THE SECRET OF ETERNAL YOUTH

I could tell the winter was approaching when I found myself piling packets of pistachios and macadamias into my trolley at Delhaize. The nights are fair drawing in. As dusk falls earlier, and the evening chill descends, there's nothing so attractive as a warm apartment to scuttle back to. Unfortunately I haven't yet figured out how to get the heating to work in the new Wayne-Bough Towers, so have to wait the plumber's visit before I can shed my three sweaters to watch East Enders. Meanwhile, I am forced to follow the example of the Polish countess who always slept in a freezing room, believing the cold to be very good for the complexion. It was an early form of Botox I suppose.

There is something about this time of year which turns our thoughts to morbid subjects. Here in Catholic Belgium, the florists are displaying large pots of chrysanthemums (for placing on graves - please don't ever give them to someone who's poorly in a Catholic country), and Hallowe'en paraphernalia has appeared in the shops. I appreciate these seasonal nudges to stay abreast of the natural year, although I'm getting to the time of life when the withering leaves mirror my own life cycle a little too closely for comfort.

I am heartily relieved that George Clooney only suffered a broken rib after his recent motorcycle accident, but I bet Richard Hammond can't help feeling a little smug, having survived far, far worse. And let's face it, there's not many chances a man gets to feel superior to George Clooney. I do find there is something fascinating about a man (or woman for that matter) who goes eyeball-to-eyeball with the Grim Reaper and shouts "Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough!". It used to be a (not always voluntary) rite of passage for men, in the days when we had a war every thirty years or so. It was how they would prove their courage, and often how they came to an early and needless death. Nowadays young men test their mettle in other ways, by doing battle with speed, or even harder drugs, like Keith Richards or Iggy Pop. When they survive they exude an air of immortality and acquire mythical status. When they don't - like Ayrton Senna, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix - it's a case of live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse. Age will not wither them.


In the case of Keith and Iggy, it would appear heroin has preservative properties too, but only from the neck down. It might be too late for them to start sleeping in a cold bedroom. But it has done wonders for me:

REPORTING FOR DUTY

The crisis is starting to bite. On Sunday Brussels ran out of petrol. There was not a car to be seen on the roads. Citizens took to their bicycles, meandering in a state of confusion with their entire families. The very occasional vehicle which passed, obviously belonging to black marketeers, was greeted with raised fists and jeers. It's turning nasty out there.


Refugees were walking the streets aimlessly, searching for an exit sign. Café waiters ran through the park with their trays of drinks, chasing customers who had given up all hope of being served and left the country without paying. It's utter chaos.


I could flee, of course, back to Blighty, and abandon Belgium in her darkest hour. But I have come to think of this odd little country as home, a land which welcomed me to her bosom in my hour of need and offered me a peaceful haven when I had been tossed on stormy seas (literally), a shoe rack to lay my weary Manolos when all shoeshop doors had been slammed in my face. Plucky little Belgium came through for me. And I for one do not forget a favour. I will not flee - I will stand and fight alongside my colleagues and neighbours, for a united Belgium. And in any case I've just moved all my belongings here and it would cost a fortune to move them back again, not to mention the loss I would suffer on the exchange rate.


Having been born too late to have been a member of the French resistance, I feel my moment of glory may be about to present itself. I have a trenchcoat. I have a beret. And I can do a French accent. I have been practising in front of the mirror. "It is I, Daphnée, of the Résistance. Leesten vairy carefully, I weel say thees only once." I hereby declare myself ready for action, and at the service of the Belgian resistance. Sudden Death before dishonour! A la bière comme à la guerre.



Strangely enough, it's all back to normal now.

DIGGING IN

The flags are out in earnest down my street now. 104 days and counting. Most Belgians still don't seem too fussed about the crisis. Apparently it has taken up to SIX MONTHS to form a government in the past. I don't know why they bother. I can see the point for important world powers (no names, no pack drill) who have to go around standing shoulder to shoulder and harrumphing at the UN, etc. But the Americans are hardly going to attack the place where NATO is based (Nice move Belgium!). The boy scouts will take over civil defence if anybody tries to start anything funny. They are trained in sabotage and dirty tricks. A booby-trapped woggle can stop a whole battalion of Marines in their tracks. That leaves foreign trade, and there will always be a demand for first-class chocolates, cherry beer and guns. FN (Fabrique Nationale) is one of the world's more serious arms manufacturers. Sadly, they're Belgian.

