January 23, 2019

First ever Dutch musician to play in Brazil carnival

Filed under: Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 11:22 am
carnaval

At the end of February, Rotterdam resident Steven Brezet will be the first ever Dutch musician to perform at the world famous Brazilian carnival in Salvador da Bahia. Brezet will be performing on the truck of Brazilian artist Denny Denan as a percussionist. Millions of people attend carnival in Brazil every year: it’s the biggest outdoor carnival in the world, and Salvador is said to be the third biggest in Brazil.

Brezet was asked by Denan himself to join the band. “It will be 10 days of hard work and not much sleep. The entire country works towards this period of the year, as carnival is important to everyone. I’m very curious as to how the audience will react to me”, explains Brezet.

Brezet is a known percussionist in Brazil where he often gives workshops and performances, but this is carnival and it’s an honour to be able to be a part of it, says Brezet.

(Link: rijnmond.nl, Photo of Dutch carnival in Maastricht)

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January 21, 2019

Whale in Utrecht made from ocean plastic

Filed under: Animals,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 1:43 pm

The whale shown above was made from old plastic and is called ‘Skyscraper (The Bruges Whale)’, named after the summer art and architecture festival at which it was exhibited last summer in Bruges, Belgium. A professor from Utrecht University liked the whale so much, she was committed to getting it installed in Utrecht, and it was recently unveiled. It can be found in the Catharijnesingel.

The whale was created by StudioKCA of New York City, run by Jason Klimoski and Lesley Chang. The creators explain that is it a baby whale 12 metres high made from five tonnes of plastic, including a 1970s drum kit for some reason. Klimoski said that if anybody thinks this is a lot of plastic, imagine what’s floating around in the ocean. A lot of the whale’s plastic is from Hawaii where there’s a lot of plastic soup to be found. The rest of the plastic was fished out of rivers in New York state.

Why didn’t they use plastic from the North Sea to build an artwork in Bruges? Simply because they work in the US and that made more sense. Had they built the whale in Belgium, then they would have used plastic from the North Sea for sure. Although the plastic was found in the US, much of it comes from the European continent (namely Russia) and China, which gives people an idea how far plastic travels in the ocean.

(Link and photo: vice.com)

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January 18, 2019

Cat stows away on boat, dines on herring

Filed under: Animals by Orangemaster @ 4:00 pm

Earlier this week, Dutch fishing boat ‘Our Anna’ set off from Harlingen, Friesland to Danish waters when they heard a strange sound on board: it was a tortoise shell cat, hiding near the fish rinsing machine. They called her Katrien or Spikey and fed her a herring a day and gave her some water.

The kitty was scared and lost, but she’s fine now. The fishers are convinced she gained some weight on her trip as well.

Tomorrow the boat comes back to port, and with the help of the animal ambulance, they will sort out who the cat’s owner is because the cat cannot stay on board.

(Link and photo (and cute video): ad.nl)

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January 17, 2019

Seventies Dutch Marines recruitment film should sell lingerie

Filed under: General,History by Orangemaster @ 5:51 pm

Spokesman for the Netherlands Ministry of Defence Klaas Meijer tweeted about this groovy, James Bond-esque recruiting film for the Dutch Marines, which for 1972 was possibly seen as quite ordinary. However, on Twitter, it made a lot of people twitch because of the way it portrays women.

Sexism and good looking women in lingerie is as late 1960s-early 1970s as it gets, and this would never ever be made today except as a joke. I like the music, though. I can laugh about it today because it’s generally accepted that you have to see something like this in context: women were still housewives back then in this country.

Instead of getting outraged, let’s all have a good laugh at how ignorant it is, but yet still very funny. All the men in white underwear look completely ridiculous as well.

Photo: www.lc.nl

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January 16, 2019

Dutchman runs all European marathons, sets record

Filed under: Sports by Orangemaster @ 3:12 pm

am2014-lucas-rotich-branko-collin-24o

After next weekend, Jaap van den Berg, 60, (not shown here, see details below), from Soest, Utrecht will set quite an impressive personal record: he will be the first Dutchman to run all European marathons. After next weekend, as he needs to run a marathon in Vatican City. “The marathon in Vatican City will be my 55th country in Europe, and then I will have done all European countries and I’m really proud of that,” Van den Berg said.

He started running in 1983 in Amsterdam and after that, the rest was just more running. “The Netherlands is beautiful, but as a boy, I always wanted to see the world, so that’s why.” Van den Berg trains three to four times a week, with his wife, something they have in common.

After Vatican City, he’s off to Palestine, making it the 80th country in the world he’s visited. It’s not about winning marathons for him, it really is about the travel.

(Link: rtvutrecht.nl, photo by Branko Collin of Kenyans Lucas Rotich and John Mwangangi at the Amsterdam marathon of 2014)

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January 15, 2019

Coaster counts as contract, worth 11,000 euro

Filed under: General,Sports by Orangemaster @ 2:47 pm

A court in Rotterdam has ruled that a signature on a beer coaster is worth 11,000 euro in a case involving a dispute between a top football player and his club.

