January 3, 2017

Live world record attempt of Game of the Goose

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 11:07 pm

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Some of you probably had enough of board games during the holidays, but four Dutch friends are going to attempt to play Game of the Goose (‘Ganzenbord’ in Dutch) for 80 hours in a row, as a way to kick off the year.

Four friends from Vught, Noord-Brabant are trying to get into the Guinness Book of Records: they started playing today and plan to keep going until Friday. They do get a five minute break every hour.

The current world record of playing Game of the Goose is 62 hours. The merriment is taking place in the scouting building of Vught-Noord and you can even watch on a livestream.

(omroepbrabant.nl, Photo of Game of the Goose, Public Domain)

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December 23, 2016

Rare puppies born in Noord-Brabant

Filed under: Animals by Orangemaster @ 12:03 pm

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A litter of 11 puppies has been born to Ruth, a Curly Coated Retriever, one of only about 150 in existence in the Netherlands.

This breed of dog originally comes from England where it is said to be rare as well. Only about 2000 ‘Curlies’ can be found around the world even though breeding them isn’t difficult. Ruth was coupled with a Curly from Sweden that the owner ran into while on vacation. Ruth is not only a mother, but has been a show dog for many years.

According to Omroep Brabant, her puppies will be sold for about 1,000 euro a puppy, which isn’t that much for a thoroughbred. As well, they are the only Curly puppies born in the Netherlands in all of 2016.

(Link: omroepbrabant, Photo of Curly Coated Retriever by Zwoenitzer, some rights reserved)

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August 15, 2016

Riding the green wave on your bike

Filed under: Bicycles by Orangemaster @ 11:06 am

The city of ’s-Hertogenbosch’ (Den Bosch) came second in this year’s Dutch “Traffic light region of 2016 Election”, after Helmond, both in the province of Noord-Brabant, and below you can watch a video shot in Den Bosch about how intricate and tech-savvy traffic lights for cyclists are. Den Bosch also features the country’s’ first Cycle-DRIP (Dynamic Route Information Panel) for cycling, an interesting read as well.

The video voice-over calls the traffic light button a ‘reassurance button’, which is mildly funny, but I’m guessing the contraption was taken over by pedestrian crossings. However, when you’re a visually impaired pedestrian, the ticking sounds the button makes after pressing it and when the light is green is very reassuring. Yes, the cyclist ‘reassurance button’ is possibly just for show and doesn’t make a sound, as it would be drowned out.

UPDATE: Wrong video, changed it.

(Link: bicycledutch.wordpress.com)

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July 26, 2016

A singing bike path gets its own sign

Filed under: Bicycles by Orangemaster @ 9:43 pm
Pink bike

The town of Drimmelen, Noord-Brabant has built a one-kilometre long ‘singing bike path’ (an official traffic sign), encouraging people to sing on their bikes and hopefully continue singing when they see another cyclist rather than stop singing.

The idea came from artist Mapije de Wit, a former columnist for the Fietsersbond cyclists union. The special bike path was officially opened by city council member Jan-Willem Stoop for which local troubadour Rinus Rasenberg wrote a song, saying he got some of his best ideas while cycling. In 10 minutes of cycling you can belt out three hit songs or maybe one or two if you keep forgetting the words.

The bike path is a comfortable three metres in width and is part of a nice 17-kilometre network of paths around the town.

(Link: www.waarmaarraar.nl)

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March 26, 2016

Creating crunchy patterns on modern ceramics

Filed under: Design by Orangemaster @ 9:07 am

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For anyone like me who usually finds ceramics dull, Dutch designer Floris Wubben of Eindhoven has found a way of making ceramics cool. He created a rotating flame-throwing device that makes exciting textures on his ceramic pieces.

A wet ceramic piece is placed on a rotating central stand, where an adjustable semicircular arm holds a blowtorch. The blowtorch then applies a flame directly to object’s surface, creating all kinds of patterns.

Wubben is able to control the flame, the distance and the speed at which the blowtorch hits a ceramic piece, creating cooler patterns than you’d normally see on ceramics. Wubben has produced bowls, pots and cups with different glazes in collaboration with Cor Unum ceramics studio of Den Bosch, Noord-Brabant.

(Link and photo: www.dezeen.com)

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March 18, 2016

Anne Frank themed escape room in Valkenswaard

Filed under: General,History,Weird by Orangemaster @ 10:39 am

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Noord-Brabant, one of the Dutch provinces that unwillingly served as a doormat for invading troops during WWII, now has its very own Anne Frank themed escape room advertised with “Hide before the Germans find you!”.

Located in an old WWII bunker, ‘Het Achterhuis’ (‘the shed’ or ‘back room’ and also the original Dutch title of ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’) is the theme of this espace room, and its 19-year-old owner Thijs Verberne swears it has an educational purpose. The Valkenswaard escape room lets you ‘walk in Anne Frank’s shoes’ and fuelled by fear of being sent to the camps you need to find a way to get out of it that I bet doesn’t involve writing in your diary.

