"We didn't have a mother: we couldn't afford it." (The Monty Python)

We can have a little twist on this quote: "I didn't have new socks: I couldn't afford it."

Paul Wolfowitz is a rich man, having been president of the World Bank Group. But apparently, he doesn't have enough money to buy a proper pair of socks, as shown on this picture, taken when he was visiting a moskey somewhere.

Here's what's said about that incident on the Wikipedia page:

On 30 January 2007, after his visit to Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, Turkey, news media released photographs of Paul Wolfowitz's socks, which had holes in them. A few days later, Today's Zaman announced that the Turkish Hosiery Manufacturers' Association sent him twelve pairs of socks.

He had to quit the Bank because he was accused of promoting his mistress. How shameful of him: he had one of the best-paid jobs in the world, and he has to leave just because he couldn't control his basic instincts?

The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil

I've already shown you some artwork from that card game I play (Magic—The Gathering). This time, I'd like you to take a look on this lovely picture, drawn by Kev Walker, a brillant British artist. This illustration isn't to be found on a card, yet. It's used on two boxes in which you can sort your cards, those two boxes being part of the Tenth Edition Fat Pack. That's, basically, a fat pack in which you get those two boxes + 6 booster packs (75 cards in total) + a 20-sided dice + a book about the game.

This painting depicts the eternal struggle between good and evil throughout magic; the fight opposes three beautiful angels to some demon from the Pit. I like it because it has such a dynamism to it that I'm wordless. And I've never been disappointed with Mr. Walker's paintings.

What's a "cervelas" made of, actually?

If you want to know the answer to this question, just watch this. Its TRUE!



This extracts comes from the excellent film Dikkenek, a Belgian movie describing certain social classes of our glorious country. Its part of the tradition of "autodérision": laughing about ourselves. I've seen this film recently. I though it would be boring, but not at all! I highly recommend it!

For your information, "cervelas" (or cervelat in English) is a kind of sausage that you'll find in Belgian chip shops. It has a bad reputation about it, being made out of unhealthy things — even though it has a marvellous taste! (I ate hundreds of them in my life, and I'm still alive though!)

And oh yeah, that guy we see talking is nicknamed François l'Embrouille. He did some hidden camera shows in the past, and I liked this one in a chip shop, precisely:

Mid-term Report

The end of July. Already. Yeah… Just a month left to sleep till midday. Oh no, wait, the university only opens on 17 September (!)— and that's just for ceremonial purposes, but I'll be there, in order to welcome the rookies. The next day, we've just got to show up for kind of a speech from our "chieves", Professor Delabastita and Professor Leijnse, but also to buy the syllabi. And the lectures only start on 19 September. It's quite a relief.

Apart from that, I'm fine. I'm done with classifying my lecture notes, my notebooks and syllabi. (Putting all that on a bonfire would have been much more easy, but not really clever.) Everything is finally packed up. It took me almost, say, six hours in all to do that, but I like things to be done perfectly. At least, next year, when my "filleul(e)" (i.e. godson or goddaughter, i.e. a protégé at school or university) gets my lecture notes and all that (valuable) stuff, (s)he'll find whatever (s)he wants. While I was tidying up my old stuff, I read bunch of papers that I had completely forgotten. The "Delete button" in my memory works perfectly: for instance, everything I knew about Plato, Kant and Descartes had been wiped out, erased, obliterated. And yet, I got 18 at the exam. The exams are just something to test us on a (vast) subject on a particular day — for the next day, it's all gone! The pedagogic system is sometimes weird.

News From The Grave

On the news, I heard today that two celebrities had left us.

1) Ingmar Bergman, the Swedish director. What I knew about him was: "His films are long, boring, with characters that whisper all the time; you always hear the wind and/or a clock". Nothing that could appeal a 19-year-old boy from Belgium who's addicted to Star Wars, parodies and comedies. I also knew he had directed a film called The Seventh Seal. Why? Simply because a bit of it is shown in the terrific Last Action Hero, by John McTiernan, with Arnold "Not-Yet-Gouvernator" Schwarzenegger.

