Tin Tin trollied
Tin Tin as seen in Place Sainte-Catherine Brussels
Friday, November 23, 2012
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Francais, je le kiffe
Most of my spare time is occupied learning French... I just used the word occupied. I’d never have said this three weeks ago, I’d have said ‘I’ve been busy’, bien sur, je suis occupé. Already these false friends are creeping into my English. Hemmingway deliberately used literals in his writing to give a better impression of the music of a language. For example, the Spanish word raro, he translated as rare rather than strange. It’s closer to the original but doesn’t convey quite the same sense in English, but that's Hemmingway for you.
Anyway, I’ve decided to learn French the 93 way, named after the tough, gang-infested Paris department. I suppose it’s a bit like Ali G English, but way cooler.
Voltaire would Hate the sort of French I'm speaking
For example, I don’t aime things anymore, I kiffe them. The verb kiffer is a gift from France's north African immigrants. French slang also likes to invert words, so a sexy bird is known as a meuf (from femme) or a bangin’ party is a teuf (from fete). In the less salubrious street markets you can buy t-shirts with neon pink print reading “Je suis une meuf trop bonne, tu vas me kiffer”. I suppose it’s the equivalent of our “amateur porn star” or “all this and my dad’s loaded”... or this rather shocking example.
Hell in a hand cart... a t-shirt on sale today as modelled by a toddler
I’m doing four hours of lessons each morning and then another four hours practice in the afternoon. At least an hour of this is spent reading French literature, mostly novellas. I’ve had mixed results.
The first story I read was about a disillusioned teenager who bought a new pair of rollerskates to try to recapture his lost childhood. While out skating he sees a girl he fancies and suddenly feels like a prat so to escape he grabs the back of a Renault 4. The pace is jarringly interrupted with some back story about the Renault 4 driver being dissatisfied with life and his cheating wife. Anyway, the driver tears off through Paris with our helpless teenager clinging on for dear life. The boy falls off and dies. Then follows an existential discussion about life with lots of symbolism about hanging onto the speeding car. It probably wasn’t a good place to start. It also contained a word not even my French tutor had heard of. A penisard. From context he concluded it meant a stereotypical right-winger - a support of Jean-Marie Le Pen.
The next story was even more outre. It was about the son of a collaborator who’d been bullied at school for his mother’s crimes. Suddenly we land in some sort of dystopian future where the government restricts alcohol production. An illegal, underground distillery industry thrives. The hero of the story - le fil de Bosch - is a bootlegger who drives his car at breakneck speeds to avoid the police. He too dies in a road traffic accident. This time he ploughs into a plane tree (the author is very specific about genus) at 120kmh in a ball of burning methanol. There’s supposed to be some symbolism here too, but I admit it was lost on me.
I was ready to give up on French literature altogether. Apparently to become a published author in France, all you have to do is string together a baffling series of disillusioning events, culminating in a fatal RTA. Fortunately, the next story I read was a corker. Of course, it was filled to the brim with the now familiar alienation, boredom and despair. However, it took a radical departure by introducing characterisation.
It was about a lonely boy living in the Arab slums of an faceless French city with a single mum struggling to keep her small family together. In fact at the point we join the story she’s just failed. Her eldest son had run away from home, never to return. The book’s eponymous hero sets off to find him and bring him home... never to return. He believes in angels, he identifies with the giant-slaying David, he sniffs glue and nearly gets molested by a paedo... these are just some of his adventures. It’s not exactly Tin Tin.
I hope I'm never accused of becoming a guilt-ridden leftie swatting mosquitoes with a rolled-up Guardian in my holiday home in Tuscany... but this doesn't sit very comfortably
To finish, a few fun French words I learnt this week. The oldest son is called the aîné. That's me. The middle son is the cadet. So that's Sam. And the youngest son is the benjamin. Bad luck Max.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Aachen, Charlemagne and oompah
I was visiting the medieval city of Aachen, but not by accident. I’d read a lot about Charlemagne - the first Holy Roman Emperor and was keen to visit his cathedral - one of the grandest north of the Alps.
By luck, last weekend was Aachen’s annual street carnival - the Festival of the Fool. The town folk dress in colourful outfits with joker hats and parade through the centre. Everybody congregates in the main square to guzzle cold Kolsch, chomp bratwurst and dance to infectious oompah music.
It was nice to see the Germans letting their hair down. Of course, all the merriment was carried out very earnestly and with regimental efficiency. For example, the bar would only accept tokens (available from a separate kiosk) to ensure the speediest service. English caterers could learn a lot from their Teutonic counterparts. The pop-up bar in Aachen was spitting out foaming lagers in a 360 degree field of fire with the smooth efficiency of a Wankel engine.
