Waiting for a dream

Moving out...

2006-12-08T23:34:00.000+01:00

This blog is moving to www.myspace.com/biserbyt. See you there!!!

Water Closet Royale

2006-12-03T15:43:00.000+01:00

KGB isn't restricting its operations to London, baby. There after me for sure... It's been a shit house these last days. Quite literally. First of all I've been up to my tits in shite at work. Actually, up to my boss' tits: it's mostly his manure anyway and since he's only 4'1" it doesn't take all that much excrement to reach said tits. If you ever wanted to make a Smurf porn movie, I'll get you his number. But anyway, Wednesday evening I was about to explode since the crap-o-meter had reached overload at around lunchtime. My head was absolutely throbbing. That evening I went for a quick bite at the veggie fast food (that just spells disaster doesn't it...) and had a forest mushroom tagliatelle. I was hoping that the copious intake of mushrooms might expand my mind but to no avail. Something did expand though... That morning I awoke very much like Ronald Reagan in the Land of Confusion-video (not with an old tart next to me, but bathing in my own sweat...). Thought I'd be fine, but by the time I reached work, my stomach contracted again and my rear cargo hull discharged its dilithium crystals with an ease that would have made Scotty grasp for air. I'm sure some of Poetins agents poisoned my tagliatelle. I've got the hairdo, don't I?

And they lived happely ever after

2006-11-26T19:42:00.000+01:00

You just know that’s how the story ends. It always does, doesn’t it.
In stead of telling you what really happened – they lived in excruciating agony for about five years, then he took to the drink and came home early, pissed as a fart only to find her sucking the milkmans vainy pecker after which a bitter divorce ensued over who could have the Vectra. They never tell you that, do they ?
They just serve you the same warmed up horse shite over and over again. Boy meets girl, girl plays hard to get, but it all works out in the end.
Ok, maybe Bill threw us something of a curve ball with his Verona lovers. But he’s not fooling anybody, is he. An Englishman telling us about boiling, hot Latino loving. Surely not. Bare table leggs are enough to arouse your average Brit’s sexual ardour. And they are going to explain to us the basic rules of the Art of making the beast with the two backs ?
Romeo and Julliet, huh ;? What about the black dude. I’m sure little Juliet didn’t mind Mercutio Junior (probably not SO Junior) being introduced to her. Once you go black, you don’t go back. Anyway, Mr. Shakespeare didn’t do his research properly. I know a thing or two about Italian love.

One : All Italians have a serious Oedepus-complex. They only love la mama, that’s why they live with them ‘till they’re sixty-five. Freud would have had a field day with each and every one of these suckers. Paolo Maldini has won more heroïc battles in San Siro then Russell Maximus Meridius ever did in Germania, but you can bet your rear-end that Paolo still shits his knickers when he has to tell la mama he lost to Internazionale.
Two: Italian women are very much like Italian cars. Beautiful curves, amazing red exteriour, loads of shiny knobs you just want to fiddle with : in other words a very smooth ride. Only, once they hit forty-five it all goes horribly wrong. They’re impossible to handle, make the most frightening noises and you have to pay rediculous amounts of money on spare parts if you don’t want to be the joke of the neighbourhood. And I’m not talking about the cars here. My conclusion : Italian love is very overated and shouldn’t ever be the starting point for a universal love story.

Stiiiiiiiiii-raike trie

2006-11-23T18:20:00.000+01:00

I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours, but I think that God 's got a sick sense of humour... Three grandparents who have a stroke in three weeks times. Fuck you , asshole!!

I saw Marc Reynebeau

2006-11-15T18:26:00.001+01:00

Damn, he IS ugly

The picture of Dorian Gray

2006-11-13T23:03:00.000+01:00

Can you picture yourself in those that came before you? Will your life lead you along the paths they walked and will your journey wind along the same predictable road? Will you remember the turning points: your firstborn, the day your wife died, the day you realised you saw your grandson for the very last time? Will he realise it? Will it matter? Will you be forgiven when you reach your final destination? Will the wrinkles in your face be of age, of pain , of anger? Will you want to realise your time is up? Will you perish like them, helpless and painfully aware that you have been forsaken? Will those that have forsaken you, leave you for leaving them? Will you be ashamed of your helplessness, but still to proud to ask for help? Will you feel that life has treated you well? Will you hope for better things to come? Will you want her to go first? Will you want to be alone or will you want them by your side? When you die, you'll wonder: "Was that it?". Will you think of how you wished you'd lived? Well you're here now, yes, you're here now...

2006-10-26T23:04:00.000+02:00

We don't need no water
Let her burn

Belzebozo just applied for planning permission. He's gonna build you an extra wing, with splendid views on the Lake of Fire. I will not forget this...

2006-10-25T22:57:00.000+02:00

Tssssssssssssssssssssssssss

Yeah right!

2006-10-20T23:58:00.000+02:00

Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapse Tied to Global Warming

Scientists on Monday reported the first direct evidence linking the 2002 collapse of an Antarctic ice shelf to global warming. The researchers found that stronger westerly winds in the northern Antarctic Peninsula, fueled primarily by human-induced climate change, were responsible for the dramatic summer warming that led to the retreat and collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf.
"This is the first time that anyone has been able to demonstrate a physical process directly linking the break-up of the Larsen Ice Shelf to human activity," said lead author Gareth Marshall from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). The study, by BAS scientists as well as researchers at the University College London's Centre for Polar Observation and Modeling and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, was published in the "Journal of Climate." The 1,255-square mile ice shelf collapsed into the Weddell Sea over a 35-day period in early 2002. Scientists believe the 220-meter thick shelf had been in place for some 5,000-12,000 years.

In 2002, 720 billion tons of ice sheet has disintegrated in less than a month. Its disintegration was the third recent, sudden collapse of an Antarctic ice shelf, following the collapses of the 618-square mile Larsen A Ice Shelf in 1995 and the 425-square mile Wilkins Ice Shelf in 1998.
The collapses did not affect sea levels - ice shelves are thick plates of ice, fed by glaciers, that float on the ocean around much of Antarctica. But scientists warn that the loss of ice shelves in the region could predicate sea level rise. Ice shelves act hold back glaciers from the sea and keep warmer marine air at a distance from the glaciers. A study released in 2004 revealed that this concern has started to materialize. It found Antarctic glaciers melting and moving more quickly toward the sea in the wake of the collapse of a Larsen B ice shelf, with several of the glaciers moving at up to five times their previous speed.

In this latest study, Marshall and his colleagues report that global warming - and manmade hole in the ozone layer - has changed Antarctic weather patterns. Scientists worldwide are convinced that human emissions of heat-trapping gases released by the burning of fossil fuels are largely responsible for temperature increases over the past century. The western Antarctic Peninsula has showed the biggest increase in temperatures observed anywhere on Earth over the past half-century. Stronger westerly winds are forcing warm air eastward and over the natural barrier created by the Antarctic Peninsula's 1.25 mile-high mountain chain. During the past 40 years the average summer temperatures in this region of the north-east peninsula has been 2.2 degrees Celsius, but on days when warm winds top the mountains of the peninsula, temperatures rise by 5 to 10 degrees Celsius, the researchers said. This warming created the conditions that allowed the drainage of melt-water into crevasses on the Larsen Ice Shelf, a key process that led to its break-up in 2002.
"Climate change does not impact our planet evenly - it changes weather patterns in a complex way that takes detailed research and computer modeling techniques to unravel," Marshall said. "What we've observed at one of the planet's more remote regions is a regional amplifying mechanism that led to the dramatic climate change we see over the Antarctic Peninsula."

2006-10-17T21:48:00.000+02:00

Question mark

Why did I bother writing this? Why do you bother reading this? Why do the first three sentences of this post start with? Why is this not a rethorical question? Why? Why? Why? Delilah. Why is the penultimate letter of our alphabeth. Why you little... Aaaargh. Is there life after death? Is there life before death? Why do French call it 'le petit mort'. Does actual death really feel as if you've just jacked off? Does actual death really feel as if you jacked off a second time? Why is it called jack off and not David off. Fuck off.

2006-10-16T22:43:00.000+02:00

Shoplifters of the world
Unite and bend over

If I go to Hell... Excuse me, let me rephrase that. When I go to Hell, I'm sure the Great Lake of Fire will come in the form of a supermarket. You cannot honestly tell me you don't feel that the inside of any given Wal-Mart, Ahold, Tesco or De-fucking-laize is not the viscous vortex, the wretched wormhole to pure evil. The aisles are just narrow enough to make you touch icky strangers. The voice that announces your meat is ready at the butchers, could just as well announce that they are ready to butcher you. Hey you, be a happy consumer. Three bottles of wine, two peanuts for free. Taste our new dog food. Useless shit, now only 9.99!! Get fucked now, pay 55.99 for the rest of your life. And to top it all off: check-out. I was in the basket-isle. The purpose of this isle is to let Übermenschen like myself speed out of this Babylon before the mongoloid mongrels suck us in to their demi-monde for good. Its purpose is not to let semi-dried up eighty year olds fill tree baskets with more rubble than you could find on Ground Zero, September Eleven 2001, 14:00PM; dislocate their osteoporose shoulder dragging it to the check-out before spending the average lifespan of a parrot looking for a one euro centcoins. I was number 38 in line... All of a sudden lady number 37 realised that she forgot earplugs to plug her husbands nostrils, so she wouldn't hear him snore.
"Sorry sir, could you watch my stuff," she said. About three hours later, she came back (I was up to number 34 by now).
"Where's my Boursin, my bananas and the shoe polish I left."
"Woar wfhat?" I spat. "Waim fhorry, m'am, bwut ifts wuude to cut fe laain. Aiif neffa feen woe before."
Okay, the shoe polish will probably explain why I've been on the toilet the whole evening, but I will go trough a lot of shit if it gets my out of a supermarket.

2006-10-14T12:14:00.000+02:00

Shell shock
Go and see Western Ireland, it's your last chance

The Guilford four? The Manchester six? Everyone remotely familiar with Irish recent history knows what I'm talking about. Irish men who've been imprisoned for decades after a hoax process. You can see Daniel Day-Lewis excel in "In the name of the Father" portraying the story of these men. Sadly, Ireland found 5 volunteers to eradicate the numerical inconsistancy of the abovementioned list...The Rossport five.The Rossport Five are James Brendan Philbin, brothers Philip and Vincent McGrath, Willie Corduff and Micheál Ó Seighin. These five men from County Mayo were jailed on June 29th 2005 by Justice Finnegan, President of the High Court of the republic of Ireland, for contempt of court. They refused to obey a court injunction forbidding them to interfere with work being undertaken by Shell, who are building a high pressure gas pipeline across land in Rossport to pipe unrefined natural gas from the offshore Corrib gas Field. Three of the five men own land in Rossport: Phillip McGrath has a house in Rossport and Micheál Ó Seighin lives about five miles from Rossport in Stonefield. The government granted planning permission to Enterprise Oil (subsequently taken over by Shell) to build an onshore gas processing plant and to supply it using a high pressure pipeline which runs as close as seventy metres to the houses of some of these men. The men were released from Cloverhill Prison on 30 September 2005, after 94 days, when Shell applied to the High Court to have the injunction lifted. This came after media and political scrutiny of the case.

Strangely, when you ask for ethical investment funds in your bank, Shell will always feature as one of the stocks because they invest a lot in alternative energy. Brits putting energy in chasing Irishmen from their land can hardly be called alternative if you ask me...

2006-10-12T22:08:00.000+02:00

Sssssssssssssst, it's all so quiet

I even managed to shut up da voices in me head for a moment

2006-10-10T20:04:00.000+02:00

In Memoriam Paul Hunter

October 14 1978 - October 9 2006

Paul Hunter, the Beckham of snooker, has lost his battle against cancer. Hunter was a three times Masters champion, his last win over Ronnie O'Sullivan - winning 10-9 from 7-2 down - obtained thanks to his girlfriend (and later wife) Lindsey, who gave him a moral boost during the mid session interval. Paul was a half finalist at the World championship in Sheffield in 2003, losing out to Ken Doherty. Daughter Evie Rose was born on Boxing day last year.

2006-10-09T19:45:00.000+02:00

More deep thoughts on the political processus
Siegfried Bracke, eat your heart out!

So apparently nobody really lost the elections, and even if they did, the others lost even more or -just as convenient- the others didn't win as much as they said they would. The Nazi's only win a few thousand extra votes in Antwerp and we're celebrating like it's fucking D-day. I've never been so ashamed in my life as when I saw Hugo - look how drunk I can be on national television - Claus saying he was lost for words. Not the way I was, buddy. Please Hugo, either stick to your scribbling or host a reality show on VT4, but if you're the culmination of left wing politics in this country, I'm siding with the Arians... Anyway, nobody seems to realise that still one third of this country would favor a good book burning over the Ghent Film festival (to name but one vaguely cultural experience).

A few hundred votes is enough to turn the average Belgian Joe Schmoe into a potentate, the likes of whom has not roamed these parts since Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, the third Duke of Alva. Let me try and put things into perspective with these words from the secretary of the People who hate people party, Mr. Tommy Tiernan.

"When I was in New York I went to the Space Centre to take a virtual tour of space. It started in Knock (a shit hole in county Mayo, Ireland, the equivalent in Belgium would be Filip Dewinter's asshole, #Bietje#). Then we were in space. There it was: Earth. This blue ball, with no strings, revolving (mind the -r- ,#Bietje#) and flying through space. Even when you're fast asleep: woooooooooooooooooooooosh. You're still travelling through space at an incredible speed. The other planets in our solar system are not nearly that peachy. Covered in dust, rubble and bricks, they've no children, no rabbits... Then we took a look at the other solar systems in our galaxy. Hundreds and thousands of them. With suns that would dwarf our sun. Some of these planets have 19 moons. Nineteen moons: you wouldn't catch a wink of fucking sleep. Then, we looked at the other galaxies in our universe. AND THERE'S MILLIONS OF THEM. Vaster, more gigantic than our one. THEN, we took a look at the other universes. AND THERE'S MILLIONS OF THEM. I'm in tears by now. And then we took a look at the other universes we don't know about, but we fucking know about. AND THERE'S MILLIONS OF THEM. So I realised that, far from being the centre of the universe, far from being important, far from being relevant, nobody knows we're fucking here! ... SO LET'S WRECK THE JOINT!"

Maybe a bit of modesty from our so-called leaders wouldn't be too much to ask...

2006-10-08T19:39:00.000+02:00

People who hate people party
Election time again - Quotes by famous politicians on the results

Abraham Lincoln said: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time." He was obviously wrong. People bend over on a regular basis, take out the vaseline and let the politicians have their way with them. Look at Abe's beloved United States. The Elephant has been reigning supreme for nearly seven years now. And Belgium? Well, either we long for the time we could march through the streets with a light-brown uniform and sing Deutsche Schlagers or we like politicians who order the killing of partymembers by Tunesian hitmen... depending if you live in the north or the south of this patetic joke called a country (De Gaulle said that the English invented Belgium to annoy the French). So I voted for the only politician you can trust (a dead one): Mr. Bill Hicks, founding father and president for life of the People who hate people party.

"People who hate people - come together!!"
"NO!"
... We're kinda having trouble getting of the boards, but you know ...
"Are you gonna be there?"
"Yeah"
"Then I ain't fuckin' coming"
"But you're our strongest member!"
"FUCK YOU!"
"That's what I'm talking about, you asshole!"
"Fuck Off!!"
"Damn, we almost had a meeting going..."

So what people do we hate? Well, we don't discriminate. We hate everybody!! Jews, reds, queers, rich, poor, goodlooking, fat, small, tall, blind, mute or deaf. We even hate normal people. And we especially hate retarded morons who think for a split second that this has anything to do with VB. Why? Because men are just a virus on shoes!

2006-09-29T21:02:00.000+02:00

I, Lucifer
It's not an ad for matches...

For a moment I thought my boss had written an autobiography. He couldn't have, off course. It'd take a legion of Nobel Prize winners to translate the timberwood of childish thoughts in his head. Timberwood a score of Columbi and Magellans were set out to find eons ago in that vast void that is his brain. And off course he doesn't partake in as mundane a pass time as writing: he has minions to cover his writing activities. It is my pleasure, nay my privilege, to grovel for him - day after endless day.

I, Lucifer, Fallen Angel, Prince of Darkness, Bringer of Light, Ruler of Hell, Lord of the Flies, Father of Lies, Apostate Supreme, Tempter of Mankind, Old Serpent, Prince of This World, Seducer, Accuser, Tormentor, Blasphemer, and without doubt Best Fuck in the Seen and Unseen Universe (ask Eve, that minx) have decided - oo-la-la! - to tell all.

