BLACK RUSSIAN

Last Sunday I went to see a film about a Mr Borat from Kazakhstan. I thought it was hilariously funny, and even more so afterwards when I was let in on the joke. Mr Borat, you see, is not his real name. Behind the luxuriant moustache hides Ali G. Remarkable that a black man has managed to convincingly play an Eastern European. His Russian was a bit peculiar and sounded more like Polish, and even Yiddish on occasion, but perhaps that’s the Kazakh dialect.

The writer of the screenplay, Sacha Baron-Cohen, is a nice looking young man, with a faint resemblance to Mr Borat, perhaps he's from Kazakhstan. He has a lesser-known relative, a cousin, I believe, called Simon, a psychology professor at Cambridge University, who has published a remarkable book called The Essential Difference. He has scientifically proved my pet theory that most men are autistic to a greater or lesser degree. This has come as a great relief to many women who thought they’d bagged a defective one. It’s an overall design fault, girls. God’s been working on an improved model but the best he’s come up with so far is the Hairdresser, which is big on empathy but can be disappointing in the bedroom. Look on the bright side, ladies. It could be worse. You could have bagged a Kazakh, like Mrs Borat.

A number of bloggers also hide behind a fictitious persona. I find this quite sad. What terrible lack of self-confidence would induce someone to pretend they were someone else? It smacks of dishonesty in the extreme. I have nothing to hide, unlike some I could mention. That Aunty Marianne, for example, is nothing like her blog persona. In reality she is a wild-eyed gipsy who lives in a caravan with 14 mangy cats and sings Edith Piaf songs in the metro. Gorilla Bananas, par contre, is a most genuine gorilla and certainly not a man in a monkey suit, as some have intimated. He's even written a book! That experiment with the monkey and the typewriter worked eventually.

Talking of monkey suits, in honour of UpFront’s Bond Party this Friday night at Monkey Business, Rue Defacqz, let's hear it for the greatest Bond girl who never was … Dame Shirley Bassey. The voice. The frock. The wig. Did you know she is half Nigerian and half Welsh? I saw her once, back in 1976 or thereabouts, in a shopping mall in Estepona, buying a copy of the Daily Mirror. Fantastic legs. Duke of Edinburgh’s favourite pin-up apparently. All together now:

Diamonds are
Forevaaaaaaaahhhhh …..

Good Lord is that the time?

I realized with horror this morning that Christmas is a mere four weeks away, and set off in search of Christmas presents. This year everyone is getting something in the shape of the Mannequin-Pis. Even if I have to bake it myself. The Christmas lights are up on the Rue Neuve but there was not much of a Yuletide atmosphere, it was much too warm to get festive. There was a strong wind, but the temperature was 18 degrees Celsius! And we’re nearly December.

I'm not much of a one for Christmas, to tell you the truth. Much as I like tinsel and sequins, I dislike being marshalled into being jolly once a year on command, and usually end up going the other way entirely, being quite grumpy and miserable. More than usual, that is. This year, like last, I will be without Harold, which is one reason to be a bit more cheerful I suppose. At least there's less chance of the Christmas pudding having to be put out by the local fire brigade. (See Christmas 2001 in Warsaw).

The South American pan pipe band were playing soporific rainforest music in the Place de la Monnaie dressed up in the full wigwam, looking for all the world like a trio of extra large turkeys with their trimmings on, ready for Christmas dinner. Brussels sprouts optional.

As the light faded I wandered down the Galeries St Hubert where the Christmas decs this year are very minimalist. Last year they were bizarre in the extreme and slightly erotic. This year they are just plain onion-shaped glowing lanterns that change colour. Very boring. The chocolate shops in the gallery had their Christmas collections on display, but I bravely looked the other way. What I love about the shops downtown is the number of specialist shops selling just hats, or just gloves, or just walking sticks. You don’t find those in UK any more.

