FLASHMOB, WALLOP: WHAT A PICTURE!

Viewing much-reproduced, iconic paintings in the flesh (or, rather, canvas) can be a tad disappointing: for example, the most startling thing about looking at the original of the 'Mona Lisa' in the Louvre is that you can't actually see it for the scrum of tourists and their blitzkrieg of flash photography. 

One notable exception to this rule is Rembrandt van Rijn's 1642 painting, 'The Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch preparing to march out' – or, as it is more commonly called, 'The Nightwatch' – housed in Amasterdam's Rijksmuseum...

I vividly remember seeing it for the first time, being captivated by its scale and striking intensity, spending some time just absorbing its richness of detail and, later, discovering the intriguing story behind the painting of the picture.

After being closed for a decade of refurbishment, the Rijksmuseum re-opened last month and to mark the event a flashmob invaded a shopping centre in Breda and – with seeming disregard for issues of health and safety, imaginatively and excitingly recreated Rembrandt's famous painting...

Brilliant!

You can read more about the painting here and in even greater detail here.

PICK OF THE PIX: OLD DUTCH MASTERPIECE

Today's offering in this occasional series of posts featuring favourite photos from my flickr photostream shows a particularly striking sunset shot snapped during a visit to Amsterdam...

© Brian Sibley, 2009

FUTURE GROWTH

Readers may remember my reporting that a 150 year old horse chestnut tree in Amsterdam, which gave hope to young Anne Frank during the time that she and her family were in hiding from the Nazi's, was deemed to be unsafe and had been marked down for the chop until a last-minute stay of execution was granted while tree experts sought ways to save it.


Well, the experts have cogitated and come up with a plan. Reuters reported:

In a statement on Wednesday, city authorities, residents, the Anne Frank museum and conservationists said they had agreed to build a frame around the 150-year-old tree before the end of May.

"That means the tree can stay standing for a minimum of five to 15 years," they said. "A multi-year plan will be drawn up to keep an eye on its condition and safety."

Responsibility for looking after the tree has been assumed by the Support Anne Frank Tree Foundation, but the costs will be considerable: €50,000 for the frame required to support the 27-tonne tree and approximately €10,000 a year in maintenance, but as Arnold Heertje, a member of the foundation, said, "This is not just any tree. The Anne Frank tree is bound up with the persecution of the Jews..."

The news about the fate of this one old tree in a Dutch garden was reported across the globe yesterday by hundreds of newspapers, TV and radio stations from the San Francisco Chronicle via the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to the Times of India.

It is, perhaps, a cynical observation, but would that the many thousands of individual infringements and abuses of human freedom that are perpetrated daily - hourly - throughout the world might generate as much universal concern as something which symbolizes freedom...

It also proves that one should be very wary about stuff you buy on eBay!

"Our chestnut tree is in full blossom. It is covered with leaves and is even more beautiful than last year..."

- Anne Frank

Images: Reuters

OLD CHESTNUT

That horse-chestnut from the Anne Frank Tree being sold on ebay finally went for $10,240.00

It was not the wisest investment as it turned out, since the tree (due to have been felled today) was granted an eleventh hour stay of execution by an Amsterdam judge who said that the city had not considered other solutions and asked all sides to sit down and come up with alternatives to cutting down the 150-year-old tree.

No doubt the lucky purchaser of the world's most expensive chestnut would now like to see the seller "roasting on an open fire"...

CONKERING THE MARKET

A post-script to today's blog about the Anne Frank Tree: the person living next door to the house where the tree awaits execution is selling one of its horse-chestnut on ebay.

The bidding on this item of entrepreneurial opportunism currently stands, at the time of writing (with 10 hours 23 minutes to go), at $10,240...

That's one hell of an expensive conker.

WOODMAN, SPARE THAT TREE!

A court today will be considering an appeal for an injunction against the felling of a tree...

Not any tree, but a horse-chestnut tree in Amsterdam that is over a 150 years old and sick to its roots with a fungus infection that is making it unsafe. So, why is anyone anxious to save it?

Quite simply because it stands in the garden of a house in Keizersgracht that is overlooked by the secret annex where a Jewish family by the name of Frank hid from the Nazis for two years during WWII and where the family's youngest daughter, Anne, would write a diary that made her name famous throughout the world...


When we were in Amsterdam, we visited the Anne Frank House on Prinsengracht. I wasn't agile enough to climb the ladder-like stairs into the secret annexe, but it is impossible to be in the building - despite the somewhat sanitized, visitor-friendly feel which is inevitable for a public museum receiving thousands of visitors every day - without feeling the weight of true history: not the great dealings of rulers and dictators or the terrors of the battlefield, but the small, ordinary drama of human history as seen through the eyes of a young and gifted child.