In view of the coming siege, it was timely that I discovered COLRUYT. This is a chain of independent supermarkets which practices the pile-em-high sell-em-cheap retail method. However, it is nothing like Aldi, Lidl or any of these poor people's stores. I was a little nervous, checking carefully that no-one spotted me going in (not that they would have recognized me in my Garboesque headscarf and dark glasses), and on my first tour of the cavernous warehouse-type store I was a little underwhelmed, not spotting any sundried tomatoes or rocket salad. However, on my second lap, the scales fell from my eyes, and I realized I was in shoppers heaven. The prices are indeed cheaper than Delhaize or GB (the local Carrefour subsidiary), but what is really impressive is the range of produce, especially in the wines and spirits department. There were about ten different kinds of genever alone, and an obscure brand of dry gin at £4.50 a bottle. I started to mentally tick boxes on my Christmas present list. The trolleys are enormous, and once my arms started shooting out to pluck six-packs of tinned salmon and cassoulet off the shelves, they couldn't stop. The refrigerated section is as big as a small supermarket, and there is a fair selection of "bio", or organic, produce. This shop had everything: fresh fruit and vegetables, a butcher, toys, toiletries, bread, frozen food, plants, even a do-it-yourself photo developing machine where you can plug in your digital camera memory and order your prints on CD. I resisted the temptation to stock up on lager at 50p a pint, but earmarked a number of unusual liqueurs for the Christmas period (if Belgium lasts that long). My shopping caddy was so overloaded that one of the wheels fell off on the way home. This was obviously a Sign from Above, the Lord is instructing me to purchase a super-strength caddy with reinforced tubular frame and Michelin tyres for my next trip to Colruyt. They do very trendy ones nowadays, leopardskin print (very Vi Hornblower), fluo colours, op-art, I think even Marc Jacobs has brought out a range for the discerning granny. That way I can assume various disguises and maintain my cover. I've got some serious stockpiling to do.

DUNKIRK SPIRIT

100 days have passed, and Belgium still has no Federal government. The domestic and foreign press are now talking quite seriously about a definitive split. Belgium is "dead", apparently, and according to The Economist, it's "Time to call it a day". Flanders and Wallonia will most likely become independent states, and like a divorced couple, will bicker over custody of Brussels. Brussels could end up being some kind of European answer to Washington D.C. with its own special status, although there are varous scenarios being bandied about.

I suppose Flanders and Wallonia will have to go to the back of the queue to join the EU then?

A Belgian colleague referred to her nation as "an unstable country" this morning. Gulp! I have lived through coups d'etat in Africa, but I never envisaged that moving to Belgium would be in any way as dangerous. We Brussels bloggers could be marooned here with only beer and chocolate to sustain us! If anyone knows Richard Branson or Philip Green, perhaps they could be persuaded to set up a fund to see us through the terrible times to come. I have started stockpiling sugar, toilet rolls and make-up remover, we could be looking at an apocalyptic scenario. Should Aunty Marianne make a special visit to the Pope? If anyone can persuade him, she can.

Meanwhile I'm putting on my tin hat. The webbing holds the fruit in place nicely. When the troops come marching in I must look my best. I do like a man in uniform. Any uniform.

On reflection, it could be worse.

Does my bum look big in this?

Out of the corner of my eye I see my blog has just turned the 20,000 hits mark. I should be excited, but in the face of the disappearance of Belgium, it all seems quite trivial. I feel a sense of impending doom.

So many chips, so little time.

WALK, DON'T RUN

The long absence, dear readers, was due to a midweek trip to the UK on Eurostar. It certainly goes along at a fair old clip now the new rails are in place on the UK side. While in the UK I had to make a few journeys by inland railways, and was most pleasantly surprised to find that ALL my trains were on time. Not only that, but they were clean, quiet, and comfortable. Things have certainly changed since I was a gel. I put it down to that chap Bob Crowe, nothing like a Millwall-supporting Marxist to restore order on the networks. He should stand for Mayor.

I much prefer to travel by train than by air, especially since all this new security screening started. Every time I go through security, whatever the airport, I have to take my shoes off. At Brussels airport they are particularly draconian. Last time I travelled they made me sit barefoot while they put my shoes through the scanner on their own. I appreciate that they have to treat all passengers the same, but they obviously have no idea of the price of a pair of Jimmy Choos. If I was going to attack the pilot, I'd use a pair of Scholl sandals, far more robust, and cheaper.

A lady can never have too many pairs of shoes. Apart from a different colour pair of slippers to match every negligee, a gel needs shoes in varying degrees of comfort, dressiness, summer and winter collections, boots, sandals, mules, slingbacks, loafers, court shoes (for her day in court), espadrilles, heels, flatties, and at least one pair that requires being carried from the car to the restaurant. The only type of shoe I do not possess is a running shoe. Having high colouring and weak ankles, I do not run under any circumstances. I do not wish to be found in a wheezing crumpled crimson heap as the number 29 recedes into the distance. I walk sedately, and am frequently late. But my pearls are never out of place when I arrive.

