Paperwork

One fine pastime an EU correspondent has, when there’s nothing else to do, is to read the questions from Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to the EU Commission, which are published every now and then – together with the answers from the Commissioners – whenever the printing room has filled its capacity, I suppose; the latest bunch of Q and A is about half an inch thick.

Still, it’s certainly amusing reading, not least when you sense the ill-concealed fury expressed in the questions – the MEPs are a frustrated lot – and because of the just as ill-concealed attempts by the Commissioners to answer without actually saying anything.

No issue is too trivial. Whistleblower Paul van Buitenen MEP wants to know why the EU’s anti-fraud office OLAF is so aggressively incompetent, why he doesn’t get any response to his questions, and why those who have leaked the information on OLAF’s lack of competence are being persecuted. Caroline Lucas MEP is being informed how many journeys Commission staff hade to make to the Parliament’s sessions in Strasbourg – 3,500 last year, in spite of the presence of such inventions as e-mail, fax and telephone, at a cost of EUR 2.4 million, it turns out. Out of these, 55 per cent decided they needed to fly, 35 per cent were happy to go by car, and only seven per cent were environmental-friendly enough to take the train, the response sums up, which must mean that there are three per cent of the travellers who either walk from Brussels to Strasbourg or get lost on the way.

Maybe the Commission has become so large these days that doesn’t notice if 95 people go AWOL. Don’t tell the staff. It might be detrimental to their morale.

Anyway.

The question is, though, whether Christopher Heaton-Harris MEP doesn’t walk away with some kind of prize this time, as he contributes with a fine nugget, asking how many tonnes of paper the Commission used during 2004-2006.

1,703 tonnes in Brussels and 254 tonnes in Luxemburg in 2006, Commissioner Siim Kallas patiently responds, adding figures for the two preceding years that show that the Commission is actually munching less and less A4 office paper; its appetite has dropped by some 250 tonnes during that period. The Commission recycled about twice as much, Siim Kallas adds, because the recycling figures includes paper and cardboard coming from outside the Commission, such as packaging material, publications, documents from other institutions (and, I suppose, protest letters from the general public and odd questions from MEPs.)

So now you know: The Brussels Paper Tiger is actually getting easier on the environment. But we do not know how thirsty it is, however, because the next question from MEP Heaton-Harris – “How many bottles of water were consumed by staff at the European Commission in 2006?” is met with the response “The figures… are being sent direct to the Honourable Member and to Parliament’s Secretariat [sic]”.

I wonder what the Honourable MEP intends to do with them.

Yuck

I think I’ll use gloves next time I go shopping. Consider this information from one of my favourite sites, which you can read all about if you click here:

“According to a four-year study conducted by the University of Arizona’s Environmental Research Lab and sponsored by Clorox, grocery carts are veritable petri dishes teeming with human saliva, mucus, urine, fecal matter, as well as the blood and juices from raw meat. Swabs taken from the handles and child seats of 36 grocery carts in San Francisco, Chicago, Tucson, and Tampa showed these common surfaces to rank third on the list of nastiest public items to touch, with only playground equipment and the armrests on public transportation producing more disgusting results. In terms of playing host to germs and bacteria, the carts are far worse that public bathrooms…”

And to think of all the unpackaged foods you put in contact with the carts. And to think of how my children sometimes lick the handles.

Howard Hughes was right after all.

The Teletubbies Cometh

Among yesterday’s most amusing moments in my microcosmos was when a Polish journalist asked the EU Commission’s press spokesmen at the daily press conference what comment the Commission had on Poland’s decision to investigate whether Teletubbies are propagating homosexuality.

“Does the Commission believe that the Teletubbies are of a bad influence on young children?”, the Polish journalist asked, audibly with her tounge firmly placed in her cheek.

“The Commission believes in the freedom of the media”, was the short answer, accompanied by roaring laughter from the press gallery.

Because, yes, this idea, which was first suggested by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, has been revived in Poland, where child ombudsman Ewa Sowinska was to investigate Tinky Winky’s sexual orientation. The collected evidence for these allegations are:

1) Tinky Winky is purple.

