May 13, 2007
Might as well use the same picture as when two guys climbed up a hoist vehicle.
Yesterday, a 35-year-old homeless man in Tilburg freaked people out by climbing up a high voltage tower, up to 25 metres. According to the article, the man was confused (what does that mean, no one knows). Two police negotiators and a family member talked him down after a three hour sit up there. He got some crisis help after that. Understandable.
(Link: Omroep Brabant)
Tags: Darwin awards, electricity, homeless, Tilburg
May 2, 2007
Last Tuesday night, two men climbed into a hoist vehicle and stripped. The neighbours got annoyed and called the police and fire brigade, who couldn’t get them down because the hoist vehicle’s controls didn’t work. The rescue services were called, a ladder was extended and the two men were brought down safely. The men were extremely ungrateful and aggressive towards the rescuers, who calmed them down with a faceful of pepper spray. Then one man jumped into the canal and the firemen got him out with a boat. Both were arrested for being drunk, stoned and disorderly.
(Link)
April 28, 2007
Women in the former USSR used to get a medal for cranking out lots of kids and women in Québec, Canada would finally be left alone by the priest after about 10 for fulfilling their Catholic duty. But in the neighbourhood of Slotervaart in the west of Amsterdam, one woman’s 10 kids have been wreaking havoc for 9 years and counting. The children enjoy breaking and entering, stealing, arson and defecating in entrance halls of other people’s flats. It’s so bad that three families have already moved away. About 10 different help organisations work with the family, but it’s not helping, even though the house was renovated, the mother was taught how to clean her house and make sandwiches for her children.
Mayor Job Cohen was even asked to intervene, but he can’t do much. He says that even if the family were to be moved, the problems would just move as well. The owner of the block of flats has run out of patience and wants the children to be placed in foster homes.
(Link)
Tags: Amsterdam, neighbourhood, parenting, terrorism
April 26, 2007
Dutch bidding site Marktplaats.nl just removed an advert selling Ronald Koeman, the coach of Dutch football team PSV. A fan put him up for sale or trade against a better trainer. People who responded quickly could get assistant trainers Jan Wouters and Tonny Bruins Slot thrown in for free. Two years ago, Ruud Gullit, former trainer of the Dutch football team Feyenoord, was placed on sale on eBay because of his poor performance.
(Link)
Tags: Eindhoven, Marktplaats, PSV, trading
April 25, 2007
The biggest pop music TV show in the Netherlands during the 1970s and the early 1980s was TopPop. This was the time when artists still had to show up in shows all over the world to have their faces remembered. Then video clips came along, and a competing channel brought Adam Curry back to the country to ride their wave. His show Countdown was the end of TopPop.
TopPop had several things going for it, not in the least its host Ad Visser, a slightly goofy looking guy who was into tantric sex and writing space operas. Artists would lip-sync against psychedelic backdrops, and if they were unable to come on the program, the show ballet of Penny de Jager would dance to a pop song. There was something oddly discomfitting about the show that was at the same time its biggest asset.
Clips of the show can of course be found on Youtube, but a few weeks ago an official archive was launched, which publishes themed compilations of performances. Think Blondie, Duran Duran, Randy Crawford, The Jacksons, The Carpenters, Grace Jones, Nina Hagen, and TopPop’s ballet dancing to the theme of Star Wars.
Tags: Ad Visser, Blondie, MTV, Penny de Jager, pop, TopPop, TV, video
April 9, 2007
![[Cover of Zone 5300, issue 14-1]](https://www.24oranges.nl/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/zone_5300-14_1-cover.jpg)
The spring issue of Zone 5300 (tagline: Comics, Culture and Curiosa) is out. Apart from the usual suspects (Mr. Mack, Maaike’s Diary, Troglodytes, Olga, Boerke, Cowboy John) there are:
– Carrièremoves (Career Moves) by Robert van Raffe, showing that the meta-comic isn’t dead, no matter how hard we club it over the head
![[panel from Armand and Ilva]](https://www.24oranges.nl/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/zone_5300-14_1-the_tjong_khing.png)
– An interview with Thé Tjong Khing (right), perhaps best known for his children’s books illustrations, but also for his recently republished Arman & Ilva sci-fi comic (written by Lo Hartog van Banda)
– An admission by Fool’s Gold editor Frits Jonker that he has taken part of his variety show to the Web in his new Showcase blog
– An interview with Utrecht-based collage artist Raymond Teitsma (left)
– And also comics by Wasco, Vladan Nikolic & Aleksandar Pavkovic, and Brooklyn-based Israeli artist Koren Shadmi. This month no Plageman (Beachman), I’m afraid. I should have nagged more.
Tags: collage, Fool's Gold, Lo Hartog van Banda, Thé Tjong Khing, Zone 5300
Last Saturday, the police in Nijmegen received various reports that men were jumping off the Waalbrug (Waal bridge, here opposite) and immediately rushed to the scene. They found two men in their underwear who were about to jump off the bridge, while down below, two other men were climbing out of the Waal River. Attempted suicide? Not even close. Apparently the men had met some women in a cafe who refused to date them unless they jumped off the bridge.
(Link: blikopnieuws)
Tags: Darwin awards, Nijmegen
April 6, 2007
Apparently, The Netherlands is top dog when it comes to distributing animal pornography, as it is one of the few countries left where this type of pornography is not forbidden. Filming animal pornography mostly takes place in Central Europe and Brazil, as the legislation there is also non-existent.
“The top two companies are located in The Netherlands,” according to the Director of Topscore in Doetinchem, one of the two companies in question. The other one is Cybermedia in Nieuwegein. “Of the 10 new films we release every month, the three animal films sell the best”. Many foreigners come specially to Amsterdam to buy animal porn and most animal porn websites are hosted here. The Minister of Justice Hirsch Ballin is considering banning animal porn in The Netherlands.
Why is this news? There was a recent Dutch article about a man raping another person’s pony 45 times (!) who could not be prosecuted because there’s no law against having sex with animals. They were thinking of getting him from breaking and entering.
(Link)
Tags: Animals, bestiality, porn, records
March 4, 2007
On March 2, a man from Helmond, Noord-Brabant was arrested after crawling through a reverse vending machine at a supermarkt.
The man stole a few crates of empty bottles from the back store and put them back through the machine in order to try and collect the 95 euro deposit money.
According to the personnel, this was not the first time the man has tried to pull this off.
(Link)
Tags: empty bottles, Helmond, Noord-Brabant
March 2, 2007
On February 16, a teenager from Hengelo, The Netherlands, entered the race for the window that Lee Harvey Oswald reportedly shot US president John F. Kennedy from, bidding approximately 3 million US$ seconds before the auction ended. The window had been put up for auction at eBay by Caruth Byrd, son of the man who used to own the Texas School Book Depository building. Apparently the eBay system cannot check the qualifications of late bidders, and their bids are accepted without question.
The teen did not have the money. Hani Durzy, a spokesman for eBay, spoke of illegality and fraud, the teen’s father, who managed to cancel the bid after all, wondered how eBay could let get things this far. I just wonder how much the grassy knoll would fetch.
