April 26, 2012

Lottery stops giving away bikes, man stops dumping bikes

Filed under: Bicycles,Weird by Orangemaster @ 12:06 pm

A year ago, a town won 2,000 bicycles from a national lottery that picks its winners based on their postal codes.

Bike shops were not happy, as they claimed they lost business. This year, the national lottery stopped giving away bikes for that exact reason: they kill local cycle shop business.

The lottery used to award 1,000 bikes to winners who lived in the same postcode area. But several cycle shop owners said this was wiping out their business – particularly if the prize fell in a small village.

In other weird bicycle-related news, a ‘mentally disturbed’ man from Friesland was caught dumping 60 stolen bikes in a canal. Onlookers fished out a dozen bikes out of the water, and the local police helped fish out the rest. The man is apparently getting professional help for his problem.

(Links: opmerkelijk.nieuws.nl, www.dutchnews.nl)

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April 25, 2012

Trashing Ukraine for profit leading up to Euro 2012

Filed under: Sports by Orangemaster @ 12:00 pm

Insiders will tell you that Dutch energy firm Nederlandse Energie Maatschappij has been accused of bad advertising before and even of questionable business practices, and don’t have a good reputation. This time, they’ve really outdone themselves: they’ve trashed a country, subjected another to gender stereotypes and told everyone not to go to the Euro 2012 in Ukraine (yes, partially being held in Poland).

The website with porno posing ‘shopped Ukrainian women is actually online as part of this media strategy and basically says ‘keep him [your guy] at home’. You keep him at home, away from the mail order porno brides by switching energy firms and receiving a home beer tap that’s all pimped up in Dutch team colours. Ukrainian women are sluts, Dutch women need to worry about not being so chunky and keeping their stupid football crazed men at home using beer.

I’m a ref and I am holding up a red card right now.

Imagine if the makers had picked on Polish women, considering the recent wave of Poland bashing some Dutch politicians have inflicted on the rest of us. Picking on Ukraine was probably the only culturally sensitive thing this company did.

UPDATE: Adversing blog Adformatie quotes the makers of the advert as ‘reflecting pure reality’ because Ukraine gladly profiles itself as having beautiful women. I never thought fake pictures looked anything like reality.

(Link: www.dutchnews.nl, Photo of Ukranian woman by my3colors, some rights reserved)

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April 24, 2012

Dutch to cast monster bell for London Olympics

Filed under: General,Sports by Orangemaster @ 6:52 am

A huge 23 tonne bell, to be the largest in Europe, will be cast by Eijsbouts in Asten, North Brabant for the Olympic Games in London this summer. The British media is miffed because the contract was supposed to be handled by the British company Whitechapel, but they subcontracted it to Eijsbouts yesterday. The reason given was “the bell was sent overseas because it [Whitechapel] lacked the facilities to cast it here.” To me this reads as ‘we couldn’t do the job, but we wanted to score the contract’ and sounds weird because another British company, Taylor’s, claims it could have done the job in the UK. And part of the London 2012 specifications was insisting that the bell is cast in this country.

So why did the Dutch get the order? Enter complaints about losing work in Britain and about foreigners making the Brits look bad. Then again, the organisers are the same brilliant people who wanted to have The Who’s deceased drummer Keith Moon play at the opening ceremonies. He died way back in 1978. I can only deduce that subcontracting was cheaper, cheap enough to ignore specifications.

We know the bell could have been made in the UK by Taylor’s, the largest bell foundry in the world, but Eijsbouts is making it, a company that also claims to be the largest bell foundry in the world.

(Links: nos.nl, www.mirror.co.uk, www.loughboroughecho.net)

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April 23, 2012

Popular youths drinking soda inspire peers

Filed under: General,Health by Branko Collin @ 12:56 pm

It seems that when young people see their popular friends drink soda instead of alcohol, they are likely to follow suit.

Hanneke Teunissen of the Radboud University in Nijmegen found that “adolescents were more influenced by popular than unpopular peers. Interestingly, the anti-alcohol norms of popular peers seemed most influential in that adolescents were less willing to drink when they were confronted with the anti-alcohol norms of popular peers. Additionally, the adolescents internalized these anti-alcohol norms, which means that they were still less willing to drink when the anti-alcohol norms of these peers were no longer presented to them.”

Earlier studies had already shown the reverse, namely that seeing friends drink alcohol inspires adolescents to also drink alcohol.

Teunissen’s findings will be published in the July issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

(Link: Eureka Alert. Photo by Jos Faber, some rights reserved.)

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April 22, 2012

Zone 5300, issue 97 (spring 2012)

Filed under: Comics by Branko Collin @ 11:52 am

Zone 5300 is an indie comics magazine that also contains reviews, columns and interviews. It is one of my favourite magazines, which is why I write about it a lot.

Issue #97 contains comics by Charlotte Dumortier, Jasper Rietman, Tobias Schalken, Joseph Lambert and Didi de Paris & Serge Baekens, and interviews with Peter van Dongen, Zak, Leonard van Munster and Judith Vanistendael.

