Déjà vu

Belgium 12 - 43 Canada

So, umm. Gosh! Fancy seeing you here! Long time no see...

Many, many things to report from the last mumble mumble months, but as it happens I've recently made a return visit to Heysel for another rugby match. This one was Belgium v. Canada, apparently the first time the two teams have met. There was a much bigger crowd this time round - the stadium was absolutely packed, so much so that it was difficult to see the pitch at times! The weather was pretty miserable, but the atmosphere was great, despite the fact that Belgium took a complete battering (it probably didn't help that the previously mentioned Alan Williams wasn't playing). No punch-ups this time, though, which I think I'm probably supposed to think is a good thing...

We certainly didn't see anything that could match up to this beauty (about 50-odd seconds into the video):



And what do you reckon the chances are that I'll get round to posting about anything else before, say, Christmas? Yes, that's what I thought.

Touch, pause, engage!

Belgium 29 - 8 Poland

Belgium is not exactly renowned as a great rugby-playing nation. Nor is Poland. Nonetheless, they do both have national teams of a sort, and last Saturday was the culmination of their 2009-10 season: the final match in Division 2A of the European Nations Cup. Gosh, I hear you say.

The European Nations Cup is a sort of sub-Six Nations, divided into seven divisions. Division 1 is made up of teams like Romania and Georgia, which fairly regularly qualify for World Cups (where they then get completely spanked), so Belgium, in Division 2A, are officially almost mediocre :-) The team is known as the Diables Noirs/Zwarte Duivels - the Black Devils - and they do indeed play in black, with little red and yellow stripes.

So, Saturday's match. It was held at the Petit Heyzel stadium, which is a small (capacity around 6000, at a guess) stadium next to the main Stade Roi Baudouin, which itself rose from the metaphorical ashes of the old Heysel stadium (yes, that Heysel). There was a bigger crowd than I'd expected, at around 4500 - mostly Belgian, with a fair contingent of Poles and at least a few neutrals including me and a Greek friend.

And it was a pretty entertaining match. Actual quality of rugby, not brilliant, but there were a couple of tries right beneath our noses and a very amusing punch up involving the majority of both teams. Most of the points were scored by Belgium's fly-half, a chap by the very Belgian name of Alan Williams who plays for Castres and has a very Jonny Wilkinson-esque penalty-kicking style. At the end of the match, there was a mysterious fracas at the other end; we couldn't see what was going on, but I later heard that one of the Belgian supporters had headbutted one of the Polish players. Which seems like a logical response to seeing your team win.

And the upshot of all that was that Belgium finished second in the division, just one point behind Ukraine. Allez les noirs!

Here Be Dragons

Temeraire (aka His Majesty's Dragon) was sold to me as Patrick O'Brian with dragons. It... isn't.

Don't get me wrong - it's a good book. It's a very interesting premise, pretty well executed, and I enjoyed it a lot. The genius of Patrick O'Brian, though, is the sheer density of historical detail - he was writing in the 20th century, but Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin feel as authentically Regency as, say, Elizabeth Bennet. Temeraire, in contrast, is looking at the Age of Sail through a thick 21st-century lens.

Trying to avoid spoilers here, but I thought the outcome to the climatic battle was a bit deus ex machina. In hindsight, it kind of was foreshadowed, but the thing about Chekhov's gun is that you know it's a gun. There was nothing to indicate that this, umm, thing could be used for the purpose it was used for. Clear as mud? Excellent!

I'm not selling this very well, am I? Really, though, all this is just nit-picking: overall, it's very good. It's well written - it flows well, and is neither too simplistic nor too dense; the characters, particularly the dragons, are sympathetic; and there are some lovely little details in the way the dragons are woven into the real historical events.

So, if you like alternate history and historical fiction, read it. If you only like alternate history, still read it. If you only like historical fiction, or more medieval/mythical fantasy, probably don't bother.

April is the cruellest month

More poetry, just because:

from The Waste Land by T S Eliot

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

Incidentally, when I Googled for this, I got the following (click to see a bigger version):

Google, you fail English Literature for ever.

!!!11Eleven11!!!

Doctor Who is back! Like, properly, for 13 episodes! With someone decent in charge!

