December 5, 2011

Bollards transformed into road-side stools by Jihyun David

Filed under: Art by Branko Collin @ 9:25 am

The streets of Amsterdam are lined with steel bollards called Amsterdammertjes, Little Amsterdammers. They are there to deter people from parking on the sidewalk, and the city is thinking of taking them out. We have got other ways to deter people from parking, they say, and they mean they have ways of ticketing people using electronics so that parking becomes something the affluent can use to force the less well-off from the pavement.

The designers of Jihyun David thought of another use of the bollards, and have covered several (for the time being) with bicycle seats, and a metal ring that makes it easier to rest your feet. You can find them at the bridge between Keizersgracht and Leliegracht.

(Link: Popup City. Photo: Jihyun David)

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Paralysed bicycle racer gets in accident, regains use of her legs

Filed under: Sports by Branko Collin @ 12:27 am

Monique van der Vorst (27) from Gouda was offered a contract with the Rabobank women’s bicycle racing team two weeks ago. The news was remarkable because in 1998 Van der Vorst had lost the use of her legs at the age of 13.

She became a hand cyclist and won two silvers medals at the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing. Her athletic career seemed to be over in 2010 when she was hit during practice by another cyclist. But after three months in the hospital something happened, Velonation reports in a long interview:

One night, I was lying there frustrated because I could only move one hand. It was the middle of the night and I started to make a fist to train that hand; then suddenly I felt tingling in my feet. I could not imagine it was happening – it was crazy! We did all kinds of testing but there was no function yet.

Three months later I started to recover, my upper body started to work better. I trained really, really hard. And then suddenly I could move my leg a little bit to the side, and from then on I trained with everything I could get more function.

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December 3, 2011

Old Man with Beard recognised as true Rembrandt

Filed under: Art by Branko Collin @ 2:17 pm

Researchers have added another painting to Rembrandt van Rijn’s portfolio. Ernst van de Wetering, head of the Rembrandt Research Group, said so yesterday at the Rembrandt House in Amsterdam where the painting is on loan.

The clincher appears to have been a portrait of the master that was found hiding underneath Old Man with Beard, a painting from 1630.

The Guardian writes:

The self-portrait’s style confirms that the Old Man, an oil on panel, was painted by Rembrandt around 1630, shortly before his move to Amsterdam, where he made his name as [a] painter of portraits with uncompromising realism. To some extent, the two images follow the same dimensions and there is considerable overlap.

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December 2, 2011

Shopping mall in Heerlen on the verge of collapse

Filed under: Architecture,General by Orangemaster @ 3:09 pm

As if the troubled old mining town of Heerlen didn’t have enough problems, just before Sinterklaas, the biggest shopping time of the year in the Netherlands, shopping mall ‘t Loon (residential tower shown here) has been closed off, as it could collapse at any moment.

There is a parking garage under the mall, which has been propped up with big steel beams since October. A part of the garage was closed off for security reasons and the people living in the 12-story tower above were told that the cement pillars in the garage had cracks in them.

That’s the only information residents got until just a few days ago when the authorities announced that the mall was unsafe. A dozen shops have had to close and cars have been removed from the parking on the roof, while residents have been offered alternative accommodations in a motel.

Today, the shopping mall is empty and ‘potdicht’ (totally closed off). It could be months before they reopen, if it the entire thing doesn’t collapse before then, which actually could happen.

Experts and specialists are working on it, as it wasn’t just some construction error. Something underground is accelerating the sinking, but nobody knows what yet. And it all got worse overnight. As I write this, the city of Heerlen is holding a press conference and twittering about the situation.

(Link: limburger.nl, Photo of ‘t Loon shopping mall, Heerlen by unicron1bot, some rights reserved)

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December 1, 2011

The Polish bring billions to the Dutch economy

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 12:30 pm

Social Affairs Minister Henk Kamp, known for his unfounded and dare I say xenophobic arguments against Eastern Europeans, is apparently totally wrong about the burden he believes the Polish are to the Dutch economy. Kamp’s usual argument for not being a fan of the Poles, or Romanians and Bulgarians (stlightly different situation because of work permit regulations still in effect) is that unemployed Dutch people should be doing the work they do, which has more to do about his perception of the unemployed in the Netherlands.

According to financial daily Het Financieele Dagblad, the 150,000 working Polish are good for € 1,8 bln towards the Dutch economy and pay taxes to the tune of € 1,2 bln. The research also showed that these workers barely push any Dutch workers out of their jobs. In fact, Kamp reinforces their point by saying that the Dutch unemployed refuse to do this low-wage, difficult work, so of course companies will turn to people who are willing to work.

In a country that likes to see price tags of everything, I suggest Kamp stops with his tired xenophobia and does something about the exploitation of Poles and others in these low-wage jobs. The unemployed aren’t stupid: why should they run the risk of being exploited themselves when they can just get money to stay home?

It seems to me that hard working Eastern Europeans have put a mirror up to Dutch society and the Minister didn’t like what he saw in it.

(Link: www.welingelichtekringen.nl, Photo of graffiti in Amsterdam that best translates as ‘F*** the police’ in Polish (with a small typo, i = j), aka HWDP.)

