February 8, 2008

Netherlands strongest European economy

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 2:04 pm

According to z24 (Dutch), the Netherlands is in second place on the so-called Misery Index, right after Japan. The index adds unemployment rate to inflation rate, and a high position (low value) indicates a healthy economy.

  1. Japan: 4,5
  2. Netherlands: 4,9
  3. Norway: 5,3
  4. Denmark: 5,5
  5. Switzerland: 5,6
  6. South Korea: 6,8
  7. Great-Britain: 7,3
  8. Australia: 7,5
  9. Austria: 7,9
  10. Luxemburg: 8,2

You could probably come up with all sorts of reservations against such an index. For starters, unemployment rates are notoriously unreliable, as they tend to be closer related to propaganda than to statistics. But even a Netherlands that is merely highish in the index might be still be doing well because of it. Z24 writer Mathijs Bouman points out that consumer confidence in the Netherlands took a dive the past half year from 15% to -2%. The factors that have a healing influence on lowered consumer confidence? Low unemployment and inflation rates.

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February 7, 2008

Beatles guru and transcendental meditation founder dies

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 2:30 pm

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of transcendental meditation, died at his estate in Vlodrop, Limburg, last Tuesday at the age of 91. He was popularly known as the man who introduced the Beatles to transcendental meditation.

The Beatles stayed at his Himalayan “ashram” in Rishikesh during early 1968, where they wrote about 23 to 48 songs, according to Telegraphindia. Seventeen of these songs were included on the Beatles’ White Album. Songs they wrote included While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.

Maharishi had made his home in the former episcopal College St. Ludwig

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February 4, 2008

Alaaf! Carnival in Maastricht

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 11:20 am
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While more than half of the Netherlands does not celebrate carnaval, the South of the country, namely the provinces of Brabant and Limburg, take a good three days to do so every year. This year’s carnaval in Maastricht was blessed with good weather and people came from many parts of the world to take pictures.

Alaaf! is a carnaval cry from the Cologne (Germany) dialect meaning ‘elf’ (‘eleven’). According to tradition, 11 is the number of fools, probably because it is one less than 12, which is the number of perfection. Cologne’s carnaval usually has bigger crowds and the people in the parade throw tons of sweets onto the crowd. I also noticed that Cologne had more marching bands and much less DJs than in Maastricht.

One of my client’s from Maastricht asked me if I planned to celebrate carnaval this year. I said that I planned to go to Maastricht and take pictures. She asked if Carnaval was celebreated in Québec, Canada where I am from. I explained to her that the Québec Winter Carnaval lasts three weeks and is the biggest outdoor winter carnaval in the world. So I guess that’s a yes. And it’s usually really cold!

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February 2, 2008

First smoke-free coffeeshop in the Netherlands

Filed under: Dutch first,General by Orangemaster @ 12:13 pm
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As of 1 February, Boerenjongens, an Amsterdam coffeeshop (a place to smoke marijuana and haschisch in the Netherlands) decided to ban smoking inside its establishment. Owner Martijn van Bennekom says that all his employees were for a ban on smoking. “It’s much nicer to work in a smoke-free environment than to work in smoke the whole day”. While some patrons have no problems with the idea, others think it’s weird. “You can’t drink alcohol in a coffeeshop and now you can’t smoke. All you can do is drink coffee now.” So people come to buy drugs and leave because you can’t smoke in front of the coffeeshop either. The owner says he hopes that selling fancy juices, coffee and the smoking ban will attract people who wouldn’t normally go to a coffeeshop. One patron said, “when you go to the supermarket you just buy your food, you don’t eat it there.” That’s one way to look at it.

(Link: Zoomin)

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January 30, 2008

18th edition of Puch moped tour

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 4:37 pm

Last Sunday the 18th edition was held of Kâhwe Klâhwe (The Hague dialect, lit. cold claws), the gasoline and pea soup fueled Puch tour through Scheveningen and The Hague. Haags Allerlei’s Gera Nieland was there to take photos. You can enjoy them all at Flickr.

Puch was a legendary moped brand and very popular in the Netherlands. This popularity could not prevent the closing down of the two-wheeler production line though. The company still produces four-wheelers.

(Via De Telegravin. Photo by Gera Nieland.)

