Last week the police apprehended three people for theft and one for buying stolen goods. The three were stealing TVs from a truck they had cut open which was parked near the A58 highway when they initially got caught by a passer-by. The three offered the man a flatscreen TV for his silence, which he accepted. But when he was loading the ill-gotten fruit into his car’s boot, a police car pulled into the parking area. The officers noticed something suspicious going on and arrested all four.
December 25, 2007
Passer-by gets offered plasma TV for staying quiet, gets arrested
Tags: crime, Darwin awards, highway, parking, tvs
December 17, 2007
Botox voucher in employees’ Christmas package
Apparently one or two employees of the Spaarne Ziekenhuis were surprised to find botox vouchers in their annual Christmas package. The flexible voucher allows them to get their teeth whitened, enjoy hair removal or just go for the botox.
A spokesperson for the hospital said only one or two of the 2,200 employees compained about the voucher. The rest of the vouchers are for restaurants and amusement parks. The spokesperson does not understand what the fuss is all about. “It’s like vegetarians getting pâté or some people getting perfume in their package.”
A note for both the Dutch and foreigners: First, many other countries that celebrate Christmas don’t do the whole Christmas package thing – it’s typically Dutch. They usually get a bonus (or not), organise a Christmas party or exchange gifts among employees having picked names from a hat, also called ‘Secret Santa’.
(Link: Trouw)
December 16, 2007
Elderly woman helps catch thief
Last Thursday, a 94-year woman from Nijmegen basically caught a thief by grabbing his wallet. At noon, the man came to her door pretending to be from the post office. She didn’t believe him, he showed her his wallet with his ID in it. She grabbed the wallet, slammed the door and called the police. The thief eventually went to the police station himself to report his missing wallet and got caught for trying to scam an old lady.
(Link: blik op nieuws)
December 12, 2007
Pyromaniac tries to use Bob the Builder sock for arson
Photo: Bob the Builder
Have you seen this man?
A tiny village in Groningen called ‘t Zand has been plagued by a pyromaniac since August this year. Recently, the police revealed that the arsonist had used a Bob the Builder sock during a failed attempt: they believe the sock was placed in such a way that it should lead the fire to other inflammable material. The fire petered out before it could reach that otherwise unspecified material, according to daily Dagblad van het Noorden (Dutch). The police know that the sock was made in 1993, and sold in the Netherlands, but they would like you to contact them if you have any further information about the alleged sock.
Tags: arson, Bob the Builder, Groningen, pyromanics, socks, toys
Dutch diplomat ‘returns’ 7-year-old adopted girl
Hong Kong authorities are searching for a new home for a 7-year-old South Korean girl after the Dutch couple who adopted her just months after she was born changed their minds, officials said Tuesday. The Dutch diplomat and his wife adopted the girl seven years ago when they were living in Seoul, South Korea, but struggled to integrate her into their lives.
The diplomat handed the girl over to welfare authorities in Hong Kong last May, saying she was having trouble adapting to their culture, including their food, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to comment on the matter.
(Place jokes about Dutch food and cooking here, although I doubt it’s standard fare in Hong Kong.)
“It’s bizarre. I don’t think it has anything to do with cultural shock,” said Law Chi-kwong, an associate professor at the University of Hong Kong’s Social Work department. “The child grew up with them. They adopted her when she was a baby; they are responsible for shaping the child’s mind and culture. How can you say the child cannot adapt to the culture in which she was raised? This is just ridiculous.”
The girl speaks Chinese and English but not Korean.
(She doesn’t speak Dutch either? The plot thickens.)
The South China Morning Post, in a report Sunday, quoted the unnamed Dutch diplomat as saying that the adoption had gone wrong.
(What? Like a bad wine or something?)
I’m sure there is more to this story, but I assume that the real reasons are even less flattering that the ‘diplomatic’ ones given.)
A Dutch friend of mine adopted a Chinese girl after three years of poking and prodding and he looks very happy to me. I wonder what he would think of this.
(Link: China Post)
Tags: adoption, diplomat, Hong Kong, South Korea
December 10, 2007
Posing naked for the church calendar
Let’s help save our church and raise money posing naked! Sounds just like the plotline for Calendar Girls. And it is. Thirty women posed naked to raise money for the restoration of their church in the coastal village of Wijk aan Zee, North Holland. The youngest participant is 40 and the oldest is 78.
