BMPH3 Christmas Party 2006

The Brussels Manneke Piss Hash House Harriers always throws a spectacular Christmas Ball and this year was no exception. And, yes that is me with a rather fetching member of the Hash Committee called "Satan's Lill' Helper".

The Ball was held on 9th December in the Schuman district of Brussels only a few yards from the EU in L'Atelier, Rue Franklin. The whole thing kicked off at 7:30pm and the last guests were poured into their taxis at 05:15am the next morning - pretty good going as I know for a fact that many of those hardy souls had been out on the pre-Christmas pub-crawl the night before until the wee small hours. I left the former event at 4am and the latter - well I don't actually remember the time!

It is amazing how good some hashers look in dj's or posh frocks.

I did say, "some" - Higgins always looks kind of odd somehow!

The whole evening was very proper to start with


Then things started to get a bit wilder when the blow up doll appeared.


We had Oscar like nominations and awards for various categories like

• "Best Trail" for which myself and Baby Snatcher got a nomination for her farewell trail back in the spring (won by Puss in Boots and Naughty Nuke for an excellent trail earlier in the Autumn.
• "Best new comer" won by Half Monty (so called because he was always having his trousers pulled down)
• "Best turned out Hasher and Harriette" won by Lick'mm and Yark Sucker
  
• and finally the premier award was announced - "The Hashalong Memorial Award" for "Best Hare of the Year". To my amazement I WON! It was a real honour.

As well as the awards - and there were lots of others, but I forget what they were for we also had some entertainment and I was part of one of the sketches.

Four of us Brits got together and did the "Four Yorkshireman" sketch from Monty Python - you know the one "Eee Luxury, we used to dream of living in a cardboard box". It was very well received and we got a load of laughs.

After the dinner was over the dancing and disco started and things got a lot more hash like


To everyone's amazement no one, for the first time in living memory, took their clothes off (not even Higgins or Sex Goddess) - but we did have three or four gravity testers falling off bar stools, walking into glass doors or tripping over their own feet, but no one was hurt.

All in all an excellent night.

Of course, we were all out running the next morning. For further pictures see
Forrest Gulps official photographs of the Party and
Forrest Gulps photos of the hangover run

Spotted Dick's Birthday Run 2006 - 12 November 2006

Yes that is me in the silly hat. It is a BMPH3 tradition that you wear a hat on your birthday! A little late I know, but back last month I set a trail to celebrate my birthday.

I had been recce-ing the run for quite some time aided by a bit of direction from Mick Mac a veteran Hasher with the BMPH3 and my trusty GPS. I went out a total of 4 times before the run to walk in the Foret de Soignes to the south east of Brussels to find the trail.

I should have had a co-hare but I rather liked the idea of setting the trail by myself. Walking alone in the woods guided only by the GPS was a delight. The weather was wonderful - nice bright afternoons with a bit of a nip in the air and bright sunshine. The woods were incredibly beautiful.
Tall beech trees with silver green trunks seemingly propping up a canopy of green and gold. And apart from the occasional mountain biker no one around. I saw a little wildlife while was out - a deer and to my amazement 2 chipmunks - well they were small brown squirrels with pale stripes down their backs. Actually a few weeks after my run I actually saw a red squirrel in the forest.

The Google Earth/GPS map is a little complex to understand, but basically there were 3 trails. A Bulls' trail (a long one for good runners) that was about 12kms in length that went out deep into the forest using tunnels under the motorway that quarters the forest, a Chickens' trail that turns north and then loops down around the lakes to the south, and a Walker's trail that starts off following the Bulls trail, then short cuts across at the lakes to join the Chickens' trail. All the trails came together at a parking area under the motorway for a beer stop and then there was a 1km loop back through Rouge Cloitre to rejoin the out trail and then back to the start.

I started laying the trail at 11:30 and finally finished the last bit of the Bulls' trail at 3:00pm and then had to leg it (run) back along the main road to meet everyone at the start.

I was totally exhausted by the time I got to the start having been walking/running for three and a half hours and covering nearly 20km (12.5 miles), but I was really heartened to see such a large turn out - there were over 25 hashers keen to start running. I changed my tee-shirt, ate a banana, had a drink of water, put on the birthday hat and then was ready for the introduction. I explained there were 3 trails and asked for a show of hands as to who would be doing which trail - I was surprised to find there were at least 12 people who wanted to do the Bulls' trail - despite (or perhaps because of) my description of it as being "Long, smooth and hard".

I elected to re-run the Bulls' trail and had a great time watching the pack trying to solve the checks. I was very happy but totally exhausted by the time we got to the beer stop - and everyone was there - no one got lost and everyone said what a great trail it was.

Finally back at the start I estimated I had covered in excess of 32kms (20 miles) on foot that day! I was treated with the usual disrespect in the circle afterwards being given lots to drink - despite me saying I was trying to cut down and I was duct-taped to another birthday boy - Spare Rib.

We had an 'On After' in a local excellent restaurant, the Deauville, and again I was delighted by the turn out - 2 full tables. The food was wonderful - game - Yum Yum.

Everyone agreed that the trail was a really good one - I've now got a reputation to live up to!

Alton Downland Challenge 2006

Just for the record... I ran in the Alton Downland Challenge 10km race on 1^st October 2006 and got round in my personal best time for the course of 53mins 32seconds (101^st) – despite a thunderstorm half way round. See Downland Challenge 2006 Results (p2) if you want documentary proof!