Despite this efficiency it still took me half an hour to order a beer, largely due to my inability to shout my order to the already harassed bar staff. If shouting failed the thirsty festival goers manfully grabbed the barmen by the wrist, presenting their order with a firm gravity. My tactic of eye-contact and patience was woefully outgunned.
I'd booked into Aachen’s most Germanic hotel. Brulls am Dom is a quaint hotel in the pedestrianised old town, close to the Rathaus. It’s run by a husband and wife - the latter is a keen collector of porcelain and knick-knacks. The dining room is overspilling with the treasures of her lifetime - including sinister dead-eyed dolls; creepy gnomes armed with pickaxes and other weapons fit for bludgeoning; and slim, black hares that looked like a ploughed warren in Watership Down. Despite her trove of terror, she was a lovely lady who serves one of the heartiest hotel breakfasts I’ve ever eaten; including spiegel eis, marble cake, cheese board, bread and jam and strawberries with an almond cream/yoghurt. The rooms were spartan but spotlessly clean. I can’t say fairer than that.
Right, who’s ready for some Charlemagne?
Charlemagne literally means Charles the Great - from the Latin Carolus Magnus - and the epithet is well deserved. This is my version of events and an explanation of why I have a particular obsession with the man.
To understand Charlemagne’s significance first it’s important to consider the Roman Empire.
Before Rome, Western Europe was a dark, brutal, benighted place. It was populated by hairy tribes whose chief pursuits were bloody raids on neighbouring clans and sacrificial Pagan worship conducted in forever dark oak forests. Of course all of this is right up my alley, very Black Metal, but it’s not so good for advancing civilisation.
While the Greeks were inventing philosophy and democracy and the Persians were building great road networks across the Orient, western Europe was largely hairy, smelly and stupid. Bref, Hicksville. The Romans changed all of this. Like the old joke ‘what did the Romans ever do for us’, they introduced trade, irrigation, education, transport... or more simply, civilisation as we know it. But - even more importantly - they introduced Christianity. Out with the old Gods in with the new.
Don’t think of Christianity strictly in its doctrinal sense - think of it from the perspective of architecture, literature, learning, scripture, art. Think of it as enlightenment - shining a flashlight into the dark recesses behind the back of the fridge... the metaphorical mouldy sandwich is a heathen tribe still worshipping Woden, the back of the fridge is a mephitic, malarial swamp untouched by civilisation (or Venice, as its now known).
Also think of Christianity to mean “us”, the Occident, the Western World (I’m deliberately avoiding getting bogged down by schisms between the orthodoxy and church catholic). Christianity was a uniting force, the branches of one great tree with its roots firmly sunk into Roman soil. The West was finally united, by Rome and by one religion.
(SPOILER ALERT) If you’ve not read Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, I won’t spoil the ending. But whether you ascribe the end of the Empire to the Crossing of the Rhine in 405 or the Vandal’s second sacking in 455 - at some time in the 5th Century AD the mighty finally collapsed.
And with the Romans went civilisation. As suddenly as if somebody had switched off the lights, we entered the Dark Ages. Where once we’d lolled in bubbling hot baths, sipping a sweet wine while fanned by some exotic catamite now the moss grew. In the shadows wolves now prowled. Shadows which had once been guarded by a burly Centurion and 99 of his mental mates - all happy to smash a skull more readily than a no-necked, roids-pumped bouncer outside a Reading centre nightclub. And the wolves came. On their arrival to England, the Anglo Saxons thought it must have been populated by giants so astonished were they by the abandoned stone buildings. The Saxons built in wood, and continued to do so. This is the dark ages after all. The axe age. A few pockets of enlightenment and learning remained, most notably in Ireland (no, I’m being deadly serious).
But Western Europe had a problem. Just as the glue which had once bonded us all came unstuck like a supermarket home brand Pritt Stick the Arab world was united and on the offensive. Islam had arrived and it wanted a slice of the old Roman Empire... and it nearly succeeded. The Islamic invaders advanced deep into Western Europe, stopping by the banks of the Loire outside modern day Tours... not far from where Hannah and I once sipped a cool Chinon in the afternoon sun. With Europe fractured and distracted by petty, internecine squabbling, the future looked bleak for the bacon butty.
However, there was one Germanic tribe, the Franks - who gave their name to modern day France - who were slightly less useless than the rest of us. It fell on them and their hard-as-nails leader, Charles the Hammer Martel, to drive the banners of the Crescent Moon back into the Iberian peninsula. Crisis was averted, depending on your point of view. Charles Martel did one more important thing, he had a son called Pepin the Short. Well, the less said about him the better, but Pepin also had a son called Charlemagne. And now the tale can begin.
