Happy Halloween, Everybody!

Tonight it is Holloween... and I must confess to a fondness for these Pagan festivals.

For those of us who live in the "European Quarter" of Etterbeek, one of the central communes of Brussels (and it was called that long before the EU appeared on the scene), that means we get a parade. And it is a heck of a parade! Imagine 500 Orangemen strolling down the Shankhill Road, accompanied by flutes and drums, but all dressed as ghosts and witches, and you are pretty close.

It seems to be more of a Flemish thing than French, which may support the Orange analogy a wee bit, but it is always a lovely evening. Strolling along whilst being showered from the windows and balconies with goodies is great fun, and it is so funny to watch the Belgian kids ransacking the sweets whilst young George examines the offerings before taking just one carefully selected sweet and announcing "Thank you very much!" - he is so English!

But that last remark should not take anything away from the fact that in some parts of Brussels we can still find a sense of community that seems to have vanished at home - even in the east end of London, although it pains me to say that.

Caucasian Chamber Orchestra

There are three words that send chills of panic through my body - "contemporary classical music". I have another name for it, of course.

But this week we were treated to another of those occasional concerts in the parliament that cheer us up so much.

We were treated to a performance by the Caucasian Chamber Orchestra, an ensemble of mostly Georgian and Armenian musicians conducted by a hugely talented German, Uwe Berkemer.

The first piece did fall into the dreaded contemporary genre, and I felt the will to live begin to sap a little, but it was short. The rest of the concert could only be described as superb. One can always tell when the musicians are enjoying themselves, and that was very much the case here. The works were all totally unknown to me, as were the names of their composers, which added to the pleasure.

Berkemer turned out to be not only a talented composer and conductor, but also an impressive baritone.

If you ever get the chance to see this orchestra, I strongly recommend that you do so.

A humbling experience.....

I devoted a lot of my life to campaigning for the UK Independence Party. However, not being a dogmatic and closed-minded yes-man, I subsequently fell out with the then leader of the party and so found myself the subject of some pretty vile attacks and accusations. He really is a dreadful little oik, and he surrounds himself with even worse specimens.

But it amused me when one of his acolytes suggested, via a blog that seems to specialise in attacking me and my boss - a lovely lady, with more commitment and drive in her little finger than the oik has in his whole apology for a body - that I earn my living as a "Shakin' Stevens lookalike".I am a big fan of Shakey, so I took that as a compliment. But these days I am a bit more "Gene Vincent" than "Shakey", as I have picked up a gammy left leg, just like the Black Leather Rebel himself.

After 7 weeks of limping, I eventually went into one of those nuclear/magnetic things that produces images of the inside of one's body. It was a brilliant experience, somewhat akin to being on the set of a 1950s Sci-Fi movie.

It turns out that I have been limping around with a broken knee-cap these last 7 weeks! Of course, being a rough, tough Bermondsey Boy I laugh in the face of pain, so it never really bothered me so much.

And so now I have a brace on my left leg. When the surgeon produced that brace, that was a hell of a wake-up call for me, I can tell you. I was always blessed with good health, and I never guessed I would be living through such a moment.

I guess I am lucky, I will have this for 4 weeks, and then it will be over. Some folks are not so lucky, and have to spend their lives coping with disability. And so I will take this as a humbling experience, and will try to take on board and remember these somewhat awkward times. One thing is for sure - I will never take good health for granted again.

National Self-Determination - Not Just The Kashmiris Who Are Struggling

I was very lucky this week. On Tuesday I dined - for the second time this year - with Sultan Mahmood Chaudhry. He is a lovely gentleman, who amongst his many accomplishments is a former Prime Minister of Kashmir. He is now a leading light in the Kashmiri fight for national self-determination.

The Kashmiri people were promised a referendum on self-determination way back in the 1940s - and they are still waiting. That  sounds familiar to we Brits, who of course have been promised referenda on the Constitution & the Lisbon Treaty. I don't want to make light of this in any way, as I am aware that the Kashmiris are suffering massacres at the hands of the Indian occupiers, which somewhat puts our plight into perspective.