2) Tinky Winky carries a handbag.

3) Tinky Winky’s head antenna is vaguely shaped like a triangle.

That’s it.

It may be laughable, especially when you start asking yourself in which ways any gender is associated with the Tubbies – for all I know, they could all be girls – or whether they are capable of having relationships with each other of such a nature that would make homosexuality, according to its biological definition, possible. But Ms. Sowinska took the whole thing very seriously and was to consult psychologists and their likes in order to reach at a verdict.

Today I heard that the whole investigation has been dropped. Congratulations, Polish taxpayers.

That leaves us Christians as the only ones still associated with this barmy statement. I do not know even where to begin being angry with all this.

Not only because of the very idea of having my faith connected with what is best named paranoid conspiracy theories, and not only because it attempts to curb free speech – even if this had turned out to be a gay lobby agenda, the rights for gays to promote their ideas is still my right to promote mine – but also because there is so much more worse garbage out there which is openly poisoning children’s minds, and where it is evident every day that the children copy what they see – in terms of violence and aggressive behaviour.

In fact, I have even had to remove a channel from or TV because our kids spent too much time watching cartoons that were clearly intended for an older audience, as they began learning violent behaviour from it. It took me about 45 seconds to exercise my right to choose in such a way, without having to call for government assistance. And another few minutes to explain to them why it is bad to hit people. Problem solved.

And therein lies probably the most ridiculous thing about all this. If you are uncomfortable with a flannel doll wearing pink, carrying a handbag, and having a triangle on its head, then, for crying out loud, switch to another channel or remove it from your dial. No-one is holding a gun to your head and forcing your kids to watch it.

Shutdown, A Survival Guide

Today was one of those days that you might call Survival Day here in Belgium. It’s a public holiday – the day after Pentecost – which means that all is closed. Complete shutdown.

Fine, I certainly think people need time off. But when it goes over more than a normal weekend, life suddenly becomes an exercise in Urban Survival.

Cash is first. Cash dispensers (ATMs) usually dry up on day three of any given long weekend, in central Brussels usually on Sunday nights I am told, so the first thing to do is to raid the hole in the wall. I normally don’t like to carry a lot of cash around for security reasons – cash in my wallet is in great danger of being spent – but since I’ve had quite a lot of problems with my VISA card lately, you can’t rely on your card being useful.

Then comes food and supplies. Supermarkets are usually shut on Sundays, basically with no exceptions when it comes to the usual chains, and they remain as shut on extra holidays. At the same time, all family will be in to eat every meal at home, you might want to get a little extra this-or-that for your extra time together, and oh maybe someone might drop by as well. So, next thing is to work out your prep list and try to foresee all the variables that come with having kiddies; for instance, sudden surges in milk consumption.

(I have many times considered buying a cow, which would take care of the need for mowing the lawn as well, but it probably couldn’t keep up with the demand in this family. In fact, I was delighted when we first moved here to see that our farming neighbour had three cows just across the fence, and I quickly asked him in my lousy Dutch if we couldn’t buy milk directly from him. He burst out laughing and laughing, and then gave me a basic biology lesson explaining why a cow without a calf doesn’t produce any milk. OK, I thought, I’m a city boy, fair cop; but then it turned out that he’d been sharing this amusing story about those crazy city-folks for foreigner newcomers with half the village.)

Then you need to make itiniary plans. Belgium has roughly ten million inhabitants, but I can assure you that there are at least twenty million cars out on the motorway around Brussels alone during any given rush hour during normal workdays. During long holidays, the Belgian roads are little else than oblong car parks. So if you plan on going somewhere – get out early. And no, traffic doesn’t get lighter during the day because everyone else would be heading out early too – we’ve tried that; the less said about that day, the better.

This time, I thought I had it all worked out. Every food storage area in our apartment was properly stocked. We were staying at home to relax. I had the cash I needed. But of course we ran out of milk anyway, and then, well, er, there’s no easy way of saying this, but… ehrm, let’s just skip the reasons, and say that we ran out of toilet paper, and leave it at that. And when you do, especially for the very reasons that cause you to run out of such items, you simply must go and get more.

