A million miles from reality

After a rather traumatic period in my adventurous life,

I have reappeared in Germany.

Vineyards at the edge of the property

Wiltingen village from the other side of the river

Greetings from Wiltingen!
I send you all my most charismatic greetings from the Saar valley in south western Germany! What a difference from the previous place, whose name I shall avoid writing for fear of a Pavlovian attack of depression and angst...
Moving was a real ordeal: I asked a friend to drive a hire van with all the stuff in it and got some neighbours’ youngsters to help me load up. However, on closing up the back, it was noticeable that there were three flat tyres. On going to the hire company, they accused us of driving over stones or some other objects and refused to co-operate because we had signed the contract. When I pointed out that their contract was not totally legal due to the overuse of small writing, and that the truck had not been properly checked when they gave it to us, he got on the phone to his boss and had a ten-minute complaining session about us using expressions like “yeah, I know...” and “but they just don’t want to”. At the end of his rant, he handed us some more keys to a different truck, checked it over properly and shook our hands as if to capitulate to a higher psychological power. It helps when the person accompanying you to the hire shop used to be one of the leading experts in European consumer rights, often appearing on television channels all over Europe...

In any case, the last person I spoke to in Belgium (there, I finally got the courage to write it) really confirmed my decision to leave: in the petrol station on the E40 just before Liège, we pulled in to fill up. A stupid argument ensued because the cashier didn’t want to accept that my card was rejected by his machine. I told him he was a first class imbecile and asked him if the glass screen was to protect him from gunmen or the wrath of his clients. He told me from gunmen, who come from time to time, upon which I told him they had my full support and next time if I were there I’d tell them to wait in the car while I did the ******* job myself.
This lack of community spirit and utter contempt for one’s fellow human being went into total reverse upon crossing the frontier into Germany. What a total irony, verging on the paradoxical. When we arrived at my new place, we were just wearily bringing in the last few items when a neighbour came to greet us and immediately offered his assistance. He even offered to cook us a meal. The weekend after, some other neighbours invited us to join their barbecue having only said hello once before. Her husband works in the same area of Luxembourg and offered me a lift to work.

View of the Saar valley from Saarburg castle

Where did all the energy come from?
I get up at 5.45am to go to work, although I only work Monday to Wednesday. However, on my days off I get up relatively early and 8.00am is positively a lie-in for me. I do so much more in one day that I’m starting to wonder how I could have wasted seven years of my life shut away in that other place. The difference is overpowering: I step out of the door and I am immediately confronted with nature – hills with vineyards rise up in a stately fashion for miles around, interspersed with woods, meadows and rivers. Villages with local shops, guesthouses and inns play a major part in the local fabric of life. Events are often looked forward to as they don’t bombard people’s lives each week with something new. The village May fair takes place this weekend, and I have already been invited to participate by setting up my own stall. I politely declined, as I am not ready with the new photos for this year, but it really made me feel like I belong, something which took over a year in Belgium. Who wouldn’t want to get up early to squeeze every last drop of enjoyment out of the place?!

Our paddock
Nobody wants my money
People here are so civilised and trusting. On Tuesday evening I went to one of the local vintners and asked to buy a few bottles of wine. I said I only had a fifty euro note and she couldn’t change it but when I was passing next time I could drop it off. How refreshing, I thought.
It didn’t end there: the next morning I arrived at the station with the aforementioned fifty euro note and tried to purchase a €2.25 ticket with it. The stationmaster said not to worry as he couldn’t give change but if I were to meet with a ticket inspector I should just mention the fifty euro note. Remarkable, I thought. Then a lady sitting on the bench said she had seen me before and she said she could lend me a couple of euro until next time and so I could buy my ticket. Extraordinary, I thought.
When I arrived in Konz, the town where my bus to Luxembourg leaves from, I walked with the lady who lent me some money to the bakery, concluding our chat, and I got a coffee and a cherry Streusel (Germany’s best kept secret is the cakes) for breakfast. I proffered the fifty euro note and the lady behind the counter said she couldn’t change it but I could pop in over the next few days and give her the cash. Not to worry, she said, these things happen. Quite amazing, I thought.
I went over to the bus stop and awaited the bus to the Luxembourg border where I had to change buses. My German colleague was there and we exchanged early summer salutations before the bus’s arrival. When I offered to driver the same note, he told me tongue-in-cheek that he was not an exchange bureau and told me I’d have to unfortunately go free of charge to the Luxembourg border that morning. Fortunately my German colleague came over to me and lent me three euro or I would have suffered the ignominy of repeating the conversation with the driver of the bus to the European Quarter in Luxembourg. Utterly astonishing, I thought.
And then I thought No, it’s actually quite normal. It’s just that I haven’t had that kind of experience since I left the UK.