A number of bars were already serving “vin chaud” which in the present greenhouse climate is tantamount to serving mulled wine in the south of France. I do hope there’s at least a bit of frost for Christmas. I have spent many a festive season in tropical climes and I can tell you it’s not the same. Oh Come All Ye Faithful has to be sung at below room temperature otherwise it doesn’t sound right. Caledonian Societies still insist on doing full tartan Hogmanays in equatorial climes which is just plain bonkers. It’s far too hot and humid to do the Dashing White Sergeant with any gusto, and the mosquitoes get right up yer kilt.

I continued on to the Grand’Place where as usual there was something wacky going on. The nativity stable (which last year had real live animals!) was erected but not quite ready, it will open on the first day of Advent, 1st December. Night had just fallen, and to a soundtrack of dreamy electronic music a group of stilt-walkers in elaborate Venetian carnival costumes were trying to glide gracefully around, although it is not easy to glide in stilts on cobblestones in a Force 7 gale, albeit a warm one. It reminded me that after the gluttony and anticlimax of Christmas comes the lunacy of Carnival, when Belgium turns into Brazil minus the sunshine. On my way back I came across a carnival shop, stuffed to the gunnels with costumes, masks, wigs, what the French call “Farces et Attrapes”, magic tricks, false noses, that sort of thing. I brushed a tear from my eye when I saw a Zorro outfit, as it reminded me of Harold. I bought a little plastic dog turd to remind me of my dear lamented mythomaniac husband and his love of practical jokes. It's sitting on the mantelpiece as I write this. It's almost as if he were here with me.

The Leb Factor

This week I have been mostly watching Al Jazeera in English, broadcast from Doha, in Qatar. Far from being Bin Laden’s post office, they are a highly professional team of journalists from all over the Arab world and elsewhere. Many of them came from the old BBC Arabic Service, which was closed down a few years back, and have retained the erstwhile BBC ethos of honest and unbiased reporting. Familiar faces such as David Frost and Darren Jordon, ex of the BBC, now work for AJI, as does the highly decorative Rageh Omaar (rhymes with phwoaarr). The studio is almost identical to the BBC newsroom, the format very much along the lines of Sky News, only the focus is slanted differently. It’s not better than Sky or BBC. Certainly not worse. It’s just different. And, I think, necessary. The programming gives priority to stories from the Middle East and Africa, and a very necessary alternative approach to the Iraq war. They're not anti-American per se. They had trouble with other Arab governments before they had trouble with George Bush. There’s no commercial advertising, I have no idea where their money comes from. But they are banned in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia – yes, that’s right, those bastions of free speech -- which indicates that they are nobody’s puppet.

There’s also the other small thing. There are a lot of nice looking dusky men with smouldering dark brown eyes on Al Jazeera. The Leb Factor is not to be sniffed at.

This week I have been mostly listening to Tinariwen. Their 2004 album “Amassakoul” is an excellent introduction to this bunch of unconventional Sahraoui Touaregs who, legend has it, formed as rebel soldiers in exile and rode into Nouakchott after the rebellion was over carrying their machine guns in one hand and electric guitars in the other. They are authentic “Blue Men” (with a couple of blue women) and wear traditional desert clobber on stage. Their music is proof that the blues originated in Africa. The hypnotic camel-driving rhythms of Oualahila ar tesninam overlaid with electric riffs and Ibrahim Ag Alhabibe’s growly bass vocals will blow a desert storm through your head, especially if listened to through headphones with the volume turned up. They apparently have a new album out this week which is going straight on my Christmas list.

And tomorrow Aunty Marianne and I are going to review an Arabic type restaurant for UpFront magazine, which is very exciting. So as not to be spotted, we will go in local garb. They'll never guess who we are.

The end of an era

On 1^st January 2007, Belgium and England will declare smoking bans in public places, including pubs, cafes and restaurants. These bans are already in place in Ireland, Scotland, Italy, Norway, and Spain. They will come into force next summer in Wales, and France will follow in 2008. Croatia passed the legislation but then changed its mind, but Albania brought it in this summer. Germany is thinking about it. Hungary has no plans to impose it, but they have the highest lung cancer figures in Europe. QED. The jury is still out on Greece.