In this movie, a magic golden ticket allows a boy to enter another world. This boy, Danny, accidentally enters the world of his hero, Jack Slater (played by Arnie). Later in the movie, after several events, be magic tickets gets lost and lands in front of some obscure cinema (or "theater", for the action takes place in the USA) where they show The Seventh Seal by Bergman. Suddenly, Death (Sir Ian McKellen — even though he wasn't playing in Bergman's film) tears the screen with help of his scathe [yeah! I managed to use that rare word!] and walks in the streets of New York… Death slightly touches a police officer busy eating a donut, and this guy starts coughing and coughing — and probably dies of it, but we don't see it. (What a shame!)


2) Michel Serrault, the French actor. I admit I didn't watched a lot of films in which he has a role, but I definitely loved his part in Le Viager, by Pierre Tchernia. This is a movie that basically shows the evolution of the French society between 1930 and 1970. (And that is the reason why it is shown in several schools. True, true.) What can I say about this film from 1972? Unfortunately, there's no extract coming from it to be found on YouTube.

The story starts in 1930 with this poor Monsieur Martinet (Michel Serrault), who's gonna turn 60 and feels sick. That's why he goes to the doctor's: Docteur Léon Galipeau (Michel Galabru). This doc tells Martinet he's old and his heart is just tired of a long life. Galipeau advises him to retire, for he only has two years left before dying, he thinks. Martinet says he owns a house in Saint-Tropez, "a village with many fishers".

At that moment, Galipeau's face turns into a big smile: he sees the opportunity of a great bargain. He asks Martinet to sell his house to him and his family by using the viager (i.e. reverse [or lifetime] mortgage) system. It consists of paying each year a amount of money to the owner, until he/she dies. This amount of money is linked (or "indexed") to the price of some kind of goods in the stock exchange; in this case: aluminum. Galipeau thinks he's not gonna pay a lot: "Martinet va mourir bientôt", he thinks.

Galipeau and his family (his wife, his brother, his sister-in-law and their new-born son: Noël — because he's born on Christmas), visit Martinet's house in Saint-Tropez. It's an idyllic place, with a big garden and a beautiful view on the sea.

Years pass by, but Martinet won't die! He even gets better and better, taking care of his house, his dog (Kiki) and his garden. He also has a lot of social contacts and even helps the postman in his 22-km ride!

Years pass by, and the Second World War approaches, and eventually bursts out. Galipeau used to say: "C'est qui ça, Hitler ? Un petit peintre en bâtiment… (…) Le fascisme, c'est un feu de paille ! (…) Faites-moi confiance. Vous allez voir : dans deux ans, on va rire !" (Next image: the bombings on Paris!!!)

What's funny in this movie is that Galipeau always keeps predicting things that won't happen. Whenever he says "Faites-moi confiance", the audience is sure he's wrong.

Years pass by, and the War is over. Meanwhile the Galipeaus had unsuccessfully tried to make of Martinet a traitor, but he eventually gets given a medal!

Years pass by, and the aluminum gets more and more expensive…

Years pass by, and the Galipeaus lose the grandpa, then the sister-in-law, then the brother (who, meanwhile, also tried to kill Martinet), then the doc's wife.

Years pass by, and Noël gets older. He's grown into a criminal and is now convicted with theft. Fortunately, Martinet, in a tearsome testimony, manages to get Noël freed. Galipeau dies of heart attack.

Noël is now 40 and is fed up with this viager who won't die. His whole family is dead, while Martinet is still alive. He plans to kill him on the day of Martinet's 100th birthday, covered by the noise of fireworks. Noël drives the car in which all the rockets and other fireworks item lie, but suddenly the car cigar lighter pops out of its plug and the car turns into a fireball… When the last fireworks device explodes (in fact: one of the car's lights) in the skies, Martinet says to his 8th dog: "Et voilà Kiki : c'était le bouquet !"

That was the story.

In my opinion, this film is the 3rd best French movie of all time. The second best is Gérard Oury's La Grande Vadrouille with Louis De Funès and Bourvil; the best one ever is definitely Les Trois Frères, by and with Les Inconnus. But that's another story.

"God Bless The Driver"

Watch this and you'll understand the title…

"I wanna ride my bicycle"

Le Beau Vélo de RAVeL

For those who don't know what this post's title refers to, let me have a word about it.

