WE'LL MEET AGAIN ....

This weekend I am in Berlin, having a reunion with the Women's Section of the KNOB* on their home territory. If the site meter hits 100,000 around now, which is likely, this will be my last post on this blog.


To paraphrase the immortal Mae West, this blog used to be Snow White but it drifted. The original idea was a combination of travel guide, flights of fancy, restaurant reviews and moaning about Harold. A sort of cross between Maria Shollenburger's "Travelista" in How to Spend It and Shirley Valentine. Over time, the flights of fancy have flown away, the restaurant reviews have been hived off to another blog, my travel bug is more of a dead beetle and ... remind me, who was Harold again? Added to this, the newly ennobled Lord Spart seems to think I should spend more of my valuable blogging time working for him, and the eponymous "Anonymous" has taken over the comments box. If I could only read Russian and Chinese I would be able to understand his no doubt adoring remarks.


There were times, I'm sure you knew, when I bit off more than I could chew ... but there are a few posts I'm particularly proud of.


There was The One About the Communist Manifesto, which was selected for the Shaggy Blog Stories compilation for Comic Relief.

There was The One About How I left Africa.

There was the One About the Hellcat Matrix.

And then of course there was the One About the Gay Umbrella.



I won't be the first to bow out of the great variety show that is the Blogosphere, and other far greater bloggers than I have allowed the red velvet curtains to close on them: Jimmy Bastard, Mrs Pouncer, Dr Maroon, Petite Anglaise, Aunty Marianne, and Gadjo Dilo to name but a few.

Some of you are still going strong: Guyana-Gyal, No Good Boyo, Scarlet Blue, Crabtree, Savannah, Manuel Estimulo, Kevin Musgrove and our doyenne, Pat Past Imperfect. Some of you I have had the pleasure to meet in person: Kim Ayres, who managed to take the only flattering photograph in existence of me; Madame Defarge, Gorilla Bananas, Krimo, Bart, and the Brussels blogger who inspired me to start the blog in the first place: Zoe of My Boyfriend is a Twat.





Finally, a big loud bark for Mutley the Dog, who sadly passed away earlier this year.


And thanks to those who have featured as subjects of my essays over the years, not necessarily under your real names and not necessarily knowingly: the KNOB*, Bert, Millicent Tendency, Scouse Doris, Vi Hornblower and Desmond, Peter Mandelson, Dolores Entwhistle, Orinoco Flo McCluskey, Imelda, Lulu LaClope, George Clooney, Gonzo, Scrumpy, and McChe. You all know who you are (except Bert).


Anyway, it was a fine affair, but now it's over. Think of me whenever you see a gay umbrella. Auf Wiedersehen, pets!

* the Kurt Nachtnebel Oompah Band

L'APPEL DU 23 OCTOBRE

WARNING! THIS POST IS EXCESSIVELY POLITICAL AND A BIT RANTING

Spliffy Cameron has obviously been reading my blog and I must thank him for his announcement this week which has persuaded me that it's not the moment to think about returning to Blighty on a permanent basis. Perhaps by 2020, when I am due to retire. Except thanks to Spliffy and his chums, it'll now be 2021, and by the time I get there, the place will look like Detroit.

Detroit, Michigan

Half a million jobs cut in the public service, plugs pulled on charities, not to mention cuts to the BBC. And all those benefit scroungers will be forced back to work --- er, where, exactly? As people lose their income, mortgages will not be paid, houses will be abandoned. There will be no new social housing built. There will be more homeless on the streets. There will be more crime. And fewer coppers, thanks to the cuts. Big Society my ARSE.


When I was in Lagos, Nigeria, many lives ago, it occurred to me that it would be M.Thatcher's ideal world: no public services, no safe and comfortable public transport, roads full of potholes, decent hospitals and schools all private, if you wanted a guarantee of water or electricity supply and you were rich enough, you dug your own borehole and bought a generator. As a result the ordinary people of the ninth biggest producer of oil in the world were illiterate, starving and -- surprise, surprise -- just a bit dishonest sometimes. If I'd had the misfortune to be born in a country like that, I'd do everything I could to get out too -- even fibbing on an immigration form.

