December 5, 2009

Satan Claus

Filed under: Music by Branko Collin @ 3:01 pm

Singer, politician, radio presenter, bar owner and horse meat aficionado Henk Westbroek helped Achterhoek hard-rockers Noord Geldersch Metaal parody his own song Sinterklaas, Wie Kent Hem Niet? (Who doesn’t know Saint Nicholas?).

When I found out
The saint does not exist
Something snapped in my head
Hell, I was so mad
I reached for booze
Became a Satanist
Let me go to hell
Here I won’t be missed

Refr.: Satan Claus!
You know him well.
Satan Claus, Satan Claus,
Let’s all go to hell.

There are many things that are plain wrong in this video, but drinking Hertog Jan beer in the Grolsch heartland? That is just evil.

(Via Telegravin. Video by André Broens.)

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November 29, 2009

Cowboy John

Filed under: Comics by Branko Collin @ 11:10 am

Cowboy John is a comic strip that appears regularly in Zone 5300, and that now has its own, eponymous album. It is basically a continuation or spin-off of the Jan Jaap comic that writer and artist Jan Vriends published in the same magazine.

Cowboy John is a man with a past that has led him to drink and dress up as a cowboy. The comic strip switches back between single strip gags and longer, dramatic bits, and to fill out the album ‘bloopers,’ out-takes and Cowboy John strips that appeared in other magazines.

Do I like Zone 5300 sending me review copies? Yes. Would I buy the book? No. Cowboy John has a warm, safe home in the tri-monthly and motley collection of comics, reviews, short stories and curiosities that is Zone 5300, where its erratic style fits right in. But it’s not an album with which to snuggle up on the couch and forget the world for half an hour.

The Cowboy John book is the first in a new imprint named after the magazine, Collectie Zone 5300.

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November 28, 2009

Yab Yum the musical

Filed under: Shows by Branko Collin @ 2:37 pm

Gossip ‘journalist’ Henk van der Meyden and sex boss Theo Heuft have teamed up to produce a musical about the latter’s former brothel, Yab Yum.

Yab Yum, named after a Tantric position called ‘woman on top’ in the West, was the iconic brothel of the Netherlands until it was closed down last year by the city of Amsterdam using the dubious Bibob law, which allows local governments to refuse permits on the basis of rumours.

Speaking of which, it was rumoured that Yab Yum was the place where one brought business associates if deals needed to be closed.

According to Radio Netherlands, Heuft told the Telegraaf (Van der Meyden’s employer):

It’s an honour that there’s going to be a musical about my life’s work. That’s what Yab Yum was. I mounted prostitution in a golden frame.

[The musical will allow us] to enter a world of beautiful young women, of glamour and glitter.

(Photo by Chana de Wolf, some rights reserved.)

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November 23, 2009

Drinking wine by numbers

Filed under: Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 8:42 am

Picking a wine if you have no idea what you are doing can be a painful process, especially if you have only the bottle’s label to go by. To reduce ‘choice stress’, 94wines.com has taken every last bit of confusing information from the bottle and put a number in its place. If you liked the 51 last time, you know you should buy it again. If you didn’t, you know to leave that number alone the next time.

I am sure true wine connoisseurs will be outraged by the idea of objectifying wine, but hey, it’s the naughties, baby, at least for one more month.

A short online wine test should help to get you underway for the first purchase by determining the basic flavours you want. Young marketing buffs Lucas Tieleman and Sander de Jonge came up with the whole concept.

(Source photo: 94wines.com. Link: De Pers.)

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November 22, 2009

Roundabouts of the world

Filed under: Photography by Branko Collin @ 1:50 pm

A rotonde is a roundabout in Dutch, so when Tijs van den Boomen and Peter Jonker set out to create a website about roundabouts and the often ugly art that is in their centres, they of course called it rotondologie.nl. (The Flemish say rondpunt.)

Rotondologie.nl has pictures, videos and stories about roundabouts from all over the world, but you can hardly blame them for paying extra attention to the Netherlands. The website is clunky at times—rather than showing you a whole story at once you get little Javascript arrows with which to scroll, even if there is nothing to scroll towards—but if you click the big Collectie button, you get a nice big site map listed by country, province and so on.

