Wipers

It's Remembrance Day in Britain (but not in the rest of the world more or less) and here's a beer from Ypres celebrating how they used to throw cats out of belfries - no wonder really that war exists.

REMEMBRANCE DAY IN WHITEHALL

This is the funniest day of the year.

Old soldiers shall pass by like gentle sheep
While that old ram, the State, speaks
In staged silence.

I don't think it matters much
That most marching past will be agèd white men,
Or that we take red poppies as easy ciphers
For something too bloody for words,
Or that we say, 'Charlie died in the desert, you know!'
As if we can bask in the heat of his final sigh,
Or that we put it all back in a box for next year
Like the Proms and the Ashes and Miss World and Lent.

I'm honoured to be here,
Pressed up against Chelsea lads in waxed shooting coats
And blue-faced chavs half-sullen half-mad
And an army of toddlers shoved through to the front.

It'll be over by one
And the tarmac shall bear wet petals and the smack of old shoes,
And the crowd in Saint Stephen's Tavern
Will chew on a hotpot lunch
Served up by forgetful youths.

The Orange Time

Here we are in November - all the leaves are yellow and brown and orange, as is the lowering sun. These berries (swirled round like digital custard) are kind of orange too.

NOVEMBER SONG

She had a sweet dream
that made her laugh hard
in the orange time.
She stood by the stop
and held out her hand
lit by leaf-light and sun
in the orange time.
Her boss was half-cracked
and gave her the sack
but she wasn't surprised
in the orange time.
She came home and
cried and he
kissed her like mad
in the orange time.

In the cold hour of
dawn they went to
the sea, in the
orange time. Gulls
grabbed their bread and
they felt good and kind
in the orange time.
He hugged her hard
and she wept just a
bit, in the orange
time. A year of hard
knocks topped by the sack.
In the orange time.

He raced to a tree
and he climbed it
and yelled, in the
orange time. She
followed his path and
they shared a dead
bough, in the orange
time. The sun came
out strong and they
sang a mad song,
in the orange time.

It hurt when they jumped
down to earth with a bump,
in the orange time.
They got in the car
and home wasn't that far
off in the orange
time. But a drunk in
a truck meant they'd
run out of luck
in the orange time.
Now they rest in
a grave swamped
by leaves in the haze,
in the orange time.
And the Earth travels
on but for them it's all
gone and they just don't
belong in the orange time.

Trick or Treat!

When dealing with consultants calling at the door on Hallowe'en we in OUSA Belgium recommend an open approach.

Evensong

OUSA Istanbul Branch has a unique way of opening meetings - it might not be constitutional but it gets the crowd's attention.

So - farewell summer!

Well the clocks have changed and so from one of the last days of summer is this piccie of the OU's latest student support system.

It seems a long time since the hottest day of the year (Ed: do you have to use so many clichés?) and writing this poem about it.

THE HOTTEST DAY OF THE YEAR
I'm sitting here, reading the bed.
Sunbeams kind of turn
out wrong when they land
here, on this foreign bed.

I stroke one. My hand is warming up,
paddling through persecutory light.
I'll use the sun to save this love.
One thought of him,
emerges from my breath, sinks.

The little mite falls to sheet,
winces, bounces, fades.
I'll rest now. Head on bed, I'm
not sure what to do with that
angel outside the windows,
so will shut my eyes and
wait to hear its saving words.

Brussels art

I can't remember who did this, but it has a nice polly-chromatic feel and shows that a trip to Brussels is always worthwhile.

Green days

This hotel corridor in Madrid looks like it is made out of recycled i-Macs, but was quite a good way of waking up in the morning (it was on the way to the breakfast room).

Other corridors had different colours - we were in red. AA300 students will want to ask whether the hotel is a globalized product or celebration of Spanish identity - you could get an omelette, if that helps.

Waiting

Our poetry group was talking about waiting - not sure why. We definitely thought that waiting was something there was too much of. Here is a picture of some birds waiting for food, or could it be a bus? My effort was written after doing some ironing.

WAITING

Waiting is kneeling before what you want:

the hottest tears jut from your face,

a salty crust might form:

just wait.

Waiting might mean tearing your clothes:

you'll shiver like a monk's turtled loins,

eviscerated by cold;asexual in dark blue limbo

but the only choice is to wait.

