MikeinBrussels

Reading Virgil

2010-04-27T09:55:00.003+02:00

Virgil Tracy is one of my heroes - rather like OUSA he is adaptable but slow, with a sensitive side that appeals to minorities. I am the lucky owner of a Virgil doll who lives in a box that says 'Try me - I say five phrases!'

Anyway, we have to do Virgil for AA309 this week and so in a celebration of post-modern receptionism, the best thing to do is declaim Virgil in two ways at once - hopefully this will be a good revision aid. Warning - it goes on too long and the main message is drowned out - but that could be said about a lot of things.

OUSA Belgium prepares for Conference...

2010-04-26T12:37:00.002+02:00

This is top secret footage of course - lucky you!

Snow Mouse sings

2010-04-26T11:49:00.002+02:00

Those on Facebook will have followed the adventures of Snow Mouse. Here he is, singing along to Nana Mouse-kouri.

Wipers

2009-11-08T09:52:00.003+01:00

It's Remembrance Day in Britain (but not in the rest of the world more or less) and here's a beer from Ypres celebrating how they used to throw cats out of belfries - no wonder really that war exists.

REMEMBRANCE DAY IN WHITEHALL

This is the funniest day of the year.

Old soldiers shall pass by like gentle sheep
While that old ram, the State, speaks
In staged silence.

I don't think it matters much
That most marching past will be agèd white men,
Or that we take red poppies as easy ciphers
For something too bloody for words,
Or that we say, 'Charlie died in the desert, you know!'
As if we can bask in the heat of his final sigh,
Or that we put it all back in a box for next year
Like the Proms and the Ashes and Miss World and Lent.

I'm honoured to be here,
Pressed up against Chelsea lads in waxed shooting coats
And blue-faced chavs half-sullen half-mad
And an army of toddlers shoved through to the front.

It'll be over by one
And the tarmac shall bear wet petals and the smack of old shoes,
And the crowd in Saint Stephen's Tavern
Will chew on a hotpot lunch
Served up by forgetful youths.

The Orange Time

2009-11-01T16:23:00.003+01:00

Here we are in November - all the leaves are yellow and brown and orange, as is the lowering sun. These berries (swirled round like digital custard) are kind of orange too.

NOVEMBER SONG

She had a sweet dream
that made her laugh hard
in the orange time.
She stood by the stop
and held out her hand
lit by leaf-light and sun
in the orange time.
Her boss was half-cracked
and gave her the sack
but she wasn't surprised
in the orange time.
She came home and
cried and he
kissed her like mad
in the orange time.

In the cold hour of
dawn they went to
the sea, in the
orange time. Gulls
grabbed their bread and
they felt good and kind
in the orange time.
He hugged her hard
and she wept just a
bit, in the orange
time. A year of hard
knocks topped by the sack.
In the orange time.

He raced to a tree
and he climbed it
and yelled, in the
orange time. She
followed his path and
they shared a dead
bough, in the orange
time. The sun came
out strong and they
sang a mad song,
in the orange time.

It hurt when they jumped
down to earth with a bump,
in the orange time.
They got in the car
and home wasn't that far
off in the orange
time. But a drunk in
a truck meant they'd
run out of luck
in the orange time.
Now they rest in
a grave swamped
by leaves in the haze,
in the orange time.
And the Earth travels
on but for them it's all
gone and they just don't
belong in the orange time.

Trick or Treat!

2009-11-01T16:06:00.003+01:00

When dealing with consultants calling at the door on Hallowe'en we in OUSA Belgium recommend an open approach.

Evensong

2009-10-27T13:02:00.004+01:00

OUSA Istanbul Branch has a unique way of opening meetings - it might not be constitutional but it gets the crowd's attention.

So - farewell summer!

2009-10-27T12:50:00.002+01:00

Well the clocks have changed and so from one of the last days of summer is this piccie of the OU's latest student support system.

It seems a long time since the hottest day of the year (Ed: do you have to use so many clichés?) and writing this poem about it.

THE HOTTEST DAY OF THE YEAR
I'm sitting here, reading the bed.
Sunbeams kind of turn
out wrong when they land
here, on this foreign bed.

I stroke one. My hand is warming up,
paddling through persecutory light.
I'll use the sun to save this love.
One thought of him,
emerges from my breath, sinks.

The little mite falls to sheet,
winces, bounces, fades.
I'll rest now. Head on bed, I'm
not sure what to do with that
angel outside the windows,
so will shut my eyes and
wait to hear its saving words.

Brussels art

2009-10-27T12:36:00.001+01:00

I can't remember who did this, but it has a nice polly-chromatic feel and shows that a trip to Brussels is always worthwhile.

Green days

2009-10-27T12:25:00.002+01:00

This hotel corridor in Madrid looks like it is made out of recycled i-Macs, but was quite a good way of waking up in the morning (it was on the way to the breakfast room).

Other corridors had different colours - we were in red. AA300 students will want to ask whether the hotel is a globalized product or celebration of Spanish identity - you could get an omelette, if that helps.

Waiting

2009-08-28T07:14:00.003+02:00

Our poetry group was talking about waiting - not sure why. We definitely thought that waiting was something there was too much of. Here is a picture of some birds waiting for food, or could it be a bus? My effort was written after doing some ironing.

WAITING

Waiting is kneeling before what you want:

the hottest tears jut from your face,

a salty crust might form:

just wait.

Waiting might mean tearing your clothes:

you'll shiver like a monk's turtled loins,

eviscerated by cold;asexual in dark blue limbo

but the only choice is to wait.

Waiting will require greeting

those who do not understand

the famine: like an ox cooing at other oxen

on a simulated TV plain,you'll just shuffle along

nothing doing: simply wait.

Waiting - you'll need bloodlike steel,

a blade cutting through doubt

like an icecream through August mouths,

or an eel chomping through weed

not knowing if that carp child

is really there: just go and wait

for a bit, eschew agnostics,and wait.

Wait - why wait - this is just tin-town chit-chat.

You're not stopped by Auschwitz wire

or the massed armies of evil

glaring across the living-room floor;

you're not a mouse held hostage

in a no-reprieve Midlands lab

or a cat wrapped up for good by flat-cheeked Egyptians.

You won't be damaged forever

if you pick up life like a juicy roast leg

- just leave the bone but remember

its job. Why not decorate your room

with cheerful suns of what is to come,

jump right now in the wide warm sea of your life

and swim to its furthest fun-filled depths?

You turnip: rooted in the muck of your mind

you're frazzled by patience: grow up!

