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

GOING BUSH

I never intended to go native. I did all that in France thirty years ago, and had no intention of starting over here. I planned to work here until retirement, then get the hell out back to France. In the meantime, I felt not a twinge of guilt about reading British papers, watching British telly, listening to nothing but the BBC, shopping at Stonemanor, etc. I'm not stopping, just passing through.


But absence, contrary to popular belief, does not make the heart grow fonder, and an expensive high-speed train journey to Paris or London started to lose its appeal weighed against a £13 weekend return to Antwerp. And a few months back I got fed up with the poor sound quality of Radio 4 on my clock radio in the mornings and set it to RTBF. It was with some relief that I woke up to accurate weather forecasts and even started to understand who was who in Belgian politics. I even got hooked on a presenter called Thomas Gunzig and his daily 5-minute "Café Serré" essays at 8.30. John Humphrys and Today are toast I'm afraid. I started researching scurrilous Belgian conspiracy theories, succumbing to the national obsession with sex scandals.



I have started switching over to the Belgian TV news straight after the end of the BBC1 news, even before the end sometimes. I actually want to know what is going on in this country that I have lived in for five years. I considered going to France during my summer holiday, but decided it would be too crowded, too expensive, and too hot. I decided to stay in Belgium and visit the Ardennes, the coast, and more of Flanders.




I occasionally experience a real craving for golden, crisp Belgian chips. I am even prepared to patiently wait 10 minutes for them to be cooked to order. This is, apparently, a sure sign that you are becoming Belgian. I have not, however, gone bush to the point of putting mayonnaise on them, or God forbid, ordering a "fricadelle" on the side. I also draw the line at Belgian pickles, which are a sort of lurid mustard piccalilli in a jar. Some dubious restaurants even serve pork chops "façon Crosse & Blackwell". Ugh. But in other respects Belgium has a fine culinary tradition, although it is a lot of waffle that there are more Michelin stars in Belgium than in all of Paris.

Waffles are best when bought off a van on a cold day

I can name far more than five famous Belgians without even looking them up on Wikipedia. I know the difference between Freddy (Mayor of Brussels) and Toots (famous harmonica virtuoso) Thielemans. I know the names of all the members of the Belgian royal family and their order in line to the throne, and even have a favourite Royal - the elderly but delightfully irreverent Queen Fabiola.





The language has not been a problem, since I already spoke French fluently, and took to "septante" and "nonante" like a duck to water, to the extent that friends in France fall about laughing at my Belgicisms. I have picked up a few words of Flemish and, although I apparently speak it with a German accent, have scored a few points at the office with my ability to understand spoken Vlaams. Although I'm told that I won't be totally safe in Flanders until I can say "schild en vriend" perfectly. (That's a Flemish in-joke and I'm not going to explain it, just look up Bruges Matins).


I don't frequent the expat districts or the British pubs, and if I do go out for a drink I much prefer a Brussels brown bar, such as La fleur en papier doré, which was a favourite haunt of Magritte, and a Grimbergen in a beautiful glass with a plate of cheese to a pint of warm lager down at the Hairy Canary. I now have a collection of Belgian beer glasses, to which McChe contributes whenever one will fit in his pocket. My friends in Brussels, with the exception of Scouse Doris, are Belgians of various ethnicity (including Ethiopian, Mexican and Italian) and the odd Frog, for old time's sake.




When I recently managed to complete my tax declaration unaided, I knew I'd crossed the Rubicon. I ran it by the office accountant, who congratulated me. "You're almost Belgian," he beamed, as if it were a compliment. I wonder what the next step is - cheating on my tax declaration, perhaps?


Trouble is, as I have a marked preference for Flemish towns despite not really speaking the language, and as the prospect of Brussels being absorbed by Flanders creeps ever closer, I may have to decide soon, do I want to be an adopted daughter of Flanders or Wallonia? I quite surprised myself the other day when I stopped browsing French estate agents websites and started looking at property in Bruges.




Practice makes perfect: "Schild en vriend, schild en vriend, schild en vriend ...."