Waiting will require greeting

those who do not understand

the famine: like an ox cooing at other oxen

on a simulated TV plain,you'll just shuffle along

nothing doing: simply wait.

Waiting - you'll need bloodlike steel,

a blade cutting through doubt

like an icecream through August mouths,

or an eel chomping through weed

not knowing if that carp child

is really there: just go and wait

for a bit, eschew agnostics,and wait.

Wait - why wait - this is just tin-town chit-chat.

You're not stopped by Auschwitz wire

or the massed armies of evil

glaring across the living-room floor;

you're not a mouse held hostage

in a no-reprieve Midlands lab

or a cat wrapped up for good by flat-cheeked Egyptians.

You won't be damaged forever

if you pick up life like a juicy roast leg

- just leave the bone but remember

its job. Why not decorate your room

with cheerful suns of what is to come,

jump right now in the wide warm sea of your life

and swim to its furthest fun-filled depths?

You turnip: rooted in the muck of your mind

you're frazzled by patience: grow up!

What's that? that thing you're waiting to do

disgusts you. I can read it too:

no worries, yes, it's bad, and

I, I, I, I, I must dash.

Structure

This new training video demonstrates OUSA's post-Futures structure in a nutshell.

Me - how?

On being told by a cynic that the aim of OUSA Futures was to abolish all dissident units, especially European ones, this distant cousin of OUSA Belgium's most important member said that she found that really hard to believe.

No more theatre

Here is a wide (currently under renovation) plaza in Targu Mures - real 'place for the people' stuff, or at least that was my outsider's feeling. Fluid borders are here: not just in the Hungarian-Romanian dual identity and the clash between Communism and capitalism, but in the border between past and present, men and women and the tourist and its target. Borders are wet, permeable, and always handled by women who are adept with a hose.

Modes of address

Visitors to Conference 2011 found this type of signposting helpful when being assigned to working groups on key policy issues.

Conference fun

Delegates to Conference 2011 were pleased to be met at the station by a special bus, but were not sure whether the idea of Conference being fun instead of business-like needed closer inspection.

Feline hungry

It was very strange in Apold to see a distant cousin of OUSA Belgium's most important member giving afternoon tea to two copy-cats of the late, great Treacle.

Apold

This place is a 'Saxon' village in Romania. We went here to hunt for one of our biggest friend's roots (I don't mean a fat lady with hair-dying problems) and ended up talking to some Roma and climbing up a church tower to take this picture (it's in arty black and white mode - how louche).

If you click on it to blow the picture up you can see people on bikes!

If it fits....

The OUSA delegation to Romania were impressed by this helpful warning.

Room for the bite

When scouting possible future Conference venues, OUSA reps were duly impressed by the accommodation on offer this bid from Romania, although they were not sure about the vampire lurking between the windows.

This old house

AN OLD HOUSE IN SIBIU
Not for nothing does
one layer of brick grow thicker
carrying a need
not to budge at all.


Then another,
small, mouldy
slips into the frame.

The bastards who lived here;
elements - the hydrogen and helium,
iron and uranium of the human soul -
trace tourists' started eyes.

That rather poncey poem was written when I was musing on the relationship between poetry and science as conceived in Eastern Europe, which of course is not a poncey thing to think about at all.

The above house in Sibiu is four hundred years old and probably going to end up as a shop selling amber or mobile phones or something.

I have no doughnuts but I have dumplings

So said the waitress one night in Sinaia. In Sighisoara (hope I've spelt that right) all our dreams came true.

Sinaia sense of security?

ALPINE HOTEL

You can safely sleep here...
all is made of wood...
those dog-barks are far off.

PS - it's not really the Alps, but Transylvania

Magic City - Monty Part 2

This is a massive mural (painted on concrete) in Montgomery metro - painted by Jean Folon (that's a man's name just in case you were wondering) in the 1970s. The official site for the metro says it's about having a faintly sinister sun indoors (hence my post just now about the yellow). I like it though as it seems happy yet stylized. In AA300 terms the metro is a border zone - we're facing in the direction of the forest where Flanders starts, as well as a bump in price because you've crossed the border.