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November 30, 2011

Marketers make stunt out of scrapping word from dictionary

Filed under: Food & Drink,Literature,Weird by Orangemaster @ 12:58 pm

I love the smell of a good marketing stunt in the morning: jarred food company Hak is campaigning to get a word out of Dutch dictionary Van Dale. The word is ‘potdicht’ (literally ‘jar tight’, meaning tightly closed and implying cannot be opened) and since the claim that their new jars are no longer ‘potdicht’ and easy to open, they feel the word should be scrapped from the dictionary. It is totally absurd to scrap anything that does not exist anymore on a whim, and so a lovely marketing stunt it is.

Besides offering jarred Dutch food products, their claim to fame with the non Dutch is that their jars are see-through. You can see what you’re buying and they do look nice on the shelves.

(Link: www.waarmaarraar.nl)

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November 29, 2011

Jos Verstappen’s temper allegedly flares up again

Filed under: Automobiles by Orangemaster @ 11:46 am

He was the darling of the F1 racing world here in the 1990s because he was Dutch and talented. He was also the best weapon I had to get my Dutch friends to glue themselves in front of the TV on a Sunday while I was watching Jacques Villeneuve pull his own variety of stunts.

The rumours had started back then as well, about Jos Verstappen’s temper. He was accused of harassing and assaulting his Belgian wife at the time, ex-kart driver Sophie Kumpen. In the end, the judge only chose to punish him for sending threatening text messages and violating an existing restraining order. Last time I checked, a restraining order does look a lot like a red flag. There was something about slashing the tyres of her car as well.

A 24-year-old woman from Roermond, Limburg has recently filed a report with the police of a 39-year-old man from nearby Maaseik who attacked her at a hotel after a party. Since the police wouldn’t say who it was, the press is assuming it is Jos Verstappen, although the racing driver told the press everything is fine with him and his girlfriend.

There’s also an incident when Verstappen and his father ‘assaulted’ a photographer (a man) who ended up with a fractured skull at a karting event. They both got five-year suspended sentences after reaching an out-of court settlement.

(Links: www.limburger.nl, www.duemotori.com) Photo of Jos Verstappen by Mike Philippens, some rights reserved)

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November 28, 2011

Matthijs Bouman predicts a painful recession

Filed under: General by Branko Collin @ 10:20 am

The first dip of the current economic crisis was barely felt in the Netherlands. Predictions by the Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) on how bad it was going to be have proved to be way off base. Instead of the predicted unemployment rate of 9%, unemployment stayed at 4%. Purchasing power even rose 1.8% in 2009.

Reporter Matthijs Bouman (RTL-Z, Z24) predicts at Z24 that the factors that made the first dip so mild are exactly what will make the second dip painful. During the first dip companies still had some money, and managed to keep personnel on the payroll, he quotes CPB. Human resources managers still remembered how difficult it was during the boom to get skilled labour, and did not want to let go so soon.

Bouman thinks that companies will now be hitting the bottom of their reserves, and that the ensuing unemployment will make the second ‘dip’ of this crisis so much worse.

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November 27, 2011

Tiny Greenbox Museum of Arabic art is big on Facebook

Filed under: Art by Branko Collin @ 12:25 pm

“The Kröller-Müller Museum has 205 [Facebook] fans”, Bright writes, “Museum De Pont has 2,537 fans, Rijksmuseum [Amsterdam] has 6,663 fans, Stedelijk Museum has 17,867 fans, and the Van Gogh Museum has 26,191 fans”

“The Greenbox Museum of Contemporary Art of Saudi Arabia is only open 12 hours a week and consists of single room. Yet it has 170,000 Facebook fans.”

According to the tech mag, that makes it the largest Dutch museum on Facebook. As a reason for its popularity, founder and curator Aarnout Helb told weblog Frankwatching that there are no modern art museums in Saudi Arabia itself. “Saudi Arabia is the historical and cultural heart of the Islam. Our fans come from the countries that lie between Tanger in Morocco and Port Darwin in Australia. We have 27,637 fans from India, 26,991 from Indonesia, 22,951 from Egypt [and so on].”

Helb started the museum on the Korte Leidsedwarsstraat in Amsterdam out of curiosity and to upgrade his multi-cultural roots. “There used to be a professor Snouck Hurgronje who had visited Mekka, and who advised the government that you could take the sting out of the European relationship with the Muslims, not with soldiers and guns, but with a dialogue in the city that draws so many Muslims each year. I had read his advice once, and I had also noticed that the 9-11 attackers weren’t from Afghanistan but from Saudi Arabia. They must have had some reason [to attack the USA], and sending a battalion of soldiers to the wrong country is not going to help you find out what that reason was.”

(Snouck Hurgronje lived from 1857 – 1936. Back then the Netherlands were a largely Islamic kingdom, although the Christians were the ones in power.)

(Photo: Greenbox Museum)

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November 26, 2011

Twisted bicycle bridge across the Vlaardingervaart

Filed under: Architecture,Bicycles by Branko Collin @ 11:58 am

Gizmodo writes:

At first glance it looks like this bridge in the Netherlands was an engineering failure […]. But this is how the architects designed and built it to look, and it works just fine.

It’s a [42 metre] pedestrian and bicycle bridge that connects the Holy-Zuid district with the Broekpolder, in the city of Vlaardingen. It was designed by the architects at West 8 and […] built by the metal workers at ABT.

Vlaardingen is a city near Rotterdam. Locals call the bridge The Wokkel, after a similarly shaped snack.

(Photo: ABT. More photos at Gizmodo and on Flickr show you how it works)

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