Saarburg waterfalls
Becoming a local
Signing into a local community is sometimes quite a hassle. Having lived in a lot of places I think one of the worst countries to legalise your status is Belgium although France comes out top of that ignominious list. The Czech Republic is also not particularly good. I remember going to register in Leuven for the first time at the foreign nationals desk, which was one of the most visited council services and yet the least staffed. I arrived first thing in the morning at 8.45 and along with thirty other people from Congo, Japan, the USA, Ivory Coast, Algeria, Sudan and Indonesia, ran forward as fast as possible to grab the queuing tickets, being threatened with a fatal stabbing by one menacing brute. I waited three hours and at the end was told to come back because I didn’t have all the required documents.
In France, I had to get my landlady to come to the local town hall to register me because in France you can’t get a job without the residence permit and you can’t get a residence permit without a job. No wonder why there are such a lot of people who feel disenfranchised from the French way of life there. In Prague it was a similar story, but fortunately that seems to have changed now they are part of the EU.
On the contrary, upon going to the local council building in Konz, I walked into a virtually empty room with more staff than visitors, I signed two pieces of paper (address) and put two crosses on the questions of my religion (church subsidies) and my tax status. I didn’t have to show any proof of contract, I didn’t have to show any proof of address, I didn’t even have to bring a photo. Nope, I don’t have any ridiculous carte de séjour like in France and I didn’t have to humiliate myself by showing my private affairs like in Belgium.
As I walked out of the council building, I felt quite overwhelmed by the whole experience. I became a little lightheaded by the simplicity of everything in Germany; that nothing was too difficult for people; that things which take forever elsewhere only take a few minutes here; that you can keep your dignity in the local government offices; but most of all, that you feel part of the community from the moment you arrive.

View from hillside towards my house on the right
Getting used to the new surroundings
Some of the changes, though, have been more difficult to come to terms with. I live in a village with no buses and a train an hour in both directions and I don’t have a driving licence. You are probably asking yourself why on earth I chose to come here in the first place. I start work at 8.30am in another country, for Pete’s sake: I must be off my tree. But no, I just have to get up that bit earlier. 5.45am as I said. But it’s worth it: I get the train at 6.29am to Konz, arriving at 6.35am, where I walk seven minutes to the bakery at the bus stop, have a coffee and a cake or two, get the 7.00am bus to Grevenmacher, change to the bus to Luxembourg, arriving at 7.50 in the European Quarter of the city. I have my second coffee, make my photocopies, chat to a few colleagues and await the arrival of my participants. But considering the place I live in, it is a sacrifice worth making.
Another disadvantage is that the baker and the butcher’s shops in the village are only open in the morning from 6.45am to 12.30pm. They only sell basic provisions apart from their usual fare so I need to get food on my way home of an evening. Even that is no trouble really, because I buy my food in Knospe in Konz, a typically German shop, selling organic food from local producers. I could also visit Kaufhof, Lidl, dm or Rewe in Konz depending on the amount of time I have before the train. If it took my fancy, I could stop off at the Ratskeller restaurant for a giant Schnitzel or a truly filling salad. I could hop off the train at the next stop in Kanzem and head for the Saarterrasse, a delightful riverside eatery. However, the greatest pleasure is arriving in Wiltingen where I live and heading for Rosi’s Weinstube for a glass or two of their grape juice. No, I mean it. It’s not a euphemism for wine, it’s really juice although not out of a carton but straight from the grapes. It is the taste equivalent of being caught in a vineyard in a sudden heavy shower.

Galgenberg
Walking in the hills
There are tracks everywhere through the vineyards along the Saar valley. You can walk for a whole day without ever standing aside for a car. I like to go up to the top of the Galgenberg, our local prominent hill and scene of witch executions in the Middle Ages, and watching the sun go down and the moon rise. I am so fortunate that I am the only person for at least a kilometre to be up there after dark. You can admire the three rivers, wonder at the shape of the sheer valleys and listen to the trains, cars and pedestrians going by below without them ever knowing you were there. You can hear a lot more up there than down on the ground level. There is a spot, through a grove of trees that obviously very rarely gets visited, where you feel like you are hovering above the earth. The only sounds are of local birds, and after dark the sky is covered with stars as though the Almighty has dropped a glass on the floor, shattering into millions of pieces. At the Galgenberg summit itself, there is a statue of some steps leading to nowhere, a symbol of the executions, and a lookout parapet with railings and a telescope. I often go up there to feel totally at one with my surroundings and look down upon the wonders of Mother Earth.

Home, the Kochsmühle
To conclude
With all these possibilities, there is not even a stampede of wild buffalo or a plague of dung beetles that could force me to leave this corner of earthly paradise. I came here to restart my own business in a less stressful environment and to work at the European Institutions in Luxembourg, giving up a more high profile career amongst the politicians and powerbrokers of the EU in Brussels for a statelier pace of life albeit not such an intriguing, exciting and vibrant place to work. And I don’t regret it for one minute.

Bye Bye Belgium

I have had to make a very difficult decision these last months. I have become less and less at ease with the country I live in. So for that reason, I have decided to leave Belgium on 15th April. There are a number of reasons, the main one being that I am being priced out of it.

On a recent trip to the UK, I also realised Belgium is not alone in its high property prices, but at least in the UK there are other ways of paying off larger mortgages. In Belgium you just have to make do with what you're given, which in many cases is a well-decorated garage; a place where you store yourself and your possessions; a sort of Menschenschrank. Well I don't really feel like that to be honest. I also do not believe in paying vast amounts of money to an overburdened and - dare I say unfair - welfare system which promotes unemployment and discourages people from seeking further than their "qualifications" will allow.

