March 18, 2009

Singer claims he’ll win song contest he can’t even enter

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 2:15 pm
prive1

My very talented friend Frances, part of the organisation of the Concours de la Chanson de l’Alliance Française (French Song Contest of the Alliance Française) here in the Netherlands was at the hairdresser’s this week and grabbed a tabloid while she was waiting.

Claude Francis, a Belgian singer who apparently sings international musical numbers in French, claims that he’ll win the above-mentioned song contest because he’s better than all the silly Dutch folk who know squat about French music. It may not read this way word for word in Dutch, but the repeated phone calls Frances received from this man pleading to be entered into the contest in order to win it kinda point that way.

What’s the big deal? It’s a Dutch contest and so you have to live in the Netherlands to enter it. He claims to have a girlfriend in a Dutch town and so he’s often in Netherlands, and he thinks that’s good enough.

Already claming to win a contest you can’t enter is just stupid — unless he was misquoted. Time to get a manager who can communicate, methinks.

(Photo: Privé, 11 March 2009)

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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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Dissing Essent at the World Cup in Vancouver

Filed under: General,Sports by Orangemaster @ 9:38 am

I caught a glimpse of Dutch speed skater Sven Kramer on telly who the orange-clad audience in the stands were basically waiting for to win as expected at the World Speed Skating Championships in Vancouver, Canada last weekend. I was happy to hear that they spoke French at the event (it’s not the plague anymore), so I kept watching.

There were adverts from Dutch utility Essent that read ‘Svencouver’. If you read it in Dutch, the ‘Sven’ rhymes with ‘Van’ and it’s very cute. Essent wants to get customers to sign up with Essent under the name ‘Svencouver’ so they can get a discount depending on how many gold medals Kramer wins, which apparently is just a question of time. Problem is, they’re not an official Olympic sponsor.

In true Dutch uncle style, the Dutch Olympic committee asked Essent to lose their excellent slogan because it sounds too much like Vancouver. And that’s apparently not good because Vancouver is supposed to be synonymous with the Olympics, the five coloured rings and all, but not Essent or our man Sven.

Luckily for Essent, they also had a back up — ‘Svenergy’. In fact, Essent has no legal obligation to stop using ‘Svencouver’, but are literally being sports about it.

What bugs me is the Dutch Olympic Committee publically reprimanding a good sponsor in times of crisis.

(Link: sportwereld.nl)

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March 8, 2009

Dutch expat misses typical food in Germany

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 12:07 pm
antje

This week I came to work in Munich and stayed at 24oranges’ third blogger, Eric. Eric is Dutch and has been happily living in Munich for four years. Germans keep asking him what he misses about his native country and it usually boils down to food.

What did I pack in my suitcase as a gift? Conimex Indonesian products from the supermarket. Dutch food is quite bland, which explains the Dutch’s prediliction for Indonesian food. (Indonesia is a former Dutch colony.)

Eric also misses the junk food ‘friet speciaal’, French fries with mayonnaise, ketchup and onions and ‘dropjes’ (black, sweet or salty liquorice sweets), the latter I also brought.

Also, the chunks of Dutch cheese sold at the store are way too small and the major brand is called ‘Pikantje van Antje’ (seen above retro version), the German symbol for Dutch cheese in Germany, served with German beer of course.

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March 6, 2009

Keukenhof flower garden to buy poo artwork

Filed under: Art,Nature by Orangemaster @ 10:14 am

De Keukenhof in Lisse, the world’s largest flower garden which fills up with tourists in spring, is considering buying a lovely bit of artwork to spruce up the place: a big statue of poo made by famous multidisciplinary artist Wim T. Schippers. The director of the Keukenhof wants to place the 4,5 metre high artwork in the children’s play area, after having seen a picture of children climbing on it. And he wants to try and score the poo before Queen Beatrix opens the Keukenhof on 18 March.

(Link: telegraaf.nl)

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March 4, 2009

Heavy metal is bad for kids and my beauty sleep

Filed under: Music,Religion by Orangemaster @ 10:09 am
heavy-metal

In the growing catergory of the War on fun and religious people publically showcasing their crisis of faith to the media who enjoy running with it, let’s take a stab at a golden oldie target-wise: heavy metal music.