This is not a self-righteous rant by a rabid anti-smoker, since I have been known to enjoy the occasional Sobranie myself. However, coughing one’s guts up at the bus stop is not very ladylike, so I have decided to make a serious attempt to renounce the weed. Zoe, herself an ex-smoker, is encouraging me by snatching the offending article out of my hand whenever she catches me at it. This has resulted in the occasional scuffle, and on one occasion I punched her on the nose, but it is for my own good so I forgive her. Tippler is very helpful too, in a less draconian way.

Bert has seen the writing on the wall and is going into training for 1^st January. Being German and a former substitute in the 1966 World Cup Squad, he’s going to be very methodical and determined about it, and has not only given up the gaspers but has taken up sport. He goes running in the morning, swimming in the evening, and plays squash at lunchtime. I hardly see him any more, and when I do he’s in a sweaty tracksuit. Ugh. He’s talking about doing the Brussels marathon next year. I suppose I might be able to help with the endurance training.

Blogger is getting on my nerves. Changing to beta has made it easier to fiddle about with the layout and whatnot, but I've lost my hit counter and despite cutting and pasting any number of bits of html, it's not appearing. So I'm losing track of how many admirers I've got. It's enough to give a girl an identity crisis. It's certainly not beta than it was. Hollow laughter.

The Commissionary Position

The nights are drawing in, and although we had a mercifully mild October, a winter chill is settling over the Nerve Centre of Europe. I have witnessed some spectacular sunrises over the Berlaymont (the EU Commission headquarters) which sits there in my line of vision like a great ocean liner, all lights blazing through the night, and I am often put in mind of the Titanic. I wonder what will be the iceberg that will sink the EU? Turkey? The Constitution? The CAP? Why is there never a cartoonist when you need one?

It won’t be a sex scandal, anyway. One of the Commissioners very recently upset his senior officials by publicly slagging off their efficiency, or lack of it. The swift publication by the tabloids in his home country of a photograph of him hand in hand with his recently promoted (female) Chef de Cabinet a few days after this incident was, I am sure, purely coincidental. Everyone, from the President of the Commission to the Commissioner’s wife, is Standing By Their Man, and the story has not, as far as I am aware, made the front pages of the Belgian press. The Brussels press pack are a different breed to the paparazzi and scumbags on the British tabloids, and any “dirt” they dig up is likely to be more of a financial nature than sexual, after all, every important man is expected to bonk his secretary, n’est-ce pas? It is considered rude not to.

The Mistress will not come out of this well, mark my words. Being the paramour of a powerful man used to be a sure way to the top, as Madame de Pompadour would confirm, if she were still here. How times have changed. It didn’t do much for Monica Lewinsky’s career, Antonia de Sancha sank without trace, and poor old Christine Keeler, after her 15 minutes of notoriety, spent the rest of her life in ignominy and a council flat. Nobody can even remember the name of John Prescott’s brief encounter, and that was only a few months ago. The only mistress who has got away with it in living memory is Camilla Parker-Bowles, who waited patiently to get her man, and did not kiss and tell. Although some might say that being married to Charles is a punishment in itself.

Commissioner Mandelson is not likely to get caught with his Armani trousers round his well-turned ankles. The erstwhile Prince of Darkness has acquired an aura of respectability in Brussels that he never had in London. He is fêted here for his slim figure, expensive hair and Italian suits, and his financial peccadilloes would not even have made the papers in Belgium, so tame were they by local standards. His sexuality (whatever it may be) is neither here nor there, and if he were to do the dirty on Reinaldo, I am sure he would have more sense than to go cruising for rough trade in public toilets. He is judged on his ability as Trade Commissioner, and has emerged as pretty competent and firm (stop sniggering, Banana). I can’t see him wanting to go back to London – or Hartlepool - any time soon. The proof that Mandy is a consummate politician is that he plays the Brussels game supremely well, and is respected for it in return.

It is a myth that Peter lives in Rue des Jeunes Garçons, as reported by the scurrilous British press, who can find nothing better to do than make up saucy French street names. There is no such street in my A-Z of Brussels. There is an Impasse des Matelots, a Square de Pede and a Rue de Nancy, an Avenue Debatty and a Rue Pierre de Cock, but if anywhere, I would have thought Avenue de la Joyeuse Entrée would be more up his street.