Cider

The cider season has arrived little earlier this year, by about 2 weeks. I've made cider for the last 3 years using apples from my and, in previous years, my neighbours garden.

I've got 4 apple trees in the garden. There were 5 but one that produced lovely little pink apples died this year. Last year my most fruitful tree tried to commit suicide by falling over. I had to use a system of pullies and the car jack to push it vertical again and now it is permenantly propped up by a 5 foot length of 4x4 - the problems of living on a hill with clay soil I guess.

Anyway this year we had a mixed crop. The small tree at the bottom of the drive by the garage was very early with its fairly large crop small red apples but I missed most of these and they were on the whole rotten by the time I did my first press 2 weeks ago. The larger small tree at the bottom of the garden had a huge crop on it - I filled a sack with its windfalls 2 weeks ago and 6 sacks last weekend with apples picked off the tree. The big cooker had not produced much of a crop - about sack full last weekend and a few dozen windfalls the weekend before. Its acient neighbour that produces pentangular apples only manged one apple this year! It needs pruning and was very much in the shade of the neighbours hedge. That's been trimmed in the last few weeks and I will try to get it pruned this winter so we will see next year.

I went out 2 weeks ago and bought an apple crusher from the local home brew shop for a massive £220. I've been trying to buy one on eBay for years but they are as rare as hens teeth and the three that came up for sale this season all went for around £200 - second hand!

I just collected 2 sack fulls (compost bags) last week - about 60lbs of apples and crushed them in the garden with a little help from Janet. As well as the crusher I've got a press

that I bought 3 years ago. I used the kitchen and a bucket and propeller aparatus that was attached to an electric drill to crush the apples in previous years, but after a number of disasters I've been banned from the kitchen (floods of apple juice, crushed apple up the wall, marks on the kitchen table).

The old crushing method was a misery - noisy, messy and inefficient. The new crusher was a wonder, though it does need a proper stand - I propped it between 2 garden chairs this year. It munched its way through 3 or 4 apples a time in about a minute or so. The resulting pulp was then placed in the press - about a gallon's worth and then the handle was turned until I was blue in the face and covered in apple juice. The press is lovely to look at, and a fine peice of equipment except for its spout which dribbles backwards, so a bit of plastic had to be taped to it otherwise most of the juice would have ended up on the floor. The pressing starts of easily, but towards the end when the bar that is used to turn the thread is about 1 inch from the top of the cage the amount of effort required is considerable, especially towards the end of the day!

I started late (after lunch) 2 weeks ago and didn't finish until after dark. The two bags yeilded a little over 2 gallons of juice that I put in my wine fermenter and added some yeast. When I came home last weekend I transferred the cider to 2 demijohns and had to ditch a pint or so of semi-fermented juice. It just wasn't worth keeping as I didn't want to cross contaminate any new cider if the last batch was bad.

I started early and picked all the apples before lunch - 7 sacks full, and a total weight of 209lbs! After lunch with some sterling help from Janet we crushed and pressed all of them. It was hard work and we finished in the dark again, this time illuminated by Janet's car headlights so we could see what we were doing. That lot yeilded a massive 8.5 gallons. 6 gallons of apple juice in the wine fermenter and the remaining 2.5 split between 3 demijohns.

I don't think I've ever had so much cider - I can't make up my mind whether this was a particulary good year for the apples - certainly I don't remember so many from previous years, or whether it was the new crusher that helped.

Anyway all the containers had yeast added and were left to it under airlocks - and they were all bubbling away the next morning. The cider, all 10.5 gallons, is in the garage and it will stay there, unheated and undisturbed until the end of winter - though I may rack it once. Then this year I intend to bottle it early in February. In previous years I've bottled at Easter, but last year that was too late and I missed the secondary fermentation that occurs when the temperature rises so last years cider is a little flat.

Oh, by the way an interesting chemical reaction: Apple juice + skin + soap = black stain. My hands every year at this time of year look as if they belong to a chimney sweep - stained black. After the pressing they don't look too bad, but even after rinsing as soon as they are washed in soap they turn black as coal. This year at Janet's suggestion I managed to reverse the reaction to a degree by rubbing them with vinegar, but a week later my nails are still pretty black!

On Sunday I took the five sacks of dry crushed and pressed apples across to Sarah-Jane's and fed a sack to the piglets and a sack each to the very pregnant sows. They loved it and gobbled the lot down while we watched. I guess by now they've had the rest too.

Now all I've got to do is to decide how to drink 10.5 gallons of cider next summer. What a terrible problem!

On Terror

I know I might to be in trouble for this... but here goes anyway as I hope, given my circle of friends, that I am "preaching to the choir".

I was listening to some fellow Hashers talking over dinner the other day. Amongst the group were some old friends revisiting Belgium on a holiday from Canada talking about the security restrictions on the flight over. "Hell, it was really inconvenient, we had to queue for hours, but if it makes us safe then I don't mind". Everyone around the table nodded and agreed. Unusually for me I decided not to point out how shortsighted, fatuous, complacent and downright ignorant that statement was.

The point I bit my tongue over and didn't voice is that now this potential avenue for death and destruction has been closed we shouldn't feel any more or less safe than before it was exposed - I am sure there are hundreds of ways to get explosives on-board a plane and if all we do is go around closing off each one AFTER it has been tried then we are doing nothing for security and peace of mind, all we are doing is playing the terrorists game .

