September 10, 2010

HEMA chain up for sale

Filed under: Design,Food & Drink,General by Orangemaster @ 10:51 am

Over the years, we’ve written a lot about HEMA, their products, their successes and their cock-ups.

Back in 2009 HEMA celebrated the end of Ramadan, which happens to be today for the Moroccan community and was yesterday for the Turkish commumnity here, my female Turkish baker told me yesterday at lunch with a devious smile.

HEMA opened a store in Paris (see video) last year, which made my Parisian friends happy.

In fact, HEMA is an essential Dutch brand, as seen by these tea towels here above. My co-blogger bought them for me knowing that the colours make you go ‘aaah’ of cuteness.

Even their sausages went national and made it on a stamp. And HEMA thought it cute recently to help children cheat on exams.

So the news of HEMA possibly being bought up by foreigners is more of an emotional shock, considering the Dutch have sold off many companies and even banks as of late.

What I like about HEMA besides it being inexpensive: the bright turquoise, bright green and hot pink colours that pull me into the store, from stationery to bed sheets. I like Chat-en-Oeuf wine because of the label (the wine is OK), the socks (they last) and some of their pots and pans.

HEMA purchases make you feel good somehow and so selling it off will be odd. Maybe they won’t pull any stunts anymore, that would be sad.

(Link: dutchnews.nl)

Tags:

September 7, 2010

KLIK! animation film festival bigger and crazier

Filed under: Film,General by Orangemaster @ 5:42 pm

This year’s edition of Amsterdam’s KLIK! animation film festival will feature more than 235 films from 63 countries from 15 to 20 September. Now in its fourth year, KLIK! has gone international, with satellite editions and festival tours around the globe. This year’s theme focusses on the wonderful and weirdly disturbing realms of science.

Movie freak and organiser Luuk van Huët talked to me again this year about KLIK! like a very proud father whose toddler now walks and says ‘papa’. He told me that they received an insane amount of films (1100!) to choose from this year.

The programme features great stuff for kids, student competitions and of course, smashing after parties.

KLIK! also still has a satellite edition in the city of Mopti in Mali, West Africa, where Dutchman Willem Snapper lives. He started the Mopti Foundation to help the locals build gardens and irrigation systems and also screens films in his own backyward every week, as there is no cinema to be found for hundreds of kilometers.

Beisdes watching the festival grow year after year, Luuk’s dream would be to have this as a job some day. Check out the funny animated e-cards and send them to friends!

(Link and image: klikamsterdam.nl)

Tags: , , ,

September 6, 2010

Holland moped chic

Filed under: General,Photography by Branko Collin @ 8:28 am

In June of this year there were 1,000,000 mopeds on the Dutch roads for the first time, according to NOS.

That is 300,000 up from 2007, and even 600,000 up from 1995. In an article about bicycle manufacturer Batavus, Wikipedia claims that there were more than 2 million mopeds in the Netherlands in 1977, but I could not find anything to back that up.

I wanted to celebrate this millionth moped by creating a sort of “Holland moped chic” set on Flickr, analogous to Copenhagen Cycle Chic and Amsterdamize. Unfortunately, as you can see below, my photography skills were not up to the task and riders came out mostly blurred.

So I did the next best thing, and created a gallery of the best Flickr photos of Dutch men and women riding mopeds.

Dutch road laws make a distinction between bromfietsen (‘buzz bikes’) and snorfietsen (‘purr bikes’). The latter can only legally go 25 km/h, and are considered to be closer to regular bicycles in intent and use. Snorfietsen have also become very popular lately because they can look as good as regular scooter mopeds, yet you do not have to wear a helmet while riding them.

(Top photo by FaceMePLS, some rights reserved. Bottom photo by me, available under a permissive license soon from our Flickr account.)

Tags: , , , ,

August 23, 2010

Breaking: Anne Frank tree in Amsterdam broken

Filed under: General,Nature by Orangemaster @ 2:03 pm

If we can believe these pictures (here and here), the world famous Anne Frank tree has blown over and is broken in two.

In 2007 we wrote about it being possibly saved by a judge and not cut down, but fate has decided otherwise.

The tree has been sick for years. It is famous for having been described in Anne Frank’s Diary.

Tags: ,

August 19, 2010

Sail Amsterdam 2010, tall ship parade

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 10:20 pm

Our first video report. It’s got a few glitches as we are trying to get used to a new medium. Enjoy.

Today Sail Amsterdam 2010 started with the traditional parade of tall ships. Led by the clipper Stad Amsterdam, 30 tall ships and a lot of small boats entered IJ harbour, which is wedged between Java Island and Piet Heinkade.

Sail Amsterdam was first organised in 1975 and has since been held every five years. The festivities will continue for the next three days, and include live music and theatre. On Friday a parade of barely floating home-built boats will be held in the canals of Amsterdam, the so-called Pieremachocheltocht. Most of the tall ships can be visited for free between 10 am and 4 pm.

This year’s event drew criticism from ship owners, who feel they have to pay the organisers too much money. They think it is wrong that so much of the proceeds of an event that is heavily sponsored by the government disappear in the pockets of a nebulous agency, Sail Arrangementen. The latter replied in newspaper De Pers that they do not understand what all the hoopla is about, as the ships’ owners still sell a lot of tickets.

