December 28, 2008

Holiday stress and some story telling relief

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 12:48 pm

First, a very simple yet stressful film of how a cute little shopping street (Haarlemmerdijk) in Amsterdam can turn into a holiday nightmare for trucks, cars (big Volvo station wagons), bikes and pedestrians. Hook yourself up to a stress machine, and I am sure you will score higher that usual. And remember that everybody always does their last food Christmas shopping at the last minute, which this film captures.

Second, to avoid all that stress and having been invited to an exclusive birthday party, I ran off to Munich where 24orange’s third lesser known blogger lives, beautifully situated across from the Olympic stadium of 1972. The morning has so far been spent fixing a washing machine because a small, plastic “sombrero” broke off.

The German machine, which was bought in the Netherlands and moved to Germany, broke down in Germany. The part could not be ordered in Germany (!) and was ordered in the Netherlands. The part was picked up in the Netherlands, on holiday from Germany. Hopefully, it can be fixed today.

UPDATEThe washing machine was fixed the next day.

washing machine

Tomorow get ready for Branko’s annual picks of fav 24o postings. Prosit!

(Link: amsterdamcentraal.nl)

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December 24, 2008

Dreaming of a proper Dutch Christmas

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 3:55 pm

This protest video/Christmas song by Ampzing “Koude Kalkoen en rode wijn” (“Cold turkey and red wine” – nice pun!), a ‘cover’ of “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas” is by no means brilliant, but the message definitely hits the mark with the Dutch: enough with all those English Christmas songs already! This could explain why many of my friends sneer at me when I say I’m looking forward to Christmas and the Christmas music. The songs at my place are mostly in French, often translations of the English versions as well as traditional French Canadian fiddle music, so no Wham or Mariah Carey. The Dutch radio is basically only cranking out English hits though, as I step into the shops to buy something. It doesn’t work for me at all.

I feel sorry for anyone who really digs the Christmas spirit, but is annoyed by the Americanised, Anglo-Saxon version of it. Remember one thing though: your fellow countrymen are the ones doing this to you and that’s the really scary part.

(Link: taalpost.nl)

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December 23, 2008

Amstelveen volleyball club breaks world record

Filed under: Dutch first,Sports by Orangemaster @ 10:59 am
volleyball

The players of the SVU Volleyball Club in Amstelveen, a student club part of the VU University Amsterdam, broke the world record for volleyball by playing 60 hours in a row. They broke the old record of 55 hours and 3 minutes, landing them a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. The last bit was apparently very tough. “It was barely volleyball. They could barely move anymore,” a spokesperson for the team said. The team started on Saturday 20 December at 8 am with 24 players. Two people had to leave the field: one player was exhausted, while the other one had a knee injury. The players could not be replaced.

(Link: rtl.nl)

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December 22, 2008

Dutch band makes sultry French video

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 9:35 am

Amsterdam’s rhythm & tunes band The Spinshots have just released a new video called “Désirs Mutuels”, a French version of their ballad “Mutual Desires”. I proudly attended the video release party not only to talk to some very cool musicians, but because they had asked me to translate and adapt the French lyrics, a labour of love that took me just three days. Oh and here’s a nice picture of the show they did to launch the video at the recently renovated Winston Kingdom in Amsterdam.

I also got to meet the woman who shot the video. She told me it was all done in one take and took a mere 1.5 hours to shoot. When budget is an issue, creativity is a must. That’s why I like this video. I also heard it was shot in a secret location. I can imagine that someone warning any authority about guys in turbans with equipment could be scary. Hats’ off to the Dutch singer who has a knack for languages and really does the French justice.

And the will to do something in French is part of an odd trend floating around the city whose main Dutch figure, good friend DJ Guuzbourg and his girl-ridden French compilations has something to do with. May this trend continue on in 2009.

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December 18, 2008

The best Dutch word of 2008 is penis swinging

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 9:08 am

We at 24 oranges always want to know what the youth is up to, and the winner of the best Dutch word for 2008 comes straight out of youth culture to teach us a new verb: swaffelen, conveniently spelled and pronounced the same in English and said to be an English word with Dutch and German roots.

The urban legend origin of the word comes from some boy, who during a school trip to India, “swaffeled” against the Taj Mahal, which is more than just bad etiquette. Basically, he swung his penis so that it touched the holy building and the film of this incident is rumoured to be floating around the Internet. Somehow I don’t need visual confirmation.

The second place winner was “wiien”, a verb about playing the Wii, while third place went to “bankendomino”, (“bank domino”), which refers to banks falling like dominoes as of late.