Luckily, we have by now mapped the waterholes for such events. There’s a lovely little shop down in central Sint-Pieters-Leeuw called (simply) Deli Traiteur, which has assumed the mission of staying open whenever everyone else stays shut. It’s great business for them, and they’re pretty well stocked as well. AND they’re always nice and friendly. AND the shop is neat and inviting. AND they always happily take my VISA card.

I just checked their web site and it turns out that they have more than twenty branches all over Brussels, all with generous opening hours. I haven’t visited them all, of course, but if they’re as good as the one we go to, they’re well worth being your first call in case of holiday horror. They’re a bit expensive, which is why we don’t shop there regularly, but on a shutdown day, it’s worth every cent. Bedankt!

As a little irrelevant twist, our local Deli Traiteur this time was displaying a set of premium spices from the Swedish company Santa Maria – in a display box with all text in Swedish. Quite a strange sight. Which you won’t get to see here, of course, because I forgot to take my camera as usual.

(By the way, there’s a famous news photographer in the US, also named Jonathan Newton. Maybe all the photographic DNA from the gene pool of all Jonathan Newtons has been sucked out to him… that would explain one or two things. Any other Jonathan Newton out there who is as bad at taking pictures as I am who can confirm this?)

I Don’t Remember

I Don’t Remember, I don’t recall/I got no memories of anything at all…

I’m quite sure there is something I’ve promised to do on Saturday, but I just can’t remember what it is!! Isn’t that scary when it happens?

I have a flashback memory snippet of me being asked to do something, then turning to my wife to double-check that there wasn’t anything else going on on that day, and then accepting. But what was it?

Readers of this blog must be getting worried about my mnemonic capacity (or, rather, the lack of it) – just think of this, and this, and some other blog entry that I’ve forgotten.

I bought a couple of upgraded RAM memory sticks for my stationary computer the other day – no, I haven’t forgotten to put them in, I’m just waiting for the heatsinks that I ordered separately – and that made me wonder why on Earth I can’t order some extra RAM for my brain as well.

However, at least you have an explanation for the periods when there are no new entries on this blog: I’ve probably just forgotten to write something new.

Now, there was something else I was going to say about that… oh bother.

Euromyths, Part 2 (Long Overdue)

Yes, I did promise a few more juicy myths about the European Union quite some time ago, but hey, I’ve been working. 🙂 Anyway, here’s an old favourite:

Myth: The EU headquarters hosts a multi-storey super-computer, called “The Beast”, which tracks the movements of all people on the face of the Earth. This is a predecessor of the forthcoming Antichrist rule of the world.

This is a myth that has only started to fade, probably to the improvements of technology, which has by now made most people realise that there is no longer any need for any multi-storey computers; the computer you use to read this is probably more powerful. Nevertheless, it is still put forward as truth, as I noticed when doing some quick research for this blog entry, and was pretty widespread for many years among many of my fellow Christians who believe that the EU in some way will be either the personification itself or a vehicle for the anti-Christian rule of the last days foretold in the Book of Revelation.

I shall deal more in detail with the idea that the EU has such a function in a forthcoming Euromyths blog entry, because it deserves some attention in itself. However, let’s get past this computer stuff first.

This is actually a myth whose origins, unusually enough, can be traced.

It all started with a novel, Behold A Pale Horse by Joe Musser, published in 1970; a fictionalised account of the last days as foretold in the Bible, in the same genre as would later be popularised by the Left Behind series. As the account goes, there was a mention of such a computer in that book, which was later put to graphic depiction when the book was made into a film, The Rapture. The film was marketed with some mock newspaper-like publications running “the story” about the super-computer.

Apparently, the disclaimer on these fake papers was either too obscure or not prominent enough, and the story was picked up as fact and passed on. Joe Musser himself is said to have been shocked that his fiction was being reported as fact, and has tried to refute it, but to no avail.