What's that? that thing you're waiting to do

disgusts you. I can read it too:

no worries, yes, it's bad, and

I, I, I, I, I must dash.

Structure

2009-08-26T13:27:00.003+02:00

This new training video demonstrates OUSA's post-Futures structure in a nutshell.

Me - how?

2009-08-26T12:53:00.004+02:00

On being told by a cynic that the aim of OUSA Futures was to abolish all dissident units, especially European ones, this distant cousin of OUSA Belgium's most important member said that she found that really hard to believe.

No more theatre

2009-08-26T12:34:00.002+02:00

Here is a wide (currently under renovation) plaza in Targu Mures - real 'place for the people' stuff, or at least that was my outsider's feeling. Fluid borders are here: not just in the Hungarian-Romanian dual identity and the clash between Communism and capitalism, but in the border between past and present, men and women and the tourist and its target. Borders are wet, permeable, and always handled by women who are adept with a hose.

Modes of address

2009-08-26T12:26:00.003+02:00

Visitors to Conference 2011 found this type of signposting helpful when being assigned to working groups on key policy issues.

Conference fun

2009-08-26T12:19:00.002+02:00

Delegates to Conference 2011 were pleased to be met at the station by a special bus, but were not sure whether the idea of Conference being fun instead of business-like needed closer inspection.

Feline hungry

2009-08-25T12:07:00.002+02:00

It was very strange in Apold to see a distant cousin of OUSA Belgium's most important member giving afternoon tea to two copy-cats of the late, great Treacle.

Apold

2009-08-25T11:59:00.003+02:00

This place is a 'Saxon' village in Romania. We went here to hunt for one of our biggest friend's roots (I don't mean a fat lady with hair-dying problems) and ended up talking to some Roma and climbing up a church tower to take this picture (it's in arty black and white mode - how louche).

If you click on it to blow the picture up you can see people on bikes!

If it fits....

2009-08-25T11:48:00.001+02:00

The OUSA delegation to Romania were impressed by this helpful warning.

Room for the bite

2009-08-25T11:40:00.002+02:00

When scouting possible future Conference venues, OUSA reps were duly impressed by the accommodation on offer this bid from Romania, although they were not sure about the vampire lurking between the windows.

This old house

2009-08-14T08:42:00.003+02:00

AN OLD HOUSE IN SIBIU
Not for nothing does
one layer of brick grow thicker
carrying a need
not to budge at all.

Then another,
small, mouldy
slips into the frame.

The bastards who lived here;
elements - the hydrogen and helium,
iron and uranium of the human soul -
trace tourists' started eyes.

That rather poncey poem was written when I was musing on the relationship between poetry and science as conceived in Eastern Europe, which of course is not a poncey thing to think about at all.

The above house in Sibiu is four hundred years old and probably going to end up as a shop selling amber or mobile phones or something.

I have no doughnuts but I have dumplings

2009-08-14T08:30:00.002+02:00

So said the waitress one night in Sinaia. In Sighisoara (hope I've spelt that right) all our dreams came true.

Sinaia sense of security?

2009-08-12T23:26:00.002+02:00

ALPINE HOTEL

You can safely sleep here...
all is made of wood...
those dog-barks are far off.

PS - it's not really the Alps, but Transylvania

Magic City - Monty Part 2

2009-07-08T14:01:00.003+02:00

This is a massive mural (painted on concrete) in Montgomery metro - painted by Jean Folon (that's a man's name just in case you were wondering) in the 1970s. The official site for the metro says it's about having a faintly sinister sun indoors (hence my post just now about the yellow). I like it though as it seems happy yet stylized. In AA300 terms the metro is a border zone - we're facing in the direction of the forest where Flanders starts, as well as a bump in price because you've crossed the border.

Montgomery metro part 1

2009-07-08T13:54:00.003+02:00

Montgomery (it's a famous junction in Brussels lorded over by a statue of Monty, the famous soldier guy - I've got a picture of the view of the Cinquantenaire 'Arc de Triomphe' arch through his legs but thought better of posting it) metro is a great place - lots of 1970s stuff, probably about to be ripped out - just like most of my brain. Anyway, this bit is near our old flat - this was on a hot night after a Wiener Schnitzel in a Croatian restaurant. I'm not sure why the walls are yellow - they smell OK, so maybe it's just part of the sun has migrated underground without telling us. Can you tell that haiku took about thirty seconds to write - that long I hear you say!

Sunset mode

2009-07-08T13:46:00.002+02:00

So this is what the Panasonic Lumix something or other does in sunset mode. As you can see, basically you still need an interesting sunset and this one wasn't so I put a haiku over it. Haikus are something the O U says you should write every day. I can't think of anything I do every day.

Chin chiller

2009-07-08T13:25:00.002+02:00

Here in OUSA Belgium we believe in taking it on the chin, even if makes you go a funny sepia shade.

This is actually with a new camera that does more, but I think has slightly grainier pictures than the old one.

Apologies for not updating this blog more often - I'm feeling a bit lazy and summery. It's all I can do to revise stuff like this - if you think this is bad, you should have read the first version.

TANGO

A hundredweight of bread

moves down a frosty hill

to Karl the baker

cheeping an old song

from exotic toothed birds.

Behind him, a clapped out bus

(not green, not red, but something between,

like the surface of eyes in a Javanese film)

wheezes like a dying cult

as schoolkids pick out loam

from finger-nails not yet grown.

The bread is nearer now.

In the crystal sight

of a winter's day

(not hot, not cold but fashionably indirect

coolly half-finished

like a carte de visite for a future dream)

ghost Greek Gods laugh silently

their chests as devastated as stars

glued to a red-grey sky.

The bus roars off

its petrochemical jerk makes trees dance along:

their arms scratching their swift-growing girths.

Colin sits on the saddened ground

as a wall of bread

(not high, not low, just large enough to slay)

stops his song.

Bodega!

2009-06-29T12:02:00.002+02:00

This isn't in Spain: it's in Sheffield in the cellar of someone's house - and as you can see they've converted it rather nicely into a Spanish bar.

I was going to show you other pictures of the house but for some reason I've only got shots of people watching dodgy satellite channels like Essex Girls.

Borderlands

2009-06-29T11:43:00.002+02:00

Here we are just going through into France from Adinkerke - those clouds in the distance aren't tobacco.

As ever, click on the picture to make it bigger.

What do you Frink of this?

2009-06-29T11:30:00.003+02:00

Another thing from last week - this is Dame Elisabeth Frink's Walking Madonna (it doesn't though) in front of Salisbury Cathedral.

