September 4, 2009

Game on: Dutch guys keep kicking Fox News’ lies

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 10:26 am

Poor, poor Amsterdam. It’s tough having everyone wanting to clean you up and use you as the symbol of everything bad in the world. As if the US was so clean and well-balanced. Fox News is so ignorant it’s sad. Dear American readers — do something!

“Robbert (26) and Elian (28) live in Amsterdam. They created the TruthAboutAmsterdam website as a response to silly prejudices about Amsterdam. TV host Bill O’Reilly from Fox News (USA) is one of the most hilarious representatives of these false ideas. We aim to show you a more realistic view of Amsterdam.”

(Link: truthaboutamsterdam.com)

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September 3, 2009

Amsterdam bullies critical group into dropping name and logo

Filed under: Architecture,General by Branko Collin @ 10:08 am

A group of Amsterdam citizens critical of the way the city is run has decided to change its name and logo under heavy pressure of the city government, Volkskrant reported last week (Dutch).

The group called Ai! Amsterdam (meaning Ouch! Amsterdam, a play on the official city marketing slogan of the city, I Amsterdam) has publicly criticized the city’s ban on drinking-while-standing, the gradual closing down of the Red Light district, and other less illuminated measures. The city has threatened with costly legal procedures if the group do not give up their name and logo, procedures which the group estimate would cost them tens of thousands of euro.

Ai! Amsterdam points out to De Pers (Dutch) that the city centre’s candidacy for becoming a UNESCO world heritage site (not just the canals, the entire city centre!) threatens the liveliness and openness of the city even further, creating a real risk of Amsterdam becoming just as staid as Bruges, Belgium, which is also a world heritage site. I think the group are underexaggerating things. At least Bruges started out boring. Amsterdam on the other hand has something to lose.

Ironically, the official I Amsterdam manifesto proclaims: “It’s time for Amsterdam to speak out for itself and make its relevance known in a proud, supportive and positive manner.”

(Illustration: the old Ai! Amsterdam logo, source: Ai!)

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September 2, 2009

Past the 1000th posting

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 1:24 pm

Here is a little tidbit you might like to know: a couple of days ago Orangemaster posted the thousandth 24 Oranges posting: Trading in your old bras for new ones.

We almost let this milestone pass unnoticed, mainly because we originally failed to notice it ourselves. This because Orangemaster is fighting both a nasty cold and a web radio server, and because I am currently hired (“kept off the streets,” as we say in Dutch) by a company that demands lots of my attention.

If you only hopped on board recently, here are some of my favourite postings of 2008 and 2007, but do not hesitate to add your own favourites to the comments, as mine is but one voice.

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August 29, 2009

Motorcycle riders and their bikes get older

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 1:40 pm

Statistics Netherlands reported last Tuesday that the average age of motorcycle riders has gone up from 39 to 45 in the last ten years.

In 2000 the group that dominated motorcycle ownership were the thirty-somethings, now it is the 40-49 group that owns the most ‘bikes’. Total ownership of motorcycles has risen by 50% in the noughties, as has the share of vintage motorcycles. Interestingly, the older the rider, the bigger the chance they are driving a vintage motorcycle.

We don’t have any great wide opens here to cross, but people sure love to ride their bikes on the willow-lined roads atop river dikes.

(Via Sargasso. Photo by Jim Crossley, some rights reserved.)

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August 28, 2009

VAT on cleaning to be lowered

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 9:44 am

Next year, the sales tax on cleaning will be lowered, Treasury Minister Kees de Jager announced to parliament yesterday, according to Z24 (Dutch).

Nearly all services have a 19% VAT (Value Added Tax), but cleaning personnel will now join the ranks of hairdressers, painters and bicycle repair people at 6%. The measure is taken in the hope that more people will hire legal cleaning personnel (i.e. cleaning personnel that pay taxes over their income). In 2004, the government started a program that heavily subsidized legal cleaning personnel, so that their services came within the reach of ordinary households. The program (Dutch) was cancelled last year, because it did not have much of an effect.

(Photo of Banksy’s Cleaner by Dan Brady, some rights reserved)

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August 27, 2009

Trading in your old bras for new ones

Filed under: Fashion,General by Orangemaster @ 12:10 pm
bra

If you can trade in your old car or your old computer for a new one, why not your old bras? Thanks to Dutch lingerie brand Triumph, you can get 5 euro back to put towards the purchase of a new bra.