A COLLECTIVE COUGH

I'm feeling a bit delicate this morning, after a stonking Friday night in the pub with a bunch of people who looked vaguely familiar. The house band Take This, despite being older than the Rolling Stones, were on great form and got the whole pub on their feet. I seem to remember dancing on a chair at some point singing "500 Miles", and surely I imagined a long involved conversation (although God knows how, you couldn't hear yourself think) with a Tory MP? I don't know which one, but I don't think it was Boris Johnson. Worst of all, I think I was drinking PINTS OF LAGER. Oh, the shame.

To soothe my thumping hangover, I'm listening to a bit of opera. Click on the pink bar, top left (a new feature! Thanks to MKWM for the idea). In memory of the late, VERY great (in every sense of the word) Luciano Pavarotti, who is being buried today in Modena (pity the poor pallbearers!) I give you Nessun Dorma. If you lived over the pub where the band where playing until 2.00 a.m. last night, you'd know how true that is.

A very Belgian protest has begun in the next street. Three months after the elections, there is still no Federal government. The three autonomous regions function perfectly well on a day-to-day level - hospitals, schools, emergency services all still work normally, and the various civil services keep the country ticking over. In fact, you start to wonder if they even need a Federal government. (That, perhaps, is the point). But certain things have to be dealt with at Federal level. At the moment Belgium has no foreign policy. No change there, then, you might say. But what about Defence? Without a coherent defence policy the country is laid wide open to any Tom, Dirk or Henri who might spot a breach in the dyke, so to speak. What if the wily French tried to invade Flanders? Arriving in droves on bicycles with onions around their necks, flooding the country with fabulous food and excellent wine, and speaking their shoulder-shrugging nasal whine with added hand movements? Unthinkable. Or - even worse - if the Dutch tried to take over Wallonia? Hidden inside caravans, speaking perfect English, handing out spliffs ... simply dreadful. I don't think we've got much to fear from the Germans this time around, but it's a worrying situation. The good Belgian burghers in my part of town have devised a robust method of protest against this appalling situation. They are hanging the national flag out of their windows. To remind their compatriots that they should think of themselves as Belgian first, and Walloon or Flamand second. Fat chance. Bear in mind that my leafy suburb is a bit like Cheam. This is the middle-class Belgian's equivalent of burning cars. It's like a big collective "AHEM!" That should bring them to their senses.

SOFIA SO GOOD

I have just returned from a flying visit to Sofia in Bulgaria, where I played a crucial part in the KNOB's attempt to woo south-eastern Europe away from techno music. We (I now consider myself a full member of KNOB) always try to adapt our music to the style of the host country, and so I dressed up in multicoloured petticoats, with giant gold hoop earrings and a fringed shawl, and had to bang a tambourine and dance about a bit in wild gipsy fashion, a bit like Maureen O'Hara in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, or Theda Bara in Cecil B. De Mille's 1915 version of "Carmen", while Bert and the boys trumped their way through a medley of Balkan favourites. The tambourine was a bit off-putting to tell you the truth, as it kept putting me in mind of my old Aunty Alice, who was with the Salvation Army, and I had to stop myself from bursting into "Jesus wants me for a sunbeam". We came second, losing by a whisker to Branko Bob and his Balkan Bangers.

After the contest we were taken to a restaurant where traditional music and dancing was promised. The food was cold and frankly inedible, and the wine so vile that I felt a hangover surfacing after only one glass, and hence had a rather sober evening. A lady in traditional garb appeared and warbled atonically, while a chap played complex tunes on an inflated sheep carcass and a couple of young ladies in tartan aprons pirouetted around waving large cheeses, which was a fairly accurate comment on the entertainment. I had never realized the Birdy Song was an old Bulgarian folk song. And this was in Sofia, the capital - Varna must be the Blackpool of the Black Sea. I was on an involuntary diet for the whole three days, as the food was not really to my liking. If it hadn't been for the yoghurt I'd have wasted away.

Meanwhile more intellectual pursuits were going on in the park, in the shadow of the luxurious Grand Hotel. Chess (rather than sumo wrestling) is the spectator sport of the masses in Bulgaria. Burly shaven-headed truck driver types were playing blitz, the pieces falling in rapid succession, while a crowd stood around and watched intently, occasionally making comments along the lines of "nice gambit, Phil" or sucking their teeth. A combination of muscle and brains that would make the Mitchell brothers gawp in awe. These were men who would checkmate you before dragging you away by your hair. I felt quite weak at the knees. Mind you, that could have been from hunger.

Photo: J.Gillis