Lagos, Nigeria

Meanwhile, have you noticed that there seem to be more and more ludicrously expensive toys and playgrounds for the obscenely rich? As an avid reader of "How to Spend It", I am increasingly of the opinion that the plutocrats have taken over the asylum. At the expense of those who got plenty of nuttin'. Bankers are still getting multi-million pound bonuses. Chief Executives are still getting million-pound salaries. The government is now full of millionaires, some of whom don't even pay tax in the UK. And those who bailed them out -- yes, you, the taxpayer -- are now going to get your reward. A good stuffing.


After the disappointment of "New Labour", I naively thought that the "new" Conservatives under Cameron might be a different, gentler kind of Tory, and that the restraining hand of Nick Clegg might keep their divisive policies in check. As someone wrote in The Independent this week, Cameron's reforms have surpassed the Iron Lady's wildest dreams.

You can smile dearie

I have never liked bullies. This has only served to push me further to the left. There is only one language these people understand. I am going to the barricades, comrades. I shall finally fulfil that fantasy of being Michelle of ze Resistance, trafficking arms and transmitters under my Aquascutum raincoat to the trade unionists hiding in the hills, and talking in a funny accent. Excuse me a minute while I pop out and buy some white ankle socks.




Citoyennes! Citoyens! The lights are going out all over Europe! Formez vos bataillons! This could be your finest hour.

Your country needs you

NO BALLS PLEASE

Talking of Eastbourne, I once went there with Harold for a few days. Someone had lent us a nice apartment quite close to the Devonshire Park Tennis Club, and we happened to be there in June, when the famous ladies' tennis tournament takes place. We had found a nice little pub right next to the tennis club, I think it was called The Ship, where we used to go for a pre-prandial before our pensioner's special at the Star of Bengal.


One day we were heading for the pub and Harold idly observed a lady who was minding her own business walking in the same direction: "You know all these women who go to watch the tennis? I think they're all lesbians." This was such a typically asinine Harold comment that I just snorted. On a bad day I might have laid into him but it was sunny and I didn't want my mood spoiled.

Billie Jean is not my lover

We went into the pub and took our drinks to a table on the mezzanine from where you could see the tennis courts. There were only a few other customers in the pub at that point, and we didn't really take much notice of them. However, an hour or so later, I noticed the pub was filling up, and that almost all the tables were occupied by women, in couples or groups. Within another half hour the place was heaving with women, many of them in Doc Martens and butch haircuts and drinking pints, and Harold was the only man in the pub. He started to look a bit hot under the collar.

"I don't know what you're worrying about," I said. "I'm the one who's got to go to the Ladies."

I girded my loins, if that is the correct expression, and headed for the loo. There was no-one in there, and I breathed a sigh of relief. However, on closing the cubicle door behind me, I found a freshly-inscribed piece of graffiti, announcing:

"MARTINA I LOVE YOU"

I locked the door firmly. Harold smirked all the way to the curry house. Still, if I do retire to Eastbourne I will make sure I take my gay umbrella. I might even take up tennis.

It starts like this ....

And ends like this?

NO PLACE FOR OLD WOMEN ......

French pensioner



English pensioner

I've been rethinking my retirement plans.

I know it's 10 years away, but retirement is a big thing and requires careful preparation.

I always thought I'd retire to the South of France, but I've just been to the South of France and was seriously underwhelmed.

It was cold, there were very aggressive mosquitoes, it was full of Brits and the food wasn't up to much.

Hobnobs at 3 times the price of Tesco? I don't think so.

A number of my friends have moved, or are about to move, to the South Coast of England.

I've just looked at property prices in UK, and am flabbergasted. France and Belgium have caught up, and even with the unfavourable exchange rate, UK prices are suddenly looking more attractive. For example, for the current value of my apartment here in Brussels, I could buy a 3-bedroom house with garden in somewhere like ... er ... Eastbourne.

There are no mosquitoes in Eastbourne, that I'm aware of.

And you can't get a pensioner's special Sunday roast for £3 in Provence.