Trendbeheer unearthed a quote from the site about a Doesburg roundabout that exemplifies the wrongness of moral rights (a part of copyright):

“I thank God that [the centre piece] is not art,” alderman Fred Jansen told De Gelderlander. “If it had been, we would not have been allowed to touch it for sixty years. Everybody thought it was garbage, citizens, entrepreneurs and visitors.”

(Photo of a roundabout in Venray by Google Streetview, immortalised because this is presumably the location where the Streetview car made an infraction that caused a police car to stop it two blocks further)

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November 21, 2009

‘Twitteren’ Dutch word of the year 2009

Filed under: Literature by Branko Collin @ 8:05 pm

I just got back from the Onze Taal (‘Our Language’) congress in Utrecht, where the word ‘twitteren’ was elected Word of the Year 2009.

The word, which simply means ‘to twitter,’ was chosen over Koninginnedagdrama, the deeply racist kopvoddentax, Mexicaanse griep and vuvuzela by 600 of the attendants. Another candidate was mama appelsap, for a misheard lyric. Mama appelsap literally means “mother apple juice,” but is Michael Jackson’s misheard lyric “Mama-se, mama-sa, ma-ma-coo-sa.”

The 27th congress featured talks about language by Princess Laurentien, writer Kristien Hemmerechts, and performances by comedians Paulien Cornelisse and Kees Torn.

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Domino record broken again

Filed under: Shows by Branko Collin @ 8:59 am

Last week a team of 89 ‘builders’ broke the world record for toppling dominoes in one long chain reaction.

In total, 4.491.863 stones of the 4.8 million that were originally set up, fell over at the WTC Expo in Leeuwarden for this year’s Domino Day. Almost three million Dutch viewers watched the show live on television, which was a record for the annual programme.

Source video: Associated Press. Link: Geo TV, Nieuws.nl.

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November 15, 2009

Flu scare turns Dutch into discriminating kissers

Filed under: Health by Branko Collin @ 1:48 pm

Almost 15% of the Dutch have become more selective in who they kiss because of the Swine flu.

A study held by vitamin sellers Centrum also shows that 7.5% avoid physical contact with others, Blik op Nieuws reports. Also, 6.3% have stopped shaking hands, and 1.4% have taken the ultimate step of no longer going to the office.

(Photo by Alex Erde, some rights reserved.)

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November 14, 2009

Best Children for Children’s song of the past 30 years

Filed under: Music by Branko Collin @ 1:41 pm

This song from the Kinderen voor Kinderen choir (‘Children for Children’) was voted their best song last Saturday, public broadcaster VARA announced according to Volkskrant. The song is called ‘Op een Onbewoond Eiland’ (‘On a Desert Island’).

My personal favourite, Waanzinnig Gedroomd (‘Dreamed Outrageously’, ik heb zo WAA-WAA-WAA-WAANZINNIG gedroomd) came in second. Both songs were written by Tony Eyk who wrote Van Kooten en De Bie’s Ballen in Me Buik and the Studio Sport theme song, which everybody knows.

Not too shabby is ‘Ik Ben Toch Zeker Sinterklaas Niet’ (‘Do I Look Like Saint Nick?’), the video of which is definitely a blast from the past. You can pinpoint the exact year just from the fact that it has a Commodore 128 home computer in it.

Kinderen voor Kinderen was a choir initially founded by VARA for charity, the idea being that the proceeds of their records would go to help children in poor countries. It was heavily ridiculed for the snooty, Gooi ‘R’ that the children in it used, and which sounds almost exactly like the British word ‘air.’ You can hear a sample at the start of this Kinderen voor Kinderen parody Ik Heb Die Zwaar Bekakte R Niet (‘I Lack That Snooty R’) by fake children’s choir De Boksbeugeltjes (‘The Brass Knuckles’).

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November 12, 2009

Thriller Festival Zoetermeer

Filed under: Event by Branko Collin @ 9:45 pm

100 hours of thrill.