This is the only female figure she sculpted and she used her own face as a model. Some (=I've just looked it up on the Net) say she is striding purposefully away from the Cathedral out into the world: others that she is careworn and therefore emblematic of maternal suffering.

Modern art - and I would contend much art - is not really about subject-matter but form and so I've done the photo as a kind of play between different spaces and substances. If I were the sculptor here, I'd have a bright blue crystal pyramid complementing rather than opposing the spire, which - at least on a summer's evening - looms like a Saturn V over the silent green spaces surrounding it.

Love the stinger but hate the sting

2009-06-29T11:19:00.002+02:00

Over in OUSA, we've been talking about whether there is a distinction between sexual orientation (not sinful) and sexual acts (some of which are sinful).

As ever, only England knows the answer to this. This is a National Trust Garden last week. Here they show that they recognise apian orientation, but feel the need to warn against apian activity.

The end of a Forum

2009-06-19T12:04:00.005+02:00

Today - roughly - is the last day the Forum Requests Forum will appear on our First Class desktops, where it has been dwelling since 1996. Here's some flowers to put on its beseeching grave, from the yellow bit of the garden.

Non-OU people won't know what I'm talking about. Basically, First Class is the conferencing system OUSA and the OU use and it's going to be replaced by Moodle. A few Forums might be temporarily pruned, such as Non-Cuddly Toys.

Most of the real action in First Class takes place on private mail. Most messages get given a kind of address label according to the following scheme.

NORMAL - it's quite rare to get this.

PERSONAL - this is usually a love letter of some kind.

URGENT - this is always a love letter of some kind.

PRIORITY HATE MAIL - this is common when you've dumped someone.

BULK - this is common if you have put someone in the family way, even if only virtually.

PRIVATE - this is some kind of Danish magazine sent to all OUSA activists.

Words of the week

2009-06-17T08:38:00.002+02:00

I bet I don't stick to this.

Word of the week in English:

peculation=embezzlement "The peculations of small Italian businessmen lack charm" (A. Lurie)

Word of the week in French:

occire (pronounced ox-ear)=to slay (says it's either obsolete or humorous - I can identify with that): "Mais pourquoi qu' t' as occis le mataf?' (Genet - yes, that one) - "Why did you slay the sailor-guy?'

Classical stuff

2009-06-17T08:21:00.002+02:00

OUSA is talking about triumvirates (nothing to do with Vera Duckworth, I think) and also about how great old courses were.

I agree - A209 - a course on ancient Athens - was great. I also think someone should start up a TV Channel or maybe even a mock university called OU Gold - you could study old courses but not get any credit as the research etc. would be out-of-date. Although that doesn't matter so much in the Arts. You used to be able to get A209 from www.ouw.co.uk but now it's all study packs and increased prices. Even this place http://www.universitybooksearch.co.uk/index.asp doesn't stock it anymore.

This is Cicero (if I remember rightly), lurking in the foyer of the Palais de Justice in Brussels. The picture is mine but this site has a load of Brussels stuff http://www.ordet.it/foto/2008/b/brussel/index_en.htm taken in similar straightforward vein. It makes Brussels look grey and cold, but it's a little known fact that all the statues come to life at night.

Rain rain rain

2009-06-10T15:56:00.010+02:00

Last night we went to an Indonesian restaurant - I got loads of photos of rain ('cos that was what was happening) but let's face it - everyone knows what rain looks like. So here (on the left) is the person who took me out for dinner to celebrate my recent birthday and various other things. The photo is a bit weird as it's actually a transfer on a shopping bag, so I shot the bag, as well as bagging the shot.

Here's a poem about rain - my poetry group gave it a mixed reaction, which is all for the best I reckon.

RAIN

If it were a person, it'd be working for the Planning Office, or maybe Woolworths just before closedown, whatever, each rain is different. It always make you sweat
as if Nature, promising you'll be buried in the bliss of summer, has said,
'Hey now - here are my real prizes you soldier - big grey sensible drops of water

- these are my real signature - isn't it time you had one of your own?'

It makes you pensive. You stuff yourself with passion - a really tiresome business

-and like a junior exec. swivelling on a plastic chair your brain
quickens and tries to shove the rain in its soul, tries to put out the images
of hot-headed lovers, or gloss-lipped devils, those little Kodak slides
that flicker in time to the rain, tap-dancing on the stones outside.

After a lifetime, maybe rain gets bloated, kind of worn out, as if it wants
to go down to the coast, sit in a home and say, 'Well, it was all for nothing,
but maybe if I take a brief look back, like Kronos just before Tartarus,
or like that seal I saw in the zoo pausing before it jumped into the pool,
the smell of this life won't be as sour as I think.'

Amazing stuff, rain. Look how it thuds to the ground, rises up
again, softens all, almost vehemently, almost laboriously,
wistfully hinting at Eden and machine-guns
a hat of silver framing your hair.

Bear the pain!

2009-06-08T12:58:00.003+02:00

On being told that he might have to co-Mod OUSA Cuddly Toys after all, and that it would definitely involve loads and loads and loads and loads and loads and loads and loads and loads of work with the E C and just about everyone else coming out as a secret cuddly toy fiend, OUSA Belgium's least convincing member held his rapidly emptying head with a mixture of remorse and mousse.

European Identities on ice

2009-06-08T12:37:00.003+02:00

Here in OUSA Belgium we believe in wooing possible converts to our cause at every opportunity. Here though a delegate from the Netherlands remains unimpressed by one of our traditional tactics known as 'Operation Sorbet' (pear on the left, strawberry on the right).

At the arms of Brussels

2009-06-08T12:27:00.003+02:00

It's a good place - you can eat really well for 40 euros or so - in my case chicory soup, North Seafood gratin, fattened chicken, chocolate mousse, five hundred litres of house wine - and our waiter Patrick (who is not the guy on the left) was brilliant. I lost weight again - not sure why.

As this is a serious academic and political blog I should point out that the image on the left clearly highlights the enlightened tripartite identity of militarism, Catholicism and gastronomy that is hegemonic pursuant to the recent European elections. If only OUSA were as diverse, I can hear you sadly mutter.

Celebration

2009-06-08T12:18:00.003+02:00

Here in OUSA Belgium we believe that success should be rewarded. Here we have baked a cake to present to the fifth student in the UK who has agreed with one of our motions over the last twenty years.

That shadow in the background is not a spooky lifeform from another planet about to take over Belgium but a manky old ficus - that's not an old German insult, but some kind of fig tree about which we care a lot.

Rejection

2009-06-08T12:02:00.004+02:00

Here in OUSA Belgium we believe in democracy as much as the next unit. Here, our most important member shows us what she thinks of a meaty proposal to introduce dog representation at all levels within the organisation. And it's all done online!

