The Value of Friendship

Second only to my children, my friends are the greatest pleasure of my life, and I have been gifted with some wonderful friends.

Life as an expat can be difficult, and remember that I have been in Brussels for almost 9 years. There is no place like home, as Judy Garland knew so well, and there is no home like London. And I get very homesick sometimes.

And so, from left to right, in this picture we have Norman (ex-Royal Navy) Randall (ex-Irish army) and myself (ex-RAF) posing by a piano in the ambassador's residence. You will notice a pattern developing here. We have a wonderful ex-services community here in Brussels, and I often stop to think about how important that is to me, and to others.

Amongst our little team of friends, we include two Belgian navy veterans, two former members of the Red Army (one of who was on guard duty the night the Berlin Wall came down), and a 99 year old D-Day veteran. I also count amongst my friends a former Congolese soldier, and a former Rwandan army medic who was badly injured during the ghastly troubles there some years ago, and who is now homeless, and with whom I look forward to playing pétanque and sharing lunch with should the Summer ever arrive. He is actually one of the happiest men I know, and my 8 year old son adores him. One of my closest and most valued friends here is an ex-Royal Naval Reserve chap who was once done for mutiny on a minesweeper (he got off, by the way, he always does!). We are a mixed bag, but we all know who our friends are.

So what does it mean?

Why is it that we gravitate towards one another? Is it shared values? Is it shared experience?
What is it?

It is the knowledge that regardless of any personal differences, there are people in this world who are prepared to stand together, and to stand up for one another. It is the knowledge that when the black dog visits, unconditional friendship is only a phone call away.

Here in Brussels we have a large and thriving branch of the Royal British Legion. Not all veterans are members, but all are part of the wider community. I always urge all ex-service folks to join the Legion, as even if we do not need help ourselves, others do, and there is strength in numbers.

Even if you never served, associate membership is open to all, so please, consider joining.

The Importance of Protecting Our Linguistic Traditions.

I was honoured this week to be invited to address the congress of the European Alliance of Tatars here in Brussels. Widely spread across Europe and the rest of the world, the Tartars are trying to ensure that their rich culture and ancient traditions, some of which date back to the days of the Golden Horde, are not lost.

Globalisation has its downsides, and as a result there are many peoples trying to protect their cultural identies and their languages. And it is not just smaller groups that are in this position. In the context of the EU institutions even the French are becoming concerned about the rapid decline in the use of their language. In Flanders, English has now replaced Dutch as the 2nd most widely spoken language. Arabic is now the 4th language in the region, although it is a long way behind Dutch. Interestingly, whilst use of English is rising dramatically and Dutch has slipped to 3rd place, there has actually been a slight rise in the use of Dutch due to more emphasis on the language at primary school level. It is, again, French that is seeing its primacy challenged. The official 3rd language of Belgium is German, but that is largely confined to a smallish area around Liége, and is not often heard on the streets of Brussels.

Hardly anybody even remembers Backslang, which I used to hear as a boy, mostly from elderly male cockneys. I have a few words and colouful expressions, but it is rarely heard now as the demographics change in London, and cultural influences are more global, (although I have a Welsh friend here in Brussels who lived in London in the late 1930s, and who, much to my pleasure, picked up and retains some words and phrases). Rhyming slang has been integrated to a degree in mainstream English, although to a very limited degree. It also evolves continually, which I hope will ensure that at least some of it will stay with us. It is tragic to realise that a whole culture, within our capital city, could be on the verge of vanishing completely within a couple of generations.

This lunchtime, we can mourn the demise of Backslang with a Top a' Reeb which I am sure will cost me a Vos r'owt!

For Whom The Bell Tolls....

You have to wonder how some people get through their day.

Driving from Strasbourg to Brussels yesterday I arrived at one of the Péage stations (toll booths) en route. As always, I opted for one of the lanes clearly marked 'Credit Cards' as its always quicker to go through those. In front of me was a Renault with German number plates. I reckon it takes about 30 seconds at most to put in your card, take it and a receipt from the machine, then drive through.

