SAUCISSONAL GREETINGS

I got a Christmas gift from my employers.

It was a sausage.

A Spanish chorizo, to be precise. And two bottles of Spanish wine. My colleague and I all got the same, and great hilarity abounded throughout my office as some of us hadn’t had a sausage in quite some time.

Sausages are produced in virtually every European country, indeed worldwide, in various forms, and each country is justifiably proud of their technique and dimensions. The excited chattering of my colleagues on receiving this generous gift transcended the language barrier, and length, thickness, meatiness, curve, shape, aroma and colour of each country’s respective pride and joy were discussed. Sausages were compared from different EU countries – or should I say Member States. I myself am partial to a bit of black pudding, although if I can’t get my hands on that I’ll happily chomp on a nice juicy German Bockwurst between a couple of toasted buns.

My Belgian colleague favours the Ardennes sausage, which is small but very hard. Her French boss was bragging about all the varieties of French sausage – Toulouse, garlic, andouillette, saucisson. It is well known that the French use donkey meat in their saucissons which hang up in the supermarkets. Hence the expression “hung like a donkey”. In France you also find the exotic Merguez mutton sausage from North Africa - which is is hot and spicy and bright red. My Polish colleague spoke proudly about his country’s national treasure, the kabanos, which is long, thin and bendy, best smoked and enjoyed after a few glasses of vodka.

The Italian Corridor gesticulated noisily about their salami, with lots of expansive hand gestures to indicate length and girth. I think one or two of them were exaggerating just to impress the ladies. I smiled to myself, thinking of Bert. He, being German, is the sausage king, the Furst of Wurst, if you will, with more varieties than you can dip in a bucket of mustard. Bockwurst, Bratwurst, Münchener Weisswurst, Frankfurter, Leberwurst, Berliner Currywurst, Wiener … there is a Place Wiener in Brussels, but since the extension of the 94 tram route we no longer have the pleasure of seeing trams with the name “Wiener” on the front, much to the chagrin of our American friends who used to find it highly amusing for some reason.

I expounded to my Eurocomrades upon the UK's second-favourite national dish: although considered not the full shilling by our continental neighbours (especially the French, who re-label them as “preparations de porc”), a sizzling hot British banger is the best way to start the day. I especially enjoy one with some stuffing at Christmas, or lying in a fluffy bed of mashed potato smothered in thick gravy. I remember many a happy evening ended with a saveloy after a night down the pub, back in my younger days. I did not dwell on the chipolata, which is not our greatest export, but when I described the Cumberland sausage, with its great loops, they all expressed admiration, one of the Italians applauding and crying "Bravissimo!"

Should you not have a supplier of sausage handy and wish to try making your own, I found this useful recipe on Allrecipes website, courtesy of Cheryl Wisniewski, for which you will require a firm hand and a supple wrist.

Ingredients:

• 3 pounds pork shoulder, trimmed and cubed
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tablespoon salt
• ground black pepper to taste
• sausage casings

1. In a medium bowl, mix together the pork, garlic, salt and pepper. Place on a clean smooth surface and knead, knead, knead for at least 10 or 15 minutes. The longer you knead it, the more tender your sausage will be.
2. Soak the sausage casings in water for 1 or 2 minutes. Rinse the casings by sliding over the faucet. Slide the casing all the way up onto the spout of a sausage stuffing funnel. Press meat through the funnel into the casing carefully so that no air bubbles get inside. Sausages should be plump. Twist periodically to form links.
3. Place sausages in a large pot with enough water to cover them. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low, cover the pot, and simmer for 1 hour and 15 minutes. They can be frozen after cooling. Use as you would store bought Polish Sausage.

What more can I say? I think Cheryl's said it all. I wish you much satisfaction, whether you enjoy your sausage alone or with a friend. I am looking forward to tasting my Spanish sausage, which I will savour, slowly, while admiring this photograph of a tasty Spanish morsel.

MEIN GOTT

Stephen Hawking said on the BBC the other day: "What people call 'God' is the embodiment of the forces of nature." You sort of understand what he means when you open the curtains in the very early morning and see this.


And then it makes you think of something else. An uncanny echo of this:



The German flag.

Is this a message? Do my German homework, perhaps.


This is what I see when I wake up too early:



Takes the sting out of not being able to get back to sleep.


Below, in the dawn's early light, EU headquarters' lights are already blazing, the red tape machine firing up for another day's nitpicking.

SAY CHEESE

I regret to say I haven't had time to prepare a dissertation for your delectation today, so I'm going to post some of my photographs of the Christmas market to keep you amused. I like taking photographs, even though I find those silly little digital cameras too small and light to resist my heavy (and, on days such as this, after the bloggers' Christmas extravaganza last night, I must confess a slightly shaky) hand, and remain faithful to my trusty old gas-powered Samsung AF Zoom 1050, which requires me to leg it down to the developers and wait three days, but does produce fairly decent pictures which I can then scan in. Last night over the canapes and champagne I was enviously eyeing the Twat's fancy digital SLR whilst striking a pose, but when he told me how much it had cost I choked on my Dom Perignon. If anyone can recommend a digital SLR with some basic options (variable shutter speed, changeable lenses, that sort of thing) at a reasonable price (or better still, buy it for me) I would be most grateful.