Apart from that last bit, it's spitting image with Your Bossiness. And I know there's something about him: I've never seen his reflection in a mirror. But no, it's not his autobiography: I, Lucifer is a glorious novel by Glen Duncan. Buy it, or better: hear me quote from it for the next twenty years...

2006-09-27T19:34:00.000+02:00

Trenchcoat it is
And thou shallt know my name is the Lord, when I lay my vengeance upon thee

I don't even know how the gun got in my hand
Five bullets five names and a contract of five hundred grand
My only apology is for what I have never done
Five bullets five names and my head swinging high in the noon day son

Welcome to the sunny place that is my soul

2006-09-20T18:36:00.000+02:00

NERINA IS COMING!!!!
Not necessarily in my dreams but in the Botanique December 8th

Geek Love

In the race to get out of this place,
I am checking my face in the back of a spoon,
You're accusing, you say I'm not here,
but I'm here, yes I'm here,I'm not on the moon,
I'm leaving so soon,

But don't presume to know shit about me,
'Cause I don't know myself from one day to the next,
And I don't pose perplexities purposely,
'Cause it isn't a game, it isn't a test.

And now hey, you, could you give it a rest?
Just take me home, c'mon and get me undressed,
Put on a fire and make it enough,
For we're geeks, but we know this is love.

Nine am to the beat of a drum,
As we drive through the canyon,
I'm feeling the hum of the engine,
My head and my heart are a-swim,
will your cat be ok?Your wife was she in?
Your wife, is she in???

'Cause I don't presume to know shit about you,
When you won't really tell me until I beg you to,
But I know that perplexity's a wonderful thing,
It's a sudden found joy, the strangeness it brings...

And now hey, you, could you give it a rest?
Just take me home, c'mon and get me undressed,
Put on a fire and make it enough,
For we're geeks, but we know this is love, this is love.
Geeks, but we know this is love.

I like that we argue,
But not everyday,
Your scent in a room,
And the way that you say 'color' not 'colour'.
What colour today?It's grey, grey, it's grey.

Oh hey, you, could you give it a rest?
Just take me home, c'mon and get me undressed,
Put on a fire and make it enough,
For we're geeks, but we know this is love, this is love.
Hey, you, could you give it a rest?
Just take me home, c'mon and get me undressed,
Put on a fire and make it enough,
For we're geeks, but we know this is love, this is love, yeah.
Geeks, but we know this is love.

I'll be your geek if you'll want me to...

2006-08-28T18:29:00.000+02:00

DNF
Did not falter...

As opposed to my big sports guru DVLMN, I did not falter during my first real test of the season. I ended Brussels Half Marathon after 2 hours; 26 minutes and 44 seconds with two bleeding nipples. I was number 1467 with 1533 athletes making it to the Grand Place... The parcours was terrible: up and down and up again, and down and up and up and down and up and down. They tried to confuse us by mixing up the kilometersigns along the road and the ravitaillements were a joke: can you honestly tell me your able to drink ISOSTAR from a papercup running at, well, about 9+1/2 kph? Anyway, my leggs nearly fell off, but it was worth every inch of it...

2006-08-21T20:03:00.000+02:00

Dear Frustrated Superstar
Must be about me, you know I have it in me

Dear Frustrated Superstar,
your mother's waiting in the car
To whisk you off to your new premiere

And all the friends who knew your name
Are waiting, wondering what became
Of the girl that they once knew but never loved
They never loved.

So every city tells the lie
Of beggars, tramps and butterflies
Of all these things, then what am I?
A princess in a threadbare gown,
A gaudy, painted circus clown?
A child who lost her key and can't get home?

All the things I never was -
A traitor in the Western Wars
A girl who did it just because.
Do or die, or don't at all
Prepare to suffer for your call
Some things have to hurt or they're not true.
They can't be true

When you die, you'll wonder, "Was that it?"
Will you think of how you'd wished you lived?
Well, you're here now
Yes you're here now.
So I only want to be up there
With a hundred others, I don't care
'Cause I'm here now
Yes I'm here now.

Papers, books, philosophy
An envelopes eternity
I count each passing minute, hour, day.....
Wonder how I smile so well,
Wonder how they never tell
There's really no one living here at all.

So here's a line from God's own song
To comfort you when things go wrong
My children never visit me.
Go searching in the sky at night
They must be there to set alight
Their mothers aching heart is so unsure
I'm so unsure....

When you die, you'll wonder, "Was that it?"
Will you think of how you'd wished you lived?
Well, you're here now
Yes you're here now.
So I only want to be up there
With a hundred others, I don't care
'Cause I'm here now
Yes I'm here now.

Dear Frustrated Superstar,
I really hope you get that far
If not, I hope you live
I hope you live.

2006-07-26T20:30:00.000+02:00

Young and Catholic
Que?

I bet you all got them before, those worthless junk-emails about free loans, free degrees, free cars, free whatevers. Now some of them really make me wonder.

Today I received a mail from the people of L'Oreal ('cause I'm worth it!!) about free shampoo... Dear Mr. and Mrs. L'Oreal, could I kindly suggest you to go and fuck yourselfs... I've been going baldly where no man has gone before since I was sixteen. Do send me some free razorblades so I can shave my skull and slit your wrists. Thank you.

Another urban myth I want to tackle: although there won't be much word to mouth to prove the following statement: I am not in any way impaired in the hanging department. I appreciate you all want to give me a few inches more, but as Hulla says: "An enormous cock is just a pain in the arse".

And last but not least: the meet-hot-singles-tonight-mails. Yes, I'm single. I can live with it, I'm not sure I could live with you, so bugger off. And I always get invited to meet fat chicks... What is that? First of all: I get vertigo when if I am high up. Second of all: I wouldn't want to burn my arse on the lightbulb. So please: anybody with a BMI above 40: get a live, you sure as hell ain't getting mine!

But the best one I've got: Young and Catholic. Young and Catholic? What do you take me for? A Catholic priest? If a girl thinks I'll be interested in organized religion, she is definitely barking up the wrong tree. Take a hike, Marie Magdalene.

Now excuse me, I'm gonna read the genuine mail I've got (all two of them..)

2006-07-17T18:22:00.000+02:00

Fock off, fock off, fock off
My views on the peace process in the Middle East

Since my main man, DVLMN, is very worried about the lack off politically inspired posts on this blog lately: here is one.

In the words of Tommy Tiernan: "Does Israel give a rat's arse about what anybody's thinking? Blowing up people left, right and centre and then addressing the United Nations: Fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off, fock off. To the Palestinians: fock off. You can't be living here. Fock off to some place you DON'T come from. We've applied for planning permission in the old Testament. It's just come through, so FOCK OFF."

Well, to all you freaks blowing each other up (and that includes you Mr. George -oops was my mike still on when I said the Hezbollah have to stop this shit- Dubbaja Bush): FOCK OFF!

Aaaah, ain't the summer a great season for hatred...

2006-07-11T13:40:00.000+02:00

Songs of stamina and endurance
One feels a theme developing, huh?

This morning I continued my quest for the six-pack with a light recovery-run. After Sunday's epic, I continued the Bietje's Best Badminton Battle yesterday, and - due to a combination of physical strength, technical ability, cunning tactics and basic nitty-gritty - demolished my co-worker with a rather overwhelming 4-0 victory. This morning I went along the same tour I've described to you earlier (face it DVLMN, it must be more than 16K, the bit along the Coupure along is about 4. I should know, I ran it during the official 10K Ghent-run...).
Started of really slow, stopping in my tracks to do the necessary stretching. After about half an hour, I got going, stepping it up every now and then. Along the Coupure I really dug deep, getting the heart rate up to 190; going flat out and then accelerating even more. Trees were swaying, frothy waves were forming on the Coupure and I do believe I saw one of those little tourist boats tip over. The smell of burnt rubber told me it was time to slow down (or was it my breakfast resurfacing?)... Ok, I was hardly Michael Schumacher, I don't even think I was Ralph. But you get up at eight and burn a thousand calories first thing in the morning. Anyway, feel great. Been watching my food (used to eat with my eyes closed...), lay of the booze and I've lost over two stones by now. Two days of rest, another badminton game on Friday and then another run (Menen-Kortrijk and back?) on Saturday, before we go off to the PPKLTS-party in Roeselare. C yis!

2006-07-09T12:43:00.000+02:00

Playing the athlete
Pain and suffering in various tempos

Due to the scorching weather these last days, I hadn't really been keeping up my running program. Last decent run was Wednesday week, with a stop at Daf's place (see the man off to holiday). Meanwhile I've been involved in an intense badmintonstruggle with my colleague Francois, to determine who's the best badmintonner in the office (it's me, off course, although last Friday he held me to a drawl, fair play to you, Swa)...

But this morning, I felt I had to make up for lost time. Weather being slightly overcast, even a slight drizzle: perfect conditions for a top performance. And so off we went.
The first half hour the feeling can best be described as: "Oh my God" (God not being the landlord from The Annexe Inn in Keel, but rather this Canadian bloke whom I saw at Cactusfestival yesterday- Rufus you still got it, bitch). My legs felt like they were gonna explode, I couldn't find my rhythm and my breathing was going crazy. I knew I shouldn't have had that yoghurt at breakfast.
The second half hour I kinda got into the groove: I wasn't going to give up, I had to do at least an hour. Legs were good, breathing was fine and I really went at it flat out for at least five kilometers. And then the last thirty minutes I felt like Lestat de Lioncourt: I knew I had died ages ago, but I never felt more alive. The world beside me had gone. It was only me, the sweat gushing from my back and my aching legs. Still running at 80% of my maximum heartrate, I picked up the pace even further. For the first time ever, I really felt like Declan...

For those of you who know Ghent: from the Rotonde, I ran along the Leie, under the King Albertbridge, passing the Europabridge, to the Blaarmeersen. One and a half tour around the lake, I left the Blaarmeersen along the Watersportbaan. I went back along the Leie, got under the bridge at the Charles De Kerckhovelaan. It took me to the Coupure, which I followed to the Rozemarijnbridge, where I turned to get back to the Leie. I followedd the Leie again to the Europabridge, where I crossed and ran back to the Rotonde... Must be about 20km, I guess. According to my heartrate meter I burned 1741 calories...

Now: kick back, relax, finish the Poe Shadow and go and see Crash in the Studioskoop...

2006-07-06T18:39:00.000+02:00

Reality is more exciting than fiction
NOT!

During my last visit to Dublin, I did more than just buy CD's (see previous post). I also bought books... Long overdue was the purchase of American Psycho. Of course I saw the movie, but the book is always better, off course, especially with a vivid imagination as oneselfs...

Another bargain I found was Scipio by Ross Leckie. For those of the populace who think Scipio the new WWF-heavyweight champion: Scipio was one of the true great Romans, up there with Caesar and Augustus and he was the one who kicked Hannibal's -elephants included- butt in Zama. He is also the wise man who appears in Cicero's De Res Publica and explains the constellation of the Roman Republic through a dream. Another novel flirting with this subject has been Iain Pearse's, The dream of Scipio, one of the best books I've read to date. (How highbrow am I???)

Third and final Irish acquisition was The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl. Pearl is right up there with Pearse fighting for the title of Bietje's finest author. His first novel, "The Dante Club" was a sort of "Seven" murder-thriller with people being murdered as described in Dante Alighieri's Divina Comedia. His next exploit deals with the mysterious death of Edgar A. Poe... Absolutely gripping stuff.
Only blemish on the men's coat of arms: he gets praise from Dan fecking Brown. You know, the guy who has one story and managed to squeeze five (fifth is on the way) books out of it. Ok, the Da Vinci Code was a page turner, but if you replace Opus Dei with Illuminati you get Angels and Demons (or De Bernini mysterie in Flemish).
He now is working on a story about free-masonry: way to go dude! His characters are wafer thin and the plot is hardly as gripping as a US-presidential in Florida. The film sucked, critics roared. Well, guess what. If you have a lousy book to start with... Don't get me wrong: I read both Da Vinci and Angels and Demons in a couple of days, but they're fast food. Nothing against a quick hamburger every now and then, but I prefer to sit down to a nice lobster. Pearl and Pearse would be the lobsters in this story...

2006-07-03T18:33:00.000+02:00

The next big thing
But I've one question, I want something,I want more

In January I read an article in which they asked established singer-songwriters who would be the next thing. The established singer-songwriter on top of my list has to be Joseph Arthur. I'm sure not a lot of you heard from him, but that would be your loss. His concert in the Botanique, last October, is about the most baffling performance I've ever seen.

So who did Joseph recommend? Nerina Pallot. You wouldn't have heard a lot of this lady, since here album is not yet available in Belgium. I bought Fires and also her first record, Dear frustrated superstar in Dublin. I've recently heard her new single Everybody's gone to war on the Belgian radio, but don't be fooled by this highly commercial track.

Nerina's got amazing lyrics, great melodies and an angelic voice. Sometimes she has a whiff of Sheryl Crow or Allanis Morisette to her, but she is in a different league all together. A European tour has been announced, so that's gonna be money well spent...

(Oh, and she's absolutely hot as well!!!)

Jump - Nerina Pallot

Oh good Lord above, I'm immune to the love of a good man
I go for the suckers, the mean motherfuckers I can't resist.
If I should get bitten. As long as he's smitten I understand
That pain comes with pleasure,
such bittersweet treasure cannot be missed.

So how can you help me now?I can't help myself....

I go on and jump, give it a try
Checking the parachute, see if it flies.
Oh if I should break my neck I never bruise....
I go on and jump, give it a try
Don't call the ambulance, I'm still alive
And if I should break my neck I'll make the news.

The Friday night ritual of pulling habitual non-entities.
The lawyers, the bankers, the next morning thank you's and "call you soon..."
These public school faces, I thought time erases one's misery
Oh no, it comes back to haunt you, old photos will taunt of your big mistake

So how can you save me now?
I can't save myself....

I go on and jump, give it a try
Checking the parachute, see if it flies.
Oh if I should break my neck I never bruise....
I go on and jump, give it a try
Don't call the ambulance, I'm still alive
And if I should break my neck I'll make the news.

2006-06-27T11:47:00.001+02:00

Depeche does Dublin
It was just a question of time

Monday June 26th. I knew something was up and it couldn't possibly have been my Mum's birthday (still looking good Mum!)... Point Theatre, 8:45 PM. About five thousand in the audience and five peculiar looking blokes on stage: Dave -does my bum look big in this tattoo - Gahan, Martin -just when you thought my attire couldn't get more silly- Gore, Andy -look Mum, I got to be in a rockband- Fletcher, Christian -I bet VIshnu couldn't play this drumsolo- Eigner and Peter -every band needs a fat, ugly guy- Gordeno. From the first bar of A pain that I'm used to until the last notes of Never let me down, they absolutely, positively fecking rocked. Sound was awsome, croud was, well, I guess Irish would be the best word to describe it... Highlights? What about Stripped (the song, not necessarily Dave), Behind the wheel, Nothing's impossible, John the Revelator, an accoustic Leave in silence and the first DM-song ever to be recorded Photographic... Mr BO-I'm such a goody two shoes-NO ridiculed in his own backyard!

To say it with the words of the best songwriter of his generation (and all times worst front man) Martin Lee Gore:

And I thank you
For bringing me here
For showing me home
For singing these tears
Finally Ive found that I belong
Feels like home
I should have known
From my first breath

2006-06-18T16:19:00.000+02:00

Blog Party PPKLTS
"There is no gravity, the world just sucks" and other witticisms...

Blog reunion in Roeselare's Saint Georges yesterday. With my brother in arms DVLMN I drove to Roulers to the PPKLTS-party hosted by vic 'n lloyd. I brought some mean shit 4 da man, namely RJD2 and Jamie Liddel. As all great minds think alike, Vic an Loyd proved to be great Jamie-adepts as well. Respect, bro's, you guys are the shit. We even got company from Nil Sacer, the man with the plan. The conclusion was unanimous: the world ain't ready for the likes of us... face it baby.

PS Although yis might be under a different impression, no great quantities of alcoholic beverages were consumed directly prior to writing these lines.

2006-05-15T16:56:00.000+02:00

COUNTY MAYO, GOD help us!!!

Just returned from the old island. Discovered county Mayo for the first time. During the famine this County was severely decimised. The lament of the people -County Mayo, God help us- gives you the idea. Well, during our stay in Keel, Achill Island, Saint Peter drove us to God (he has a pub there). I tried to put in a word for you all; but he said not to worry:

Either you are well, then there is nothing to worry about
If you are sick, there are two possibilities: either you get well, then there is nothing to worry about.
If you don't get well and die, there are two possibilities: either you go to heaven, then there is nothing to worry about. If you go to hell, you will be too busy shaking hands with the friends you see there to worry.
So there is nothing to worry about.

Many thanks to Aine in Galway, Emma in Clifden, Grania, John -Saint Peter- O'Shea and your Holiness from the Annexe Inn in Keel and Theresa in Oughterard. C U soon...

