November 17, 2009

Antique show lands most expensive item ever

Filed under: Art,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 3:58 pm
Dragonfly1

The Dutch version of British television series Antique Roadshow called Tussen Kunst & Kitsch (‘Between Art & Kitsch’) has landed the most expensive item ever in its 25 year history. The ‘spectacular discovery’ is a brooch by Frenchman René Lalique, which has apparently never been seen publicly (seen here is Dragonfly by René Lalique, as he was also a glass maker) and is said to be worth EUR 100,000. The owner, a woman, has already sold it. The show will air on Wednesday 18 November.

The brooch ended up in her family by way of Saint Petersburg, Russia, as her grandfather fled during the revolution and brought it with him to the Netherlands.

(Link: mediacourant.nl, Photo of Dragonfly by Chris73, some rights reserved.)

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October 31, 2009

United Nude shoes open store in Amsterdam

Filed under: Architecture,Dutch first,Fashion by Branko Collin @ 11:24 am

United Nude, the design agency run by shoe designer Galahad JD Clark and architect Rem Koolhaas has expanded its on-line shoe store with an off-line version on the Spuistraat in Amsterdam. No, that is not the Rem Koolhaas, it is Rem D. Koolhaas, his cousin.

Koolhaas told De Pers it took six years to open a bricks and mortar store because only now is the collection big enough. Also, the crisis made the rent right.

(Via: Bright. Photo: United Nude.)

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October 15, 2009

The Dutch doctor is in via Twitter

Filed under: Dutch first,Health by Orangemaster @ 11:00 am
consult

Family doctors Erik Jansen and Bart Brandenburg from Nijmegen have taken their pratice online and become the Netherlands’ first Twitter doctors. By following @tweetspreekuur you can ask questions about your health. They provide as much advice as they can, and will tell you to consult your own doctor or to call an emergency number if they think something is really wrong.

Of course, you can also get some privacy by getting a login at tweet.webspreekuur.nl (type it in your search engine).

And I’m very happy the working stethoscope I bought for EUR 0,20 on Queen’s Day from a nurse this year was put to good use.

(Link: componence)

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October 11, 2009

Boijmans museum lanches ArtTube

Filed under: Art,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 12:13 pm

Rotterdam’s Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum has just launched an online art channel called ArtTube, making them the first Dutch museum to do so. ArtTube features current and historic films about art and design. Next year, a part of the museum’s collection will be on ArtTube as well.

The films are subtitled in English. I picked one at random about pottery maker Royal Tichelaar Makkum (Koninklijke Tichelaar Makkum).



(Link: noordhollandsdagblad)

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September 13, 2009

Dutch nab world record for group air guitar

Filed under: Dutch first,Music by Orangemaster @ 2:19 pm

(Michael ‘Destroyer’ Heffels in action at the Air Guitar World Championships 2005)

Yesterday at Appelpop, a free two-day festival in Tiel, Gelderland, the world record Air Guitar was broken by the 2005 World Champion, Dutchman Michael ‘Destroyer’ Heffels and an audience of 51,000 people.

By holding an air guitar session and breaking the world record, youth organisation Music Mayday, which help young people in countries like South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia develop their talent, drew attention to the fact that talented African youth can’t even afford a guitar.

Disclaimer: I occasionally do work for Music Mayday and my co-blogger is related to one its fine employees.

(Link: depers.nl)

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September 12, 2009

First national footgolf championship held in Nijmegen

Filed under: Dutch first,Sports by Branko Collin @ 8:30 am

Argyle socks and knee-length shorts, those are apparently part of the dresscode for footgolf, a sport invented by advertising agency Nothing.

Last weekend professional football player Theo Janssen won the first national footgolf championship at the Rijk van Nijmegen golf course, beating his fellow FC Twente attacking midfielder Kenneth Perez. Other participants included PSV striker Danny Koevermans, local boy Roy “the phantom” Makaay and Pierre “Pi-Air” van Hooijdonk.