It's kind of hard to tell what the new doctor's going to be like on the basis of one episode, but I'm pretty optimistic. He seems to have the best bits of Doctors 9 and 10: he's bouncy and a bit manic like David Tennant, but has a really menacing edge, like Christopher Eccleston.

I'm liking Amy Pond too. I really wanted to like Martha and Donna, and they were OK, but I didn't particularly warm to them. Both young Amelia and adult Amy, though, were instantly charming.

Other stuff: the new Tardis looks cool; I smiled like an idiot at the little flashback through all the previous doctors; and the remixed title music is ace. But what are the Daleks doing in the trailer? Haven't they been killed off enough times already?

Epic Fail

So, yeah. I fail completely at this whole blogging thing. I'll try to put some more interesting stuff up soon, but in the meantime, have a poem!

Easter by Edmund Spenser

Most glorious Lord of Lyfe! that, on this day,
Didst make Thy triumph over death and sin;
And, having harrowd hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win:
This joyous day, deare Lord, with joy begin;
And grant that we, for whom thou diddest dye,
Being with Thy deare blood clene washt from sin,
May live for ever in felicity!

And that Thy love we weighing worthily,
May likewise love Thee for the same againe;
And for Thy sake, that all lyke deare didst buy,
With love may one another entertayne!
So let us love, deare Love, lyke as we ought,
--Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.

Overambition

As usual at this time of year, I have a long list of resolutions. This time, I'm publishing them here in the hope that you lot can help me actually stick to them...

In 2010, I will:

• read at least 50 books. Progress can be tracked here.


• go to bed before midnight on weeknights. Feel free to tell me off if you see me online after that.


• join a gym and actually go to it on a regular basis.


• eat less sugar, less fat and more vegetables.


• update this blog more regularly. You know, like more than once every three months.


• do at least one thing every month that I've never done before. I've done this for the last couple of years, but always forget to keep track of whether I've actually managed it.

So, there we go. I suspect this is going to work about as well as every other year, namely not at all.

Pros and cons

Until I moved to Brussels, I'd never really been reliant on public transport - of course I used it on occasion, but this is the first time I've actually lived in a place with a public transport system worthy of the name. And, all things considered, it's jolly marvellous: frequent service, a comprehensive network, safe (at least, I've never felt threatened). At least eleventy-three percent better than driving - because, the drivers in this city? Terrible. Really, stunningly awful.

Things I love about the STIB:

• The price: €44 a month, as opposed to £99.10 just for zones 1 and 2 in London.
• The LED signs that show exactly where all the trains are at any given time. In theory, at least.
• They play music in the metro stations all day, and after about 9.30 p.m. it's always classical. There's something very soothing about sitting waiting for the train after an evening out, listening to Rhapsody in Blue.
• The morning rush hour lasts about half an hour.
• The bus drivers are generally very good about waiting if they notice you running towards them.
• I'm tremendously entertained by the fact that the quest for bilingual equality even extends to alternating between starting announcements in French, and starting them in Dutch.

Things I hate about the STIB:

• The music in the mornings - I invariably get to work in the morning with one irritatingly catchy 90s hit or another stuck in my head for the rest of the day. This morning it was 'Hit me baby one more time', and yesterday it was something by Kylie and Jason. 'Especially for you', I think.
• Whether or not the escalators are working appears to depend entirely on chance.
• And, when they are working, the whole 'stand on the right, walk on the left' thing is generally ignored.
• The way it basically shuts down over the summer - I realise that it's the holiday season, but I'd still like to get to work on time, please.
• The beggars. Especially the ones going up and down the trains. "Juste un petit geste" + captive audience => guilt-trip => aargh.
• Buses and cobblestones do not play well together. Bone-shaking doesn't even begin to cover it.
• The bus is always late. Except when it's early, which is even more irritating.

Priorities

Since moving to Brussels, I have:

• joined an orchestra,
• joined a church and its choir,
• found a pub with live cricket on TV, and
• bought bookshelves and put my books on them in alphabetical order.

I haven't:

• joined a gym,
• bought a sofa,
• signed up with a doctor or dentist,
• found a hairdresser, or
• unpacked all my clothes.

