How many names from “The Greatest Dutchman” poll do you recognize?

Top 10:

  • Pim Fortuyn. That gay guy who hated Muslims and got killed.
  • William Of Orange. That guy the Dutch National Anthem is about.
  • Antoine van Leeuwenhoek. That microscope dude.
  • Desiderius Erasmus. That guy who was the premier scholar of his age.
  • Anne Frank. With the diary.
  • Rembrandt Van Rijn. The paintings guy.
  • Vincent van Gogh. The other paintings guy.

7/10.

Top 50:

  • Christiaan Huygens. Optics dude.
  • Freddy Heineken. Beer dude, got kidnapped.
  • Baruch de Spinoza. Nature Is God philosopher dude.
  • M.C. Escher. Every geek’s favourite graphic artist.
  • Queen Beatrix. Or whoever the second last queen was.
  • Hendrik Lorentz. The guy whose equations Einstein used.
  • Abel Tasman. The guy who discovered Tasmania.

14/20

Top 200:

  • Johannes Vermeer. The other other paintings guy.
  • Thomas à Kempis. The mediaeval theologian guy.
  • Willem III of Orange. The Glorious Revolution guy. Mr Queen Anne.
  • Piet Mondriaan. The painter guy with all the squares.
  • Paul Verhoeven. Showgirls. Enough said. (19/100)
  • John de Mol. Isn’t he the guy who invented Reality TV? *Checks* Yeah. Screw that guy.
  • Bernard Haitink. Conductor guy.
  • Koning Lodewijk Napoleon. Oh, that’s cute. Calling him by a Dutch name doesn’t make him any less a rent-a-king Napoleon dropped off out of his family progeny.
  • Pieter Brueghel. That painter dude with the bleak landscapes, that Pat Nixon namechecks in Nixon in China.
  • Louis Andriessen. Hey, I remember him, he’s the dissonant minimalism guy with a bug up his ass about the Canon. I liked De Staat, actually.

24/200, but I’m sure a couple of those are technicalities.

I tied with Peter Flom, which surprises me.

Missing from the list:

That was awesome fun, Jordan. Let’s do it again some time!

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