A WEEK IN PROVENCE

Saignon, just outside Apt

Yes Provence was very nice thank you. Apart from it being freezing cold most of the week, and the lousy hotel in Avignon (avoid the Hotel de Blauvac, unless you're an insomniac) and pranging the hire car, and being eaten alive by mosquitoes, and the food being not all that (the best meal of the week was in the NH hotel at Lyon St Exupéry airport waiting for the flight home), and getting altitude headaches from driving up mountain roads, and .... to be honest, I'm not very good at being On Holiday.

Ménerbes, erstwhile home of P.Mayle

The cemetery at Lourmarin, current home of P.Mayle*: the lengths
some people will go to, to end up in exalted company

L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue

My site meter count is approaching 100,000. That seems like an appropriate time to stop. To be honest I'm a bit fed up with output, and feel like concentrating on input for a while. Reading. Books. Meanwhile, you know where to find me on Facebook and I will make the occasional pithy comment on your blogs if I feel moved.

I'm not gone yet, but soon, soon, my friends, I sense my time is nigh ......



* the village, not the cemetery

DAPHNE WAYNE-BOUGH IS UNWELL

.... and will be out of town next weekend. Drop by in three weeks and see if I have thrown in the towel yet. This blog, like a very tatty pair of jeans, is on its last legs.


Of all the weekends to be ill, this is NOT the one. It is Brussels no-car day today, and pretty soon nice middle-class family groups will be freewheeling past my window on their bikes, en route to the Big Brunch at the Atomium, then on to the mock French village, the open-air retro dancefloor, to finish up at the free concert in the park down the road. And I'm laid low with a very nasty bug that entailed wasting four hours in Emergency on Friday night. Oh, the unfairness of life!


Never mind. I am laying abed in my boudoir, pale and wan, sipping water and re-reading Lawrence Durrell's Avignon quintet, and listening to this sort of thing. If I don't see you again, it's been emotional.

TATTOO YOU

I knew it would happen. I have long held a belief that the ageing process results in a deterioration of one's musical taste. I have arrived at this conclusion by observing people who were 30 in 1955 and who nevertheless prefer listening to military bands to Elvis Presley.

Notwithstanding the longevity of the Rolling Stones, Alice Cooper et. al., there is a inexorable gravitation towards Max Bygraves as one approaches the end. And now it's happening to me. I suspected as much a number of years ago when I was driving down the M1 listening to the car radio and found myself thinking "Jim Reeves had a lovely voice didn't he .... "

I was watching highlights from the Edinburgh Tattoo on TV, and found with horror that my fingers were beating time to Colonel Bogey. I cooed at the Royal Jordanian Circassion Guards, I aaaahed at the Gurkhas, I WEPT when Our Boys marched out in their desert camo, fresh from the sandpit, beating their drums with a buddy marching shotgun behind them. King Abdallah of Jordan taking the salute undid me completely. I remember his dad - lovely little king. By the time the Lone Piper closed the proceedings I was a wreck, and barely got the mascara out of my eyes in time for EastEnders.

Talking of which, I'm still overcome with emotion after the last two episodes. Barbara Windsor's final performance was a masterclass in how to take a final bow. The pain! The anguish! The held-back tears! You could tell this was really The End by the piano version of the closing theme, which is code for This Storyline Has Run Its Course. And Peggy was wearing sensible heels. Just check out her brave face, her determination not to cry, and the mystery of how the upstairs of the Queen Vic hasn't got a trace of fire damage.

NIEUWPOORT STATE OF MIND

When I was a baby, a gypsy said I would be very musical. At school my music teacher told me I had the hands of a concert pianist. I took piano lessons for a while when I was about 12, but couldn't get along with it. In Poland, to relieve the boredom, Harold bought me an electric keyboard which I used for a few weeks and then packed away, never to see the light of day again until a few weeks ago.


The sheet music has been lost, so I am making vain attempts to produce something resembling a tune from a combination of internet crib sheets and trial-and-error. After hours of painstaking and pain-inducing plunking, plinking and shouting of "bugger", I can at last bash out a halting version of "Ode to joy" with two hands. Well I could last week. I'm afraid it's gone again.



