Bomber's blog

Brussels survives the whirlwind

Morning proles, Bubble's back at work so I'm allowed to type again. I nearly drove her bonkers typing the last entry while she had a migrane. Ah well, you've just got to get these things out sometimes, haven't you? There's a certain irony to the situation, as that evening the Smudgers arrived, starting us on a journey of beer that lasted until Monday afternoon and me not typing anything for a week.

The Smudgers got in a little late (about 11.15) and all the pubs were shut, so we consoled ourselves with a few beers in the front room, while being dead quiet trying not to wake up Bubble. Turns out the tall glass doors to our front room are quite good sound insulators, so I didn't get into any more trouble than I was already in for typing constantly for the 2 hours previous... Friday morning and Bubble had to go to work. She was pissed about this because there was a strike on and she was hoping that they'd close the school due to the significant lack of public transport. Teachers, you see, don't get enough time off. They had closed the school during the last strike 2 weeks previously, but I suppose the school thinks there are likely to be more of them and at the end of the day the kids do have to spend an absolute minimum of 4 days a year in the classroom and they just can't afford to eat into that. You note that in Belgium they always strike on a Friday; this is a masterful political move designed to gain popular support by arranging for the general populace to get a long weekend. No, really.

So, off to work trots Bubble and off down the pub trotted me and the Smudgers. Well, not straight away (Bubble leaves for work at 7 and, no matter how dedicated, that's a bit early.) We waited till 11, the traditional start time for Sunday brunches of old, and headed to our local pub. I use the terms local and pub loosely. It's only local because it's near us and, according to Jezzer's definition, it's not a pub as it lacks a dart board. It does, however, have all the other qualifications; Beer, nicotine stained everything, sticky hop-infused carpet, faint urinal smell, the strength of which is the only reliable way of locating the predictably disgusting toilets topped off with the standard Belgian pub menu of moules, crouque monsieur, steak frites and spaghetti. As I recall (and recollections of the later stages of this particular Friday have been a little difficult to come by) we stayed there until about 5 when we rolled next door to the supermarket and bought as much beer as the three of us could carry and trundled off home with it to await the return of Bubble. The (sober) light of my life returned at around 6 and immediately started on a catch-up campaign which would have brought awed respect from the likes of Elvie's mum and dad. By 8 we were all equally trollied so we headed down town. Sparky and Emma were due in on the Chunnel at 9.30 so we found a pub near the train station and settled in.

Pubs near train stations are special, don't you think? I had thought that the pub we had spent the afternoon in was a pit, but we were really digging deep with this one. Everyone (EVERYONE) in this pub had some sort of limp or other lameness. One bloke was trying to sell cheap hosiery from his trolley bag to the punters, giving each one in turn a personal display, even when they were playing a strange arcade game, which seemed to be a pinball machine without flippers with a fruit machine bolted on top of it (still confused about that one). At one point he started up trying to sell hosiery to Jules. "At your own risk" we told him. He glanced the spark in her eye and the crazy smile on her lips and decided to cut the demo short. We were a little dissapointed, but it was probably for the best.

Once Sparky and Emma turned up (thankfully not delayed by the strike, which had shut down the Brussels Chunnel service completely last time) we mulled over the possibility of surviving another 2 hours in the railway pub waiting for DP Richard and his mates to arrive without ending up in a fight, catching something, or somehow developing a limp and decided that cowardice was the bettter part of Valour and Rich could find his way to a better pub. We walked over to our current favorite Mohito joint near the Palais de Justice but sadly it was shut. Still not sure why any pub would be closed at 10pm on a Friday night, but there you go. Thankfully the pub next door was open and appeared to be staffed by a 6' 7" bald german sounding bloke the likes of which you might find getting to know a prostitute of questionable gender in, say, Pattaya or Makati City. The beer was OK, and they had a table outside so we settled in.

Richard, Pete and Wendy found us fine and we were just getting into our next round of beers when, from inside, we heard the telltale sound of a glass being dropped. Bound by the age-old tradition of people in pubs, we applauded the mis-hap and had a toast to the waiter or waitress responsible. It was a couple of seconds later, however, when the shouting started that we realised that it wasn't a glass but a bottle and the waitress hadn't dropped it as much as smashed it over some punter's head. After considerably more shouting, a bit of slapping, but thankfully no more broken glass, things appeared to calm down with the waitress and the injured party both vacating the premesis (separately, as is tradition in these cases, I believe.) We never did find out exactly what went on except that the waitress was apparently the big bald german bloke's wife, which is nice.

We relocated home and hoved into the beer that the Smudgers and I had picked up earlier in the day. Sparkey, Emma and the Smudgers turned in at about 2.30, they had a hotel down the road, and DP Richard, Bubble, Pete, Wendy and myself stayed up for another hour or so. Getting up at 9 the next morning was not a very amusing affair. After a couple of hours wandering aimlessly and waiting for, but never catching, a succession of different busses, we ended up in a pub called the Tavernier, which is a studenty hangout in the, errr, student district. Rather than bore you with making up details that, frankly I can't really remember, I'll leave you with a little photo essay. Jules' camera can do this peculiar thing where it takes a double exposure but instead of two pictures overlaid, they are top and bottom in the frame. Completely pointless, of course, until you're drunk and want to know what your kids would look like. The results are not for the faint of heart...