An official commemoration

2009-06-05T07:45:00.004+02:00

EQUALITY 2009

I uphold equality: although
it hasn't held up that much stuff for me.

I think back to applying for a gay marriage.
A dark desk in a Sixties town hall.
Files building up like mediaeval remains.
The grey people in charge were charming
and I think we - the rainbow couple -
fizzed back in the usual way.
Smiles and laughs and relief
and hands held under the table.

It started raining. Something in their
faces began to crack. A passing sense
of having stretched things too far.
A growing back of the old god power
of the grey race.

We shouldn't follow them if we can help it.
These pale skins, these pious types,
these family guys, these slave-drivers
may be temptingly attractive...

'If only I could be like him,'
you whispered to me on the way out.
I squeezed your hand and held out for the best.

Nights nights

2009-06-02T09:06:00.006+02:00

It was a good Bank Holiday weekend as we went out three nights in a row: first night was to the centre of town (hint: don't sit at a table unofficially reserved for escorts, you'll get dirty looks and won't earn any money); second night was a birthday party in an underground cellar (hint: when people under 30 say, 'Would you like me to fetch you a Desperados?' don't take it personally); third night was a barbecue where we ended up playing with someone's Wii (hint: when people tell you to press the B button, don't say 'Why is it hidden on the back?').

This night-scene is our local park. It's built on an old cemetery and what they've done is used some of the old gravestones to make the paths. Click on the photo for the full spook effect.

Our poetry group had a session on night poetry. My effort is below (I did another more experimental poem that I'll have to come back to: anyway, this one owes a lot to a colleague code-word Oldtimer).

NIGHT TIME
The moon mops up. We step back inside
to rest our lives on the mattress upstairs.

We have left the shades outside
a necessary quietus...
since the tactics of light against dark
are studied and perfect.

Listen, how the lowered volume
of our house feels like a soft slide
into a succession of freedoms.

The moon breaks in without comment,
hushing the breaths from the cot.

Cat attack!!!!

2009-05-29T11:08:00.003+02:00

Those of you who read Facebook will know that our cat got attacked the other night - fortunately no harm was done except a certain loss of parental innocence amid all the squealing and shrieking (the cats, not us).

Here is the moment shortly before - our cat is completely oblivious to the hooligan lurking behind her (you may need to click on the picture) - I wasn't sure but I think there was another cat waiting as well.

I thought about writing to the Daily Mail (no day is complete without a visit to the Daily Mail Forums) and insisting that the birch and National Service be brought back as soon as possible, but decided against it as I don't want Belgium to be defended by an army of mad cats.

Art in Ghent

2009-05-25T10:40:00.003+02:00

After the coast we stopped off at Ghent and went to the art museum called SMK. The 1901 Baedecker's says that the collection (then in a different location in the city centre: the current collection is in a park opposite SMAK - the contemporary spanking museum) is modest but worth a visit. The 1957 Fodor's guide doesn't mention it but says that Ghent is the Florence of the North, but also like Liverpool and Manchester.

Anyway, we first went to the Café. This was an interesting demo of all that is wrong with the world. The meal was OK, but served by ditzy young waiters in black shirts (always a bad sign) and over-priced. I liked the beer label though. The perfect art museum café would be like an East German canteen or something - fair pricing, solid food, maternal waitresses not fussed by the art scene and more interested in food.

The museum itself doesn't let you take photos so I haven't got any. This always annoys me slightly - taking photos without flash doesn't damage paintings - it simply (possibly) damages income from gift shops (but no postcard collection is comprehensive) - that's just two elements though from a complex argument some of which you can find here http://musematic.net/?p=325

The actual collection is 'OK' though - it's the kind of place to take very slowly and maybe just focus on three or four key works. You can get a preview here (click on English and then click on collections for a kind of timeline) http://www.mskgent.be/

Not gravy, but browning

2009-05-25T10:26:00.002+02:00

or whatever that Stevie Smith poem says.

This is the Belgian coast last Thursday - we went to a place called De Haan (Le-Coq-Sur-Mer it says in our 1901 Baedecker's guide along with telling you the times of the steam trains).

The houses are in what is called the 'Style Normand' which basically is posh yet rustic - so we preferred the beach.

I guess if this were an AA300 artefact we'd need to discuss whether the rather eclectic mix of imported architectural styles, multi-lingualism was in opposition to the apparently culturally neutral element of the sea. But if you look at the waves in this picture, they're definitely speaking in a West Flanders accent.

BagBook

2009-05-20T13:33:00.004+02:00

Here's a picture of one of my best friends from my youth (he's in my room at some sleazy university). We got in touch (after a break of a few years) the other day via Facebook, but he's always been a bit camera-shy. Still, if someone invented BagBook he'd be first in the queue.

This picture was taken in 1982 and appropriately enough for someone who taught me a lot about music, writing and enjoying myself (apart from that he was pretty useless) he's sporting a bag from a record shop (no such things as CDs then - it was a Boots record player which also doubled up as an inexpensive disco light if you put things like candles on it and played everything at 78 rpm).

Eurovision

2009-05-18T15:58:00.003+02:00

........has come and gone. Until a couple of years ago we used to spend it on the Belgian coast in a flat overlooking the sea at Oostduinkerke, near the French border. You can walk to the border (turn left in the picture above), but ever since the French gave us 0 points for everything, we have walked to the right.

In the picture above, you can see on their way to the polling booth the three Flemish people who thought Scooch's Flying The Flag was a good song. It's strange to think that if you go seventy miles or so straight ahead into the North Sea you end up in somewhere glamorous like Margate.

A degree comes in handy....

2009-05-18T15:11:00.000+02:00

......when you fall on hard times.

Grad Ted Rules OK!

2009-05-18T11:42:00.008+02:00

Here in OUSA Belgium we wholeheartedly believe in the principle of all students benefiting from free access to UK-based graduation ceremonies only, and are more than willing to sell all our honey to help promote our beloved OU. We also firmly believe that it's only a matter of time before OUSA does its best and sets up Mark Sharing and Cuddly Toys Forums in order to be in step with its 'Everyone's A Winner' big brother.

We do recognise though that some students in Belgium may find the ceremony a rather startling introduction to the more manic aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture, rather akin to being publicly executed, and so we've provided a training video that shows how as long as you cover yourself with a plastic bag and ground yourself in the high points of European culture, you're unlikely to get attacked by Mr Gradgrind and/or Sissy Jupe. Just don't get too Jaded.