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January 25, 2008

New francophone event portal in the Netherlands

Filed under: Art,Design,Film,Food & Drink,General,Music by Orangemaster @ 10:28 am

Francomondo is a new, English-language and occasionally Dutch-language weblog about anything francophone happening in the Netherlands. Their world is made up of francophones from around the world living in the Netherlands and Dutch people interested in francophone culture and la francophonie. It is for anyone who wants to know more about French-language events.

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The folks at 24oranges worked on this site and so that’s why we’re proudly plugging it (not shamelessly!).

UPDATE: We pulled the plug a while back, it was just too much work.

(Link: Francomondo)

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January 22, 2008

Using husband’s name costly affair

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 12:13 pm

Researchers at the University of Tilburg (Dutch) have discovered that married women who use their husband’s family name are generally seen as more dependent, less ambitious and less intelligent. Subjects were told that they were introduced to Peter and Helga Bosboom at a party (Helga using her husband’s name), and when asked rated Helga as caring, dependent, less intelligent and emotional. Using a hyphenated last name has the same effect.

The researchers estimated that using the “wrong” last name could even cost a woman EUR 361,708 during her life time. In an experiment in which subjects were asked to take the place of a human resources manager, women that used their husband’s name were generally rated for jobs that paid EUR 861.21 less than those for women that retained their maiden names.

According to Dutch law, both men and women keep their own family name when marrying, but both the wedded and divorced are allowed to use their own name and that of their (ex)partner in any combination in public.

(Via Jong Nieuws.)

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January 19, 2008

High Dutch infant mortality rate has causes

Filed under: General,Science by Orangemaster @ 12:15 pm
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Two Dutch gynaecologists have published a report which shows that more babies die at night and on the weekend in Dutch hospitals compared with weekdays. At night, the mortality rate is nearly 25% higher, and 7% higher on the weekend.

The gynaecologists say it is due to the absence of gynaecologists. At night and on the weekend, deliveries are performed by assistants who are less likely to request the assistance of a fully qualified gynaecologist if there is not one around. This situation reportedly leads to the deaths of 35 to 40 babies a year.

The two gynaecologists write that the Dutch obstetric system is under pressure. Recently published EU figures show that infant mortality in the Netherlands is above the European average. The report’s authors also wonder whether the traditional Dutch emphasis on home deliveries is still acceptable.

Well, if you know you’re going to give birth at night on on a weekend, maybe you’d better do it at home after all, which is still where many Dutch women give birth. According to women I once met working for Access NL, an organisation that supports expats and the likes, one of the major cultural shocks between other Western cultures and the Dutch for many women is how pregnancies are monitored.

(Link: radionetherlands.nl)

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January 18, 2008

24 Oranges on Twitter

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 1:41 am

We’ve been there for a while, but we invite you again to follow us on Twitter. Click on “follow us on Twitter’ under the “Static” menu on the right-hand side.

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January 13, 2008

Most visitors still to Efteling; loses number 1 brand spot to Ikea

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 6:51 pm

Illustration: Houses at Efteling in Anton Pieck style, photo by Danny Haak. Some rights reserved. 

Amusement park Efteling is still the most visited attraction in the Netherlands according to RTL (Dutch). The zoos at the number two and three spots of 2006 changed places last year; Blijdorp came in second, and Burgers third. Burgers feels the swap can be explained by the extra attention Blijdorp got after gorilla Bokito escaped there.

Efteling suffered a blow in another ranking though: that of strongest brand of the Netherlands. Where it led two years ago, now it has to let foreign companies Ikea (1st) and Google (2nd) ahead. The amusement park based in Noord-Brabant comes in fourth, according to the ad agency Consult Brand Strategy (Dutch, PDF), after Cliniclowns (care clowns).

In 1952 Efteling opened its doors to the public. The park was designed by Anton Pieck, whose pictures of small winding streets with crooked, cosy houses found a welcome echo in the park’s architecture and landscaping. Originally little more than a tea house in green surroundings, the park soon added its fairy tale forest with life size depictions of well known fairy tales (trick question: name three of the seven dwarfs from Snow White), and from the 1970s onwards it acquired all the usual amusement park traits such as dark rides, fast rides, a hotel and a golf course.

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