It turns out that a festival is held the last weekend of August every year, and I stumbled upon it. It was pretty cool -- the festival focused in on food and drink. For 15 EUR you got 10 tickets, each of which could be redeemed for a beer or a sample of food from a local restaurant (or even an entire meal). Depending on what you were drinking and eating, it could cost several tickets. For 15 EUR I ended up getting good beer and good food...

There was live music Friday night -- the band played traditional music (like "Edelweiss") mixed in with modern songs like "Brown Eyed Girl." It was pretty cool.

After I was done, I took a walk along the plein (plaza) and took some pictures of Maastricht at night. I walked past the plein towards the river, and saw city hall and a statue of Jan Pieter Minkeleers -- a local scientist who discovered a flammable gas you could create from Charcoal. There is a statue that was commissioned in his honor that sits on the plaza in front of city hall, with the torch still burning

Da notare la vigilessa "Questo è il tuo souvenir"...ebbeh...

Dal 1 Gennaio 2009 saranno abolite le ganasce, poiche' (pare) che non ce ne sia piu' bisogno in quanto la multa puo' essere inviata e riscossa nella maggior parte dei paesi europei.

Questa misura e' stata adottata soprattutto per non contrariare i turisti che, tornando alla propria macchina, hanno dovuto chiamare il centro per lo sblocco, aspettare che il camioncino arrivasse, che l'addetto smontasse la ganascia e pagare.

Anche se indubbiamente e' vero che tutto cio' porta un notevole disguido nell'ambito di una visita turistica (e anche un gran giramento di palle), c'è da dire che almeno li' cosi' si era sicuri di ricevere i soldi e si evitava l'invio delle multe nei vari paesi di appartenenza.

Per quanto concerne il lavoro quindi, niente piu' addetti alle ganasce ma addetti alla verifica delle targe e reperimento e invio all'indirizzo del contravvenuto...

La multa pare resti invariata: 104 euro e 60 centesimi.

All photographs by Wouter Brandsma

For the first time in history, the Kingdom Of Jordan has submitted a film to the Academy Awards for consideration in the Best Foreign Film category. The film, Captain Abu Raed, is the latest out of Jordan's non-existent film industry and tells the story of an airport janitor who is mistaken for an airplane pilot by a group of poor children.

In order to compete, the movie will have to be one of five selected among submissions from all over the world. As of now, South Korea, Denmark, the Netherlands, Taiwan and the Philippines have all made their submissions. To check those movies out and keep up with new submissions, go here.

Source

Just some rumbling about gear, but why the hell does a camera manufacturer with the intention to create cameras for a niche market (with photographers in mind) add options like multi AF, leveler, matrix metering, and image stabilization? If a camera was made with usability and photography in mind, it could still be a basic camera. Do you seriously need all those bells and whistles? I think it is not only about the handling of a camera, but also about the photographs. I don't think image quality is the best name for that, but I would love to have a larger sensor in a simple camera with a good lens.

Cows are so curious (handheld photograph without image stabilization).
Nibbelinklaan, Sinderen, Gelderland, the Netherlands.
August 18, 2008
Ricoh GX200, f4.3, 1/4 sec, ISO 100, -0.3 EV

HOW do you follow up two, fine bottled ales? With some big name lager of course! Here is a small bottle of Amstel Bier Lager. Let's get this over with.

Amstel is a name I remember being aware of for years. Then not seeing for years. And just recently seeing advertised on posters again before finding this bottle being sold in a local shop. If it really has been resurrected here in Britain, then that is good to see. If anyone can shed some light on what happened to Amstel, do please leave a comment at the end of the post.

In fairness, it doesn't look at all bad. It certainly makes a change from all the green-glass bottles from its competitors.

The neck label doe what you expect of a neck label. It has a coat of arms featuring two horses, hops and barley. And the year 1870. Not bad. Not great either.

The big roundel stuck to the front of the bottle does roughly the same thing. Inside the roundel, they helpfully describe it as "Quality Product". That's good to know. Around the border, the place of origin becomes the centre of attention. Amstel Bier hails from the "Amstel Brouwerij B.V. Amsterdam Holland". Time now to check the back to see if this is the real thing, or in fact made over here.

They certainly keep things simple on this side of the bottle. This should take all of two-minutes to read. Which makes a change from the four hours it took to read everything yesterday.

From the very top, my big question was answered. That's because this was "brewed and bottled by Amstel Brouwerij B.V. for Heineken (UK) Ltd." It then goes on to give Heiniken's south-west London address. So... This was brewed in the Netherlands. Excellent.

Ingredients are the next thing they get to. This one lists water, malted barley and hops. No surprises there. Under some of the usual small print, the web address they give is www.ChilledfromAmsterdam.com. At first I hated their website for being slow and Flash heavy, but stick with it. It's quirky in a Dutch way and has some personality. Not something you find with most big, continental lagers.

Under the barcode are the vital statistics. This tiny bottle is 330 millilitres. And it has huge 4.1% alcoholic volume. Hang on, ‘huge' was the wrong word. ‘Moderate' is the one I'm looking for.

There. That's it. There's nothing more to say about the outside. Time now to open this bottle and see what it's like. How will it compare to the lacklustre competition I tried out a while back?

Watch out pourers, this is a head happy bottle. It dies down soon enough, but you'll still have a thick layer of froth to contend with.

Like nearly every lager, this one is pale yellow. And fizzy. No surprises there.

What about the smell? It has that small of a blend of malted barley and hops that all lagers have. The Amstel take on it is pretty good. It smells light and fresh somehow.

How does it taste? A couple of gulps in, and first impressions are ok. Just keep your expectations low. It has an almost invisible malted barley flavour. And it leaves you with a lingering bitter aftertaste. That bitter aftertaste rolls in, and leaves a semi-harsh, slightly tangy bite in your mouth.