Just North

2009-05-14T08:52:00.003+02:00

This is near the point where you pass the sign saying all river water flows to the North Sea rather the Mediterranean.

In a nice touch of globalisation, we were listening to a Belarus Eurovision song.

High on a hill

2009-05-14T08:29:00.003+02:00

Here is the view from our hotel in Lausanne. You're actually (in the evening dwimmer) looking towards France (the border runs through the centre of the lake) and also towards Nyon, the site of Julius Caesar's veterans garrison designed to keep the Helvetii firmly under the yoke in this part of Gallia Belgica. Lausanne had the Roman name Lausodunum which sounds like it should mean 'praise on a hill' but doesn't.

On sera à Troyes ce soir!

2009-05-14T08:10:00.002+02:00

For those of you don't know French, that means that you're going to have a threesome this evening, or, alternatively, as our Greek friend said 'So you're going to Troy? Fantastic!'.

This is Troyes, former capital of Champagne, taken last week. I could show you pictures of half-timbered houses and loads of great modern art but I thought this moonlit shot of the cinema complex on the edge of the old town was more interesting.

You'll see in the distance the Hippotamus Grill. Imagine our disappointment when they said they don't grill African wildlife. So we headed into town. Here's a list of all the meals we had in France/Switzerland last week. I put on a pound, which isn't bad. My Mike Easy Diet tip for holidays is not to have breakfast, walk around a lot during the day and then do Canadian Air Force exercises in the morning - easy stuff like touching your toes, leg-lifts (doesn't matter whose), press-ups (not to be confused with press-downs, which is where you pin your latest holiday lover to the bed), and sit-ups (not to be confused with stand-ups, a breed of people whose jokes are much better than mine).

Here is the list of food and drink. I could do pictures but most people probably have a kind of gastro-porn filter now (as supplied in OU software on the advice of OUSA) and wouldn't be able to see them.

TROYES - raffariat de champagne (bit like sherry), crudités in a cream cheese and basil dressing, chicken leg in raffariat sauce with baked herby potatoes, tarte tatin and cream.

BOURG-EN-BRESSE - pizza grand' mère (take one grandmother, make her into lardons and sprinkle her on goat's cheese), salad including a cornet of filo pastry filled with chicon

LAUSANNE - artichoke and asparagus salad (all fresh), féra (a white fish from Lake Geneva), gratin de fruits d'été (kind of like strawberries with cold custard)

NANCY - curry - the French have started going for an Indian on Saturday night, or at least the boys of Nancy have - all very macho.

Mat politics

2009-05-04T09:51:00.003+02:00

Here in OUSA Belgium we recently had a brainstorming session on how to get justice on fees, the NERF budget, Eastern Europe, representation in Region 9, and probably a few other things I've forgotten. OUSA Belgium's most important member came up with this 'If all else fails, roll over and beg' idea.

Anniversary

2009-05-03T06:26:00.006+02:00

It's two years to the day since my mother died of motor neurone disease. We got the news in a Total petrol station near the Chunnel. I went to the gents for a bit of peace, and found this had been carved into a pipe. Maybe it means 'Have a nice day' in Polish.

SWING
I never want to play on a swing again. I recall,
even as you uncovered my eyes,
took me to see what Daddy had made,
and set me on the heavy-chained seat,
clanking and floating over our spot of Earth:
I was unsure what could break my fall.

Later, as it rusted,
and we kids were too old to stand up cradled by you,
or just sit, our legs pushing out into a hurricane
born from the tug of gravity's wires
pulling us back from the summit of the ride,

You - hysterectomy-weakened - strode up the path,
wiped dew and sparrow-stars from the seat,
gathered your sun-stained skirts,and pushed
bed-softened toes off our runway
(that wound all kids must make on grass) as

you hung yourself to a quickening flight:
a swinging C of metal and green and flesh and cloud,
laughing and shining and above all entitled:
that was what you meant as you beamed at the neighbours just over the fence.

Too much trouble, to play on a swing again.
It's not fair - not just that your hands have done their job -
it's that lost moment at the top of the ride.

Melting

2009-05-02T12:42:00.002+02:00

This is the Greek restaurant (Omiros, Rue des Deux Eglises) in Saint Josse, Belgium's most cosmopolitan commune www.meltingshopping.be - download the leaflet about a guided walk and make your Eurostar break in Brussels more interesting!

Before we went in to eat, we sat outside drinking ouzo watching (and you can see them if you click on the photo) the Turkish community arrive for a fund-raising event for a mosque. I remember particularly talking to a woman carrying a bag mentioning a particular European Institution and its slogan 'a bridge between Europe and an organised civilised society' who was complaining about feeling like a member of a white minority. By and large though, people get on.

Synedoche

2009-05-01T17:19:00.002+02:00

If this were the sixties I'd call this rather cheap (I mean Warholesque) shot of the Forêt de Soignes tree canopy today (reprocessed via a swirl filter) 'Green' or 'Prevarication' or something like that, but I'm calling it Synedoche because the green is part of the greater whole (and looks like it's a hole as well as a cover). It makes a good desktop background for working on TMA03, particularly that poem set in the Caribbean (briefly). I guess you could play with it and do a sequence in pretty colours. In a million years time, when the forest is gone, a Belgian will look at this and say 'Blogging couldn't stop logging'.

May Day!

2009-05-01T13:56:00.005+02:00

Happy May Day - nothing to do with help or workers - but a Bank Holiday here.

I've danced round a pole or two in my time, but Belgium, or at least Brussels and Leuven, do it differently. You get lily of the valley (above) but have to wait until August for the actual tree to be planted (in commemoration of a battle) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_F080YRb0E&feature=related

The lithograph in the background dates from 1900 and is by Marc-Henri Meunier, nephew of Constantin Meunier the famous Belgian painter of workers' struggles. It's Symbolist but so is everything.

The meat of the matter

2009-04-29T12:32:00.004+02:00

Someone (whom I would never disappoint willingly) asked what we ate last night. I had gigot d'agneau (leg of lamb). Gigot is related to gigue (leg) and giguer which means to hop about or something. Not sure if the English jig is connected. There's also 'gratin dauphinois' which means gratin from the province of Dauphiné.

This photo is more interesting if you use your mouse roller to zoom in and out - play the Ride of the Valkyrie at the same time and you're in meaty multi-media heaven.

More from DD200

2009-04-29T08:31:00.005+02:00

Here's a bit more from last night. At the end of the video you can just glimpse Sarah rushing to rugby-tackle someone reading Mrs Thatcher's Bruges speech under the table.