So after about 2 minutes, I realised there was a problem with the Renault, and started to develop an interest in proceedings. The driver was a lady of, I would guess, around 60. I watched in amazement as she was repeatedly trying to insert a €20 note into the slot clearly marked as being for cards. Actually, in frustration, she was trying to stuff it in.

I wondered if I should get out and have a chat with her, but her companion obviously twigged, and handed her a card.

Should such people be allowed to drive?

I have always thought that there should be more restrictions on who gets a driving licence. When we apply there are certain questions. Are you epileptic? Are you blind? I reckon we should also be asking "Are you a f**king idiot"?

To me, it is blindingly obvious that anybody we might class as a f**king idiot should not be allowed on the roads. But the question is, how do we identify them? And so, I have come up with a few questions that might help us.

1. Do you wear a baseball cap the wrong way around?

2. Do you have a pitbull named 'Tyson'?

3. Do you confuse sportswear with casual clothing?

4. When alighting from a train, or passing through a shop doorway, do you ever have an uncontrollable urge to stand still and rummage through your handbag?

5. Have you ever watched the X factor for more than 10 minutes?

6. Do you think it is a good idea to give your children Pot Noodle for dinner?

7. Do you think that life in Britain was better before the war?

Of course, Can you tell the difference between a credit card and a banknote? might also be a good one to ask.

I could go on.

The Silent Spring.

After a false start - there was a sunny day two weeks ago - Spring seems no nearer than it was three months ago. This has been the longest, dullest, and coldest winter I can remember. The most worrying thing of all is that we are in the middle of April, and there is no dawn chorus as such. A few birds are chirping, but nothing like what we would usually hear. Something is very wrong this year, and as I have speculated previously, I think we are seeing the effects of localised climate change.


There are two categories of species: r & k.

The former, which includes rodents and insects, are highly adaptable. They have relatively short life-spans, short gestation periods, and produce lots of offspring very quickly. Insects are particularly adaptable, and can produce sub-species to cope with major environmental change in just a few generations. When the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs hit Earth, lice would have had no long term worries.

The dinosaurs, however, being k species stood no chance. k species evolve strictly to cope with their environment. Population levels are always at or very close to carrying capacity. Environmental change poses a major threat to them. They reproduce relatively late in life, have long gestation periods, and have few offspring. They simply have not evolved to cope with environmental change.

Birds are k species. Perhaps this explains what happened to the dawn chorus.

We are also k species by the way. Think about it......

Maggie Thatcher RIP

Much will be written about the passing of Maggie Thatcher. More than any other contemporary political figure she polarised public opinion, and we all have our own strong opinions of her.

As a young serviceman I was a beneficiary of her drive to improve pay and conditions for members of the armed forces. Her tough stance on the IRA, and the way in which she handled the Falklands crisis make her a great leader in my personal opinion. There were social aspects of her policy that I do have problems with, but she was certainly the leader we needed in 1979.

Whatever we may think, nobody can ever take away from her the achievement of becoming our country's first woman prime minister. Today marks the end of an era, and hearing the news with a group of friends over a lunchtime pint in a Brussels bar, I noted how the mood became very sombre. Maggie Thatcher, the Iron Lady, touched all our lives. As we all went on our seperate ways, we all agreed that we would always remember where we were and who we were with when we heard the news.

Policing: Stupid Initiative Of The Year!

On the spot fines for traffic violations in Belgium have gone up by 10%.

Of course this story has a classic Belgian ingredient: the rise was delayed because the police hadn't updated something or another on their computers.

These fines are issued for stuff like failing to indicate, parking in a disabled bay, crossing the white line, etc (all of which I thought were actually compulsory in Brussels). I got stopped once by a copper in Cornwall for crossing the white line. I hadn't actually done so, but I suppose for a rural plod based in the back of beyond the sight of a youngish guy at the wheel of a Chevy Camaro is too much to resist and so he pulled me over anyway. He must have been really disappointed to discover that all my papers were in order, but I still got points on my licence and a fine anyway. I didn't bother to contest it in court, because you can never win.

And the police wonder why the public have a negative view of them!