There is little or no proper infrastructure (it reminds me of the provincial architecture in the old Soviet Union in a town like Kaluga, Tula or Kazan) due to there being no university qualifications for town planner in Belgium. It is the local community politicians who decide what goes where, so you can find all kinds of "interesting" (in the Chinese sense) tram lines where one community doesn't allow them to pass through. Result? Lines which go nowhere. At least they get you nowhere fast. This lack of interest in having town planners also meant that when the politicians finally came around to designating green belt land and the like, nearly all of Flanders had been built on already. Walking through northern Belgium you can rarely find a place to feel utterly alone. This may explain why Flemish people are so uncommunicative - they have nowhere to go.
Let us dissect, little by little, what exactly the problem is with Belgium. I have done it in civil servant bureaucratic style to make it easier for any Belgians who may be reading this. The rest may need to read this two or three times:

1. WORK ETHICS
1.A. The mentality
In Belgium, when applying effort or imagination into work and explaining it mathematically, 2 + 2 = 3.6 and no more. This means nothing is ever done to its conclusion, lest it be seen as an invitation to be given more work.

For that reason, if you try to get ahead like you were taught to in your home country you will:
a. be taxed more heavily for it
b. be told that it will not be possible as a crucial part of your initiative will not be completed until the following year/month/season (delete as appropriate)
c. find that a law was passed while parts a. and b. were going on which makes your project either i) illegal or
ii) in need of some rigorous changes

SOLUTION:
Send all Belgians on a month-long training course with Polish people, where they will see how a proper entrepreneur works. They will learn that
a. Having a pain in the eyebrow is NOT an excuse for not going to work;
b. Charging 200 euro to fix a leaking tap is unacceptable;
c. They are not more important than everyone else;
d. It is necessary REMOVE THE POLITICIANS who caused this in the first place!

1.B. The cost of slow service
Considering the mathematical formula above, it makes it very important to look at workspeed - or lack of it. When going into a shop, for example to buy shoes, there will be only one person, maybe two if it is a Saturday, running the whole place - putting the shoes out, giving advice, stocking, working the checkout. Simply because it costs too much to take on staff in Belgium. Large enterprises are OK, but it is the small and medium enterprises which suffer. Belgium is already in an unemployment crisis. Charging small and medium enterprises over double the employee's net salary is not going to bring more people back to work.


SOLUTIONS:
a. It is remarkable that nobody has noticed. REDUCE EMPLOYMENT TAXES FOR SMEs, STUPID!
b. And while you're at it, REMOVE THE POLITICIANS!

1.C. Helpdesk or No-help-desk?
When you require some technical assistance in Germany or the UK for example, you call up the desk and they do everything physically possible to put the problem right. So you sit in a queue for a while - there are 60 million people in the UK, 25 million more in Germany - big deal. In Belgium if you are not in possession of all of your faculties, you may find your life here intolerable. You need to realise that you bought their product, therefore they fundamentally still own that product. Therefore they believe they own you too.

Having a contract with one of Belgium's leading (or should I say, one of Belgium's only) mobile phone companies should mean that you get the same privileges enjoyed in all countries in the EU. Nope, sorry. You need to buy your phone for its cost price in Belgium, because - and here's the punchline - it's anti-competition. Well if it wasn't so damn sad, it would be hilarious. And on top of that your phone is not locked to the SIM card, meaning if it gets stolen, there's no way of stopping the thieves from using the phone again unless you know the unique code of your phone. They just remove your SIM card and re-sell your phone in another place.

It wouldn't be anti-competition, in fact it would be pro-competition, if they gave you a choice, but that's not the Belgian way. It's all laid on for you. Nobody is allowed to use their imagination to such an extent. Let's not forget that this is the land where autism is an art form, not a sickness.

And the postal system leads the way in the race. Two examples:

One of my neighbours bought the terraced house directly attached to his about 20 years ago. The number on his house, 24, also counts for 26, which after all these years, has become amalgamated with his. There is only one post box and his name, and that of his wife, are both written clearly above the post box. Despite this, several letters, including some important bills, were re-routed back to the post office sorting office as the post deliverer couldn't find the number of the house and didn't take the names on the door into consideration. I saw him yesterday morning painting numbers on his house. In red, just in case.

An Australian friend coming to live in Belgium from China asked for her boxes to be delivered to my place as she had no address yet. The post deliverer asked me for an extra 140 euro for delivering them to my house, despite there being no toll to pay. I called the post office and told them to re-route the boxes to her new address, but to call 10 minutes before arrival, as she had no bell and she would be waiting outside by the time the deliverer arrived. The boxes never came and we received a letter telling us they had been sent back to China as nobody claimed them. I called to complain and I was called a liar and a charlatan by the guy on the other end, who refused to believe that I had called three times to tell the post what to do with the boxes. The person in question is trying to sue the postal service, but her lawyer, rather optimistic for a Belgian, said she should give up all hope. She has paid 600 euro extra for the non-delivery and the post refuses to acknowledge any mistake.

Easy money in a land of monopolies.