Governing Europe's Diet

2009-04-29T08:20:00.005+02:00

Not in any sinister way - here is a snap though of last night's visit from a group of DD200 Mothering Europe students, scoffing loads of Belgian food.

We are in a place called the Grand Café, and this picture was ably taken by the tutor, Sarah. Thanks also to Esy and Neil for covering for me when I lost the students down a hole in the road.

Click on pictures to make them bigger.

Rational....

2009-04-28T13:42:00.004+02:00

...is OUSA's middle name, and so rationalization is all the rage. In this example, OUSA Matters and OUSA Cuddly Toys have been merged in a new medium (a recycled desktop) in the interests of greater efficiency and interactivity. The new E C M for England is responding to the sole remaining student in Belgium's question about what they've done with E C M Ireland.

Cherry trees are best by night

2009-04-28T08:55:00.002+02:00

This isn't the best road for cherry trees in Brussels, but lit up by streetlamps this white cherry tree looked pretty funky (I'm lying on my back).

The main cherry tree area in Brussels (see here http://mikeinbrussels.blogspot.com/2009/04/schaerbeek.html) has a joint Belgo-Japanese celebration every April. The commune Schaerbeek produced cherries for the famous Kriek beer and so I guess that's why they planted loads. This road Avenue des Cerisiers is split between two communes one of which is Schaerbeek - you can tell the border because the street signs change.

Bucharest fast food

2009-04-28T08:26:00.003+02:00

This chicken outlet in the centre of Bucharest is fairly hard not to miss.

In identity terms, it testifies I suppose to Romanian humour (in the light of bird flu), which I also saw in an exhibition (can't put photos on here for fear of copyright) of cartoons, for example showing Romanians taking over Covent Garden with big stars on stages and Roma beggars at the door. We were talking in our tutorial the other day about whether minorities use humour as a kind of strategy - I think Romania isn't really a minority, but it maybe feels kind of on the edge or something (as far as one can generalise).

Two alternative takes on Killer Chicken - this one http://viapontica.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/hilarious-name-killer-chicken-bucharest-fast-food-outlet/ from an ex-LSE man turned property market analyst, contrasts with the more sybaritic http://therockmother.blogspot.com/2007/06/you-say-roumania-i-say-romania.html

Presumptive stuff

2009-04-28T08:16:00.002+02:00

Here is a café in the Avenue Livingstone in Brussels, just down the hill from the main EU buildings, appropriately called the Livingstone. Livingstone has a connection with Brussels via Stanley and the Congo, so there's a kind of colonial echo and reflection here. The café though is in competition with a big Irish bar called the Wild Geese (that has its own resonance I guess), a Tesco metro type supermarket, and used to be near a couple of German beer bars that have closed down. Now if you want to have a German beer and ambience you have to go out to Wezembeek-Oppem, near the German School.

Tourism tropes

2009-04-27T09:03:00.006+02:00

We were talking about this in connection with my European Studies course - different views of countries as expressed through tourism literature.

This is a poster in Bucharest two and a half years ago - note how the concept of the grand tour is still with us, how more expensive the UK is, and how Tower Bridge is an enduring icon (also used in Eurovision 1999 by Israel).

As always, click on the picture to make it larger.

Eutopia.........

2009-04-26T14:07:00.003+02:00

........is the ironic title of an exhibition in Brussels all about deconstructing, reconstructing and maybe even re-instructing Europe. http://www.rhiz.eu/artefact-23765-en.html gives you one or two photos.

What happens is go into the gallery (a converted power station, but only a baby one, not like Tate Modern), try not to get told off for taking photos, and then look at a few watercolours, some videos and the main bit of the exhibition, which is a kind of mock European landscape you enter through a kind of Checkpoint Charlie place. You can also vote and comment on the Lisbon treaty.

I haven't described that very well, but that's partly because of the unsettling effect of the exhibition - if things like the EU flag lit up by a flashing police lamp or a blank white aeroplane revolving over a bleak black landscape appeal, you should like this. It was the price of a cup of coffee to get in - just off the Place Sainte Catherine. You can peek into the exhibition if you go up the Rue Dansaert - it's just next to an oversized underwear shop. A good antidote to the saccharine excesses of Europe Day.

Fonko rules OK

2009-04-24T08:23:00.003+02:00

Here's the label from the wine we had last night at our local Serbian restaurant (scallops on blinis was nice). The wine is actually Macedonian and as you can see it's named after Bucephall (ox-head - strange) Alexander's horse, who ended up in present-day Pakistan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porus - not bad for his selling price of thirteen talents. Talking of talent, I think Miss California is great - not many people could stand on stage in front of all America wearing next to nothing and say anything at all about gay marriage, and she has helped the gay marriage cause no end.

Mountains and seas

2009-04-22T08:47:00.002+02:00

That's the name of the resto last night we went to. We were interrrupted by some strange text messages that I cannot go into here! This food was good (escalope pizzaiola - here's a recipe http://www.paperblog.fr/511187/escalopes-de-veau-a-la-pizzaiola/ basically it's veal bashed up and a sauce made up of bashed up bits of tomato, garlic, capers, origano and white wine - really it should be called bashed up cow). It also made me take off one and a half pounds. On the way back I lay on the pavement and took pictures of cherry blossom illuminated by street-lamps, but I won't put them here because I'm in anti-flower mode.

Fluid borders again

2009-04-21T10:54:00.002+02:00

Marianske Laszne (Marienbad, and sorry about the accents) is one of the first towns you get to once through the Czech border near Bayreuth. Fluid? Maybe not, unless you mean the spa water. It's kind of a show town (very nice beer and food as well as parks), and when we went it was really really really peaceful.

Fluid borders

2009-04-21T10:25:00.004+02:00

Today a tutor posted a link to photos of East Germany in 1990 http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-41629.html which basically celebrates perceived dilapidated difference. By way of contrast, here's how the city of Erfurt looked just under a year ago - not sure if it is still recognisably the East, or if the Cuban (?) band symbolizes globalization, but there's lots to decode, not least the eye of the Western tourist.

The MED (Mike Easy Diet)

2009-04-19T15:36:00.003+02:00

If you look at me on Facebook I often look like a big orange greasy ball. Round about early March I decided to do something about it (fat, not Facebook - how could I do anything about Facebook?), particularly as I was getting to the 'can't run to catch a bus' phase.