Charlemagne was born in modern day Belgium, just outside Liege. However, the lines on the map in this part of the world have changed so often it’s not very helpful to think of nationality in a modern sense. In many ways he was the perfect mould of the Germanic warrior king. He spoke High German and bastardized Latin. He was a sturdy but not fat, with modern bone analysis suggesting he was tall for his time, perhaps 169cm. He was never without his sword and even at the height of his powers he still wore the traditional Germanic dress.
Charlemagne - like so many ambitious rulers - set out on a campaign of to command and conquer. First he took Aquitaine, then northern Italy, then the South, and Catalunya in Spain, he went on to grab large chunks of modern Germany and campaigned all the way into Hungary against the Avars. Not a bad property portfolio. If you were playing Charlemagne in Monopoly he’d have hotels on all the red, yellow, green and blue streets... well, maybe the Pope still had Mayfair.
It’s hard to understate the power of Charlemagne. In an age when news only travelled as fast as a horse could gallop his reputation spanned the known world. For example, the Caliphate in Baghdad gave Charlemagne an elephant called Abul-Abbas as a token of their respect.
But for all of Charlemagne’s smart military decisions he made an even shrewder political one. The Roman Popes often had a fairly torrid time - not least Pope Leo III who was forced to flee the Eternal City because its citizens had tried to cut out his eyes and tongue. He sought refuge with the Christian King Charlemagne who was sympathetic to Leo’s plight, promising to reinstall him... which he promptly did. To show his gratitude Pope Leo III announced Charlemagne as the new Emperor of Rome, even putting on a theatrical coronation ceremony in St Peter’s Basilica. It was a giant two fingers up to Constantinople - who’d been handed the Imperial baton centuries earlier. The West finally had a Roman Emperor again, and a powerful at that.
And so I stood in the Palatine chapel in Aachen, which Charlemagne himself had built in 792. Ironically it is typically Byzantine in design with great marble columns and sparkling, gold mosaics. He had seen a church built by the Byzantines in Ravenna, Italy and was so impressed he wanted one of his own.
Aachen’s cathedral is one of the most important buildings in the world. When the first list of UNESCO heritage sites was drawn up in 1978, Aachen cathedral was one of the original dozen.
When Charlemagne died in 814 he was buried in the Cathedral where his remains are still kept in an ornate gold leaf shrine. 200 years after his death Otto III, the 14th Holy Roman Emperor, opened up Charlemagne’s tomb. He was no doubt surprised to find his Imperial predecessor sitting bolt upright with his finger nails growing through the end of his gloves. Miraculously Charlemagne showed no signs of decay, except for the tip of his nose, rather inexplicably - luckily Otto replaced this blemish with a gold prosthetic he just happened to have in his pocket.
The Cathedral also contains some precious relics including Jesus Christ’s loin cloth and Mary’s cloak. The relics are taken out once every seven years for the snaking line of pilgrims to worship.
And that’s why I think Charles is so great.
Here he is, looking rather like storm-maddened Lear on the moors.
Charlemagne, taken from a statue outside Aachen cathedral
Other Aachen highlights include Hannah ordering a glass of Federweisser - literally feather wine, so called for its milky colour. It’s a low alcohol (typically four per cent) wine drunk young in late autumn/early winter from the first must. It gets its colour from the suspended yeast. It tastes a bit like a very fruity cider and is not bad at all.
Also, I came across lots of very strange bronze statues. These strangest of all were of idiot men and women with gormless, gurning faces. Hannah never needs much encouragement to act the goat and was soon persuaded to pose with one of them.
A more famous statue is called the Puppenbrunnen. These creepy severed heads hang by hooks and drip water like blood. Very Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I think.
And that was the end of our weekend in Aachen. On the way back we stopped at Liege to change trains. Just enough time for me to photograph the sublime (if not especially beautiful) gare.
Here lies Charlemagne
By luck, last weekend was Aachen’s annual street carnival - the Festival of the Fool. The town folk dress in colourful outfits with joker hats and parade through the centre. Everybody congregates in the main square to guzzle cold Kolsch, chomp bratwurst and dance to infectious oompah music.
It was nice to see the Germans letting their hair down. Of course, all the merriment was carried out very earnestly and with regimental efficiency. For example, the bar would only accept tokens (available from a separate kiosk) to ensure the speediest service. English caterers could learn a lot from their Teutonic counterparts. The pop-up bar in Aachen was spitting out foaming lagers in a 360 degree field of fire with the smooth efficiency of a Wankel engine.