It is easy to see why this fiction was so readily believed by so many. Remember, in those days and for many more years to come, computers were very unknown and very scary. They were usually seen as anonymous threat, often possessing some kind of human-like attributes. When I grew up in the 1980s, for instance, there was a very real and vivid public debate about how the computerisation of society would increasingly steal people’s jobs, if not making humans obsolete altogether in one area after another. The whole Terminator film series builds on this very premise, and “The Computer” was named Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1982, further cementing its status as bearing human qualifications.

For generations, Christians have read the last Book of the Bible with varying degrees of fear and awe, anxiously trying to identify the various characters there in their own time. Come the early 1970s, suddenly things would have fallen into place: ‘Of course… the Beast won’t be a real human… it’s a computer.’

Add to that the general ignorance of what computers were in those days, as well as the limited possibilities to check urban legends during the pre-Information Age, and you have fertile ground for computer lore.

One might think that the idea would have fallen on its own unreasonability, to anyone who would stop and think. In those days, the then Common Market that would later evolve into the EU only had six member states, becoming nine in 1973. Violently gigantic chunks of the globe were outside of the Common Market’s reach; not only the Americas or Africa, but the entire Communist world, which certainly would never have fed the Western world any details of its inhabitants!

To make things even more complicated, not even the member states themselves had much track of their citizens; Britain, for instance, one of the new members in 1973, lacks a central population register to this day. To imagine that there would be any interest, capacity, or even resources within the Common Market of a few Western European nations to go out and e.g. identify inhabitants of remote tribal villages in Borneo’s jungles or Australia’s outback is so outrageous that it should have made even the most hardened conspiracy theorist stop and think.

Satellites were rare and certainly not commercially available, wireless communication clumsy, and digital technology in its infancy – the sheer logistic and technological problems of such a scheme would have been impossible to overcome. And then there is the question of who on Earth would have been prepared to pay for such a venture, bearing in mind how picky member states havd usually been about not paying one penny more than necessary to the Common Market/EEC/EC/EU and getting as much as possible back.

As readers of this blog know, the most commonly named location for this machine – the famous Berlaymonster – was gutted between 1991 and 2004. There are no records of any such technology being either found or transported from that site, nor has anyone who would have worked at the site come forward with any such revelation. And mind you, they have come forward in other contexts, most notably to complain about the hazards they were exposed to when tearing out all the asbestos in there.

And, once again, needless to say, computer technology of the 1970s won’t exactly let you play your favourite PlayStation games.

It is true that the EU has traditionally been quite advanced in terms of databases – for Community legislation and the like; in the same way as we now take for granted that most official documents produced by any government are available over the Internet.

If ever I come across any suspicious-looking computer equipment at the EU, I promise you’ll be the first to know. Until then, you can safely assume that this is a myth.

(Footnote: To avoid all misunderstanding, maybe I should add that I have not taken any of the above pictures at any computer centrals in any EU buildings. In fact, I have not taken them myself at all, but happily gleaned them from Wikimedia Commons’ Historical Computers category. They depict, from top to bottom, the SAGE AN/FSQ-7 at the American air defence NORAD; Harvard Mark I; an R2-D2-looking tin can from the now defunct Datasaab – believe it or not, called Datasaab D2!; and the ENIAC.)

Great News!

The three public transport bodies in Belgium have agreed to introduce one single card, that will entitle to travels on all oublic transport in the entire country. Now that’s great news, and something that a number of other countries have yet to even think of!

That means that I can actually take the bus that stops some 300 metres from my doorstep to the metro some three kilometres away, without having to buy two tickets. That is in theory the case today (although you can go around it if you remember to buy Brussels public transport tickets in advance, because you can use them on the Flemish buses in the outskirts of Brussels, whereas the Flemish bus tickets are not valid on Brussels buses, trams or metro trains.)

The only catch is that this new unified ticket is to be introduced “towards 2010”.

Hm.

That means it will probably take another 20 years or so until it actually works. Nice idea though.

Ja Vi Elsker Dette Landet

Life in Brussels is far from only the usual vortex of EU and Belgian culture. Far from it. Rather, it’s a mix and a mosaic and a melting pot, all at once. So it was only half unexpected that we should get invited to celebrate Norway’s national day last Thursday.