I think what should be far more relevant to our security than how someone was planning to blow up an airplane is who is trying to do it, why they were doing it, and what in fact they were trying to do - blow up the plane or spread terror, or both? If you look at it in from these points of view the latest precautions have in fact put the terrorists ahead of the game. We had a real intelligence coup foiling the plot which is fantastic and shows what can be done, but then we played straight into the terrorists “Plan B” – “Create Chaos Anyway”.

It must be remembered that even after the arrests there are still approximately the same number of terrorists (plus or minus), there are still many different ways of achieving death and destruction. Even better, from the terrorist's point of view, the "West" is wasting a huge amount of time and money "closing the stable door after the horse has bolted". BA announced today that they reckon the “security precautions" cost them £41million. We are achieving nothing beneficial by being afraid and antagonising innocent people who could help expose the terrorists through our sabre rattling and downright aggression on the world and domestic stage.

An analogy... imagine you are in your house on a hot summer's day and suddenly a big wasp comes in through one of the many open windows and starts dive bombing you. What do you do? Close the window and kill the wasp - OK, but what about all the other windows in the house. Do you wait for a wasp to fly through each one before you close it? And even if you are proactive and go and close every window in the house immediately - what will happen then? You will get very hot; those windows were open for a purpose, to cool you down, and isn't this an over reaction any way? Surely a better approach would be to ask yourself what attracted the wasp's attention in the first place and put the lid back on the jam, Then see if you can find the nest that the wasp came from and if it is too close to the house, get an expert in to destroy it. The answer to this problem clearly is not to fall into a panic and order gallons of fly spray, anaphylactic shock treatments and then going out dressed in an NBC suit and poke every wasp nest you find with a stick every time a wasp comes out of it no matter how close to your home it is.

Isn't it obvious that a calm measured response that balances threat versus the cost of avoidance and identifying the cause rather than the symptom is the sensible way to tackle this or any other form of risk?

So why are we treating the terrorist situation in such a stupid way?

With the terrorists we are being remarkably linear in our approach. After Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, everyone had their shoes checked before boarding a plane. I nearly got myself arrested in Paris airport shortly after that incident when I happened to remark to a security guard when he asked me to take my shoes off that it was a good thing Mr Reid hadn't put the explosive in his underpants. Now we can't take liquid on board, not even a tube of toothpaste because of a threat from a liquid bomb that probably was never made and certainly never carried on board a plane.

Eric, a friend of mine, pointed out the difficulties that would occur if someone were to take a breast implant, remove the silicone and replace it with a liquid explosive. It doesn't matter how viable a threat such a bomb is, all the terrorist would need to do would be leave this in a 'bomb factory' and then if the police to do raid the place and stumble across it they can offset the loss of the bomb material with the schadenfreude of watching the ensuing chaos. Can you imagine the scenes in the airports... and the dilemma... would it be fair just to examine the breasts of buxom women, or should all women have their boobs squeezed - but isn't that discrimination, shouldn't men be checked too, just to be fair and unbiased? And what do you do when you do find someone with breast implants - take her out to the runway and perform a 'controlled explosion'?

I think we need to start to take a holistic approach to the terrorist issue and employ a bit of lateral thinking, and behave in the same way as we would when tackling the wasp problem. We must never forget that not all Muslims want us dead or want to kill themselves in a suicide attack on us. The vast majority want to just get on with their lives and live according to their customs and beliefs. What we must do is identify those that do want to carry out terrorist atrocities and then ask ourselves why these particular ones people want to kill us, where are they coming from and why they are getting away with this outrageous behaviour. Focusing on their weapons alone, in the airports is far far too late and far too reactive. I know this sounds like the NRA slogan “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” but on this occasion I do think this kind of thinking is useful.

As well as being linear in our approach we are also being superficial and, lets face it, racist.

When the West looks at one of these Muslim terrorists as reported in the media they encouraged to just see the surface; the long wispy beard, the turban, the long flowing robe and the slightly odd loose-limbed way of moving (just think of the famous clip of Osma Bin Laden walking down that rocky slope). When the media shows us traditional Muslims going about their business we see the same thing and are not invited or encouraged to look any further.

It is ridiculous to assume all these people are out of the same mould because they all look and behave 'oddly' (to our eyes). Yet it seems to be an accepted truism that anyone who likes to follow traditional modes of dress must be a bit funny in the head or even a total lunatic - but what about Morris Dancers? ...Oh, yes, well, perhaps that is the exception that proves the rule.

Like some of you reading this rant, I have been lucky enough to spent many years in Muslim countries including Oman, Indonesia and Malaysia and I've got to know many Muslims and have counted some of them as good friends. Some of these people dressed differently from me, most wouldn't eat some of the food I eat or share a beer with me, and some even had a strange limp-wristed way of shaking hands but in no way were these people inherently stupid or in any way inferior to me. A deep interest in religion and wanting to live one's life along traditional lines laid out in a holy book is not a sign of stupidity, just look at Sir Isaac Newton who was a deeply devout man, and Gregor Mendel the father of genetics who was a Moravian monk to name just two.

