Public transport

In Derby you go to the train station and they quote you somewhere around sixty pounds for a return to London (they even stopped giving free tea and coffee on Midland Mainline – what more sign could you need of a credit crunch?).

In Brussels you rock up at Gare du Midi station and they charge you forty euros (around thirty pounds) for a return to Amsterdam on the Thalys network. I even forgot my passport and didn’t have to worry about it as I travelled to another country, a definitely very un-British experience.

So while you were pondering whether you might just take the National Express instead, off I went to the orange city, mixing it with the locals as they beat Italy 3-0. That’s all I have to say about the Dutch capital, in the interests of brevity and diplomacy. Suffice to say the orange men were less jubilant on Sunday night when the amount of honking on the streets made it appear as if Moscow had moved to Brussels for the night. At least I didn’t see anyone getting clubbed over the head, a nice continuity of non-violence which I am hoping is not just a coincidence during my time here (although I have probably just guaranteed that I will be writing next week’s piece with a drip sitting in A&E).

Faites de Musique also took place this weekend, where amongst other things ‘musicians’ are allowed to just set up on any street and play to their heart’s content. In the Parc area revellers were treated to a huge concert, Hollywood Pornstars being among the best performers. We also accidentally walked into an ambient little jazz place in Saint Gery, The Music Village, and caught the last set by the Marc Demuth Quartet (featuring Sofia Ribeiro, finalist in the Brussels International Young Jazz Singers 2006) which was a real treat. Apparently there are Young Talents Concerts every Wednesday.

Which all just goes to show there is always something going on in this not-so-dreary place, contrary to what I had expected before I arrived. If you’re a real policy wonk then there’s plenty to keep you busy. This morning, admittedly as part of work, I was finally treated to an audience with the Commissioner himself (Mandelson, not Gordon). The man certainly knows his stuff.

With all of the units underneath his charge, he has to. Also, tomorrow morning you can find a discussion on politics and security in Afghanistan, and in the evening the former Thai Prime Minister is giving a talk as part of the Amartya Sen Lecture Series. Unfortunately I have a French exam tomorrow and my football team, Catenaccio, is currently flying high at the top of the table and we are due to play the team behind us, so my priorities will have to be juggled. If it’s anything like last week’s game then we’re going to see more bruising and more cursing, as stagiaire diplomacy is put aside in the interests of testosterone satisfaction, which I am more than happy to do my part and simultaneously represent my country in, despite the perplexing comment by an opposing German player last week of, ‘Dude you are so English’, presumably referring to my inability to accept the blatant fouls, penalty claims and petty whingeing that we were subject to.

No matter, we still won 5-3, so if we didn’t get to the Euro 2008 finals I will do my best to make sure we are represented in the Stagiaire 2008 finals. At least my German friend will have to find a new criticism to make.

On a final note, I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I didn’t make a mention of the unfortunate passing away of the actor George Carlin, who among other more notable achievements also played Rufus in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. George, you really did make a contribution to history. I think my ten year old cousin learned more about important historical figures watching that film than in four years of junior schooling, so I’ll be lobbying for an EU directive to have it placed on every national curriculum.