The connection point was our friends Mark and Sigrid. He, being a British gentleman, wanted to surprise his Norwegian wife by taking her to the huge celebrations held at the Scandinavian school and Norwegian/Swedish church on her country’s national day, and had asked us secretly beforehand if we wanted to join in. After all, my wife is Swedish, I am half Swedish, and the children are a fine blend. Scandinavians all around, kind of.

Norway may not be in the EU, but has a representation that is so close to the Berlaymonster that the Norwegian flag is the first foreign flag you usually see in those quarters. What’s more, Norway is also an enthusiastic member of NATO, whose world headquarters are not far from where we go to church. So there are plenty of Norwegian people in Brussels, certainly enough to whip up a respectable bash.

I’m always in for a decent party. Great idea, we said, and on the big day of syttende maj, we set off.

The festivities had been announced as largely consisting of games for the kids, activities for the kids, fun for the kids, lotteries for the kids, hot dogs and soft drinks and anything else that can be creatively smeared on clothes, and everything else that, when combined with one four-year-old and one half-past-five-year-old, inevitably will induce wall to wall washing machine use. So, being fairly experienced parents and used to Swedish outdoor activities, we therefore collectively donned what is known in Sweden as “oömma kläder” (not-so-easily-ruined clothes).

Little did we know that we would be in for a shock.

Upon arrival, after the usual erroneous driving, we were met by National Pride Embodied. I kid you not: Everyone was wearing his or her absolute best. Not their Sunday best, that is, but their Very Best, the near-sacred garments that are kept for once-a-year events.

Every man in sight was in a suit and tie, all the way down to the smallest children. That is, with the exception of the majority of the people, who were instead decked out in their carefully crafted national dresses, painstakingly hand-sewn down to the last stitch, of the kind which you can see on the picture here (no, it’s not from the Brussels event, because of course I forgot my camera). All the way, of course, down to the smallest children.

My wife was wearing slightly less casual attire than the rest of us. I, wearing a black leather jacket and black jeans, asked my wife if I could hide behind her. My wife was offended by the very idea that I thought that I would be able to hide behind her.

The ambassador spoke. (And the people were asked to remain silent while he did so). The national anthem was played. (And the people didn’t have to be asked to stand to attention and sing, hands on hearts, tears in corners of eyes). The people marched around the courtyard in a procession. (And everyone cheered from the depths of their hearts).

Flags were waved everywhere with the pride that can only be mustered by a nation that only became fully independent in 1905.

Incidentally, in that year, the country they became independent from was – Sweden.

That in itself would have been enough to make us feel as popular at the celebration of that independence as bacon sandwiches at a Bar Mitzvah, but to add insult to injury, we suddenly discovered that we had managed to top off our oldest son’s jeans, sweater and gym shoes outfit with a cap with the word “Sweden” in large gold letters across the front.

We had him turn it back to front. The rear band of his cap had the word “SWEDEN” printed on it in large gold capital letters. We tried combing some of his hair over it. We regretted his latest haircut.

And then, the final insult: I had to take my youngest son to the bathroom – when you gotta go, you gotta go – which turned out to be inside the main building. We got inside. My son went into a cubicle. So did I. And then I discovered that the whole men’s room had large – large – windows facing the front courtyard. Outside those huge windows stood the brass band, solemnly playing Norwegian nationalistic music. In front of them stood the entire Norwegian Brussels colony, solemnly listening.

And solemnly watching.

And behind the brass band, remember, my four-year-old and I – citizens of the former occupying power – were peeing.

Luckily, there was no diplomatic crisis as a result. Thanks to the Norwegians themselves, whose other defining characteristic – apart, as we now have painstakingly learned by trial and horror, from national pride – is a deep, wide and profound sense of general friendliness. They didn’t chuck us out – on the contrary, they made us all feel very welcome and have a very good time.

So it was easy for us at the end of that day to agree with the first few words of the Norwegian national anthem: “Ja, vi elsker dette landet” – “Yes, we love this country”.