I'm not entirely sure I've got my priorities straight.

In which I take things a bit too seriously

I went to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince the other evening. I could just write a brief post saying that I enjoyed it, that it was a bit different from the book but that's not necessarily a problem (see previous comments on that subject), and that I still think Prisoner of Azkaban was better. Job done. But Harry Potter won't let me do that, so I'm now going to be tl;dr about it.

Here's the thing: the problem with Harry Potter is not in the concept, but in the execution. Harry Potter is the global phenomenon it is because the universe J K Rowling created has captured people's imaginations - you just have to look at the proliferation of fanfic to see that*. The whole idea of a secret wizarding world existing in parallel with our own is an intriguing one, and the books are full of great, original ideas - Platform 9 3/4, Quidditch, Horcruxes (Horcruces?), Pensieves, etc.

*On second thoughts, don't look at the fanfic. It may scar you for life.

The trouble is, Rowling is not a good enough writer to pull it off - she has a tendency to tell rather than show, she keeps slipping out of third-person limited narration at jarring moments, and she seriously needed an editor to take a red pen to the bloated drafts of the last four books. My main criticism of the books, though, is the characterisation. Most of the characters, even the principal ones, are basically cardboard cutout archetypes - black and white, good or evil, with handsome generally meaning good, and ugly evil.

Which is why I liked the character of Snape so much - he was the exception to this simplistic view. He was a good guy, without being a nice guy: I assume that the intention was to keep us guessing about which side he was on, but I never had any doubt. (Actually, that's not entirely true: it was clear to me that he had to be good, but I wasn't 100% confident that it was clear to J K Rowling.) And the more we found out about him as the books came out, the more interesting he became.

And this, I think, is why I was slightly disappointed with the latest film, even though I did enjoy it: to me (though apparently not to Rowling or to David Yates) book 6 belongs to Snape, so it seemed a terrible shame that he was more or less pushed out of the picture in favour of lots of embarrassed teenage fumbling.

And then there's "the unfortunate event", as Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode have been calling it. As previously mentioned, I don't necessarily have a problem with plots being changed in adaptations, but I'm really not sure about this particular case, because it completely changes the thrust of the scene, for no obvious reason. In the book, Harry is invisible under his Invisibility Cloak, and has been cursed so that he can't move, which means that he's completely helpless and unable to act; in the film, on the other hand, he's not physically impeded in any way, so he is choosing not to intervene (and to obey Snape, which he's never shown any previous inclination to do). Which, apart from being rather out of character for the typically recklessly brave Harry, raises interesting issues relating to free will which I will not bore you with right now :)

And that is nearly 600 words that shows I have been thinking about a children's film far more than is entirely appropriate for a grown woman...

RTD, I'd like a word with you.

On Wednesday, I was all set to write a post about how impressed I was with the new mini-series of Torchwood. Unlike the previous two series, which I absolutely adored but were actually pretty rubbish, series 3 was shaping up to be proper good telly. Sure, there were still plotholes that Ianto could drive a JCB through, but it was really exciting, and we got to see Jack's daughter and Ianto's family (who are chavs, and fantastic), and Paul Copley off Hornblower was brilliant, and Peter Capaldi was Not Malcolm Tucker, and Gwen was significantly less annoying than usual, and the children were really creepy, and Ianto kicked arse, and John Barrowman was naked, and, and, and...

And then I watched Day 4.

It all seemed to be going so well: the cabinet meeting where they were talking about how to choose the children was incredibly chilling in its plausibility, and I was really starting to like Lois as a potential new team member. But then it all went horribly, horribly wrong.

How could they kill Ianto?! He was the best thing about this whole stupid-yet-fantastic show. I was desperately hoping for some sort of reset button in the final part - and normally Russell T Davies' penchant for 'ha ha, fooled you all' plots just makes me roll my eyes - but it would appear that he actually is really dead for real. The one consolation is that it was a great death scene - almost as good as Tosh's - and Gareth David-Lloyd totally did it justice.