The bricks of the 500-year old church are slowly eroding due to sand, sea and wind because the bricks are of poor quality. The naughty calendar shoud raise some money to pay for the restauration. However, the church 25,000 euro. The women were photographed in and around the church, naked and with angel wings. And it’s all Photoshop-free.
The calendars will be sold during the Christmas market for 12,50 euro a pop. Only 250 were printed. If my math is correct, this means a mere 3,125 euro if they sell out. I gave up on dividing 30 by 12.
Tags: Christmas market, naked calendar, North Holland, Wijk aan Zee
Dutch tax office makes three million euro mistake
An eldery man filled in 3,419,635 euro by mistake instead of 3,419 as his mortgage deduction in 2001. The Dutch tax office didn’t notice the mistake and approved the millions. Once the mistake was finally noticed, they tried to ask for their cash back. The man fought and won.
The Dutch Supreme Court said that the tax office should have noticed the mistake and so the man does not have to give back the money. The Supreme Court leaves it up to politicians to decide whether the tax office should always be held responsible for their mistakes.
Remember: if you screw up on your tax form, the tax office will not point it out to you. This time, tax payers’ money is being given to a 72-year-old man for having made a mistake himself. Life is so fair.
And then a brave bureaucrat said that the loss will probably be taken care of by letting the man not pay taxes instead of giving him cash back.
(Link: rtl.nl)
Tags: belastingdienst, courts, taxes
December 6, 2007
Of course it’s not a Christmas tree
The controversial statue ‘Santa Claus’ by American artist Paul McCarthy (someone feel free to clean up the Wikipedia article) will most probably be placed on the Binnenwegplein in Rotterdam, near the Boijmans Van Beuningen museum.
The meter-high statue got people talking about it two years ago because the Santa Claus (Father Christmas) has a big Christmas tree that looks like a sex toy, commonly known as a buttplug. The city bought the statue for almost EUR 300,000 in 2001, but couldn’t find a suitable place for it.
Funny enough, in 2003 the Tate Modern in Britain had no qualms about Paul McCarthy’s work, neither did the city of Antwerp, but Dutch politicians did. Even the huge 24-meter Santa Claus installed outdoors in a park in Antwerp was entitled “Santa Claus with a Buttplug”.
I thought you weren’t supposed to buy things if you didn’t know what to do with them, especially with tax payers’ money.
(Link: De Pers)
Tags: buttplug, Christmas tree, Rotterdam, Santa Claus
November 29, 2007
Hague tower still singing
After reporting about it back in July, Het Strijkijzer tower in The Hague is still whistling loudly and irritating the neighbourhood. The building corporation said it would be fixed when they finished the roof in September, but it sounds like they’re dead wrong.
I’m sorry, but however is responsible for this must be deaf and dumb.
(Link: zoomin.tv)
Tags: Strijkijzer, The Hague, whistling
November 17, 2007
Belgian Robin Hood ‘robs’ Dutch chain store
Belgian Norbert Verswijver went to the Dutch chain store Blokker in Merksem near Antwerpen with a bag full of discount vouchers. He was smart enough to notice that the vouchers did not have the usual “cannot be combined with other promotions” disclaimer. Basically, Blokker made a huge mistake.
“For example, I buy a television set with a 20% off voucher. For the remaining amount, I use another one until the price is EUR 0.” The man even checked his assumptions beforehand with authorities in the matter and brought along a bailiff.
He scored EUR 48,511 in televisions, CD burners and what have you, and paid a mere EUR 0,60. The woman who owned the stored tried to block the sale, and called the CEO to tell him what was going on. Later, Mr Verswijver called the CEO to tell him his side of the story. ”I totally understand this woman at the shop. I hope that they will deliver the goods because if they don’t, I will take them to court and probably win.
Mr Verswijver is planning other such moves and calls himself a modern-day Robin Hood because he shares his booty with others.
(Link: fok.nl, Photo: Blokker in Enschede, The Netherlands)
Tags: Blokker, Robin Hood, vouchers