Le Beau Vélo de RAVeL is the name of a radio programme on Vivacité. Its main presentator is Adrien Joveneau. The goal of this program is quite unusual in the sense that it is to gather as many amateur cyclists as possible in order to take part in a ride (or stage) of an average 25 km. Originally, the main goal was to promote the RAVeL (Réseau Autonome des Voies Lentes), but now it's more about discovering certain places in Wallonia. And I have to add that there's also a stage in Brussels, in mid-September.

This programme has been broadcast since a decade or so, and its success has grown stronger ever since. As far as I can remember, I took part in a RAVeL ride in 1997. Last year, I attended three stages: two in my region (Herve and Spa-Francorchamps [and I even climbed the famous "Raidillon" twice]) and one in Brussels.

Since the Beau Vélo de RAVeL was to take place in Blegny (15 km away from my village) today, I decided to go. (And I had no excuse: I've done more than 500 km on my bicycle this summer). I did this stage with a friend of mine, Alexandre. We decided to leave half an hour sooner than the peloton: experience commanded us to do that. Basically, we knew the kind of paths we'd have to take, and I couldn't imagine being surrounded by thousands of people in a climbing pathway that's like 1,5 m large, with holes filled with mud everywhere!

We took such paths, as muddy as you can imagine. (It had been raining all morning.) Fortunately, most of the stage was on "proper" roads. (I write proper between inverted comas because Walloon streets and roads are kinda crappy). There were more "ups and downs" (I mean hills) than usual, but it was OK if you didn't push it too hard.

It finally took us two hours to do the stage. I'm already looking forward to the next stage!

"I wan'it!" (Andy Pipkin, Little Britain) (bis)

Today, in my mailbox I received the Lego Newsletter. I was struck when I discovered that they were going to release a package with more than 3,500 bricks to build a 1:300 Eiffel Tower!!! (More than a meter high, divided in three stages to facilitate transport.)

I've already told you I'm fond of Lego bricks, even though I haven't bought any set for five years or so. My passion was to build huge towers. Building a proper Eiffel Tower would have been really difficult: not only you must have a lot of bricks at your disposal, but also you must have some building instructions. I had neither. Now my dream comes true — but it has a price: €230… It's a shame.

With such an amount of bricks, it becomes the second largest set ever sold.

(For the record, please note that the biggest set is the special, limited edition of the Millenium Falcon — from the Star Wars saga — counting more than 5,000 bricks for €550…)

The Tiny Toons: "The Eleletor"

Just have fun with this:

Supercat

Silly, isn't it? This cat is lifting its master's car to help him change a flat tyre… Or is that just a special effect…?

"I wan' it!!!" (Andy Pipkin, Little Britain)

When I first saw what the iPhone looked like, I was struck! It looked awesome! Since I've been using the same mobile phone for nearly four years, I think I'll buy one like that at the end of the year, when it's released in Europe. Meanwhile, I can (and you too) can appreciate this flavourful mobile phone/iPod/GPS/internet-linked device by watching this:



I admit I feared that such a screen would quickly be scratched (I take care of my video iPod, but there's a lot of scratches on everywhere!), but Apple apparently hired scientists to sort it out, as you can see:



I was scared when this man dropped his $600 iPhone, but it held up well…

I definitely want one like that!

What A Silly Ass

You know I like to show you pictures with celebrities whose hair was digitally changed. Here's a fine example: the most powerful (and silliest) man in the world with a combover!

He even looks a lot sillier than he is! (And with such a hair, he looks like Chevy Chase…)

And oh yeah, there's another president who's actually got a combover: Mr Bouteflika, president of Algeria, as you can see on this picture…

What A Mistake, Mr Leterme!

Christophe Deborsu works as a journalist for the RTBF (Radio-Télévision de Belgique Francophone, i.e. the Belgian, French-speaking broadcasting corporation), whose Flemish equivalent is the VRT (Vlaamse Radio en Televisie). Usually, he does reports for the news, but a few years ago, he was also doing reports in a UFO-like program (Projet X) with topics about silly things that happen in Belgium. Sometimes, we was tickling politicians, finding upsetting things about their project, etc. That is the reason why he was nicknamed by some: "le fouille-merde".