And, much as it pains me to say it, it's a good thing they didn't resurrect him. The final episode was just... I have no words for how amazing it was, even though it pretty much broke me. And if, after all that - after Frobisher, and his family, and Stephen - it had turned out that Ianto wasn't dead after all, it would have cheapened it. Not that it's necessarily stopped them in the past, mind you.

So, what's next? From what I've heard, they were going to decide whether to make a fourth series depending on the ratings for the third - and they were very, very good at around 5.9 million. But it all felt very final - the hub's gone, most of the team are dead, Jack's run away to the other side of the galaxy - so I don't see where they can go from here.

The tl;dr version? I loved it beyond all reason, but I probably won't be watching the next series if there is one.

Jazz à l'ancienne

Ancienne Belgique is one of Brussels', and possibly Belgium's, best concert venues. It's right in the centre of town, and hosts a wide variety of contemporary music - not just rock and pop bands, but jazz, folk, hip-hop and others as well - and also arranges a number of free open-air gigs during the summer.

Lisa Ekdahl is a Swedish jazz singer/songwriter, who sings mostly in Swedish, but sometimes in English. She has a very delicate, almost child-like voice - very unlike the great jazz singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, but really very evocative, both in her own songs and in the jazz standards.

And on Sunday evening, I went to see the latter in the former, and very much enjoyed it.

As some of you know, I am... let us say not well-disposed towards the Swedes at the moment, and I was unsure about whether to go to this gig - I love Lisa Ekdahl's music, but I didn't know whether I could cope with a whole evening of Swedish. As it turned out, though, that wasn't an issue as her set was entirely in English - which was actually a bit disappointing, because I love some of her Swedish stuff. She mostly sang songs from her albums When Did You Leave Heaven and Back To Earth, and most of them were wonderful - the only one that didn't work for me was Björk's It's Oh So Quiet, because she didn't make a real contrast between the quiet and loud parts, and I don't think the song is anywhere near as effective without it. Her Cry Me A River, though, was beautiful.

Stand up and be counted

So, of all the things I didn't expect to be doing in Brussels, going to an English-language stand-up comedy show with a group of Greeks and Slovenes has to come fairly high up the list...

We saw two comedians:

Kevin Bridges is a relatively new name on the circuit. He's from Glasgow, and some of my companions had a certain amount of trouble understanding him. He was pretty good, but some parts of the act felt a bit flat to me.

Adam Hills is much better known and better established as a comedian - he's been going since 1989, and has been on Never Mind the Buzzcocks and Mock the Week. I thought he was really excellent, but I'm glad we weren't sitting near the front, because he really picked on some people in the audience. If you search for his name on YouTube you'll find quite a few videos from his stand-up act - strangely, in some of them he seems a lot flatter and less engaging than he was last night, so maybe he wasn't just being nice when he said he'd really enjoyed the evening.

After the show, we went for a drink at the Crystal Lounge (warning, website plays music automatically, which I find a bit irritating), which is in a very posh hotel in the Avenue Louise area. It's an amazing space, with an absolutely beautiful terrace, and it serves some great cocktails, including one which comes in a round glass with a lightbulb in it so that it glows blue. It's bloody expensive, but definitely worth a visit.

Holy and blessed three

It's Trinity Sunday, which seems an appropriate day to write about my brand-new church home, Holy Trinity Brussels.

Holy Trinity is the pro-cathedral of the diocese in Europe, no less. A pro-cathedral is, apparently, a church temporarily standing in as the cathedral for a diocese; I'm not sure why Holy Trinity is classified as such, but I suspect it has something to do with the fact that Brussels already has a (Catholic) cathedral. It's quite a big church - room for a couple of hundred people, I'd guess, and several other function rooms (including a bar downstairs, which is an excellent addition to any church!) - but you can't tell from the outside, as it's hidden away in a courtyard behind some other buildings, in the middle of one of Brussels' poshest shopping areas.

It's been there since 1902, though it was called Christ Church back then - it became Holy Trinity in 1958, when the congregation merged with another Anglican church nearby. There are four services every Sunday, all with very different styles, ranging from traditional communion using the Book of Common Prayer to a bilingual French/English service with African music. So far, I've only been to the main morning service, which is a fairly traditional sung communion with a robed choir; and, after only two weeks, I seem to have found myself singing in the said choir! It's amazing what can come from a casual conversation during the after-service coffee... It's a much bigger choir than I'm used to, and quite a few of the members seem to be scarily accomplished musicians, but I think I'm going to enjoy it.

