Language, rioting and bird flu

Morning proles, my French lessons are now in full swing and are taking up about 6 hours a day so that's keeping me busy. I threw a bunch of applications in to firms that were advertising only in Dutch. Not sure what they were for, but seemed like a laugh at the time. Actually, I'm beginning to get the impression that employers simply demand tri-lingual (Fr-Nl-En) candidates as a matter of course. My French teacher reckons there's precious few tri lingual people in Brussels and certainly everyone seems to choose either Dutch or French, rarely speaking both. In fact one of my first lessons in Brussels politics was watching two people talking to each other on the street. From their accents, one was clearly French, the other just as obviously Flemish. They communicated in English. There seems to be a crisis of identity here; Brussels is reportedly about 50% Francophone and certainly the language of the street seems to be more like 80% French. The City, however, is not only the capital of the country but also of Flemish Brabant and so you don't need to go too far out (say ... 3 miles) before French stops being spoken completely. I am banking on the Flemings (as my Fr / Belgian mate Marc calls them) to be more forgiving of a mono-lingual twerp such as me than the French are.

Which reminds me, a quick note about the rioting in France. I just heard reported speech on the radio (God Bless the BBC) that some politico or pundit said "if they're not happy here, they can return to their homelands", to which the rioter responded "but that's Lyon", which just summed up the whole problem, really. Seems the French Right wing are right behind the rioters - poking them with sticks.

Jezza sent me this weather report for today;

On to the linkys and I am privileged to be on the mailing list of Carnage resident and world famous raconteur Guy Brennan. Guy clearly has almost as much time on his hands as I so I get a lot of stuff from him. Mostly videos, which I can't be arsed to post, this story, however about two cheer leaders doing what comes naturally and getting arrested (although not for that) is worth a looky. Finally I got this from Jezza, who also has too much time on his hands;

Actually, you could replace Bird Flu with SARS and the joke would still work, it reminds me a little of the Belgian legend that, way back when, beer was popularised here by some duke announcing "Drink beer, then you won't catch the plague!" Interesting logic and based on the fact that water for beer is boiled during the brewing process, therefore proofing it against the disease. Of course he could have opined "boil your water, then you won't catch the plague!" but then L'eau du Trappiste doesn't really have the same ring to it.

Bomber out

OK, OK, stop the bus. Where the fuck did I fall off?

Although we all decry the blockbuster animation movie, I for one secretly enjoy them on a wide eyed "ooooh" level. The less acting the better, as they've always spent the budget on the CG so who wants to see what they could afford cast wise with the left-overs? I also recall mates of mine writing simple computer games at school when in their early teens and my folks talking about how the generation gap has left them stranded on the analogue beach while we were all zooming away into our computer driven paradise. I knew this would all come full circle eventually and I've just seen another symptom of it on engaget today. Take a look at this guy's site. Don't look at the BIO section until you've seen his gallery of CG stuff, the FX wars thingy with the robot trashing the car is bloody magnificent and looked a bit like the Matrix II scene, if that movie had been good and had less acting in it. There's a whole bunch of other groovy stuff aswell, although the best of the others has to be his Sony ad exercise. Right now, impressed? Look at the BIO; this little cunt's 18 years old! AAAHhhhh!!!!

Fuck it, I'm off to get me flat cap and pipe. Bloody kids murmur murmur blah blah bumbug.

Bomber out

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...

The Smudgers first borne

They say you look like your pet; well our cat actually does look like this. Perhaps.

Sparky and DP Rich's kid would look like, err, Jules' brother.

oh dear

"Are you local?" That's Suffolk kids for you

Mine and Rich's kids would be very brainy

The Smudgers' second is a daughter and, well ... no.

Call the gene police!

Bomber out