Imagine my horror upon discovering that, after my initial burst of blogging euphoria, it had been more than a month from my last posting. I quickly strove to correct this, creating the following (the accompanying podcast will be uploaded in a few days):
Back at the end of October was half term, which saw me visiting Ghent, probably the most beautiful place I've ever visited (apart from under my duvet in the early hours). Below I present a picture of what could possibly be the most ornate Fish Market in the world:
Imagine buying your halibut from that! Also, you can see what I would describe as 'Beautiful building overkill': a cathedral, a bell tower and a large church right next to each other:
The two buildings below (notice the tower of the large church to the left of the belltower) were the other side of a square from the badboy above. Ghent seems to like packing its punches in nice and tight:
The Cathedral was ornate to a scale that puts Lincoln to shame and features not only a Rubens' painting (which was pretty mind blowing) but also a Van Eyck.
And here's a picture of the castle:
In blogging, as in life, it never rains; it pisses it down so hard you get pneumonia. So here's some more things for your eyes and mind:
An interesting thing about The Netherlands is that most of their beers are imported from Belgium, because the people in that country have an uncanny knack of making good stuff. Last month I discovered a brand which I have not seen anywhere since: Piraat (or pirate, in english) beer:
http://www.vansteenberge.com/htm/2en/21200en.htm. It's 10.5% vol. (would pirates drink anything less? I think not!) and according to the linked website "This is a world-class amber colored beer. American beer connoisseurs give it 98 out of 100. No other beer scores better." It is unprovable and probably fictitious phrases like this that the large, unregulated and unrefrerenced network like the world wide web was designed for. It's also interesting to note that on the same website the beer Augustijn is described as: "It is somewhat less well-known, but according to beer enthusiasts without a doubt the best and finest beer made by brewery Van Steenberge." So who knows which is best.
I found out yesterday that one millionth of a century is only 52 minutes. How many millionths of a century have you wasted today?
The American election, eh? You can tell it's going to be a good government when someone is voted for simply because they're not somebody else. Not that I'd know anything about it; due to my mistrust of the Corporate News-Media I only get my American political information via
Stephen Colbert...
And finally: Belgium had a revolution! In 1830! After an opera! Now there's something they don't teach you in school. (Probably because they're to busy teaching you about the Nazis and the wrongs of every other country in the world apart from our own). Which reminds me about a fantastic I saw on TV a while ago and recently rewatched. It suggests that the First World War was really a war over oil, being that the first British troops of the war were despatched in the Middle East rather than in Europe; that Germany was attempting to build a massive railway line to transport oil from there and that this would spell trouble for a British Navy which had just switched from oil to gas. (Also it's not really believable that any country would put massive amounts of time and resources into defending a country as economically insignificant and resource bereft as Belgium (no matter how good their beer and chocolate is)). The video is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQhhrzHKMhI. It's in 9 parts.
The program also explains the Euro/Dollar theory for the invasion of Iraq - something I didn't give much creedence to until I remembered the amount of countries that America had 'intervened' in during the 20th Century:
1911 - Mexico (supported insurection of pro-British Fransisco Madero)
1912 - Mexico (supported insurection against now anti-American Fransisco Madero . By 1914 Mexico was in Civil War)
1915 - Haiti
1916 - Dominican Republic (pro-American Dictatorship implemented)
1917 - Cuba (pro-American dictatorship implemented)
1950 - Korea
1953 - Iran (Britain and US backed overthrow of elected president and pro-West despot installed)
1954 - Guatemala (CIA topples elected president Jacobo Arbenz Guzman and pro-American leader installed)
1961 - Cuba (Bay Of Pigs)
1964 - Vietnam
1970 - Chile (Nixon asks CIA to look into the possibility of a coup d'etat)
1973 - Chile (coup d'etat occurs, though American involvement debatable)
1981 - Nicaragua (Reagan authorizes a covert CIA force made of Nicuraguan exiles with the aim of overthrowing the government)
1983 - Grenada (invasion against Marxists)
1985 - Poland (backs anti-Soviet efforts ($8million a year)
1989 - Panama (invasion)
1992 - Somalia
1994 - Haiti
etc.
although, of course, all this is nothing compared to the British Empire at the height of Imperialism and Colonialism.
dp
p.s. actually it all got a bit dark and serious at the end there.
Tot ziens!