And be happy that I had decided to put the jeans with holes on both knees in the laundry bin the day before.

Disinventing Service, The Belgian Way

Belgian people are usually very friendly and nice when you meet them privately. We have many good friends here whom we appreciate very much, and who have been great blessings to know. So it is therefore extra tragic that as soon as you put a Belgian behind a counter or in any other service function, s/he turns into Basil Fawlty.

These last few week, I have had cascades of bad experiences of that kind, each of which is a story on its own. I have had to call, call, call, call, shout, yell, rant and rave at a car glass company to come and fix my car’s broken window as they had agreed to do (they finally turned up in the middle of the night), I have been scorned by checkout staff at my local supermarket for being a paying customer, I have been rudely told off by waiting staff for complaining that we didn’t get what we ordered at a restaurant – and had another argument when trying to explain that I wasn’t going to pay for food that I didn’t receive – and to round it off nicely, today, I had someone at the call centre of the famous Belgian rail company slam the phone down on me (after him being rude and generally disinterested) when I called and asked why their Internet booking system didn’t seem to accept any Visa cards (yes, there was enough money on them, yes, we did try several different cards).

Previous experiences include being yelled at by a toilet lady because my brother-in-law from Sweden, who only wanted to use the public lavatory, did not speak French; and the whole story about when it took Belgacom five visits and numerous calls to do such a simple thing as connecting a phone – at one point, they managed to hardwire us with our neighbour’s phone – is a story in itself that I hope to share some day.

My friend‘s tale of having to threaten a local appliances chain with legal action in order for them to hand her computer back to her after repairing it – her own computer – is a story she’ll have to tell herself.

I just can’t fathom this. More often than not, people in such functions act as if their jobs were so below them that their customers are, too. They take an attitude of being some sort of Government officials, before whom you’d better take your hat off and bow down in humility, for them to lower themselves to even hearing your request.

In fact, I have even found that it works better if you play Opposite World with them: if you as a customer constantly apologise to them, things work better.

The idea that we as paying customers pay their salary just doesn’t seem to enter their heads. Rather, they seem cross with us for keeping them at work, rather than sitting at the local pub drinking Hoegaarden on the taxpayers’ expense.

I know that this is a harsh way to say things. But during my total of about five years in this country, I have been so rudely treated so many times by so many different people who were supposed to be customer-friendly that I most certainly see a pattern. This just doesn’t happen in other countries. And I feel that it is time to speak up.

I do not want to be treated like a piece of dirt just because I’m getting my groceries. All I want is my groceries. You don’t even have to smile or say hi, like many don’t here, just check my stuff out and let me pay and I won’t bother you any more. But as soon as they make a mistake or mess up, they get angry with me.

In other countries, the customer is always right. In Belgium, the customer is always wrong.

There are some fine examples of the opposite, and I hope to one day be able to publish my own Good Brussels Guide of companies and shops who treat you well. But far to often to be acceptable in any way, you get the opposite. And that’s just not good enough.

Some 30 years ago, it was all the same in Britain. We British treated our customers like garbage, to our everlasting shame. We used to handle complaints by shrugging our shoulders and say “Sorry, I don’t know”; “sorry” here generally being used in this context meaning “I don’t know and I don’t care“.

But then came Basil Fawlty, and Monty Python’s Parrot Sketch, and we saw ourselves and how awful we behaved. We moved on.

You’d hope that there would some day be some Fawltieckxe Toren/Tour des Fawltieckx on Belgian TV, but frankly I doubt that it would do the trick. Basil Fawlty is quite an ordinary figure in Belgian everyday life, and I doubt very much that people would get the jokes at all… because his behaviour seems to be considered quite normal here.

(click to play)

Say Hi To Bono From Me

Unbelievable!

Only one day after I put a video clip with Bono on this site, I get to hear that he’s in town to meet EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso – and there’ll be a press conference later this evening.

I was hovering around in the EU Commission’s press centre trying to think of some excuse to attend that press conference – that would have required an intelligent connection between what I cover (the food industry) and what these gentlemen would be discussing (certainly not the food industry) – when the next thing happened: my computer’s battery ran flat.