A wary press, realising the joke might be on them (the jury is still out) covered the event, including public broadcaster NOS:

The sport is just like golf, with the exception that you play a football instead of a golf ball, and you use your feet to play it.

Apropos ‘Nothing,’ the company’s website explains that the name describes the space where ideas come from, but I cannot help but notice that it also neatly covers the emperor’s wardrobe.

(Photo: Roy Makaay teeing off, source NFGB.)

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September 11, 2009

HEMA ready for end-of-Ramadan feast

Filed under: Dutch first by Branko Collin @ 8:33 am

This is an ad aimed at people celebrating Eid ul-Fitr (known in Dutch as Suikerfeest), a feast that marks the end of the Ramadan (the Muslim fast), which appeared this week in the brochure of HEMA, a large and popular Dutch chain store.

I have never seen this type of advertising before, where a Dutch mainstream brand specifically addresses 5% of the population who are part of an Islamic culture, but what do I know? The commenters at Wij Blijven Hier, where I found this story (Dutch), seem to confirm my guess that this is a new thing though.

A couple of years ago, new media organisation Mediamatic.net tried to merge the HEMA with the Islamic design aesthetic in a project called El HEMA. The real HEMA first frowned at this clear misuse of their brand, but they soon turned around, even offering to take place in the jury of the related design contest. A commenter at Mediamatic’s site makes clear the importance of HEMA in defining and contrasting what we perceive of Dutch culture:

You enter a space where you cannot read a single letter, and yet you think: what do you know, I am at the HEMA. And even though you cannot read the price tags, you are sure the products cannot be expensive. After all, you are at the HEMA.

Related: HEMA essential brand, followed by 8 o’clock news.

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September 7, 2009

World record for watching telly now a Dutch record

Filed under: Dutch first,General by Orangemaster @ 11:46 am

Last weekend, the world record for watching television was broken by Efraim van Oeverenzondag, a 28-year-old student from Tilburg. He watched a whopping 86 hours of television in the building of media archive Beeld en Geluid in Hilversum and he only got 45 minutes of sleep. Since April of this year, the world record for watching television was held at 80 hours by a man from New Delhi.

(Link: destentor.nl)

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September 1, 2009

Student makes wind turbines quieter

Filed under: Design,Dutch first,Science by Orangemaster @ 12:51 pm
windturbines

Stefan Oerlemans, a student from the University of Twente, discovered a way to reduce the ‘noise source distribution’ of modern wind turbines. For those of you who may not know, people living near these wind turbines have to deal with the loud ‘swishing’ sound they make. Yes, there are downsides to green energy.

Oerlemans figured out that the sound level could be reduced by half by fitting jagged edges, or teeth on the blades of the turbines. Now all I need is some black, red, yellow and orange to paint some flames and make them look cool as well.

(Link: depers.nl)

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August 26, 2009

Dutch tap water will be chlorinated

Filed under: Dutch first,Food & Drink,General,Nature,Science by Orangemaster @ 11:38 am
glass of water

I once had a Dutch roommate back in Québec in the 1990s who asked me why our tap water looked so afwul. I explained that it’s slightly cloudy because it’s full of chlorine, but tastes fine. Many people pour water into a jug fitted with a carbon filter and keep it in the fridge. Problem solved.

“Isn’t there chlorine in the water in the Netherlands?” “Oh, no” she said, “we have very clean water”. For years I thought the Dutch were water geniuses and that Quebeckers were water dummies.

It turns out Dutch water has a dirty little secret: it’s chock full of the bacteria that causes legionnaire’s disease. Professor Annelies van Bronswijk, Professor of Health Technology at Eindhoven University of Technology estimates that 800 people die of legionnaires’ disease every year, more than the dozens quoted in official statistics. “Since severe pneumonia is what most people with legionnaires’ disease die from, you can put two and two together and get a proper estimate of the problem.”

These days, Western countries chlorinate with monochloramine, a compound of chlorine, which doesn’t leave a taste.

(Link: rnw.nl, photo: ipeg.eu)

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