All the advice says that you need to change your lifestyle but maybe only in small ways. So you could chop off a leg and lose weight, but it's better to just file it down gently over a number of weeks. The best book I found was Fat Bloke Slims by Bruce Byron. He said a couple of things that rang true for me: first of all, you're likely to put on weight after bereavement (I think that's potentially a big cop-out, but I guess you are likely to shut up shop metabolism-wise and think it's OK to eat and drink a lot as life is short) and also most people have one weakness that kind of tips the balance. In his case, it was drinking every day - not very huge amounts, but still enough to pile on the kilos. Add into the mix less exercise, the effects of aging and voilà - a big orange greasy ball.

Anyway, this is my plan:

- two to four days a week off alcohol
- exercise of an hour each day (must not involve any equipment or going outside - do stuff like climb the stairs four at a time - but must involve good music)
- don't take it seriously
- change the scales over to stones and pounds rather than kilos because progress seems faster

The results:

- 15-20 cm off the waist (depending on how hard you breath in)
- about a pound lost a week (i.e. eight pounds) - but it's more like bumping down into certain brackets where you can go three or so pounds each way.

All I need to do now is spin this out for another 150 pages and I can write a best-selling diet book.

Congratulations

2009-04-18T10:33:00.002+02:00

....to a couple of people

(they know who they are)

and their new arrival.

Dealing with spies

2009-04-17T07:41:00.005+02:00

In another example of dastardly espionage, we recently caught this delegate from OUSA Greenland trying to peek in on an OUSA Belgium meeting, which was open anyway. We hadn't the heart to tell him that clandestine recording and closed meetings are both SO last century.

Discretion

2009-04-16T16:05:00.002+02:00

The most important member of OUSA Belgium agrees with us that discretion is the better part of valour. Here she demonstrates how to blend into the background while remaining alert.

Optimism

2009-04-16T15:50:00.007+02:00

From a US mailbox.

Plus, by request, a poem (about travel - an exercise in terza rima)

LANDING
Under a plastic, sweating white skin
Humans plant down like bowed little trees
Sealing their growth in dry air and din.

'I ought to try to move my old knees,'
says a woman from old Pakistan,
flying her hair in a man-made breeze.

'Look Will, I'm not in tune with this plan,'
says a suit. Clouds smile out a gap:
It's land, scarred like a tramp with a tan.

'Seatbelts on with the usual crap,'
thinks a steward who coughs at the mike,
and turns off our fictional map.

We bump and shake and fret but quite like
how Earth pushes at us like a spike.

Arcades, Benjamin, surrealism etc.

2009-04-15T12:50:00.004+02:00

Remember my posts the other day about surrealism

http://mikeinbrussels.blogspot.com/2009/04/twist-of-malice.html and http://mikeinbrussels.blogspot.com/2009/04/narcissism.html?

Well, for those interested (hello no-one! - haven't I seen you nowhere before?) the University of Essex (always good to plug Essex) has a good resource (as I think you're supposed to call it) which also publishes a journal. A good article (bit esoteric at times for me though) here http://www.surrealismcentre.ac.uk/publications/papers/journal1/index.htm talks about arcades, rather like the ones in Bologna. This is a self-consciously militant view on Walter Benjamin (he's a kind of Marxist rabbit) and arcades http://www.militantesthetix.co.uk/waltbenj/yarcades.html and it also has a great pink background. Brussels supposedly has the first covered arcades in the world - so take that Parisians!

Less ponce-ily (or maybe not), arcades like the one on the right in Bologna, particularly when captured on photo (or even better in painting or in writing) can be kind of passages into dreams and other subconsciousnesses - more so perhaps than the kind of arches or arcades you'd find in a cathedral or bank (or even the arched window in Play School). I wrote a very bad poem indeed about arcades, but I like the arcade concept: arches soaring upwards yet being closed in, just like consciousness is rooted in subconsciousness and topped off by our extinction, and constantly reflected in the shopping windows of our life's journey. They protect you from the rain too. Gosh!

Vampires

2009-04-14T13:56:00.003+02:00

Rumours that OUSA has been taken over by vampires were recently confirmed by this photographic evidence.

Bel....

2009-04-13T17:07:00.005+02:00

....is a small town near Geel (North East of Brussels - about one hour's drive) famous for its sandy soil. As you can see, this extends even into the woods.

Bel is on the TOM-TOM but it is not on many maps - we found our way there by negotiating the Aarschot Ring, which has a windmill so is more pretty than it sounds.

The unmarked walking route (10 kilometres plus 1000 kilometres and/or years wasted trying to understand the stupid directions in our guidebook) starts by an old graveyard and then takes you to lots of gloomy pine forests. We needed the walk though as last night we went out with a group of very select young ladies, the oldest of which was 88 - think we had about four courses.

Schaerbeek........

2009-04-13T17:01:00.007+02:00

.......is a suburb of Brussels. As you can see, they go in for cherry trees in a big way.

Don't forget you can click on photos to make them look big.

Narcissism

2009-04-12T14:58:00.001+02:00

As a kind of brief follow-up to the excursion into surrealism - went to this exhibition about shop windows http://www.fondationpourlarchitecture.be/docs/pdf/2008/boutique_presse_en.pdf and included in it was a brief bit about surrealism's interest in reflections, and all that. So here's a Narcissus. Not for sale as it has been dead-headed.

A Twist of Malice

2009-04-12T09:43:00.001+02:00

........and Happy Easter too!

A Twist of Malice is the title of a collection of poems by grey-haired (one assumes) women. You can find a proper review here http://www.saltpublishing.com/horizon/issues/02/text/boden_julie_review.htm (scroll down). I read it through in one sitting last night. Top marks for accessibility and entertainment value, although the effect of loads of poems with basically a similar array of messages (leading on from the various sections the poets have to work in) and props (contemporary British life zzzzzzz) is a bit numbing. It's the kind of stuff you could read on the train, but you're unlikely to remember it for the rest of your days. I counteracted the effect of all that reality and short-term pyrotechnics by reading some surrealist love poetry - http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/098710.html - more to my taste, although the celebratory tone of the surrealist stuff is arguably just as dubious and gendered as the tone of the more cynical grey hens. Best really just to go and eat a cake.

Les petits snobs belges!

2009-04-11T08:33:00.007+02:00

That was what three men from Paris called us last night because we wouldn't go with them to a pub called The Loft.

Still, they weren't that bad - and as they were all younger than us maybe it was a compliment.

Here's a picture of me in Paris lying stomach-down on the pavement in order to adore the locals.

The lady on the bike

2009-04-10T12:02:00.003+02:00

Last night I was on the phone to someone (famous landlady) and there was a knock at the door. My landlady friend then said 'Oh - it's a young lady on a bike'. The young lady on a bike then said that she'd come round to watch a video and she wasn't young. Then she asked the famous landlady why the lights had all been switched off. I ended the call then.