On Facebook there’s people totally into it and there’s a lot of disgusted folks as well. The espace room apparently looks like the Anne Frank’s house, the original of which is about 87 kilometres away in Amsterdam, although there are others around the country.

The city of Valkenswaard, which was always planning to do something with the bunker, will make sure the escape room is being run properly, although this sounds like something you would say to the media. The Anne Frank Foundation has not yet made any statements about the escape room.

UPDATE: The Anne Frank Foundation is not amused in the slightest.

(Link:www.ed.nl)

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March 4, 2016

Dutchman receives compensation for Nagasaki bombing

Filed under: History by Orangemaster @ 11:24 am

Dick Büchel, a 95-year-old man from Waalre, Noord-Brabant has received the equivalent of 8800 euro in damages from the Japanese government for surviving the atom bomb that hit Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.

He served in the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army on the island of Java where was taken prisoner by the Japanese, and the bomb exploded just 1700 metres from his prisoner of war camp.

Interestingly enough, Büchel believes in the use of weapons of mass destruction by the Americans, claiming that the bomb saved him. Some Koreans in the Netherlands were also given compensation, although everyone had to file a law suit in Japan to get it.

(Link: www.omroepbrabant.nl)

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February 8, 2016

Carnival hits shunned by Dutch radio

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 3:34 pm

Although carnival is winding down, the plethora of hits used to prop it up over the past few days never made it onto the Dutch music charts. The song ‘Feestmuts’ (‘Party Hat’) from the Snollebollekes was the exception at No. 86 in the GfK Single Top 100 (video below). It’s apparently fine that tons of businesses make good money off carnival music, but it’s shameful to publicly recognise that it does because radio stations would, what, rather push the Dunglish they pass off as third-rate American music?

Carnival music executive Van de Berk of Berk Music is outraged and blames the rigid rules of radio stations for ignoring them, while some 5 million people celebrate carnival in The Netherlands and hundreds of thousands watch all kinds of carnival YouTube videos. “We understand that radio stations don’t want to play carnival music all day, but one number here and there should be possible. Maybe the broadcast tower should move from Hilversum to Eindhoven! (The Dutch media is concentrated in Hilversum, North Holland as opposed to carnival-savvy Noord-Brabant where Eindhoven is located).

Berk Music has recently awarded the Lawineboys a gold record for 15,000 sold copies of their hit ‘Sex Met Die Kale’ (‘Sex with that bald one’), an adapted cover of ‘Sex on Fire’ by Kings of Leon.

If you like videos shot in mini-vans, watch Snollebollekes do their thing. Beer helps.

(Link: www.entertainmentbusiness.nl)

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January 18, 2016

Carnival song says refugees came for the beer

Filed under: Food & Drink,Music by Orangemaster @ 12:45 pm

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Noord-Brabant student singers Grenzeloos Gek have made the news with their carnival song ‘Vluchtelingen uit Aleppo’ (‘Refugees from Aleppo’). They can’t sing on key and dance around a touchy subject, but so far they’ve not caused any actual controversy except for fueling the annual carnival lovers vs. carnival haters ping pong online.

Here’s a rough translation of the chorus:

“Refugees from Aleppo, over the mountains so high
Refugees from Aleppo, farmers, bakers and biologists
They’re coming here for four days of beer.”

It’s about a bunch of white male Dutch students drawing attention to themselves with a sub-par song using a ripped off melody and a hot topic. It’s about drinking beer and having fun and singing as flat as a carnival beer. The song amusingly implies that refugees drink beer when in fact a lot of them probably don’t and didn’t flee for their lives for a few watered down carnival beers with frat boys. I’m still wondering if this would have worked with a bunch of white Dutch girls: depending on their looks, they’d been written off or tolerated because of them.

Last year we had a few zingers. We’ll keep you posted this year.

Refugees from Aleppo is sung to the tune of the famous Dutch song ‘Una Paloma Blanca’ by George Baker Selection, better known by the younger generations for ‘Little Green Bag’.

Listen to ‘Refugees from Aleppo’ at your own risk, I couldn’t get through the video.

(Link: www.omroepbrabant.nl, Photo of Maastricht carnival 2008)

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January 11, 2016

Amsterdam gets its own carnival name

Filed under: Dutch first,Event by Orangemaster @ 1:47 pm
carnaval

We’ve written quite a bit over the years about carnival music (here and here), but this year a carnival party crew has kicked up a notch, giving Amsterdam a carnival name.

And that name is ‘Gròòtgragtegat’, roughly ‘big hole with canals’, a name given by Alaaf & Kicking, a party organisation made up of people from Noord-Brabant living in Amsterdam who will be holding a carnival party on January 22. They actually held a vote for the name, as other contenders were ‘Amsteldonk’ and ‘Poalkesdurp’.

Pronouncing ‘Gròòtgragtegat’, with the typical hard gutteral ‘g’ sound of Amsterdam residents is tough even for Dutch people and great practice for anybody else. Here’s a whopping list of Dutch cities that get carnival names according to Wikipedia. Amsterdam isn’t on it – yet.

(Links: www.bndestem.nl, at5.nl)

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