“It’s a tasteless stunt,” says Kledingbank Limburg (‘clothing bank’ for the poor in the southern part of the country), reminding us that underwear is the only thing you throw out and buy new. Underwear OK, but bras?

The more open-minded clothing bank in Haarlem thinks it’s a good idea because a new bra is very expensive and the used ones are sought after.

If you google around, you’ll see that tons of people do it and that it’s pretty common. Or they get creative and stuff them with plants.

(Link: fashionunited.nl, via bright.nl, photo: ecollo.com)

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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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August 25, 2009

Laura Dekker ready to emigrate if she can’t sail

Filed under: Dutch first,General,Sports by Orangemaster @ 12:38 pm

While Britain is anxiously waiting for 17-year-old Mike Perham to sail into Portmouth on 29 August after having sailed around the world, 13-year-old Laura Dekker has had to lawyer up in order to fight for the opportunity to attempt the same feat for the Netherlands.

An English article about Perham ironically starts with “while most teenagers may have been losing sleep over their exam results during the past few days”, while the Dutch courts have called upon Child Services, claiming Dekker’s parents are keeping their child from school because her learning while on the sailboat is ‘nonsense’. If Child Services thinks that the parents are not doing right by Laura, there is talk of removing her from their custody.

To avoid this situation, Laura who has dual citizenship with New Zealand, is ready to emigrate – that’s how much Laura and her parents believe in this sailing journey.

Her lawyer tries to tell the courts about this exceptional teenager. “Laura is not just some girl. She was born on a sailboat and lived the first four years of her life on one at sea. She has all the necessary skills and qualities for this journey.”

He makes another good point as well. If we compare Laura to a 13-year-old gymnast, no one goes and checks to see if the gymnast goes to school or is brought up properly — they get support from an Olympic committee or a sports association.

So, are the Dutch Children’s Services not seeing the big picture or are they seeing it very clearly? Why are boys like Mike Perham and record holder Zac Sunderland of the US praised and encouraged, but Laura discouraged? Is she really too young or is a girl less capable? Stay tuned!

My personal, uneducated take is that the entire family could just skip town to New Zealand for a year. Then New Zealand can claim the world record for solo sailing around the world.

(Links: timesonline.co.uk, depers.nl, Photo of an entirely unrelated boat by the US Navy.)

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August 23, 2009

Unemployed youth to help other unemployed youth find job

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 10:16 am

UWV, the Dutch organisation responsible for unemployment benefits, is going to train 200 unemployed and inexperienced young people to become junior job counsellors, Z24 reports (Dutch).

The first batch of 100 university or polytechnic schooled young people will start training right away, so that they can get started on their new job on October 1. The economic crisis is particularly brutal on this segment of the population who often deal with this by staying in school longer (Dutch) in the hopes of waiting out the crisis. Youths can get a student loan for up to 7 years.

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August 20, 2009

KLIK! animation film festival ready to roll

Filed under: Film,General by Orangemaster @ 10:25 am
wervingsflyer

The KLIK! animation film festival will feature more than 250 films from 32 countries from 17 to 20 September in Amsterdam. This internationally known festival is in its third year and keeps gets bigger. One of the enthusiastic organisers Luuk van Huët talks about KLIK! like a proud father so I had to write something.

“Even though Internet has made it easier to access and view animation from around the globe, not enough offbeat animated fare graces the big screens in our creative capital Amsterdam and the rest of the country. We started the KLIK! Amsterdam Animation Festival to change that.”

KLIK! also 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, attracting 300 visitors at a time, as there is no cinema to be found for hundreds of kilometers.

This year KLIK! has compiled a special program for the Mopti Foundation, to be judged by a jury of local dignitaries, and the winner will receive the KLIK! Mopti Award. KLIK! will also give out awards for the best design in animation and the best political animated film and the awards for the best films in the Open and Student Competition.

And if Luuk were watching over my shoulder, he’d remind me again to finally go and see the ‘South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut Sing-and-Swear-A-Long!’ on Friday 18 September.

(Link: klikamsterdam.nl)

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