To the Victor go the…large mounds
January 26, 2008
Battlefields have a strange attraction. Gettysburg had an impact on me which was all the more powerful for being so thoroughly unexpected. The humanity of it all was perversely rammed home by understanding the sheer scale of the slaughter. In the case of Gettysburg the preservation of the slaughter-yard otherwise called a battlefield adds to the weight of the experience. Read more
Are Cartoons Literature?
January 1, 2008
There is a general acceptance that cartoons can indeed be literature although one would need to be selective about which cartoons were selected for the library shelves. As ten years olds, or thereabouts we used to devour Commando Comics. One of our friends had a father who absolutely prohibited “this rubbish” from his house - we smuggled them to our friend under our shirts… Read more
Waterloo
May 21, 2007
The poppy flower brightens the trackside vegetation and livens up the borders of the wheat fields where the plough has not scarified them out of the ground. They blur past me as I gaze across gently rolling fields from the train taking me to Visiting the site (it is a short train ride from Brussels) requires more than the couple of hours I had to explore the headquarters of
17 May 2007
Old St Catherine
May 21, 2007
How old is the Around the square are new maples, ice cream shops, trendy little restaurants, a few bars - one in which I currently prop – and Flemish style buildings most recently refurbished. Getting here through the outlying city blocks was a traverse of nations and cultures. Africans spilling out of the “Little Castle, a place of refugee application. Pakistani soft-drink sellers. Aged Belgian men walking their pugs. Muslim women of indeterminate origin (other than from the generic “Middle East”) with their scampering children, Korean family selling car deodorisers from the sidewalk, Chinese hairdresser, beggar on a stool still elegant in his beret and doing what he can to maintain his dignity.
16 May 2007
Belgians in Brussels
May 21, 2007
There is a roughness to the population which is quite striking. It almost verges on the skinhead look. Unkempt and dark. Not that there is any sense of threat. It is just the dress of the youth. Dark and oppressive. Aggressive even. But it seems this is the Soho of Brussels so I should not be surprised. Indeed, there is something vibrant about it as well. Art shops, bookshops, music, paint, stamps, postcards, small bars, gay bars, sidewalk cafes, street theatre, huge murals, on walls, (Tintin and Snowy descending a flight of stairs on one), rubbish piled high, despite the seeming constantly working fleet of trash trucks, more dog turds, and now drifting rain. Bald headed bearded elderly homeless men drift around. Japanese tourists ogle past, mouth open in perpetual surprise. Shaven young Lebanese lads bolt up the street to the nearest night club. Of which there are dozens. So too jazz and blues clubs. Surprising. In fact I am missing a Jazz marathon by a week. Shame really. Unshaven, beanie, long locks drifts past the window. Is this drabness and darkness what the Belgians exported to the 15 May 2007
Tintin, Waffles and Chocolate
May 14, 2007
Brussels is a strange town. I sat and ate a very expensive McDonalds burger (the Big Mac Index blows out in this place at about USD8.00, AUD10.00. And as I did so watched grey people on a grey day. It is Sunday, Mothers Day and everyone seems to be out and about. But it is not an attractive city today. It has a hard edge to it. Dirty and somehow forgotten. Museums are boarded up being repaired. Streets are filthy – cobblestones are great for trapping rubbish. Yet that which had people flee the old world is no doubt what attracts us all back. There are flashes in this town that surprise and enchant. And let’s face it, I have only walked for a couple of hours after getting off a 24 hour series of flights from