The man brought the case to court, claiming he was supposed to be paid for his performance, but the club decided to contest this because the signature on the coaster was from someone who was not authorised to make such a deal. A graphologist was hired to established whether or not the signature was authentic, and it was.

Since the signature checked out, the court felt there was no reason to doubt the intention of the club which must pay the player 11,000 euro in back pay.

Read the court’s verdict from december 2018 in Dutch.

(Link: telegraaf.nl, Photo of Football by Bramus, some rights reserved)

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January 14, 2019

Dutchman makes bicycle from recycled plastic

Filed under: Bicycles,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 12:50 pm

Inspired by a two-year stay in Mexico City where designer Thomas Hoogewerf saw plastic strewn about town and lots of car traffic, he decided to design a bicycle, addressing both problems at once and called it the ‘Better to transport’ project.

Most of the prototype is make from plastic, although the chain is made from steel. Hoogewerf explains that the bicycle is still not perfect, and has had help from Precious Plastic, a worldwide network of people who build recycling machines. He has also received help from people in India and the United States to help improve the frame and the front fork.

The idea is to point out, at the very least, the problem of mobility and used plastic in a city of millions.

It’s easy to have a discussion about cities being more bike friendly when you come from the Netherlands or Denmark, but the added value of making a bicycle out of rubbish as it were makes a statement and can be applied elsewhere in the world where there are similar problems.

One good thing about having a bicycle made from plastic is that if something breaks, you can replace it easily enough. And plastic doesn’t rust – great for big cities with a lot of rain. As well, the plastic is free and ripe for the picking.

(Link and photo: vice.com)

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January 11, 2019

KPN axes Dutch Internet provider XS4ALL

Filed under: History,IT by Orangemaster @ 3:09 pm

It’s the end of an era: Owned by KPN, Dutch Internet pioneer XS4LL (a play on words of the pronunciation of ‘access for all’ by Dutch folks (the ‘x’ sounds like ‘ex’ and not ‘ax’ in Dutch, so ‘excess’ for all the non-Dutch) was founded back in 1993 and has very loyal clients. I write this knowing a lot of their clients, including my co-blogger Branko, and a lot of friends who either work or have worked there.

By loyal clients, I also mean they will not stay on with KPN after XS4ALL ceases to exist, but have also launched a petition to keep XS4ALL, which is not something you see everyday for a profit-making company. Chances are, it won’t change anything, but it will give you an idea of how much people care about the company.

And why is that? Well, XS4ALL was Internet-savvy before having Internet was a thing in the Netherlands. Apparently, it’s the third oldest Internet service provider (ISP) in the country, after NLnet and SURFnet. According to Wikipedia, XS4ALL was the second company to offer Internet access to private individuals, which was not a given when the Internet started to be a telecommunications staple. One of its founder is Rop Gonggrijp, a well-known hacktivist in international circles.

In the mid 2000s, XS4ALL was big, and one of the main reasons was because they gave really good service. You were talking to people who were all Internet fans, not just working stiffs with stupid answers. They helped win the battle against spam back when you would get 100 to 200 spam mails a day and fought a lot of other battles as well, winning quite a few.

XS4ALL was bought by KPN (the big Dutch provider) in December 1998, but stayed in its bubble to a certain extent until this year. KPN is now trying to convince its XS4ALL clients that ‘only the name will change’ and there’s nobody buying that, to the point were many loyal clients will change providers out of principle.

If you feel strongly enough about it, you can also sign the petition (in Dutch).

(Link: tweakers.net, Photo of XS4ALL head office by Pachango, some rights reserved)

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January 9, 2019

Dutch ‘Rambo’ tulips at the Golden Globe Awards

Filed under: Film,Nature by Orangemaster @ 2:59 pm

The Dutch flower bulb company Borst from the wee town of Obdam, North Holland are now world famous for having provided the bouquets of tulips for the Golden Globe Awards, with a whopping 10,000 individual tulips having been ordered.

When the company received the order for the tulips from the United States, which doesn’t happen very often, they were kept in the dark about what they were for. Soon after the event aired, they got a message about what they were for and saw their product all over the news.

The fun part is, the Golden Globe opted for a type of tulip called ‘Rambo’, like the movie. “It’s a tulip that is heavy and gives big flowers,” explains Menno Boots from Borst.

(Link and photo: nhnieuws.nl)

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January 8, 2019

Don’t let horses lick your car

Filed under: Animals,Automobiles by Orangemaster @ 11:46 am

Some of you might be rolling their eyes, others like me are surprised: apparently horses like to lick car paint, damaging cars, and one Dutch nature association in Nijmegen, Gelderland is warming people about it with the pictogram above.

I have zero scientific knowledge of why horses like car paint and metallic paint in particular, so I’m going with a Google search for plausible answers:

– They like shiny things
– They really need salt
– Lack of nutrients from the plants in their pasture (I vote for this one)
– Boredom
– They like the taste of metal

In any case, it’s bad for them and bad for your car! And it’s like chips (crisps) for humans: once they taste it, they want more.

The idea is to park your car far away from the horses. Having to explain horse damage to your insurance company is probably difficult as well.

(Link and pictogram: naturetoday.com)

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