Montgomery metro part 1

Montgomery (it's a famous junction in Brussels lorded over by a statue of Monty, the famous soldier guy - I've got a picture of the view of the Cinquantenaire 'Arc de Triomphe' arch through his legs but thought better of posting it) metro is a great place - lots of 1970s stuff, probably about to be ripped out - just like most of my brain. Anyway, this bit is near our old flat - this was on a hot night after a Wiener Schnitzel in a Croatian restaurant. I'm not sure why the walls are yellow - they smell OK, so maybe it's just part of the sun has migrated underground without telling us. Can you tell that haiku took about thirty seconds to write - that long I hear you say!

Sunset mode

So this is what the Panasonic Lumix something or other does in sunset mode. As you can see, basically you still need an interesting sunset and this one wasn't so I put a haiku over it. Haikus are something the O U says you should write every day. I can't think of anything I do every day.

Chin chiller

Here in OUSA Belgium we believe in taking it on the chin, even if makes you go a funny sepia shade.

This is actually with a new camera that does more, but I think has slightly grainier pictures than the old one.

Apologies for not updating this blog more often - I'm feeling a bit lazy and summery. It's all I can do to revise stuff like this - if you think this is bad, you should have read the first version.

TANGO

A hundredweight of bread

moves down a frosty hill

to Karl the baker

cheeping an old song

from exotic toothed birds.

Behind him, a clapped out bus

(not green, not red, but something between,

like the surface of eyes in a Javanese film)

wheezes like a dying cult

as schoolkids pick out loam

from finger-nails not yet grown.

The bread is nearer now.

In the crystal sight

of a winter's day

(not hot, not cold but fashionably indirect

coolly half-finished

like a carte de visite for a future dream)

ghost Greek Gods laugh silently

their chests as devastated as stars

glued to a red-grey sky.

The bus roars off

its petrochemical jerk makes trees dance along:

their arms scratching their swift-growing girths.

Colin sits on the saddened ground

as a wall of bread

(not high, not low, just large enough to slay)

stops his song.

Bodega!

This isn't in Spain: it's in Sheffield in the cellar of someone's house - and as you can see they've converted it rather nicely into a Spanish bar.

I was going to show you other pictures of the house but for some reason I've only got shots of people watching dodgy satellite channels like Essex Girls.

Borderlands

Here we are just going through into France from Adinkerke - those clouds in the distance aren't tobacco.

As ever, click on the picture to make it bigger.

What do you Frink of this?

Another thing from last week - this is Dame Elisabeth Frink's Walking Madonna (it doesn't though) in front of Salisbury Cathedral.

This is the only female figure she sculpted and she used her own face as a model. Some (=I've just looked it up on the Net) say she is striding purposefully away from the Cathedral out into the world: others that she is careworn and therefore emblematic of maternal suffering.

Modern art - and I would contend much art - is not really about subject-matter but form and so I've done the photo as a kind of play between different spaces and substances. If I were the sculptor here, I'd have a bright blue crystal pyramid complementing rather than opposing the spire, which - at least on a summer's evening - looms like a Saturn V over the silent green spaces surrounding it.

Love the stinger but hate the sting

Over in OUSA, we've been talking about whether there is a distinction between sexual orientation (not sinful) and sexual acts (some of which are sinful).

As ever, only England knows the answer to this. This is a National Trust Garden last week. Here they show that they recognise apian orientation, but feel the need to warn against apian activity.

The end of a Forum

Today - roughly - is the last day the Forum Requests Forum will appear on our First Class desktops, where it has been dwelling since 1996. Here's some flowers to put on its beseeching grave, from the yellow bit of the garden.

Non-OU people won't know what I'm talking about. Basically, First Class is the conferencing system OUSA and the OU use and it's going to be replaced by Moodle. A few Forums might be temporarily pruned, such as Non-Cuddly Toys.

Most of the real action in First Class takes place on private mail. Most messages get given a kind of address label according to the following scheme.

NORMAL - it's quite rare to get this.

PERSONAL - this is usually a love letter of some kind.

URGENT - this is always a love letter of some kind.

PRIORITY HATE MAIL - this is common when you've dumped someone.

BULK - this is common if you have put someone in the family way, even if only virtually.

PRIVATE - this is some kind of Danish magazine sent to all OUSA activists.

Words of the week

I bet I don't stick to this.

Word of the week in English:

peculation=embezzlement "The peculations of small Italian businessmen lack charm" (A. Lurie)

Word of the week in French:

occire (pronounced ox-ear)=to slay (says it's either obsolete or humorous - I can identify with that): "Mais pourquoi qu' t' as occis le mataf?' (Genet - yes, that one) - "Why did you slay the sailor-guy?'

