BRING ON THE ELECTRIC CUSTARD

The Christmas season is in full flow here in Brussels, and it's parties, cocktails and dinners all the way to the pharmacy. After drinks last Tuesday with Tia Marianna who jetted in from Nicaragua (via Bridport) looking for all the world like a voluptuous Central American socialite (eat your heart out Bianca Jagger) I later espied Europe's no.2 nobody, Catherine Ashton, tucking into a lamb biryani with her team in a local curry house. So Mrs High Representative has not yet become Mrs High Roller (She will, Oscar, she will). I was so impressed I had to tell the first three people I met in the pub afterwards. I might as well not have bothered. "Who?" they said. It's enough to make Peter Mandelson do a turn in his Armani suit.

Baroness Ashton: once seen, never forgotten

I'm off to Antwerp Christmas market this weekend to stock up on De Klok Advokaat. This is a rare delicacy which is like catnip to my sybaritic friends Vi Hornblower and Vera Slapp, who eat it straight out of the jar. The best way to describe it would be: if Ferrari made custard, this is what it would taste like. It's like yellow rocket fuel you eat with a spoon. A dollop on a mince pie or a slice of Christmas pud - if you can get your hands on some - would make an interesting alternative to brandy butter, and would also come in handy if you run out of firelighters.

Dick Advokaat: no relation

Next weekend I shall be back in Blighty where I will be lunching, drinking or otherwise indulging with friends, family and a select number of bloggers: my dance card is full, so don't try and book me for lunch. I shall also be painting Oxford Street red with Tarquin La Folle and will spend a couple of days at Vera Slapp's new bijou olde Englishe cottage in Oxfordshire.

I hope to bring back some photographs taken with my new camera. I have just taken delivery of a Panasonic Lumix DMC TZ6 with a complete panoply of bells and whistles. I looked at mega-zooms, SLRs, super-compacts, I consulted with Kim Ayres the society photographer, I browsed e-Bay, Amazon, WhatCamera? Men's Health and Pig Farmers Weekly, and was finally convinced after a consultation with Bruce "Dingo" Swagman, my Aussie mate, who's just come back from Oz and got some bonzer shots with this little beauty.

Dingo is a fascinating character. A former Tasmanian motorcycle racing champion, he used to do the Wall of Death act at the Folies Bergère back in my dancing days. One Anzac Day he rode his Triumph Bonneville down the Champs-Elysées with Orinoco Flo McCluskey on the back, Dolores Entwhistle and Hattie Mildew-Spliff hanging off the sides and myself on his shoulders steering the bike with my feet while Dingo played Waltzing Matilda on the didgeridoo. Such thrills! It was like Happy Valley but without the money.

Something like this, but with feathers

Dingo's getting on a bit now, and has had to trade the Bonneville in for a mobility bike on which he has attached a bendy mast flying the Aussie flag in memory of his cameo role in Quadrophenia, and always carries a photo of Gough Whitlam in his wallet.

DEVINE COMEDY

On Monday Millicent Tendency bundled up from Paris for the St Andrew's Day lecture at Scotland Europa, the unofficial Scotch Embassy here in Brussels. In solidarity and in memory of Grandpa Harridan, the Gorbals Gobshite, I went along as well. The title of the lecture was "A Puzzle from the Past: Why did the Scottish Enlightenment happen?" A question, I think you'll agree, that keeps most of us awake at night. In the spirit of the occasion I donned tartan tights, and an outsize tam o'shanter. Think Vivienne Westwood meets Brigadoon. I heard several gasps of admiration from the Scottish guests, who had not gone to as much trouble.


McChe's kilt being currently in Paris (!), he decided to go dressed as Enlightenment Man, in frock coat and top hat, although I'm not sure everyone recognized him as such.




The speaker was Professor Tom Devine, OBE, holder of the Sir William Fraser Chair of Scottish History and Palaeography at Edinburgh University, Director of the Scottish Centre for Diaspora Studies, "widely acknowledged as Scotland's leading historian" (Wikipedia). Funnily enough I had been watching the documentary "Balmoral" the night before and up had popped the Prof as a talking head, I was thus able to recognize him immediately in the crowd at the pre-lecture drinks and point him out to McChe and Millicent. He hadn't brought the William Fraser Chair with him, so he had to stand up for most of the lecture.

McChe's new best friend

The lecture was most interesting, although the Eminent Historian's train of thought does ramble about a bit, and I kept losing the thread, especially when I realized that I had forgotten to bring a change of shoes and was sitting next to the Chief Wizard or whatever he's called of the Brussels office in the mud-splattered boots in which I had just hiked across the park. Still, it was edifying to be in the presence of a real intellectual and the only historian to have been honoured by the Queen with the Terry's Gold Medal. Professor Devine has a lovely rich West Coast brogue tinged with a Conneryesque way of pronounshing his esshes which fair warmed the cockles of ma heart.