I had a problem with payment of my internet bill once (who am I kidding? I have this problem EVERY month!), because I am paid not on the first but about the 10th of the month. When I call to tell them, the job-student on the line says it is unacceptable and I am told I would receive a nasty reminder. I often have to pay small fines because the service provider puts the debit through too early, even though I have constantly told them I am paid later. I suppose it is their way of earning more money.

Nobody can do anything here, you see, because Belgium is still a land of monopolies. They are in control. They are a lot richer than you, they have more than one lawyer and would rather spend hundreds of thousands of euro on recuping unpaid debts rather than asking the question of themselves, "are we being fair to the customer?" In Belgium, there are no investigative TV programmes, there are very few rather weak, amateurish customer protection organisations but it takes ages to get anything done, by which time you're sitting in debt up to the second floor of your house.

1.D. Qualifications count for very little but don't tell them that...
One thing the Belgians are able to tell you is what they are qualified to do. You can find Belgians qualified in Physics who are working as admin staff. You can find Belgians qualified in logistics who are shifting furniture. In Belgium, most people have a job far below their qualifications. The job system works differently to other countries in that many people are unemployed because the employment offices are run by highly qualified, yet demotivated civil servants who aren't really able to work the software and in any case, theirs is a job for life so why should they do too much? They get about a week's training in PeopleSoft and the rest they do on their own. That is, if the office has the software yet...

Furthermore, there are real problems concerning qualifications for independent workers. In the UK, I know people who work constructing gardens, building pools, lakes and ponds, knowing which plants go where, setting the ground even, etc... Anyone can do work like plumbing, gardening, landscaping or decorating if they are properly shown the techniques and given long enough to learn the trade as an apprentice. But these people, who have built their own houses and have a flair for this type of thing despite leaving school as early as 16, would not be accepted in Belgium. My cousin earned £10 million in one year working on the Stock Exchange despite leaving school at 15. Qualifications mean nothing if you are good enough.

When I went to the Chamber of Commerce in Leuven to fill in my details in 2001 and open my business, I filled in the codes for the jobs I wished to do: translation, interpretation, language training and photography. The CoC wrote back and told me I couldn't put in photography because I didn't have a qualification in it. I only wanted to have a couple of exhibitions a year and earn some extra cash, but they said that was impossible.

And an even more extreme case:
A friend of a friend, who used to work for L'Oréal in Paris as their on-site hairdresser for the models for ten years decided to open up a hairdressing salon in Brussels. He was refused because he didn't have the right qualifications!!!! So he took his business to Budapest, where they didn't mind too much. So would I. Anyone see a link between Belgium and unemployment?

Belgians seem not to understand that just because you're qualified, it doesn't mean you're any good. Indeed, in my experience, those language trainers I have come into contact with who have no qualifications in the field are more enthusiastic than those who have them. Main reason? Those with qualifications are generally more complacent and feel less of a need to work for their title, as they feel they have earned it. Therefore the non-qualified are more passionate about it. Don't tell that to a Belgian Ministry of Employment officer, they'll investigate the entire language training market!

In Belgium, those with qualifications really take themselves far too seriously. Authors can't write ordinary stories, they need something eye-catching to hide their appalling storylines, like whole paragraphs without punctuation. Some sponging art-bozo without a real job called Herman Brusselmans, for example, thinks so damn highly of himself that he seems to think he's a comic strip figure brought to life. I don't even know what the narcissistic little creep does. All I know is he has appalling taste in everything from haircuts to music, from sport to literature and he thinks he's always right. He can't even put a sentence together without looking in the mirror. Still, this is the same everywhere. You have a qualification, you're OK.

Oh yes, and if you're Flemish you're OK. In fact no matter how wrong you are, as long as you're Flemish you're right. Flemish with a qualification? Priceless.

SOLUTIONS:
a. Job applicants should be vetted according to ABILITY and willingness to WORK, not QUALIFICATIONS. Honestly, you'd have thought they'd have realised this by now, but when you pick up the job ads, you realise just why this country has 10% unemployed. Everyone is doing a job below their own qualifications. This is no joke, but in Belgium, you need a DEGREE in COMMUNICATION or PUBLIC RELATIONS to be a RECEPTIONIST in a small company. In Belgium, you need a DIPLOMA in LANDSCAPING to be a GARDENER. I am telling you the truth. No joke. I mean, at least you don't need any qualifications in catering to work in a bar, but very often, there are mind-boggling rules which make you sit up and stare ahead silently, thinking Kafkaesque thoughts.

b. Oh yes, and REMOVE THE POLITICIANS!

1.D. Paying for someone else's incompetence
As is tradition in Belgium, you have to pay a very high amount of tax. This is due to previous governments' decadence and pandering to the electorate through grandiose and benevolent schemes which were destined to fail. Many of these are still in place, relics from the Cold War, aggravating the annual budget, and feeding the workshy population. You think I'm making generalisations? I challenge you to go to any café on the Ring around Leuven and count the number of fruit machine gamblers, beer drinkers and barside preachers there are at any time of the day or night.