The point is, however, that national self-determination should be a basic human right, and here at the beginning of the 21st century not all of our fellow human beings are enjoying this right.

It makes me ponder on the long-term implications of surrendering our own sovereignty to the EU.

It also makes me realise how imortant is the campaign for a referendum on our continued EU membership is. I urge you to support it. Elsewhere in the world people are dying in the struggle to have their voices heard. We don't have to do that - yet - but if we allow ourselves to become complacent, who knows what the future may bring.

Belgacom: The Pain Continues...

Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, Belgacom has excelled itself!

Belgacom, as you may know if you read this blog, is not my favourite provider of TV services. Actually, I consider Belgacom to give crap a bad name. They cut back on the few channels that may have been of passing interest to me, replacing them with Al Jazeera and others of that ilk, without even consulting me, the person who has to pay for it. But then customer service was never high on the Belgian agenda.

Now they developed a new trick.

Now we have "Belgacom previews". Channels that were once filled with dubious content have now been replaced with new ones that simply advertise what is on other (pay per view) channels. So I have 3 channels telling me about the crap on the 4th, that I wouldn't want to watch anyway, even if it was covered by the 100 euros a month I already pay for this state-controlled shite.

So I now have a choice between adverts, Al-Jazeera, and pure shite. Of course, if I am really unlucky, I may get a back episode of Eastenders, or possibly even Inspector Morse dubbed into Flemish - oh what joy!

You Think That Paying Money Gets You Off The Hook? Think Again!

This was a very important day, although it was barely mentioned by the media. It was the day on which Germany finally discharged its obligations under the Versailles Treaty, by making its final reparation payment.

That is that, then. Its over. Millions dead - and for what? - debts paid, and so I guess we can forget all about it. Well, I won't forget about my Great-Grandfather who perished on the Somme in 1916. And I won't let my children forget him either. So don't feel you are let off that easy, Frau Merkel, or your war-mongering nation.

I am often aware of how sensitive the Germans are about World War 2. They cannot stop being sensitive about it, and for a very good reason - THEY LOST!  They hate this fact, and they particularly hate the fact that they were beaten twice by us Brits! If they could turn back time and start again, I think they would. They might change a few details, but I suspect the bit about exterminating folks they don't like would not be such a problem for them. Maybe they would keep that one in the plan.

And if you think, by the way, that such obscenities are now consigned to history, then look at Sarkozy's forced deportations of Gypsies (pre-empted by the Belgians, by the way) Look at Belgian and Dutch laws on euthanasia of "undesirable" children. This is all happening now.

We are often told that WW2 was nothing to do with the Germans - it was the "Nazis" that did it. Where did the "Nazis" come from? Mars?

Well, f*ck you Kaiser Wilhelm, f*ck you Adolf Hitler and f*ck all your mates too.

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest!

Battle of Britain - 70 Years On.

The 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain was marked in the European Parliament this week. I took it upon myself to invite a group of colleagues from the Royal British Legion and the RAF Association, and was truly rewarded by such auspicious company.

The highlight of a lovely afternoon was an anecdote from a 96 year old gentleman who had once shot down his own Commanding Officer with a 3 1/2 inch anti-aircraft gun. "He had a few holes in his respirator case" he explained, "but otherwise nothing for him to complain about".

I spend a lot of my time with older veterans, and I know that such comments are usually accompanied by a wink, a chuckle, and a tear in the corner of the eye.

Our elderly friend often sits quietly in O'Farrels bar, outside the European Parliament, whilst MEPs and apparatchiks, bursting with self-importance, bustle around spending freely and laughing at their own jokes. They may impress themselves - and possibly (although not very likely) they may even impress one another. They rarely impress me, unlike our friend, who impresses me greatly.

