It was another Nurofen-for-breakfast weekend. I’m trying not to enjoy myself so much, but I can’t seem to get off the roundabout. Not that I’m trying terribly hard.
On Friday night my young newlyweds from Poland were in town. I took them to my favourite Brussels eaterie, Chez Léon. It was a warm night and we sat outside. Sadly the service left something to be desired this time. We all had very Belgian dishes, prawn & cheese croquettes to start, carbonnades flamandes, and Waterzooi. Some Belgian beers, and a bottle of Alsace white. I took them on a quick tour of the Grand’Place, where I pointed out the Swan pub, whizzed them up the Galeries de la Reine and into a taxi where I pushed them out at their hotel before stumbling home to bed. It had been a hard week.
Saturday I didn’t really feel like schlepping over to the Goethe Institut for my weekly German refresher class, but I’m doing it for love. I want to know what Bert’s talking about on his mobile all the time. We are a varied bunch in my German class. Half of the class are Belgian, the other half are a disparate bunch, including a Bulgarian, an Estonian, a Swedish au pair (really!), etc. etc. The ages range from a schoolboy to, er, me. My fellow students seem to have just as hectic lives as I do, as we’re all a bit zonked for the first half of the morning and can’t tell our Prädikat from our Präteritum. Our poor teacher Eberhardt, who has dragged himself away from a warm duvet to teach this bunch of hungover Germanophiles, does his best but his teutonic enthusiasm is lost on us.
Some rushing around catching up with myself in the afternoon and I needed a lie down. While I was putting my feet up, Aunty Marianne phoned and invited me for cocktails with her and her friend Doris at Pablo’s on the Rue de Namur, a Tex-Mex cantina where you can have Sex on the Beach and shake your maracas to Santana and other latino favourites. No Carmen Miranda, sadly.. This was a watering hole that I had not yet encountered, so I pulled on my slingbacks and went to meet them. Doris was a most sociable Liverpudlian, not unlike Lily Savage, and we found we had a great deal in common, chatting away nineteen to the dozen while Aunty tried to explain to the bartender how to make 
a Pangalactic Gargleblaster. The bartender was a courteous young man called Rafael with a vague resemblance to a young Che Guevara, although he turned out to be as Belgian as mussels and chips. Women of our age do like a young maaaaan. He seemed quite happy to ply us with Harvey Wallbangers (Doris), Caiparinhas (Aunty) and Gin Fizzes (moi) in lieu of Pangalactic Gargleblasters – you can’t get the Old Janx Spirit any more, apparently – doing all the fancy stuff with the cocktail shaker to amuse the three increasingly noisy matrons who were leering across the bar. Well, two of us were leering, Doris was peering as she’d forgotten her bifocals. The conversation sparkled, and a number of obscure facts were revealed, such as Hitler's aunt living in Liverpool before the war, and Che Guevara being a Tottenham supporter. I think at least one of these facts may not be quite accurate. Aunty also gave me a tutorial in Wi-Fi but due to an excess of Gin Fizz the knowledge had evaporated in the morning, along with the German grammar.
We had food at some point in the evening. Aunty and Doris went for the Mexican option, which involved combinations of mince, refried beans and pancakes folded in different ways. Mexican dishes are all the same really, as Billy Connolly once observed. If you’re served fajitas and complain that you ordered enchiladas, they just take it away, and bring it back folded differently. I find Mexican food a bit basic for my refined palate, and went for a Pabloburger with chips. Sometime after midnight, after a bit more juggling from our young maaan, Doris and I tottered out into the night on our high heels (Aunty had hirpled off earlier, being the youngest of our group she couldn’t keep up) blowing kisses to Rafael with a cheery “Viva la Revolucion!”.
On Sunday I met 
my Waterloo. Not the Eurostar terminal, but the small town just outside Brussels where Napoleon got stuffed. Which is pretty much what I was – stuffed with food by my Belgian friends, before they pushed me up the 226 steps to the Lion who stands guard, facing towards France, in case the diminutive dictator ever tries it on again. Unfortunately the Germans cheated in 1940, and sneaked up on the Lion from behind.