2006-04-06T18:40:00.000+02:00

Basic Instinct II
What's new pussycat?

But you know I saw this movie last year called er, 'Basic Instinct'. Okay now. Bill's quick capsule review: Piece-of-Shit. Okay now. Yeah, yeah, end of story by the way. Don't get caught up in that fevered hype phoney fucking debate about that Piece-of-Shit movie.

"Is it too sexist, and what about the movies, are they becoming too dddddddd." You're, you're just confused, you don't get, you've forgotten how to judge correctly. Take a deep breath huuh, look at it again. "Oh it's a Piece-of-Shit!" Exactly, that's all it is.
Satan squatted, let out a loaf, they put a fucking title on it, put it on a marquee, Satan's shit, piece of shit, walk away. "

But is it too, what about the lesbian connot.. ddddd." You're, you're getting really baffled here. Piece-of-Shit! Now walk away. That's all it is, it's nothing more! Free yourself folks, if you see it, Piece-of-Shit, say it and walk away. You're right! You're right! Not those fuckers who want to tell you how to think! You're fucking right!

Horrible film. And then I come to find out after that film that all the lesbian sex scenes, let me repeat that, all the lesbian sex scenes were cut out of that film, because the test audience was turned off by them. Ha. Boy, is my thumb not on the pulse of America.
I don't want to seem like Randy Pan, the Goat Boy, but er that was the only reason I went to that piece of shit. If I had been in that test audience, the only one out front protesting that film would have been Michael Douglas demanding his part be put back in, alright?

"I swear I was in that movie. I swear I was." "Gee Mike, the movie started. Sharon Stone was eating another woman for an hour and a half. Then the credits rolled. I err, I don't remember seeing your scrawny ass, Mike." "Was Bill Hicks in that test audience?" ha ha haw. Goat boy called it like he saw it Mikey. You made your 14 mill, now hit the fucking road. Goat boy has invited some people over to see the video premiere of the Goat-Boy Edited Version. Ha ha ha. I am Goat boy. (courtesy of the master himself, William Melvin Hicks, RIP)

2006-02-16T19:08:00.000+01:00

Chock! Horror! Catastrophe!
How to lose all sense of perspective (lesson one)

Chock-horror-catastrophe. Those were the words the speaker used when Vanaudenaerde scored the first goal in Bruges-Roma yesterday. Those were almost the words used during the game Clijsters-Golovin when our Kim lost the first set.

(By the way: our Kim is sick of it. She's sick of making a squilion dollar per year for beating a piece of wood against an airinflated little yellow chick. She's sick of all the injuries her hips have to endure. She's sick of all the taxes she has to pay. Well, I'm sick of your whining, bitch. If your hips hurts, tell your six inch...uhm...six foot boyfriend to slow down, go to a surgeon and get a new pair of hips. We all know you can afford them. Maybe you can get a cute pair, for once)

But lets get back to our main issue here: the horror of a twenty year old getting an inflated piece of leather (for the upcoming Worldcup, these things got a German name: Zeitgeist or Third Reich, I don't quite remember) on his head and thus accidentally setting said object in a hyperbolic trajectory over said twenty year olds goalkeeper into the net . Oooooh, the end is near now. Do these four fuckers on horses riding in the distance spell bad news or what?

Let me spell it out to you: an own-goal in a UEFA-cup game means fuck all. It won't even make the annual review of Footballmagazine, let alone be taught about in school in the year 2798 PB (post-Bietje, morons!).

You know in which phrase the words horror, chock and catastrophe may apply? I'll give you an example:

"I was filled with horror when I saw the pictures of US and UK-soldiers raping, murdering and humiliating Iraqi civilians. The chock that went through me when I heard that these pictures aren't allowed on American television, hasn't worn off yet. I think we're heading for catastrophe if we let the world be ruled by a totalitarian regime, claiming to spread democracy, but in fact only spreading hatred and unchecked consumerism, capitalism and bad taste."

But then of course, these issues never make the headline of our media. Go back to sleep people, it'll all work out...

2006-02-09T13:54:00.000+01:00

Pissing off people at random
Courtesy of Bill Hicks (sorry I'm outta cartoons)

Fundamentalist Christianity - fascinating. These people actually believe that the world is 12 thousand years old. Swear to God. What the..? Based on what? I asked them.
"Well we looked at all the people in the Bible and we added 'em up all the way back to Adam and Eve, their ages - 12 thousand years."

Well how fucking scientific, okay. I didn't know that you'd gone to so much trouble. That's good. You believe the world's 12 thousand years old?
"That's right."
Okay. I got one word to ask you, a one word question, ready?
"Uh huh."
Dinosaurs. You know the world's 12 thousand years old and dinosaurs existed, they existed in that time. You'd think it would have been mentioned in the fucking Bible at some point.
"And Jesus and the disciples walked to Nazareth. But the trail was blocked by a giant brontosaurus... with a splinter in his paw. And O the disciples did run a shriekin': 'What a big fucking lizard, Lord!' But Jesus was unafraid and he took the splinter from the brontosaurus's paw and the big lizard became his friend. And Jesus sent him to Scotland where he lived in a loch for O so many years inviting thousands of American tourists to bring their fat fucking families and their fat dollar bills. And oh Scotland did praise the Lord. Thank you Lord, thank you Lord. Thank you Lord."

Get this, I actually asked one of these guys: "OK, Dinosaurs fossils - how does that fit into you scheme of life? Let me sit down and strap in.
He said, "Dinosaur fossils? God put those there to test our faith."
Thank God I'm strapped in right now man. I think God put you here to test my faith, Dude. You believe that?
"Uh huh."
Does that trouble anyone here? The idea that God.. might be.. fuckin' with our heads? I have trouble sleeping with that knowledge. Some prankster God running around: "Hu hu ho. We will see who believes in me now, ha ha." [mimes God burying fossils] "I am God, I am a prankster. I am killing Me."

You know, you die and go to St. Peter... "Did you believe in dinosaurs?" "Well, yeah. There was fossils everywhere" Thuh [trapdoor opens] "Aaaaaaarhhh!" "You fuckin idiot." "Flying lizards, you're a moron. God was fuckin' with you!" "It seemed so plausible, ahhhh!" "Enjoy the lake of fire, fucker!"

You ever noticed how people who believe in creationism look really unevolved? Ya ever noticed that? Eyes real close together, eyebrow ridges, big furry hands and feet. "I believe God created me in one day" Yeah, looks liked He rushed it. They believe the bible is the exact word of God - Then they change the bible! Pretty presumptuous, hu huh? "I think what God meant to say..." I have never been that confident. Next we have a bible out called 'The New Living Bible', it's the bible in updated and modern English. I guess to make it more palatable for people to read. But its really weird, when you listen to it. "And Jesus walked on water. And Peter said, 'Awesome!'" Suddenly we got Jesus hanging ten across the Sea of Galilee. Christ's Bogus Adventure, you know. Deuteronomy 90210, you know.

Such a weird belief. Lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. You think when Jesus comes back he's gonna want to see a fucking cross, man? "Oaww" May be why he hasn't shown up yet. "Man, they're still wearing crosses. Fuck it, I'm not goin, dad. No, they totally missed the point. When they start wearing fishes I might show up again, but... Let me bury fossil heads with you Dad, Fuck em - Let's Fuck with them! They're fuckin with me now, lets get em. Give me that brontosaurus head, Dad."

Okay, now can George please blow up the Belgian parliament and the royal palace to avenge my mockery. Thanks, mate.

2006-02-01T18:42:00.000+01:00

Out of touch
Slow down, will ya'll

I need a new set of friends. No, really. I feel completely out of touch. I stick out like a sore thumb. They're all climbing the property-ladder, getting knocked up (be it in the biblical way or by means of petri-dishes), getting married. Now, since some of these guys are getting on a bit its Jiste Kominie or maybe Lentefeest coming up. If there's any truth in statistics the first divorce is 3.147 years away (but everybody knows statistics mean f*ck all, so ya'll stick together now, K). And what about me in the meanwhile? Well, I'm renting a matchbox-size apartment I can hardly afford, I'm making f*ck all every month and as far as my offspring is concerned, I flush most of them down the toilet. I feel like I'm chickening out on most of life's really big issues. I know what you're gonna say. I took a leap when I went overseas. Yeah, I guess you're right, but I came back, didn't I? But off course, the answer to my quest is quite simple. All I need is a non-inflatable, non-sheep-shaped girlfriend with a loaded father (and preferably huge knockers -2 would be nice-, an insatiable libido and a nympho-lesbo sister). If you feel you meet these criteria, get in touch...

2006-01-31T17:52:00.000+01:00

Da Mode rules
Songs 1-5 and 16-22

Went to see Depeche Mode on Sunday. Still the best live band in town, most of the time. They've managed to bore everyone to death for a couple of songs, but classics as Question of Time, Behind the Wheel, Everything Counts and the obligatory Personal Jesus, Enjoy the Silence and Never let me down again, still blew the roof of. But I guess I moved on to other sorts of music (Joseph Arthur, Sufjan Stevens, Rufus Wainwright to name but a few). Just bought myself Clap your hands say yeah and Architecture in Helsinki. Depeche Mode have a chance to redeem themselves on my mum's birthday (by the way, happy birthday dad) in Dublin this summer.

Oh, yesterday, a friend of mine, Mr. Duvelman, called me to get some info on the mortgage he'll be taking shortly. It actually felt nice to be able to help someone through my job. Being a banker is hardly a calling as is priesthood or being a doctor, but it felt good for a few seconds. All the best, mate.

2006-01-11T18:30:00.000+01:00

Bietje is van 't straat!
O toch bijna...

Eindelijk, hoor ik u in koor zuchten. Wel, 't zit zo. De echte liefde heb ik nog niet gevonden, maar ze kan niet lang meer op zich laten wachten. Ik ben sinds deze ochtend namelijk de trotse bezitter van een VLD-partijkaart. DE garantie op een spannend liefdesleven. Of het nu een journaliste is of een kamerjuffrouw uit het zuiden des lands: zo nauw steekt het nu ook niet.
Niet alleen de tanden hebben mijn blauwe broeders van de konijnen...

2005-10-30T20:21:00.000+01:00

My fair lady

So, my time here in Dublin is almost up. It's been quite cultural actually (apart from the mandatory binge drinking that is).
I've bought two books on Bill Hicks, the in-your-face stand-up comedian who would have had a field day this week with the Bush administration. The first one Love all the people is a transcription of Bill's performances, his letters and lyrics. The second one American Scream is a biography pur sang.
On a liter comical note I've bought The world according to Clarkson (Jeremy that is, the lunatic from Top Gear) and A year in the Merde and Merde actually by Stephen Clarke, an Englishman in Paris... I think one can never know enough stereotypes on the French. Saw a brilliant stand-up comedian festival in the attic of the International Pub on Saturday...
Another purchase was a joint biography of Eamon DeValera and Michael Collins, arguably the two most important protagonists in Irish history.
I've visited Kilmainham Goal, where both men were imprisoned after the rising of 1916. I also visited Dublin Castle, center of British rule over Ireland for centuries and on Sunday I went on the 1916 Easter Rebellion Tour and bought the book from my tourguide Conor Kostick.

All in all enough to make me realise - in true Swiss Tonianstyle- that Dublin is very much like a desirable, hot (leather bootwearing), attractive young woman: I'd very much like to be with her, but I just haven't got the money to entertain her...

2005-10-24T19:28:00.000+02:00

His shadow will remain, even after he is gone...

Went to see Joseph Arthur in the Botanique yesterday night. Apparently he's my long lost twin brother: we're both crazy geniuses! The man makes mad songs about death, despair and suicide (compared to him the new Depeche Mode -their best yet, Grobelny any comment you make will be deleted- sounds like the fucking Spice Girls) that you hum along to all day. He was discovered by Peter Gabriel and signed to his Real World-label for some time and Anton Corbijn made the video to his "greatest hit" In the sun.

Mr. Arthur, his guitar and some fancy equipment sounded like the best band you've ever seen and apart from the amazing music, the man painted a modern tableau whilst performing Crying like a man... Sometimes very clever use of the pedal-steel-electro-synth-guitar-from-hell, sometimes just the worlds greatest acoustic singer songwriter, there is no way to start summing up highlights. Well, apart from the very-different-from-the-album Can't exist and Leave us alone, the tears-in-my-eyes A smile that explodes, the bone chilling Mercedes (I know you will rise, when you talk about what they've done...), the I-can-die-happy-now-thank-you Speed of light and the-even-better-then-the-real-thing-kick-ass-cover-of-the-millennium There is a light that never goes out courtesy of Mr. Moz.

Oh, and immediately after the show I bought the live album: every gig is recorded and burned straight after the concert. So if any of you don't believe me: I will bore you to death with that CD for the next year or five...

I bow to the, King Arthur! May God's love be with you, always.

2005-10-13T18:35:00.000+02:00

Ireland - Switserland

Hi Max. Pint. Rebel Sandwich.
Pint.
Woh, you wanker!
Pint.
Fecking thick bloody eejit.
Djeeyzus.
For feck's sake.
Pint.
You, you, you, ...
Halftime.
Pint.
Piss.
Pint.
Wanker.
Djeeyzus.
Piss.
Piss.
Piss.
Pint.
Feck.
Good lad (save by Shane Given 85')
It's over.
Pint.
It's really over.
Pint.
Piss.

Referee blows his wistle... It's over...

2005-09-19T19:49:00.000+02:00

You never know what you're gonna get

Isn't life a box of chocolates?
I mean: you get the best Belgian chocolate thrown at your face, but off course, you're not hungry. "Not right now, I've had quite enough. I have to watch my weight, sorry. Looks nice, gotta run."
You just leave it there to go to waste. "I'll get plenty of sweets," you're thinking. You turn your back on it and walk away. I'm the man, you can't touch me. "I'm no sweet tooth, I'm tough as nails."
And of course you are. Hard shell. Tough nut to crack.

And then the craving starts. At first it's really subtle. You just remember a smell, a colour. You tell yourself it's gonna go away. You get some substitute Snickers and make yourself belief it's the real shit. You stuff your face, but it only makes you feel nauseous. Then it keeps you up at night, until you would even go for those chocolate covered raisins: you just suck of the chocolate and spit out the raisins...
Then you remember. The dark fondant covering, the subtle almond stuffing and the slightest hint of Grand Marnier. That one special chocolate you left in the box. And you know some other bastard will be stuffing his face shortly and not appreciating the delicate flavours.
Isn't life a box of chocolates?

2005-09-12T18:45:00.000+02:00

The Matrix 1932 AD
Back off, Neo, your grandfather has the upperhand...

With 911, Katharina and all the happy events of late, I thought I should maybe read a book (fiction can't be worse than reality, can it now?). So I started reading Brave New World by Aldous Leonard Huxley. Move over Nostradamus, this guy is the only real visionary! Read it! The world is going to tatters and if all those evil scumbaggs in control had their way, they'd give us a dose of mindnumbing drugs every day (hmmm, American Gladiators, anybody? I'm sure this book is on Goatboy's shelf in his cabin by the Great Lake of Fire).
Only little thing that inclines me to feel a slight sympathy for the mindless drones in Huxley's novel: promiscuity is mandatory... That's something you don't hear from today's fundamental Chistians, huh, I mean, enlightend leaders of the free Western world...

2005-09-10T17:40:00.000+02:00

Complaint pour Saint-Katharina

W Jr.
Who art in-competent
Mocked be thy name
Thy kingdom crumbles
In N'Alinz as it does in New York
Give us this day our daily propaganda
Forgive us our fuck ups as we forgive yours
Lead us not into another war
But deliver us from Republicans.

Amen.

2005-07-30T09:54:00.000+02:00

Exciting times...

Just rented a new pad in Ghent, which I hope to move into asap. Next Friday me and some friends plan an assault on the local IKEA-outlet (Swedish bastards). Next will be a weekend of trying to assemble the loot and robbing some IKEA's in nearby countries to get the necessary bolts. I'm really looking forward to it.
Once installed I can start luring young innocent virgins into my den and have my way with them... Aaah, my time has finally come (and so will I in the nearby future). In October I will have an Internetconnection in the Playboy Mansion so prepare for more bilge on the Net...

C yis around...

2005-06-22T16:49:00.000+02:00

Hot! Hot! Heat!

The last couple of days have been absolutely scorching. 38 degrees centigrade and more... Well, I never had such a rush of hot and cold fever as I had just now. I was being interviewed by this lady from a headhunters agency. Well, she can give me head any day of the week. Hallelujah! She tied me to her kitchen chair, she broke my throne and cut my hair. And from my lips she drew the Hallelujah! Imagine the body of Angelina Jolie, the face of Femke Janssen, the eyes of Alyssa Milano... (I'm not even gonna go into the really important body-parts... Unfortunately).