I told you in yeasterday's post that I went to Brussels to attend the celebrations of National Day, and I also stated that hardly anyone can actually say why the date of 21 July was chosen as National Day, nor sing the national anthem, the Brabançonne. Ok, but what does it have to do with Christophe Deborsu? Well, I saw him yesterday: while I was waiting outside the cathedral with my brother, I saw him walking towards the official cars, running after someone. On that moment, I said to myself: "Tiens, Deborsu vient faire son fouille-merde ?". It's authentic.

That very same evening, I discovered that Frédéric Deborsu had managed to make Yves Leterme stumble on something rather symbolic… (Yves Leterme will become Belgium's next Prime Minister. There's no doubt about it.)

Watch this video: Frédéric Deborsu's whole report (originally about the lack of knowledge of politicians about the Belgian History), then the Flemish viewpoint on this case, with help of the interview of Christophe Deborsu.



The burgemeester of Ypers actually didn't know that 21 July stands for the oath-taking of Léopold I in 1831, then he sang the two first lines of the Marseillaise, the French national anthem!!! A republican hymn in front of a cathedral in which a mass was about to be given in honour of a monarchy!! Surrealism in its pure form.

There's what happened: he made a mistake. He didn't know the anthem, as the huge majority of Belgian do.

(Remember: in a previous post, I told you I was the only one in the class who could actually sing the lyrics of the Brabançonne. After some research, I realized that there are so many different versions of the anthem that it's impossible for me to determine which is the good one. I learned at school a version that doesn't seem to be the same as the one as that in Le Soir of 22 July…)

So, Mr Leterme didn't know the lyrics at all — even though I'm sure he knows the lyrics of the Vlaamse Leeuw, the anthem of Flemish nationalists — and song the first patriotic song he had in mind. The problem is that the Walloons thought of it as a provocation… It was merely a mistake, but the Walloons have a prejudice about this man. They (I'm Walloon, but I don't share their — public — opinion) think he's trying to give more powers to the Region of Flanders (and I personnaly think it would be a good idea) up to the point of splitting the country in two (and I personnally think this is not his goal at all: Flanders would lose a lot if it becomes independent).

Later on, in Dutch, Mr Leterme appologized for having offended people, even if it wasn't his intention. He said he'd made a mistake. Then, when asked to re-say it in French, he said it was out of the question. On VTM (private Flemish television), he was (implicitly) more aggressive towards the RTBF, saying that people who would want to discredit him would pay the price of it…

Already threatening the media? Usually, we can see such things in a dictatorship, I thought. Fearsome… Then I thought that the next four years were going to be great fun (I'm just being ironic) with this man as Prime Minister…

And I can say: "I was there when it happened"!!!

21 July 2007: National Day

21 July: this is our version of the American Independence Day, but in less patriotic. In fact, I shouldn't compare it to an independance day, in the sense that the date of 21 July was chosen as national day for Belgium because it was on 21 July 1831 that H.M. King Léopold I took an oath in front of the first Belgian Parliament in order to become our first king. It seems that many people don't know this (you'll get to see why in the media later on), even if this is something that should be considered as common knowledge…

Since 2004, my parents, my brother and I have been going to Brussels on 21 July, just to take part in the celebrations. In 2004, we visited the National Parliament (and some silly ass from RTL interviewed me, asking me why I was waiting in front of the grids of the Parliament; I replied ironically that I had come to see dinosaurs… — which caused many of my friends, who foolishly take everything at face value, to believe I was a fool). We came back in 2005 and in 2006 with my familly, re-visiting the Parliament House once more. Last year, we came round 2 pm, just in time to have Herman De Croo having a little speech about "his" hemicycle.

This year, my parents didn't feel like going to Brussels, and that's why I took the train with my brother. Below, you'll find my report of the day. I wrote it in French: I just wanted to use one of Belgium's three national languages. And I admit I write faster in French. Note also that "nous" means me and my brother.

