THE BIG PUSH

Contracts have been exchanged, the contents of my once brimming bank account have drained away like bathwater down a plughole, and this weekend the furniture is being moved into the new Wayne-Bough Towers, where I can finally experience the agony and extasy of home ownership again. I must say I've got every reason to feel pretty pleased with myself. Not three years back I was a distraught widow, bereft, with only the Jimmy Choos and Armani I stood up in. It has been a tough few years, clawing my way back up to the manner to which I would like to become accustomed, but finally I have my own little pied-a-terre in a not too scuzzy part of Brussels if I do say so myself, and would pat myself on the back if I wasn't aching all over from lugging heavy boxes. My biceps are in tatters.

My lodger has put his artistic talents to work on the inside of the apartment, where a splash of colour has really transformed the living room:

The new WBT has a small walled courtyard where I can sit out with a gin and tonic reading The Lady, with some rather neglected flower beds which, once the weeds have been dug out, will be bursting with peonies, bluebells, lily of the valley, and some sadly abandoned roses which I shall resuscitate with TLC and some judicious pruning in the autumn. I have always had a soft spot for Ena Harkness. Radio 4 reception is crystal-clear too, so don't call me during Gardeners' Question Time!

I had forgotten how much I enjoyed a bit of light gardening, it's so much more satisfying than having to supervise a gardener, although Vi Hornblower seems to be delighted with her Bulgarian Stinko, or Stanko, or whatever he's called. Only last week she told me he was working miracles in her herbaceous borders.

McChe is fond of gardening, too, and used to keep his plants in my cellar under heatlamps. Sadly we had to cut them down as I didn't have room for them in the last flat. He was so upset he kept all the leaves and lay on his bed for two weeks smoking, in silence. You'd never think a Glaswegian hardman could be so sensitive over an old pot plant, would you?

Excuse my brevity this week, but I must crack on for the final push. I hope to have an internet connection at home in time for next week's post, but this being Belgium, I won't promise anything. Talk amongst yourselves in the meantime.

LIVES OF THE SAINTS 4: GEORGE

While England dithers over whether to celebrate St George's Day, Canada, China, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, Montenegro, Palestine, Portugal, Russia and Serbia pay homage to their patron saint, not to mention Spanish regions Aragon and Catalonia, the cities of Beirut, Genoa, Ljubljana and Moscow, and the town of Mons here in Belgium, where his fight with the dragon is re-enacted on Trinity Sunday (18 May this year) at the Ducasse festival, and if you can grab a bit of the dragon it will bring you good luck for the year to come.

As it happens he was born in Anatolia (possibly an ancestor of Boris?) and a member of the personal guard of the emperor Diocletian. He suffered a martyr's death, after refusing to carry out his boss's orders and persecute Christians, and then confessed to being a Christian himself. He was (look away now if you're squeamish) lacerated on a wheel of swords, but resuscitated three times, and eventually had to be decapitated to get rid of him. Shades of Rasputin.



No-one spares a thought for the dragon, do they? In these days of animal rights, I feel the issue is not whether to make St George's Day an official holiday, but whether to rename the holiday in honour of the martyrdom of the poor old dragon. I'm sure the Welsh wouldn't mind. After all, I've been called a dragon more than once.

A happy feast day to all Georges, and let's keep Shakespeare out of this.

"... les yeux qui feraient damner une sainte"

NUN BUT THE BRAVE

Monks have been very much in the news lately, first in Burma, then in Tibet. I wonder if the Dalai Lama is really such a wise man as people think -- he giggles an awful lot.

I have been fascinated with the monastic life ever since seeing The Sound of Music. I identified not so much with the squeaky-clean Maria, but with the crafty old Mother Superior who hid the Nazis' spark plugs under her habit. My rendition of "Climb Every Mountain" has reduced grown men to tears.

Pope Benedict XVI is currently in the USA, and is starting to come out of his shell. JP2 was a hard act to follow, but notoriously shy Benny is starting to wear the look of a man who's just realized he's irresistible to nuns.

ISN'T IT ICONIC?

An old leather bag. And a Louis Vuitton case.

Keith Richards has left it a bit late in the day to become a poster boy, but, persuaded by royal snapper Annie Leibovitz, he has finally agreed to do an ad campaign for Louis Vuitton, of all things. He was chosen not, as you might think, for the similarity between his face and old leather, but for his "iconic" status. A 21st century icon is something to be. Apparently expensive travel goods evoke an enviable lifestyle of luxury hotels, limousines, and unalterable chic. Well, if you can't marry a President, I suppose advertising suitcases is the next best thing.

Louis Vuitton is a brand that I never got. Its colour scheme of mud brown and mustard doesn't go with anything. And its bags are made of vinyl. VINYL. I have been known to purchase vinyl that looks like leather, usually on a market for about a fiver. But vinyl that looks like vinyl ... ? At those prices? I can't imagine Keith actually owns anything made by a company whose initials also stand for Luncheon Vouchers. But at least he's proved he's not doing it for the money - he's donating his fee to Al Gore's Climate Project, and did not have the bare-faced cheek to advertise the fact either. I had to dig around on the web to find that out.

Not so self-effacing Jerry Hall, Dennis Hopper and a bunch of other "peepol" (as the French call celebs) have accepted to endorse Mandarin Oriental hotels in return for advertising loudly the fact that their fee has been donated to a charity of their choice. Ahhh bless. Although I cannot knock the good works, it smacks of the Bono School of Philanthropy -- it does almost as much for the charity as it does for their image.

