These cupboards by Sander Mulder are called Pandora and were made to look like shipping containers. I couldn’t find any pricing, but I figure that if you live in shipping containers you won’t be able to afford them.
February 11, 2009
February 10, 2009
Third record for goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar
The British record for not conceding a goal is now also in the firm hands of Manchester United goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar. Previously, he had already taken the English league and English professional football records, but until last weekend the British record belonged to Scotland. Van der Sar—who helped his team win 1-0 from West Ham—has now gone 1,212 minutes without conceding a goal, bettering Bobby Clark’s 1,155 minutes.
Oddly enough, the English press continues to feel the need to point out that Van der Sar could not have done it without ManU’s fabulous back line. You have to wonder whether they would have kept repeating and repeating this obvious fact if the Dutch goalie had been British. Says The Times:
Van der Sar is enjoying a fine season, but to pass 20 hours (1,212 minutes to be precise) without conceding a league goal, as he did at Upton Park yesterday to set a British best, is testament to Manchester United’s unblinking confidence as much as the 38-year-old’s form.
The most difficult save he was required to make against West Ham was a routine catch from a shot by Lucas Neill. Pruning his roses at 78 will be harder work than that.
The next record in Van der Sar’s sights is the big one, the world record, currently held by Abel Resino of Atlético Madrid at 1,275 minutes.
Photo by Austin Osuide, some rights reserved.
February 9, 2009
Advert plays on stereotype for women but not men
I mailed one of the sponsors, Nyenrode Business Universiteit, to find out why they would back an advert like this. Just like one of the people commented in our first attempt at grasping this campaign, the point remains “don’t wiggle your arse and hope it’ll get you somewhere, instead choose the serious path”. Of course, we get that, but it misses the mark on stereotypes. Thanks to another person who commented on the latest Heineken advert where both women and men are stereotyped equally, I was able to make my point.
A nice communications manager over at Nyenrode called me and asked me why I thought this advert was sexist. I thought it was obvious, but apparently it was not. The male version of this advert, which I did not see but had vaguely heard of, has a man trying to get promoted by serenading his boss (also implied to be male) on the guitar. It might have worked if the boss was a woman, you could have had a cute Romeo and Juliet thing going, but no.
Coming back to the Heineken advert which shows women fauning over clothes and men over beer (both believable stereotypes), and the fact that the advert above has a male version allowed me to make my point that the female stereotype is very plausible (women could possibly get ahead by shaking their booty), while a man serenading his boss would never come to mind to a man trying to climb the corporate ladder. In other words, the adverts play on a female stereotype, but not a male one.
In both cases the managers are male, a stereotype that’s painfully true and bothers the Nyenrode man in his professional life, probably why he’s looking forward to seeing more women get an MBA at his establishment. He admitted having to explain the campaign to many of his colleagues, which I said had two possible reasons: one, the advert is brilliant and we’re all too stupid to get it or two, it’s poorly done and having to explain it means it’s a problem and could deter possible candidates.
Another reason why this advert doesn’t work is because in general Dutch women are not dyed-in-the-wool career women like in the US. I say US because the point of the advert is to obtain an MBA, which is an American concept. I also told him that since Dutch women aren’t big on careers (in general, no not everyone), the chances of them shaking their moneymaker to the top is even slimmer. He said, he wished Dutch women would understand that having a career is not something you do four days a week, something his busy career wife understands very well.
The case of the mysterious shiny balls
During a walk today cut short prematurely by the rain I came across these reflective spheres which are attached to a wall along a gated alley just off the Skutsjespad, across the ING head office. Does anyone know what they are there for? My guess is it’s some sort of art installation so that the people in the office building to the right have something more interesting to stare at than a blank wall. (You can see the ING House in the reflection of the left most ball.)
Yes, dear lazyweb, I did Google for the answer, but my search for skutsjespad balls “did not match any documents.” Anyway, it’s nicer to guess.
Tags: balls, ING, reflections, shiny
February 8, 2009
Coffin made of Legos
A Lego nut had told the Mooi! Weer de leeuw show that she wouldn’t mind being buried in a coffin made of Legos, and the show’s producers obliged her last night … by giving her such a coffin. To make things complete they gave a fellow Lego addict a Lego urn and a Lego cake for after the funeral.
No idea if this is for real or just looks like Lego. You can catch the show here (I hope). The Lego bit is near the end, just before the segment where a ten year old girl declares that she’d like a non-childish colouring book, and gets a book with pictures of the murder of Pim Fortuijn and Teletubby porn.
Tags: death, funerals, Lego, Paul de Leeuw, Pim Fortuijn, Teletubbies, television
February 7, 2009
Mayor from government party smokes at the office
The War on Fun is all nice and dandy, but apparently it shouldn’t impede on the little pleasures that its proponents enjoy. Mayor Ruud Vreeman of Tilburg, member of the PvdA (Labour) party that’s in the fun-hating government coalition that banned smoking in bars last year, lights up a cigar now and then in his office. According to Brabants Dagblad (Dutch), the mayor was found out because the stench of his cigars was noticed by a visitor.
A city spokesperson told Revu (Dutch): “‘Vreeman knows it’s not allowed. He will stop immediately. He regrets smoking in the building and will never do it again.”
Well, until next time.