-"Ideal occupation?"
-"Befathering your children."
-"Ambition?"
-"Make you lose that skirt within 15 seconds."
-"What do you want to make?"
-"The animal with two backs."

Not to sure if I got the job, but who cares. I saw God's creation in all her beauty and she even gave me her phone number. Hallelujah!

PS Actually, she gave the same business card to the loser who left the office just before me, and I'm sure he blogged a similar post on majorloser.blogspot.com...

2005-06-19T19:37:00.000+02:00

Eire sick?

Is that a word? Who cares! I just made it one. Whilst roasting in Flanders by 38 centigrade, I'm thinking of the cool breeze blowing through my hair on the top of Killiney Hill (obviously some time ago...). The cemetery of Glendalough, the High Cross of Monasterboice, Connemara,...Still not to sure if this xenofobe piece of turf stuck between France and the Low Countries is any better than the Celtic plains... You Danny Boys are surely a though lot to get over (and don't get me started on the lasses...)

Your skin is cold

But the sun shines within your hold

Your hair is gold

But you see through a goldfish bowl

I feel old, sick, and tired

We walk the streets

Gently staring, wondering what to do

The sun in sheets

Pouring down those streets to eyes green and blue

And a ship with eight sails could come round the bend

Or a heard of bulls charging stop lights red

I'd be blind

You broke my heart, Danny boy

Not your fault, Danny boy

I was had at the doorstep

Played, like a two to a four-set

Had, like poor Job in the bible by god

Day comes, I wake

I wake with a hard heartache

I go down to your place

We sit and chat about New York

And trips to the Bayou

My smile, a trick

Tricking me and trying not to scare you

And a ship with eight sails could come round the bend

Or a heard of bulls charging stop lights red

I'd be blind

You broke my heart, Danny boy

Not your fault, Danny boy

I was had at the doorstep

Played, like a two to a four-set

Had, like poor Job in the bible by god

2005-06-19T16:51:00.000+02:00

Depeche Mode are back
...and so is Bietje

It's been a while. Actually it's been nearly four years since the Mode have been touring the world. After those Irish wankers wreaked havoc all over the globe - whilst ending world hunger, saving the Israeli-Palestine peace process, securing Belgian social security and finding a cure for gravity- it's time for some serious sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. Arguably the best live band around, the Mode make a roar from Bono seem like a feeble cry for help. Dave would kick your behind any day of the week, Mr. Hewson.
Anyway, can't wait to find how good there latest work will be (hopefully it's a tad more exciting then their previous album...)
Mr. Gahan, Mr. Gore and Mr. Fletcher, please include the following on your playlist: Behind the Wheel, Lie to me, Black Celebration, Stripped, Barrel of a gun, Freelove, Something to do and Strangelove. Thanks guys...

2005-04-06T12:31:00.000+02:00

The pope is dead...

Maybe it is time for a less conservative spirit. A suggestion...

Gay Messiah-Rufus Wainwright

"He will then be reborn
From 1970's porn
Wearing tubesocks with style
And such an innocent smile

Better pray for your sins
Better pray for your sins
'Cuz the gay messiah's coming

He will fall from the stars
Studio 54
And appear on the sand
Of Fire Island's shore

Better pray for your sins
Better pray for your sins
'Cuz the gay messiah's coming

No it will not be me
Rufus the baptist I be
No I won't be the one
Baptized in cum

What will happen instead
Someone will demand my head
And then I will kneel down
And give it to them looking down

Better pray for your sins
Better pray for your sins
'Cuz the gay messiah's coming

2005-03-22T12:26:00.002+01:00

Eilugu weeke

Me zin dus in deilugu weke. Tes were ollemolle poaseiers datte klokke sloat en ik moe pertanks un kilootje of tiene kwit (a Loote mie ol ofdrwugt in de skwasj weetje ol genoeg). Tgoa were nie lukken want up witn dunderdag vieruk toen wok nog ne kjir mien zevenentwintug joarig bestoan. En gezien damme me Goe Vriddag nie moetn werken en na Leuven trekn zietter were nie ol te proper ut... Allee, kgoa junder loaten want dien compjoeter doet ier un bitje lastig (en dien Turksen utboater wok, de man kan geen democraat zijn...).
Inch Alah e

2005-03-22T12:26:00.001+01:00

2005-03-22T12:26:00.000+01:00

2005-03-16T17:28:00.000+01:00

Cast Away

So I've been back in Belgium for nearly two weeks... I was right, it still sucks... Wheater is shit, children are arrogant, the Prime Minister is a dick and we still haven't seen the secession of Brussels-Halle-VIlvoorde. Our football-team is useless, our only rally-driver in the World Championship wouldn't survive a mile on Naas-road and our only professional snookerplayer just quit. I've also been cast back to the Iron Age i.e. pre-internet times. There's no Internet at work and even if there were, I wouldn't have time to use it... So this amazing site may be a bit out of date, sorry. Stress is mine again. Since I've been back I've lost about 50% of my remaining hairs (two that is). 2nite I'm going to see the volleygame Knack-Maaseik with a couple of mates and on Friday I'm gonna kick some butt in our weekly RISK-games (for U doubters: I am a geek)...

See yis around...

2005-02-23T15:44:00.000+01:00

Home Town

Nu damme were kjirn meugen me nateurluk wok nog efkes un troantje wegpinkn... mErci Dzjoe Dzjeksun....

Of all the stupid things I could have thought
This was the worst
I started to believe
That I was born at seventeen
And all the stupid things
The letters and the broken verse
Stayed hidden at the bottom of the drawer
They'd always been

And now I plough through piles
Of bills, receipts and credit cards
And tickets and the Daily News
And sometimes I just . . .
Wanna go back to my home town
Though I know it'll never be the same
Back to my home town
'Cause it's been so long
And I'm wondering if it's still there

We think we're pretty smart
Us city slickers get around
And when the going's rough
We kill the pain and relocate
We're never married
Never faithful not to any town
But we never leave the past behind
We just accumulate

So sometimes when the music stops

I seem to hear a distant sound
Of waves and seagulls
Football crowds and church bells
And I . . .
Wanna go back to my home town
Though I know it'll never be the same
Back to my home town
'Cause it's been so long
And I'm wondering if it's still there
Back to my home town
Though I know it'll never be the same
Back to my home town
'Cause it's been so long
And I'm wondering if it's still there

2005-02-23T11:15:00.000+01:00

Bekspoelingen

Kih vriddag nonne kjir gan snoekern me Fanne vant werk. Me zin nar Ken Doherties bwutte in Ranelagh gewist. Nu, je wos dor nie wih, jat pertanks ol nen tap gat in de masters... Ja jongens, serieus mien tantjes gekust. Drie-jin tegen min wufd. Nie slicht begun, mor vanaf den twjidde freem ginnen bol mjir gepot. En zeggen dattiene mins verzekers nog niet den elft gesnoekerd it van ik. Tes tit damme were un bitje train. Me zin ton den dag dernoa na Behgieje gewist voe na Lennik-Parkie te kiekn. In acht jor dak goa gan kiekn ik ze nog nwuit oezwuh zien ofgoan. ’t Wos un rampe up wieln. Gin resepsie, gin pasn, gin blok, ginnen anvol. Ton blufter niefele mir over, e. En winder mor leven odn met oes koebeln. Bille zin an bloedn were van mettie simboalen te slon. Ol gin avanse. Vanoavend terugmatch. Ze zoen beter undernen oasem spoarn voer de reste van de kompetisie. Zundag wost ton finale van de snoeker. Ronnie Osullivun teegn Dsjon Higgins. Tiene-drie! ’t Stong ginne noame up Ronnie. Je wos weireld. Niet an te doen, super uttenoak. Higgins it van gjil den tit gin kloar gezien. Twjih olve seefties en twos gedon. Osullivun pottuguh an achtneegntug persent zij Dennis Teelur en Dsjon Vurgoo. Ze gon nu de reste van tsuzoen niemjir speeln en geweun ol de bookols an Ronnie geven vanjistekjir... Allih, totton e.

2005-02-18T10:46:00.000+01:00

Kik mor nat veugelke!

Tes beslist. De zoaterdag vuv februaorie goak met Goela en Vandamme nar de brune stede. In ’t Sted ester un tentwunstellinge van Anton Corbijn (klikt up diene link ierneffest e), diene langen Ollander wor dak mienen teezis over gemakt ep. Diene mins verdient zin geld met fotoos te trekn van olle selibreties daj mor keun peizn: van Frank Sienaatra en Lens Armstrong toet Keet Mos en Loetsiejano Pavarottie. Un por van zin vroegere pertretn zin bekend: Elvies Costello die met zin gietare en zinne versterker up un bedde in Amsterdam ligt, Deeviet Bowie in ne pamper achter dattie den Elefent Men gespeeld it, Stielei Den die in de resepsie van een otil stoan te lanterfantn en Maails Deevies die zin an vwurn zinne kop oet, zodoanug gaj oljinne zien wugn ziet (Tes benouwluk: ne grwutte zwarte neger met wurn lik talwurn en wugn de grwutte van ne vust). In de joaren tachntug estie (Corbijn e) ton begun werkn met Joetoe en Diepisj Moot. Voer Diepisj ittie biekan dertig vidiejoos gemakt en zelfs under podiejum in mekoar getemmert. En vor Joetoe ittie den klip van Wan gemakt, worrin dasse ollemolle in vromins verklit zin. Voe mor te zeggen: tes un vrjit vintje. Kben deur Goela en Vandamme ol angesteld toet gits, want ze peizn nateurlik dakkik zinnuge klap goa keun verteln over ol die portretn. Tsss, zuste lik dakkik da ollemolle nog weete. ‘k Ben vuf jor geleen nar een tentwunstellinge van em in Groning gewist (zes eurn up den tring, gedomme) en kih dor drie doagen mwurteldronke rondgetsjoolt. Kweete oljinne dattie somstekjirn int zwart-wit, nelf van tit int brunachtug en nu en ton ne kjir in kleur trekt. Voer de reste goan ze minne kop meugn stille loaten of ze keun nen bok up under mulle krign. Ertefretters!

2005-02-13T12:38:00.000+01:00

Klowser

Uug zit up zinne saait te memn dattie nar Den Aviejeetor es gewist en dat ne strontfilm wos. Ge moet moa weeten, zeggukik. Ne film met Die Capriejoo. 't Zal u ljirn. Diene pipo it minnen twintugste verjoardag verrenueerd: elvendertig Oscaars voe diene film van dien bwut die zonk... Me wistnt verdomme ol tachntug jor oe dat gink endugun...
Ik ben gistern na Klowser gan kiekn. Ne film over een partoeze met Zulja Robburts en Natalie Portman in dwuftrolle. (Aloewel dak mie kanne imbeeln da Uug dor nie ligt up te wachtn...) Tes lange dak mie nog oezwu gamuseerd ih in de sienema (en kih pertanks mien an boven toafel hoetn). Gif toe: Zulja die vulle klap utslot, me zien da wok nie olle doagen. En oes Natalietje met eur or rwut gevarvut die widbjinde vwurn Keunink Artuur zit sjow te geevn... En de vertellinge zat nog goe immekor wok. Wuk moe ne mins mjir in?
't Sovens ik na nen Deeveedee gekeekn van dien Ier wor dak bie weune: "Frow momma from den treen". Ge wit wel: met Billie Kriestal en Dannie de Vietoo. Weetje wien datter dor gedomme wok in meedoet? Branford Marsalies! Twos ton wel nog een serieuze snotneuze, mor ge ziet: ne mins moet untworstn begun. Tgoa nog ollemolle goe kom me mie!

2005-02-12T12:40:00.000+01:00

Me zin dor wijje

Tes gedon met ier gjille doagen in Tingels te broebelen, witjet. Voe die drie Iern die da boelke ier nog lezen. En angezien damme bin vjirtn doagn tog werekjirn est tit damme oes westvlams were ut de kasse oln. Kih zuste nog nen goenovnd gan zegn an Boonoo en kgo nog ne kjir na Eddie Rokits gan eetn vanoene wok. Noste weke zoaterdag lan me te neegnen in Sjarlerwa en kih ol Loote upgetrommeld voer achter mie te kom. Tsovens gomme met den ottobus na Lennik, die gastjes vor den twidde kjir in vjirtn doagen up under plekke zetn. Tefeite gok nonnekjir na de cinema gon, tzal ier wok wel de latste kjir zin.
Enfin, de zesntwintugstun zimme were, dus tgoa were olle vridoage saflette zin, nu en ton nen Ertesjaal tegen Loote zinne kinne en olle drie weekn nen brik van fiftug tegen under wurn. En od mor under vrouwn en under dochters in dwugge nateurlik (Grobelny: zoej wiln zegn an Jakie dattie mercie es voeze warm todn, mor dat wel goa goan vanaf nu). En Vande, me kom in Gent weun, dus ge wit wok weerol oe loate dat es, e. Toet toen e, mannekes!

2005-02-10T18:42:00.000+01:00

Tuesday, bloody Tuesday

I've been kind of quiet lately and those of you who know me will confirm that that's a bit worrying. Off course, I've beamed to the mothership for a couple of days. No internet where I live...

You know the giant phallus that was supposed to squirt me onto the tarmac of Charleroi? A bit of a coitus interruptus, if I may say. He came about two hours late of schedule (which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing sous la couette). Due to technical problems we had to board another phallus, always a bit uncomfortable that first ride, isn't it. Anyway, on the return flight Willy got a bit anxious and we arrived in the fertile uterus of Baile Atha 45 minutes BEFORE schedule. Due to this we preceded the showers coming in from Mayo and we didn't even get properly wet. In de volksmond: a quicky!

Anyway, on Tuesday I discovered something horrible. I've been cranky for a couple of days, I eat anything I can get my hands on and I'm very, very emotional (just ask the players of Par-ky Menen after they butchered the Lennik Losers on Saturday). To top this off I've been bleeding for three days now. The only logical conclusion that can be drawn: I am a woman! That would actually explain my B-cup... I'm going to Suffragette city! Be ware, Bietje is coming! (Home, that is)...

2005-01-29T20:46:00.000+01:00

The Ninth gate

For eons, I had meticulously plotted my escape from this grey purgatory. The metallic holy cows that ruled these streets during daylight were quietly grazing at the roadsides. Eighteenth century buildings, marble tombstones mourning bankrupted family businesses and forgotten mercantile associates, had been separated from their soul mates by the concrete neon-lit temples of mass-commercialism. A man’s hand was manhandling a woman’s face in a darkened sideway. As I made my way through Babylon, I felt the presence of Evil around every corner. The urchins of this macabre demimonde gazed at me with their bloodshot eyes, averting their faces from the celestial light. Like Moses sliced through the Red Sea, I made my way through the wasteland, sacrificing the Unholy Lambs on Israel’s Altar. I arrived at the Point of no Return, The Voice ordering us to the ninth gate. One by one up the stairs and up into the womb of the giant Phoenix. Moments later the steely dan penetrated the crepuscule and the city was nothing more than a spot of oil blemishing a sea of emerald green. The eternal journey ended as we fell from the sky like an archangel from grace. The iron phallus ejaculated his spermatozoa onto the tarmac strip and the semen spread like a stain on a bed sheet. The foul creatures on the banks of the purple Styx hid in the shadows of the chimneys. Long, tall, concrete cypresses stretching to the heavens, rooted in the underworld, belching out Beelzebub’s foul fumes, obscuring paradise with clouds so that no hope could ever remain. The trip was over, a new adventure about to begin.

