Snow and frost have left roads across the Netherlands dangerously icy, the Royal Dutch Touring Club warns, causing many accidents.

The ANWB says most of the country is covered by between 5 and 8 centimetres of snow that fell overnight. Police are reporting more accidents than usual for a weekend. No serious accidents have yet occurred, though roads are as busy as on a normal weekday. On many motorways, only the right lane is passable.

Snowfall in Germany has caused severe disruption. On some roads in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern motorists were stranded for hours. Due to the heavy snowfall snowploughs and towing services could not reach them sooner. Rail traffic also came to a standstill. Around 300 accidents, one of them fatal, have been reported in North Rhine-Westphalia. Two people were killed in traffic accidents in Bavaria.

Source: RNWNews

Interviewed by Philip Smet, Guerrilla Games’ Animation and Art Director Jan Bart van Beek says “We had to start from scratch.” Read more

Sperm donor mix-up
“White woman gives birth to black son, father unknown” is the headline in AD, above a bizarre tale of a white lesbian couple, one of whom went to the local hospital to be inseminated with the sperm of a good friend - also white - only to give birth to a black child. While in this case the error couldn’t be clearer, experts say the administration at the hospital’s sperm bank was so disorganised that many more mix-ups may have occurred: donor details were not recorded, donors were not given medical check-ups and the vials in which donor sperm was stored were not coded.

The lesbian couple in this case have now gone to court to make the hospital divulge the identity of the likely father. “Our son has a right to know who his father is. And he needs to know that we have done everything possible to obtain that information,” was their emotional plea. But the gynaecologist in question is refusing to give the information on the grounds of medical confidentiality. The women’s lawyer emphasises the extent of the impact: not only the mothers and their son are affected but also the friend who donated his sperm and may be the father of other children as a result of a similar mix-up. It’s now up to the judge to decide whether confidentiality wins out over disclosure.

As long ago as 1735, tea and coffee were being served at Café Oosterling, which didn’t actually become a bar selling alcohol until 1820. Many well-known Amsterdammers, including the author who perhaps best described Amsterdam’s bars, Simon Carmiggelt, have drunk a glass or two of their favourite tipple here. The bar’s interior was even copied for use in a highly popular Dutch animated series of the 1970s, de Fabeltjeskrant (known in English as The Daily Fable).

Apparently, the secret of this particular bar lies in the fact that its owners and managers have not fallen prey to the habit of following modern trends and fads. Indeed, for decades, the place has remained almost totally unaltered. There is no - piped - music or muzak, and wooden barrels serve as tables. The atmosphere is perhaps best described as that of - what many Dutch would regard as - a typical, friendly Amsterdam bar of yesteryear: warm and inviting, but just a little bit cocky too.

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And music from C-mon and Kipski.

Singer and actor Ramses Shaffy, who died on the morning of 1 December 2009, was a larger-than-life figure who left a lasting impression on the Dutch cultural scene.

He was born in 1933 in the Paris suburb Neuilly-sur-Seine, the son of an Egyptian diplomat and a Polish countess of Russian descent. When he was six years old his mother contracted tuberculosis and he was sent to stay with an aunt in Utrecht. He was subsequently taken into care and ended up in a foster home in Leiden. The childhood trauma of leaving his mother is commemorated in his song Trein naar het noorden (Train to the North). Read more