In Belgium, in order to alleviate the tax burden, your income tax, hospitalisation fund and social security are all separate. And everyone has to pay all three whether they like it or not. You can take them off your taxes, but not all. Let me give you an idea of the breathtaking futility and mind-boggling ridiculousness of a tax bill in Belgium:

As a freelance plumber, for example, let's take one from round here. He came to look at a blocked sink this time last year. His first visit was made driving a silver BMW (new). His second visit of twenty minutes, when he carried out the works, he was in his US-size megatruck totally decorated with his logo, details and activities in his chosen colours. Three weeks later, he arrived in a minivan decorated in his colours and a bill for 140 euro. For no more than 15 minutes' work and 5 minutes' chat. He poured some liquid down my drain, which did the trick for 2 days before it got blocked up once more and I had to pay him 140 euro. No wonder why freelancers are charged a scandalous amount of tax. They think we're ALL able to name our own prices!

Let me tell you about another person I know who was a freelance day centre "hostess" for children in Leuven. She opened up her house for about 6 children, let them play in her garden, made them lunch, assured them of toys and crayons (risking the re-decoration of her house), changed the younger ones' nappies and stayed imprisoned in her own house until the last parent came to take his/her child away. She received about 45 euro per week from each parent, meaning she got about 1000 a month. She had to pay 200 euro a month social security, 650 euro mortgage (still fairly cheap for Belgium), 100 euro electricity costs, and not forgetting water, TV/internet, local tax, hospitalisation fund, food, etc... Putting it another way, she had more outgoings than income so she now works for the local electricity distribution firm.

SOLUTIONS:
a) Reduce the costs for hiring people for a start.
b) Introduce a scheme making it more unattractive to stay at home and the money you save plough it into training job centre staff to find jobs for unemployed people.
c) Stop generalising that people with diplomas know better. Very often they don't - they just think they do because they can form any opinion they like now they have a qualification.
d)In a country where you are punished for working, I think it's only right that you REMOVE THE POLITICIANS!

2.A. Getting ground down in the system
Belgians will defend their own country's little backwardnesses to the last drop of energy. And they will legitimise it, find reasons for it, or flatly reject any alternative as being incompatible for Belgians. It wouldn't be so bad if there were only a couple of these little anomalies, but there are quite a lot, and the main retort you are likely to hear is: "if you don't like it, go somewhere else!"
Well "WE WOULD IF WE COULD!" is my reply, but often we are stranded here because of the jobs we do. There are many European HQs in Belgium, both political ones and enterprises. It would be madness to leave without an anchor in another country, so often people end up here for years. And years and years.

2.B. What effect has this had on the people?
You don't need to go far to experience this knock-on effect created by years and years of political compromise, sourced in the federalisation of the country, bottled by the unyielding politicians.
You will notice that Flemish people are different to French-speaking Walloons. For one thing, they speak a different language which the people like to call Dutch. Each side tries so hard to be Germanic-acting or Latin-acting, but they just can't do it, however hard they try.

A Flemish person, trying to act Germanic, will for example stand in a supermarket aisle waiting for you to move out of the way without saying anything. They think this is being patient like a German or a Brit. Actually it is mainly because they daren't speak to the person blocking the aisle. The Flemish in public really don't like contact with strangers and try to avoid conflict at all times, even this type of conflict.

A Flemish person, trying to act Germanic, will tell you those are the rules without question to be obeyed at all times without right of reply. Well, that's what they think Germanics do... For example, I was carrying some heavy luggage last week back from a business trip and wanted to get the bus home. When it came in, I decided to enter where the mothers do, with their baby carriers once the passengers had got off, so I didn't have to carry the two wheeliebags any further. I then went to the driver and showed him my bus pass. He was furious. That wasn't the way it had to be done! So in an act of sarcasm I got off the bus with my bags and came in the front entrance. "Is it OK now honey?" I said to him. This is one of many examples I have come across over the years where Flemish people want to act decisive and Germanic but they simply cannot.

An average Belgian, trying to be avant-garde, rebellious or anti-establishment (in the 1968 way) will find reasons to say slogans like "down with the monarchy" or "ransack the parliament", but they just have no idea why. They often want to do things against the state, but they really don't dare go too far. For example, the average Belgian will show his/her rebellious nature through:

• Crossing the road while the red light is still on (woah there, you'll get a reputation!)


• Cycling on the opposite side of the cycle path, or even more daring, cycling on the pavement


• Using English words or phrases when a Dutch one would do the job just as well


• Voting blank and telling everyone as though it was the most exciting thing you ever did (probably was...)


• Not using the indicator whilst driving (ooh, you daredevils!)


• Standing outside of the established queue in a shop (insurrection!)


• Putting their feet, still with shoes, or bags on opposite seats on public transport


• Going to live in another town


• Sitting in a first class carriage on a train with a second class ticket and then claiming they didn't see the huge "1" sign on the carriage door when the inspector comes (the worst kind of sponger)
  

They just can't do it. They don't have the willpower or the guts to do something truly outlandish. And if they do it is TRULY weird. Guess where the cream pie-thrower comes from who once got Bill Gates? Furthermore, you will rarely find a Belgian who wants to stand out from the crowd. Most Belgian public places are scenes of conventional clothes, hushed voices and underused smile muscles.