This is Natasha Cloutier for 24oranges.nl.

The performance at the end of the video was by De Zingende Kapitein. Photo below by the Koninklijke Marine (featuring the frigate HMS Tromp).

Tags: , , , ,

August 17, 2010

Netherlands wins world champion Stratego

Filed under: Gaming,General by Orangemaster @ 1:30 pm
stratego11.jpg

Out of four countries represented — the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and England — the Dutch won this year’s Stratego World Championships, held in Maastricht. With six victories and four draws Pim Niemeijer of The Netherlands became the new individual Stratego World Champion. Last year, Steffen Annies of Germany won the Stratego World Champion of 2009, the year before, Pim Niemeijer had won it.

And then we also wrote about a women’s championship, also won by a Dutch woman in Kiev back in 2008.

There are also Computer Stratego World Championships held around the world and there’s also my co-blogger’s time-old classic of placing all five of his bombs around his flag.

Stratego is a Dutch game published by Jumbo that was distributed internationally by Milton Bradley, giving the impression that the Americans came up with it, if you read Wikipedia. Read more about Stratego history with pics galore on Ed’s Stratego Site.

(Links: ad.nl, isfstratego)

Tags: ,

August 11, 2010

Golden Cockroach for dirtiest Rotterdam district

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 11:29 am
Hunger-strike.JPG

Political party Leefbaar Rotterdam plans to start a black book of the dirtiest places in Rotterdam. The scuzzy places will receive the Golden Cockroach award. Naming and shaming is apparently still considered a good way to get people to clean up their trash, but that remains to be seen — literally.

People from Rotterdam can send in pictures of oveflowing rubbish bins, rubbish on the street and whatever else fits the bill. Leefbaar Rotterdam plans to post the pics on its website. Mmm!

I snapped this rubbish bin on Queen’s Day in Amsterdam a few years back. Notice how small the rubbish bins are. Plastic and glass bottles can easily be recycled at the supermarket, but not cans. Cans here are mostly made of steel and a bit of aluminium and are fished out before the rubbish goes to the incinerator.

I can tell you that these bins fill up very quickly with beer and cola cans, especially if there’s a party going on.

(Link: telegraaf.nl)

Tags: ,

August 10, 2010

The battle to outlaw poker rages on

Filed under: Gaming,General by Orangemaster @ 10:57 am

Back in July, an organiser of a Texas Hold’em poker game in The Hague was found not guilty, as his tournament was considered a game of skill rather than a game of chance. This, of course, irritated the Attorney General who wants to outlaw these poker games and is appealing the decision. Since the government has a monopoly on games of chance, it is missing out on this poker money.

In the mean time, while the Dutch have been months without a government (we had elections, but the parties can’t agree who will form the coalition), a café in the town of Glane in Twente is playing poker to its heart’s content. The current (‘demissionary’) Minister of Justice told the café to stop, but the court ruling is still on the café’s side: poker is currently considered a game of skill and not a game of chance.

So, the question still stands: will poker games be outlawed or will the appeal work? First, a new government and then we’ll see.

(Link: depers.nl)

Tags: , , ,

August 6, 2010

Gay pride yes, illustration of men kissing no

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 2:05 pm
TimeOut-gay

A friend over at Time Out magazine said that the Amsterdam Tourism and Congress Bureau (ATCB) was “digging their own gay grave” as they pulled the cover of the magazine sold in their tourist shops (VVV) because it portrays two men kissing. According to Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool, the ATCB had a problem with this illustration.

The ATCB explains that the VVV ‘took out’ the cover as per their monthly agreement with the magazine because it was ‘too edgy’ and ‘not suitable for tourists’. Time Out doesn’t have a problem with the decision because it does not affect them financially or otherwise, but many people including the media see it as a highly questionable, possibly anti-gay decision.

It’s too bad some people think the 1.5 million tourists that come to Amsterdam for things like drugs, prostitutes and the gay scene would all of a sudden have problems with gay men. Let the tourists think for themselves, statistically 10% of them are gay too.

(Link and image: at5.nl)

Tags: , ,

August 4, 2010

Solo sailing girl off to sail around the world

Filed under: General,Sports by Orangemaster @ 10:13 am

It sounds a lot like a soap opera: daddy was all for it, mommy was too, then she changed her mind. Lawyers got involved, child services got involved and stalled last year’s plans, and then the girl ‘threatened’ to emigrate.

Then, the Dutch public had their opinion, which ranged from ‘let the girl do her thing, you only live once’ to ‘what kind of horrible parents lets a teenager sail alone it’s dangerous’, as if the parents couldn’t vouch for their daughter’s talent. I couldn’t resist mentioning that Mike Perham and Zac Sunderland, both boys, were encouraged for their feats and wondering if Laura Dekker was a boy would that have made a difference.

And to ward off future criticism, if and when Laura Dekker does become the youngest person to sail around the world solo, all the Dutch, including the ones with the forked tongues will be all thrilled that she did it after all. If she crashes and burns, I’ll let you go all out in the comments, but for now, let’s see what happens first and comment later.

(Link: dutchnews.nl, photo of an entirely unrelated boat by the US Navy)

Tags: ,