A joker hat worn by a German man on the Festival of the Fool in Aachen
I'd booked into Aachen’s most Germanic hotel. Brulls am Dom is a quaint hotel in the pedestrianised old town, close to the Rathaus. It’s run by a husband and wife - the latter is a keen collector of porcelain and knick-knacks. The dining room is overspilling with the treasures of her lifetime - including sinister dead-eyed dolls; creepy gnomes armed with pickaxes and other weapons fit for bludgeoning; and slim, black hares that looked like a ploughed warren in Watership Down. Despite her trove of terror, she was a lovely lady who serves one of the heartiest hotel breakfasts I’ve ever eaten; including spiegel eis, marble cake, cheese board, bread and jam and strawberries with an almond cream/yoghurt. The rooms were spartan but spotlessly clean. I can’t say fairer than that.
Hotel Brulls am Dom in Aachen
I had the good fortune to catch the Festival of Fools, but the misfortune to miss the Weihnachtsmarkt... by a matter of days. Aachen’s Christmas market is one of the most famous in western Germany and it’s easy to imagine why - with the pine sheds selling Eierpunsch, Lebkuchen and Stollen all in the shadow of Charlemagne’s cathedral. Elsewhere in Aachen Christmas was already in full swing and the many chocolate shops and bakeries were decorated with snow-capped pines and portly Weihnachtsmann; and judging by the red faces and swollen bellies the closer Santa is to a coronary bypass the better in Germany.
Germans getting overly sentimental about Christmas, surely not?
Charlemagne literally means Charles the Great - from the Latin Carolus Magnus - and the epithet is well deserved. This is my version of events and an explanation of why I have a particular obsession with the man.
To understand Charlemagne’s significance first it’s important to consider the Roman Empire.
Before Rome, Western Europe was a dark, brutal, benighted place. It was populated by hairy tribes whose chief pursuits were bloody raids on neighbouring clans and sacrificial Pagan worship conducted in forever dark oak forests. Of course all of this is right up my alley, very Black Metal, but it’s not so good for advancing civilisation.
While the Greeks were inventing philosophy and democracy and the Persians were building great road networks across the Orient, western Europe was largely hairy, smelly and stupid. Bref, Hicksville. The Romans changed all of this. Like the old joke ‘what did the Romans ever do for us’, they introduced trade, irrigation, education, transport... or more simply, civilisation as we know it. But - even more importantly - they introduced Christianity. Out with the old Gods in with the new.
Don’t think of Christianity strictly in its doctrinal sense - think of it from the perspective of architecture, literature, learning, scripture, art. Think of it as enlightenment - shining a flashlight into the dark recesses behind the back of the fridge... the metaphorical mouldy sandwich is a heathen tribe still worshipping Woden, the back of the fridge is a mephitic, malarial swamp untouched by civilisation (or Venice, as its now known).
Also think of Christianity to mean “us”, the Occident, the Western World (I’m deliberately avoiding getting bogged down by schisms between the orthodoxy and church catholic). Christianity was a uniting force, the branches of one great tree with its roots firmly sunk into Roman soil. The West was finally united, by Rome and by one religion.
(SPOILER ALERT) If you’ve not read Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, I won’t spoil the ending. But whether you ascribe the end of the Empire to the Crossing of the Rhine in 405 or the Vandal’s second sacking in 455 - at some time in the 5th Century AD the mighty finally collapsed.
And with the Romans went civilisation. As suddenly as if somebody had switched off the lights, we entered the Dark Ages. Where once we’d lolled in bubbling hot baths, sipping a sweet wine while fanned by some exotic catamite now the moss grew. In the shadows wolves now prowled. Shadows which had once been guarded by a burly Centurion and 99 of his mental mates - all happy to smash a skull more readily than a no-necked, roids-pumped bouncer outside a Reading centre nightclub. And the wolves came. On their arrival to England, the Anglo Saxons thought it must have been populated by giants so astonished were they by the abandoned stone buildings. The Saxons built in wood, and continued to do so. This is the dark ages after all. The axe age. A few pockets of enlightenment and learning remained, most notably in Ireland (no, I’m being deadly serious).
But Western Europe had a problem. Just as the glue which had once bonded us all came unstuck like a supermarket home brand Pritt Stick the Arab world was united and on the offensive. Islam had arrived and it wanted a slice of the old Roman Empire... and it nearly succeeded. The Islamic invaders advanced deep into Western Europe, stopping by the banks of the Loire outside modern day Tours... not far from where Hannah and I once sipped a cool Chinon in the afternoon sun. With Europe fractured and distracted by petty, internecine squabbling, the future looked bleak for the bacon butty.