2.C. Being Germanic on public transport
This wish to try to be Germanic has also found a support base in public transport, where in the UK, Scandinavia and Germany one can find all sorts of stickers, signs and posters telling you what is and is not acceptable. "No smoking - penalty £40" for example, or this sign below from a German bus. It says plainly, "Don't make such a row with your own noise".

However in Belgian buses there is a horizontal poster no bigger than this one above which says "On which side are you?" And then it lists on one side the things you shouldn't do on a bus and on the other what you should so on a bus with an illustration in the middle. It is as big as this one above but with a whole load of guff on it that even patient readers with aircraft pilots' eyesight would find tough to read. Those with social problems need to have the rules laid out in front of them. What message are you sending out to people when even the bus company doesn't take it seriously? Furthermore, De Lijn, the Flemish bus company only brought out their "reizigerscode", or travellers' code in April 2007. Before then, anything was possible.

Germanic Ostriches

According to the book, if another passenger is getting on your nerves, you should firstly report it to the driver. So when there was a group of Neanderthals playing music through speakers on the bus, I told the driver. He replied, "what can I do about it? It's bothering nobody, is it? So I can't do anything until it does." I told him it was bothering me. The others were too cowardly to say anything. He told me to sit down. How, in the name of sanity, are you going to tell these "people" right from wrong if those in authority don't even want to deal with it?

2.D. Excuses as reasons?
A Belgian has an excuse for everything. The more you allow the average common or garden Belgian, the more liberties he/she will take. And they will try.

Never let a Belgian out of your sight for thirty seconds in these places:

• Shops where queuing is necessary. If you do, you may find that Belgian has found a shortcut to the front. And the excuse will be "I didn't notice you when I first came in". A good one is, "does it matter who is next?" Yeah, right... So remember, wherever there be a gap, the Belgian will fill it.


• In cafés or on trains alone. If you need to go to the toilet and you have nobody to look after your seat, put as much stuff on it as possible or you may find it taken when you come back. Excuses in this category range from "I saw this coat on the floor but I thought someone had gone off without taking their book with them" to "a person has to sit somewhere, eh?"


• Working on the commodities in your house. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER allow a Belgian into your home to fix the plumbing or the electricity. Firstly, it will take ages, be very costly and most importantly will need constant repair and maintenance. But secondly there will be forever interruptions. Belgians have habits of saying "I'm just off to get something for your radiator", and not reappearing for days. Excuses here could be, "they didn't have it in stock in the end so I ordered it and it only came yesterday but I've had the flu and my wife's got bronchitis, so I've been looking after her and then the holiday period started and blablabla..." or they could be, "it was fixed in the end, wasn't it?"


• Working on the street infrastructure. They have habits of going home for the weekend leaving paving stones where they were when they began the works, or leaving up diversion signs until someone realises that the works have actually finished. Last week they were working on the roads not far from my front door. They went home early on Friday leaving their no-entry barriers still in place and the buses had to continue on their diversion the whole weekend. Traffic on Monday morning was horrendous. Excuses here will be uninterpretable and generally menacing. This may include threatening to strike or not to connect your house/street properly to the infrastructure.


• Working in your office. Hiring Belgians is a serious threat to your business. For although I said earlier that there is little work going, those who have got it are seriously out to make sure they don't have their day disrupted by extra work. You see, this is why chocolate and beer are Belgium's greatest products. The average Belgian will go to hell and back naked to prepare for their free time and holidays, but woe betide anyone who puts a bit of hard work between them and a relaxing day at the office. Excuses in this category can be varied, but "I've still got to find a wallpaper for my desktop yet" is a popular excuse, as is "Can that wait until I've finished paying for this online concert ticket?" But the one heard the most is "Can a person not get any peace around here?" That covers all bases and people think you're REALLY busy, even when you're just reading the news!
  

2.E. Making sense of the more bizarre excuses
In Belgium, you will find people have:

a. No idea how to queue:

People walking into a shop, even a long, narrow one, will find ways of standing aloof so as to look like they're waiting - the problem is that the person serving does not keep an eye on the arrivals, so often these people get served first. When you try to say that you were in fact next, you are stared at by several others in the room who wonder how you dare to confront anyone in such an aggressive manner.

Getting on a train can be hell as many of the less cultured ones will barge in front, even trying to get on before the others have got off.

b. No idea how to start a conversation with a stranger:

You could stand at the same bus stop for years and years, and see the same people every day of your working life and still have never even exchanged looks.

There's a joke told by the expats in Brussels: what's the definition of eye contact on Belgian public transport? Answer: A married couple.

c. No sense of orientation on the pavements and also in buildings, lifts and cars:

Belgians spend most of their lives not only wondering why they exist, but also where they are. However one of the most infuriating aspects of not being a Belgian is having to accept their inability to walk in straight lines on pavements and their knack of blocking the pathways without realising it. On a recent trip to Saarbrücken, I came across a group of Belgians blocking the pathway in and out of Kaufhof. Telling them didn't help, they didn't understand what was wrong about standing there!

