Maria Fantino for city council of Copenhagen?

Recently I was in Copenhagen, a wonderful city, pottering around on Amagertorv on the crossing of Strøget and Højbro Plads.

Actually my camera spotted the two ladies walking around with videocams first and then my main subject of this post turned around and looked at me with with her clear blue eyes and part of her chicken outfit in her hands.

Maria Fantino seems to be a fancy name as per her Facebook account. Her real name is Maria Emilie Prehn Hansen, daughter of Jesper Lau Hansen, a Copenhage lawyer who has studied law in Camebridge (UK) as well.

Only later, after I had visited some stores in the neighbourhood I saw her again in a cage with her chicken outfit on. Only then she had my real attention while Svenne Lund Jensen was circling around her and kind of interviewed her with an IPhone. When I asked her why she was sitting in the cage she replied that she was contesting to be elected into the Copenhagen City Council. Chickens should be free walking around according to her. I commented I thought she was part of a Hen party or in the race to be married soon. She hadn’t thought of that. It is not clear whether this is real or just an assignment from her school of an assignment from Danske Radio where she seemed having been elected into a super team of 4 outsiders to try to get into the Danish radio or tv scene. 4 succeeded of 1,000 applicants. As she is not particular active on Facebook or Twitter or Google social media, I doubt it is real, but maybe she’ll see this post and comment some time in the future.
She’s probably not aware that we in the Netherlands even have a pro animals party in Parliament….

European Parliament Voting Days

Celebrity Hotelier voting for European Parliament in Dutch Parliament

Voting Selfie Celebrity Hotelier voting for European Parliament in Dutch Parliament

European Parliament Voting Days

Yesterday we had European Parliament Election Day in The Netherlands. The elections are held on several days in all the countries forming the European Communions. Sunday is the last voting day and somewhere Sunday night we will know who will be chosen as one of the very well paid European Parliamentarians.

Why would I share with you that this Celebrity Hotelier voted in the European Parliament election?

I’ll tell you:

  1. When voting a couple of years ago you were only allowed to vote in the voting locale in your direct neighborhood. If you wanted to vote elsewhere, you had to apply for a special permit to do so. Nowadays, as The Hague Counsel decided in it wisdom you don’t have to vote in a voting locale in your neighborhood anymore, it is fun to seek out a more colorful voting locale than a classroom in a school in the neighborhood. I found out Dutch Parliament has its own voting locale so I choose that one.
  2. Actually only as a retired hotelier I’m getting used to an Apple Smartphone. Until recently I was entirely satisfied with my Blackberry. As a new Apple user I cannot forego on the recent hype of selfies. Since I have my IPhone I’m making more and more of them, boring at least my family and maybe also my other readers. Jus tell me. However a voting selfie was subject of a recent court case here in The Netherlands: There were those that contended that selfies should be forbidden in the voting locales as people could be pressed to sell their votes and use the selfie as a proof of their voting. In addition it would be harmful for the peoples privacy…..Note only the second photo (the mirror one seems to be a true selfie.
  3. I thought it would be nice to enhance my presence as a Celebrity Hotelier on the web. A Celebrity Hotelier voting in a (relatively) place of celebrity….LOL

Obama: Truly Gezellig in The Hague

Nuclear Security Summit I56A1197

Truly Gezellig in The Hague

I’ve seen some of the Nuclear Security Summit 2014 here in The Hague and took a bit of video and some photo’s at the final press conference where Obama thanked the Dutch for a well organized summit and showed he knows a Dutch word “Gezellig” that many English speaking people claim is not so easy to translate….My idea is that the following English words give some meaning to gezellig: Cozy, snug and intimate cover it more or less.

After the press conference the president was induced to being photographed in front of the Victory Boogie Woogie, the latest and unfinished painting of Piet Mondrian, who died in New York before he could finish this painting. This painting is in the collection of the The Hague Municipal Museum of Modern Art (Gemeentemuseum).

Obama bij de Victory Boogie Woogie

Happy Birthday John Cage

Happy Birthday John Cage from HappyHotelier on Vimeo.

This year the 100th Birthday of a famous American composer, John Cage, will be celebrated.

This Birthday cake installation for John Cage I found in an exhibition in the Museumsquartier of Vienna that I visited quite unexpectedly earlier this week. I made a small piece of video so that you get a feel of why all small loudspeakers were used to decorate the cake.

Featuring more than hundred different works, “MEMBRA DISJECTA FOR JOHN CAGE: Wanting to Say Something About John” is an homage to John Cage, whose hundred birthday is being celebrated around the world in 2012. The Latin term “membra disjecta” in the exhibition title indicates John Cage’s method of working with a scattering of elements from various sources. The subtitle refers to a multiple that John Cage created in Marcel Duchamp’s honor after his death: “Not Wanting to Say Anything About Marcel.”

If you happen to be in Vienna shortly a must visit exhibition!

Below is a trailer for an memorial of John Cage in The Hague on March 10, 2012:

Celebrity Hotelier and the Long Tail

Long Tail
I might misunderstand the term, but in marketing and distribution the term Long Tail is frequently used to give the small independent entrepreneur or the small independent blogger like me hope to be able to earn a piece of the huge internet cake.

Chris Anderson is usually attributed the term Long Tail.

The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of “hits” (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.

But there is this very old post that stems from before Chris’ article.

Celebrity Hotelier
Almost two years ago I used the term “Celebrity Hotelier” in a post here to see if I could crank my visibility up. It was a success. Soon afterward I got confirmation from various sides that Google (Big Bro) picked me up as a Celebrity Hotelier. Big Bro even granted me frist page result for the search term Hotelier.

Even today it seems to work after several overhauls of Big Bro’s algorithm:
I’m still ranking as number 1 (and number 2) on page 1 for the term Celebrity Hotelier.

And position 4 or 5 on page 1 for the term Hotelier:
Hotelier ranking number 4 or 5 on the search result

Quite possible I’m not able to circumvent the local search result algorithm of Big Bro, and that the conclusion is different from different parts of the world, would love to receive some feedback here.

Can Long mean Long time ago as well?
I got an e-mail today:

hi there.

this will sound very odd…

I am an architecture student in London. Last year I did a student design project set in Naples, which included a fictional character under the title ‘hotelier’. I needed an face for the character, so i typed ‘hotelier’ into google and found your picture.

I then did a pen drawing of the photograph for coherence of presentation… which I thought I would pass on!

The very photo of the earlier post worked into a drawing. Thanks Mate!

I know I may have stretched the term Long Tail a bit, but I found it funny this all came back after such a long time, especially in internet metrics where all seems focussed on here and now only…and may help defend my position.

In addition I also note that a Stumble by my blogging friend Barbara Weibel (@holeinthedonut) of A Hole in the Donut bears some influence on Big Bro as well.