December 30, 2016

Branko’s favourite postings of 2016

Filed under: Bicycles,Food & Drink,General,History by Orangemaster @ 1:30 pm

It’s that time of year again where we look back and tell you about some of the things we wrote about, and this year we had one clear theme that stood out and that, sadly, was ‘tastelessness’.

First the weird junk food combos:

Spring: the discodel

Summer: frikandel ice cream

Winter: smoked sausage and kroket

Dear Dutch snack bars, please follow our neighbouring countries and sell halloumi, and stop mixing crap already.

Next up, we have a tasteless escape room with Anne Frank as a theme.

The entire year saw some tasteless bashing of Ukraine. What did Ukraine ever do to us? Oh yeah, they gave back stolen Dutch paintings to a museum to show how classy they are.

As well, we found out in 2016 that supermarkets sell fertilised eggs, chicks prove it, we saw a food bank snub the poor over a Facebook like and had a good laugh at this organic fries truck stuck at a junk food chain drive.

And then to move towards some more classy bits, here’s the bicycle tunnel built in a single weekend in Utrecht, police training eagles to attack drones and a woman as the world’s first ever Professor of Fatherhood.

To finish off, here’s a story that went from classy to tasteless, an elderly woman sews bags from abandoned umbrellas, but then a few months later is pushed off her mobility scooter and robbed of her gold chain.

We’ll leave it at that, thanks for all your comments, and a reminder that next year is our 10th year anniversary in February, so I guess we should think about doing something special.

Happy New Year!

Tags: , , , , , ,

December 28, 2016

Dutch chocolate company to brew beer

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 3:22 pm

Dutch chocolate company Tony’s Chocolonely, whose goal is to raise awareness for the slavery that still persists among people harvesting cocoa to make chocolate, has decided to brew some beer, and it’s called ‘Chocolate Milk Stout’.

Together with Amsterdam brewery De Prael, this new beer claims to be ‘smooth with a taste of chocolate’ and will be available in Amsterdam as of 1 January 2017.

(Link: nieuws.nl)

Tags: ,

December 24, 2016

Time for the Christmas break at 24oranges HQ

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 6:02 pm

Xmastree2016

24oranges is going to take a breather for a few days to enjoy some peace and quiet, try out some new Christmas food and drinks, and catch up on some sleep.

Branko will again have a Top 10 list of this year’s favourite stories before the end of the year. By the way, next year on 23 February will be our 10th anniversary!

Happy Holidays and thanks for your continued support!

Tags: ,

December 23, 2016

Rare puppies born in Noord-Brabant

Filed under: Animals by Orangemaster @ 12:03 pm

Curly_Coated_Retriever

A litter of 11 puppies has been born to Ruth, a Curly Coated Retriever, one of only about 150 in existence in the Netherlands.

This breed of dog originally comes from England where it is said to be rare as well. Only about 2000 ‘Curlies’ can be found around the world even though breeding them isn’t difficult. Ruth was coupled with a Curly from Sweden that the owner ran into while on vacation. Ruth is not only a mother, but has been a show dog for many years.

According to Omroep Brabant, her puppies will be sold for about 1,000 euro a puppy, which isn’t that much for a thoroughbred. As well, they are the only Curly puppies born in the Netherlands in all of 2016.

(Link: omroepbrabant, Photo of Curly Coated Retriever by Zwoenitzer, some rights reserved)

Tags: ,

December 22, 2016

World premiere: donating to the homeless electronically

Filed under: Dutch first,Technology by Orangemaster @ 1:59 pm
bowl_and_spoon1

As of this holiday season people in Amsterdam will be able to give money to homeless people using their bank card and its contactless payment function. It’s an experiment that is making headlines, thought up by Amsterdam advertising agency N=5 and developed together with the ABN Amro bank.

The homeless will be wearing a special jacket with a bank card reader, allowing people to donate one euro that will be used to provide either food, a shower or a place to sleep to the homeless person in question. The accounts will be managed by the cooperating homeless shelters. The idea is to avoid seeing the money spent on alcohol and the likes, something that stops many people from giving. Once someone has donated, they will get a thank you from the homeless person on their bank account statement.

According to newspaper Het Parool, over the past years the homeless population in the Netherlands has more than doubled from 2009 to 2016, from 13,000 to 31,000 people.

(Link: www.parool.nl)

Tags: , , ,

December 21, 2016

‘Bully vlogger’, Dutch word of the year 2016

Filed under: Gaming,General by Orangemaster @ 2:27 pm

‘Treitervlogger’ (‘bully vlogger’) was coined in September 2016 by the Dutch press and is defined as ‘a vlogger who films their friends bullying locals, sometimes even egging them on’. It sounds very specific and it is, as it is based on a series of bullying incidents in Zaandam involving a young Dutch-Turkish man, his friends and their ‘hoodvlogs’, a Dunglish term for ‘neighbourhood vlogs’. Although the instigator apologised for his behaviour after cooling off in a jail cell fora few days at some point, he plans to keep vlogging – lucky us.