Dublin-Charleroi: not the most romantic trip you’ll ever make…

2005-01-26T16:27:00.000+01:00

To be continued…

I need my weekly fix of Sci-Fi. I’m not particularly proud of it but I’m a Trekkie, Warrie, Gatie… As long as it has “Star” in the opening credits, I’m game.
So, a couple of months ago, Tuesday has been baptised Stargate-night at Casa Bietje. Especially since Major Samantha Carter has been cloned by the Replicators and leads the assault on the Goa’ulds no man will come between me and SkyOne on Tuesday’s eight to ten and live to see another day. I get two Amanda Tapping in one serie! Sweet! And of course MacGyver still rocks as General Jack O’Neill.
And then at nine it’s Stargate Atlantis. It’s pants but who cares. They have the gate thing too, so it beats any other program on Lucifer's Lightbox by about seven lightyears. Anyway, yesterday the Replicators were closing in on our Galaxy whilst disposing of the Goa’ulds as if they were a colony of annoying ants. The system-lord Baal, who is the new leader of the system-lords, since SG-1 nuked Ra and Apophis to kingdom-come, even transported to Earth and asked O’Neill for help. Jack told him to go and fuck himself as Major Carter –with a little help from Thor, the Asgard- was working out a way to defeat the Replicators. Jacob –Sam’s father and a Tokra or good Goa’uld- didn’t really approve of Jack’s tactics. Off course the old man was right as Sam and Thor couldn’t come up with a new weapon. Doctor Daniel Jackson -the nerd of SG-1- had been kidnapped by evil Sam, who was trying to recapture the memories of the Ancients from his subconsciouse. Meanwhile Teal’c –a Jaffa, host to the Goa’uld-larves- and Master Braitac, his old teacher, were leading the assault on Baal’s home planet, hoping to revive the revolution amongst the Jaffa, by exposing the Goa'ulds as false gods. Apparently, the temple they captured holds the weapon to stop the Replicators. Only downside: It would annihilate all live in all galaxies, apart from the evil Anubis (who's actually the real one in charge of the system-lords, though he doesn't seem to be a real Goa'uld, more a ghosty-type of thing. So, Baal went back to O’Neill to convince him to stop Anubis. I think everybody will agree: a plotline that would make Shakespeare jealous. And then:

TO BE CONTINUED…

What? Where? Who? Why? I hate that. Everybody is dying or fighting or doing interesting stuff and now I have to wait for another week? Can’t wait. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me!!!!!!

PS Please don’t so I can watch next week.

2005-01-25T14:17:00.000+01:00

Don’t dream, it’s over…

What a glorious game. Me, right winger in the Belgian soccer team and kicking some serious arse (nearly got send off for that, actually). Anyway, the crowd is adulating me after my second hat-trick and just as I am making my way passed Henry again, I hear the buzzer… Jaysus, it’s that time again, hey? In the dark and without my glasses, I stumble out of bed and hit my toe on the night cabinet. Some X-rated words vanquish the silence as I tiptoe (on all nine of them) my way to the bathroom. After about five minutes I realise my toothbrush is still in the glass on the counter… Where’s the toilet brush gone though?...
I crawl into the bathtub, breaking another two toes, but then… HEAVEN. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, steaming hot water easing me into the day. Lavish shower gel nourishing my body with amino-nitrate-elements that make my skin glow. Hair repairing, hair-strengthening shampoo (obviously just a hoax…). Oooh, I could stay here for ever. PAF! Who just hit me? Apparently, those weren’t my balls I’d been playing with the last five minutes. That’s the trouble with housemates, they always use the bathroom at the most inconvenient time.
I try to fit both my legs into the same trouser leg several times and after half an hour I’m finally on my way. I open the front door and step in to the refrigerator that is the outside world. As I make my way to the train station on automatic pilot, my eyes start to open slightly. Stinking, roaring flashes pass me by at the speed of light and the little green man takes for ever to appear. The big illuminated snake crawls down the mountain and eventually devours the rat-racers. Four stops later the worm throws us up onto the platform and it’s off to the numbing inevitability of the work floor. The cute blonde from accounting enters my realm and elevator. “Hi, you luscious piece of meat. We’re still on for Chapter 12 of the Kamasutra tonight, are we?” she says. Unfortunately, I’m the only one who hears it. “Can’t talk, love, I have to stare at my computer screen for the next eight hours.” It’s good to have dreams, it’s hell to wake up…

2005-01-23T12:15:00.000+01:00

Slippery people

Don't you hate them? Those yellow cones, with a guy breaking his balls, saying (the cone, not the guy): "Caution, wet floor". Or the road sign with the black car crashing spectacularly into the scenery, because it rains. See, I don't get that. We fly to Jupiter shooting pictures of the moon over there, but we cannot invent a surface that doesn't turn into a health-hazard each time two drops of rain got spilled onto it? We can kill with surgical precision from hundreds of miles away, but a given percentage of the worldpopulation sitll breakes all of their limbs every year, because of rain? The best solution we can come up with is a stupid yellow cone? I've busted my balls on three of those cones even when it wasn't raining! You see: we're being screwed. It's a cover-up. It's one and the same company: they make these useless floors and they get extra profit from making those stupid cones too. They even make the casts for your arms and legs! No more, you bastards! I invented a non-slippery-when-wet-floor in my garage yesterday and I'm putting you guys out of business. No hard feelings, OK? Homo homini lupus est and all.

2005-01-21T15:05:00.000+01:00

Neo-con pro-life Christian-fundi's

Pro-lifers. Fundamental Christians. Neo-cons. Basically the same geezers, right? Not very good at making up catchy names and not very consistent in their beliefs either.

For starters they oppose abortion. Let the little shit come out -with one arm, eight fingers, three eyes and half a brain- even though his mother is a crack head, living in a trailer-park, unable to provide for herself, her no-good drunk truck-driving, overweight husband and Billy’s seven brothers and twelve sisters. Ah, well, we’ll always need canon flesh to ship to the Middle-East. And those Muslim-fundi’s have heaps of little mongrels too. Okay, they usually only last one bus-ride, but still…
Neo-cons also oppose euthanasia. Mostly because it is a difficult ancient-Greek word that is foreign to most of them. And anything foreign is automatically evil. Another reason to oppose it, is that George Bush would have been dead for years and Reagan would have died mid-nineties if they backed active euthanasia. They weren’t so reluctant to euthanise JFK though.
Neo-cons find porn repulsive. Well, they can’t really oppose porn, because since Adam and Eve, these guys have obviously had a lot of nookie. And technically Eve was Adam’s daughter as she was made out of his rib. He didn’t mate with anybody, though, he was the only wanker around at the time. Basically, the Almighty One cloned Eve. There you go, that’s the final solution, die Endlösung, if you want. Cloning. No more nasty hanky-panky, you just scrape out some ear-smear into a Petri-dish, send it to the lab and nine months later a perfect replica of your beautiful self will enter this world. You could have loads and sell them on eBay. Why don’t they back that? See, not very consistent.
And if they’re really pro-life, they should be anti-war. Aren’t they the ones who wanted to go to Afghanistan and Iraq? That’s why it’s taking them so long in Iraq: they don’t shoot to kill. It doesn’t go with their pro-life beliefs. They shoot some Iraqi wacko in the leg and they go out of their way to fix the dude up. The guy is back in the trenches in no time. No wonder the Iraqis are so confused.

The Iraqis aren’t the only ones, mind you…

2005-01-20T14:38:00.000+01:00

Sticks and stones...

With this whole Doom-thing I've been putting something on hold for over a week. Bart Vandamme sent me a music-survey that I was supposed to log, so here go. I am going to do this my way, just telling you my four favourite songs of all time and discussing the last song I heard.

Last song I heard this morning was "I love you, goodbye" by Thomas Dolby. From his last album "Astronauts and Heretics" which featured guest-appearences by Eddy Van Halen and Ofrah Haza. It’s a Cajun-style song by the synth-wizzard deploring the loss of his big love… The thunderstorm at the end makes it really haunting, one of his best songs.

Four favourite songs:

-Enjoy the Silence-Depeche Mode
Arguably the best pop song ever recorded. Originally a ballad sung by the band’s songwriter Martin Gore (similar to the Harmonium-remix featured on the maxi-single) it was sped up by Alan Wilder and Martin added the catchy guitar-riff to that. The single reached the number 6 spot in the UK and was voted best single at the Brits in 1990. A remix by Linkin Park made it to number 7 last December. The video by Dutch photographer-cineast Anton Corbijn is also a beauty, featuring lead-singer Dave Gahan wandering around in the Alps, Portugal and Schotland as a king.
-Swan Song-Bruce Hornsby
From his amazing album “Spirit Trail”. Heartbreaking pianoballad. I saw Bruce last November live, and this was the last encore he played. The best piano-player/song writer in the world. And that’s just the way it is.
-Caroline-MC Solaar
Was voted to be one of the 50 best French love-songs ever just a couple of years ago, joining the likes of Jacques Brel, Charles Aznavour and Serge Gainsbourg. Best lyrics ever.
-One more time-Joe Jackson
This could have been any song by Joe, but I particularly remind this one from his concert in the Ancienne Belgique, April 2003. One of his first singles, bursting with energy. Not the best singing voice, but an amazing musician.

2005-01-20T14:10:00.000+01:00

Legions of Doom VIII

And there you have it. I just lost all interest in this story. Bloody Britney portraying the root of all evil? Fuck, those aspirins I've been taking have really messed me up. I had a whole ranting ready, but who cares. I need to cheer up. I'll start popping happy pills tomorrow! And me not finishing the story means that a poor little student doesn't have to buy me a bottle of booze...

2005-01-19T10:38:00.000+01:00

Legions of Doom VII

Pestilence was living proof that we had powers over each other. He had succumb to his own plague and Death had had no option but to take his life. Once again the Obliviator had worked his evil in the utmost discretion and had promised on Pestilence dying bed: “No, no, no, I will not let you go.”
He ensured that Pestilence’s ghost remained on Earth and that his plague swarmed the Globe. Pestilence had been the Greatest Pretender of us all.
His Marcelleke, his Village People-moustache, his don’t-try-this-at-home-kids teeth. Gave the game away. I saw his little silhouette on the wall.
-“Frederic Bulsara!”
-“Who?”
-“Freddie Mercury, you tit.”
-“Yes my Brothers, I took it upon me to infect half the world including myself with AIDS. I didn’t discriminate in the sack, you know. And I had a jolly good ride too.”
And so the last of Mordor’s Mercenaries was revealed. There was only one Evil that remained concealed.
-“Come children and feel my power!” he roared.
I did feel him alright: smooth legs, tight ass, angelic face…
-”David Beckham!”
-“Euh no, try again, Roland.”
-“Don’t mind if I do.”
-“I can’t take it anymore. You drive me crazy! “shouted Wolfowitz.
-“Houston, we have a problem. The Evil One has a pair of huge knockers, guys. He’s a she!”
Off course, the all sickos suddenly wanted to get in touch with the source of all evil as well, but I felt that was my prerogative. And then all -and I do mean all- was revealed…

2005-01-18T14:59:00.000+01:00

Legions of Doom VI

With the arrival of The Master, the storm had calmed down. We heard his footsteps making their way upstairs. We could feel his presence in the darkened sideways, as a ghost, lurking at his victims. He did not speak, which was more frightening than any words he could have uttered. I had the honour to reveal my true identity in His Presence. The open fire cast my long shadow into the room. In the glow, my distinctive features were revealed. My red curly hair, my painted-on smile, my oversized red shoes, my yellow outfit.
-“Mmmmm, I’m loving it,” the Immaculate One roared.
I, Ronald McDonald, showed my true colours to my Brethren for the first time.
-“But, but, … you’re supposed to starve them to death.” Wolfowitz objected.
-“Says who? In this time of plenty, it’s very difficult to starve people to death. It’s way easier to kill them through obesitas. It makes for a slow and agonising death, hitting the bloodstream, the heart and all the other vital organs.”
I could feel the Omnipotent One was pleased with the cunningness of my plan and I had a strange feeling he had a hand in my success. I caught a glimpse of his blond hair, but the rest remained hidden.
-“That only leaves you, Pestilence.” Heston said. “Reveal yourself.”
_”I already came out of the closet at the end of the eighties. I never thought the times could get any darker than that, “ he said. “I perished at the hands of my own plague and Death took me. I remained on Earth as the Invisible Man. The roots of my evil were planted by then.”
Off came the cape. Who could have known…

2005-01-17T19:23:00.000+01:00

Legions of Doom V

Charlton left his throne and took place right behind his dauphin. War was gazing into the distance through those piercing eyes of his. The foul stench coming out of his ravaged mouth was almost unbearable. His evil hairdo hid part of his Vulcan-like ears and topped of what was one of the freakiest faces you’d ever meet.

-“Paul Wolfowitz?” I stuttered.
-“Woehahaha. Off course. Neo-Conservatism. New World Order. Pax Americana. And those suckers are more than willing to fight for that…”
-“Sorry to burst your bubble there, Paul.” I objected. “But in four years your reign will be over.”
-“You think I will go, just because Dubbaya is out? The Austrian bunny in the hat again, my friends! We’ll change the American constitution and Bob’s our uncle. And everyone knows the Terminator will get three turns. We’ll be back, baby!”

This turn out to be a top-of-the-range Quartet of Doom indeed. I was the next in line to reveal my identity. I could see the disgust in my Brethren’s eyes. Charlton Heston got sick and threw up as if his life depended on it (and frankly it did). Wolfowitz was starting to feel a bit queasy himself. Pestilence hadn’t touched the land I’d prepared but was visibly shaken.

-“How could you? You’ve conquered the world.”
-“Mmmmm.”
-“You’re on every TV-station, on every billboard in every city!”
-“Mmmmm.”

A thunder crack broke the silence and we heard the gates slam shut. The Evil One had arrived.

2005-01-15T16:38:00.000+01:00

Legions of Doom IV

The rain was gushing down, thunder was rolling in the distance. Lightning revealed his bloodshot eyes, laying deep in their sockets. His pale skin, his long grey hair accentuated his ghostly appearance. Death sat himself at the head of the table, poured himself another another cup of coffee and feasted on the lamb I had prepared. My brothers and me began to realise that we were nothing compared to this Evil.

-“Moses?” Pestilence said.
-“No, it’s that guy from Planet of the Apes.” War reacted.
-“Charlton? Charlton Heston. You are Death?” I was stupified.
-“Who else? I’m head of the biggest and most dangerous army in the world, the NRA. Lack of brains and an abundance of firepower. It has death written all over it.”
I tried to get a piece of the lamb, but Death’s voice decreed:
-“You can have that piece of lamb when you can pry it loose from my cold, dead hand.”
All of a sudden it hit me…
-“But, but,… WAR! You knew all along, didn’t you? HE got YOU into the White House. Take of your hood, George. It’s all too obvious!”
A demonic laughter filled the air.
-“That puppet? War? I’m afraid not, Famine.”
Me and my remaining Brother, Pestilence, were puzzled. It had to be George W. Bush. He was the one the NRA had lobbied into the White House. Could there be a more powerful warmonger walking the face of the Earth?
-“BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!” “Is that yours, War?”
-“Yep, got a text: Oops, I did it again. Forgot I had an appointment with the hairdressers. Start without me, I’ll catch up.”
-“Who’s it from?” Heston inquired.
-“Check the number. Six times six: it is the number of the Beast. Since when is the Evil One so vain?…”
-“See, you ARE Bush,” I interfered. “Taking the public’s mind of what’s really important, hoping the truth will stay covered and…”
As the cape dropped so did my momentum. This wasn’t another puppet from the Bush-dynasty. This was the Ultimate Warrior…

2005-01-14T14:46:00.000+01:00

Legions of Doom III

The Foul Riders left Dublin, confident they had planted the seeds for the city’s downfall. They spurred their fierce stallions through the Hibernian night, guided only by the light of the Killing Moon. As they crossed the Boyne-river and surged passed the Monasterboice cemetery, Slane Castle appeared on the horizon. This would be their new lair, the epic centre of their evil earthquake.
-“This is where we spend the night? Sweet! Do they have a full Irish breakfast there?” I shouted in anticipation.
-“Heed my words, Famine, there will be no dawn for mankind. The Darkness will rule over these lands and…”
-“Put a sock in it, Death,” Pestilence interrupted. ”The Evil One has sent me a text. He’ll be waiting for us.”
-“Beelzebub has a cell phone?” War questioned.
-“See, you little no-good. That why you need to come to our meetings more often. We haven’t been calling him like that for ages. When was the last time you came to a meeting? When you brought that Austrian to power in Germany, isn’t it? That was seventy years ago, get your act together man.”
The Castle proved to be deserted, no sign of the Unspeakable One.
“We should start without The Master. It’s time to drop the cloaks and reveal our true identity,” I uttered.
“Agreed,” said Death, “It’s time to come out of the closet.”
Along with his cloak fell a deep silence. We were gobsmacked. The wind was howling through the trees, lamenting the faith of human kind. Death had chosen a powerful apocalyptic Apostle indeed…

2005-01-13T15:14:00.000+01:00

Legions of Doom II

The Riders of Doom set out from the West. We drove our horses to the limit, pacing on through Roscommon and Meath, only stopping to raise a couple of villages to the ground and infest Cavan with the plague. By dawn we could see the outskirts of Dublin from the top of the Wicklow Mountains (you know, near Johnny Fox’s). A pale sun was rising over Dublin bay, but still the chill of winter was filling the air. This fair city was the first major obstacle in our quest to world domination. If we could obliterate Dublin, the rest of the world would easily follow. Even during the nineteenth century, when I, Famine, wiped out most of the Irish, Dublin had always been quite resilient. War had a crack at them in 1916, but failed and eventually had to settle for the mundane Belfast in the north. This time we would not let Baile Atha Cliath stand between us and the Day of Reckoning.
-“Behold, the Final Judgement is upon thee,” Death oracled. “We are the Riders of the Apocalypse and we…”
-“Lets get a bite to eat first, Bro’, I’m starving,” I said.
-“You’re always hungry, Famine,” Death snapped.
-“Well, you’re just a pest,” I barked at him.
-“Euh, no, that would be me, guys.”
-“Shut up, Pestilence, or I’ll kill you,” the eldest replied.
-“Now, now, guys. Let’s calm down here. You know we don’t have powers over each other,” the youngest mediated.
-“Screw this,” I said. “I’m going to that pub over there. “The Morgue”. Has a nice ring to it. We can’t start the Final Reckoning on an empty stomach, right?”
-“He’s right, Death,” Pestilence supported me. “And there’s an Old Firm-game on. Celtic plays Rangers in the quarter-final of the Scottish cup. War will want to see that, Catholics playing Protestants. Should be a hoot.”
And in we went. The Morgue in Templeogue, famous for its gorgeous waitresses.
-“I wouldn’t mind going home with her, I think she’s Russian,” I said. “Excuse me miss, could we get some chicken wings over here?”
-“Shut up, the match is starting. Go Rangers,” Pestilence cried. “They’re sure to win with that new Belgian, Buffel.”
-“You think so?” Death mysteriously replied. “I foresee an unexplained cardiac arrest during half time.”
-“You always do that,” moaned Pestilence. “I put my hard earned money on someone and they end up dead. Remember that time I bet on Ayrton Senna?”
-“Yeah, or that time I voted for that guy, Kennedy.”
-“Lay of it, Famine, I did bring Dave Gahan back for you, didn’t I?
-“You’re the biggest scumbag of us all, Death.”
-“Thanks guys, now shut up and lets watch the game, am I right, Famine?”
-“ Mhhh…delici…these…..mhhhh…chick…..burp.”
-“You’re a pig!”
-“Hey, could I fill my stomach here before I return to Ethiopia?
All of a sudden a local Irishman came up to us. He was dressed up in green and white and wasn’t looking too happy.
-”You guys not from around here, are you? What’s with them black cloaks? You Celtic-fans? ”
-“Those wankers?”
Before we knew it a couple of dozen Irish were on top of us, beating us to pulp. For some strange reason, War found it all very amusing…
-“Nice stunt you pulled in there, little one, proving YOU do have powers over us.” I said, wiping the blood from my lips. “Now we’ll have to check CEEFAX to see how the game ended.”

