February 3, 2011

Stop smoking by blackmailing yourself

Filed under: General,Health,Online by Orangemaster @ 9:12 pm

Ah yes, trying to stop smoking. I’ve heard that’s really tough.

And now there’s trying to stop smoking 2.0 using a Facebook app, created for the Dutch anti-smoking council, called ‘Blackmail yourself’. And before you go ‘pfff’, think of all adverts in your country making people feel guilty by showing blackened lungs and yellow teeth, or teenagers trying to act cool and all those ads that never ever worked.

I have a problem with the video’s narration, telling you to pick a controller (friend) and “giving him permission to post your picture if he ever spots you with a cigarette again.” I don’t understand why such a presumably important message is in English (speaking of trying to be cool) and assumes everyone is a ‘he’, as women smoke too and probably also want to quit.

I dare to suggest that there is no such thing as an anti-smoking campaign that works. In recent years banning smoking in public places and in bars and cafés in the Netherlands seemed to be the only thing that has had some effect.

(Link: amsterdamadblog)

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February 2, 2011

Bench follows the shape of the branch it was made with

Filed under: Design by Branko Collin @ 8:52 am

Brench? Banch? Be your inner Mowgli without falling out of a tree.

Or as creator Floris Wubben writes, all business like:

This bench is made of polypropylene, wood and lacquered metal. The wavy polypropylene is attached to the wooden branch with metal rods. As a consequence, the shape of the polypropylene is given by the shape of the branch.

There’s also a video explaining how to sit on it. It’s not clear whether his designs are actually being produced.

Link: Floris Wubben, no. 3 bench. Photo: Floris Wubben. Via a BoingBoing story about Wubben’s willow stool.

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February 1, 2011

Utrecht graffiti artist KBTR, the new Keith Haring?

Filed under: Art by Branko Collin @ 12:46 pm

The past years these depictions of angry gnomes have been popping up all over Utrecht, and now people are comparing the artist’s work to that of the Keith Haring.

The artist goes by the name KBTR, ‘kabouter’ with the vowels taken out. Kabouters are a type of gnome typical for the Netherlands which look like garden gnomes or like original depictions of leprechauns, i.e. fellows with pointy hats and long flowing beards but not to be confused with “hipsters” or “freds”.

As the video shows, one guy managed to get two private kabouters by leaving a couple of crates of beer and a mention of when he would be away on holiday at a local bike shop. More of KBTR’s work can be seen at streetfiles.org. To me, the kabouters of KBTR have a distinct likeness to Belgium’s angry cartoon gnome Kabouter Wesley.

(Photo by Aarnoot, some rights reserved)

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January 31, 2011

Even gossip queens have a right to privacy

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 11:47 am

The Court of Appeal in Den Bosch has recently ruled that the public prosecutor must start a case against broadcaster BNN reporters Sophie Hilbrand and Filemon Wesselink for spying on TV presenter Albert Verlinde and his husband, Onno Hoes.

Ironically, Albert Verlinde is one of the presenters of TV gossip programme RTL Boulevard, and Onno Hoes is the Mayor of Maastricht—between them they must have committed more privacy violations than all the hidden cameras in girls’ locker rooms the world over combined.

Volkskrant reports that reporters Sophie Hilbrand and Philemon Wesselink installed audio recording equipment in an award they presented to Verlinde, the ‘Golden Ear”, with which they successfully recorded a discussion Verlinde and Hoes had in the car on their way home. The public prosecutor had already fined the reporters, so that they now get punished for the same offence twice. For the record, double jeopardy—or ne bis in idem as it is called here—is illegal in the Netherlands.

(Photo of Albert Verlinde by Thomas van de Weerd, some rights reserved)

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January 30, 2011

Classic Dutch carnival: Stoned as a Shrimp

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 6:00 pm

Some 12 years ago after my first real Dutch party, someone bravely got up the next morning, made coffee and threw on a CD of comedy songs and sketches by Kees van Kooten and Wim de Bie (aka ‘Koot en Bie’), one of the most famous Dutch comedy acts ever. I could understand the odd word, but this song called ‘Stoont Als ‘n Garnaal’ was something I could dig. It means ‘Stoned as a Shrimp’ (I’d rather have an aliteration, so I didn’t use ‘prawn’ on purpose), and the Dutch ‘stoont’ is incorrect on purpose, it should also be ‘stoned’.

(roughly translated)

At uncle Piet’s party
There was some very good weed
After the second ‘stick’
Everyone got a kick
But Granny Van de Kamp
Wanted to get higher
Started swinging from the lamp
And sang this refrain

We’re as stoned as a shrimp
Stoned as a shrimp
Take another toke
‘Cause stoned as a shrimp
That’s what we all are

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RFID readers sold out after news of hackable transport card broke

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 1:51 pm

Trouw reports that the SRR220A RFID card reader is sold out in at least one webshop after word got out that hacking the Dutch transport card is both cheap and easy. The card reader will let you top up the card without paying.

Volkskrant adds that another online store, i-Pos, has sold hundreds. “It’s a mad house here, the orders are coming in day and night,” General Manager Dirk van der Heijden told the paper.

