Oh Those Crazy Cloggies – Page 11

Dutch Transplant News

Published on May 29, 2007

Should’ve known it would be the BNN channel though…

As someone who’s going to need a new kidney in the nearish future you can imagine how this story makes me feel.

Terminally ill woman to give away her organs on Dutch TV
dpa German Press Agency
Published: Saturday May 26, 2007

Amsterdam– Dutch TV on Friday is due to air a show in which a terminally ill woman choses one out of three kidney patients to receive her organs after she dies, reports said Saturday. The Dutch public can advice 37-year-old Lisa in making her decision by sending her text messages via mobile phone.

Earlier on Saturday, legislator Joop Atsma of the Christian Democrats (CDA) called the Big Donor Show, as the TV programme is called, “morally wrong and reprehensible.”

Atsma said he would question the Minister of Health Ab Klink (CDA) and Media Minister Ronald Plasterk of the Labour party (PvdA) about the issue in parliament next week.

The TV show is a production of Endemol Entertainment and due to be
aired by broadcasting company BNN.

BNN, which primarily targets teenagers and young adults, is known for its controversial and provocative shows, having aired highly explicit programmes on sex and drugs in the past.

The Dutch public has grown accustomed to the type of provocative shows that BNN prefers to air, and is usually indifferent when the company launches a new controversial programme.

The Big Donor Show however does not go unnoticed.

Atsma said: “I want to talk to BNN about this issue. BNN is solving one problem, but creates two others. Did BNN even consider how the two people will feel who will be rejected as donor recipients?”

BNN president Laurens Drillich said on Saturday the broadcast would go through as planned. “Participants have a 33-per-cent chance to get a kidney. That is substantially higher than people on the waiting list. One would expect the shortage of donor organs to diminish, but the contrary is true.”

Originally, BNN was founded by the late Bart de Graaf, a kidney patient since early childhood. De Graaf never received a donor kidney and died five years ago. BNN said the show wanted to demonstrate that five years after De Graaf’s death, there was still an alarming shortage of donor organs in the Netherlands.

The number of Dutch nationals registering as organ donors has been decreasing in recent years, causing the government to launch a new campaign urging the public to register.

Paul Beerkens, director of the Dutch Kidney Foundation, which collects money for research on kidney diseases, said he was very pleased BNN was paying attention to the donor shortage problem.

“But I do not support their methods,” Beerkens said, adding: “Besides, they do not offer a structural solution. For structural solutions, one must implement one of the donor masterplans our foundation developed.”

© 2006 – dpa German Press Agency

And yet I still have a better chance of getting a kidney here in NL than at home in the UK, because the UK hasn’t signed up to the EU transplant pool.

To those reading this who are disgusted by it – go and sign a donor card. Then you can be as disgusted as you like.

UPDATE:

Not often you get two bits of Amsterdam kidney news in one day – the nephrology department that I attend at Vrij Universiteit Medisch Centrum burned down on Saturday:

Amsterdam – Police in Amsterdam said Saturday they were still investigating the cause of a fire which heavily damaged one of the city’s largest hospitals but caused no injuries.

The VUMC hospital in Amsterdam said Saturday it will not admit any new patients following a fire on its second floor.

The first aid and dialysis departments remain closed. The measures were put in place after a fire broke out in the hospital just before 0400 GMT Saturday morning, resulting in heavy damage.

Not a good week for us Amsterdam kidney patients, really.

Today’s comedy double is all about Holland and the Dutch – it’s about time I did my tiny bit towards cross-cultural ~~understanding~~ ~~confusion~~ ~~ah fuck it~~ muddling along as usual, and as I’m often asked, “what’s life actually like in Holland?”, here it is – life in Holland, via the magic of comedy.

This clip from cable ‘yoof’ channel BNN shows the sorts of things we see in the streets every day:

If you watched that and you’re still going “wtf?”, here, from Amsterdam’s very own US expat comedy theatre Boom Chicago is a quick primer on the difference between European and American senses of humour:

Anyone whose ever been to NL will give a shudder at the mention of Dutch supermarkets. Let’s face it, they’re just weird. The Albert Hein chain of stores, for instance, combines all the glamour of Kwiksave with the aspirations to gentility of Waitrose, but with a complete and utter bonkersness that’s all its own. Recently all the Dutch AH customers went mad for the Wuppie, a little furry doodad given away free with groceries. The key word here is ‘free’ – the Dutch bow to no-one in their ability to grab anything free that’s going, no matter how useless or ugly it might be. “But it’s free! ”

This is how excited the Dutch can get over a cheap supermarket giveaway:

It’s not just me thinks Dutch supermarkets are weird – here’s a vintage clip (you can tell it’s vintage cause he mentions guilders) of British comic John Fearley attempting to explain Albert Hein, in English, to the Dutch:

You see what I have to put up with? As much as I loathe Tesco’s attempts at world domination, every day I cross my fingers and wish for a local, wuppie-free and most of all reliable Tesco. Or even a Somerfield. Whatever, just somewhere where the assistants don’t alternately scowl and snarl at you and the veg don’t rot the minute you get them home and there’s milk and bread after lunchtime… and they open after 6.