However, there was one Germanic tribe, the Franks - who gave their name to modern day France - who were slightly less useless than the rest of us. It fell on them and their hard-as-nails leader, Charles the Hammer Martel, to drive the banners of the Crescent Moon back into the Iberian peninsula. Crisis was averted, depending on your point of view. Charles Martel did one more important thing, he had a son called Pepin the Short. Well, the less said about him the better, but Pepin also had a son called Charlemagne. And now the tale can begin.
Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours
Charlemagne was born in modern day Belgium, just outside Liege. However, the lines on the map in this part of the world have changed so often it’s not very helpful to think of nationality in a modern sense. In many ways he was the perfect mould of the Germanic warrior king. He spoke High German and bastardized Latin. He was a sturdy but not fat, with modern bone analysis suggesting he was tall for his time, perhaps 169cm. He was never without his sword and even at the height of his powers he still wore the traditional Germanic dress.
Charlemagne probably sported a pudding bowl haircut - but history decided it lacked the necessary dignity
Charlemagne - like so many ambitious rulers - set out on a campaign of to command and conquer. First he took Aquitaine, then northern Italy, then the South, and Catalunya in Spain, he went on to grab large chunks of modern Germany and campaigned all the way into Hungary against the Avars. Not a bad property portfolio. If you were playing Charlemagne in Monopoly he’d have hotels on all the red, yellow, green and blue streets... well, maybe the Pope still had Mayfair.
It’s hard to understate the power of Charlemagne. In an age when news only travelled as fast as a horse could gallop his reputation spanned the known world. For example, the Caliphate in Baghdad gave Charlemagne an elephant called Abul-Abbas as a token of their respect.
It's Abul-Abbas... he's like a Christmas and birthday present rolled into one
But for all of Charlemagne’s smart military decisions he made an even shrewder political one. The Roman Popes often had a fairly torrid time - not least Pope Leo III who was forced to flee the Eternal City because its citizens had tried to cut out his eyes and tongue. He sought refuge with the Christian King Charlemagne who was sympathetic to Leo’s plight, promising to reinstall him... which he promptly did. To show his gratitude Pope Leo III announced Charlemagne as the new Emperor of Rome, even putting on a theatrical coronation ceremony in St Peter’s Basilica. It was a giant two fingers up to Constantinople - who’d been handed the Imperial baton centuries earlier. The West finally had a Roman Emperor again, and a powerful at that.
And so I stood in the Palatine chapel in Aachen, which Charlemagne himself had built in 792. Ironically it is typically Byzantine in design with great marble columns and sparkling, gold mosaics. He had seen a church built by the Byzantines in Ravenna, Italy and was so impressed he wanted one of his own.
Aachen’s cathedral is one of the most important buildings in the world. When the first list of UNESCO heritage sites was drawn up in 1978, Aachen cathedral was one of the original dozen.
Aachen cathedral's towering stained glass windows
When Charlemagne died in 814 he was buried in the Cathedral where his remains are still kept in an ornate gold leaf shrine. 200 years after his death Otto III, the 14th Holy Roman Emperor, opened up Charlemagne’s tomb. He was no doubt surprised to find his Imperial predecessor sitting bolt upright with his finger nails growing through the end of his gloves. Miraculously Charlemagne showed no signs of decay, except for the tip of his nose, rather inexplicably - luckily Otto replaced this blemish with a gold prosthetic he just happened to have in his pocket.
The Cathedral also contains some precious relics including Jesus Christ’s loin cloth and Mary’s cloak. The relics are taken out once every seven years for the snaking line of pilgrims to worship.
And that’s why I think Charles is so great.
Here he is, looking rather like storm-maddened Lear on the moors.
Charlemagne, taken from a statue outside Aachen cathedral
Other Aachen highlights include Hannah ordering a glass of Federweisser - literally feather wine, so called for its milky colour. It’s a low alcohol (typically four per cent) wine drunk young in late autumn/early winter from the first must. It gets its colour from the suspended yeast. It tastes a bit like a very fruity cider and is not bad at all.
Wake up and smell the suspended yeast, it's a cloudy glass of Federweisser.
Idiot statue in Aachen
A more famous statue is called the Puppenbrunnen. These creepy severed heads hang by hooks and drip water like blood. Very Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I think.
And that was the end of our weekend in Aachen. On the way back we stopped at Liege to change trains. Just enough time for me to photograph the sublime (if not especially beautiful) gare.
Liege station
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
The legend of Jacques Brel
This week I discovered Jacques Brel. He’s Brussels’ most famous singer songwriter.
In the 1960s England produced that strutting prick Jagger and the easily-accessible, toe-tapping pop of pompous Paul McCartney. Belgium, on the other hand, got the suave, passionate and thoughtful music of Jacques Brel.
He’s credited as the master of the modern chanson and has influenced singers from David Bowie to Bob Dylan.
