October 16, 2016

House in Huissen advertised as ‘haunted’

Filed under: Architecture by Branko Collin @ 10:30 pm

haunted-house-funda-1

You don’t often see night-time photography on housing sites, but this real estate agent had a special reason. They are advertising their 16th century, 270 square metre farm house in Huissen near Arnhem as haunted.

Whether they are taking their ghoulish inhabitants seriously, remains to be seen. The advert quickly adopts a more serious tone. The house is currently the property of Dutch celebrity Johan Vlemmix who in the first decade of this century unsuccessfully ran for parliament in the hope of becoming Minister of Parties. He bought the house in 2008 from another serial celebrity, positivity guru Emile Ratelband (catch phrase: ‘Tchakaaa’).

Ratelband had to sell the house, or so the story goes, because his wife thought it was haunted. Vlemmix tried to use the publicity in turn by organising ‘horror evenings’ in the old farm.

Having had celebrity owners and having a built in bar and cinema is not helping much so far. In the past eleven months the asking price has already been dropped by 50,000 euro to 350,000 euro. That doesn’t strike me as much, so maybe it is a monster to heat. Whether the prospective buyer will get all the props that were used for the photographs is unclear, but Vlemmix promises to throw in six caskets.

haunted-house-funda-2

(Photos: Funda.nl)

Tags: , , , , , , ,

August 25, 2015

Free app to send replies out when driving

Filed under: Automobiles,Technology by Orangemaster @ 3:35 pm

Dutch satirist Johan Vlemmix, who brought us questionable songs about wearing a burqa and buses full of Polish people, is currently designing a phone app.

Motivated by the amount of fines he has had for using a mobile phone while driving and causing minor accidents ‘with no injuries’, Vlemmix’s app would provide the equivalent of an ‘out of office’ reply but then an ‘I’m driving’ version for all incoming messages, including social media. The app would be available in September for Android and iPhone, and it will be free.

Besides replying to the recipient who wonders why you’re not answering them back quickly, Vlemmix would leave his phone alone much easier knowing a reply was sent. Maybe he needs to tell his recipients to chill or needs to learn to let go of his phone while driving and realise that it is illegal to drive and text because it’s dangerous.

Another argument from Vlemmix is that if ever the police were to stop you (well, him), he could prove he didn’t answer his phone. We’ve had two stories, Man fined 237 euro for scratching his ear and Man gets 150 euro fine for sticking finger in ear, where this app could have been useful.

(Link: www.ed.nl, Photo by Hello Turkey Toe, some rights reserved)

Tags: , , ,

January 29, 2012

Singer gets death threats over burqa song

Filed under: Music by Branko Collin @ 4:05 pm

Radio Netherlands writes:

Dutch satirist Johan Vlemmix has decided not to perform his latest hit Do the Burqa onstage following death threats.

The song, a carnival parody to the music of Van McCoy’s ‘Do the Hustle’, is a huge success on YouTube, so much so that the video provider has switched off the comments facility. Too many people were posting angry reactions saying that they had been insulted.

The images show a woman wearing a T-shirt which can be instantly converted into a burqa […].

The Dutch government wants to ban burqas, a head garment traditionally worn in the Arab world.

Vlemmix once ran for parliament on a platform in which he would become Minister of Fun. In 2007 the entertainer flirted with controversy over a song about Polish guest workers.

See also: Carnival song mocks liberal parties—”Behave yourselves!”

(Video: YouTube / Johan Vlemmix)

Tags: , , , ,