I once tried to move the moped of a teenager away from the enclosed area leading from the car park to the supermarket. I didn't notice he was behind me. He tried to hit me with his helmet and asked me why I was stealing his bike. When I pointed out that it was blocking the safe passage to the shop, he took a swing at me with his helmet. So I grabbed him and twisted him round in self defence, paying particular attention to his helmet hand. Along came some guy who told me to leave the kid alone.

Spatial awareness is a sign of empathy, understanding and community spirit. Which leads me on to section d...

d. No idea of charity or community spirit:

They don't tip for a start. They also don't thank people a lot for opening doors or giving passage in cars. But there is something darker here: charities are nuisances here who ambush you on pedestrian street crossroads or bombard your houses with adverts to send money. Nobody does any actual other charity work. In the seven years I have been here, not a single person has done anything sponsored.

In central Flanders there is the "Dodentocht", a yearly 24 hour walking event. People have to walk 100 kilometres in 24 hours in a circle. I know several people who did this. Now, in the UK or Poland for that matter people would use this opportunity to raise money for a local charity. When I asked one of my friends who was doing this what charity he was doing it for, he said "no charity - do you think I'm crazy?" Another one said "I'm doing it because you get free beer at the brewery". And yes, to answer your question, I really, sincerely do think you are crazy. Imagine walking 100 km and not bothering to collect cash for it!

2.F. However when there is a benevolent event:
A car-free day in Brussels is usually a sign that hypocrisy has finally reached new depths and the politicians think they should do something "green". But what if you need to take your spouse back to the airport? That was one thing a friend had to deal with. He walks to work every day, but uses his car only for travelling home to Germany or large assignments. Like collecting your wife and her things and putting her on a flight home to Berlin. So when he came out of his parking spot and reached the end of the street, he was mobbed by a group of part-time cyclists. You know, the type that has a car per family member, and thinks it's fun to get on a bike on car-free day.

Oh yes, and he lives in a flat below a woman who likes to vacuum her sofa in the middle of the night, have telephone arguments and walk around noisily in stiletto heels. But you see, nothing can be done by the police in Belgium, because she's not contravening the maximum decibels ruling. Quatsch!

3.A. Language and its uses
It is entirely possible that the Flemish have an exaggerated sense of importance of their language. And it is even more possible that the French-speaking Walloons are uninterested in learning their little lingo when they could be learning Spanish or English. The Flemish need to realise that even the Hollanders see the Flemish version of Dutch in the same way as the French look upon Créole. Get over it.

One little problem though: the Flemish think it's such a good idea to only allow people to join their civil service if they speak good enough Dutch and pass a language ability test. So what is happening in schools, colleges, universities and training facilities run by the Flemish government is that many Chinese, English, German and Spanish teaching jobs are going to Flemish people because the real native speakers have not mastered Dutch well enough. You need to pass a Dutch language test before you are allowed to work for them. OK, but what good is that to a Chinese teacher???

SOLUTION: The Flemish have a thing against the Walloons because they don't really try to learn Dutch, but they are missing the point. Nobody else does really, either. What use will Flemish Dutch be to anyone? I don't think the NATO translation unit will fall into chaos because nobody speaks it. So they need to be a little less exaggerative of people's needs to speak their rather sparsely used language.

3.B. Enjoying yourself the Belgian way

I remember the parties I used to organise in London and down in Kent. I would invite ten people and forty would show up. We had dancing on the tables; folk-style circles, lines and arches; we ran about in our underwear; we had midnight guitar sessions in the forest; we had blindfolded "guess the person" competitions, etc... Here in Belgium, I can't rustle up enough enthusiasm for a game of snooker once a month. I've been to "parties" where the host told me it was going to be a raucous affair with lots of drink and music, and we'd be finished at 5 and if you weren't tired yet we'd head off to the bar and blablabla... All lies. A Belgian "party" is as follows:

1. Come in, hand over bottles to fridgekeeper
2. Get a drink
3. Stand in the middle and choose which group of semi-hypnotised emoes you want to speak to
4. Notice how good the music is (usually unrecognisable café/lift stuff)
5. Stand there, wait for snacks to arrive
6. Pretend you're enjoying it
7. Talk about something intellectual or something totally meaningless like your shopping bill
8. After a few drinks, either go home or to a bar
9. Once out of the door, wonder who those people were
10. Go into a library to soak up a little more atmosphere
    

3.C. You will like what you are given
Go into any British or German supermarket and you will find four or five different sorts of everything to choose from. In a Belgian one you get what you are given. And if it goes off before you get home or it doesn't work properly, the following scenarios are possible:
"please fill in this forty page document and send it to this address. Oh hold on, your package has been opened. Sorry, that means you accepted this thing and it's not our responsibility any more. So go away please, I have to finish this crossword" or maybe, "I'll have to ask twenty other people and by the time I've finished you might be tired of waiting and have already lost the will to live."

3.D. What the Belgians do right
Not all of it is bad. Just what I listed above. Their TV is quite good (when it's on schedule - not the kind of country where a DVD recorder is of much use) and their food isn't bad (when served with a smile anyway). There is an expat joke: what's the best thing to come out of Belgium? Answer: The E40 motorway in either direction.