On 18 April 1944
, Anne Frank wrote:

April is glorious, not too hot and not too cold, with occasional light showers. Our chestnut tree is in leaf, and here and there you can already see a few small blossoms.



In a speech given in 1968, Anne's father, Otto Frank, spoke of the thoughts that came to his mind when he read Anne’s diary for the first time:
 "How could I have suspected that it meant so much to Anne to see a patch of blue sky, to observe the gulls during their flight and how important the chestnut tree was to her, as I recall that she never took an interest in nature. But she longed for it during that time when she felt like a caged bird. She only found consolation in thinking about nature..."

As, indeed, she did. On 13 May 1944
, just three months before the family were betrayed and their hiding place was revealed to the Nazis, Anne wrote:

Our chestnut tree is in full blossom. It is covered with leaves and is even more beautiful than last year.

Now, if the injunction fails, the tree will be felled and a small, some might say insignificant, piece of history will be lost.

There are plans, if it has to fall, to plant a healthy graft from the tree to keep alive the notion of freedom that it represented to Anne and - it could only happen in our modern age - the Anne Frank House Museum has 'planted' a Virtual Tree...

But neither, of course, can ever replace the tree itself...

23 February 1944:


The two of us looked out at the blue sky, the bare chestnut tree glistening with dew, the seagulls and other birds glinting with silver as they swooped through the air, and we were so moved and entranced that we couldn’t speak.



Image: Peter Dejong/AP Photo

__________________________________________________

Today is Closing Day for entries to our
CAPTION COMPETITION

HOLY COW!

Apart from the occasional dope-smoking bear (see yesterday), there are certain things you expect to find in Holland such as WINDMILLS...

And CLOGS...


And - with all that cheese - COWS...

...BUT not, usually, on the ceiling!

Ooops, sorry, that's better... on the CEILING!!


Perhaps it was just something to do with whatever it was that Baloo was smoking...

Images: © Brian Sibley & David Weeks, 2007

OLD MOTHER NATURE'S RECIPES

Mention, yesterday, of Disney's The Jungle Book, reminds me that when we were in Amsterdam, we actually spotted Baloo the Bear in the window of a coffee shop ---

--- SMOKING A JOINT !!!

Oh, well, as the bear himself would say:

"So just try and relax, yeah cool it
Fall apart in my backyard...
Yeah, man! Solid gone! And you'd better believe it!"

Images: © David Weeks, 2007

FLOWER BED

Hotel rooms are, to me, a constant source of fascination - occasionally they are a real and satisfying surprise, more often than not, however, they are a sorry disappointment. But in every case (good, bad or indifferent) the hotel - your home away from home - is absolutely nothing like your own home --- or, indeed, the home of anyone you've ever known!

For example, on a previous visit to Amsterdam our hotel bedroom had the singular distinction of lacking any of those prints and pictures (of invariably little or no artistic merit!) that are a usual part of the holiday hotel experience.

In fact the only decoration was dramatic, simple and proscriptive...


On our most recent visit (in another wing of the same hotel) we had a very different room: although still lacking pictures it did have a wonderfully outrageous, illuminated, bed-head 'window' onto the tulip fields of Holland --- and, frankly, we were rather surprised at the size of the blooms!


Images: © Brian Sibley, David Weeks, 2007

CELEB-SPOTTING FOR DUMMIES

I hadn't been to Madame Tussauds for years. How can anyone (who actually lives in Britain) ever go to Madame Tussauds? I mean, joining an interminable queue of Overseas Tourists in order to be able to gawk at wax effigies of the famous and the infamous...

Preposterous!

Out of the question!

However, when one happens to be an Overseas Tourist in Holland and one happens to have a coupon for €3 off the admission price to Madame T's place in Amsterdam and (best of all) there happens not to be an interminable queue, then why not stop by for a quick gawk...

So that's what we decided to do.




There was, I admit, some trepidation amongst our party that it might turn out to be full of waxwork likenesses of newsmen and weather girls from Dutch TV (and I think there may have been one or two) or - a personal fear - that we'd be staring at rather too many footballers, golfers and tennis players, but not so!

By and large, it proved reasonable easy to spot Who's Who --- or, for those who have seen better days (or have gone in for a little too much cosmetic surgery), Who Used To Be Who...



Mind you, one would have thought that, theoretically, it ought to be relatively easy (and certainly painless) for a waxworks to have plastic surgery! But I digress...