I fell into bed on Sunday night, and had just enough presence of mind to set my alarm clock and prepare two Nurofen and a glass of water for breakfast, before falling into a deep sleep and a disturbing dream involving riding on a roundabout with Che Guevara and Napoleon, who was talking about Wi-Fi in German.
Will this relentless round of fun never stop? In the words of Lili von Shtupp, the Teutonic Titwillow: “Goddamit, I’m exhausted.”
It was another Nurofen-for-breakfast weekend. I’m trying not to enjoy myself so much, but I can’t seem to get off the roundabout. Not that I’m trying terribly hard.
a Pangalactic Gargleblaster. The bartender was a courteous young man called Rafael with a vague resemblance to a young Che Guevara, although he turned out to be as Belgian as mussels and chips. Women of our age do like a young maaaaan. He seemed quite happy to ply us with Harvey Wallbangers (Doris), Caiparinhas (Aunty) and Gin Fizzes (moi) in lieu of Pangalactic Gargleblasters – you can’t get the Old Janx Spirit any more, apparently – doing all the fancy stuff with the cocktail shaker to amuse the three increasingly noisy matrons who were leering across the bar. Well, two of us were leering, 
my 
10 comments:
What larks you're having. But I can't believe you would have lots in common with the real Lily Savage - if there is anything real about her. Not dear Daphme - not common as muck!
Doris sounds fun but is it chips with everything in Brussels? I know they are meant to be exquisite but as Gert would say 'A chip is a chip, is a chip!'
Lady Daphne is surely a gourmet, but I hope she balances her rich diet with plenty of exercise and a daily massage. She sounds very massagable. "Teutonic Titwillow" is the kind of epithet which would never get stale through overuse.
Yes Pat I'm afraid it is. But as the humble potato is never seen in my kitchen, I like to treat myself to the occasional pomme frite when I go out. I rise to the defence of the Belgian chip - it is far superior to its soggy British cousin and anorexic American counterpart. It's all in the double frying. And the type of potato. Ask Zoe, I think she's done a PhD on the subject.
GB, I'm afraid I'm not getting enough of my favourite kind of exercise. But a massage would be very nice, although I fear you might pummel me into submission.
Sounds like a top weekend, Daphers. I think you made a good move, emigrating from the leafy suburbs to the vibrant down-town.
You're right about the Mexican food. Sometimes I think it is all an elaborate joke on the gringo though because while one retaurant will call anything made with a flour tortilla, a burrito, another will call the same damn thing a soft-shell taco. They might not know their arses from their empanadas any more han we do. You can hardly blame them if it is a hoax cuisine to make us feel stupid, not in the US anyway, not with our schizophrenic policies towards Mexican. immigration. With Bush's proposed guest-worker problem they hardly know if they're coming or going, literally.
Daphnée, I thought I'd had a busy weekend but yours was definitely packed with mussels, carbonades, chips, tacos...
Who's aloof now? Oink, oink!!!
Sam, all ethnic restaurants take the piss out of the host nation - there's no such thing as a chicken tikka masala in India, for example. Wait till those Septic Tanks find out that fish and chips is our revenge for the Boston tea party and in fact nobody in England eats it, they all go to McDonald's!
Cream, your bilingual puns are getting worse. Heard a review of Indigenes this morning on RTL, a must-see apparently. It's been titled Days of Glory in the English version. Debbouze is actually playing the role of his real great-grandfather and part financed the film out of a personal sense of engagement. He and the other four actors shared the Best Actor prize at Cannes this year. Mind you he is Man of the Moment in France right now. AND he's a good mate of Zidane! How cool is that?
Maybe it wasn't chicken tikka masala I had in Jaipur but it certainly moved me. Deeply.
Sounds like the nurofen may be giving you delusions of being Simon LeBon (roundabout-wise, of course)
I don't get the Simon le Bon roundabout joke and sadly I'm allergic to Neurofen.
Which is mainly why I went home early.
Also sides had split from laughing so hard.
Ah, then go to YouTube and fire up a copy of "The Reflex."
I admit, it was an obscure reference, but you figh with what you brought to the bar.
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