Sadly, in the UK he’s probably best known for Seasons in the Sun - but more about that later.
BREL VS JAGGER
For absolutely no purpose whatsoever (other than my love of polemics) here are three reasons why Jacques Brel is cooler than Mick Jagger
1) CATHOLIC FANATIC
Brel worked in his father’s cardboard factory. The work was tedious but Brel didn’t conform to teenage cliches of alienation and rebellion. Instead, he joined the local Catholic youth organisation for kicks. He was so brilliant they even made him their president. During his presidency he staged an adaptation of Exupery’s Le Petit Prince, raising a modest sum for a very good cause. I accept, by the same age Mick Jagger had held a number one album in the UK charts for 12 weeks... but by all accounts it was a very good play.
2) LOYAL
Unlike the philandering antics of our London lothario, Brussels’ Brel married just once, to his local sweetheart. They had many children together and he remained faithful to the end. Now if Jagger had the same attitude rather than chasing after ev... STOP PRESS - I’ve just read a bit more of Brel’s biography, it turns out he met some dancer in the Caribbean on the set of one of his films. He ran off with her. Big up the B-dog.
3) FABULOUS DARLING
Brel was a fabulous actor, which is more than we can say about Jagger (I’m thinking Freejack, 1992). Brel starred in 10 films and directed two. You might remember him from such roles as the rapey primary school teacher with the hilariously understated title, Risky Business (1967).
Other people who thought Brel was as good as I do
* David Bowie - who performed Brel’s hit Amsterdam on his BBC live recordings
* Westlife - those eejuts might not know it but their Christmas number one Seasons in the Sun is actually Brel’s much darker hit Le Moribond. The same song was also a number one for Terry Jacks in the 70s.
* Marc Almond is a Brel fanatic and recorded and released an entire album of covers called Jacques
The Music
1) Ne Me Quitte Pas
Probably his most famous song. This is a heartfelt, sweat-soaked recording. Check out his delivery at 0:45 - it's as much theatre as it is singing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za_6A0XnMyw
2) Bruxelles
A great performance for Dutch television... I even see a bit of Ian Curtis in Brel. It’s a bouncy rose-tinted number about Brussels during his childhood.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KOt4Owaoxc
3) Amsterdam
David Bowie’s favourite Brel song and another passionate, theatrical performance from our man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMzAmrNS164
Here’s Bowie’s equally excellent cover
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uPZIG5BHD4
Brel died of lung cancer in 1978.
Like good music? Mais oui
In the 1960s England produced that strutting prick Jagger and the easily-accessible, toe-tapping pop of pompous Paul McCartney. Belgium, on the other hand, got the suave, passionate and thoughtful music of Jacques Brel.
He’s credited as the master of the modern chanson and has influenced singers from David Bowie to Bob Dylan.
Sadly, in the UK he’s probably best known for Seasons in the Sun - but more about that later.
What can I say? The man liked a fag
BREL VS JAGGER
For absolutely no purpose whatsoever (other than my love of polemics) here are three reasons why Jacques Brel is cooler than Mick Jagger
1) CATHOLIC FANATIC
Brel worked in his father’s cardboard factory. The work was tedious but Brel didn’t conform to teenage cliches of alienation and rebellion. Instead, he joined the local Catholic youth organisation for kicks. He was so brilliant they even made him their president. During his presidency he staged an adaptation of Exupery’s Le Petit Prince, raising a modest sum for a very good cause. I accept, by the same age Mick Jagger had held a number one album in the UK charts for 12 weeks... but by all accounts it was a very good play.
2) LOYAL
Unlike the philandering antics of our London lothario, Brussels’ Brel married just once, to his local sweetheart. They had many children together and he remained faithful to the end. Now if Jagger had the same attitude rather than chasing after ev... STOP PRESS - I’ve just read a bit more of Brel’s biography, it turns out he met some dancer in the Caribbean on the set of one of his films. He ran off with her. Big up the B-dog.
Jacques Brel...fanny magnet
3) FABULOUS DARLING
Brel was a fabulous actor, which is more than we can say about Jagger (I’m thinking Freejack, 1992). Brel starred in 10 films and directed two. You might remember him from such roles as the rapey primary school teacher with the hilariously understated title, Risky Business (1967).
Oooh, you're hard. Jagger as cyberpunk Victor Vacendak
Other people who thought Brel was as good as I do
* David Bowie - who performed Brel’s hit Amsterdam on his BBC live recordings
Bowie's version of Amsterdam is very good. In fact, Sam would probably prefer it... but then he thinks Bowie's Man Who Sold the World is better than Nirvana's cover. I think he's only saying it. I mean nobody really believes Bowie's version is better, not even Bowie.
