February 25, 2009

Pre-dug beach holes in Katwijk

Filed under: Weird by Branko Collin @ 8:51 am

The city of Katwijk is going to pay students to dig holes at the beach which can then be rented out to tourists for an expected 4.50 euro a day, Algemeen Dagblad reports (Dutch). Apart from doing its bit to help fight the economic crisis, the Citymarketing Katwijk foundation also insists these holes fill a real need. This is borne out, the foundation claims, by a poll held among 300 people.

A popular view among the Dutch is that German tourists like to dig holes when ‘occupying’ a Dutch beach, but the foundation says it’s not just our Eastern neighbours who expressed interest in Katwijk’s rent-a-holes.

Katwijk is located at the mouth of the Old Rhine, a river that stopped having major economic import when it silted up around 1,000 A.D.

Photo of the sea at Katwijk by Michael Brys, some rights reserved. Via Z24 (Dutch).

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February 24, 2009

Send back those unsollicited creationism folders

Filed under: Religion,Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:57 am
darwin

The year 2009 is the year of Charles Darwin, the English father of the theory of evolution. Some Christian man with methinks way too much time and money on his hands printed up a big, colourful folder about how God made the Earth in six days and all that jazz. I haven’t seen it yet, true, but I’m looking forward to it. Needless to say, thousands of people are insulted at receiving unsollicited storytelling folders in their mailboxes, especially since they did not order it. A campaign entitled Terug naar je maker (Back to your maker) is encouraging folks to sing a petition and send the storytelling folder back to its maker, the man from Urk, a village known for its religious views and alcoholic youth.

Forget about the holes in Darwin’s theory’s (so I’ve heard), forget trying to follow the Bible, a book almost nobody can read in its original language (angels are male and female, a theologist Ph.D. friend who reads Aramaic used to tell me) and don’t get into this silly debate that just muddles the pain of the financial crisis. Just think that some zealot wasted tens of thousands of euro when he could have helped out in his community and thought it worthy to kill trees to tell us something we can read on our own good time or not in the Bible.

The more you need to convince others, the more you need to convince yourself. You could have opened a school in Africa somewhere with that money. Shame on you.

For the locals among you, print this out (the real stickers are sold out!) and put it on your mailbox:

sticker-300x61

You can also sign the petition here (in Dutch).

(Link: sargasso.nl, Photo: sunstonetours.wordpress.com)

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February 23, 2009

Driver gets money back for not driving over cat

Filed under: Animals,Automobiles by Orangemaster @ 8:58 pm

Little over a year ago, we reported on a driver in Schiedam who was fined EUR 75 for not driving over a cat, or technically, ignoring a green light. The man was trying to avoid running over the cat by waiting until it got out of the way.

The story goes on telly that after going to court over the matter, the driver got his money back, as he was given the benefit of the doubt. The police’s argument is that they did not see a cat crossing the road.

I can’t imagine someone making that up and purposely stopping at a green light. Good news.

(Photo of Cat crossing the street by ll_browneyes_ll, some rights reserved)

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ATM use on Sunday banned

Filed under: Religion,Weird by Orangemaster @ 12:57 pm
Rabobank ATM

The War on fun and practicality strikes again — and punishes old people. In the wee town of Scherpenisse, Zeeland, the ATM shuts down on Saturday night because the owner of the building is a Reformed Protestant. This means that Sunday is the day of the Lord and “taking out money is absurd.” The Rabobank, who operates the ATM, considers its machines open for business seven days a week.

The talk of the town is whether the owner can actually keep shutting the ATM down on Sunday, which makes life harder for old people.

(Link: blikopnieuws.nl, Photo: cwi.nl)

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Original, Dutch-based erotic film premieres in New York

Filed under: Film by Orangemaster @ 9:50 am
Matinee

After a sold out premiere on 17 January in Amsterdam during the Rated X Amsterdam Alternative Erotica Film Festival, American born, Amsterdam-based film director Jennifer Lyon Bell will be presenting her latest short film ‘Matinee’ in New York City on 27 February as part of the Wanton Female Desire screening block at the CineKink NYC Film Festival.

The Amsterdam premiere featured a Q&A session with British lead actress Alicia Whitsover answering questions about her first ever sexually explicit role. Unfortunately, Daniel, played by Steven McAlistair from Scotland, was not able to attend. 24oranges scored a ticket, having read the script of the film some two years ago and finally getting to see the result.

Two stage actors, Mariah and Daniel are getting bad reviews of their matinee performance. Lyon Bell mentioned that she chose a matinee because the performances are usually of lesser quality than the evening ones when they are more people. One afternoon, Daniel warns Mariah that a prominent agent will be in the audience to check him out, which could mean the difference between Mariah and Daniel being out of a job and moving up in the entertainment business. Problem is, Mariah can’t really get into the sex and this situation pushes her to come off more believable in order to make it work for both of them.