Celtic won 2-1, Sutton and Hartson scored for the Bhoys…

2005-01-12T11:40:00.000+01:00

Legions of Doom

The full moon was caressing the silvery rocks that are the Burren, their cold interaction only interrupted by the occasional veil of cloud. “Not enough water to drown a man, no tree to hang him and no soil to burry him in,” the great Oliver Cromwell once said. This bare expanse of limestone is one of the harshest regions on this planet. I love it. I had been riding the deserted planes of Yeats country, leaving the purple Maumturk Mountains to the east. I had left the boggy marshland of Connemara behind me and was now approaching the Cliffs of Moher, our meeting point. North-western winds swept in gales from over the Atlantic, frantically ripping at my black cloak. I held on to my hood, but the icy wind cut straight through my flesh, chilling my bones from the inside out. My trusted stallion puffed out mushrooms of hot air though his wide open nostrils. Me and my Brethren had chosen the raw Western coast of Ireland for sentimental reasons. How we had roamed these lands in the nineteenth century, killing millions and driving out at least as many. This time, we would not settle for less. The four of us had been reeking havoc all over the globe, but now the time had come to join forces and deliver the coup de grace to humankind.
Moments after I arrived at the rendezvous point, a shadow appeared on the horizon. The sound of approaching hooves played out a gloomy requiem with the waves, which were crashing into the rocks some 50 feet beneath me. Soon the shadow transformed into three distinct forms, tree horsemen pacing through the endless night. My eldest Brother, Death, had just returned from south-east Asia, where he had killed hundreds of thousands. A warming-up for what we had planned. Pestilence was right beside him, ready to finish of whoever Death failed to kill. Since the youngest, War, had taken over the White House, the toll had been rising steadily. I rampaged Darfour, but the world did not seem to notice my efforts. The three riders halted beside me. “Greetings, Brethren, tonight the four Horsemen ride again. There will be no dawn for mankind.”

I think I need a girlfriend.

2005-01-10T10:22:00.000+01:00

Myth becomes legend…
Legend becomes crap

Went to see "Alexander" yesterday. You know, Alexander the Great, only gay in the village, mmmh, right, isn’t it? The man who reigned over an empire where the sun never set and who makes Julius Caesar look like the village fool.
It turned out to be the longest, most agonizing three hours of my existence.
First of all, Alexander was played by Colin Farrell. Now, I like Colin. He used to live in Sandymount, just a few miles down the road. He was born and raised in the shadows of Dublin’s Twin Towers, the exhausts of Dublin’s incinerator, who belch char-grilled Irish waste into the sky with the clockwise precision I would like to see in Dublin’s public transport. Little Colin was lucky to be born with ten toes and ten fingers. Others in his neighbourhood might not have been that lucky. Only thing is that he has a more then healthy appetite for the female species. That should hardly be a cause for mockery, rather than for envy. Dublin’s bravest is rumoured to have mounted more women than horses on the set of the film…
Anyway, back to the movie. The perfect cure for insomnia. Less is more, monsieur Stone. If you can get your point across in two sentences, why use thirty-eight? I love Anthony Hopkins, but you turned him in to an old nagging bore (which he indubitably is). Angelina Jolie also played herself (the crazy bitch), but she could hide her overacting behind the wardrobe she got to wear –actually she couldn’t hide a whole lot behind that wardrobe, wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.
There were two big battle-scenes which looked like a schoolyard fight compared to the battle for Minas Tirith. Only thing monsieur Stone achieved was to assure John Heinz Kerry a wealthy retirement: I’ve never seen so much ketchup being spilled. I was waiting for Colin to start eating French fries of the Barbarian carcasses.
And I feel very sorry for the gay community. This guy was the biggest queer in history. No fag ever had so many subjects bow down to him (not sure if protocol allowed them to turn their back to their emperor…). I thought gay people expressed their love physically, just like the rest of us. No way, Jose! Gay people only hug and look funny at each other. If, however, they try to conceive an heir, all of a sudden there’s tits all over the screen. Not that I mind, or that I wanted to see a frontal of Alex’s purple wand and his furry bag of magic, but still… If you’re making a biographical movie, be historically correct rather than politically, monsieur Stone. Just because you wouldn’t make any money in the Southern states if we saw some Greek loving. He’s the reason it’s called like that!

Want to know about Alexander? He’s two years old, lives in Ghent and will turn out to be the best Belgian soccer player of all times, urged on by his fame-crazed father and his Nobel-prize winning sister Emma. End of story!

2005-01-07T14:00:00.000+01:00

Blowing for Columbine

Yesterday I was on the DART back home. I was reading “Love all people”, the book on Bill Hicks. It was rush hour, so there weren’t too many seats available. I ended up with two crack heads and their lovely spouses. These guys were passing around five doobies between the four of them, whilst gulping down large amounts of pills with J&B. High? Their pupils were so dilated I could see the back of their skulls. Nothing but thin air there. So your man, who’s been hooked on crack since he was in the womb, asks:
“What ya reading?”
“Bill Hicks.”
“He’s that writer, isn’t he? What’s he been up to?”
Oh boy, Bill would have had a field day with you, man. I mean, I can understand how the two working brain cells in that head of yours connect the dots and go: book…person…dingdingding: Writer!
Your claim to knowledge would have been that much more credible if I couldn’t see black holes in your eyes, buddy.
“Euh, no, he’s a comedian. And for the last eleven years, he’s primarily been dead.”
They continued expanding their minds with natural substances as I went to the toilet. I came back wearing my black trench coat and carrying my long rifle. As I blew the first one’s brain out, I felt a slight remorse. All this strawberry yoghurt-like mash on the walls and seats...
Nothing! I blew away everything above his eye-lids and he didn’t even blink.
“Pass me that Dutchie again, Phil, I feel a splitting headache coming on.”
“Like the new hairdo, Neil!”
Damn, I’m trying to better the world here, man, you could at least pretend to co-operate. But then again, you can’t kill the undead with a shotgun. I suppose I'd need to drive a silver spike through their heart or sever their heads from their bodies. A bit to messy for me, I don't like handy work. They weren’t even that more zombie-like than the rest of those comatose rat-racers on the train. It’s hard being a psycho-killer in a world of braindead.

2005-01-06T15:20:00.000+01:00

Dublin Vice

I know Miami Vice sounds more exotic, but as long as I can go to jail because I answer “yes” to the –let’s face it quite stupid- question: “Did you come to assassinate our Supreme Leader, the Envoy of God, George II”, I’m not going to the merry old land of Bush. So Dublin Vice will have to do. No palm trees, no Ferrari’s, no hot chicks in mini skirts. Just bums, needles and dog shit on the pavement.
Anyway. Here’s my vice:
I’m a sucker for music. And even in the days of MP3’s, iPods and Kazaa I only want the real stuff. I spend huge amounts of money on CD’s. Yesterday I went mental at HMV and Tower-records, thanks to the Virtu-compilation I bought on Monday.
If I would have spent the same amount on coke, I would have been as high as a kite for weeks on end. Then again, I might have made great music myself. Seriously. Do you really think John and Paul were sober when they thought they were residing in a brightly coloured vessel that allows you to travel 80.000 leagues beneath the sea? Right then.
But you see, I don’t do drugs. I don’t smoke. I don’t really drink. Id est, I don’t buy alcohol to get pissed all by my self at home. But then again where would be the fun in that? Getting pissed is only fun when you can throw up in public and have half the city -who’s just as drunk as you on any given Sunday (2 am)- mocking you. Or when you can piss against a city landmark (and on your own shoes, off course). Or pick a fight with a perfectly lovable guy because he looked funny at your girlfriend, even though you haven’t had a girlfriend in ages (because you’re a moaning wino).
But I was making what is turning out to be a quite elaborate point on why it is okay for me to spend so much on music.
It’s okay because I want to! It’s my bloody money, isn’t it? If I want to blow it all on music, that’s my problem. And I only spend it on interesting and good music. No Britney for me. Oops, I did it again. What? Got married again, you drunken slut? Westlife? Well, allow ME to be Frank. You five combined have about the same amount off talent as Francis Alberts ingrowing toe-nail. Christina Aguilera? Genie ON the bottle! You’re Satans’ spawn, made great by the one true God in this world: commercialism! That’s the Uber-vice: selling people loads of crap they don’t need. Everything is image, no contents. And we buy it, literaly…

2005-01-06T09:21:00.000+01:00

Requiem for a dream

Yesterday I brought my Spanish class Belgian chocolates. I’m not a very likeable person by nature, you see. I have to buy affection. I bribe people into liking me.
But you see ladies, I’m just like the Belgian chocolates I offer you: a very dark, almost bitter tasting fondant shell. But if you dare to take only the smallest of bites, your taste buds will discover the richest panoply of flavours. Both sour and sweet. The most exotic aromas will caress your tongue and lips and leave you ecstatic. Just one little lick and you’ll be hooked.
You’ll want to wallow yourself in the liquorish caramel that is my love and sprinkle your voluptuous curves with little chunks of my passion. I will cling to your sticky back as a wrapper to a toffee.
You’ll stuff your face, you’ll want the whole box and you won’t even want to share with your best friend. You’ll have to tell her about this amuse bouche off course. Tell, but never share. You’ll be longing for that last drip hanging from the corner of your mouth. And when you come home at night and find your little box of lusciousness missing, you’ll fall to your knees, raise your eyes to the heavens and cry: More! More! More!

And then my alarm went off. Shower. Brush teeth. Tram. Work…

2005-01-05T12:26:00.000+01:00

Booth(y) call

Ever used one of those photo booths you find in shopping malls? The ones that give you four mug shots for five euro? They’re horribly depressing, aren’t they? I always hope that someone comes out as Superman (or –woman, if you fancy a transsexual superhero), but that never happens. The pictures you get are always too bright and you’re never quite in the centre. And you feel so exposed in those cubicles, hiding behind your curtain as if you’re some pervert doing whatever perverts do in there.
Yesterday, I was in Dun Loaghaire shopping centre and there you had it. Some middle-aged woman came out of this booth (Well, she would have been middle aged if she lives to be 110). Anyway, she gave me the “Oh-my-God-you-saw-that?”-look, as if I caught her during the act. I replied with my “Did-I-ever!”-look, although there might have been a slight hint of “What-are-you-on-about” in my gaze.
Why would you want a picture of yourself, woman? And why do you want to have it taken in a booth? Look at yourself, you’re gigantic. You barely fit in there. Go to a proper photographer, in a building! This woman wasn’t chubby, she was huge. I mean, look-out-Sri-Lanka-she’s-coming-in-and-it’s-gonna-be-so-much-worse-when-this-hits-you-huge. How can people let themselves go like that? It’s just a photo booth, not an Extreme Makeover-booth. Oh, by the way, ten kilos of make-up don’t hide the fact you’re huge. It just stops you from getting into the US. “Excuse me madam, the amount of make up on your nose is considered to be a weapon of mass destruction in this country. I’m afraid it’s a one-way-ticket to Guantanamo Bay for you.”
She stumbled out of the booth, gave a Godzillaesque roar into her cell-phone and disappeared into the crepuscule. I went to Tesco and bought some bread and salmon from the omnipotent British imperialist mega-value bastards, went home, watched Stargate and called it a night. Life can be great at times.

2005-01-04T16:08:00.000+01:00

Tu permeTS UN AMI...

de trouver que t'es degueulasse de te moquer des Asiatiques inondés. Cela s'appelle de l'amitié.
But let me reassure you, my friend. When I see a tidal wave hitting the coast of South-East Asia, I'm just as shocked as the next man. But off course, I have to have some sarcastic views on the whole disaster. That's just me, sorry about that. I was just thinking how immune we've become for all the horror in the world. If I see some crying Thai on the telly (Don't cry: if there's one thing you don't need, it's extra water, you stupid fuck) I flick. You're yesterdays news, mate, I'm ready for the next disaster.
This is just what mother Nature has in store for us. Want to help those people, yourself and a couple of future generations? Don't drive cars that do half a mile to the gallon. That would save you from waging wars in the Middle East for that black sticky stuff that is eventually going to be our downfall and for wich we have substitutes anyway. If your industrial plant closes down and sacks half your hillbilly-town, think of billions of tons of CFK's that won't make it to our ozone-layer. "The day after tomorrow" is coming, and it's not by buying fresh air from Siberia we're going to stop it. The whole world was outraged when the US refused to sign Kyoto. Well here's a newsflash: Kyoto is a joke that will not make any difference whatsoever. And what about China and India: once they start producing like the Western countries do (hurray: everybody to the stockmarket!) , it is inevitable that the Chinese and the Indians will want to buy the shit that says: "Made in China/India". Houston, we might have a problem... The shit will hit the fan as hard as a tidal wave hitting Phi Phi Island. Solution? I don't really see one: cross our fingers and pray to God. Not the smiteful God who killed about 200.000 people down there. That God only exists in the Old Testament and most of Americas Southern states. The God I'm talking about is the loving and caring father who gave us free will. Off course he conveniently forgot to give us enough braincells to handle such a powerful tool and so we just fuck everything up and call it progress, science and capitalism (or communism or liberalism).

Oh, and even if we redeem ourselves and miraculously save the environment: Yellowstone is still ticking.

Tick, tack, tick, tack, tick, tack,

BOOM!

2005-01-04T14:32:00.000+01:00

Resolution time again...

So today I'm back at work and everybody -I do mean everybody- seems to have started a diet. Fair enough, more Belgian chocolate for me. Everybody is running, counting Weight Watcher-points and not smoking. Would you please stop counting, stuff your face and get back to your daily fix of nicotine? It will make the world, my world, a much happier place. You need these things in order to be happy. You are (as am I) a fat, overnurtured, cranky, rich Western pig. So act like one: your ideal diet is about 35% more calories than you actually need. Look at me.
Do I have any New Yearsresolution I want to keep? As if... I don't smoke anyway (except cigars on New Years Eve, thanks Dafke). You think I'm chubby? Live with it, I do. I might do some sports, if I feel like it. And as to eating less: if tomorrow everything tastes like beans in tomato-sauce, I will consider it. But as long as there are oysters, chocolates, salmon, shoarma's at four am, Belgian fries, Guinness, lambfilets, Chateau Lafitte-Monteuil, seafood platters and 16-year old Black Bush to be inserted into my oral opening, it's just not going to happen. I'm a hedonist: I want loads of goodies and I want them now and I don't care if it will cost me about two years of life expectancy: I can afford it because I was born in the northwestern hemisphere! Some doctor will invent me a pill, so I will get those two years in the end anyway!
And now it's time for my 2 o'clock coffee-break and my Kinder Bueno.