* Westlife - those eejuts might not know it but their Christmas number one Seasons in the Sun is actually Brel’s much darker hit Le Moribond. The same song was also a number one for Terry Jacks in the 70s.
Here's Westlife pissing on Jacques Brel's grave all the way to the bank
* Marc Almond is a Brel fanatic and recorded and released an entire album of covers called Jacques
The Music
1) Ne Me Quitte Pas
Probably his most famous song. This is a heartfelt, sweat-soaked recording. Check out his delivery at 0:45 - it's as much theatre as it is singing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za_6A0XnMyw
2) Bruxelles
A great performance for Dutch television... I even see a bit of Ian Curtis in Brel. It’s a bouncy rose-tinted number about Brussels during his childhood.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KOt4Owaoxc
3) Amsterdam
David Bowie’s favourite Brel song and another passionate, theatrical performance from our man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMzAmrNS164
Here’s Bowie’s equally excellent cover
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uPZIG5BHD4
Live by the Zippo
Brel died of lung cancer in 1978.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Halo 4 launch with Xbox
I was away from Brussels this week... in Liechtenstein of all places. I was covering the Halo 4 launch for AP. Halo is a first person shooter for the Xbox and has shifted over 46 million copies, with worldwide sales worth over £1.9 billion. The Xbox 360 was launched in late 2005 and it’s getting a bit long in the tooth. Therefore, Halo 4 is an especially important release for Microsoft to help extend its console’s lifespan until a successor emerges (perhaps in 2013?).
Halo 4 game launch in Liechtenstein
Brussels to Zurich didn’t look far on the map and I was feeling bullish. I once rode a motorbike from Munich to Peterborough in a day. As it turns out, 400 miles is a long and tedious drive on your own. For example, it’s 270 miles from London to Newcastle. So I was driving the equivalent of London to Edinburgh and back, all in less than 36 hours.
The trip was largely uneventful as I counted down the miles through Mother Europe at a steady 80. Foolishly I’d only taken a single CD - a Norwegian black metal classic; Burzum’s 1993 Det Som Engang Var. I don’t know how familiar you are with Burzum’s early work, but it’s a primitive and unsettling aural experience, certainly not the sort of album you can sing along to. Varg Vikernes (the sole member of Burzum) received a life sentence in 1994 for stabbing a man to death in Oslo and burning down four historic churches in Norway. The charred skeleton of the 12th Century Fantoft Stave church featured on Burzum’s 1992 EP, Aske (which translates as Ash). He’s out of prison now and recording again.
Stunts like this give black metal a bad name
Now as much as I enjoy Burzum, Det Som Engang Var is an album that appreciates some time between spins. As a consequence, I spent most of the journey listening to European commercial pop radio. After four hours of Adele, Michael Jackson, and Queen I wanted to suck my brain out through my nose like an Egyptian mummy.
I only realised how desperate the situation had become when I missed my Ausfahrt at Karlsruhe because I was excitedly tuning for a cleaner signal on Bryan Adams’ Everything I Do. I could feel myself degrading. It was time for some peace and quiet.
Entering Switzerland at Basel I was pulled over by the border guards. They said, rather curtly, I had to buy 12 months road tax to even turn a wheel on a Swiss motorway. I read between the lines and thought we had an understanding; I slipped him a crisp 10 Euro note in his breast pocket, patting him playfully on the cheek. It turned out we didn’t have an understanding and they don’t have the Euro in Switzerland. After some unpleasantness I was back on the road.
The Xbox press team had asked us to assemble at Zurich airport because our destination was top secret. But I already knew we were heading to Liechtenstein because I had been chatting to a news reporter from Radio Liechtenstein who was covering the launch and had seen all the preparations. He was also a mad keen Halo fan. All his Christmases had come at once. He told me Radio Liechtenstein has more listeners in Switzerland than in its own country. Gosh, I said.
Liechtenstein is a tiny country with a stinking rich population of 36,000 people. It's wedged high in the mountains between Switzerland and Austria. Liechtenstein is stunningly beautiful with sheer mountains towering over deep glacial lakes which mirror the cloudless ultramarine Alpine skies. It’s also impeccably clean and tidy. Later I told Sam this, but he suspected it masked a heart of darkness. Just don’t ask what they keep behind the locked cellar door... that’s what he was thinking.
As we ventured deeper into Liechtenstein our bus was pulled over at a barricaded military checkpoint. Dry ice covered the road in a thick fog and burning oil barrels cast an orange glow in the cold night air. We were told there was an alien invasion and we were being evacuated. The armed marines boarding the bus barked at us to hurry up. I said yes, but first I had to put my Kindle in the overhead locker. They’d interrupted me at a rather inopportune moment, heroic General Rodimtsev had just led a suicidal crossing of the Volga with his rifle brigade in a bid to relieve some pressure on besieged Stalingrad.