We are fooling ourselves when we think that the (a) all Muslims are potential terrorists and (b) the terrorists are ignorant and more than slightly daft. Both these precepts are dangerous and very very wrong. Muslims are just as intelligent or stupid as Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sun Worshippers or whatever and just because they look different and behave differently doesn't mean to say they are in some way inferior and need of being 'westernised', 'liberated' or 'democratised' or made to be more like "us" (or is that "U.S."?).

Most importantly though the terrorists we are facing today are sophisticated and Machiavellian in their ability to manipulate public opinion both in their own communities and in the "West". We need to stop playing their game and start playing our own. We need to stop panicking and running round in circles screaming whilst waving our hands in front of our faces like some aged aunt when bothered by a wasp.

Fortunately I am not original in my thoughts, there are plenty of other people out there who think the way I do and there are some excellent blogs and comments on this subject on the web already. Have a read of this Kung Fu Monkey - Wait aren't you scared? and look at this cartoon.

I feel better for that!

Body Mass Index

The Body Mass Index (BMI) is in the news at the moment. I've been looking at my BMI and am distressed to find that I am an inch (2.54cm) shorter than my ideal height. If I could only grow taller by just that tiny bit I would be an "Ideal" 25 rather than an "Overweight" 25.6.

On the other hand, if I was to shrink to 5ft 7in (1.7m) I would then be "Obese", but as that is a loss of 6 inches I am hoping that won't happen.

Even better, I would have to get a severe attack of the "shrinks" to get to be "Very Obese" as I would only be 4ft 10in (1.47m).

At the other end of the scale I do hope giantism doesn't kick in, because if I were to suddenly grow to 7ft 2in (2.18m) I would be officially skinny, or "Underweight".

One fascinating fact though, I am lighter that 70% of Americans of the same sex, age and height though I am not sure how much taller I am than Americans of the same sex, age and BMI as me!

Hmmm.... What does the BMI represent anyway? It is your weight in kilos divided by your height in metres squared.... Well then that means that if you met with an unfortunate accident involving a steam roller that squished you out to so you were as wide as you are tall then the BMI index tells you how much 1 square metre would weigh (in kilos)....

Hang on though - how thick would I be, if I were rolled out square like a piece of pastry?

If we assume the human body has the same density as water (1kg/litre, or 1000kg/cubic metre) then we can work it out. A cube of water 1 metre by 1 metre by 1 metre would weigh 1000 kg, a cube of me 1 metre by 1 metre by x metres thick would be 25.6 kg, so substituting through I would be 0.0256 metres thick if I was rolled out square, or 2.56cm, or almost exactly an inch thick....

Put it another way your BMI is your thickness in millimetres if your were rolled out into a square!

My Cubicle

My Cubicle Song - have a listen...

I envy the chap in the song. He has got a 6 foot square cubicle - luxury! I would kill for 6 feet of office space right now.

Proximus has a fetish about desks and who sits where. They employ a removal company on a full time basis as they are always moving their staff around. I started on the 14th floor at a tiny desk that to my amazement was meant for two people - fortunately there wasn't anyone at the other half of the desk so I had a bit of space.

After 4 months I was moved to the 1st floor where I was crammed in on a long table with a metre to myself and people on either side. A metre is not a lot of space for a PC a phone, papers, keyboard, mouse, note book, scrap paper, coffee cup etc. Each day was a struggle to make sure I didn't encroach on my neighbours and to fend them off as they encroached on my space - and of course there was no privacy.

Fortunately I 'outlived' my neighbours and eventually I had the whole row to myself. That really pissed everyone off as there are, believe it or not, rules in Proximus about how much space a each grade of staff can use, with lowly contractors at the bottom of the list. The office secretary wanted to move me to a more crowded location, but I was saved by another piece of Belgian bureaucracy which manifested itself through the Proximus 'short move' rule which states 'thou shall not move less than 25m', so she couldn't cram me in to some really crowded desks nearby.

Two months ago I changed teams and was moved to the 2nd floor where I was in a little cubicle I shared with my boss. It was about 4 metres long and 2 metres wide and he sat at the far end occupying 3 metres and I had my regulation 1 metre. It was OK except when he had meetings.

I've just been moved again and I now sit in the area about 30 metres from where used to sit 2 months ago. My new 'desk' is just outside some meeting rooms in the middle of the 1st floor - I couldn't be further away from a window anywhere else in the whole building. I can see daylight over my left shoulder through a window, but it is about 25 metres away. All the light that gets to me is artificial.

I am now sitting at a unscreened bench with a PC on it with my neighbour less than a metre away - the only upside is that I am at the end of the row, but that does mean all the other 4 people on my bench have to walk past me to get to their seat. I no longer have a phone, or any screens around me and my desk, and oh yes, all the cupboards that hem me in from behind are locked and I've not got any where to put my stuff!

Haunted Dictionary

Here is an odd little story concerning the Concise Oxford English Dictionary

Many years ago when the Oxford English Dictionary was being compiled one of the major contributors was a Doctor William C. Minor, who surprisingly enough turned out to not be English but American. More surprisingly he was a resident of Broadmore (the criminal lunatic asylum) having murdered an Irishman in an unprovoked attack in a street in London. The poor chap was as "nutty as a fruit cake"; he was convinced that all Irishmen were out to get him and in addition he was inordinately fond of "wanking". Nevertheless he did have a very extensive personal library at Broadmore which he used to assist the compilers of the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary providing them with early examples of words and their meanings.

