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.