More than 100,000 votes were tallied, with ‘treitervlogger’ getting 35% of them. Second place goes to ‘pokémonterreur’ ‘Pokémon terror’ with 23% and third place to ‘Trump the Liarisme’ (‘Trump the Liarism’) at 11%.

On the lighter side, the Flemish went with ‘Samsonseks’ (‘Samson sex’), which refers to parents having sex while their kids are watching ‘Samson en Gert’, a children’s show about a man and his dog.

This entire annual process is done for the Van Dale dictionary, which has the Netherlands and Flanders working together and celebrating their cultural differences.

(Link: nos.nl)

Tags: , , , , ,

December 19, 2016

Rapping Dutch puppets premiere in Amsterdam

Filed under: Music,Shows by Orangemaster @ 2:01 pm

Dutch rappers De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig from Amsterdam are part of a new show entitled ‘Watskeburt?! De Musical’ with muppet-like puppets of themselves, which frankly steal the show. The makers will give a special talk on the stage tonight at the preview showing at the Meervaart in Nieuw-West, while tomorrow’s premiere is already sold out. And the show will move downtown in 2017 at Amsterdam’s main musical venue, DeLaMar theatre.

The song ‘Watskeburt’ from 2005, one of the group’s better known hits and a Dutch party favourite, has been covered and parodied a lot since then. If only Weird Al Yankovic understood Dutch.

According to the Dutch music press, people feel like they are watching a show of De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig since the likeness of the songs and the voices are that good. It’s aimed at young people 18-30, and it is definitely not for kids, as it contains all the strong language, sex, drugs and violence that you need for good Dutch rap music along with their usual dose of humour.

The video of the song ‘Pikante’ is set in Amsterdam’s Kesbeke pickled condiments factory and has that pseudo latin flavour some of their songs have as of late.

(Link: meervaart.nl)

Tags: ,

December 17, 2016

Dutchman spies on guy who stole his phone

Filed under: Technology by Orangemaster @ 2:03 pm

The sound at the beginning of the film is of a tram in Amsterdam, although this short graduation film by Anthony van der Meer entitled ‘Fine My Phone’ had support from the institution he graduated from, the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam.

Every week in the Netherlands 300 police reports are written up for smartphone theft, explains Van der Meer. After having his phone stolen in Amsterdam, he used Find My iPhone and caught ‘a few metres’ of how far his phone went before it was turned off. He wasn’t bothered so much by having his phone stolen, but more that a stranger had access to all his photos, videos, contacts and so on. A thief just has to switch SIM cards and reset the phone for Find My iPhone to be totally useless.

To make this short film, Van der Meer installed spyware on a new phone and purposely let someone steal it. He then remotely recorded audio, photos, and videos from the phone and made a 20 minute film about the guy who stole it.

It’s in Dutch with English subtitles, and a good part of it can be understood visually thanks to many computer screenshots, including one to show us that Arabic appeared on his phone and a few other cool things you should see for yourselves.

(Link: boingboing.net)

Tags: , , ,

December 16, 2016

Dutch pastry magician Frank Haasnoot rules Christmas

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 12:24 pm

Executive Pastry Chef at The Peninsula hotel in Hong Kong, Dutchman Frank Haasnoot makes Christmas pastries that are a pleasure to watch and I’m sure a pleasure to eat as well.

As the French mentioned in the video, you’ll love how he makes the Christmas tree at the end of this video. If you want more pastry magic, follow Haasnoot on the food channel, better known as instagram.

(Link: huffingtonpost.fr)

Tags: , , ,

December 14, 2016

Almere misspells historical Dutch street sign

Filed under: General,History by Orangemaster @ 11:07 am
groen1.jpg

This street sign is from Amsterdam in 2007, with an extra ‘r’, wavering between ‘brug’ and ‘burg’.

A lot of people don’t care about spelling unless it’s their name being butchered. The city of Almere messed up the last name of former Dutch Prime Minister from 1973-1977 Joop Den Uyl by going with ‘Uil’. It was noticed by a politician of the Labour Party, of which Den Uyl was a member – he’s now deceased.

The park where the ‘path’ (‘pad’) actually is, is called ‘Den Uylpark’ where there’s a statue of Joop Den Uyl with what I’m sure is a plaque with his name also written as ‘Joop Den Uyl’.

Almere apparently has a reputation of messing up its colourful street names. In 2011 it took the city three tries to get ‘Chicagostraat’ right: first it was ‘Chigacostraat’, then ‘Chigagostraat’ and finally ‘Chicagostraat’. In 2008 ‘Popeyestraat’, named after the American cartoon character Popeye was ‘Popeystraat’, and the character ‘Marsipulami’ from the Belgian Gaston Lagaffe comic strips was first ‘Marsipulamihof’ instead of ‘Marsupilamihof’.

(Links: nos.nl, nu.nl, Photo of a misspelled street name in Amsterdam by Herenlunch)

Tags: , , ,