Photo by Jan Lapère, used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License version 1.2. Via Jong Nieuws (Dutch), which has been writing way too little about Tilburg lately.
Tags: bans, cigars, politics, Ruud Vreeman, smoking, Tilburg, War on Fun
February 6, 2009
Sexist advert denigrates Dutch women and men
This just in! It features a woman doing an invisible pole dance and reads “Manipulate your manager” and then, roughly “Serious about moving up in your career? Register for the FD career challenge ’09!”
Women are complete idiots and have to use their bodies to climb up the ladder of success and all managers are of course all men (and straight!) and have no brains. Ouch. Looking forward to finding out who came up with this one.
The FD is the Netherlands’ top financial paper, which basically is stooping pretty low with this one. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the press is going to say. I’d also like to say that I am surprised social networking site LinkedIn agrees with this.
You’ll hear more from us on this.
I clicked the online version away somewhere today when I was working (the girl dances!), but after seeing this photo from a shocked Dutch girlfriend on Twitter, I put lunch on hold and had to write this up.
(Tip and photo: Jacqueline)
Gold hat trick for Dutch wines in Germany
Three Dutch wines, interestingly enough from the North, South and the East, have all won gold medals in Berlin at the Berlinale Wein Trophy, according to one of the winners, Marius van Stokkom of vineyard De Linie in Brabant.
Van Stokkom from the town of Made won for his extra dry white wine De Linie (2007), Rudolf and Yvon Jonker from Venhuizen of vineyard Westfriesland in De Swanenplaats were crowned for their dry white wine Auxerrois (2007) and Frederik Verhoeven from Groesbeek of vineyard De Colonjes won for his dry white wine Cabernet Blanc 2007.
And yes, there are tons of vineyards in the Netherlands, but the wine that is produced is either too expensive (we’re used to acceptable table wine for 5 euro, paying 30 euro is not going to happen), only available very locally (a tour around the vineyard is fun for the whole family, methinks) and let’s face it, not that great… yet.
One of the most famous Dutch winemakers is Ilya Gort of vineyard La Tulipe in France whom I saw give a presentation last fall in Amsterdam. Of all the blowing your own horn and drinking he did on stage – his wine is the perfect table wine for 5 euro so to speak – he made some excellent points that changed my attitude towards everyday wine drinking:
– Look at the wine.
Take a few seconds to actually look at the colour of what you’re drinking. Someone worked very hard to get it that way.
– Smell the wine.
You smell your food before you eat it, give your wine the same courtesy.
– Respect the wine and use a proper glass.
I almost can’t drink from my tumbler glasses anymore, it doesn’t taste the same.
Yes, drink the cheap stuff this way too and you will see the difference when you drink a better bottle.
And I can’t resist posting this film with Ilya Gort (in English with some French, subtitled)
(Link: missethoreca.nl, Photo: De Linie)
Tags: Berlin, Dutch wine
February 5, 2009
Underground Dutch videoblog pulls the plug
Another well-known Dutch site about all things underground in and around Amsterdam ondergrond.tv unfortunately decided to call it quits yesterday. It seems that keeping a videoblog online took a toll on the 10 people working at it and who knows what else (time, money, etc.). Ondergrond.tv was popular among the 18 to 30 segment and was part of independent Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool.
The 495 videos made by Ondergrond.tv will remain online on their YouTube channel. We at 24oranges wish them all the best of luck in the future.
Tags: Ondergrondtv, videoblog
February 4, 2009
Eppo comics magazine revived
After WWII, Europe was treated to full-colour comic magazines, notably Robbedoes (Spirou) and Kuifje (Tintin), both from Belgium. The Netherlands had Pep en Sjors, which later merged into Eppo, which then became Sjosji, which went tits up in 1999 because kids don’t read comics anymore. A bunch of middle-aged men then got together and declared they refused to live in the present.
Instead, they revived Eppo magazine (Dutch), the first issue of which is now in the stores. A hefty 99 euro will get you 25 issues, a year’s worth. The first issue is surprisingly light on advertisements, 2.3 out of 36 pages. I hope that’s not a bad sign. Eppo is first and foremost an exercise in nostalgia; the editors even brought back De Partners, one of the worst comics ever allowed to roll off a printing press. And the mag opens with space opera Storm, just like it used to. (Now we just have to wait for the letter pages to be filled again with debates between Storm haters and Storm lovers.)
I am not sure whether I should cheer on the re-introduction of a regular, mainstream comics magazine in the Netherlands—not counting Donald Duck magazine which is a phenomenon hors categorie. Reading the mag feels a bit like choosing a coffin—surely I am not yet that old? On the other hand, the big guns of yesteryear have lost nothing of their story telling genius. The new Franka reads like Largo Winch (friendship, betrayal, high finance, Ludlum in comic form really), Martin Lodewijk gets ever better at mixing the old-fashioned and the corny with current events in his hilarious spy parody Agent 327, and there’s even a comic version of Havank’s The Shadow by none other than Daan Jippes.
What the heck: cheer! What magazines like Eppo did was create an advertising platform for comic artists (Dutch), as I am sure this new incarnation will also do. That can only be a good thing.
Illustration: 3 panels from Franka story De witte godin (The White Goddess).
Tags: Agent 327, Dutch comics, Eppo, Franka, magazines, nostalgia, publishing, Sjors, storm