April 24, 2018

Urban planning farce can be explained

Filed under: Weird by Orangemaster @ 7:58 pm

While these uselessly small parking spaces popped up in The Hague a few years back, an interesting show of urban planning gone mad in Woerden, Utrecht actually has an explanation. You can stop reading to try and guess while looking at the image in the second link or read on.

First, the city of Woerden hooked up the hastily fitted lamp pole for now, but will replace it soon, after receiving new ones. They claim it’s easy to fix, but yes, it looks totally stupid for now.

Then, it needs to deal with the run-up that leads into the bushes because that looks pretty moronic as well. The owner of the house had asked for a run-up, but has not yet dealt with removing the bush.

And it’s all about coordination, says the city. At the end of June things should look a lot less stupid.

(Link: www.rtvutrecht.nl)

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January 9, 2017

Woerden can open its shops on Sunday

Filed under: General,Religion by Orangemaster @ 10:36 am

The city of Woerden, Utrecht has made local news for having the right to open its shops on Sunday thanks to the progressive political parties in their municipal council. The religious parties who were against it and have left (bye!) still live in an imaginary world were nobody works on Sundays except the help. This is just a reminder to anyone who still thinks it’s liberal heaven over here.

It’s extremely disrespectful to claim that Sunday is a day of rest when there are tens of thousands of people working in hospitals, restaurants, shops, public transport, trains, as well as the police, fire brigade, emergency services, ambulances, carers, bars, cafés, theatres, construction and so on. If you don’t want employees to have to work more on Sundays or even weekends, we understand, but if your sole argument is that you want a day of rest and you’re not even fighting for other people’s rights not to be exploited, then don’t go to the shops and please feel to step out of as many municipal councils as you can.

(Link: rtvutrecht)

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July 14, 2016

Police copy uniform design, then pressure choir in giving theirs up

Filed under: Fashion,Music by Branko Collin @ 11:57 pm

politie-uniform-2016At first it seemed a joke to Bravour, a shanty choir from Woerden. When the Dutch police introduced a new uniform in 2014, it turned out to be the spitting image of the choir’s uniform, dark blue with broad yellow bands across the chest.

“We’ve suddenly gained tens of thousands of new members”, the choir’s chair person Ad de Goey quipped in Algemeen Dagblad that year. “The local police also thinks it’s funny. Well, they’re all welcome to join as far as I am concerned.”

But in November that year the joke turned sour when the police let on that somebody was going to have to change their uniforms—and the somebody wasn’t going to be the police. Although the article doesn’t mention it, the police actually had the law on their side—impersonating a police officer, even if it is only by dressing like one, carries a maximum prison sentence of three months.

The shanty choir were all good sports about it. Not only did they come up with a new uniform, but on 26 February 2016 they invited the police choir from Gelderland to the Cross Church in Woerden for a joint performance. As Joe Cocker’s You Can Leave Your Hat On was played over the tannoy, Bravour members performed a striptease in which they tore off their old uniforms, revealing the new uniforms underneath. From now on the shanty choir will perform in dark blue with a broad, light blue wave.

See also: The Netherlands has finally become a police state

(Illustration: these people may dress like a bunch of entertainers, but they are actually Dutch police officers; source: politie.nl)

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