Train IC à destination d’Ostende. Malheureusement, dans notre wagon, il y avait — outre un homme silencieux dans le fond — une famille constituée de deux barakîs fumeurs (dont un portait une minable veste en jeans avec Johnny dans le dos) et de deux monstres (un garçon de six ans qui n’arrêtait pas de faire chialer sa sœur d’un an ou deux…). C’était à vouloir se jeter du train en marche. En plus, ils disaient des conneries à “Mon onc’ Julien” (qui était monté à Liège et qui a travaillé cinq ans à Leuven), par exemple qu’ils allaient à La Panne en descendant à Ostende et prenant le tram pendant — estimaient-ils — une (ha ha !) heure… Et autres conneries.

Nous nous en sommes enfin débarrassés en descendant du train à Bruxelles-Central. Nous sommes remontés à la surface, débouchant à un coin qui donnait vers cette rue qui mène presque directement à la cathédrale Sts-Michel-et-Gudule. Dans cette rue, plein de voitures officielles étaient garées, parfois avec des motos de MP.

Ensuite, nous nous sommes rapprochés de la cathédrale. Les gens commençaient à s’attrouper sur le parvis, dans l’espoir de voir la famille royale un peu plus tard quand ils sortiraient du te deum. En attendant, nous sommes descendus. Marché sur le Boulevard Pachéco, où étaient stationnés environ une centaine (si pas plus) de véhicules diplomatiques. Remontés par derrière la cathédrale, puis nous nous sommes décidés à attendre à un endroit où nous verrions passer les officiels.

Les cloches se sont mises à sonner pendant une dizaine de minutes, et les officiels (haute magistratures, haut-gradés, ministres, gros pontes, etc.) sont sortis de la cathédrale petit à petit. Finalement, encadrés par l’escorte royale montée (avec même des cavaliers néerlandais — on aura tout vu, nous qui les avions bouttés hors de nos frontières pour obtenir l'indépendance !), les voitures officielles sont passées, avec le Roi et la Reine Paola, puis Fabiola (et sa tête penchée).

Ensuite, il y a eu un peu plus d’agitation, avec les gens qui commençaient à bouger parce qu’ils avaient vu le Roi, donc avaient eu ce qu’ils voulaient et partaient. D’autre part, les officiels s’agglutinaient pendant que les voitures que nous avions vues plus tôt défilaient devant “la porte de derrière” de la cathédrale (dirons-nous du côté droit du transept). À quelques mètres de nous, nous avons vu Kris Peters (le nouveau Ministre-président flamand) qui semblait avoir “perdu sa quinzaine”, sa voiture n’arrivant pas. Je suggérai à mon frère d’aller le saluer, mais Mr Peters était collé à son GSM. Finalement il a disparu.

Nous avons décidé de nous en aller pour aller chercher à manger. Nous sommes passés devant le groupe d’officiels encore présents qui montaient tour à tour dans de grosses voitures ; en voyant certains hauts magistrats, je me disais : “Belle brochette de francs-maçons…”.

Nous sommes remontés vers la Rue Royale, avant de remonter la Rue de la Loi. Devant le Parlement, dont les portes étaient ouvertes depuis un quart d’heure environ, une longue file s’étirait. On reviendrait quand il y aurait moins de monde. Nous avons continué, puis pris une rue perpendiculaire pour retomber sur la Rue Béliard et la descendre en direction de la Place Jourdan.

Sur celle-ci se tenait un marché aux puces. Beaucoup de gens s’agglutinaient et scrutaient ce que les gens avaient à vendre à même le sol. Tout ce qui nous intéressait, c’était de manger. La friterie Antoine allait passer un test de rattrapage : la dernière fois, les frites n’étaient pas assez cuites et le cervelas l’avait été avec la peau et les attaches métalliques — sans aucun doute l’œuvre d’un mauvais vendeur.

Quelques personnes dans la file devant nous (il était 11h30), mais on a été servis en moins de 3 minutes. Exceptionnellement pour ce week-end du 21 juillet, les portions étaient servies dans des raviers. Ce sera bien la première fois pour nous… Nous avons quand même pris deux portions à 2,10 €. Nous les avons mangées en marchant vers le Parc Léopold, au pied du Muséum des Sciences Naturelles et du Parlement européen. Bu un Coca.