On the subject of policing, I turned the news on yesterday to see some sobbing 17 year old girl apologising for offensive tweeting. She is, apparently, a 'youth police commissioner'. My first thought was that this was some sort of late April Fool's joke, but it is actually true.

Are they mad?

What the bloody hell goes on in the minds of those people tasked with running our police forces? She is a 17 year old girl, not a bloody police commissioner. What next? Perhaps we should have a dog in charge. Chief Superintendent Rover, or something. Or perhaps they could take a leaf out the Athenian's book, and let everybody be in charge for one day.

To answer my own question, yes. Those who the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. If anybody seriously thinks that taking a child out of school and pretending that she can be a police commissioner is a good idea, then they should be retired on health grounds.

A Changing World....

I used to love the snow - until this year. This has been the most grindingly depressing of winters with endless months of grey skies punctuated by the odd hour of sunshine, albeit accompanied by icy winds and icy pavements. In Strasbourg snow in February is the norm, located as it is at the foot of the Voges mountains, but we don't expect it in Brussels in the final days of March. Leaving my office last Thursday evening it was snowing yet again, and I could not have been more miserable.

But yesterday it all changed. Now, when you are 8 years old and you wake up and look out of your bedroom window and see sunshine, what is the first thing you think of? Cricket, apparently, and it doesn't matter if dad is still sleeping, wake him up and let's get going!

Actually, it was a beautiful morning, and there was a certain amount of pleasure in being the first to play cricket in the local park this year. To George's delight a couple of young Indian guys stopped off to cheer for some minutes. You don't see much cricket in Belgium.

Then there was a wonderful 'Belgian' moment. We took a bit of a drinks break, and retired to a nearby park bench. A family strolled past, and took a huge interest in our stumps, which were about 10 yards away from our seat, and seemingly unattended. The husband and wife walked around the stumps a few times before producing a camera and photographing the children in front of them. Perhaps they had Japanese blood in them, I don't know....

But there is a serious aspect to this bizarre weather pattern. About a week ago in Parc du Cinquantenaire, after a dusting of snow, I came across a dead Bumblebee. These should still be incubating at this point, as it is about this time of the year that the queens should be establishing their colonies and laying eggs. This wasn't a dead queen that I found, but would certainly have been one of a queen's offspring, as her eggs are laid first.

The explanation for this is climate change. In fact, even the ducklings in Parc Leopold and Square Marie Louise came early this year.

With increasing temperatures comes increased precipitation. Whilst the warming is global, the climate change can be local, as in our case. In Brussels it rains pretty much the same as it does in south east England, but it snows far more. The first male Bumblebees, when forced out of the colony, are not equipped to cope with icy winds and snow. On Saturday George and I watched a Canada Goose trying to cover her two chicks with her body as they shivered on the snowy bank. They, of course, are very well suited for this weather, but the indiginous species are not. The new arrivals could, quite reasonably, replace the established species fairly quickly given the current speed of change that we are witnessing.

No bees equals no pollination of flowers. Loss of biodiversity has knock-on effects that are often unpredictable, and can be irreversible.

Whilst nobody knows what is the 'background rate' of species extinction, it is clear that extinctions are above the norm at present.

I wonder if any generation has ever witnessed such a rapid change in the natural world.

HMG Ripping Me Off!

HMG is basically withdrawing from its responsibilities. Its all about cost saving. Its all very Conservative.

But it means, for me and for my family, that here in Belgium, we have no real consular facilities.

Personally I have no problem the guys at the embassy here in Brussels, but they cannot help me any longer. If a member of the royal family turns up here, then they are standing by to spend as much of our taxes as it takes to make that person feel like a descendent of God, but if I or another real person needs some help .... different story! Wait and see what happens when we want some return on our investment!

So..... I had to renew my passport. Actually, I had to renew two passports this week.

There are no real consular facilities here in Brussels now, they have been shut down by HMG in order to save money, so we must go through Paris.

I don't actually need to physically go there apparently, (although I did when this new system started).

When this new system started, I did go there, to renew my son's passport. They told me, at the consulate in Rue d' Anjou, Paris, that I did not actually need to have gone there, I could have dropped my documents off at UKREP (Foreign Office) in Brussels. OK, a wasted trip. A wasted day, and a lot of wasted money, but that doesn't matter, it was my money, not government money.