Classical stuff

OUSA is talking about triumvirates (nothing to do with Vera Duckworth, I think) and also about how great old courses were.

I agree - A209 - a course on ancient Athens - was great. I also think someone should start up a TV Channel or maybe even a mock university called OU Gold - you could study old courses but not get any credit as the research etc. would be out-of-date. Although that doesn't matter so much in the Arts. You used to be able to get A209 from www.ouw.co.uk but now it's all study packs and increased prices. Even this place http://www.universitybooksearch.co.uk/index.asp doesn't stock it anymore.

This is Cicero (if I remember rightly), lurking in the foyer of the Palais de Justice in Brussels. The picture is mine but this site has a load of Brussels stuff http://www.ordet.it/foto/2008/b/brussel/index_en.htm taken in similar straightforward vein. It makes Brussels look grey and cold, but it's a little known fact that all the statues come to life at night.

Rain rain rain

Last night we went to an Indonesian restaurant - I got loads of photos of rain ('cos that was what was happening) but let's face it - everyone knows what rain looks like. So here (on the left) is the person who took me out for dinner to celebrate my recent birthday and various other things. The photo is a bit weird as it's actually a transfer on a shopping bag, so I shot the bag, as well as bagging the shot.

Here's a poem about rain - my poetry group gave it a mixed reaction, which is all for the best I reckon.

RAIN

If it were a person, it'd be working for the Planning Office, or maybe Woolworths just before closedown, whatever, each rain is different. It always make you sweat
as if Nature, promising you'll be buried in the bliss of summer, has said,
'Hey now - here are my real prizes you soldier - big grey sensible drops of water

- these are my real signature - isn't it time you had one of your own?'

It makes you pensive. You stuff yourself with passion - a really tiresome business

-and like a junior exec. swivelling on a plastic chair your brain
quickens and tries to shove the rain in its soul, tries to put out the images
of hot-headed lovers, or gloss-lipped devils, those little Kodak slides
that flicker in time to the rain, tap-dancing on the stones outside.

After a lifetime, maybe rain gets bloated, kind of worn out, as if it wants
to go down to the coast, sit in a home and say, 'Well, it was all for nothing,
but maybe if I take a brief look back, like Kronos just before Tartarus,
or like that seal I saw in the zoo pausing before it jumped into the pool,
the smell of this life won't be as sour as I think.'

Amazing stuff, rain. Look how it thuds to the ground, rises up
again, softens all, almost vehemently, almost laboriously,
wistfully hinting at Eden and machine-guns
a hat of silver framing your hair.

Bear the pain!

On being told that he might have to co-Mod OUSA Cuddly Toys after all, and that it would definitely involve loads and loads and loads and loads and loads and loads and loads and loads of work with the E C and just about everyone else coming out as a secret cuddly toy fiend, OUSA Belgium's least convincing member held his rapidly emptying head with a mixture of remorse and mousse.

European Identities on ice

Here in OUSA Belgium we believe in wooing possible converts to our cause at every opportunity. Here though a delegate from the Netherlands remains unimpressed by one of our traditional tactics known as 'Operation Sorbet' (pear on the left, strawberry on the right).

At the arms of Brussels

It's a good place - you can eat really well for 40 euros or so - in my case chicory soup, North Seafood gratin, fattened chicken, chocolate mousse, five hundred litres of house wine - and our waiter Patrick (who is not the guy on the left) was brilliant. I lost weight again - not sure why.

As this is a serious academic and political blog I should point out that the image on the left clearly highlights the enlightened tripartite identity of militarism, Catholicism and gastronomy that is hegemonic pursuant to the recent European elections. If only OUSA were as diverse, I can hear you sadly mutter.

Celebration

Here in OUSA Belgium we believe that success should be rewarded. Here we have baked a cake to present to the fifth student in the UK who has agreed with one of our motions over the last twenty years.

That shadow in the background is not a spooky lifeform from another planet about to take over Belgium but a manky old ficus - that's not an old German insult, but some kind of fig tree about which we care a lot.

Rejection

Here in OUSA Belgium we believe in democracy as much as the next unit. Here, our most important member shows us what she thinks of a meaty proposal to introduce dog representation at all levels within the organisation. And it's all done online!