When they discovered the truth about the "Surgeon of Crowthorne" as he called himself it came as a terrible shock to everyone involved with the dictionary and they stopped using the poor chap as a reference.

A little while later Dr Minor decided it was time to stop wanking and cut his own penis off (OUCH!!). He later became ill and with the assistance of Winston Churchill no less was repatriated to the USA in 1910 where he died in 1920 (still totally nuts, but finally diagnosed as being schizophrenic, poor chap).

If you don't believe me then, it is all well documented in Simon Winchester's excellent book "The Surgeon of Crowthorne" (see Wikipedia's entries on The Surgeon of Crowthorne and William Chester Minor). The picture at the top of this entry shows Dr Minor (sans willy I presume). .

But Dr. Minor's ghostly influence over the Oxford English Dictionary is still apparent.

If you take a copy of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary and rest it on its spine and let it go it will naturally, unless you've abused it, fall open at its centre. That's not much of a surprise, but, the first word defined at the top of the centre page can cause embarrassment or amusement - it is, on my copy and on every other copy I've tried, "MASTURBATE".

Does Dr Minor haunt the Concise OED?

Party Weekend

It was a very boozy weekend!

It kicked off on Friday with a GONADs run (for a full explanation of the GONADs see Gonads page on www.bmph3.com ). For the most tenuous of reasons (the Ascent of the BMV on the previous Tuesday) the theme was "Vicars Tarts and Virgins". A newbie to the Hash, who later in the procedings was named "Half Monty" hosted the GONADs in his pristine brand new flat - what a nice chap! We had a medium size pack of 9 runners, and once the hare had been selected by spinning a bottle, we had a good live trail through the centre of Brussels (set by Hippo de Hop, the Unhappy Harpy below). The hare was home in about 40 minutes, and those of the pack that managed to follow the trail in under an hour.

Then the fun began. As well as the runners there were a number of late-commers and non-runners so the pack swelled considerably and things got very silly!

It looks from the photos like I missed my vocation in life!

The full set of photos are viewable on Forrest Gulp's Fotki website or on mine my Fotki website but there are hundreds of them so here are a few of the sillier ones.

The Unwise Virgin

The Unhappy Tart

The Unhappy Harpy

Amazingly enough we did it all again the next night. Rhythm Stick threw an excellent party at her place on Saturday.

There was loads of food and drink and dancing and a good time was had by all.

Once again there are a full set of photos viewable on Forrest Gulp's Fotki website or on my Fotki website

Sunday should have been a day of abstinence but I was very kindly invited to Brunch by my landlord and landlady Jim and Olga. We went down to the "Place de Jeu du Balle" (famous for its flea market) to the "De Skieven Architek" (The Crooked Architect" - a curse in Brussels) see http://www.wcities.com/en/record/34,130392/13/record.html and had an excellent meal (I had Stoemp) and we had a couple of bottles of the "Best Beer in the World" from the Westvleteren Trappist monastry (see Wikipedia's entry and The Monastry's Website ).

The beer comes in simple unlabled bottles. We started off with the 6% which was a cloudy light beer somewhat like a "Blanche" and then an 8% which like its big brother the 12% is a rich dark mouthful of wonderment.

After all that I went back to the apartment and was asked by Olga and Jim to have a look at their computer which was misbehaving and spent the rest of the afternoon fixing the p.c. and drinking yet more beer...

This weekend I'm going to do it all over again, or at least something like it. It is Higgin's birthday and he has organised a major Hash related festival starting with a GONADs pubcrawl on Friday and a big party on Saturday that advertises a start time of 7pm and a chucking out time of 3am!

My liver is in the process of applying for political asylum...

House Decoration

Not a very exciting blog I'm afraid. Just wanted to share a couple of things about the simple activity of getting your house painted.

We decided it was time to bite the bullet and get the place painted externally by professionals early this year, but we had to wait until this month until the work started.

The first thing that had to be done was trim the undergrowth around the house which mean loosing a large part of the fabulous climbing rose that covered the front of the house in flame orange/red roses year after year - I do hope it grows back!

So far the following has happened

1. The painter electrocuted himself
2. The painter cut the satellite cable
3. The scaffolding lorry couldn't get into the drive and we had to wait 2 days until they found a truck small enough
   
4. The painter broke a window
5. The some of the sofits at the back of the house turn out to be old floorboards and they are rotten and need to be replaced
6. There at least 2 squirrel holes in the sofits and one in the roof
7. The some of the sofits at the front of the house are rotten and need to be replaced
8. The front door is rotten and needs to be replaced
9. We weren't sure if the painting could start because of the drought and hosepipe ban which raised doubt about pressure blasting the old paint off
10. The rain (yes there is an official drought, but since work started it has been raining steadily) means that there are questions about when the painting can start...

And they haven't even started painting yet!

If you want to see some more boring pictures of the house and the views from the scaffolding then go to

World Cup and Opera

As hinted in a previous posting Janet and I were in Italy during the World Cup final and experienced some of the euphoria it generated first hand. We had booked to go to the opera in Verona on Sunday the 9th July months before the World Cup even started and neither of us being a footie fan the date didn't seem significant.

Verona is special for opera as they use the second largest amphitheatre in Italy to stage it. So it is in the open air, and they use the incredible accoustics rather than amplification to really provide a wonderful atmosphere... you can see where this is leading can't you?