One journalist wanted to take his bag with him and was told he couldn’t. He tried to push past but the soldier snatched his bag and stamped on it. The journalist screamed “my laptop” but was roughly bundled away and shot. In fairness, we’d been pre-warned we were entering a military base deep behind enemy lines and were subject to martial law. Personally, I admire the efficiency of a kangaroo court. Having spent six months covering trials at Southwark Crown Court (with all its delays, bureaucracy and jury lunch breaks) I might email Theresa May some suggestions. Of course, the journalist wasn’t really shot, I later found out. He wasn’t even a journalist, just another actor. I felt a bit silly for having given him my business card on the bus.
We were packed into canvas topped military trucks in the pitch black. The actor soldier in our truck told us some cliched horrors of war he’d seen. He asked me if I had any “kids back home”. I asked him if he’d ever played a shoplifter in the Bill... I knew him from somewhere. I think I’d broken the fourth wall and it was all a bit awkward after that. All the more so because I was in a truck with the competition winners and the Halo super fans who were taking it all really seriously.
We were given military clothing, face paint and torches and then led around the woods as things jumped out at us. It got rather hot at one stage, we were surrounded. I thought the soldiers showed a surprising lack of phlegm - think Hudson’s panic in Aliens (1986). At Stalingrad they’d have been shot in an instant for panic mongering. I think we were supposed to be hunting for some alien glyphs which - because of some plot - would save humanity. Anyway, we ended up in a quarry surrounded by aliens and it all looked pretty bleak. As Wellington would have said, it was a damn hard pounding. Anyway, at our darkest moment Master Chief turned up and saved the day. Don’t know who Master Chief is? He’s a Spartan IV super elite space marine with the United Nations Space Command. Basically, he’s the Super Mario of Halo... but you’d definitely rather go for a pint with Super Mario. Master Chief is a faceless, mirthless, laconic killer.
Master Chief... I'd rather go for a pint with Super Mario
Here's me togged up in my camo-poncho as the alien glyph saves humanity. I sure was relieved
Gutenberg castle with Halo logo and laser light show
Then it was bed, breakfast and a nine hour drive back to Brussels.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
French vs Flemish
I live on the Rue du Lac. I also live on Meer Straat. This is the inelegant consequence of Belgium’s language divide.
Every street in Brussels has two names. For example, Brussels’ most famous tourist centre will be signposted as both the Grand Place and also the Grote Markt.
It is confusing and looks messy. These are just two of my opinions on a schism which has fractured Belgian society since the state was founded in the 1830s. Now I’m going to roll up my trouser legs and wade knee deep into this sensitive historical problem.
Belgium only has a population of around 10 million people. More than half of these are the northern barbarians from Flanders who speak the musical gobbledegook called Flemish. There are 3.5 million French speakers in fair Wallonia. In the east there’s a small German speaking enclave, but let’s pretend they don’t exist - it’s complicated enough as it is.
Flemish is very similar to Dutch, with a few words loaned from French. Like Dutch, it has a very Anglo Saxon sound. It's not as harsh as German but is also less interesting and poetic.
In the 1830s - with the foundation of an independent Belgian state - the new nation's rulers were the upper and middle-class Francophones from Wallonia. French was the language of power and money. Wallonia was rich in coal and steel whereas the Flemish speaking area was an agricultural backwater, populated by malarial hicks.
However, after World War II things looked very different. The outdated coal and steel mines were no longer profitable and Wallonia went the way of Sheffield or the English coal-mining Midlands. Flanders on the other hand was booming and demanding parity - both linguistically and culturally.
In 1962 a line was drawn through the centre of Belgium called the Language Frontier, in a bid to ease the tensions. It was a linguistic Berlin wall with Brussels in the centre as Checkpoint Charlie. It didn’t work and 20 years later a more far-reaching policy carved the country into three distinct regions - each with authority over its own economic, cultural and political development.
Brussels - the country's capital - must tow the party line. It's a bilingual city in theory... although you're more likely to hear English spoken than Flemish.
Often the language question spills over into nationalist, far-right politics. For example, there’s a Flemish party called Vlaams Belang who argue for the independence of Flanders. They believe the country is paralysed by disunity between the Flemings and the Walloons.
So where does all of this leave me? Well apart from having two street names, I’m high and dry. A few other observations. Flemings are more likely to speak English than French and would prefer to do so. I also think the Flemings speak better English than the Walloons... but then if my first language was Flemish I’d be more inclined to learn something else. Est-ce compris?
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