But it's not all classics with me, oh no. I have learned the chords to "Empire State of Mind". All four of them. All I need now is a pair of leather trousers, and Puff Diddly Dogg to rap along with me. For some reason Alicia Keys has taken offence to this Belgian tribute to the town of Nieuwpoort and EMI keep trying to take it down, but I'm a rebel, see, I just don't care. I'll take you all down with me ....

DAPHNE'S FOURTH WAY - CELEBRITY POLITICS

Australia's outgoing (probably) Minister of Culcher

If you thought Belgian politics was a mess (11 weeks and counting since the election and we still don't have a government), I can't wait to see what's going to happen in Australia. Democracy seems to be getting its knickers in a twist, and if we do not want to fall into a more sinister alternative, we must think of ways to make it more interesting.

I have the solution. We keep democracy -- we just do away with politicians. I am inspired by hip-hop singer Wyclef Jean's bid for the Presidency of Haiti. He was obviously inspired by fellow songbird Carla Bruni, who is running France from the master bedroom of the Elysée Palace. Other musos turned politicos are Brazilian singer-songwriter Gilberto Gil, who served five years as Lula's Minister of Culture and still managed to hang on to his dreadlocks, and Peter Garrett, former lead singer of Aussie band Midnight Oil, who has been Australia's Minister of the Environment for the past three years (although not for much longer I suspect). Pete Wishart of Big Country and Runrig is now a MSNP at Holyrood. While they're blowing their own trumpets they might as well use the hot air where it can do some good. I often suggest as much to the KNOB.*

President of France

I would suggest that in future we do away with political parties and just have music or movie stars take over, particularly the ones who like to mouth off about politics. Let them put their money where their saxophone is. Wyclef Jean has already mastered the art of the politician's sleight-of-hand - having lived in the US since childhood, he claims that his job as roving Ambassador for Haiti since 2007 exempts him from the 5-year residency in Haiti that is required of presidential candidates. Why make residency a rule at all, in these days of the internet. If you can run a multinational company from the Netherlands Antilles, why can't you run one country while living in another? Rupert Murdoch seems to manage it perfectly well.

Wyclef considering his options

Party politics would become redundant. Elections would be done by a combination of judges awarding points and popular phone-in voting, like on Strictly Come Dancing. Replace Peter Snow with Bruce Forsyth, while we're at it, on election night. The candidates would have to be from a rock tradition though where possible - only they have the age and experience -- and the money.




My candidate for Prime Minister of the UK would be Keith Richards who is the de facto elder statesman of rock. Mick Jagger would obviously want the job, being a Sir and all, but I feel that Keith is the wiser man of the two, he has dedicated his life to reining in the more excessive whims of his front man, who would be likely to replace the Grenadier Guards with the Hell's Angels. We would have to wipe his criminal record clean, but better a criminal BEFORE taking office than during, you know what I mean? A rock star with loads of money would be essential, ensuring that he or she would not plan to impose Communism on us and at the same time be incorruptible.


Two-time** Eurovision winner Dana already had a crack at the Irish presidency but couldn't get further than MEP, so Ireland would need someone with heavier credentials such as Bono, with Bob Geldof as Chancellor. No arguing with him. You'd give him yer money. As for Europe, I suggest they should maintain the rotating presidency, resulting in complete unknowns, so no change there then.





Americans prefer to be bossed around by movie stars, therefore it is no surprise that the majority of their celeb politicos are in California. Their first elected movie star, Ronald Reagan, was Governor of California and went on to become President, and in hindsight was not the worst Chief they've ever had. Mind you, in the light of George W. Bush, anyone is going to look good. Arnie Schwartzenegger is the proof that this system can work. He has proved to be one of the best Governators, sorry Governors, that California has ever had. Only the fact of not being born in the US prevents him running for President. Clint Eastwood was a very popular Sheriff of Carmel in California, and the late Sonny Bono (him off Sonny and Cher) was Mayor of Palm Springs. I would have suggested Morgan Freeman, who has played the President, Nelson Mandela and even God, to good effect on the silver screen, but I just read that he's marrying his step-granddaughter, which would make Jacob Zuma look like a model husband.