When he finished causing havoc with his own side - his CO had chosen to fly into RAF Wattisham whilst an air raid was in progress, so only had himself to blame - our friend then took part in the liberation of Belgium.

Last month, his Belgian wife, who he married after the war, passed away, leaving him completely alone.

There are thousands of such men, with thousands of such wonderful stories to tell. So if you want to enrich two lives in one go, next time you see an elderly man sitting alone with his thoughts in a pub, go and say "Hello", but most importantly, remember to say "Thank You!"

Place Jean Rey - No More Eruptions

Jean Rey was the second President of the European Commission, and there is a small and rather odd square named after him near my home. It has 12 underground fountains that are supposed to erupt in the glare of coloured lights, but neither fountains or lights have worked for about two years now, so the whole thing looks a little sad.

On the edge of the square a new hotel has sprung up, and so I decided to take a seat and spend some time looking at it in order to find something to complain about. Actually, it is not an unattractive building as hotels go, although it does rather look as if it belongs on a Spanish seafront.

Then I saw something really ghastly: to my left was a seriously ugly building I simply never noticed before in the six years I lived in the neighbourhood. Seven stories high, very long, and almost as ugly as Brixton Town Hall, which is one of my least favourite eyesores, it is a harrendous looking edifice.

Then I realised I was looking at the European Council. How the hell do you not notice the Council? I now wonder how possible it is to block out that which we do not like - does this explain why I never heard rap music for years? Have I simply blocked it out?

Actually, this week there has been a summit at the Council. I dislike these events as the police block off lots of roads, and always park their massive water cannon vehicles at the end of my street. What really disturbs me most, however, is the way that road  lanes are cordoned off and reserved for the elite. Whilst mere mortals sit and fume in the Brussels traffic jams, the Second Junior Deputy Minister for Paperclips from the Grand Duchy of Fenwick is thus able to speed through the city with his motorcycle escort.

My Second Childhood, by Gary Cartwright, aged 48 and a big bit.

At the age of 42, the good Lord blessed me with a son. Thanks to George I am now reliving my own childhood, and do you know what? Its even better second time around.

We recently built our first model aircraft together - a Spitfire of course - and I was reminded of sitting at the table with my own father way back in the mid-60s, making our first model kit together. I am also getting to know, somewhat late in life, rather a lot about Thomas the Tank Engine. Its nice to sit here and think that I can look forward to rediscovering skateboarding and air rifles. My levels of optimism and enthusiasm have soared thanks to George. (And I get to play with train sets and nobody laughs).

Brussels is proving to be a good place to bring up children. As a school governor in a pretty rough part of East London, I remember being told "Think of them as younger citizens, not just as children". that is, of course, complete nonsense.

A tragic lack of social cohesion in Britain has led to a certain amount of confusion amongst families as to exactly what the heirarchy should be. Belgians, particularly the Flemish ones, seem to be far more comfortable with traditional family roles than we are. The result is that children understand their place in the family, and in society. Everybody is happier for it.

Scouting is still a big thing here, and it is normal to see large groups of youngsters in uniform touring the city, heading for the mountains, or just sitting and talking together. It is also normal that during holidays youngsters undertake activities ranging from working on farms, residential language courses, and sports training. In British cities it is different, of course. They "slob out" in front of the TV, or they hang about the streets spitting on the pavements or, very often, on passers by. You don't have to be a doctor to notice the difference in physical build between continental and British teenagers.

I helped organise an event some years ago at a youth project in SE London. We arranged a couple of 4x4s loaded with mountain bikes, with a view to taking some youngsters up into the Chilterns for an afternoon. They turned up in their hooded sweat shirts, gobbed on the floor and said "innit" a lot, and then dispersed. I think 3 kids took up the offer; the rest knew they would be unable to cope, and were afraid of failure. So they simply rolled a joint and retreated to their comfort zones.

We don't need to show these kids "respect". What we need to do is to find ways to give them back their childhood. I know what I am talking about - I got mine back!

