April 9, 2019

Amsterdam cafe changes names to stop threats

Filed under: Food & Drink,History by Orangemaster @ 4:52 pm

Have Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) made it to the Netherlands? I thought we were still good for a while, but I’m calling it: anything with any politically incorrect attachment to the Netherlands’ colonial past is going to have to watch out.

Of course, things need to change for the better and a European country like the Netherlands still grappling with the reality of its colonial past is painfully aware of this, but threatening people is not the way to go. Threats are the new norm, which is scary, as they suppress any possible consensus reaching, something this country was also built on.

The VOC Café (VOC = Dutch East India Company) in downtown Amsterdam located in the Schreierstoren (Schreier tower) is going to change its name purely to stop the barrage of threats the owners keeps receiving. Why now and not ages ago, I can only imagine, although it has a strong SJW flavour to it. The owners are scared and are giving in.

The café has been around since 1995 with ‘VOC’ in the name and nobody said squat. The easy accessibility to social media has to have made a difference in sending threats. The owners have said they have been receiving threats for years now, but it has escalated enough to make them change their name, a costly endeavour.

“Our business is called VOC Café because from here Henry Hudson set sail to Manhattan, where New Amsterdam was founded, later called New York.” By the way, it’s a beautiful cafe, that I can tell you. The owners also completely understand that names of streets, which are being scrutinised, need to change, but believe it take some time. SJW often want everything to happen instantaneously, and their impatience makes them dangerous and volatile.

(Link: parool.nl, Photo of The Schreierstoren by Massimo Catarinella, some rights reserved)

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April 7, 2019

Soldier of Orange set to make the London stage

Filed under: History,Shows by Orangemaster @ 4:54 pm

The Netherlands’ longest running musical, Soldaat van Oranje, known as Soldier of Orange in English, a Dutch musical based on the true story of resistance hero Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema, is going to make it to the London stage in 2020.

A few days ago after the announcement, producer Fred Boot said it’s a dream come true. The production has been adapted ever so slightly, but the goal is to have the London crowd love it the same way the Dutch do. The story is not too Dutch, which is code for an international audience can enjoy it without knowing too much about the Netherlands – it is a universal story. As of 25 February, some 2,8 million people in this country have seen the musical.

In the 1970s, Hazelhoff Roelfzema wrote about his experiences in World War II in a book and Dutch director of Hollywood fame Paul Verhoeven made it into a feature film, starring actor Rutger Hauer.

(Links: nu.nl, rtlboulevard.nl, Photo of Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema by Willem van de Poll, some rights reserved)

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April 4, 2019

Sex robot to give live interview in Utrecht

Filed under: Technology by Orangemaster @ 6:54 pm

For the first time, Dutch sex robot Robin is going to give an interview at the Hashtech talk show in Utrecht at TivoliVredenburg on 8 April.

Part of the discussion is how technology influences love and sex, virtual reality pornography, Tinder, and robot sexuality. Robin will be joined her maker, Niels van der Voort, researcher Elisabeth Timmermans and author Jeanneke Scholtens. The evening will also feature presenters Marcel Bamberg, Thom Egberts and Ruud Schapenk.

According to the group, it will be the first time that Dutch-speaking sex robot Robin will be interviewed in front of a live audience. What started off as a joke eventually became a serious event. The presenters called around and found out that sex robots were being made in the Netherlands, and that one actually spoke Dutch.

Manufacturer Motsudolls hopes to start shipping Robin in the Summer of 2019.

Robin was also the name of a robot in 1980s’ children’s TV-show Bassie & Adriaan, featuring the adventures of clown Bassie and acrobat Adriaan. That Robin had a built-in alarm clock and a radio that could intercept any broadcast between the various villains that populated the series but was probably never invited to talk-shows.