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I could go on, but I will stop here. I don't care what any Belgian thinks when reading this: I don't value their opinion very highly anyway. Not many Belgians have good judgement. In fact, ask directions to a group of them and they'd all have a different opinion of the way you should go, even to their own front door. One last thing: I often get told by Belgians: "if you don't like it, why don't you get out?" Well that is precisely what I'm going to do. So in the words of Filip De Winter, it's time for the three Bs: Bye Bye Belgium!

How life changes...

Did you know I used to cut grass to earn some extra pocket money? Not when I was a teenager, but after university, even after my first full-time job at a pharmeceutical research company. I was unemployed for over a year and fed up with sitting at home. It was not for the want of trying either. I sent 40 application letters and received two reject letters. The rest couldn't be bothered. I realise now I had taken the wrong course of action: in our Brave New World we have to rely on ourselves, not on the grace of others. When I finally did get a break, I really enjoyed my job, working on a multilingual helpdesk where I met some of my most long-standing friends.

Relying on myself became a principle I have tried so hard to enforce in my everyday life, but it is often difficult to avoid the help of friends and colleagues. Upon moving up the ladder to the City, where I worked in a foreign bank, I realised I was not going in the right direction. I was hired as a multilingual internet banking interface (or something like that) but I spoke only English at work and when I actually did my multilingual interface role, it was for only five minutes of the day, and even then the client insisted on trying out his/her English. So I contacted the human resources department, told them I was unhappy with my position and I wanted a transfer, and went on holiday. Upon my return, the papers were ready to sign. An effective way to conjure up your own dismissal.

I had by then learned from my awful mistakes the first time round and had saved up a little nestegg, which I used to get something more fitting. Speaking several languages and only speaking your own in your job can be a mighty cold shower when you spent years learning them. I found myself in Prague over New Year 2001, listening to a jazz band and drinking glühwein in the Old Town Square, when my phone rang. It was the head of unit for an official European organisation involved in the control of air traffic, seeking a multilingual contact point for central and eastern Europe. The wages were astronomical, almost unrealistic, and the working hours so unlike anything forced upon you in workaholic London.

I accepted there and then on the phone in Prague, oh and by the way, could I start in 11 days? Naturally! And that's how I ended up in Belgium. I ended up in Leuven, not Brussels, through an old university friend from the Netherlands, who had settled here with his Spanish wife. In 1999 I had taken an EU Institutions exam in Brussels and had followed them back to Leuven for dinner after the gruelling 6-hour tests. I really liked the place from first view and vowed to live here in the future if I ever got a job which permitted me to do so. The European organisation was on the Leuven-Brussels railway line, and without hesitation I arrived, on a rainy 14th January 2001 at the hotel opposite the station while I sorted out an apartment.

It doesn't end there... This was 2001, the year of The Event in the aircraft industry and so when the panic set in, changes were made and excuses were found to shove the newcomers out onto the streets. I had a lot of adjusting to do: going from earning in 4 days what most earned in a month to not earning anything at all meant I needed to move out of my marble-floored, two-bathroomed semi-penthouse with balcony overlooking the historic centre into a clumsy duplex two-roomed shoebox on a thoroughfare opposite the prison, next to a hotel, a hospital, a bordello, and round the corner from a school. Needless to say I was kept awake by the delivery vans, buses, patients, schoolkids, police escorts, ambulances and visitors to the ladies of the night (whom I never saw, of course).

I started to panic when I was down to my last 300 euro and the rent needed paying, so I went back to what I know best - language training. I love it. There's nothing nicer than giving people who are interested the benefit of your knowledge. It all began as a sort of cottage industry: in Belgium, due to the high number of people requiring language skills, most trainers are independent, not employees. Language training is also VAT-free, unlike translation, which while more profitable, is also a damn sight more boring. Relying on myself seemed surely the right way to go after being let down by so many others. I got my break through Marc Smekens, a jolly, charismatic and hard-working self-made Christian rock singer with his own language training company. Originally giving lessons for his outfit, I gradually picked up my own speed until I ended up on the 22nd floor of the second highest tower in Brussels, that of Belgacom, Belgium's monopolistic telecommunications company.

I didn't think it would all explode in my face, until the day I was accused of something which in fact my students had requested. I showed them my photographic website - one of them was going to Slovakia and wanted to see some photos of the place. But because there are photos of models on another section of my website, the potential catastrophe of them catching a glimpse of a scantily clad young lady whilst working drove the training department to pull the plug on me. So I decided to rely on myself once more and get my own clients. Having built up a nice little empire, master of my own domain, I spotted a call for trainers at the European Institutions, only requirement, a degree in languages. There was to be a seminar on the procedures and structures of the Institutions which I found to be quite daunting but within two months I was propelled into the European Commission's training department. I remained there for two and a half years before diversifying to the European Parliament and the Commission's interpretation centre.

I meet people from every country in the EU, who do all kinds of tasks from political advisers to European budget regulators, from MEPs to ushers, from conference interpreters to extra-governmental trainees from outside the EU. I give them all kinds of training from giving presentations and speeches to negotiating in English, from dealing with high-level correspondence to simple grammar courses. No day is ever the same. No semester is ever the same. I have been blessed (so far) with a happy and interesting course in life, which I hope will remain for as long as the contract is renewed.