An official commemoration

EQUALITY 2009

I uphold equality: although
it hasn't held up that much stuff for me.

I think back to applying for a gay marriage.
A dark desk in a Sixties town hall.
Files building up like mediaeval remains.
The grey people in charge were charming
and I think we - the rainbow couple -
fizzed back in the usual way.
Smiles and laughs and relief
and hands held under the table.

It started raining. Something in their
faces began to crack. A passing sense
of having stretched things too far.
A growing back of the old god power
of the grey race.

We shouldn't follow them if we can help it.
These pale skins, these pious types,
these family guys, these slave-drivers
may be temptingly attractive...

'If only I could be like him,'
you whispered to me on the way out.
I squeezed your hand and held out for the best.

Nights nights

It was a good Bank Holiday weekend as we went out three nights in a row: first night was to the centre of town (hint: don't sit at a table unofficially reserved for escorts, you'll get dirty looks and won't earn any money); second night was a birthday party in an underground cellar (hint: when people under 30 say, 'Would you like me to fetch you a Desperados?' don't take it personally); third night was a barbecue where we ended up playing with someone's Wii (hint: when people tell you to press the B button, don't say 'Why is it hidden on the back?').

This night-scene is our local park. It's built on an old cemetery and what they've done is used some of the old gravestones to make the paths. Click on the photo for the full spook effect.

Our poetry group had a session on night poetry. My effort is below (I did another more experimental poem that I'll have to come back to: anyway, this one owes a lot to a colleague code-word Oldtimer).

NIGHT TIME
The moon mops up. We step back inside
to rest our lives on the mattress upstairs.

We have left the shades outside
a necessary quietus...
since the tactics of light against dark
are studied and perfect.

Listen, how the lowered volume
of our house feels like a soft slide
into a succession of freedoms.

The moon breaks in without comment,
hushing the breaths from the cot.

Cat attack!!!!

Those of you who read Facebook will know that our cat got attacked the other night - fortunately no harm was done except a certain loss of parental innocence amid all the squealing and shrieking (the cats, not us).

Here is the moment shortly before - our cat is completely oblivious to the hooligan lurking behind her (you may need to click on the picture) - I wasn't sure but I think there was another cat waiting as well.

I thought about writing to the Daily Mail (no day is complete without a visit to the Daily Mail Forums) and insisting that the birch and National Service be brought back as soon as possible, but decided against it as I don't want Belgium to be defended by an army of mad cats.

Art in Ghent

After the coast we stopped off at Ghent and went to the art museum called SMK. The 1901 Baedecker's says that the collection (then in a different location in the city centre: the current collection is in a park opposite SMAK - the contemporary spanking museum) is modest but worth a visit. The 1957 Fodor's guide doesn't mention it but says that Ghent is the Florence of the North, but also like Liverpool and Manchester.

Anyway, we first went to the Café. This was an interesting demo of all that is wrong with the world. The meal was OK, but served by ditzy young waiters in black shirts (always a bad sign) and over-priced. I liked the beer label though. The perfect art museum café would be like an East German canteen or something - fair pricing, solid food, maternal waitresses not fussed by the art scene and more interested in food.

The museum itself doesn't let you take photos so I haven't got any. This always annoys me slightly - taking photos without flash doesn't damage paintings - it simply (possibly) damages income from gift shops (but no postcard collection is comprehensive) - that's just two elements though from a complex argument some of which you can find here http://musematic.net/?p=325

The actual collection is 'OK' though - it's the kind of place to take very slowly and maybe just focus on three or four key works. You can get a preview here (click on English and then click on collections for a kind of timeline) http://www.mskgent.be/

Not gravy, but browning

or whatever that Stevie Smith poem says.

This is the Belgian coast last Thursday - we went to a place called De Haan (Le-Coq-Sur-Mer it says in our 1901 Baedecker's guide along with telling you the times of the steam trains).

The houses are in what is called the 'Style Normand' which basically is posh yet rustic - so we preferred the beach.

I guess if this were an AA300 artefact we'd need to discuss whether the rather eclectic mix of imported architectural styles, multi-lingualism was in opposition to the apparently culturally neutral element of the sea. But if you look at the waves in this picture, they're definitely speaking in a West Flanders accent.

