May 22, 2007
In De Loostraat in the Eindhoven city district of Tongelre a new road sign has been placed that warns against crossing cats. A 10-year-old girl lost three cats from cars driving too fast and managed to get the attention of the city council to place two signs on her street.
(Link: Omroep Brabant)
May 21, 2007
Although Iceman Wim Hof has decided to stop climbing Mount Everest, the rest of his crew continued to climb yesterday and today. Hof achieved a new world record of 7,400 metres dressed only in shorts. Expedition leader Werner de Jong together with climber Robert has arrived at Camp 2 at 7,750 metres, where the death zone begins. Robert, the third Dutch climber of the team has arrived at Camp 3 at 8,350 metres and is resting in order to try and reach the top.
Read the entire story, the good and the bad from De Pers.
Tags: climbing, Mount Everest, Wim Hof
May 18, 2007
In the windmill-clad village of Schiedam, South Holland, the police have been recently handing out chocolate bars to adolescents at the end of their party evenings. Apparently, some British research has proven that chocolate has a soothing effect and calms the kids down so they don’t vandalise things. The police have been trying this out for four weeks now and only hand out goodies on weekends. They have not yet published their findings, but we’re all dying to find out, right?
(Link: RTL)
Tags: chocolate, Schiedam, violence, Zuid Holland
May 17, 2007
Belgium is fining Dutch nationals who live in Belgium, registered to vote in the municipal elections last October, yet who failed to vote. Voting is compulsory for all Belgian residents who are registered to vote, even foreign nationals. The fine starts at 500 euro a person.
Rene van Ham, who lives in the Belgian-Dutch border town of Hoogstraten where 10% of the population is Dutch, said he did not realize this. A neighborhood policeman came to his door recently with a summons.
EU nationals living in Belgium are automatically eligible to vote in local elections. Non-EU nationals who have lived in Belgium for five years are also eligible to vote as of last year, but they need to sign an agreement promising to respect Belgian law. The courts in the border area confirmed that quite a few Dutch nationals failed to show up at the municipal elections.
(Link: People’s Daily)
May 16, 2007
Yesterday Schiphol Airport began using new body-scanning machines at security checkpoints, becoming the first major airport to use the technology to find metals and explosives hidden under clothing.The “security scan” system, which uses harmless radio waves to display head-to-toe images of people, is also being used by other airports on a trial basis, but Schiphol is the only one to deploy the technology for regular use at its checkpoints. It takes three seconds to go through the scanner.
Schiphol is one of the world’s most modern airports, with flat-panel screens (as long as the info is somewhere), airport-wide Web access (totally overpriced BTW) and iris scanners already on offer to those who want to bypass passport lines (it’s the baggage check lines that are nasty).
(Link: News.com)
May 15, 2007
The Amsterdam Literary Festival (ALF) is an annual event, held each May, which aims to put the charming Dutch capital on the world literary map – especially in the lead-up to 2008 when Amsterdam is UNESCO World Book Capital. This year’s edition will run from 15-20 May 2007.
Past guests at ALF have included the BBC’s Kate Adie OBE, award-winning novelist Sarah Waters and one of the UK’s most exciting writers, David Mitchell.
This year’s programme features performances, poetry, lectures and rummages through books at local book markets. And there’s the closing event: World Cuisine Buffet on an old steamship!
(Link: ALF)
May 12, 2007
In Haarlem and other parts of the Randstad (conurbation including the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht), kids celebrate Luilak, the night before Pinksteren (Pentecost). Traditionally, kids go out in the streets to pull pranks by ringing doorbells, smearing candle wax on windows or as of late, engaging in more serious forms of vandalism. The trend of the past few years is smearing houses and cars with butter, egg yolks and flour. To try and avoid incidents this year, the police will fine or impose community service to any kids caught with butter, eggs or flour on Luilak night.
Tip for Haarlem residents with or without parking permits: make sure to move your car away from downtown and make sure your car is not parked in the makeshift tow zones that magically appear the day before without any warning whatsover besides a temporary sign posted at the makeshift tow zones themselves. The fines are hefty.
(Link: Telegraaf)
May 10, 2007
May 10 was the 75th birthday of “The William” (het Wilhelmus in Dutch) as the Dutch national anthem. Queen Wilhelmina ordained on May 10, 1932 that from that day on, the more popular song should replace the slightly xenophobic “Wien Neerlands Bloed” (“If Dutch blood flows through your veins / Free from foreign stains”), which had served as the first national anthem since 1815. Ironically, the latter song was expressly created to counter The William, which was considered a pro-protestant song, and therefore offensive to Roman Catholics.
That Queen Wilhelmina would pick a song with almost the same name as hers is no coincidence; she is a direct descendant of the William in the song. The William is the oldest national anthem in existence, as it was written in the 16th century. The lyrics of the Japanese national anthem are much older, but as a song it has ‘only’ existed since the 19th century.
Wikipedia has a very good article about The William.
(Via Geen Commentaar (Dutch). Photo by Quistnix, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 1.0.)
May 9, 2007
The winner of the boob job contest held by the Rotterdam Baja Beach Club can’t have the procedure done yet, as she is not old enough. The 20-year-old woman has to wait until she turns 21 this November, as the clinic doing the surgery believes it isn’t “responsible” yet. In November after Ms Visser turns 21, she can have the boob job done. Happy Birthday.
(Link: Fok.nl)
May 8, 2007
Space Expo in Noordwijk, South Holland is looking for one boy and one girl between the ages of 15 and 18 who want to represent the Netherlands during the International Space Camp 2007 (ISC 2007) in Huntsville, Alabama from 21 July through 27 July. Together with about 150 kids from around the world, they will discover everything there is to know about space travel: simulators, ground stations, spatial disorientation, gravity and all that jazz. Candidates have to be able to speak some English. This experience is brought to you by the NIVR, Delft University of Technology and Space Expo. Selection will take place on 17 May (Ascension) as of 10:30 at Space Expo in Noordwijk.
(Link: Blik op nieuws)