Zak is a Belgian cartoonist who has been plying his trade for almost 40 years (he started out as a bookkeeper). He is published in newspapers in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Says Zone: “I am not a political cartoonist, Zak […] states emphatically. Even though he publishes his cartoons daily. He only draws the sediment of politics, the small consequences of perhaps not even very important decisions.”

(Illustration: “This patient who has been in a coma for fifteen years would like to pay in guilders.”)

Tobias Schalken uses ‘boring’ postcard-like images to illustrate a monologue about hormone filled early teens: “After dinner dad drives me to Pim’s birthday, so I do not have to bike all the way in the dark. Pim’s party is in the garage, his father has parked the car in the street today.”

There are no depictions of humans in those nine pages, it’s all blank walls, close-ups of brooms and lamp posts, which is a bit eerie, but it also enhances the sense of reminiscing.

Jasper Rietman’s “Tri/ps” are three-panel strips in which the last panel is always a surprise. I think the format works well, although there is some repetition between panels.

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April 21, 2012

Electric moped that emits advertisements instead of engine sounds

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 4:11 pm

A delivery moped for Domino’s Pizza is cruising the streets of Amsterdam with its traditional engine sound replaced by a man’s voice that goes “Mmmmm… Lekker, lekker … D-d-d-d-d-omino’s” (“Hmmmm … Yummy, yummy … D-d-d-d-d-omino’s”).

The ad campaign was conceived by Indie Amsterdam. I am not sure if actual delivery mopeds have been equipped with this sound, or if the video is plenty guerilla marketing by itself.

Although the idea is quite brilliant, I could do with less permeable advertising in my life. The plague of reverse graffiti is bad enough.

(Link: The Pop-Up City. Video: Amsterdam Ad Blog.)

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April 20, 2012

14-year-old signs record deal with Universal

Filed under: Dutch first,Music by Orangemaster @ 8:47 am

Known in the music world as Erik Arbores (aka Erik van den Boom — nice pun, boom means ‘tree’), the 14-year-old boy has just signed a deal with Universal, making him the youngest composer they currently have.

He makes pop-oriented house music (a happier, slower sounding Armin van Buuren who supports him and was surely an influence) and can play a piano properly. He’s quit school for the time being and plans to concentrate on his music career and get back to school in 4-5 years. He graduated from high school at 13 (!) and was already studying physics at the Delft University of Technology, so he really does have the time.

He comes across as happy yet serious, and seems to deal with all the attention he gets pretty well.

Listen to his first hit, Bliss from the EP Take it, out last fall.

(Links: www.rnw.nl, www.whompingstereo.com)

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April 19, 2012

KPN discriminated with its ‘Dutch only’ discount

Filed under: Weird by Orangemaster @ 2:42 pm

KPN telecom recently had a ‘50% off for 100% Dutch’ advertising campaign that got some French people living in The Netherlands properly pissed off. The French popped into a KPN store to apply for the discount and were turned away for not being Dutch, which is discriminatory and illegal on a European scale.

And, like many Dutch companies and individuals do when they mess up, they call it a ‘misunderstanding’. KPN claims that the software for its ‘Hi’ mobile phone plan had been unfortunately programmed to accept only Dutch passport numbers for ID purposes and not resident permit numbers, which is commonplace. It is sad how the sales rep thought it was normal to turn someone of another nationality down for a discount. Actually it’s scary.

I have no reason to ever do business with KPN and I think they’ve just given me another reason to make sure that’s permanent.

(Links: www.rtl.nl, ftalphaville.ft.com, Tip: Matt (thanks!) )

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April 18, 2012

Donald Duck a big hit in the Frisian language

Filed under: Comics,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 1:50 pm

Created in 1952, the Donald Duck weekly magazine has just been translated into Frisian, the language today’s kids would associate with speed skater Sven Kramer and supermodel Doutzen Kroes. After just three days, Donald Duck is almost sold out, with only 10,000 copies left of the original 40,000, enough to supply one tenth of the Frisian-speaking population. Donald is still speaking Dutch here, but he is doing something typically Frisian: fierljeppen (far-leaping). Frisian, as well as English, German and Dutch, are part of the same language group of West Germanic languages.

As of 27 April, they’ll print more magazines to meet the rising demand, which I would imagine also makes it a collector’s item. Just this year, we had the First ever national advert entirely in Frisian and if cutie pies like Sven and Doutzen speak Frisian, it’s bound to be increasingly trendy.

(Link: www.dehuisaanhuis.nl)

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April 17, 2012

The Yugoslavian chapter of the Yuri Gargarin fan club

Filed under: Film,History by Orangemaster @ 9:53 pm

Last year, we told you about the booklet ’50 years of human space flight’ written in English by Steve Korver, with photos by film director René Nuijens who had gone to Russia to gather information on Russia’s Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. This year marks the 51st anniversary of his famous feat, and the guys put together this film about a man from Belgrade who dreamt of becoming a cosmonaut ever since he was a boy.

And if you like your space fix more modern, you have to see Dutch astronaut André Kuipers’ Flickr photostream. He’s up there right now taking pics almost every day.

(Link: www.amsterdamadblog.com)

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