Nothing unusual, not at all. But when I was to plug it in and recharge it… I found that I’d for ONCE forgotten the cable at home.

So there wasn’t much else to do than pack up and go home.

Yesterday, I found out on arrival at the EU quarters that I had forgotten my pen and note pad. Easypeasy, thought I, sailing down to the news agent around the corner from the Council… only to find that I had forgotten my credit card as well. I had just enough cash on me to buy a pen, but had to leave the note pad behind (I never take a lot of cash if I can avoid it).

This is worrying.

Strike, As If We Care

A number of mailmen and -women went on strike in Ghent today as a protest against their heavy workload.

Ehrm, excuse me, just exactly what do they want to achieve by this? The letters aren’t exactly going to go away – they’ll just pile up in the warehouses. And once Postman Piet and his colleagues get back to work, they’ll consequently have a much larger workload to deal with. Which was why they went on strike in the first place.

I’ve said it before: this country goes on strike way too easily and frivolously. Sometimes, it seems, without thinking about what the cost will be for themselves.

Monday Sermon

Take some time off and listen to the full twentysomething minutes of this, won’t you:

(click to play… for those of you reading this via feed, you probably have to click yourself to this blog post on my site first)

I Should Have Studied Russian

Zdrastvuj, drug!

I wish my attempts to study Russian hadn’t stopped there, with only a few more words and the ability to decode the Russian alphabet. I would have had much use for such skills today, as I seem to be surrounded by Russian-speaking colleagues at the EU Council’s Press Centre, where the EU’s foreign ministers and assorted colleagues will wriggle around the question what to do with the EU-Russian summit on Friday when the two are so at odds with eachother that they aren’t even pretending that there will be any outcome of that meeting; and when plenty of EU member states want the meeting called off altogether. (The reason for the fuss is a quick deterioration in EU-Russian relations, due to Russia’s blocking of Polish meat, which Poland takes as retaliation for being too friendly with the West, and due to Russia’s retaliation against Estonia for moving a Soviet-era monument, with thinly-veiled acts of economical warfare against EU member Estonia. Russia, on the other hand, seems to be having problems with the plans to post new US missiles in Poland and Hungary, pointing at Moscow.)

So you understand that I would have liked to do a little eavesdropping here and there, but sadly, twice have I started studying Russian and twice have I failed. The first time because I was only eight years old, and the second time because I was working as a journalist with irregular hours, and couldn’t attend a fixed-schedule evening course with any consistency.

On that occasion, my reason for attempting again was the increasing threat at that time of unrest in the former Soviet bloc, and the very real prospect of waves of refugees trying to make their waves across to Sweden, where I worked. In fact, another student at that same evening class turned out to be the head of the local state-run refugee camp administration. We quickly agreed that although we were there for the same reason, we equally hoped we wouldn’t have any imanent use for our newly acquired language skills. (We didn’t, it turned out.)

But maybe this time, it’s time to dust off the old Troika 1 textbooks in my bookcase once again. After all, the political development in Russia is becoming increasingly disturbing, and it is certainly casting its shadow over an increasing number of areas.

Going Bananas

I am writing this sitting in the back row of the main press briefing room at the European Council’s bastion. Today, we are all being told everything there is to know about Monday’s General Affairs and External Relations Coucil, with the EU’s chronic knack for acronyms usually called GAERC.

The briefing is off the record, but I managed to sneak up my camera and fire away this shot from my seat to give you an idea about what it looks like (don’t tell anyone, will you).

Waitaminit, you may ask now. What on Earth has a journalist covering the food industry got to do with the monthly meeting of foreign ministers?

The answer is that food issues more often than you think make their way even into foreign policy, international relations, and diplomacy. The reason that triggered my visit today was to find out whether or not there will be any discussion about banana imports, which apparently has ended up on the foreign ministers’ table between dossiers to be considered on US missile shields, Sudan and Darfur, the Middle East, the Balkans, and other things that you might have thought of more importance.