The Americans should turn to their small caucus of political rock stars. Perhaps Alice Cooper would accept to put his name forward - he always said he wanted to be elected.

Alice would whip them into shape

In Italy porn star La Cicciolina was elected an MP and offered to sleep with both Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden in the interests of peace. Now that's a novel approach to foreign policy, although I can't see it working for William Hague. In Britain, Glenda Jackson was a Junior Minister for a while in Blair's first cabinet and is still MP for Hampstead and Highgate. While Ronnie Rayguns was in the White House, actress Melina Mercouri was Greek Minister of Culture.

Giuseppe Verdi

Entertainers in politics go back a long way. Verdi was given a seat in the parliament of newly-unified Italy. Paderewski the world-famous concert pianist was Prime Minister of Poland just after the first world war. I wonder if he treated his ministers to a sing-song round the joanna after cabinet meetings? What a pity he wasn't still around when Morecambe and Wise were at their height. Talking of Polish premiers, I always imagined Lech Walesa, on being shown around the palace after being elected President in 1990, spotting a bit of faulty wiring and whipping out his screwdriver. He wasn't the best or most popular President Poland's ever had as it goes, so I would suggest sticking to entertainers, who know about crowd-pleasing, unlike trade unionists or footballers.

Mind you, on second thoughts, we have already had the lead singer and guitarist of the Ugly Rumours in charge and look where that got us.

* Kurt Nachtnebel Oompah Band
** 1970 and 1998

NAMUR TOUJOURS NAMUR

Jeremy Clarkson wouldn't approve, but hey

In Belgium there is a car-sharing system called Cambio, which is run by a German company and is heavily subsidized by the Belgian state through the public transport system. You pay 4 euros a month to be a member, and can use any of the 1000 or so small hatchbacks which are stationed at 249 points in 19 towns throughout Belgium (134 of them in Brussels) for a usage charge of 2 euros an hour plus about 30 cents a kilometer, fuel included. You bring it back to its designated parking place, and don't have to worry about insurance, parking, petrol or road tax. The system started in Germany, is widespread in Belgium, and has now spread to Ireland. For someone like me who only needs a car now and again, it is a great system.


After a visit to the Wallonia Centre in Brussels, I decided to go and explore the deep South. Of Belgium. Wallonia and Flanders are very different countries, both linguistically, culturally and geographically. Whereas Flanders is very flat, as soon as you hit the Ardennes you get into rolling hills, gorges and forests. The landscape feels more lush. The motorway signs are all in French, too. When you drive to Liège the motorway crosses the border several times, so the signs keep switching from Dutch to French and back again. Most confusing.

Namur's blues tone town hall

Namur is an extremely pleasant city. The architecture is very French and the city is practically built of Belgian blue stone (which is not really blue, but pale grey). The town centre is currently being renovated, but despite the road works it has the feel of a fairly prosperous city in these times of crisis, to judge by the number of people shopping on a Thursday lunchtime, not to mention the new and modern street furniture and modern sculpture on display. It has a proper river, which is what Brussels lacks. A canal somehow doesn't compensate.

Namur high street

Old Belgian pillar box

After a spot of lunch and a mooch around the town, I rolled up my crimplene slacks and assaulted the Citadel, which sits atop a hill conveniently situated between the Sambre and the Meuse rivers, from which the original occupants could see any strangers coming up or down river in good time to get the boiling oil on. It is quite a challenging climb - once you get to the top, it's not the moment to realize you've forgotten the milk. There is a kind of village at the summit, and a number of outbuildings which have now been converted into shops, cafe and a perfumery -- just what you need after a sweaty climb.

The Citadel of Namur from the Sambre - it's higher than it looks

View from the top over the Meuse

The weather, however, as you can see from the photographs, is no better in the south than in the north.

I found one of these in the pavement: can anyone guess what it means?

