Mixed news on the economic front, lottery losers are livid, forgotten videotape embarrasses police and KLM forgets a grandmother. Spot the stories for the silly season.

August is the summer holiday month here in the Netherlands; it feels as though half the population, including all of the country's politicians, have left the country. The motorways are empty; the half-hourly traffic jam roundup on the radio has been reduced to a single sentence - 'no traffic jams to report today' - and there are plenty of seats available on the trains. The newspapers are slimmed-down versions of their winter editions and while there is plenty of foreign news, domestic news is in rather short supply, but all is not lost, de Volkskrant has printed a list of silly stories to use on slow summer days. I'll leave it to you to decide which one(s) made de Volkskrant's list.

Mixed news on the economic front
The economy is back in the headlines but according to De Telegraaf, this time it's good news: "economic crisis: end in sight!" trumpets the paper on the front page. Expectations aren't quite so high over at the left-wing de Volkskrant; its front-page headline reads "Economic Analysis Institute a tiny bit more optimistic".

De Telegraaf, citing confidential information obtained from the Netherlands Institute for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB), writes that the economic forecast is, "far sunnier than previously predicted". According to the paper, neither unemployment nor the budget deficit will rise as far or as fast as had been earlier predicted and the economy will not shrink in 2010 although growth will fall to zero percent. The populist paper concludes, even though the CPB is predicting that the economy will shrink by 4.8 percent in 2009, "the economic outlook in 2010 is rosy".

De Volkskrant, citing those same confidential documents, reads the situation very differently, "economic outlook slightly less bleak," writes the paper. Although de Volkskrant is reporting the same facts, the words it uses are so very different: gloomy; grim; sombre; fearful and pessimistic all crop up at least once in the article. A question of is the glass half full or is it half empty?

Lottery losers livid
The glass is obviously half empty for thousands of people who bought a lottery ticket and didn't win a penny. A record jackpot of 27.5 million euros was up for grabs this month but as the winner only bought a fifth of a ticket - yes, you can buy 1/5 of a ticket here - just 5.5 million in prize money was given away and losers are furious. The Dutch lottery losers organisation (DuLLO) has had a record number of complaints, DuLLO director Ferdy Roet tells AD, "I've never seen people this angry".

The organisation has taken the state lottery to court because the winning number picked by the computer has turned out to belong an unsold lottery ticket numerous times in recent years. Mr Roet fumes, "people were led to believe that the 27.5 million jackpot would be paid out. It's not clear that every lottery ticket is linked to a unique number".

According to a spokesperson for the state lottery, "We are deeply sorry that people are unhappy but we operate well within the law", adding, "we will check to make sure that our communications have been absolutely clear".

Forgotten videotape embarrasses police
Most of De Telegraaf's front page is taken up with the news that the Dutch Criminal Investigation Service (CIE) has been seriously embarrassed by "an act of enormous stupidity by the police academy".

A videotape containing extremely sensitive CIE information was delivered to our offices by a concerned citizen yesterday, crows the paper. It appears that police officers "stupidly" left the tape in a video recorder that was later sold at public auction. The buyer found the tape when he got his purchase home, "I was deeply shocked," he tells the populist paper.

It appears that the item in question was a training video for use at the police academy. The outdated equipment was recently sold but the police failed to make sure the video players were empty. A police academy spokesperson admitted, "This is very embarrassing".

Feminist institute re-launched under new name
De Volkskrant reports that the International Feminist Institute and Archive (IIAV) has changed its name to Aletta - in honour of Aletta Jacobs, the first woman in the Netherlands to complete a university degree and the country's first woman doctor - and to celebrate the change, the organisation presented Emancipation Minister Ronald Plasterk with a list of regulations to help smash the glass ceiling that keeps women out of top jobs.

Aletta called for all women appointed to a professorship to be given a 500,000 euro grant by a research institute in order to induce more universities to appoint women, more women in senior positions and a ban on the use of the words 'daddy day'. The last demand might seem a little peculiar but it was proposed by the chairwoman of the largest union in the Netherlands as a way to reinforce the demand for affordable childcare.

Agnes Jongerius says the rewards and praise heaped upon men for looking after their children one day week masks the fact that women are being forced to give up work entirely because they cannot afford child care. ‘Daddy day’ is another example of this skewed view of women's work and the way society de-values it.

KLM forgets grandmother
As it's the holiday season, one does expect various vacation disaster stories - lost luggage, rotten weather, booking a flight to the wrong country, tent eaten by hungry bear - but one does not expect airlines to forget a person.

Next to a photo of a rather sweet-looking little old lady, De Telegraaf headlines, "Grandma left behind in KLM plane". An 87-year-old wheelchair-bound grandmother was left behind on the plane after everybody else had disembarked. Sylvette Landrein, who does not speak a word of Dutch, was helped on to the plane in the French city of Nantes but upon arrival at Schiphol, KLM cabin personnel forgot to help her off the plane.

Daughter-in-law Sonja tells the paper, "It's absolutely outrageous. My aged mother-in-law was alone in the plane for more than an hour ". She continues, "I asked at the KLM desk, but was told to be patient". If that wasn't enough, the airline also managed to lose Mrs Landrein's suitcase. So much for flying the friendly skies.