2005-01-03T17:26:00.000+01:00

Torn between two lovers

So I've been to Belgium for about ten days. I came back to the Emerald Isle only yesterday and already I'm torn.

Countries are very much like beautiful women. Ireland for example: young and feisty. Very expensive to maintain, trendy and full of natural beauty and gorgeous features. Buzzing and attracting loads of foreigners. One to show of with.
Belgium on the contrary is mature and calm, loving and comfortable. No luscious curves, no exciting lines. Belgium is the love you leave behind in search of new excitement, but you miss for the rest of your life...

So, I'll stay with my new found love for the moment, but make sure to keep in touch with the old one. I'll visit her every couple of months, we'll get drunk together, I'll make sure to cover all her hotspots, abuse her and leave her like a thief in the night.

2004-12-23T17:53:00.000+01:00

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!

What's wrong with you people. Move! I'm on a mission here!... 'Scuse me, coming through, sorry about that ma'am...

Last minute X-mas-shopping is NOT a good idea. This town has gone mental. I had to physically abuse at least thirty people to pass through Graftonstreet. I've been touched in very intimate places by perfect strangers (which was nice). I made five babies cry, three women blush and got kicked in the teeth by at least five angry boyfriends. And I haven't even managed to actually get into a single shop.

Well, I had this brilliant idea of going to "Oil and vinegar" on George Street to get something for my mum. I actually managed to get into that one shop, since it was virtually deserted. I found out why. Thirty-five euro for 250ml of oil? You're kidding me right?

I might have to go with the "Cranberry sauce with port" I got at work. We were suppose to buy them for charity, but since we're all such scroogy buggers, they gave them away for free. I suppose I could scoop out half of it and give it to my grandmother. So, that's two of them sorted out. I think I'll give my dad and grand dad a handshake... That should make them happy, they're not really in to presents anyway.

So, all I have to do is get back to Blackrock in one piece...

Morituri te salutant!

2004-12-23T14:27:00.000+01:00

The landscape is changing...

Well there you go. Revamp is all done. I even gave this site a new name. Some of you might recognise a whee Depeche Mode-influence. Anyway, over and done with. Time to look ahead.

What lies ahead is an X-masdrink with the colleagues that are still left. Tonight I have some last minute shopping to do and tomorrow we head for home. Plane leaves at half six, so it's going to be an early one... I (hope to) land in Charleroi (the country of numbing despair) at nine. Cross my fingers that the Belgian railways operate properly... (euh, had that drink with the colleagues now: rest of the post might not make a whole lot of sense...)

I should be home by noon. I'll probably get a few hours of rest, trying to ease this terrible cold, before we feast on a daddy-made dinner with my parents, grandparents, uncle, aunt and godchild.
Sunday we're of to Ghent to see Hulla and Bart Vandamme and probably play some cards with De Bende... Monday I have a DVD-comedy-special planned with Duvelman and Wednesday is RISK-day. New year's Eve we go to the Café Théatre and the second of January it's back to Ireland. I might not be able to blog all the time, but I'm sure you guys have other plans anyway. Have a good one...

2004-12-22T15:06:00.000+01:00

New design

So I've been looking franticly for a new design. I saw some great ones on the net, but I'm afraid I'm not nearly smart (computernerdy) enough to implicate them. Well, I got this one, hope you like it. I tampered a bit with the colours. And in the process I lost all comments (Eat this Huug, desperate times, desperate measures)... Lukily there was Hulla to help me out! Cheers mate!

2004-12-22T11:31:00.000+01:00

Et cetero censeo Carthagem delendam est
O tempora, o mores et cetera et cetera

I have absolutely nothing to say. Well, if I can't come up with something myself, why not steal someone else's thunder? I want to tell you about this hilarious blog: Why was daddy kissing that man in the park? (I dunno really, I always thought my old man was straight as an arrow. Goes to show: you never really know what someone's thinking, do you?).

There was this story on there a couple of days ago about a ... snot-cicle. I laughed my head off (spent most of the night in the E.R., but they managed to put it back on. Lost some hair in the process unfortunately).

Anyway, let's get back to our point here: snot. I have a very bad case of it right now and whilst blowing my nose, the mind often wanders.
I remember my last year in secondary school. During one of the most boring Latin-lessons ever (teacher Verdonck was an absolute tool, nothing compared to Van Der Donckt aka King Kong we had the three previous years. That man is still a hero to me. When Ceasar said the Belgians were the bravest of the Gauls he must have had that man in mind. And anyone who can make Cicero sound boring, should be executed on the spot!), the teacher sneezed. Two strings of snot hung from his nose in a very Dumb-and-dumber-Jim-Carrey-kind of way. Me and my mate absolutely cracked up. But apparently we were the only ones to notice. Up until today I don't know if the snotcicles were only in our heads or if they were actually and physically on his. Anyway, it got to the point where we got sent to the principle for laughing without reason and disturbing the class (Only thing we did was wake up a couple of fellow students).
So what could we do? Say: "Excuse me, Sir, your face has been covered in snot for the last hour or so. You're making an absolute ass of yourself and it's actually your fault we've been disturbing class. Anyway, it's a good trick, sir. Actually keeps us focused for once. Maybe not on Tacitus, but then again, you could make Lock, Stock and two smoking barrels an antagonizing glooming hour and a half, could you? You're about as much fun as being skinned and dropped in a barrel of vinegar. Your parents German by any chance, Sir?"

Or just take the blame and go to the principle? Well, that's what we did. He wasn't in due to personal reasons (his mistress -our French teacher, Vanneste- feared to be pregnant, which the doctors denied on the grounds of him being a man (the French teacher as well as the principle)).
So we got away with just apologizing to Verdonck (still covered in snot at the time). Strangely enough I got my lowest grade ever on Latin that year. But, despite that man I still think everybody should have read the Catalinic Speaches and the story of Scipio Africanus.

Sic transit gloria mundae...

2004-12-21T11:35:00.000+01:00

Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?
(They do, I told them!)

So yesterday I did it: I gave a homeless bum a tenner so he could check himself into a hostel for the night. The poor sod was sitting outside Pearse-station. An elderly man, bent over his hat, mumbling “Spare change” to everybody who passed him by. I didn’t really want to make a scene, so I just gently threw the two five euro-notes in his hat and walked on. Your man suddenly awoke, stood up, came after me and wished me a Merry Christmas indeed… Some of the commuters even turned their heads, got out of their zombie-state for a split second and saw that there was a flaw in the Matrix.

So you think I must be feeling really good about myself now. Making a difference and all. Well, I was. For about five seconds. Then I realised that I spent about thirty times more on a suit on Sunday and that I’m about to spend ten times the amount I gave the bugger on some lousy meal on New Years Eve. We don’t really know what it is, huh? To be needy.

I saw Bob Sir Geldhof (who got kicked from school -the exclusive Blackrock College- in the street where I live) on Sunday. He was showing the original Band Aid-video to the “next generation” of do-gooders. At the end of the video there was a picture of a typical Ethiopian girl: thick belly, scull-like head, death in her eyes. And then he pulled the rabbit out of the hat: this girl lived and she was there, fully nourished and twenty years older. The Girls squeaked Aloud and all the other artists gaped as if they were seeing a Roswellian creature…

They're just precious aren’t they? Singing half a line (that has to be remixed for two days, because most of them couldn't hold a note if their life depended on it) and not getting ridiculous amounts of money for it. And who’s the clan-leader? Mr. Paul Hewson aka Bono. A regular goody-two-shoes, isn’t he? Saving the world, spreading peace where ever he goes. Fuck off Hewson! Your last tour made you and your drinking buddies 145million $. That money could give Africa bulimia for three generations. Your house in Dalkey costs about 15million € , and I don’t even know where else you got mansions. Nobel Prize for Peace? You must be joking.

If we ever want to heal this world, we’ll need more structural changes then some losers squealing some 25-year old X-massong. Let’s start with killing the George Bush’s, the Ariel Sharons and the Jean-Marie Pfaffs of this world and work from there. To the barricades! Death to the infidels! Let’s start the revolution. But not before January 4th: I’ve got presents to unwrap and geese livers to devour.

2004-12-20T14:48:00.000+01:00

We're on a road to nowhere...
Conversations in Dublin County on a Sunday afternoon

Yesterday, half three (15h30 in Ireland that is), I was after strolling through Merrion Park and making a few pictures of this fair city (I'm not as good as yer man at the old photographing-game meself, but I have a crack at it from time to time). I'm making my way through one of the estates as yer man drives up next to me. He's after rolling down his window and asks:

Man: "Yerself?"
Bietje: "Not too bad. Yerself? What's the story?"
Man: "I'm afterbeen lost for about half an hour. The wife and the kids are starting to give me grief (wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more). Ya wouldn't know the way to Killkenny, would you?"
Bietje: "Killkenny, ya're after being on the other side of the island, ya are. I'm only afterbeen moving here three months ago, like, meself, that is. We'd better ask yer woman over there. 'Scuse me, misses. Yer man is after being driving around for hours. He's looking for the M50."
Woman: "The M50. Are ya lost, mate? Ya are. I'd say, like."
Man: "Actually, I need to get to Killkenny, meself, ma'am"
Woman: "From the south, yerself, are ya? I'd say ya make yer way back to the dual carriageway, take a left, at the seventh or eight lights take a right, passed the roundabout. Ya'll see a pub on the lefthand side, O'Leary's, fine pint they used to serve, they did. But then the landlord died and they had to sell. Place is owned by some guy from the Northside. There after losing half their clients, they are..."
Man: "And that's where I get on to the M50, meself, is it?"
Woman: "M50, is it? Oh, yes. Well, when ya're after passing the pub, ya take a right, ya'll come to a T-junction in Dundrum and I'm pretty sure there is a signpost there."
Man: "Fairplay to yis!"
Bietje and woman: "Take it easy, yerself!"

I'm after wondering how this country is after winning four Nobel prizes for Literature, meself, I am.

2004-12-18T20:34:00.000+01:00

Smiths(e butn en rap)
Bigmouth strikes again

Johnny Marr, de ce pays. Johnny Marr, de cette ville. Johnny Marr, de ce boulot chez X&JR.
"Morrissey il n'y a plus d' paradis," chante Jo Lemaire et elle a bien raison.

The Morr-i-ssey this charming man staring at me in the mirror, the more he reminds me of the boy with a torn in his side.

There is a light and it never goes out and I want to be there now.

How soon is now?
PS Meat is murder

2004-12-16T09:56:00.000+01:00

Bridges of the world
Unite and take over

This morning I was taking the DART (Dublin Area Rail Transport) to work. We stopped briefly in the middle of nowhere, about half a mile short of Sidney Parade-station. After about ten minutes of agonizing silence, the train continued to the abovementioned station.

Then something very peculiar occurred: through the speaker a metallic voice announced: "Due to a bridgestrike at Grand Canal Dock, this train will terminate at Sidney Parade and will proceed southbound,,, yadeyadeyade..." Luckily he repeated this message a couple of times...

A BRIDGESTRIKE? What, in heavens name, is a bridgestrike?

Then it dawned on me: all the bridges in the world must be so jealous of that newly opened humungous bridge in France that they went on strike. Hmmm, that's probably just the free drinks from last nights Christmasparty talking.

Probably I misunderstood: maybe it was the local Bridge Club who went on strike and lay their heads (all five of them) on the railroadtrack, waiting for the Double E (I'm alluding to a Warren Zevonsong here, retards). But why would they: Dublin is reputedly friendly to bridgeplayers.

Eureka! I've found it. It's the English! The R.A.F. executed an airstrike on all Dublin bridges to teach them Fenian bastards a good lesson. I took out my Union Jack (always take the side of the aggressor, I say), but realised that something wasn't right. Tony would never invade a country unless Georgy told him to.

Anyway, after a 45-minute walk, I arrived at the company, which is situated just in front of the Grand Canal Dock-station. There I saw what really happened: a drunken truckdriver had hit the bridge with his lorry, and the people who had to fix the bloody thing were obviously on strike. Well, actually, they were just really Irish in approaching the calamity and couldn't be arsed to start working before they had their full Irish breakfast...

Laziness will be the downfall of this country, I tell you!

2004-12-15T15:59:00.000+01:00

God save the queen

Sorry about these last posts. I know I've been overdoing the whole eighties-thing a bit (but you'll admit they were amazing!...) Anyway, I have another piece of disturbing musicnews...

Legendary rockband Queen will tour again. Freddy Mercury will not be joining the band on stage for personal reasons, also bass-player John Deacon might not be rejoining the group...

Queen? Without Freddy Mercury? That's hardly an ugly little princess, is it? I remember I was appalled when rumours persisted a couple of years ago that Robbie Williams might be the new Queen-singer. He's not nearly queer enough to fill Freddies shoes.

Terence Trent D'Arby replaced Michael Hutchence as INXS-frontman a couple of years ago. After just a few gigs, the remaining INXS'ers realised it wasn't right. It's over guys. Let it be. Maybe Boy George can lead the new Nirvana, or the Pet Shop Boys might team up with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr...

This is just plain stupid. Nobody can replace Freddie Mercury. The guy had incredible presence, amazing chesthair, he was a Mazdaist and had a set of front-teeth like nobody else since him.

The new leadsinger will be Paul Rodgers, former Bad Company. What's in a name...

2004-12-14T18:09:00.000+01:00

Shaddap you face!

The guy left of me is called Ruggero Paresschi. One of my best friends here, who left for Italy last week. This is a tribute to him! C U Ruggero

'Allo, I'm-a Giuseppe, I got-a something special for you. Ready? Uno, due, tre, quattro. When I was a boy just about the eighth grade,Mamma used to say "Don't stay out late With the bad boys, always shoot-a pool,Giuseppe going to flunk-a school." Boy it make-a me sick, all the thing I gotta do,I can't-a get-a no kicks, I always got to follow rules:Boy it make-a me sick, just to make-a lousy bucks,Got to feel-a like a fool, and Mamma used to say all the time: What's-a matter you hey got-a no respect,Whaddya think you do, why you look-a so sad?It's-a not so bad, it's a nice-a place,Ah shaddap you face! That's my Mamma, kid, now remember. Big accordion solo. Yow! Play that thing! Really nice, really nice. But soon there come a day gonna be a big star,Then make-a TV shows and-a movies, get-a myself a new car,But still I be myself, I don't want-a to change a thing,Still-a dance and-a sing, I think about-a Mamma, she used to say: What's-a matter you hey got-a no respect,Whaddya think you do, why you look-a so sad?It's-a not so bad, it's a nice-a place,Ah shaddap you face! Mamma, she said it all-a the time. What's-a matter you hey got-a no respect,Whaddya think you do, why you look-a so sad?It's-a not so bad, it's a nice-a place,Ah shaddap you face! That's my Mamma. Hello, everybody that's out there in the radio and TV land. Did you know I had a big hit song in Italy with-a this? Shaddap You Face. I sing-a this song, all-a my fans applaud, they clap-a the hands. That make me feel so good. You ought to learn-a this-a song, it's really simple. See, I sing "What's-a matter you", you sing "Hey", then I sing-a the rest. And then at the end we can all-a sing "Ah shaddap you face." OK let's try it, really good, uno, due, tre, quattro: What's-a matter you (hey) got-a no respect (hey),Whaddya think you do (hey) why you look-a so sad? (hey)It's-a not so bad (hey) it's a nice-a place,Ah shaddap you face! That's great, we can do it better this time I bet, hey: What's-a matter you (hey) got-a no respect (hey),Whaddya think you do (hey) why you look-a so sad? (hey)It's-a not so bad (hey) it's a nice-a place,Ah shaddap you face! OK, one-a time for Mamma, everybody: What's-a matter you (hey) got-a no respect (hey),Whaddya think you do (hey) why you look-a so sad? (hey)It's-a not so bad (hey) it's a nice-a place,Ah shaddap you face!

2004-12-14T16:38:00.000+01:00

The eighties-craze goes on!

It has been bugging me for days: who sung "You'll always find me in the kitchen at parties" and "Stop the Cavalry". This guy was a one-hit-wonder who actually had two (very different-sounding) hits. Thanks to my colleague Rob, I nailed him down: Jona Lewie!