Polyphonic heaven

Last night I went to a fabulous concert by these people, in a beautiful chapel literally 3 minutes walk from my apartment. I think I could get used to this.

It was a concert of Tallis and Byrd - the doyens of English (and in particular English-language) choral music. Especially in a resonant acoustic like an old stone church, you can just shut your eyes and let the music wash over you. Heavenly!

The programme was mostly Latin music - Byrd's five part mass and Tallis's Lamentations of Jeremiah - and they also did four of Tallis's English motets.

And I note from the website that they're back in September. I might not be living round here by then (though you never know), but I'm already putting it in my diary.

The joys of multilingual TV

One of the advantages of living here is the availability of foreign television stations: I currently have French French, Belgian French, Dutch, Flemish, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Turkish and English channels. It's great having BBC1 and 2, of course, and, at least in theory, watching the other channels is a great way of getting better at those languages.

Unfortunately, as anyone who has spent time over here can tell you, European TV is rubbish. In practice, I mostly watch the BBC, plus imported US and UK programmes - not only can I still get my NCIS and CSI fix, but now I have a choice of English with Dutch subtitles or French dubbing (obviously, the former is more satisfactory, but the latter has a certain entertainment value all of its own).

Can anyone recommend anything French, Dutch, Belgian or German that might actually be worth watching? I, and my language skills, would be most grateful for suggestions.

Natural, fresh and ready

I've been eating out quite a lot since I arrived in Brussels, but I don't really have the time or inclination to post about all the restaurants and cafés I've tried out so far. The one I do want to mention, though, is one that I've actually only got take-away from so far, but which has already become one of my favourite Brussels places.

Exki is a Belgian chain of cafés/snack bars that sells good quality, healthy 'fast food' - not burgers and chips, but salads, soups, sandwiches... and delicious cakes and cheescakes, all sold by the slice to eat in or take away. One of their specialities is speculoos cheescake - a bargain at €3.45 for a big slice.

Its by-line is 'natural, fresh and ready' (in English, of course, because English is cool. Or something.), and it's only been around since 2001, but already has 16 branches in Brussels alone. I saw a report on TV that their turnover is down due to the economic situation, but it's always been fairly busy when I've gone or looked in so far, so I'm sure they're not in trouble.

They also do breakfast - fresh pastries, yoghurt, fruit salad, freshly squeezed orange juice... As there are two on my route to work, I can see myself succumbing to temptation rather more often than is good for the bank balance.

The exception that proves the rule

It is a well-known "fact" that all odd-numbered Star Trek films are pants. Until now. I just went to see the latest one, number 11, and it is awesome. The way the cast manage to be so recognisable as younger versions of the characters we know, without descending into outright impersonation, is very impressive indeed. Zachary Quinto is particularly good as Spock - he has the voice dead on, as is obvious when he's on screen with Leonard Nimoy (who is, of course, a legend) - but in my opinion they're all great.

Only Star Trek could get away with a prequel in which the essential premise is that the original series is now not going to happen as we saw it. The Spock/Uhura thing is particularly intriguing: I haven't seen enough of Star Trek:TOS to know whether there are any hints of this relationship, but I do know that it's actually Kirk who kisses Uhura in one episode.

Plus, it's funny, it's well-paced, the special effects are good, and the science is suitably silly.

Take note, George Lucas, this is how you do a prequel.

Welcome to Brussels/Bruxelles/Brussel

The capital of Belgium, (one of the) headquarters of the European Union, and home to over one million people. Including, as of Tuesday, me.

The whole point of starting this blog in the first place was to record my adventures in the city. I don't have a huge amount to say so far, except that the food is good, the beer is excellent, the TV is very multilingual and my French is gradually getting better - but watch this space!

Is it just me...

or was Norway's Eurovision song actually not that good? I mean, it wasn't bad (though I'm sure he was singing sharp for a lot of it), but 387 points seems a bit excessive.