MUSSEL SHOALS

I get a ridiculous amount of paid leave which I never manage to take, and so it accumulates year on year. I can't sell it back to the firm, so it's a case of use it or lose it. I took three weeks to use up some of the backlog. I had all sorts of good intentions, but .... the weather changed for the worse and somehow I couldn't galvanize myself to visit the war cemeteries .... however, I read a few books and watched or re-watched a few films, and with the help of Belgian railways' advantageous summer tariffs and the wonderful economical Cambio car-sharing system, I did manage to make three visits out of Brussels, to Antwerp, Ostend and Namur. So I think I can just about hold my head up off the sofa.


Antwerp never disappoints. I even managed to find some merit in the modernised part of the railway station this time, especially the train tracks on three levels, although I never bypass the ticket hall which is like a cathedral.




Feeling a bit peckish, I headed for Wagamama, it's the only one in Belgium, but ended up by mistake in one of those sushi bars where you sit at a counter and help yourself off the conveyor belt and then they count up the dishes afterwards. An amusing way to have lunch and those sushi things are surprisingly filling. But I really wanted noodles.

The Meir is a great shopping street, with majestic buildings, sculpture, C&A and everything. I browsed around the Stadsfeestzaal, the old municipal concert hall, which has been turned into a shopping mall. A sell-out to Mammon it may be, but a lot more people get to see the beautiful interior this way.

At least you still have M&S

Inside Antwerp's Stadsfeestzaal

Crisis, wot crisis? Shopping always gives me a thirst for champagne

On what is now my third or fourth visit to Antwerp, I finally visited the Rubens house, where Peter Paul Rubens lived and worked in comfort, being quite the 17th century celeb. Rubens is known for painting fat ladies, hence the term Rubenesque.

The chubby-chaser's house

Rubens: The Birthday Cake

After a meander through the delightfully kitsch old town, I pitched up on the banks of the Scheldt where one of the tall ships was berthed, the Port and City of Antwerp being sponsors of the Tall Ships Race since 2004 and one of this year's four race ports, along with Aalborg, Kristiansand and Hartlepool, where the last of the four races should be happening around now. Of course if I'd been paying attention I might have known that the tall ships would be sailing majestically down the Scheldt in mid July, but there you go, I missed it.

Poland's Fryderyk Chopin

I wandered back through the Antwerp's new docklands development, which is not exactly Canary Wharf, but give it time. Antwerp's growing reputation as trendsetter and fashion capital may mean that the overpriced shoeboxes will soon be selling like hot cakes to the likes of Dries Van Noten and his pals, and the redundant wharves may be rivalling San Francisco's Pier 39 before long. Antwerp is still a working port, but the new modernised docks have been moved downriver a few miles.

Last manually-operated crane on the old Antwerp docks,
with new docklands museum in the background

I spent a very wet Saturday afternoon in Oostende, a seaside town which I thought I'd been to before, but once there, realized I hadn't. I had probably been through it in the old days when the only way to get to Germany was by ferry. (Yes I was born way before budget flights. I even pre-date Freddie Laker). There is still a car ferry operating between Ramsgate and Ostende. It is a busy resort, seemingly very popular with Belgian chavs. There's something about seeing three generations of a family, grandma in a miniskirt with a tattoo on her lower leg, mum in tracky bottoms with four inches of black roots showing and fag ash dripping into her chips, that makes you want to snatch the baby out of the pram and leave it on the doorstep of one of the glitzy villas of Knokke-Heist, except it's sucking on what might be a crack pipe and you don't know the etiquette in these situations.

James Ensor "Intrigue"

Oostende has two claims to fame: Anglo-Belgian painter James Ensor lived and worked here in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and in 1981 it was briefly the home of the late Marvin Gaye, who wrote Sexual Healing here. The album on which Sexual Healing featured was also recorded in Belgium - at a village called Ohain, near Waterloo, south of Brussels, in Katy Studio which was the birthplace of many a chart-topper. The chips are so much better than at Abbey Road.

Adopted Belgian Marvin wondering whether to put ketchup or mayo on his frites





Marvin Gaye - Sexual Healing