Dutch Speed Skating Dominance

I decided not to do a medal by medal count of the Dutch Olympic results for the 2014 Sochi Olympics this year. Good thing I didn't. It would have been repetitive. The 'Orange Crush' won an astonishing 23 of a possible 36 medals in Speed Skating with 3 'sweeps'. Take this into consideration. The Canadian team brought 140 athletes to Sochi and only left with 1 more medal than the Dutch who only brought 41... all they really needed was their Speed Skating team. They had twice as many medals in speed skating than all the other countries combined. In fact, it was so dominant the International Skating Union is looking at why the other countries did so poorly and is considering making changes for up coming Olympics. Speed Skating is a way of life for the Dutch. It's their unofficial sport and they backed it up finishing 4th in the total medal standings with 23 of their 24 medals coming in speed skating. The 24th was also skating... short track.

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de Vries, Hans de Vries. Almost.

In 1967 THE James Bond (Sean Connery) decided to step away from the world of James Bond films. EOS studios thus had to find a replacement. It came down to 5 men. 2 Brits, an American, a Australian, and a Dutchman. John Richardson, Anthony Rogers, Robert Campbell, George Lazenby, and Hans de Vries. None of those names ring a bell? George Lazenby won the part for the 6th Bond film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service. A movie that has been lauded both as the worst and one of the best Bond films in the franchise. If you haven't seen it, you should. It was the Bond film that 'Breaks the Fourth Wall', Bond gets married, wears a kilt, and goes skiing. But the reason for this post is instead of this; (Yes, THAT is James Bond) We could of had this. Improvement? Probably not. He looks a wee bit angry. Plus, no one watches OHMSS anyway. So, did de Vries have a movie career after Bond? Ha, no. The only notable movie rolls I can find for him were pre bond. And that was ...

Waffle, Wafel, Walfre, or Wafla?

A post! Due to a dearth of ideas (see what I did there? Wordsmart word) by me or the other author (cough cough); I was hoping a great story would be found using Google. Sadly, no. But I did finish a good book recently (Janson Directive by Robert Ludlum) that included a solid bit set in Amsterdam. The Amsterdam bit had me focused on Houseboats, which is a much bigger thing than I thought, and English Words with Dutch origins again. One I hadn't really thought of in a while that Ludlum referenced. Behold the Mighty Waffle Here in America. When we think Waffle our first thoughts are probably Belgium Waffles or Eggo (the surprising good readymade toaster variety). But did you know that Waffles are very old? The Dutch word Wafel (mid 13th century) and the Frankish word Walfre (1185) both come from the root word walfa which means honeycomb or cake (how about both!). Wikipedia goes into great detail about the origins of the Waffle and Waffle through the years. Fascinating bit compari...

Ray - Forest Boy

Remember around a month ago when the news story hit about Ray the Forest Boy who randomly showed up one day in Berlin, Germany? Well I forgot to post this but it has been found out who Ray the 'Forest Boy' actually is. 20 yr old Robin van Helsum of Hengelo Netherlands (100 miles east of Amsterdam). What allowed the police to finally determine who 'Ray' was? His stepmother. She recognized his picture on the news. He went missing 9 months ago. Now that he has been exposed as a hoax and not the Forest Boy who had been living in the woods for 5 years; Robin may face stiff fines and penalties for the extra police time and work put into his case which could cost as much as $40,000. 'Ray' originally walked into Berlin claiming he had been walking for 5 days after spending 5 years living out of a tent in the 'wild' where he had buried his father. One Berlin police officer said that there were things right from the start that did not match to his story. Lik...

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