A local religious association from Middelstum (Stichting de Cederborg), some 15 km from Groningen, is protesting against a pop event called Sunsation that’s been around for years. They claim the music pushes kids to suicide and oh yeah, they make noise. “Rap and pop rock have a negative influence on children and heavy metal is really focused on suicide. And we have church on Sunday. It’s important to get a good night’s rest.”

I’m totally down with that last bit (the rest part), but the first bit is top quality bull, and not a good way to win an argument in 2009. The organisers of the event explain that the Cederborg people are trying to draw attention to something the event has nothing to do with. The organisers are also avidly looking for a better location.

(Link: rtvnoord.nl, Photo: treehugger.com )

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March 2, 2009

Panorama Mesdag painting to be digitised

Filed under: Art,Technology by Orangemaster @ 1:18 pm

Panorama Mesdag, the largest cylindrical painting in Europe, located at the Panorama Mesdag museum in The Hague, is going to be digitised. It was painted by Hendrik Willem Mesdag, his wife Sientje Mesdag-van Houten, along with help from G.H. Breitner, T. de Bock and B.J. Blommers. It is apparently one of the world’s finest and largest surviving panoramas. The visitor’s platform is a dune, creating the illusion of being back at the nearby Scheveningen beach in 1880.

The panorama is 120 metres long and about 14 metres high, of which every brush stroke will be photographed. A total of 10,000 details of an exceptionally high resolution will be taken using a specially designed tripod.

The museum believes that this project, which will last for months, will provide countless possibilities for studies and restoration.

(Links: nrc.nl, holland.com, Photo by flickr.com user Aldo, some rights reserved)

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February 28, 2009

Crash victim booted from hospital, opts for pot

Filed under: Aviation,Weird by Orangemaster @ 4:07 pm

Crash

Ron Ledford, an American who survived the plane crash this week at Schiphol airport helped crash victims out of the plane and walked to the nearest hospital. As you may have read, it took the emergency services some 40 minutes to get to the crash for whatever reason.

When the emergency services finally arrived, the man decided to walk to the Lucas Andreas hospital to have himself checked out. He was asked to pay 250 euro for the visit, and since he didn’t have it on him, he claims to have gone to a coffeeshop to ‘self-medicate’.

The hospital is looking into this incident and says it will issue a statement. I should bloodly hope so. Amsterdam’s local TV station AT5 met Ron Ledford at a shop downtown where he was being fitted with a free new outfit, thanks to a shop owner who met him and obviously cared about his story (unlike the hospital). He was then brought for more help to the police.

(Link: at5.nl, Photo by flickr.com user Radio Nederland Wereldomroep, some rights reserved.)

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New designs for Amsterdam’s Vondelpark

Filed under: Design,Nature by Orangemaster @ 3:05 pm

vondelpark-furniture-by-anouk-vogel-and-johan-selbing-4jpg

Landscape architect Anouk Vogel and architect Johan Selbing have won a competition to design new lighting and furniture for the Vondelpark in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Their winning entry, called Vondel Verses, includes designs for a kiosk, a park bench and a lamp post. Each design contains a different organic motif such as birds in the frame of the bench. The furniture is made from cast iron and painted black. The concept will be extended to other items, such as drinking fountains, signposts and litter bins, and will gradually replace existing furniture in the park from 2010 onwards.

(Link: dezeen.com)

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February 27, 2009

Online market place refuses Frisian adverts

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 9:50 pm

logo

While skiing in Austria recently, the nice inn owner ask me if the Netherlands had other official languages than Dutch. I said yes, and promptly grabbed a copy of the Leeuwarder Courant that just happened to be lying around, a Dutch and Frisian newspaper from Leeuwarden, the capital city of the province of Friesland.

And then this happens. Online market place site Marktplaats.nl (owned by Ebay, by the way) has told the media today that it refuses to place adverts in Frisian.

Their excuse? According to a spokeswoman, the employees cannot check the adverts because they do not speak the language. Fine, so find someone who can, I would think. Obviously, if a company wants to pay good money in these tough times to advertise in one of the country’s official languages, you could make an effort. Problem is the sites says yes to Dutch — and English adverts. Ouch.

The chairman of the Fryske Beweging (Frisian Movement) Jabik van der Bij called their refusal to run Frisian adverts ‘foolishness’ and are thinking of taking Marktplaats to court.

(Link: leeuwardercourant.nl)

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