We have just been to the garden centre and got a lychnis for Liz that should turn orange (here's another orange flower to tide you over ). Also today we are off out tonight in Brussels downtown. I have just read an interesting OU text about High Albania in the Edwardian era - you can also trace the background in the Times (one of the perks of the OU Library - I'm only in it twice though I think).

It shouldn't be here!

2009-04-09T18:51:00.005+02:00

This is a forget-me-not that really is not supposed to be in our garden, but I like it.

Spookily enough, our poetry group was delving into the past today. There was a great poem about the remains of a Tudor banquet, another one about the ghost of Jacqueline du Pré and I came up with this poem about borders.

ON FIRST CROSSING THE IRON CURTAIN

One eighties morning, we and our coachload
went through the few metres of road and,
feeling young and tanked up on Weissbier,
decided to wave to the guard, just before
she boarded the coach, and looked at
our faces and passes and lives.

Having processed that look, now, some
thirty years later, much closer to
that town next door called death, the place
where we'll be picked up by the thing
we're trying to fence out and fleece,
our bounded humanity,

I want to set off along a line, stroll
along the cheeks and the eyes and
the tomato-rouged lips of Frau Whatever,
all of a sudden smiling and then
darkening as the alsations barked.

Memories: strange-toned streetlamps
beside a moving walkway, where
distance is hard to judge and
we half-panic as we turn the bend.

What's happening today

2009-04-09T09:58:00.002+02:00

After last night's celebrations, today will be quiet. So far I've done a bit of work for my current OU course, written a poem about the Iron Curtain (to be precise the border crossing at Hof in 1983) and have added another post to OUSA Overseas News http://ousaoverseasnews.blogspot.com/, and I also have to do the ironing. Really all these events are interlinked - ironing is a metaphor for how we imagine we can de-crinkle time and experience before they get soiled and creased again.

Blow-out

2009-04-08T09:26:00.003+02:00

Following news that OUSA was now allowing the new Australia Branch to spend money on catering, the locals went wild.

Coulis scrumptious

2009-04-08T08:35:00.001+02:00

Here's what our friends cooked us last night (inter alia).

22nd anniversary blog

2009-04-08T08:26:00.002+02:00

22ND ANNIVERSARY BLOG

We were on the floor, in

a formal pose, our

hands fast approaching

the rest of our lives.

As the room dimmed,

a few warm hours

before the first shared sunrise,

I asked you to stay.

'Stop the blog now,' you'll say,

'Keep it all private.'

But I will send to the world
how much impulse a first touch can give

how much time a first moment can bear

how much heat a first kiss can leave

and how you will forgive me this.

Borders

2009-04-07T08:36:00.005+02:00

Today I have to write something about the borders of Europe (not sure why gardening is relevant to European studies though) and tonight we are out for dinner.

International cuisine strategy

2009-04-06T18:44:00.003+02:00

As part of OUSA's international cuisine strategy, OUSA Belgium's most important member bravely took part in a cultural exchange with Britain.

Political Correctness

2009-04-06T13:11:00.002+02:00

Following complaints, OUSA has recently successfully campaigned for the Underground in Gay Paree to be rebranded along more straight-friendly lines.

Paris

2009-04-06T12:58:00.004+02:00

So here we were in Paris - this is the Pont d'Auteuil - the Eiffel Tower is overshadowing the Statue of Liberty (symbolic of the state of the world I guess). Auteuil is an interesting area to explore - a bit off the beaten track perhaps. We also went to the Musée Marmottan http://www.marmottan.com/ and had a good night out on the town.

Today I got back to reality by going to the dentist. He said 'If you like, we can give you a bridge', which just goes to show how everything is connected to everything.

Conference mystery

2009-04-06T12:48:00.002+02:00

When asked why the OUSA Celtic Fringe seemed to be four bottles of wine missing, OUSA Belgium's most important member said she had no idea.

What's happening today

2009-04-05T09:09:00.003+02:00

Well, it's Palm Sunday which commemorates Christ entering Jerusalem to be crucified, using economy transport (something all OUSA Conference delegates will identify with). Yesterday atheists celebrated Sole Saturday in which they take off Richard Dawkins' shoes and socks, and kiss his feet in an attempt at meme transfer.

We're off to Paris to visit some friends who have had a rough year (Crewe Alexandra supporters).

Conference excitement

2009-04-04T15:47:00.004+02:00

On being told that (right now) O U S A Conference was discussing Constitutional matters, O U S A Belgium's most important member found it hard to contain her excitement.

What's happening today

2009-04-04T09:02:00.003+02:00

Hmmm - writing this what is happening bit every day is a bit boring, just like my life.

I must say I like blogging though - there's something satisfyingly lonely about it, like being a DJ spinning obscure tracks in the middle of the North Sea.

I guess in OUSA terms anyone who is anyone is at Conference at the moment - but I guess there is a world outside it. For example, I have just met our neighbours in the street and said:

'Bonjour - il fait beau, hein?'

to which they said

'C'est magnifique!'

For those of you who don't know French that translates as:

'Hello - I have a lovely foot, do I not!'

'Yes - if only I had a magnifying glass so I could look at it all day.'

I also had a dream last night about the garden being invaded by mice-daleks: kind of dalek-size mice on two legs with an exterminator growing out of their nose.

2009-04-03T17:40:00.002+02:00

The suggestion that OUSA Belgium be renamed OUSA London East got a slightly frosty reception

The art of rhetoric

2009-04-03T07:48:00.006+02:00

Here in OUSA Northern Europe we are very keen to train Conference delegates in the art of rhetoric. Here is an excerpt from one of our training videos demonstrating how to oppose a motion successfully based on carefully selected briefing. Note how the delegate from Southern Europe on the left proposing the motion tries to get away with making the same point twice and how skillfully the Northern Europe delegate on the right opposing the motion um.............outplays him by making the same point three times.

What's happening today

2009-04-03T07:22:00.002+02:00

I must get down to studying zzzzzzzzzzzz - yesterday btw was a great day - many thanks to Eric for lunch. We also had a good time last night - I found some forsythia in my pockets just now but can't remember why I put it there. The only sour note yesterday was sad news from Maz - Maz puts the 'maz' in amazing.

Advice

2009-04-03T07:15:00.002+02:00

Here in OUSA Northern Europe we are often asked by the millions of people wanting to volunteer for OUSA about how many ranks there are in the organisation and how easy is it to get to the top. Our advice is to keep your ambitions modest, sit back and enjoy the view as much as you can, and be prepared to change position should there be food downstairs.