Ensuite, nous avons contourné le Parlement, allant faire un pèlerinage devant l’iguanodon en façade du musée, avant de passer dans ce corridor venteux sous le Parlement pour déboucher devant la Gare du Luxembourg, puis marcher vers la Petite Ceinture. Nous sommes passés devant le Ministère (non, SPF) de la Défense (où André Flahaut, à l’entrée, un verre de champagne à la main, accueillait pour la dernière fois ses généraux et autres chefs d’état-major) et devant le Lambermont.

Passés à nouveau devant le Parlement, dont la file n’était pas moins longue malgré l’heure. Nous avons traversé le Parc de Bruxelles, où à nouveau on organisait des activités sportives pour les jeunes. Nous avons décidé, pour encore un peu patienter, de marcher vers le Cinquantenaire pour voir si les véhicules militaires se mettaient déjà en place.

On a donc descendu puis remonté toute la Rue de la Loi, passant même sur le rond-point Schuman avant de traverser le parc, et au-delà des arches, nous espérions nous reposer à Autoworld, mais le préposé nous avait dit que, ce musée étant privé (? depuis quand ?!?), on ne pouvait pas le visiter gratuitement… Zut. Alors nous sommes allés nous asseoir dehors.

Quand nous nous sommes remis en marche, nous sommes passés devant l’Ecole Royale Militaire, où les étudiants officiers commençaient à sortir en formation. Apparemment, ils allaient devoir marcher jusqu’à la Rue de la Loi, donc sur près de 2,5 km, au pas militaire. Youpie. Nous avons choisi de revenir vers le Parlement, mais en empruntant des ruelles de Saint-Josse. Arrêt dans un parc où les pigeons s’attroupaient autour de nous car nous lancions des cailloux — ils pensaient qu’on jetait du pain ou autre chose… Idiots.

Nous nous sommes arrêtés dans la Rue des Deux Églises devant le bâtiment quelque peu rénové du CDH. Nous avons poursuivi notre route pour reprendre la Rue de la Loi, sur laquelle les gens commençaient à s’entasser derrière les barrières Nadar. Devant le Parlement, c’était toujours la file. Nous avons marché sur le Boulevard de l’Empereur jusqu’à arriver devant le siège du PS. Ensuite, descendus vers Manneken Pis, vêtu aujourd’hui, mais même pas aux couleurs nationales… Grand-place. Beaucoup de monde.

Nous sommes allés nous asseoir quelques minutes sur la place de l’Albertine. Nous avons constaté qu’un nombre anormalement élevé de gens se promenaient avec des mini bouteilles de Coca. On en a conclu qu’il devait s’agir d’une distribution, alors on a remonté le courant comme des saumons pour finir devant la sortie principale de la Gare Centrale, où la “Coca Cola Emergency Refreshment Team” œuvrait, distribuant ces boissons sorties directement de gros bacs remplis de milliers de ces bouteilles et de mètres cubes de glace. Il devait bien y avoir une vingtaine de pareilles glacières entassées là, prêtes à être directement liquidées…

(Nous nous sommes dit plus tard que si on avait eu avec nous un frigo box, on aurait emporté une cinquantaine de bouteilles, avant d'aller les vendre Rue de la Loi à 1 € pièce : profit maximal !)

Nous sommes remontés vers la Rue Royale. On voulait repasser devant le Parlement, mais il était impossible de traverser à cet endroit. Donc nous avons décidé de faire le tour du bloc du Parlement et autres ministères. Dans la rue menant à l’ancien parlement flamand. Marché vers le Parlement. Comme on s’y attendait, en raison de l’imminence du début du défilé, et surtout du passage du Roi sur sa Jeep (ou quelque chose d’autre, parce que je le vois mal se tenir debout avec ses béquilles…), la file du Parlement avait disparu.

Il n’y avait donc presque personne dans le Parlement. Déposé le sac à dos. Rempli quasiment tout le questionnaire avant de gravir l’escalier vert de la Chambre. Nous avons arpenté ses couloirs pour la troisième fois en quatre ans, donc. On connaît à peu près tout, mais c’est toujours amusant de faire un pèlerinage. Robin s’imaginait déjà bossant à cet endroit-là. Fini de remplir le questionnaire. (Je recevrai un pin’s — encore un — du Parlement.)