There were a couple of mild shocks to the old British Ego when we discovered that not only was our Own Dear Queen nowhere to be found within the hall of International Leaders but that the House of Windsor was solely represented by Diana, the late and former Princess of Wales.

Also, while a whole slew of European leaders were busily jostling with one another for preeminence, the most recent British politician on duty was this one...


Anyway, enough carps and cavils. There were two things which made Mme Tussauds' Amsterdam salon especially worth a visit: firstly it was a lot smaller and more intimate than the vast, exhausting mausoleum on London's Baker Street; and, secondly, it was possible to get very Up Close and Personal with the stars and celebrities - in fact many of them were posed to be posed with. So, once you get the hang of that and realise that Everyone is Doing It, you just join in...

And we did!

Since contemporary singers habitually seem to record duets with deceased singing legends, I decided to sing-along with Pavarotti...


(Notice how my hand looks rather more waxy than Luciano's... Strange!)

And I also took the Mona Lisa Smile Test...


David spent most of his time being our personal paparazzi, so didn't get photographed as much as some other people, but he did have a stare-out contest with Tom Hanks...


...and reacquainted himself with Kylie...


(And here's where to look if you happened to miss their first *magical* meeting.)

But, without doubt, it was BUTTONS who had the best time of all, seen here meeting  another larger-than-life personality...

Buttons posed with (nearly) everyone and his personal blog is simply stuffed with More Photos of his time with the stars! So, check it out!

Images: © David Weeks & Brian Sibley, 2007

AUTUMN IN AMSTERDAM

In Amsterdam the water is the mistress and the land the vassal. Throughout the city there are as many canals and drawbridges as bracelets on a Gypsy's bronzed arms.

- Felix Marti-Ibanez

Amsterdam is an embracingly friendly city: its tall, elegant, narrow houses could easily choose to look grand and austere but, instead, they lean very slightly forward in a quizzically humorous way and peer with many-windowed eyes across the canals at similarly attractive houses or, below, at the passerby on foot, bike and boat.

With autumn, the leaves on the trees along the canal banks are now turning yellow-gold, adding splashes of radiant light in defiance of occasional grey skies...



Travelling on the canals, you pass not only beneath the inquisitive gaze of those towering houses but also alongside the houseboats which line almost every meter of the waterways...


Here a child on a houseboat feeds a pair of swans, while his sister sits reading the diary of one of Amsterdam's iconic figures - Anne Frank...


And, finally, here's another, earlier, shot of that golden sunset I posted the other day - less dramatic, I admit, but more idyllic; perhaps, more Amsterdam...


Images: © Brian Sibley & David Weeks, 2007

ON THE LOOS IN AMSTERDAM

As David has noted on his blog, Dutch public conveniences can be the repository of some interesting - and thought-provoking - Lavatory Humour.

But, as we also discovered at Schiphol Airport, in Holland there are loos and loos; and at Amsterdam's air terminal you get a chance to enjoy an unrivaled level of toiletry sophistication with what they call Surprising Toilets!


Which means that there are cubical doors that are decorated with landmarks arranged by height...


Or cunningly disguised as canal-side house fronts...


And you can choose between peeing on the town from above...


Or mingling your waters with those of the city's fabled waterways...


But, as we've told you before, gentlemen must always remember to aim for the fly!


And the only thing that ever clogs up these loos is - er - CLOGS!


Images: © David Weeks, 2007

DUTCH GOLD

"Where are the photos of Amsterdam?" several of you have been asking... Well, there will be some, never you fear! Oh, yes!

Meanwhile, here is one that I captured somewhat by chance.

I had gone to Nemo, the city's fascinating museum of science and technology, with David, but had not really felt up to fully exploring the wonders of this spectacularly inter-active venue, the motto of which is: "It is forbidden NOT to touch!"

Anyway, I was taking it easy with an afternoon cuppa when, suddenly, the most amazing golden sunset set me snapping...

Click on image to enlarge

Image © Brian Sibley, 2007

BEDDING DOWN IN AMSTERDAM

Did I mention how very thoughtful and helpful the Dutch people are?

Take our hotel room in Amsterdam, for example: if, on entering the room, you felt in any doubt as to the exact location of the BED - or indeed were exhibiting any degree of uncertainty as to which was the head and which the bottom - all one had to do was aim for the...

...ARROW!

Similarly, when desiring to leave the room, any anxiety concerning the route to the DOOR was instantly settled with reference to the helpful directions woven into the carpet at the foot of the bed!