Luggage is the new ... er ... Barclaycard. French smoothie Jean Reno sits on his Samsonite in a becalmed wooden boat on the Seine, like some kind of drug smuggler waiting for a pickup. The words "iconic" and "identity" are batted around in the blurb for these campaigns, often under a pithy heading, such as "Life is a journey", with intensely meaningful subtitles like "Character is all about retaining a strong identity". Deep or what? For heaven's sake -- it's a flippin' SUITCASE!


Jude Phwoarr, sorry Law, advertises something for Dunhill although it's not clear what. I think it's "lifestyle", a nebulous product beloved of those who eat polenta and pancetta, and who have papparazzi rather than petunias in their herbaceous borders. I suspect these ads work their charm better in the Far and Middle East, where Jude Law is probably revered as some kind of god. I remember a time when a Dunhill lighter was a status symbol. Now I don't know anyone who owns a posh cigarette lighter.


Luxury goods companies are trying to out-do each other with their "new face of". Away with those pouting hair-flicking French footballers, young British actors are the flavour of the month. Keepin' it real, y'know? Euan McGregor, once yer actual fairtrade eco-warrior, is now the face of Davidoff's "Adventure". His motorcycle trips round the world bestowed upon him the aura of a rugged adventurer. One hopes that thanks to his new friends at Davidoff he smells a bit nicer than he probably did for most of that journey with Charlie Boorman. I don't know if he donated his fee to anyone, perhaps Bikers for a Free Tibet?

I wonder why they didn't ask Michael Palin? It must have been the bike that made the difference. A man with a big throbbing machine between his legs will always win out. Poor old Henry Cooper is left looking oddly disappointed in this 1972 Brut ad:

PUBLISH AND BE DAMNED

Ring out the bells! Le tout Brussels welcomes the reappearance of UpFront after a four-month absence, in a new handy format (somewhere between A4 and A5), with lots of colour photographs and a much more professional look. This is almost certainly down to the influence of new Art Direct Suki who has applied her architect's expert eye to the layout and general appearance, and additions to the team such as Andy Carling who is not only an ace photographer but writes quite well too. Editor Tony Mallett aka Tippler who is sadly missed in the blogosphere for his deep and insightful views on, er, football and Slovakian barmaids, has managed to put his stamp on the new improved UpFront, as can be seen from the front cover photograph. From little acorns mighty oaks do grow. Perhaps that is not the appropriate proverb, given that a few trees probably had to be pulped to produce this issue, but being old enough to remember when Time Out was a mere listings rag, I am excited to be a contributor to this soon-to-be Esteemed Organ. And by the way I've got a restaurant review on p.36 which you can soon see on my food blog, Daphne's Dinners.

I do hope the film "Hippie Hippie Shake" will be shown in Belgium when it is released, even though it won't mean anything to any non-Brits or indeed any Brits under 50. The Oz Trial in 1971 was one of the seminal influences in the awakening of my radical consciousness. I think I even bought a copy of Oz once, just to annoy my elders. What a shame I didn't keep it. Young people today (oh dear it's a bad sign when you start a sentence like that) don't realize what an exciting time the late 60's and early 70's was. It was so easy to rebel against one's parents, everything upset them. Nowadays parents want to dress like their kids and listen to their music, which is no fun at all. Parents, please play the game! While your kids are growing up and going through that necessarily rebellious phase, pretend to be an old fogey. It's no fun for you, but it's enormous fun for them. Homer and Marge Simpson should be your role models. Once they have flown the coop you can start listening to Amy Winehouse and wearing Converse again.

I missed out greatly on pop music in the 1980s, due to (a) having no kids and (b) living in France, where they play the songs on the radio without much commentary, so you don't get to know who's who. Hence I spent many years thinking that the singer of "Money's too tight to mention" was a black woman. (No really, try listening to it while watching an M People video with the sound turned down). I was also distracted by my explorations of French popular music, from Gainsbourg to France Gall via Brel and Johnny, and the seeds of my love of jazz and weld music were being planted by the marvellously eclectic Parisian radio station FIP. Hence I didn't pay too much attention to the UK charts for many years. I got quite excited once, in the late 80s, at the sight of two lovely perma-tanned Young Men in shorts on the TV jumping about singing "Wake me up before you go-go", only to find the French were showing the video to mark the end of Wham! Missing the boat seems to be an occupational hazard for me.

My years in the tropics during the 1990s didn't help me to catch up with the UK charts, but did broaden my appreciation of African music. At the end of the 1990s, I found myself in Poland which was still stuck in the 1970s and to play a gig in Warsaw or Gdansk was a sure sign of There Go the Remains of My Career for any visiting bands, Jethro Tull and Rick Wakeman to name but two. Hence I arrived back in the UK just after the turn of the millennium and looked at the lineup for Glasto with total bewilderment. I didn't recognize one name on the bill apart from Donovan.

Now I have access to the BBC again, sadly TOTP is no more, and Jools Holland is on too late for an old fart like me with an hour's time difference to boot. However I am lucky enough to have a younger person in my household who keeps me up to date on the music scene. McChe (for it is he) grew up in the era of punk, which was never really my cup of tea, although I still maintain that I invented the fashion for wearing safety pins on the outside of one's clothing back in 1974, when I could not be bothered to hem my jeans properly. My wee lodger often calls my attention to something new. "Hoots mon, Daff-bags," he will shout, usually while I am trying to watch Eastenders, "Come and have a listen to this!" And I will have to put my knitting down and shuffle across to the computer where he will plonk the headphones on my head and make me listen to something horrible. "Well it's not exactly King Crimson, is it?" is my usual response. But sometimes I will go back and have a listen when he is asleep of an afternoon, and occasionally I revise my initial harsh judgment. Of course he won't ever know this, as he no longer reads my "stupid blog" and has now gone back to hacking into the Kremlin. But I have to confess to singing along to Radiohead in the metro the other day. There's life in the old girl yet.