BagBook

Here's a picture of one of my best friends from my youth (he's in my room at some sleazy university). We got in touch (after a break of a few years) the other day via Facebook, but he's always been a bit camera-shy. Still, if someone invented BagBook he'd be first in the queue.

This picture was taken in 1982 and appropriately enough for someone who taught me a lot about music, writing and enjoying myself (apart from that he was pretty useless) he's sporting a bag from a record shop (no such things as CDs then - it was a Boots record player which also doubled up as an inexpensive disco light if you put things like candles on it and played everything at 78 rpm).

Eurovision

........has come and gone. Until a couple of years ago we used to spend it on the Belgian coast in a flat overlooking the sea at Oostduinkerke, near the French border. You can walk to the border (turn left in the picture above), but ever since the French gave us 0 points for everything, we have walked to the right.

In the picture above, you can see on their way to the polling booth the three Flemish people who thought Scooch's Flying The Flag was a good song. It's strange to think that if you go seventy miles or so straight ahead into the North Sea you end up in somewhere glamorous like Margate.

A degree comes in handy....

......when you fall on hard times.

Grad Ted Rules OK!

Here in OUSA Belgium we wholeheartedly believe in the principle of all students benefiting from free access to UK-based graduation ceremonies only, and are more than willing to sell all our honey to help promote our beloved OU. We also firmly believe that it's only a matter of time before OUSA does its best and sets up Mark Sharing and Cuddly Toys Forums in order to be in step with its 'Everyone's A Winner' big brother.

We do recognise though that some students in Belgium may find the ceremony a rather startling introduction to the more manic aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture, rather akin to being publicly executed, and so we've provided a training video that shows how as long as you cover yourself with a plastic bag and ground yourself in the high points of European culture, you're unlikely to get attacked by Mr Gradgrind and/or Sissy Jupe. Just don't get too Jaded.

Just North

This is near the point where you pass the sign saying all river water flows to the North Sea rather the Mediterranean.

In a nice touch of globalisation, we were listening to a Belarus Eurovision song.

High on a hill

Here is the view from our hotel in Lausanne. You're actually (in the evening dwimmer) looking towards France (the border runs through the centre of the lake) and also towards Nyon, the site of Julius Caesar's veterans garrison designed to keep the Helvetii firmly under the yoke in this part of Gallia Belgica. Lausanne had the Roman name Lausodunum which sounds like it should mean 'praise on a hill' but doesn't.

On sera à Troyes ce soir!

For those of you don't know French, that means that you're going to have a threesome this evening, or, alternatively, as our Greek friend said 'So you're going to Troy? Fantastic!'.

This is Troyes, former capital of Champagne, taken last week. I could show you pictures of half-timbered houses and loads of great modern art but I thought this moonlit shot of the cinema complex on the edge of the old town was more interesting.

You'll see in the distance the Hippotamus Grill. Imagine our disappointment when they said they don't grill African wildlife. So we headed into town. Here's a list of all the meals we had in France/Switzerland last week. I put on a pound, which isn't bad. My Mike Easy Diet tip for holidays is not to have breakfast, walk around a lot during the day and then do Canadian Air Force exercises in the morning - easy stuff like touching your toes, leg-lifts (doesn't matter whose), press-ups (not to be confused with press-downs, which is where you pin your latest holiday lover to the bed), and sit-ups (not to be confused with stand-ups, a breed of people whose jokes are much better than mine).

Here is the list of food and drink. I could do pictures but most people probably have a kind of gastro-porn filter now (as supplied in OU software on the advice of OUSA) and wouldn't be able to see them.

TROYES - raffariat de champagne (bit like sherry), crudités in a cream cheese and basil dressing, chicken leg in raffariat sauce with baked herby potatoes, tarte tatin and cream.

BOURG-EN-BRESSE - pizza grand' mère (take one grandmother, make her into lardons and sprinkle her on goat's cheese), salad including a cornet of filo pastry filled with chicon

LAUSANNE - artichoke and asparagus salad (all fresh), féra (a white fish from Lake Geneva), gratin de fruits d'été (kind of like strawberries with cold custard)

NANCY - curry - the French have started going for an Indian on Saturday night, or at least the boys of Nancy have - all very macho.