In the course of his lecture he made a few good suggestions, such as trying out an alternative to democracy for a couple of years, making tartan illegal and not blaming England for everything that has ever gone wrong. As soon as he invited questions from the floor, wee Millicent abseiled off her chair to the ground and started haranguing the poor man about Scottish independence. The Eminent Historian was very tactful, but it was pretty clear that as someone who is the beneficiary of considerable research grants from London, he was not going to be drawn on the thorny question. Another lady raised a question that was so long it almost turned into another lecture. When we were eventually invited to repair to the bar for refreshments (cheeses, wines and Scottish sushi) there was an audible "wheesh!" of relief from the assembled Jocks.

It is a myth that the Scots don't like the English. Everybody was very friendly, especially when they heard my dulcet south London speech patterns, and in no time I was swapping phone numbers with Highlanders and Lowlanders alike and explaining the blood ties between the Fowlers and the Beales. At one point I spotted McChe lurking on the edges of a circle of people hanging on the Eminent Historian's every word, and prayed he wouldn't have one of his bursts of Tourette's which occasionally takes hold of him when in the presence of greatness and white wine in equal quantities, as Jimmy Bastard will attest.

Millicent and I got caught up in other conversations and raiding the freebies which were rather generous (nobody will ever have to buy their own USB key in this town) and the old Dunfermline Chardonnay was slipping down nicely. The crowd started to thin and I was able to catch sight of the Eminent Historian's bowed head, deep in conversation with someone who was bending his ear .... with horror I saw it was McChe! Millicent and I looked like mirror images of "The Scream" as we tried to lip read from the other side of the room.




We whiled away another ten minutes perusing an exhibition of photographs of well-known Jocks alongside their favourite Burns poems. The exhibition was entitled "As Others See Us", which is a maxim we should all take to heart, some of us more than most. As I slurped down the Pitlochry Zinfandel, I edged closer and closer to the picture of Malcolm Tucker, who had chosen "To my Jeans". I hope they cleaned the lipstick smears and saliva off before Alex Salmond did the official unveiling the following day. I'm afraid I've developed a fearsome crush on him. Malcolm Tucker, not Alex Salmond.

Malcolm Tucker by Ross Gillespie and Tricia Malley

We had to hang around for ages waiting for Professeur Emérite McChe and his new BF to wind up their conversation, but as we thought the Eminent Historian might be offering him a job we thought it worth waiting. I even offered to drive McChe to Edinburgh. That night, if necessary. The pair of them were actually chuckling about something, and I'm sure I caught the word "wankers", although I might have been mistaken. While we were hanging about minesweeping the last few glasses of Pinot Noir Cuvée Kilmarnock we struck up one of those dregs-of-the-party conversations with some loitering natives of Scotia, who suggested going off for a bite to eat. Now this NEVER happens with the English, or the Welsh for that matter, so I literally leapt in the air at the idea of some spontaneous interregional dialogue with our friends from over the border. The Scots thought I was attempting some kind of Highland Fling and the next thing I knew we'd stripped the willow right up the Rue Archimède and straight into a pizzeria. On the way we lost several members of our party, including McChe who was last seen wandering down the Rue de la Loi arm-in-arm with the Eminent Prof expounding on how Albert Camus nearly played in goal for Celtic, but by this time we were a very merry band and were incapable of counting heads anyway.

Much red wine flowed under the bridge and I recall some pasta appearing at some point, so I guess I must have eaten something. The conversation was loud and hearty. By the time we got to the point where 20-euro notes were being flung onto the table with gay abandon and ladies who had officially stopped smoking were bumming fags off a lady who hadn't (ahem), the rest of the tables had upended chairs on them, the owner was standing pointedly by the open door looking at her watch and I had acquired something of a Tannochbrae lilt to add to my glottal stops.



But n'importe, dear friends - the Union is safe. I have made sure of that. Since Bert's quite sudden and heartless defection from the KNOB* I am abandoning brass bands to take up Scottish dancing. My Cowdenbeath entrechat is the talk of Belgium.



* Kurt Nachtnebel Oompah Band

CHOPS AWAY, OLD GIRL

You know how you are sometimes taken by surprise by the irresistible magnetism of some people? The odious but strangely attractive Malcolm Tucker of "The Thick of It" is one. That Portuguese bloke who drives the bike on Rogue Traders is another. You can't put it down to smell when they're on the telly, Bananas. And then I started looking at their grooming. Every one of them had sideburns that came to mid-ear.

Ooh I love it when you're angry

Let me ride pillion

Don't know why, but he loves to see me cry

Oh, brother where art thou?

Not tonight ...