Meanwhile, Trans Link Systems (TLS), the besieged company behind the ill-fated Dutch transport card, refuses to warn users who forgot to swipe the card on check-out, Webwereld reports. The result is that many travellers are ‘fined’ 4, 10 or 20 euro every time they forget to check out—the amount depends on the deposit the transport company charges when you check in.

Dutch parliament told TLS that it has to send forgetful passengers an e-mail upon detecting the error. According to TLS, detecting the problem is a “technological impossibility”. Webwereld readers were quick to point out that just a few days ago TLS was boasting about how easy it is to detect use of a fraudulently topped-up public transport chip card.

Asking for a restitution seems to be an arduous task as well. Only in 1 in 18 passengers go through the trouble.

According to Dutchnews.nl, the province of Zuid-Holland has delayed the abandonment of paper bus tickets (the so-called Strippenkaart) due to the current problems with the transport card.

See also: Right to public transport refunds finite.

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January 29, 2011

A carnival hit that tells it like it is

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 6:00 pm

Just two days ago I posted that “swear words in a foreign language are often perceived to be not as bad as in your own language,” and to back it up, here’s another carnival song called ‘Fok Joe’ (phonetic Dutch for ‘Fuck You’).

The opening shot of the ‘security guy’ has his Julian Assange look down pat, while singer Danny Panadero went as the doppelgänger of Pitbull, albeit with a mullet.

“I have a hit because there’s ‘fuck you’ in it,” the song of a Dutch ‘volkszanger’ (literally ‘folk singer’, but meaning ‘singer of the people’) who predominantly sings light ditties about love and life, a style that is popular in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany and very appreciated during carnival.

Around 1:40 Panadero is singing at a children’s birthday party and mentions that K3, one if not still the most successful Dutch-language act ever who sing kiddy songs, should sing “a fuck you” as well.

‘Fuck you’ in Dutch sounds too banal,
but sing it in English and the whole place sings along.

He took the swear words right out of my mouth.

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Amsterdam traffic 1900-1930 (video)

Filed under: Automobiles,Bicycles by Branko Collin @ 4:24 pm

Cycling videographer Mark Wagenbuur has released another doozy. His video shows traffic in early 20th century Amsterdam, with — you guessed it — a focus on bicycles.

I can’t help but notice that after a century:

  • People still cycle on the Leidsestraat, although it’s forbidden.
  • The corner of Spui and Singel is still riddled with lousy infrastructure.
  • A ferry still carries thousands of pedestrians and cyclists towards Orangemaster’s old neighbourhood, although these days buses take the tunnel.
  • Pets still run across the Vijzelstraat, but these days cars go much faster, and the cat I saw cross a year ago was lucky to come out of that clash alive.

What’s changed: there are no more horse, dog, or man-drawn carts for transport. Compare it to this vid which starts at the exact same spot on the Leidsestraat.

(Video: YouTube / Mark Wagenbuur)

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January 28, 2011

Strippers banned from Urk

Filed under: Shows by Branko Collin @ 3:20 pm

The local government of Urk has banned all strippers from the fundamentalist Christian ex-island, RTL Nieuws reports. If a bar breaks the new law, it has to close shop temporarily.

Last year a bar hired a female stripper who went the full monty, which apparently prompted this bout of legislation. Urk is the town with the highest concentration of fishermen in the country. Until 1939 it was an island–Urkers still say ‘on Urk’ instead of ‘in Urk’, according to Wikipedia.

(Photo of American burlesque performer Lola Bel Aire by Michael Albov, some rights reserved)

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January 27, 2011

New carnival song boycotted over the word ‘anus’

Filed under: Music,Weird by Orangemaster @ 10:32 am

It’s OK to make fun of hard-working Poles and sing ‘racist’ slurs about the Chinese, but a funny song that starts with ‘Manus, get your finger out my anus’ is actually being boycotted by carnival-oriented radio stations.

On any given day you can hear songs on the radio with the words ‘fuck’, ‘pussy’, ‘bitch’ and the likes, but ‘anus’ (same in Dutch) is apparently Not Suitable For Work (NSFW). I don’t get it and neither do De Pikanto’s.

You all have to hear and see for yourselves, of course. It’s in Austrian style, very nice and clean, just the word ‘anus’ sticks out and yes, there are references to bisexuality and anal sex, as if that was ever a problem in the Netherlands.

The song comes from a 1970s song and is done here in carnival style, so in fact it’s been around for some 40 years. As well, using the argument of ‘but kids will hear it’ when the radio does play ‘I wanna Fuck A Dog in The Ass” by Blink 182 (De Pikanto’s argument) is very hypocritical. It is linguistically and culturally true that swear words in a foreign language are often perceived to be not as bad as in your own language, but ‘anus’ is a proper term if ever there was one.

If a drag queen sang this, would that have been better? I do love all these controversial carnival songs though.

Anyone remember this famous Dutch television advert with children and a song playing called ‘I wanna fuck you in the ass’? That was on TV for a while before something was done about it or not I could be wrong.

(Link: depers.nl)

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