Me and the Champ! Meeting Winston McKenzie

Party conferences can be depressing, and I stopped inflicting that particular pain on myself some years ago. This year is different, however, as Nikki Sinclaire is holding a number of fringe meetings to promote her petition for a parliamentary debate on Britain's membership of the EU.

So I found myself in Torquay last week, which is always a pleasure, not least because I have some family connections there, helping out with what proved to be a hugely successful meeting. More successful, I understand, than the main UKIP meeting which took place across the road.

An unexpected pleasure was the chance to meet and chat with former middleweight boxing champion, Winston McKenzie. Winston is a terrific guy, and is very politically aware. His stance on immigration challenges all the left-wing dogma on the issue, and he is probably better placed to speak about inner city youth issues than most politicians.

He appears to have thrown his hat in the ring for the UKIP leadership, following the resignation of the utterly ineffectual Lord Pearson.

Pearson is the kind of politician you could only find in UKIP - he calls EU subsidies "a vast swindle", and yet he claims heaps of them for himself. He was (de jure) leader of UKIP, and yet in the last general election he urged people to vote for the Conservatives.

Some UKIP members wonder why the party bombed in the election....

Autumn leaves....

We are coming up to my favourite time of the year. I was lucky to live close to some spectacular parks in London. In Bayswater Kensington Gardens were just 1 minute from my front door, and when I lived in Connaught Square (before Blair moved in 4 doors away, I hasten to add) I was almost on top of Hyde Park. But as with most things, Bermondsey outshines the rest of London, and Southwark Park comes second only to St James Park as far as I am concerned. Autumn is the time to walk in the park - the reds and browns of the trees are even more spectacular than the blooming flowers.

And now I am going to say something positive about Brussels, for a change.

It is a city with many hidden features, one of which is a little ecological park - the Jean Felix Hap Park. It is on Chausee de Wavre, behind the white wall opposite the Brussels International Catholic School. Not a lot of people know about it, which is what makes it so perfect. This morning I was pleased to see the leaves turning red.

I'm very fond of this park. A few years ago I decided to add to my cv by taking a diploma in environmental policy. It was one of the most enjoyable subjects I ever studied, and Jean Felix Hap Park is where I tucked myself away with my textbooks during the summer months.

What particularly impresses me is the absolutely pristine condition of the park. If a plant wilts, the staff know about it instantly. It also boasts the source of Etterbeek's original freshwater source, and the small lake that still remains is superbly looked after.


http://www.opt.be/informations/tourist_attractions_etterbeek__jean_felix_hap_park/en/V/39602.html

Who said nostalgia ain't what it used to be?

There are a great many things I miss about London. One of these is the museum of childhood at Bethnal Green. If you were never there, then you must go, although for the sake of appearances it is best to take a child along. It is an outpost of the V&A, so you can imagine the standards. There is a good cafe, and the park & Bethnal Green library are just behind. If you cross the road to Paradise Row, you can see the home of Dan Mendoza, probably the greatest boxer of the 18th century. The benches in the little garden in Paradise Row are a great place to sit and watch the East End go by. I should be a tour guide...


There is a toy museum in Brussels, which is also worth a visit. I don't think it ever had a curator as such, as everything is just sort of spread out in a chaotic fashion. But then, maybe, thats the way a child would do it... 


It does of course have some typical Belgian touches, the first of which I discovered on the museum website, which announces that "We are open 366 days a year..."

This one is a wee bit off the tourist trail, but is located close to the city centre, near Metro Botanique, and is well worth a visit. A bit of advice - take a cold drink and a snack, as there is no cafe, although you can leave and go out for it and they will let you back in. Also, it has a shop which is the place to go for retro-style childrens toys. 

If anybody else has some tips on good toy museums elsewhere in Europe, please feel free to leave a comment :)


Bethnal Green:  http://www.vam.ac.uk/moc/
Brussels:  http://www.museedujouet.eu/index.php/jouet/gestpages/pageenglish