I recall a 2006 interview with Mr Zidane senior, father of the much-loved Zizou, who was talking proudly of his son who had just lost France the World Cup with such panache. He was recounting the ways in which Zizou was a chip off the old block. One of them was "he wears his sideburns exactly the same length as mine, at mid-ear, which denotes virility in our culture." The tribesmen of the Atlas mountains (of whom Zizou is a favourite son) have understood for millennia that the exact measurement of the sideburn sends out a subliminal signal to women.





Apart from Napoleon, Corsica is famous for the violent cult of 'vendetta' of which they are so proud they engrave the word on the blades of lethal looking knives sold as souvenirs, as well as comestible exports such as sheep's milk cheese, fig jam, and, er, chestnut beer. They are also keen on standing around singing a cappella with one finger in their ear. The more musically educated of you such as Gadjo and our gamelan-playing traveller friend in Reading will immediately recognize this as polyphonic singing, the rest of you just be quiet and colour in the pictures.

ABLE WAS I

Getting it up for Josephine

I was in Corsica for five days last week. Corsica's main claim to fame is as the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte, French national hero, as commemorated by Napoleon Bonaparte International Airport, the Hotel Napoleon where I stayed, cours Bonaparte the main drag of the capital .... you get the picture. He is their most famous son, and like Ronaldo, Jordan and Sting, is known by just his first name. Despite the fact that he was a dictator, he is revered by all the French as the man who saved France from the Terror of the Revolution, codified the law, rewrote the military handbooks, gave France an empire and kept the English at bay. (Until Waterloo, anyway)

Monument to Boney in Bastia main square

Frenchwomen secretly have the hots for Napoleon. I knew one elderly lady in Paris who confessed she had had an erotic dream about Napoleon that was so intense she had never forgotten it. She kept a portrait of him on her wall, and blushed slightly every time she looked at it. He obviously wasn't nicknamed Boney for nothing. He was married twice, to the ravishing Josephine who was not, contrary to popular legend, remotely black. She was born in the French West Indies, the child of wealthy white settlers. She was unable to give him an heir so he dumped her for Marie-Louise of Austria. He had many lovers, the most famous of which was perhaps Countess Maria Walewska, the famed Polish beauty, with whom he had a son. The Empress Eugénie is often mistakenly mentioned in connection with Bonaparte, she was in fact the wife of Napoleon III, his nephew, the last monarch and first President of France, and in my humble opinion infinitely more interesting than his megalomaniac uncle.

Pauline was Napoleon's sister, and at 22 was already a wealthy widow. Her Paris home, the Hotel de Charost, is now the British Ambassador's residence, and some bits of her furniture are still there. I have bounced on Pauline Bonaparte's bed. Pauline, like her brother, had a healthy sexual appetite. It is said that every man who wished to court the lady had to bring her a clock. There are 100 clocks in the house, and a little man has to come in once a month to wind them all.

Napoleon wasn't tiny, this is a myth created by the English who wished to diminish him. He was in fact about 5'7" which is pretty standard for a Frenchman. However, many Frenchmen of restricted growth model themselves on Napoleon.

My hotel in Bastia had a view of the island of Elba, where Napoleon was first exiled.

Elba, at dawn, with the night ferry arriving from Nice.

By a combination of boot power and marrying his family members into European royalty, Napoleon controlled many neighbouring countries and made a fair crack at uniting Europe, whilst showing the old money like the Habsburgs and the Bourbons who was boss. Not surprising that the French idolize him, whilst admitting he was a bastard. They continue this tradition in their football.

Talking of football, let us contemplate a haiku in honour of the first President of Europe, who is an Anderlecht supporter:

Herman Van Rompuy -

His name is only funny

if you are British

AUF WIEDERSEHEN, PET

By the time you read this, thanks to the miracle of delayed publication, I will be tripping along the Champs-Elysées on one of my regular jaunts to gay Paree. So why have I posted up a picture of the Brandenburg Gate? Read on, meine kinder.

Shock, horror. Bert announced this week he is hanging up his cymbals and going back to the Vaterland! He is going to be the Rhineland's answer to Gareth Malone, I believe, taking up a new position as Kapellmeister of the Berlin Lederhosen Boys' choir. No, don't even go there. Bert has been part of my life since I arrived in Brussels four years ago, and has a great influence on my speech patterns had.

Picturing G.Malone in lederhosen .... ooh

I was rather abacktaken, as this coming I did not see. I am left with the triangle in the hand holding. I am not sure what holds the future. McChé will soon from his residential position in a hospitalresearchprojekt back coming be, but he can not really the Bertgap in the KNOB* be filling. His blowing is very poor. And he hasn't got a uniform.

On this Armistice weekend, I dug out this old peacenik favourite. It has particular resonance in view of Bert's departure. This is what I will be singing if there is not a large bunch of roses delivered very soon.

* Kurt Nachtnebel Oompah Band

Dedicated to Tony Blair and George W. Bush.