I have been in Brussels just long enough now to start feeling cravings for Branston Pickle and Marmite. I don’t know why, because I never liked them to start with. But there’s something about expatriate life, especially if you don’t return to Blighty very often, that makes you reinvent the Britain you imagine you left behind, which is invariably much nicer than the Britain you really did leave behind.
I have done the whole immersion thing in France, which only had the effect of making me aggressive and lacking in a sense of humour, although on the plus side, I’ve never gone out with shoes and handbag that didn’t match since. I have decided against it this time. In the words of Dame Shirley Bassey, I Am What I Am. I am an English laydee, and henceforth I shall live like one, whichever part of the world I find myself in.
So after installing satellite TV, thereby enabling me to stay in touch with popular culture at home – the great lacuna in English language teaching in Belgium is the absence of Ant and Dec from school curricula – I decided to make the pilgrimage to Stonemanor, the British store situated in a beautiful old manorhouse on the north-east outskirts of Brussels. In order to do this I had to take a bus from the De Lijn company, which is Flemish. Yes, they even have separate bus companies here. I noticed with interest that the De Lijn bus was more spacious, comfortable and clean than the STIB buses. Make of that wat u wil.
On alighting from the bus in the spick and span Flemish village of Everberg I permitted myself a slightly superior smile, rather proud that “our” store was not in some godforsaken corner on the wrong side of the canal. On the Saturday before Christmas the car park was full of Range Rovers and the store was full of families in matching Barbour jackets stocking up on last minute supplies of Tikka Masala seasoning and Andrex. It was like another world, where well-dressed Eurocrats gently steered their little Tarquins and Freyas towards the traditional sugar-free Christmas treats and Jonathan Ross burbled inanely over the loudspeakers. The expats had come out en famille, many of them accompanied by an elderly relative obviously “out” for the Christmas hols. 
This was perhaps not a good idea, some of the old dears were looking decidedly cardiac after working out the prices on their calculators. I had a frisson when I saw an elderly gentleman in a beige cardigan asking “HOW MUCH??” in horrified tones. Dear Harold will always be with me in spirit.
This was not the England I remembered, where merry cries of “Brandon! Put that vodka bottle back or Fackin Farver Chrissmas won’t bring you another ASBO!” and “Chardonnay! Gitowvereeyah!” filled the air in my local Tesco. I drifted down the aisles, eyes wide with wonder, wondering where such gentle, well-dressed, well-spoken people could hail from. Another planet, where ITV did not exist, perhaps?
Readers, I had a moment of madness. I bought fresh cream, Mr Kipling mince pies, fig rolls, chocolate digestives, sausage rolls, Heinz tomato soup, bacon, sausages, Tetleys tea bags, After Eights. There was even a cheese counter, where I couldn’t resist some Stilton and a piece of “Scrumpy” (as I had invited the eponymous itinerant eco-warrier for Christmas lunch - my contribution to Making Poverty History). It was rather pungent but surprisingly strong.
Stonemanor is not just a food store. Oh no. Upstairs is a whole floor of greetings cards, childrens books, and stationery. On the second floor is a whole floor of FURNITURE. Beds and so forth. Because foreign beds don’t quite cut the mustard. And their pillows are all the wrong shape. You can’t beat a good wholesome British mattress for a good night’s sleep and none of that continental hanky panky.
The queue for the checkout was long, but the cashiers (who didn’t appear to speak a word of anything other than English) were marshalling shoppers in that quiet but firm way so beloved of the British armed forces. “No,” one cashier explained patiently to a couple who were obviously foreign and shouldn’t even have been there, “there is ONE queue, and three checkouts. When it is your turn you step forward. Until then, you wait in the queue.” Without raising his voice or even wagging a finger, he refused to be swayed, bribed or threatened. The foreign couple slunk away with their basket to the end of the queue. I silently (the British way) applauded him. That is the sort of no-nonsense people management that makes us so efficient. I quietly hummed “Land of Hope and Glory” as I waited in the single queue, waiting to step forward when my turn came.
I staggered out with bulging shopping bags, a rictus grin of delirious happiness on my flushed face. I had found the England I always imagined! A land of wealthy, plummy (apart from the Oirish), expensively dressed, orderly couples with 2.4 well-behaved if slightly overfed children, a gas guzzling 4x4 and a dyspeptic granddad. I’ve come home!
What on earth do the media think they are doing releasing a picture like this of Saddam just before he was topped? He looks like a movie star. He could have played alongside George Clooney in Syriana. If this doesn’t make him a martyr and icon nothing will. It won’t be long before we see Saddam T-shirts, lighters, posters, shopping bags. He is a Che Guevara for the older woman. He died with dignity, and looked handsome in death. I suppose if you are a Kurd you might not quite see it that way, but it just proves my argument that if Hitler had looked like Maximilian Schell we’d all be speaking German now.