(Link: rtvutrecht.nl; photo by Motsudolls)

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April 3, 2019

Van Gogh’s revolver under the hammer in Paris

Filed under: Art,History by Orangemaster @ 3:32 pm

It has been announced today in Paris that the revolver with which Vincent Van Gogh is believed to have shot himself will be auctioned off on June 19. Auction Art calls it “the most famous weapon in the history of art”, the 7 mm Lefaucheux revolver is expected to fetch upwards of 60,000 euro when it is sold on June 19.

“Discovered by a farmer in 1965 in the same field where the troubled Dutch painter is thought to have fatally wounded himself 75 years before, the gun has already been exhibited at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.”

Experts say that Van Gogh shot himself near the village of Auvers-sur-Oise north of Paris where he spent the last few months of his life in 1890. The revolver belonged to the owner of the inn where he was staying. Van Gogh died 36 hours after he wounded himself in the inn and in the dark.

There are still many discussions about whether he actually shot himself or that maybe a local boy shot him inadvertently.

(Link: phys.org)

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March 30, 2019

Dutch art detective retrieves stolen Picasso after 20 years

Filed under: Art by Branko Collin @ 11:36 pm

A Dutch “art detective” from Amsterdam called Arthur Brand has managed to lay his hands on Buste de Femme (Dora Maar), a painting that had been lost since 1999, The Guardian reported yesterday.

On 14 March 2019, two men “with contacts in the underworld” handed Brand the stolen Picasso in his apartment in the east of Amsterdam. According to Brand, stolen art can often be a hot potato. It is difficult to sell and in the meantime the thief or fence is stuck with a stolen item that, if found in their possession, can lead to awkward questions from the authorities.

Having gotten wind of the Picasso, Brand let it be known that he was interested in the painting, worth an estimated 25 million euro.

Brand, whose motto is “if they start to threaten you, you know you are on the right trail”, recovered a pair of bronze horses by Josef Thorak in 2015. The year after he negotiated the return of five stolen painting held by a Ukranian militia.

A day after receiving the painting, he handed it over to representatives of the insurance company.

Pablo Picasso painted the work in 1938.

(Illustration: Pablo Picasso)

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March 28, 2019

Dutchman wins Belgian seagull scream champs

Filed under: Animals,Weird by Orangemaster @ 1:23 pm

Black-backed

In the Belgian town of Adinkerke, a Flemish village close to the French border, 30 men and women did their best to imitate the scream of a seagull at a European Seagull Screaming Championship. We say men and women because there were two winners, one for the men and one for the women: a Belgian woman from Hasselt won her gold and the gold for the men’s was won by a Dutchman from Limburg.

Last year, 31 people participated in the Belgian Championship, and this year, it was time for a European version. The jury said that the level was ‘quite high’ and that part of the goal was to show appreciation for the seagull. I have friends on social media who cannot get enough of posting stories about seagull ripping food like fries out of people’s hand, but to each their own.

Our Limburger winner explains that he gives sport lessons outdoors and hears seagulls a lot, and was always impressed by the sound they make. He heard about the championship through friends and thought it would be fun to join in. “It was totally worth the 2.5 hour drive”, he added.

(Link: waarmaarraar.nl, Photo of Great black-backed gull by Robert Eliassen, some rights reserved)

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March 27, 2019

Dog tax: free to over a hundred euros in some places

Filed under: Animals,Comics by Orangemaster @ 2:42 pm

I first heard about a dog tax in a French comic book as a child. A family was playing a record on a turntable of the Skater’s Waltz by Frenchman Émile Waldteufel, sung by dogs, according to the drawings, of course. The family had earlier claimed they did not have a dog and at some point, the dog tax collector came back and gave them a fine for having a lot of dogs after hearing the record through the front door.

Like many things in the Netherlands that make little sense, municipalities often charge very different fees for things that shouldn’t be that different from one place to the next. A quick look at Noord-Brabant has Tilburg (107,86 euro) and Breda (104,55 euro) as the most expensive, followed by Veldhoven (84,18 euro), Den Bosch (83,64 euro) and Eindhoven (77,00 euro).