The opera was Aida, staged and designed by Franco Zeppharelli, so the set and costumes were spectacular.

Egypt, Italy and Zepharelli

Before the show started we had supper in the rather wonderfully named Bra Plazza. There were hundreds of football fans in full Italian regalia and armed with flags (how come the national strip is bright blue, but the flag is green, white and red?). Several of the bars had plasma screen TV's set up and for the first time, possibly ever, there were more people in the bars not going to the opera than going. The mix of formally dressed opera goers and the football fans made for an interesting spectacle.

After supper we went into the arena and found our seats, close to the floor of the amphitheatre, on the second tier of the stone oval.

The first two acts were wonderful - the singing was electrifyingly good and the set with its huge rotating pyramid was an enduring eye-full.

Radamès

Aida and the Princess

Ballet too!

More wonderful sets

Yet more wonderful sets and costumes

There was an intermission after the second act. As I went down to get a drink a buzz spread round the amphitheatre - there was a penalty shoot out... Well we all know the result. Just as I was handed my drink someone started shouting - Italy had won. Then the place went crazy.

Within a minute the stage was crowded with everyone from stage hands, to extras to the lead performers. The Pharoah was up there waving the Italian flag.

World Cup Madness Everyone was dancing, jumping up and down and shouting. After a few minutes of total chaos the orchestra came back and the conductor led everyone, the stage hands and performers, as well as the audience in the Italian national anthem. I'm proud to say that through watching rugby on TV I knew the tune and chorus at least and so joined in as well. Then we sang it all for a second time.

Slowly calm returned and after about 20 minutes the 3rd Act started... Then we realised what a lot of noise was coming from outside the amphitheatre - it sounded like a battle or riot was raging all around us. The performers soldiered on despite it being almost impossible to hear them...

And then the fireworks started. That defeated them. Aida and the lead tenor, Radamès, left the stage and had a conflab with the conductor as we listened to the roar of the mob outside accompanied by airhorns and explosions. After a few minutes the explosions subsided and the performance continued, but it was still almost impossible to hear a thing. The accoustics of the amphitheatre meant that if an explosion occurred in front of us we heard a bang, but if it was behind us we didn't hear a bang, but a sort of 'zing' or metallic buzz as the sound reflected off the stone tiers opposite.

The performance stopped once again in the 5th Act but the performers just stayed on stage until the noise - a series of firecrackers died out.

After the magnificent show was over and the encores complete we headed out into the bedlam of the Bra Plazza - it was like a scene from a Bruegel painting - a total chaos of wierd people. There were a bride and groom with her still in her bridal dress dancing and singing. There were drunks of all ages wrapped in flags or waving them. There were children and there were grannies all dancing with an amazing frenzy. Our problem was that we had to find our tour guide and then get back to our coach; a non-trivial task. Anyway we managed it and got back to the coach without loosing anyone despite the chaos. It was only then that I realised I had forgotten to take any photos of the celebrations!

Despite the fact that I'm not a football fan, like the 1966 World Cup final, this year's will be one that I will never forget! Oh, by the way I heard the second half of Aida a few weeks later, when I brought the CD!

All the photos can be see at http://public.fotki.com/SpottedDick/aida_in_verona/

Day trip to the Ardennes

Last Sunday I went on a trip with Higgins (from the BMPH3) on a trip to explore the Ardennes.
I've never been there before and I was really impressed. The river La Samois wriggles through the rolling hills creating some amazing meanders. On top of that there were some pretty little towns like Bouillon which as an excellent castle. The castle was the birthpace and ancestral home of Godfrey of Bouillon (possibly the first famous Belgian ever) who lead the first Crusade (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfrey_of_Bouillon).

The Ardennes is a wonderful place I will definitely go back for another look.

On the way back we stopped off at the "Beer Bottle Museum" just outside Namur (in the town of Jambes, close to another town called Dave!). It was very very odd; I had been told that it would be a good location for a horror movie and sure enough it was rather creepy. Apart from the fact that all the bottles are empty and were behind yards and yards of plexiglass there were dark passages, and odd people who seemed to live there standing alone in darkened rooms muttering to themselves. When I found a chainsaw in one of the rooms I got very worried. Strange place - not sure I would like to go there alone!

Once again the photos are on Fotki - http://public.fotki.com/SpottedDick/the_ardennes/

The BBC's 60th Birthday

It was Barry BC's 60th birthday just after we got back from holiday in Italy. We went to Barry's house in "Brasingsteak" and met up with Chris and Mandy who we hadn't seen for ages (about 17 years) as well as Andy, Rena and their son Victor. The Chris and Mandy, Barry, Andy and Rena, Janet and I were all together in Oman. Lesley was also there; she was in Oman too but after we left. We were all shocked to find how long had passed since we left Oman and how little, apart from a few extra pounds grey hair and wrinkles, we had all changed.

It must have been baffling for the other guests and for Bethany (Chris and Mandy’s daughter) and Victor to listen to us reminisce. I took along a carrier bag full of photos from Oman and they invoked many good memories. I must get around to scanning them in to my computer and putting them on the internet too.

Have a squint at the photos of the occasion at http://public.fotki.com/spottedDick/barrys60th/

Holiday in Bardolino 2006

I'm experimenting with using a different photo server, and have just loaded the pictures.

Have a look at http://public.fotki.com/SpottedDick/bardolino_2006/

More details of the holiday to follow soon...

