Brussels. The centre of European bureaucracy and, if you read the right newspapers, the enemy of our proud British traditions. Leaving the Euro debate alone for the moment, Brussels has been accused at various points in the last decade of trying to force UHT milk on us, dilute the purity of our pork pies and most controversially of all, trying to standardise the great British sausage into a straight, highly measured meat product not unlike those suspicious looking foreign sausages. Being a man of the world, I couldn’t care less whether my sausages are straight or bent, they all taste the same anyway. But this city has been a byword for homogenisation.
Brussels has been given a very bad press in my opinion. For a place which supposedly wants everything to be the same, it’s a glorious melting pot of styles, regions and traditions. The architecture is stunning, particularly around the Grand Place, many of the highly decorative buildings having been constructed in the 1600s with narrow twisting alleys spurring off at odd angles, packed from floor to ceiling with iced baskets of seafood. Amongst the many bistros serving mussels are wood fired ovens releasing aromatic clouds which linger in the air. Then around the next corner, Greek, Italian, Chinese and Japanese restaurants all cry for the attention of your palette before the most glorious smell on earth cancels out all else and draws you towards the small, artisan, chocolate makers.
Brussels Lunch
This should be banned under an EU law as the smell is so intense, so sensuous, that leaving the shop without having parted with huge amounts of money is impossible. Surely it must be illegal? Not in Brussels. Leaving the shop many Euro lighter, an even sweeter smell draws me down an alleyway which wouldn’t be out of place in JK Rowling’s imagination. There is an excitable throng of identically dressed kids, eyes on stalks, watching hot, sticky sweet waffles being produced and then being topped with strawberries and cream completely out of proportion with the size of the base. They are then given a hopelessly small plastic stick with which to eat it. Five minutes later and there are huge numbers of dirty faces and fingers being wiped, just the smiles remaining.
At the concert last night, I have never seen so many people in the theatre. With a packed stage, choir and audience, people appeared to be standing anywhere they could to watch the concert, in the aisles, behind the rows of seats