So far, there has been no mention about bananas, but there has been mention about the ongoing meat crisis between Poland and Russia. As you may or may not be aware of, Russia has blocked all meat imports from Poland due to alleged health safety concerns – or, if you ask the Polish, in order to punish the country for its outspokenness against Russia. Poland is one of the former Communist bloc nations that most enthusiastically threw itself into the arms of all things Western as soon as the Iron Curtain was lifted, and many suspect the Russians of wanting to make a point.

Regardless of what you think about that, it is an observable fact that Russia is putting on an impressive procrastination performance in order to stall any and every attempt to solve the issue. The latest correspondence came from Moscow only yesterday, and is already considered way inadequate here in Brussels.

The jury is still out on whether this feud will wreck the entire upcoming summit between the EU and Russia. Everyone assures us that the summit won’t be called off, but the very fact that such talk is circulating gives you an idea about how big this issue has become.

This is just how far-reaching effects all things food sometimes have. It is not merely a matter of eating to stay alive; food contains so much of culture, national pride, identity and politics that a heap of meat can ruin the relations between two of the world’s mightiest powers.

The defence ministers will also meet, but, so far, food related issues are not being discussed by them, I am happy to say. But don’t be surprised if that happens, too, one bad day. The world is smaller than we think.

Wait, now they’re talking bananas after all. Got to go!

Finally, The Police Arrived…

…but not to deal with the break-in in my car as it was parked behind a police station recently. Instead, a police officer just visited us to establish that we actually live here, all four of us; after the Belgian Home Ministry had asked them to do so.

We moved here in August 2004, and were visited some time later by a police officer with the same question, as is customary here. However, now they’re suddenly checking us up again, with questions we have already answered.

I put it nicely to the police officer that it was quite an absurd situation, where you’ll have yor car burgled behind a police station where they can’t even file the subsequent report of the crime but has to call in colleagues from somewhere else, while there are policemen enough to go around checking information that has already been submitted three years ago.

“I agree”, he said, “but I’m only doing my job”.

I accept that. As I have come to reconcile myself with the thought that the car break-in complaint will probably be properly filed some time around 2010.

Nice Gesture

It’s things like this that make you, all said and done, realise that you’re going to miss Tony Blair when he quits. I mean, it’s common courtesy for world leaders to congratulate newly-elected colleagues, but dressing down, going on YouTube, and doing it in French, in order to reach young people, is a brave and commendable thing to do indeed. If only you’d see more of this kind of stuff more often… maybe we’d avoid some of the more stupid confrontations that plague us.

(Press to play)

Mr. Toad

Today, I finally got my permanent accreditation badge at the EU, after being examined and scrutinised in all ways imaginable (and some unimaginable). Well, the gentle leady issuing the badge asked me if I wanted to retake the photo that goes on it. Sure, said I unsuspectingly, but when I saw the pic, I realised there must be something wrong with the camera they used.

Towards me stared the self-sufficient face of an old man, bearing only remote resemblance to what I consider being the image greeting me in the mirror each morning. A stuffy old git, with thin hair and fluffy cheeks, instead of the other way round. Yeaouwch! Is that suppose to be me?

I told my wife that I looked like Mr. Toad, and when I then showed her the picture, she started laughing uncontrollably. Naughty girl.

It didn’t get any better when I read the following definition of Mr. Toad on Wikipedia:

“Something of a fop, he is extremely rich, being the village squire and owner of Toad Hall, but is also conceited, impulsive, and lacking in basic common sense. He has a reckless obsession with motor cars, which lands him in trouble with the law.

Nevertheless, Toad is lovable and has his heart in the right place.”

Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

Off The Radar

Yes, I know, I have been off the blog radar for the last week. Simple reason: the annual Motivation Week. Wednesday was our wedding anniversary, Thursday my eldest son’s name day, Friday my wife’s birthday, Saturday my youngest son’s birthday, and Sunday the day we had the party to celebrate it all.

Think it sounds busy? Well, a couple of years ago, I had final exams week during that very same week as well, but I’ve managed to repress my memories of that.