World Cup

I don't know anything about the World Cup, but I have noticed a marked difference in the behaviour of the fans and the reaction of the police to them here in Brussels.

There were quite a few English fans here on Saturday. Perhaps they got lost, or perhaps they were just stopping off on their way to Germany- I don't know, but before the match there were hundreds of them on Boulevard Anspach outside the Irish Pub "O'Rielly's". They were, on the whole, young men dressed in the team colours. They were all drinking heavily, singing and generally seeming to be quite threatening. I saw a large number of people cross the street to avoid going past them. There were police and paddy wagons everywhere and I even saw a water cannon being driven around the city. I didn't venture out later after the match so I don't know how they celebrated England's victory over Paraguay, but I can guess... on Sunday morning there was quite a few broken bottles and a lot of litter outside the Irish Pub...

In stark contrast, last night when heading home after the Hash I saw (and heard) the Italian fans celebrating their victory. There is a large Italian community here in Brussels and they were out in force. There were loads of cars with girls sitting on the doors out of the windows waving the Italian flag, while the drivers were tooting their horns and they were all shouting "Italia! Italia!" and waving to everybody and anybody as they drove around the city centre in very high spirits. When I got within a couple of hundred yards of "O'Rielly's" I found the police had closed the road to traffic. I wondered if there was any trouble at the bar, but there wasn't a paddy wagon in sight (unlike on Saturday). When I reached La Bourse, where "O'Rielly's", is I discovered why the road was closed - because the Italian fans were dancing in the street. It felt like a great big happy party that everyone was welcome to join in on - very different from the Saturday.

It may be a bit disloyal, but I hope Italy continues to do well - apart from the tooting of car horns late into the night their fans were causing no agro, and they really seemed to be having a good time and they certainly know how to celebrate! Shame I can't say the same about the English fans...

A Picnic

On Saturday I had a good walk around Schuman area recceing next week's Bloom's Day Run (I'm co-hare) and afterwards, over a cold beer in the Mort Subite, I thought to myself "That was a nice walk, but it would have been better in the shade... and with a picnic".

As I had nothing planned for Sunday I decided to sieze the moment. I went straight to the supermarket and bought some pate, cheese, olives, salami and tomatoes and stuck a bottle of wine and a few beers in the fridge. I was all set to go by myself, but I realised I had quite a lot of food and wondered if there was anyone else feeling in need of a picnic and a walk in the woods. I wasn't sure who to invite, so I just put the message out on the internet on Saturday evening to the members of the BMPH3 suggesting a walk and picnic in the Foret de Soignes on Sunday meeting at a well known Hash venue on the edge of the forest, the station at Boitsfort at 1pm.

On Sunday when I arrived I was really expecting no one to take up the invitation, but to my surprise there was Trash Can Man waiting for me . He had only seen the message only an hour before. As he was stuck alone inside his apartment my suggestion struck a cord and he decided to come along, and I'm glad he did.

After an obligatory beer we set off at 1:20pm and returned to the station at just before 6pm having stopped for an excellent picnic lunch in the heart of the woods and for a couple of well earned ice cold beers at a bar on the outskirts of Boitshort village. We were walking the rest of the time, so I guess we covered around 18km (3 hours walking at 6kmph)!

The woods were beautiful, cool and peaceful. Once we got away from the edge of the wood there were very few people around, just some on horseback or bikes and one or two joggers but no crowd, no noise, no heat, just lovely green coolness - ah bliss... We stomped along for hours putting the worlds to rights and enjoying the wonderful woods...

A Good Puzzle

My friend Eric passed me this link; http://fizzlebot.com/cdt2.php

It is to a website with a series of 10 games for which there are no instructions. You just have to figure out what is done by clicking on things and seeing what happens.

The series of 10 puzzles took me 2hrs 28mins to solve which I am sure is not very impressive; nevertheless I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge.

Give it a try and let me know how you get on. Don't worry it remembers who you are and how far you have got so you don't need to solve all the problems in one go.

A bit of culture

I went to a concert last night (Friday). It was put on by the "Brussel Operettetheater" and was held in the very grand auditorium of the KBC Bank at their HQ which is about a 15 minute walk from my apartment.

The reason for going - above and beyond hearing some lovely operetta being very well sung was to see a friend of mine from the Brussels HHH sing. Francisa (Cissy) Vanherle is a soprano as well as being the Grand Matress of the BMPH3 http://www.bmph3.com/ I have heard her sing once before in Der Fledermaus, so it wasn't such a surprise to hear wonderful classical songs issuing from her rather than the usual Hash songs.

There was a full house - of about 250 people to hear her and a tenor (Yves Saelens) sing selections from Lehar, J. Strauss and Tosti accompanied on the piano. The Hash representatives, and there were 6 of us, were under strict instructions to be on best behaviour and not to mention Hashing, beer or Cissy's Hash name.

The evening flew by.

Once it was all over I discovered that there was a House Warming party being held at Puss In Boots new house. I grabbed a lift with Higgins to the new house in the Merode district of town via a stop for chips in Place Jourdan and to buy a bottle or two at an all night shop (it was now 11pm).

