Brigitte Bordeaux, your Flemish Belgian ambassadrice...

Sunday, December 09, 2007
Current mood: talkative

It's a gruesome Sunday in Duck Towers: windy, wet and cold.
Freddy the Squirrel just hopped along the window, from trough to trough, shivering in his fur coat on his way to raid the bird feeder table next door. He brought a little date the other day. Make no mistake: Freddy is definitely a boy!!! A very confused boy, as he seemed to think it was spring already...
I have wolfed down my brunch as we speak: bacon, egg and chips and plenty of it as I could eat a horse I was so hungry. (Not really, folks, as I'm not too keen on the taste of horse meat, too sweet for my taste).
My friend T. came for the night on Friday and I do regret not having made it to treat her to a Clifton Cocktail but we just curled up on the sofas and talked, talked, talked,... Someone's ears must have been burning as we picked him apart in the most secret and wicked way only women can whilst polishing off some damn fine Bordeaux.
I was going to have a rant about men for your entertainment today. You know these little idiosyncrasies they have? Like, like, like…. When they tell you they bought you a present, but it's really something that took their own fancy?
But I shall digress from that, as I needed to clarify some Belgian facts for a new MySpace friend. Welcome to my Friendly Horde, sir.
The question was why the Flemish didn't want to be Belgians.
I for one am a dedicated Flemish Belgian and proud of it - which has my separation eager parents in fits. To don a Belgian flag was high treason in my family, still is. So it's a subject better avoided when I'm there visiting. (giggles). I try to do something Belgian on the 21st of July; like eat mussels and chips, drink a duvel (or 2 or 3…). I can only sing the piss take version of the national anthem and I don't own a flag yet. But there's a certain quirkiness about the country that I only started to appreciate when I became an expat.

Belgium's is a complicated story I'm afraid. And one that touches upon the history of Europe, class and cultural differences. Start with the fact that it is an artificial country, decided upon by the greater surrounding countries in 1830 as they needed a neutral battleground to fight their future wars somewhere central in Europe. A king was found of German descent, related to the British lot with friendly strings to Holland and France... the rest is young history!
The North spoke Flemish and the South French. Apart from that, the upper classes and the catholic church (heavily in bed with the powers that be... nothing new really) used French to distinguish themselves from the poor working classes. (Watch "DAENS", an Oscar nominated film about this)
It's where the expression: "Et pour les Flamands, la meme chose" comes from.
Orders (like in the army) were given in French, the language of officers, and then was added "and for the Flemish, the same goes" in French with a delightful arrogance...
Workers in the wool mills were totally exploited (with help of English mill owners and their new technology which cut down the workforce) to give but one example ... But they stood up and fought their way. The Flemish part is very affluent now (as it has been in the past, think the Baroque period, Rubens etc...), the South is poorer with a more relaxed lifestyle ("scrounging off the system which is totally supported by us" as dad puts it). As with all these things the whole story is a very complex matter.

I have learned to appreciate my country by being away from it. We have an enormous rich history, which reflects the history of Europe through the ages. Education, though mainly catholic, is very good. I speak 4 languages, to give an example. In the South however they only speak French - a bit like the French...one could say.
Life is very good in Belgium and people there don't realize it as they are not the most travelling of folk.
Now, to me it would be crazy to split up a country the size of a postage stamp. Because we might differ from each other like night and day, we also have things in common like the weirdest sense of humour (compare to Monty Python in its most surrealistic ways). The Flemish don't want to join the Dutch. I personally would go back to take up politics and campaign against that!!!! And the Walloons don't want to join France as we are both looked down upon by our respective language partners as the slightly stupid little brother (think the English and the Welsh)...

I know we here have the reputation of being boring.
"Of course we are, darlinks, just look at me... "(fits of giggle)

We also happen to have the best beer & the best chocolate in the world. We invented the baguette and the chips (seriously!); you eat better and finer on average in Belgium than in France. (Forget food in Holland, starving IS the better option, and Germany is ok if you are a pork and cabbage addict)
A gas-fired internal combustion engine similar to a horizontal double acting steam beam engine, with cylinders, pistons, connecting rods and flywheel in which the gas took the place of the steam was invented by Jean Lenoir, a Belgian – the first internal combustion engine to be produced in numbers! Eat your heart out, Jeremy Clarkson!!
Adolphe Sax (saxophone inventor, sweeties) was a Belgian and so was Django Reinhardt and Toots Tielemans (still alive) and Jacques Brel, etc.
So you see, there's more to Belgium than Hercule Poirot & Tintin & Snowy, although these little stories give you a little insight if you can read between the lines.
But who gives a flying F? Let's keep it the best kept secret in the world. We don't want the tourist hordes, let them go to Paris to get fleeced.

Dearie me, I got a bit on my soap box there! (grins widely). Seem to be on a bit of a mission of late to educate the in-cognoscenti... I'm sure there's some arrogance in that as well... LOL


Currently listening: Les 100 Plus Belles Chansons by Jacques Brel