Mat politics

Here in OUSA Belgium we recently had a brainstorming session on how to get justice on fees, the NERF budget, Eastern Europe, representation in Region 9, and probably a few other things I've forgotten. OUSA Belgium's most important member came up with this 'If all else fails, roll over and beg' idea.

Anniversary

It's two years to the day since my mother died of motor neurone disease. We got the news in a Total petrol station near the Chunnel. I went to the gents for a bit of peace, and found this had been carved into a pipe. Maybe it means 'Have a nice day' in Polish.









SWING
I never want to play on a swing again. I recall,
even as you uncovered my eyes,
took me to see what Daddy had made,
and set me on the heavy-chained seat,
clanking and floating over our spot of Earth:
I was unsure what could break my fall.

Later, as it rusted,
and we kids were too old to stand up cradled by you,
or just sit, our legs pushing out into a hurricane
born from the tug of gravity's wires
pulling us back from the summit of the ride,

You - hysterectomy-weakened - strode up the path,
wiped dew and sparrow-stars from the seat,
gathered your sun-stained skirts,and pushed
bed-softened toes off our runway
(that wound all kids must make on grass) as

you hung yourself to a quickening flight:
a swinging C of metal and green and flesh and cloud,
laughing and shining and above all entitled:
that was what you meant as you beamed at the neighbours just over the fence.

Too much trouble, to play on a swing again.
It's not fair - not just that your hands have done their job -
it's that lost moment at the top of the ride.

Melting

This is the Greek restaurant (Omiros, Rue des Deux Eglises) in Saint Josse, Belgium's most cosmopolitan commune www.meltingshopping.be - download the leaflet about a guided walk and make your Eurostar break in Brussels more interesting!

Before we went in to eat, we sat outside drinking ouzo watching (and you can see them if you click on the photo) the Turkish community arrive for a fund-raising event for a mosque. I remember particularly talking to a woman carrying a bag mentioning a particular European Institution and its slogan 'a bridge between Europe and an organised civilised society' who was complaining about feeling like a member of a white minority. By and large though, people get on.

Synedoche

If this were the sixties I'd call this rather cheap (I mean Warholesque) shot of the Forêt de Soignes tree canopy today (reprocessed via a swirl filter) 'Green' or 'Prevarication' or something like that, but I'm calling it Synedoche because the green is part of the greater whole (and looks like it's a hole as well as a cover). It makes a good desktop background for working on TMA03, particularly that poem set in the Caribbean (briefly). I guess you could play with it and do a sequence in pretty colours. In a million years time, when the forest is gone, a Belgian will look at this and say 'Blogging couldn't stop logging'.

May Day!

Happy May Day - nothing to do with help or workers - but a Bank Holiday here.

I've danced round a pole or two in my time, but Belgium, or at least Brussels and Leuven, do it differently. You get lily of the valley (above) but have to wait until August for the actual tree to be planted (in commemoration of a battle) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_F080YRb0E&feature=related

The lithograph in the background dates from 1900 and is by Marc-Henri Meunier, nephew of Constantin Meunier the famous Belgian painter of workers' struggles. It's Symbolist but so is everything.

The meat of the matter

Someone (whom I would never disappoint willingly) asked what we ate last night. I had gigot d'agneau (leg of lamb). Gigot is related to gigue (leg) and giguer which means to hop about or something. Not sure if the English jig is connected. There's also 'gratin dauphinois' which means gratin from the province of Dauphiné.

This photo is more interesting if you use your mouse roller to zoom in and out - play the Ride of the Valkyrie at the same time and you're in meaty multi-media heaven.

More from DD200

Here's a bit more from last night. At the end of the video you can just glimpse Sarah rushing to rugby-tackle someone reading Mrs Thatcher's Bruges speech under the table.

Governing Europe's Diet

Not in any sinister way - here is a snap though of last night's visit from a group of DD200 Mothering Europe students, scoffing loads of Belgian food.

We are in a place called the Grand Café, and this picture was ably taken by the tutor, Sarah. Thanks also to Esy and Neil for covering for me when I lost the students down a hole in the road.

Click on pictures to make them bigger.

Rational....

...is OUSA's middle name, and so rationalization is all the rage. In this example, OUSA Matters and OUSA Cuddly Toys have been merged in a new medium (a recycled desktop) in the interests of greater efficiency and interactivity. The new E C M for England is responding to the sole remaining student in Belgium's question about what they've done with E C M Ireland.