When we arrived the party was in full swing. We were given a guided tour of the 5 storey house. It was very nice with a huge open plan living room and dining room on the first floor (upstairs from the front of the house, but with a small garden at the back) then on to the second floor with 2 huge bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms (though only one works as the renovations are not quite complete) and then on up to the third floor which is a vast open plan office come study area complete with its own kitchen and bathroom and then on up again to the fourth floor which was an attic room.

I had a good time and poured myself into a taxi at about 1am having drunk a lot of wine and done quite a bit of dancing.

Last day of the current contract.

My proposal to "The Ministry of Truth" a.k.a. Proximus has been accepted!

I'll be here for another 6 months (until the end of November). I'll be training 2 days a week and when not training working on their data warehouse.

The idea of giving the same bloody training course another 15 times fills me with dread - but the money is good and it certainly helps the weeks fly by.

Working here is like something out of 1984 or Gattica. My pass didn't work this morning, my supposed last day. I had to hand it in to reception and get a temporary pass. Someone who wanted to phone me couldn't because my phone number had been removed from the telephone directory, because my contract was not extended until the 11th hour. My identity has been dropped down a "memory tube". I just hope Proximus can find it again otherwise tomorrow I may not be able to get into the office and I will have officially ceased to exist.

Brussels 20km Result

1:51:09

I am thrilled and amazed!

The run itself was very much a curates egg. I had a high number which meant I started at the back. The run started and finished in the Cinquantenaire Park. We were marshalled in the courtyard by the huge arches - all 25,000 of us.

The cannon went for the start of the run at 3:00 but 5 minutes later I was still waiting to pass under the arches of the Cinquantenaire monument, 25,000 people is a huge hoard! I wasn't too stressed about this though because I like every other runner had a chip tied to my shoe which would time the moment I crossed the start line and finish line and my race time would be calculated on that, not the time on the clock when I cross the finish line.

What was a little confusing was the fact that the official start line was at the exit from the Cinquantenaire park, not under the arches where we started. I zeroed the GPS as I crossed that line and I was off - except I wasn't. I could only just jog along rather than striding out at the pace I had calculated. The number of runners was amazing and they all were running slower that I wanted to go!

The route was past the EU, down Avenue Arts et Loi, round the Royal Park, past the King's Palace (we all waved), left onto Rue Royale, past Petit Sablon and on to the Palace du Justice where we turned left, down into the underpass (which was airless and packed) and then out onto Avenue Louise and through 3 more underpasses until we reached the Park on the edge of the Foret de Soignes. We looped around the lake and passed the 10km point and then out onto Ave Franklin Roosevelt, and on to Chaussee de la Hulpe, and then Bvd du Souverain. It was only after the 12km point that the crowd thinned out and I was able to put a bit of a burst on for about 4kms where we turned onto Avenue de Treveuren. I then slowed down because I knew what was coming next; from 17km to 19km markers the Avenue de Treveuren climbs quite steeply. It is a swine!

At the top was the BMPH3 beer stop - except I missed it. I was looking the other way when I ran past it and so didn't pick up a beer that was offered to all Hashers running. I wasn't about to turn back and pounded on to the finish - even managing a bit of a sprint over the last few hundered metres.

As I crossed the line the clock read 2:00:04, but checking my GPS it read 1:51:16. I didn't believe it because I knew it had lost contact with the satellite on a number of occassions round the course, so I guessed I had done about 1:55. I had been very frustrated by the traffic and felt that I had not run well. My GPS had kept on cutting out, so I had no accurate idea of my speed or time because I had been relying on it to tell me this rather than using my watch and the distance markers.

After I had the chip taken of my shoe and received my medal I made my way to "Houser's" house. I was feeling OK, except my legs were incredibly tired. Once fully rehydrated I had a beer or two and then someone said "Let's check the results". Because of the chips in our shoes the results were being posted in near real time on the internet. I had convinced myself my time would be around 1hr 55 mins, so when the printout was produced I was stunned to see my official time was 1:51:09.

We had a very nice supper at Houser's. I kept everyone amused with a range of stories and everyone had a good time. The photos are on line at http://public.fotki.com/ForrestGulp/bmph3/20_de_bruxelles/

Generally I had a good run despite the feeling of being held up. My right ankle which had been bothering me with aches and pains and tendonitis all week and right up to the start of the run suddenly stopped hurting and was fine all the way round and has been fine ever since! I got a sore toe and I think I will loose the toenail but that didn't slow me down. I was very stiff on Monday morning and was moving like a very old man. Nevertheless I ran with the Hash on Monday evening (photos, with me with my eyes shut at Forrest Gulp's site http://public.fotki.com/ForrestGulp/bmph3/coppa_del_mondo ).

I am still a bit sore in the legs and probably won't run again this week, but I think I will be out running in the week next week. Eric, my training partner who had a disasterous run finishing almost 2 minutes behind me, is keen to enter further races. I'll see how I feel once I get over this one before committing to any more pain.

My official certificate showing my official time which is 7 seconds faster than my GPS time. I guess I didn't switch it off fast enough once I crossed the line at the finish. As I started towards the back of 25000 runners and finished 10082nd I passed around 15000 runners - and each one of them seemed to be in my way!

The Sportstracks maps show the full trail though I had to tweek them a bit because of the loss of signal, particularly in the park. Curiously according to Sportstracks I ran 20.26km. The race is called "The 20km of Brussels" but I've been told that it is actually 20.6km. Perhaps the difference 370metre discrepency is the length of the Cinquantenaire Park!