(Link: depers.nl)

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December 17, 2008

‘Vegetarian’ star eats chicken

Filed under: Animals,Design,General by Orangemaster @ 8:14 am
Jan Vayne Unox

While I’m looking forward to a special get together this week with a bunch of local musicians where I was asked to bring a vegetarian dish (a refreshing change), some self-proclaimed vegetarians apparently ‘omit details’ about their chosen eating patterns when it suits them. Jan Vayne, a celebrity who plugs Unox smoked sausage on television but who does not eat it, was not only nominated as one of the sexiest vegetarians of the Netherlands, but he does eat chicken every once in a while, as apparently shown on television. As far as I can read, he is not a vegetarian. He also claims not to take the ‘election’ seriously, which is obviously a good thing. I voted for columnist Leon Verdonschot; the difference is plain to see. The activists at Wakker Dier were ready to let the smoked sausage thing slip, but eating chicken and saying ‘mmm, delicious’ on television has got their forums buzzing.

And don’t get me started on the all-year-round vegetarians except at Christmas when they shove all that turkey, chicken and pâté down their gizzards gullets, claiming their loved ones didn’t want to cook separate dishes just for them and what not – you’re lying too. And there’s always fish if you want to bring your guilt down a notch or two.

(Link: vleesmagazine.nl)

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December 12, 2008

Adoption case with DVD for adoptive parents

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am
Adoption kit

In the Gelderse Vallei hospital in Ede, Gelderland, babies that get put up for adoption also come with an adoption case complete with a DVD of the first few days, toys and a diary written by the attending nurse. Of the 20 to 40 adopted babies every year in the Netherlands, five of them are born at the Gelderse Vallei hospital. Since the first few days are so important, as adoptive children rarely have any photos or information about that time in their lives, the hospital thought a nice case full of memories and practical things, such as a blanket and some clothes, was a good idea. On television, there was also talk of the biological mother leaving a note and whether nurses had time to write something in the diary for the future parents.

(Link and photo: deweekkrant.nl, via Editie NL)

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December 8, 2008

Peep shows are cultural events claims tax office

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 12:11 pm

Peep shows where men and couples pay by the minute to sit and watch women (no men or couples?) perform sex acts behind a glass are taxed with the lower VAT rate (Value Added Tax) of 6% instead of the higher rate of 19%, being considered ‘cultural’.

The original case was brought by a sex club owner who argued the shows were similar to theatre because they were attended by paying customers. If you follow the link below, you can see two men getting ready to go at instead of women behind a glass. Casa Rosso is also the place to be in the red light district if you’re going to see something like this apparently. I just happened to like this picture of the Moulin Rouge – not the French version.

Going off on a tangent: a female acquaintance of mine back in Montreal, Canada, working on a university paper about prostitution was thrown out of a peep show place because she was female. Any woman entering the place was a possible prostitute and so even though it is against the law to refuse entry to women, they did so. I wonder if it’s still like that today.

(Link: nrc.nl, Photo of Red Light District in The Hague)

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December 7, 2008

Lost Amsterdam Bed-In photos found

Filed under: Dutch first,History,Music,Photography by Orangemaster @ 1:03 pm
Bed-in, Hilton, Amsterdam

The daughter of photojournalist Nico Koster found a series of unique pictures in some box with old baby pictures of the world-famous ‘Bed-In’ that John Lennon and Yoko Ono held in March 1969 at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam. Koster, who works for the Dutch paper De Telegraaf, had lost the precious negatives of an exclusive photoshoot he had in Room 902 (some sources say 702) of the Hilton Hotel.

And when you’re Canadian like me you know more about the Montreal Bed-In, which took place in May 1969 because of the song that was spontaneously recorded there, Give Peace a Chance.

(Link and photo: parool.nl)

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December 6, 2008

Delayed construction killing unique bookstore’s business

Filed under: General,Literature by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am

There’s a lot of ways to kill walk-by business and one of them is having heavy duty construction right in front of your shop for as long as The Bookstore Exchange has had—13 months and counting. This second hand, English-language bookstore (photo), apparently the largest on the European continent with over 80,000 books, located near the Faculty of Sociology of the Universiteit van Amsterdam has been around since 1978 and is going bankrupt due to this construction.

Run by Jeff, a perfectly integrated American—a real ‘Amsterdammer’—who has been living in the capital for 30 years, said in November already to different media that he was as good as bankrupt. The construction blocks the view of his shop window and so passers-by don’t just pop in anymore, never mind the sand from the construction outside that gets into books, the noise and what have you. In a city with 1.5 million tourists a year, being invisible is deadly. The City of Amsterdam has no intention of compensating the mess they are still making for something that was scheduled to be finished by end of 2007.

Sources tell us that Jeff has neither the time nor money nor energy to fight against the bureaucrats and we get that. The closing of his shop is not just his loss, but a loss for anyone who enjoys hard to find English-language books. Apparently, the source of pride from being able to say that the continent’s biggest second-hand English-language bookshop is in Amsterdam and the labour of love built by Jeff himself means nothing to bureaucrats who can’t even finished projects on time or within budgets anymore. We won’t get into the hugely delayed North-South metro line, which literally put people out of their sinking homes and ruining other businesses.

Christmas is around the corner and so I invite you to check out The Book Exchange in Amsterdam (click on the link for directions). It’s short walk from Central Station. We plan to do so as well.

More info: bookexchange.nl. Thanks to my friend Nathalie for pointing this out!

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