Dans l’hémicycle, quasiment personne, et pas question cette fois de s’asseoir sur les bancs. Les écrans diffusaient le tirage au sort des membres des commissions. Passés dans les autres salles et salons, avant de pénétrer dans les intérieurs plus baroques du Sénat. Quelques portraits d’anciens Premiers ministres et hommes d’Etat, dont plusieurs avaient un combover.

(D’ailleurs, j’ai appris il y a un jour ou deux que Léopold I portait une moumoute — quoique j’aurais plutôt songé à un combover, mais si un historien l’affirme…).

La visite éclair terminée, j’ai rendu le questionnaire et reçu mon pin’s. (La prochaine fois, j’afficherai mes trois pin’s à ma casquette !) Nous sommes sortis, alors que les quelques bataillons de militaires à pied se mettaient en marche. Quelques cons les applaudissaient. Nous avons décidé de marcher le long de la Rue de la Loi pour remonter le cortège de véhicules militaires, et ainsi voir tout assez rapidement. Deux camions arboraient un panneau "CONVOI EXEPIONNEL" [quelle faute d'orthographe ! c'est l'Armée Belge, et on n'est pas foutu d'écrire correctement "exCeptionnel"?!?] : normal, car ils ne sortent qu'une fois par an, ces andouilles ! Nous avons rejoint ensuite la Rue Béliard avant de la remonter, tandis que les véhicules militaires nous croisaient à nouveau.

Plus haut, nous avons été obligés de nous faufiler à la foule dense massée le long des barrières pour voir les engins (alors que nous, on les avait bien vus en marchant, à l’aise, tandis que certains s’agrippaient à des barrières). C’était infernal de marcher dans ces conditions, avec des poussettes dans les pieds, des files indisciplinées, etc. Finalement, on a pu se dégager et descendre vers la Cour des Comptes, à l’heure où le défilé était officiellement terminé.

À la Gare Centrale, notre train de retour était annoncé à 18h01, ce qui nous laissait un gros quart d’heure pour aller s’asseoir à l’Albertine. (Entre-temps, les réserves de Coca avaient fondu comme neige au soleil… Plus aucune trace de leur passage).

Ensuite, nous sommes allés attendre sur le quai n°3 de la Gare Centrale. Nous pensions nous placer en tête de train, de sorte à prendre place dans un wagon peu rempli. Le fait est qu’à cause de notre relative méconnaissance de ladite gare, nous nous étions trompés de sens et nous retrouvions donc en queue de trains, où la majorité des gens étaient massés. Donc nous sommes montés et avons dû traverser plusieurs voitures avant de pouvoir nous asseoir.

Le voyage fut franchement tranquille, même s’il y avait environ 25 fois plus de gens qu’au voyage aller… Pas de sale môme qui braille toutes les dix secondes pour m’empêcher de faire mes mots fléchés… Ouf ! Nous sommes arrivés à Verviers aux alentours de 19h15, je crois. Papa nous a récupérés. Retour. On a tous mangé une pizza congelée du Delhaize.

[Slightly edited on 21 July 2008.]

Never Play A Joke On An Ape

I heard recently that my uncle loathed any kind of juwelry. Thanks to the illustration on the right, you can get a picture of what it would look like if we decided to play a joke on him while he's asleep, putting such a thing round his neck…

Ok, maybe he wouldn't react like that, but would certainly throw that away asap.

"A New Power Is Rising" (Saruman, LOTR II: The Two Towers)

Today,Elio Di Rupo has announced who was going to be Wallonia's "Ministre-président" during the following two years. The "numero uno" of the Parti Socialiste decided to appoint Rudy Demotte, who was minister of Public Health from 2003 to 2007. He seems to be the most reasonable choice to me. Why?

Wallonia's financial/social/political health is bad. Terribly bad. The PS suffered a defeat in the federal elections in June, due (more noticeably) to the city of Charleroi and the so-called "affaires". Corruption of politicians from that city disgusted people. That's why they voted for the MR, a party whose ideas are quite different from that of the PS. These disappointed voters chose to vote for Reynders and his friends (Michel, Laruelle, Jeholet — people I totally despise) because they seemed to be the only alternative — as if they didn't know anything about Didier Reynders very bad work during eight years as head of Finance (a hole of 883 billions €, for instance).

Maybe it is good that the PS is going to be in the opposition. Politics is all about getting power and losing it, not simply trying to hold it anyhow. (Read this blog's title.)