Fish shop Brussels style (note the glass of white wine)

Anyone recognize that gorilla?

St Catherine's Church from the Christmas Market

Not Bangkok - Brussels' Chinatown with Christmas lights

Are they expecting power cuts this winter?

Brussels' Rocking Santa

SCOUTING FOR TALENT

When out and about on public transport, I often see groups of Scouts setting off on an Adventure, or coming back from one, with muddy knees and woggles akimbo. They are usually groups of Cub Scouts accompanied by one or more older Scouts, all in uniform, usually boys but the occasional girl. The older Scouts are teenagers of an age where, in the UK, they would be wearing hoodies, £100 trainers and baggy jeans with the crotch between their knees, but these lads are quite unselfconscious in their long shorts (in summer), neckerchiefs in the trendy new scouting colours and proudly sporting their badges. They actually look quite good, as only continental boys can. The little ‘uns look up to the big 'uns and follow their instructions obediently. British boys of the same age would rather do time in a juvenile detention centre than be seen by their mates dressed like that and shepherding a bunch of seven-year-olds.

Before you accuse me of ogling young men’s legs, let me tell you a sobering story. This summer a 17-year-old Scout was murdered at Brussels Centraal Station on a weekday afternoon by a couple of teenage hoodlums who were trying to rob him of his iPod at knifepoint. Everyone instinctively thinks of him when they see these responsible young fellows with their charges.

These Belgian boys and girls will grow up with experience of taking responsibility for younger children, and I imagine many of them might well become teachers. In the UK there is a recruitment crisis in the teaching profession. Partly because of all the checks that have to be done before you can work with children, but partly I suspect because young people no longer have any experience of looking after their juniors. They are not allowed to, for one thing, as parents will not let their precious little Tarquins out of their sight unless they are accompanied by a couple of middle aged female vicars with a defibbrilator. And so the crisis builds on itself, as the numbers of graduates entering the teaching profession diminishes, the class numbers grow, the kids get more out of control and irresponsible and less likely to go into teaching themselves. The pressure to be “cool” is such that being identified as a Scout, especially after your voice has broken, is worse than being identified as a lout. It seems the only badge British teenagers are proud to wear these days is an ASBO.

I often complain about Belgium being stuck in a time warp, but sometimes I’m quite glad it is. I have a feeling it will eventually go the way of the UK. But for the time being it’s worth putting up with reliving the 1970s for the pleasure of seeing a young man’s woggle.

WHERE EGOS DARE

Bert, or Baron Heinrich von Fuchs-Langezeit zu Neanderthal to give him his full honours, is not one to hide his light under a buschel. Sorry, bushel. Not for him the role of the caring nobleman disguising himself as a peasant, the better to understand the suffering of his subjects. Bert operates more along the lines of Ludwig II, the extravagant 18th century King of Bavaria. He puts the manic in Germanic. He turns arrogance into an art form. He is L’Oréal Man (“Because I’m verse it!”). He could almost be French.

At the moment he is ordering me about like Captain Von Trapp with Julie Andrews. Honestly, I think he thinks I work for him. Fetch this, do that, unzip the other. “Listen, Schatzi, I’m not your secretary,” I said to him the other day. “If you want to send me some flowers, you have to phone the florist yourself.”

I have compared him on occasion to a number of Teutonic megalomaniacs, from Attila the Hun to General von Klinckerhoffen, with touches of Michael Schumacher here and there (at traffic lights, for example). He does everything with an irritating perfectionism. He has the precision of Jürgen Klinsmann, the determination of Boris Becker, and the phone number of Claudia Schiffer’s hairdresser. He is even vaguely related to the British Royal Family, his ancestry being situated on the outer reaches of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha line. He is 1,976th in line to the throne, or thereabouts. He keeps an ermine robe in his wardrobe, just in case.

I found the following extracts in my favourite book which could have been written about Bert.

“ … adventurer, ex-hippy, good timer (crook? Quite possibly), manic self-publicist, terribly bad at personal relationships, often thought to be completely out to lunch …”

“… he had seen the whole Universe stretching to infinity around him – everything. And with it had come the clear and extraordinary knowledge that he was the most important thing in it.”

This is from the late Douglas Adams’ seminal meisterwerk “The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. This book is far more than a comic science-fiction story. There are some universal truths in it that will be handed down to future generations alongside Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde. Such as the answer to the question about Life, The Universe and Everything being “42”. It’s blindingly obvious when you think about it. And a timeless piece of good advice: “Don’t Panic”. It’s as good as the Bible. (If you are Zed’s born-again nutter, don’t bother sending in a great lecture about blasphemy, the Bishop is a very good friend of mine and approves all my posts before they go up).

On my last re-reading, the scales fell from my eyes, and I realized that Bert was the embodiment of one of the key characters in THHGTTG. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Zaphod von Beeblebrox. Minus the second head and the third arm, of course, but otherwise his Westphalian alter ego.

With the emphasis on the Ego.