What is there to like here? As someone who likes ales, not a lot. But if I imagine for a moment, that I loved lager, there are a few things to like. For one, it is very light and drinkable. It's quite refreshing too. The flavours won't offend anyone. And that lagery "bite" that lager drinkers seem to adore is there and doing its job perfectly well. The whole drink does what a lager should do, very well indeed.

If you're guessing that there are things I don't like, you'd be right. The reason it's so light and drinkable, is because it's got the consistency of water. Flavour is almost totally absent. And that bitter "bite" doesn't sit well with me at all. It's unsophisticated and unnecessarily rough. It's also a tiny bit gassy. But then it is a lager. So all this criticisms don't really apply.

If you compare it to all the other lagers out there, especially the other Dutch or northern-European ones, the picture changes. Amstel Bier suddenly looks light, drinkable and good.

So there you have it. If you like continental lagers, you should try Amstel Bier Lager. It's a fully competent lager. Compare it to a real ale, and it looks laughable. Compare it to other lagers, and it looks respectable. The rating then, becomes meaningless. But, here it is anyway.

Rating: 2.25

Have you tried Amstel Bier Lager? What did you think of it? What reputation does it have in the Netherlands?

Leave your corrections, opinions, insights, requests and recommendations in the boxes below.

Coming next, another bottled lager I don't expect to enjoy!

Sea level rise by 2100 'below 2m'

A revamp of the Thames Barrier is likely as sea levels rise

Sea levels globally are very unlikely to rise by more than 2m (7ft) this century, scientists conclude.

Major increases would have to be fuelled by a faster flow of glaciers on the Greenland or Antarctic ice sheets.

But writing in the journal Science, a US team concludes that a rise of 2m would need glaciers to reach speeds that are "physically untenable".

However, even increases substantially less than 2m would cause major issues for many societies, they say.

"Even a sea level rise of 20cm (8in) in a century will have quite dramatic implications," said Shad O'Neel from the US Geological Survey (USGS).

Woe betide any government that thinks a 2m rise in sea level isn't something to take notice of Dr David Vaughan British Antarctic Survey

"This work is in no way meant to undermine the seriousness of climate change, and sea level rise is something we're going to have to deal with," he told.

Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth received some criticism for implying that a rise of 20ft (6m) was possible in the near future, although it did not give a definite timeframe.

By contrast, this latest research tallies broadly with the conclusions of other groups that have examined the question using different approaches.

Fast work

In its landmark assessment of climate change published last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that sea level rise would probably fit in the range between 28 and 43cm over the century, although 59cm was a possibility.

The current rate is about 3mm per year.

But the IPCC specifically excluded the mechanism able to produce the biggest amounts of water quickly - acceleration in the flow of ice from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the world's two major ice masses that would between them raise sea levels by about 70m if they completely melted.

Most of the ice comes off in glaciers. Scientists know that many of the glaciers have accelerated in recent years - some quite spectacularly. The Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland, for example, doubled its speed in six years to about 12km per year.

The acceleration of glaciers is not well understood

But the processes involved are poorly understood, and the IPCC concluded that on that basis it would be unreasonable to draw any conclusions about how far the acceleration might go.

Individual scientists, however, have not be so coy. The team behind the current research looked at what we do know about Greenlandic and Antarctic glaciers, about the rates of flow and the factors that might prevent acceleration.

"We don't really know a speed limit for glaciers," said Dr O'Neel, "but we can look at what we have today and ask 'what would happen if they all behaved like Jakobshavn?'

"It's been going fast for several years now and hasn't gone another marked increase in speed. Helheim had a brief period at 14km per year, Columbia at nine or 10; so that kind of figure, in the region of 10km/year, seems to be about as fast as it gets."

To achieve a 2m sea level rise by 2100, by contrast, every Greenland glacier would have to increase its flow rate to at least 27km per year and remain at that velocity for the rest of the century.

'Scary' scenario

Antarctica is rather different. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet rests on rock that is mainly below sea level, meaning that warming seas could increase the rate of ice loss, though again the new analysis suggests this is also very unlikely to result in a catastrophic melt during this century.

David Vaughan from the British Antarctic Survey believes the US team has got its figures about right.

"The point is that whatever happens in this century can only start from present conditions and present rates of sea level rise, and that constrains the rise that can occur this century," he told.

"However, if you're looking further ahead than 2100 - and many governments are, including the Netherlands and the UK which are thinking about infrastructure that would last more than 100 years - then that second century still looks quite scary.

"I certainly don't disagree with them that we shouldn't be making outlandish statements about sea level rise, and some outlandish statements have been made; but the high end of the estimates here is still about 2m, and woe betide any government that thinks a 2m rise in sea level isn't something to take notice of."

On my way back from Paris I was reading a newspaper article (link to Dutch article) quoting a certain Mel Tunderman, CEO of Vika, the only Dutch producer of fake cheese. The headline reads: Fake Cheese: 'Inedible but lucrative'. I know it's an older bit of news but I was shocked by this. Frankly I had no idea there was such a thing as fake cheese, although mr. Tunderman prefers the term 'analog cheese'. For obvious reasons.

Tricks of the trade are to include a tiny bit of real cheese in the finished product - often a frozen pizza - so you can claim to have used cheese in the ingredient list. The fake cheese is included on the list as it's components: vegetable oil, starch and a number of artificial flavourings. And the consumer is none the wiser.

You know, this raises so many questions that I do not even know where to begin. It's starch and oil and it won't hurt you, but what else is in my food - or rather, what else is not in my food where it should be? And with all the campaigns going on in Western countries to promote healthier diets, why don't I hear any government say anything at all about this?

I want my food back, damn it!