Municipalities that charge over 100 euro include The Hague and a few other places close to it that border the coast, Groningen way up north, Nijmegen next to Germany. Dog owners in 57 per cent of all municipalities still pay dog tax. One reason for a large amount of municipalities not to charge dog tax is that they need to have collectors and that’s expensive and not always very efficient.

Not only is dog tax apparently the oldest type of tax in the Netherlands, it’s also rarely used for cleaning up dog poop.

For anybody who cares about the situation in Noord-Brabant, feel free to sign a petition in order to get rid of dog tax.

Link: omroepbrabant.nl)

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March 26, 2019

Dutch singer Tim Knol finds his doppelganger

Filed under: Music,Weird by Orangemaster @ 1:53 pm

We’ve written about Dutch singer Tim Knol, a down to earth performer who was the victim of a bad radio prank a few years ago and who has now found his doppelganger.

Knol recently found Daniel Skoglund from Sweden virtually, and funny enough, Skoglund is also a singer with a guitar. Knol posted on Twitter that he had found his doppelganger (see pic).

Skoglund performs under the name Songs of Boda and was just as surprised as Knol about the discovery. Both of them made jokes about their parents possibly getting ‘their lines crossed’. As well, both men make the same kind of singer-songwriter music. Yes, I want a duet soon, too!

They are planning to meet in real life and like each other’s music.

Here’s Tom Knol signing in English:

And here’s Songs of Boda, with Daniel Skoglund:

(Link: nhnieuws.nl)

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March 25, 2019

Dutch horror film flop unexpected hit in China

Filed under: Film,Weird by Orangemaster @ 3:54 pm

A horror film by Dick Maas from 2016 called Prey (‘Prooi’) has become an unexpected hit in China recently for reasons that nobody here really knows.

Dick Maas, known for films such as De Lift (‘The Lift’, 1983) and more recently Sint (‘Saint’, 2010), only found out his film was a hit in China because all of a sudden, he got a pile of orders for it from there, for which he only gets a flat fee, but not royalties.

It’s possibly the biggest selling Dutch film of all time in China and at the same time, it’s the biggest flop in Maas’ career. Only 30,000 people out of a Dutch population of 17.5 million saw it. The Lift is probably his most famous film, or at least the one the Dutch mention first when someone talks about Dick Maas. The film is about a lift (elevator) that inexplicably begins to function alone, trapping people and doing nasty things to them.

Here’s the official trailer for Prey in Dutch with English subtitles. Now I want to watch it, too.

(Link: dutchnews.nl, Photo of Dick Maas by Rob C. Croes / Anefo – Nationaal Archief, some rights reserved)

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March 23, 2019

Van Gogh in American museum finally authenticated

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 11:43 am

Dutch experts from Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum have finally declared that the painting ‘Vase with Poppies’ (‘Vaas met klaprozen’) is a real Vincent van Gogh. The painting, which currently hangs in the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut, USA, was painted by the Dutch artist in 1886, just after he moved to Paris.

The painting has been part of the American museum’s collection since 1957, and when a prominent expert in 1990 starting questioning its authenticity, the museum put it in storage. Nowadays, using a Macro-X-ray Fluorescence (MA-XRF) scanner to analyse the painting like they did with Vermeer’s ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ last year, the underpainting revealed what looked like a self-portrait, which strengthened its authenticity.

The Wadsworth Atheneum now officially has two Van Goghs in its collection. The other is a self-portrait painted in 1887.

Why does it take so long to authenticate a painting? Well, MA-XRF scanners cost in the hundreds of thousands of euro, which means few museums own them – they usually have to borrow one. Besides getting your hands on such a scanner, the time it takes to scan and proper analyse the findings means the painting is out of view for a while and that your staff is busy doing that instead of other things.

(Links and image: gelderlander.nl, apnews.com)

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