(Photo: still of ‘Matinee’ by Jennifer Lyon Bell)

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February 22, 2009

Ball, bikes and bridges

Filed under: Architecture,Automobiles,Bicycles,Sports by Branko Collin @ 7:54 pm

No news this weekend about the record attempts of Edwin van der Sar, the Dutch keeper playing for Manchester United who hasn’t conceded a goal for more than 1,300 hours. There’s nothing to report, because Van der Sar was rested during yesterday’s league game. His replacement promptly let a ball past, so that if Van der Sar keeps his net clean for at least one more minute he no longer has to share his league record with the rest of his defense.

The Flyswatter bridge we wrote about has been getting quite some attention in the blogosphere. Popular Mechanics talked a bit longer with architect Van Driel than we did and discovered some more flyswatter bridges in the Netherlands and France. But why, when mentioning in passing Dutch bicycle paths, do they link to a website about biking in Copenhagen?

Speaking of bikes in the Netherlands: people from Amsterdam use their bicycles more often than their cars. Worldchanging.com reports:

Between 2005 and 2007, Amsterdam residents rode their bicycle 0.87 times a day on average, compared to 0.84 trips by car. It was the first time on record that average bike trips surpassed cars, the research group FietsBeraad reported last month.

The ‘box of pixels’ at the top of this posting is not the lazy work of a photoshopper, but an actual office building made in 2007 by Dutch-Austrian architects Splitterwerk, and forms the headquarters for a firm called Prisma Engineering in Graz, Austria. Link: Bright.nl.

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Lively and functional furniture for tight spots

Filed under: Architecture,Design by Orangemaster @ 12:58 pm
Cabinet

These handcrafted cabinets were designed by Dutch designer Ellen Seegers of BeeldenBouwers. The design company, founded with Arno Tummers back in 1999, creates unique objects for the home together and individually.

Oh the left hand-side, next to the blue cabinet a swing lamp can be pulled out. A lot of Dutch houses throughout the country have these pointy roofs that make it tough for any standard furniture to fit.

(Link: apartmenttherapy.com)

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February 21, 2009

Monkey business

Filed under: Animals,General by Eric @ 5:10 pm

Gyasi, financial gururillaWhat do you do, when all the money you invested in stocks and options is losing weight faster than the contestants in the tv show de Afvallers XXL? Whom do you turn to, when your own financial advisor is only foreseeing doom and gloom and you’re desperatly looking for impartial and unbiased tips on where to put those 50 eurocents you still call your capital?

Enter Gyasi, a six year old gorilla, currently living with her family in Primate Park Apenheul in Apeldoorn. Over the next thirteen weeks, Gyasi will pick one share listed on the AEX from a stock of ten, each week. In order to raise Gyasi’s interest in the experiment and possibly also to ensure an impartial and unbiased selection, Gyasi will not pick the share directly, but she will be presented a row of numbered walnuts. Each number corresponds to a share on the AEX. The walnut that gets munched first, will be the winner for the week.

The real question, of course, is: will Gyasi outperform the dolphins from the Harderwijk Dolfinarium?

Link and photo: freesun.be

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February 20, 2009

2000 metre steel wire artwork wins prize

Filed under: Art,Nature by Orangemaster @ 11:36 am
Poema

This huge steel artwork, entitled ‘Kooi-Met-Geen-Poema-Er-In’ (‘Cage with no puma in it’) by artist Maarten de Reus, won a Dutch Building Award last week. It can be admired in the city of Apeldoorn atop a former garbage dump site. The building contractor of the artwork from Moerkapelle won a National Steel Award in 2008.

The theme of the work, chosen in 2005, refers to puma sightings in the Veluwe woods, which where in fact some sort of big house cat gone wild.

(Link: bright.nl, Photo: Maarten de Reus)

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February 19, 2009

‘Big 4’ record for Van der Sar

Filed under: Sports by Branko Collin @ 1:30 am

Unlike we originally claimed last week, Manchester United’s fourteenth consecutive clean sheet, against Fulham yesterday (3-0) does not mean that their Dutch goalie Edwin van der Sar got the European or even world record. The record he broke, that of Abel Resino of Atlético Madrid, was ‘only’ that of not conceding a goal for the ‘big four’ European leagues. According to Algemeen Dagblad (Dutch) those are the leagues of England, Spain, Italy and Germany.

Still awaiting Van der Sar are the European record, held by Danny Verlinden of Club Brugge, which stands at 1,390 minutes, and the world record of Mazaropi, Vasco da Gama, Brazil, at an incredible 1,816 minutes.

Photo by Austin Osuide, some rights reserved.

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