But leaving Dutch supermarkets aside, because it makes me depressed, no visit to NL or Amsterdam would be complete without the obligatory nod to history.

We’re surrounded by history and people gawping at history and this time of year it gets particularly difficult. If only we could make historical tourism more user friendly….

So it’s back to Boom Chicago (who have) for the first bonus clip and -Anne Frank is Lonely Girl 1944:

Ooh, that’s mean, and very, very Dutch. Boom Chicago may be expats, but like me they’re being assimilated despite themselves.

Happy Oranjeweekend!

Published on April 28, 2007

This weekend is the long weekend of Koninginnedag or Queen’s Day, that annual Dutch excuse for exuberant debauchery and hard selling.

By the evening of Queen’s day, Monday, the residents of Amsterdam will mostly be totally legless, wearing tacky inflatable orange crowns on their heads and swaying drunkenly en masse to Andre Hazes songs long into the night, having first divested themselves of unwanted tat and made some beer money earlier in the day selling their unwanted goods in the street in the nationwide flea market.

Martin’s parents will be here for the weekend and as this always elicits a flurry of window-cleaning, floor-polishing and fluffing of towels expect light posting from us.

At least my MIL is a little easier going than my own late mother, who was affectionately described by me and my sisters as “the skirting-board police”, a title I’m doing my best to perpetuate. (My younger son’s moving into a new house this weekend and I have a stock of white gloves ready for the first post-move inspection.)

But this weekend, we shall be sitting in the garden barbecuing, as the weather is glorious still (cheers, global warming), then it’s off into the mad crowds around the grachten to watch the canal parades.

See you again Tuesday am sharp, or possibly before if I need to retreat from the orange frenzy for a while. Have a good weekend.

“I’m On Ur HD Poppin UR Cherry”

Published on April 21, 2007

I know a fair few geeks (looks across the room) and I’ve often thought this was a gap in the market; but leave it to the Dutch to spot the commercial potential:

The Register:

Dutch escort agency to service geek virgins
‘A lot of demand’ from IT sector
By Lester Haines
Published Friday 20th April 2007 13:22 GMT

God alone knows it’s going to be difficult, but we promise we will keep an absolutely straight face as we report that Dutch escort agency Society Service has set up a special service for geek virgins looking for that elusive first sexual encounter.

Sociology student Zoe Vialet set up the agency last year, Ananova reports, and admits she’s had “a lot of demand from virgins” – most of them from the IT sector. She explained to De Telegraaf: “They are very sweet but are afraid of seeking contact with other people. They mean it very well but are very scared.”

Zoe has a crack team of five girls “specially trained” to pop geeks’ cherries. However, those readers tempted to avail themselves of their charms are warned it’s not just a case of stump up the cash, insert your floppy in the drive, eject and then off for a pizza.

Au contraire, you’ll be expected to hone your skills over a extended period, as Vialet insisted: “Every booking lasts three hours minimum. Longer is possible, shorter not. We take the time to take a bath together, do a massage and explore each others body. When the date is over, you will have had a fantastic experience, and you will be able to pleasure a woman.”

And just in case you thought you might just try and get a real squeeze for a bit of mutual body-exploration, think again. Vialet warned: “You better practise before having a girlfriend. Woman expect men older than 30 having had some experience. Some men need a little bit of help. But it makes them happy and they are glowing .There is nothing more terrible than dying as a virgin.” ®

“IMPEACH!”

Published on February 22, 2007

Imagine the fun a geek with something to say could have with one of these from your friendly neighborhood artactivist collective Graffiti Research Labs, seen here recently lighting up Art Rotterdam:

Lasertagged Rotterdam

Graffiti Research Labs Mark Up Buildings With L.A.S.E.R.TAG

The tech-savvy artists over at Graffiti Research Lab hacked together a large-scale tagging projector using a standard notebook computer, 5000 ANSI DLP projector, a 60mw green laser (apparently super illegal in a lot of places and very dangerous), an astronomer’s camera, and some other random crap.

The L.A.S.E.R.TAG tracks the motion of the green laser through the camera and then projects the ‘ink’ onto any large flat surface—like in this case, the side of a large building.

The lab has instructions on how to get started with creating your own tagging projector, and they’ve thankfully released the source code to help you on your way. But remember, even if you get one successfully built, you still need some art skills to properly do graffiti. – Alexander Yoon

Via Gizmodo Project details, pictures, video and source code here.