(Photo by Jason Rogers, some rights reserved)
Tags: Prorail, psychiatric care, rail, railways, suicide
August 20, 2010
On Sunday 22 August retired entrepreneur Frits Langeveld from the Dutch island of Texel where many a good beer comes from will be presenting a new beer called ‘Tessels Wrakhout’ (not the one shown here) with a real smoky taste. So smoky according to some smokers that they don’t feel like reaching for a cigarette. The key ingredient is smoked malt that is apparently not used by breweries much, although German ‘rauchbier’ has been around for ages.
The idea was that smokers now have to go outside the bar to have a smoke and that maybe smoked beer is the answer to keeping them indoors and not interrupting the fun. It’s surprising nobody in the Netherlands thought of it this way before.
I think it’s exaggerated to call it innovative, in fact doing so is symptomatic of the rampant short-sightedness in the business community. I’d call it resourceful: finally looking outside Dutch borders for answers.
(Links: bizz.nl, bier.blog.nl, Photo of Bamberg Rauchbier by David Fischer, some rights reserved)
August 19, 2010
Our first video report. It’s got a few glitches as we are trying to get used to a new medium. Enjoy.
Today Sail Amsterdam 2010 started with the traditional parade of tall ships. Led by the clipper Stad Amsterdam, 30 tall ships and a lot of small boats entered IJ harbour, which is wedged between Java Island and Piet Heinkade.
Sail Amsterdam was first organised in 1975 and has since been held every five years. The festivities will continue for the next three days, and include live music and theatre. On Friday a parade of barely floating home-built boats will be held in the canals of Amsterdam, the so-called Pieremachocheltocht. Most of the tall ships can be visited for free between 10 am and 4 pm.
This year’s event drew criticism from ship owners, who feel they have to pay the organisers too much money. They think it is wrong that so much of the proceeds of an event that is heavily sponsored by the government disappear in the pockets of a nebulous agency, Sail Arrangementen. The latter replied in newspaper De Pers that they do not understand what all the hoopla is about, as the ships’ owners still sell a lot of tickets.
This is Natasha Cloutier for 24oranges.nl.
The performance at the end of the video was by De Zingende Kapitein. Photo below by the Koninklijke Marine (featuring the frigate HMS Tromp).
Dutch Design Studio OOOMS from Eindhoven offers a multipurpose and very elegant puzzleboard to liven up your parties. It can be used as a cutting board or serving plate and more puzzleboards can be placed together like puzzle piece to make a bigger and cooler one.
I like the fact that you can easily free up a hand to greet people, which is usually a problem at parties. My only comment is that most Dutch people drink beer at parties and not wine, so the beer glass has nowhere to go.
OOOMS also has fun wooden USB sticks.
(Link and photo: supermarkethq)
Tags: OOOMS
August 18, 2010
A Russian trucker in Dordrecht involved in a bar brawl was released because the summons he received was poorly translated from Dutch into Russian using Google translate. When the trucker was being questioned at the police station, he had a Russian interpreter and claimed to have understood what he had to do, although he never signed the summons.
The Russian interpreter showed up in court, but not the trucker. She was asked to then translate what was written in the summons. Instead of (here I am translating this from Dutch) ‘you are to appear in court on 3 August 2010’, it went more like ‘you have to avoid being in court on 3 August 2010’. In Dutch, ‘vóórkomen’, with the stress on the first syllable, means ‘to appear’, while ‘voorkómen’ means ‘to prevent’.
With Google translate, the Dutch infinitive verb ‘voorkomen’ (no way to indicate which of the two identically spelled verbs you want translated) still today produced the infinitive verb ‘to prevent’ ‘предотвращать’ (imperfective aspect) and not even a hint of the perfective aspect of the same verb, ‘предотвратить’. In any decent dictionary both aspects are given so people can use the right one.
In Russian, if you pronouce the perfective verb ‘to write’ ‘напиÑать’ with the wrong stress, you’re pissing instead of writing, so yes, stress matters.
(Link: depers.nl)
Tags: Dordrecht, Google, Russian, translation
August 17, 2010
Out of four countries represented — the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and England — the Dutch won this year’s Stratego World Championships, held in Maastricht. With six victories and four draws Pim Niemeijer of The Netherlands became the new individual Stratego World Champion. Last year, Steffen Annies of Germany won the Stratego World Champion of 2009, the year before, Pim Niemeijer had won it.
And then we also wrote about a women’s championship, also won by a Dutch woman in Kiev back in 2008.
There are also Computer Stratego World Championships held around the world and there’s also my co-blogger’s time-old classic of placing all five of his bombs around his flag.
Stratego is a Dutch game published by Jumbo that was distributed internationally by Milton Bradley, giving the impression that the Americans came up with it, if you read Wikipedia. Read more about Stratego history with pics galore on Ed’s Stratego Site.
(Links: ad.nl, isfstratego)
Tags: Maastricht, Stratego