So having called them (UKREP) this time. A pleasant gentleman told me that this may or may not be true, but anyway I must send my documents to Paris. I must say at this point that I suspect that this is because he simply could not be bothered talking to me any further. But why should he?

Bottom line. No Consular facilities in Belgium. €179 for a new passport. Let me repeat that.€179 for a new passport.

Actually, I will repeat that again: €179 for a new passport. How much profit is built into that, and who gets it? Mmmmmmm...........

Only In Brussels!

A construction mistake has come to light in the new fire station near the Paul Brien Hospital in the Brussels borough of Schaarbeek. As a result of the error fire engines are not able to drive into the new building.
There is a one metre difference between the floor level at the garage exit and the street. As a result fire-fighters have been unable to move into the new Brussels fire station.

Eric Labourdette of the liberal VSOA trade union: "We can't understand it. The Brussels Region commissioned the building, but there is a one metre difference between the level of the garage exit and the street. Fire-fighters were not consulted about the designs for the building. They were never invited to take a look at progress on the building either."
"Fire-fighters from the Diamant Station, who were supposed to move in at the beginning of March, still don't know when they can make the move. As a result they are obliged to stay in a building that is in atrocious condition."

View the original here. http://www.deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/Life/130307_fireengine

Brussels in top 10 “most unfriendly cities”.

No shit, Sherlock! I am in full agreement with this one.

This is the land of service with a scowl and the permanently closed help desk. It is the home of the pickpocket and beggar.

I might not agree with some of the other results - London is of course the friendliest city in the universe, and I find Moscovites to be very friendly. Zurich is not unfriendly, its just dull. Beyond dull, actually. Its what being in a coma must be like.

As for Amsterdam being friendly, If Europe were to have an enema, that is where they would put the tube. Whoever put that one on the list must have been high on crack. Its a dump.

Glad I got that off my chest!

Meeting Buzz Aldrin.

How often do you get to meet one of your childhood heroes? Not so often, I guess.

I remember, as an 8 year old boy, way back in 1969, sitting down in the school hall with my classmates to watch Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin take those first steps on the moon. At the age of 5 my son declared he wanted to be an astronaut, and informed me that he knew the way to the moon - it is "up". And, by the way, he is not scared, because he is English!

So, unsurprisingly, when Buzz Aldrin visited the European Parliament yesterday, there were a disproportionate number of men of a certain age present. My age group, to be precise. To listen to Aldrin describe in some detail the Apollo 11 mission, and particularly the moon landing itself was probably a once in a lifetime experience, and one that did not disappoint.

I was also hugely impressed by the optimism and ambition Aldrin displayed for his current passion, which is preparing the way for the first mission to Mars. Not bad for an 83 year old!

Meeting Andrew Neil.

Being somewhat obsessed with politics, you might assume that I am working in the right place. You would be absolutely correct! And being a eurosceptic gives a special spice to the job.

One thing that the Euro-elites seem not to be focussing on is the way in which the US is repositioning itself at present. Obama has declared himself to be the 'Pacific President'. The focus is shifting, and as well as economic and political implications, Europe should be considering how it might be able to afford to defend itself in the near future. As the US loses the need to defend the Straits of Hormuz and pulls it's 5th Fleet out, there will also be strong geopolitical implications not only for Europe, but for Israel, and for 'friendly' Arab regimes. Iran's small but effective naval forces will be left unchecked. It will become our problem very quickly, I suspect.

I was really pleased to meet with Andrew Neil last week, and to hear his strong thoughts on the subject. I was very impressed with what he had to say, and pleased to have some time to chat with him afterwards about other issues. He is a nice chap, and he has what one might call a 'robust sense of humour'. It was also interesting to watch him and his team in the studio next day, with David Davies MP preparing for a broadcast.

Unfortunately the evening was marred by a somewhat drunken and abusive UKIP press officer, but as they say in France plus ça change, plus la meme chose.

You can see a video of Andrew Neil's talk here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8_t6B48CeQ