A rude awakening

If it’s not the bells that wake you up on a weekend, then it’s fishermen protesting against rising oil prices that do it during the week.
That’s what you get for living around the corner from the Commission buildings. For a minute I thought Belgium had won in the football given all the honking, and my immediate thought was how Belgium had qualified when England hadn’t, but then realisation dawned that the football hadn’t even started, and that it was far too early in the morning for victory honking.
I only learned the truth when I turned the corner to work an hour later, when I thought I had walked into south central LA, being confronted by an army of shield and baton wielding police, who seemed to outnumber the protesters in sight, shooing me away when I tried to get a closer look.
For a small city, Brussels must have the most well-manned and well-equipped police force I have ever seen in my life – they should send them to Iraq. God knows what they do when there are no protests, but they must punch the air in joy and crack their knuckles in anticipation when they hear there is one taking place.
From my observation I would also note that you don’t ever want to get in the way of a water cannon, which I thought was quite an ironic police tactic used on men who worked in the sea. At least all the flares gave it that true European football atmosphere. Not to denigrate the seriousness of what took place, but my most memorable moment was the sight of a one-man news network who gave the metaphorical finger to a CNN budget by reporting, filming and combing his hair with his portable mirror and tri-pod all by himself.
The football finally did get underway of course, and the pace of European integration has probably slowed in its wake. There will be a few diplomats cursing there way around Brussels these coming weeks as they are forced to attend functions rather than watch their team, although the Phillipino ‘Bayanihan’ performance at least was a treat to watch as I missed the first half of Italy-Netherlands.
Unfortunately I have managed to singularly worsen Anglo-French relations this week, almost getting into a fight with a Les Bleus fan while I drank my pint of ‘Judas’ as my finger uninterrupted his vision of what must have been a momentous event in that flat as a fart game when the referee blew for half time.
I also bumped into a French guy that I mistimed a tackle on in football last week. When he explained he had just come back from the hospital for a check up on his foot, I realised perhaps maybe I really had got a little carried away at the time, although I couldn’t tell whether he was being sarcastic or just the way he spoke English when he said “it’s getting better now” as he limped off.
A week would also not go by without another disorganised stagiaire event, the Italian national party taking place within the realm of a museum, Autoworld. Fortunately I managed to leave in time just to catch my coach to Paris at 8am on the European equivalent of National Express, Eurolines, at a bargain return price of forty euros. You can’t even get from Derby to London for that price, and next week I’m hoping to do Amsterdam on the train for a similar amount. I am hoping for a relaxing weekend, so I’m hoping there are no fishermen in sight.
I will be on the lookout for a portable water cannon in the meantime just in case.

The morning after the night before...

Exhaustion is setting in as I write this, a natural consequence of being awoken at an ungodly hour as the bells rang at ten o’clock on Saturday and Sunday mornings, which is quite a disturbance when you only fitfully settled into sleep less than four hours beforehand.
It’s not just in my area, Schuman, where this loud proclamation of the arrival of morning takes place, because as it happened I had crashed at a friend’s place in Place Chatelain on Friday night after triple birthday celebration in Saint Gery and experienced exactly the same phenomenon.
I’m sure there is some reasonable historical explanation for the ringing of these bells but it’s time for an adaptation to twenty-first century Brusselian life that allows for a little lie-in without booming explosions ringing through your ears just as you were about to participate in whatever pleasurable dream activity.
I think I was still in the clouds of the party at a novel art gallery I had walked into that night on Rue Bailli, where the Merlot was practically on tap. My apologies to the Greek art dealer in attendance for the inordinate amount of blurb I spouted on my post-modern interpretation of this project. However, he did attempt to persuade me that it was one of the best DJs in Greece spinning the discs, so going on what I heard I assume Edith Piaf and Frank Sinatra must be all the rage in Athens nightlife.
It’s conceivable that I could still be experiencing the after-effects of Wednesday night football, when I unconsciously decided that I would demonstrate the physical aspects of the English game much to the consternation of my more fairer-mind European pals, producing a Newtonian reaction of equal and opposite force from the rival centre half on my left ankle. If that was a bad tempered match then I can’t wait to see what happens when the Euro footie kicks off next week, when our unique sense of ‘Europeaness’ will be severely put to the test. Fortunately I won’t be experiencing any of those emotions, as I am constantly reminded by representatives of small Eastern European states.
Anyway, the next morning the pain really set in and I barely managed to hobble my way to work with a limp of gangster-rap proportions. Yet another protest was taking place in front of one of the Commission buildings as I walked out of work at half past five. I suggest that particular group of protestors fire their lobbying advisers as at that time of day the only people still left in the building are cleaners and ambitious stagiaires.
Actually I should take that back. Even at around seven to eight o’clock you will still find plenty of fonctionnaire souls drifting around their offices (permanent civil servants). And to think that this is what I want to sign up myself up for? Well, as I’ve been saying it is interesting work where people work out of passion, and there’s always a lot at stake, so it’s understandable. But it certainly isn’t going to be easy – there are scant opportunities and plenty of able candidates.
All the talk in the office at the moment is about interviews as stagiaires attempt to make the transition into permanent employment. It’s all about getting exposure and your name and face in the open, so my plan is to print out posters with my name and face and tape them to every head of unit’s door and spam them with emails from my Hotmail address.
If none of that works then I’ll apply to be the guy that rings those bells, or sells umbrellas, as the rain is back out in full force, yet again.