Di Rupo was in charge of too many functions: bourgmestre of Mons, leader of the PS, Ministre-président of Wallonia were his main functions, apart from sitting in numerous councils. He finally decided to quit from the "presidentship" of Wallonia to focus on his task of leader of the PS, in order to "rebuilt" it and cleaning it up from all the "parvenus". He was reelected to do that a week ago. That's the reason why he appointed Rudy Demotte to succeed him.

I was writing that he's a good choice for several reasons.
— First, because the other names — Jean-Claude Marcourt and Michel Daerden — just didn't fit to the function, respectively because Marcourt is not known in Flanders, and because Daerden is known everywhere for his drunk words (even if he does great job in his ministries).
— Second, Rudy Demotte is known in Flanders, for he was Minister of Public Health from 2003 to 2007, as I wrote above.
— Third, he can speak Dutch more than properly, his mother being Flemish… At last we have a ministre-président who can express his thoughts in correct Dutch!
— Fourth, what he did as head of Public Health is fantastic, because he managed to reform the system and to make it less expensive for the Federal State. I don't see why he'd do bad work as head of Wallonia.

I hope you see my point. The PS has to be reformed, and Wallonia too — even if the "liberals" (I should write "neo-liberals", bu they wouldn't be happy) of the MR will have to lead Wallonia as of 2009… To be continued.

The Little Blue Man

It was difficult, but I found a picture of Didier Reynders when he hears about Joëlle Milquet…



Ok, this little blue goblin (curious, isn't it?) was drawn by Paolo Parente, a Magic—The Gathering artist, as an illustration for a creature token. (If you don't understand what I'm talking about, good for you.)

Father to Son

Translation :
You know, son, you're making the same mistake in Iraq as what I did with
your mother… I didn't withdraw soon enough!!!

I hope you enjoy. And I hope you hate G.W. Bush, too. At least, this dumb president gave us the opportunity to make fun of the king of the world since 7 (long) years.

"The face of the world would have been different if…"

… they had another haircut.

Yeah, I know that the end of the sentence in the title should have been "… she didn't have that nose", talking about Cleopatra. But I put a twist to this sentence just in order to announce the topic of this article: incongruent hairstyles applied to celebrities. Here are the finest examples that my mother sent me several month ago. (Note that we're obsessed with awful hairstyles such as the famous combover and the not-less-famous mullet. Have fun with:


— George Clooney and his sexy combover (Julia Roberts is surely one of those women who fall in love men like that)


— Mel Gibson and his combover/toupee (imagine Martin Riggs in The Lethal Weapon with that very haircut)


— Brad "Combover" Pitt (do you really think he'd have seduced Angelina Jolie if he'd had such a haircut?)


— Jack "Here's… Johnny!" Nicholson with Jean-Pierre Van Rossem's hair (the Joker in Tim Burton's Batman would have never been credible, nor in Kubrick's Shining)


— Elvis "The King" Prestley gone disco (maybe he'd have looked like that if he was an adept of disco, not of rock 'n roll)


— Donald Trump with a regular hairstyle, instead of his "combover-from-the-back", even though this looks rather like a toupee (without his peculiar hairstyle, he'd probably not be that famous)


— John Paul II (yeah, the famous punk rockstar, I'm sure you'll recognize him; of course, this is a picture after his disco phase…)


— Hugh Heffner (you know, the
Playboy guy; fortunately, he won't appear in his magazine with this hairstyle)


— The Fellowship would have been different: Sam (Sean Astin) balding, Frodo (Elijah Wood) gone Yul Brynnerish and Pippin (Billy Boyd) hired for the sequel of Dumb and Dumber…

"I come back to you now, at the turn of the tide" (Gandalf the White, The Two Towers)

Yep, I've come back from holiday. I'm slowly recovering from two weeks without the Internet, so don't expect me to write a lot in this blog for the next week. Of course, I'll give you a summary of my stay in Westende and I'll tell you about my trips on my bicycle (roughly 450 km, that is to say three times as much as last summer!). Besides, I still have to tell you about my exams, even if it is possible for you to read my results below.

Watch this little gem (from the Monty Python's Holy Grail)