You'll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties

I'm no good at chatting up and I always get rebuffed.Enough to drive a man to drink I don't do no washing up.I always reached the stuff piled upa-piled up in the sink.But you will always find him in the kitchen at parties.Me and my girlfriend we argued and she ran away from home.She must have found somebody new and now I'm all aloneLiving in my own. What am I supposed to do?That's why always find him in kitchen at parties.you will always find him in the kitchen at parties.You will always find him in the kitchen at parties.Then I met this debutante I said I like new wave rock.She was into french cuisine but I ain't no cordon bleu.This was at some do in palmers greenI had no luck with her.You will still find him in kitchen at parties.You will still find him in kitchen at parties.At last I met a pretty girl she laughed and talked with me.We both walked out of the kitchen and dnaced in a new way.And now I've done my time in the kitchen at parties.I've done my time in the kitchen at partiesHe's done his time in the kitchen at parties.He's done his time in the kitchen at parties.

The catchy synthriff of this song was used by Liquido a couple of years ago, for their hit Narcotic...

Stop The Cavalry

Hey, Mr. Churchill comes over here to say we're doing splendidly. But it's very cold out here in the snow,marching to win from the enemy. Oh I say it's tough,I have had enough. Can you stop the cavalry?I have had to fight, almost every night down throughout these centuries. That is when I say, oh yes yet againCan you stop the cavalry? Mary Bradley waits at home in the nuclear fall-out zone. Wish I could be dancing now in the arms of the girl I love.
Dub a dub a dum dumDub a dub a dumDub a dum dum dub a dubDub a dub a dumDub a dub a dum dumDub a dub a dumDub a dum dum dub a dubDub a dub a dum. Wish I was at home for Christmas.
Bang! That's another bomb on another town. While Luzar and Jim have tea. If I get home, live to tell the tale, I'll run for all presidencies. If I get elected I'll stop - I will stop the cavalry. Wish I could be dancing nowin the arms of the girl I love. Mary Bradley waits at home. She has been waiting 2 years long. Wish I was at home for Christmas.

This is an all time Christmas-favorite you might even hear on the radio these days!
Thanks for sorting that out, Rob!

2004-12-14T12:54:00.000+01:00

Contest...

If you can email me at least one hit of all the artists mentioned below before tonight 12PM, you will receive a special surprise!

2004-12-13T17:29:00.000+01:00

MORE! MORE! MORE!

Belinda Carlisle, Bros, Taco, Riguera, ABC, Richard Marx, Talk Talk, Eric Carmen, Steve Winwood, Matthew Wilder, Wham!, Plastic Bertrand, Indochine, Leopold Nord (et vous), Gary Numan, Tears for Fears, Paul Young, Mike&the Mechanincs, Visage, Ultravox, Falco, F.R.David, Adam Ant, The Cars, Cyndi Lauper, Pet Shop Boys, Pat Benetar, T'Pau, Cabaret Voltaire, Howard Jones, Spandau Ballet, Musical Youth, Scritti Politti, Rockwell, Black, Living in a box, Red Box, Laura Branigan, The Buggles en last but not least...

2004-12-13T14:46:00.000+01:00

Retrojunk.com

Ever get nostalgic about your childhood? I was 12 in 1990, so my sick brain has been forged in the 80-ies. The eighties were always viewed as the Dark Times of the 20th century, but then the nineties turned out to be even crappier. So during the noughties the 80-ies finally got the recognition they deserved: camp rules!

Retrojunk.com gathers clips of your favorite movies: Beetlejuice , Conan the destroyer, D.A.R.Y.L. and Karate Kid.

You can find the theme songs of your favorite shows: 21 Jump Street, The A-team, Airwolf, Alf, The Freggals, He-man and the Masters of the Universe, Transformers and off course MacGuyver...

Unfortunately there are no music links to A flock of Seagulls, Jim Diamond and Ph.D., Nik Kershaw, Jimmy Somerville, Nik Camen, Men without hats, Thompson Twins, Wall of Voodoo (Stan Ridgway), Fiction Factory, Icehouse, Ryan Paris, Hall and Oates, Baltimora, Milli Vanilli, Rick Astley , Johnny hates jazz or Alphaville...

But you can always count on Bietje to take you back in time!

2004-12-13T11:14:00.000+01:00

I know who killed…the Zutons
(It wasn’t the Klingons!)

Saturday night I went to see the Zutons at the Ambassador-theatre. This old cinema reminded me a bit of the Cirque Royal in Brussels. The acoustics were great although the place could do with a bit of a revamp. Opening act were Dublin-based The Urges.

Before the Zutons beamed down from their ship (that was cloaked in orbit) onto the stage, they sent a reconnaissance-team called The Urges, to establish the mood of the public. This Dublin-born species fired Zutonesque music at the stupified audience: a sort of early Kinks with an edge. The away-teams leader reminded me of Doors-frontman Jim Morrison at times. He apparently hadn’t digested the transport, which resulted in a sort of a disequilibrium. It might also have been the use of Klingon bloodwine and illegal substances that triggered this phenomenon, but the ships log was inconclusive on this. The Urges bombarded the public for about 45 minutes, finding their adversaries a though nut to crack. By the end of their away-mission, however, they had won the crowd over and the approximately 500 attendees were ready to open negotiations with the Zutons themselves.

There was a malfunction during transport, and saxophonist Abi Harding failed to materialize. The band encountered similar problems during their previous visit, when an engagement with the people of the Olympia Theatre had to be ceased, due to radiation illness of the drummer. Captain Dave McCabius Kirk ordered his team to proceed without Abi this time and started of by giving the public the Zutonfever. After this first attack the band started working on the publics Pressurepoints and spread Confusion. After about an hour the ultimatum came: You will, you won’t? You do, you don’t? We did…

Mr. Data reported that the Zutons has performed well within normal parameters.

2004-12-09T10:21:00.000+01:00

Let there be light...

Yesterday I had some photos developed. Pictures from my trip to Croatia, pictures from my stay in Belgium. Pictures from some of my mates, one of my (very skinny) female friends (She's married: d'oh!...euh, I mean: She's married though)...

Anyway, I forgot my new pictures in an internetcafe in Temple Bar. It took me about two hours to realise it. I was just going to my Spanish class and it dawned on me... I had to go back immediately if I was to have any chance to recuperate these memories. So I jumped on the first bus that said "An Lar", which is the Gaelic for city centre.

And the next stop it happened : hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah,hallelujah, Halle-he-lu-jaah (repeat to fade). There she was, in all her beauty. Descended from the heavens to deliver us from evil. A vision of utter perfection. Mother of all the devine and the earthly. And.. she had a hard time coming up with the correct change. I could hear her muttering something to the driver with a distinct French accent.

She ended up standing next to me and a few stops down the road, she asked me: "Where zo aai get of for Grafton Ztreet?"
"Encore deux arrets, " I replied.
Her face lit up like an Irish meadow at the first ray of sunlight after yet another deluge.
"T'es Français?"
"Non, Belge."
The bus then took a turn I hadn't anticipated, away from An Lar and Grafton Street. We got of at Pearse Station and I swore I could hear Ralph McTell singing: "Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of Dublin..."
I walked her all the way to Trinity, we said our goodbyes and I got a kiss on the cheek for being so gentlemanly.
Didn't catch her name, didn't get her number. It wasn't like that. It was much purer.
The Lord moves in mysterious ways...

2004-12-08T14:05:00.000+01:00

Peace in Northern-Ireland looks uncertain
DUP insists on "humiliating" Republicans

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - The Irish Republican Army has reopened negotiations with Northern Ireland's disarmament chief, signaling its readiness to put more weapons out of commission for the first time in over a year.

Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein said the IRA was willing to resume disarming after a 13-month hiatus - but would not accept conditions designed to humiliate the group. In its one-line statement, the IRA offered no hint as to whether it intends to disarm fully and disband in support of Northern Ireland's six-year-old peace accord, as the governments of Britain and Ireland expect. In past rounds of disarmament, the IRA has refused to let it be known how many weapons it had put "beyond use."

The British and Irish prime ministers, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, plan to travel to Belfast on Wednesday to unveil the peace plan.

But Ahern offered a downbeat assessment of the chances of a breakthrough - and he pointed to the dispute over whether the IRA would allow disarmament officials to photograph the destruction of the group's remaining weapons stockpiles raised concerns.

Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party, which represents most of Northern Ireland's British Protestant majority, is demanding this as a condition for forming a new administration alongside its old enemies in Sinn Fein. Adams, a reputed IRA commander since the mid-1970s, appeared to rule this out.

"I recognize that some unionists have genuine concerns about verification of arms beyond use," Adams said, using the deliberately ambiguous term used by the IRA to describe what disarmament officials are allowed to do with IRA weapons. "But Ian Paisley has to recognize also that the IRA will not, as I said before, submit to a process of humiliation," Adams said.

The British-Irish plans, presented confidentially to both Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionists Nov. 17, reportedly include a call on the IRA to allow photos. The unionists accused Adams of seeking to pick the bits of the package he liked while ignoring others.

"This is a comprehensive agreement - it's all or nothing," said Democratic Unionist deputy leader Peter Robinson. "If the republican movement isn't prepared to sign up, I think that's regrettable," he said, using the blanket term for Sinn Fein and the IRA. "People in Northern Ireland could have been waking up tomorrow to a new era, but republicans have lost their nerve."

2004-12-08T11:00:00.000+01:00

Den Tuveneir (1921-2004)

"Teige Van Batsen en Gullik moete uug speile, Kaarel."
"Twa nen iele gruute, ne rappe. Iejne mu ne foijne vu veu den bal."
"Tuuvert nog es, want wemmen et êt nuudig."
"Ge moet uug speile, ma da's moelaak natuurlijk!"
"Keshi, da es ne zwette. Dane moete late luupe. Dei manne rieke degoal. Edde Keshi zoan bille al gezien? Da kunde mè 20 man beefstuk van ete."
"Lustert ier, Karel. Veur maa, Maradonaa, tis den besten. Aaj at olles éé: snelaajt, tekniek, ne goej pas. Aaj was beter dan Gullik, Van Batsen, Rijkaar, Romanio, Babalero en Kluivers."
"De twie Zemba's. "
"Toen Anderlecht Nilis en Albert verkocht: "Ge moe kuupe, ni verkuupe."
"Zijn woorden na de 5-5 in Nederland-België: Ast 6-6 was gewèst, adde ze nog nen tiebreak mutte speile."
"Me de Marseille in den taad ik kost ne kaffee gon drinke, want ze koste tege ons toch gin goale moeke."
"La mort, daar denk ik niet aan", zei hij toen hij 80 werd. "Ast mut wil ik iniens weg zaan. Boef, duud. Gien kluteraa int gasthuis."

Raymond Goethals, who coached Marseille to European Cup success in 1993, died on Monday at the age of 83, following a long illness. He also led Anderlecht to win the Cup Winners' Cup in 1978, and coached his native Belgium between 1966 and 1976.

Marseille were stripped of their 1993 title because of match-fixing by their former club president Bernard Tapie. But Tapie has led the tributes to Goethals, describing him as "an extraordinary man".

Tapie admitted: "I am really sad, very sad. He was much more than just a coach.
"He had a nose for detecting young talent, and he was able to adapt to any situation on the pitch. On the human side, he was a fabulous guy who joked around with the players, which showed that he had their respect."

During his time in charge of the national side, Goethals led Belgium to third place in the 1972 European Championships.

He also took Standard Liege to two league titles and a Cup Winners' Cup final, and enjoyed more success after returning to Anderlecht.

2004-12-05T12:09:00.000+01:00

The winter of my discontent

So, the day after no tomorrow, hey...

You probably think I woke up amongst the creatures of the night in some back alley of this fair city after my drinking debauchery last night.

Not so.

During these dark days in Dublin I've devised different demarches to drown the dreaded doom and dark deadlock of depressional despair. Mostly, people listen to their favorite music. I do to, but since I've recently rediscovered the genius of Depress Mode, I listen to music, but not tonight...

When I'm depressed I eat or buy. So yesterday I spent about 20euro at Eddie Rockets, before heading for the HMV in Grafton Street.

After considerable debate, I settled on three comedy DVD's:

First of all the unfathomable genius Dark Klingon Lord Bill Bailey, with his Part Troll-DVD...
From Hillbilly Zeppelin, Drum 'n Bush over "Ein, zwei, drei mahl eine Dame" to the belly-ripping Krafwerk-tribute: there is just no funnier, more talented man that walks the face of this earth.

Number two was Billy Connolly live in Dublin. This comedy-legend is probably more vulgar and shocking than Bailey, but is whee lih'l accent just captures you from the start, doesn't it. His energy on stage is just fabulous.

Number three was a new name I discovered: Tommy Tiernan, Cracked, Live at Vicar Street. This Galwayman performing in one of my favorite Dublin venues was a revelation. Unfortunately his current tour is absolutely sold out, so the DVD will have to do.

To these three masters you may add Dylan Moran, the star from Black Books, a DVD I bought a couple of weeks ago. I used him as opening act.

A topnight of comedy, no sore head (my abs are, though) and gone all the depressing thoughts!

Joy to the world, the Lord has come!
(I always knew this Marie Magdalene was a bit of a slapper)

PS : Love Song - Bill Bailey

I was alone, my heart was cold, it was a stone, my soul was lonely, like a stone, there was no moss. And when I danced I danced alone, but then I did not dance because I was alone, so I did not dance. I shuffled through life invisible to all happy couples who would mock me with their merry laughter, hahaha. The only sound I heard in my silent and lonely world was the rusty hammer of my heart nailing at the hatred in my soul.

But then you came and my life was turned upside down. You showed me the beauty of things I had never seen like a snowflake that melts on the eyelid of a startled deer or the painting of a dog that wares a waistcoat and smokes a pipe that makes you laugh heartedly, but I previously thought was rubbish. Or the duck that lands so clumsily on a frozen pond in winter but the intoxicating power of our love transforms this simple act into an anthropomorphic drama where Mr. Duck is embarrassed and the other ducks are laughing (Kwek kwek kwek)

AND THEN YOU LEFT, AND I HAVE DIED A THOUSAND DEATHS AND I WILL DIE A THOUSAND MORE. I THOUGHT YOU WERE AN ANGEL, YOU TURNED OUT TO BE A WHORE. AND EVERYTHING HAS TURNED INTO DUST, EVERYTHING INFESTED BY THE PLAGUE. WELL, YOU HAD TO SLEEP WITH CRAIG. OOH, HE'S SO SENSITIVE, HE'S GOT A TATTOO. YEAH, CARVING YOUR NAME WITH A COMPASS IN MY FOREHEAD WAS NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU.
THE SNOWFLAKE ON THE EYE OF THE DEER HAS TURNED INTO PUSS THAT OOZES FROM AN OPEN WOUND, THE DEER, NOW BLINDED, STUMBLES INTO A RAVINE. THE DUCK LIES SHREDDED IN A PANCAKE SOAKING IN THE HOISTING OF YOUR LIES. THE DOG HAS MOVED FROM THE PIPE TO 60 CIGARETTES A DAY AND COUGHS AWAY HIS LIFE IN THE COLD NEON RESEARCHLAB OF YOUR BETRAYAL, YOUR BETRAYAL, OF YOUR BETRAYAL...

Now, if that doesn't get your spirits up, I don't know what does!

2004-12-04T18:06:00.000+01:00

Musings for the (X)-Masses

Exactly one year ago I threw a big farewell party in Ghent, Belgium. I've been here for a year now... So what about Ireland? What about Belgium? What about anything?

Pff, I don't know really. I always get kinda depressed before going back home. Mostly the day before. I always go out and get absolutely locked, which doesn't make for comfortable flying, but usually the headache is so bad, it takes the focus of the depression. But after spending about half a day in Belgium (Charleroi and Bruxelles-Midi that is), I can't wait to get back to the Emerald Isle.

Everything is so much better there. I mean: the people are actually nice there, the beer's great, the food is good, there's music and good books and comedy and the Irish craic is all people ever told you it was.

So you're guessing that the same routine will just be played out again: depression kicking in a day before flying home and once I'm there the longing to get the hell out of there will take over...

I'm not so sure actually. I'm actually depressed three weeks beforehand. Of course the whole "It's-the-season-to-be-jolly-now-fuck-off-I-saw-that-Christmastree-first-ya-poxy-cunt"-thing doesn't really help. But I feel the problem might be deeper-rooted.

Don't get me wrong: Ireland is great. I mean the country: stunning coastlines, mountains, loughs, peninsulas, Celtic crosses, passage tombs... I mean the people: open, friendly, warm (and goodlooking).

Unfortunately, Ireland, the society, sucks. The beer and the food is ridiculously expensive, the music and books and comedy are mostly British or American and in most pubs in Dublin the craic is fake. There's no public transport, there's no social security. Property is just unaffordable. Most of the stunning coastlines, mountains, loughs, peninsulas are being maimed by weekend houses, a good part of the people are openly racist, violent or homeless (or a combination of those). The goodlooking ones are bitches (but then, that's the same in Belgium isn't it?)

So do I want to move back to Belgium? Dunno.

It's just that after a year the hard reality kicks in: there's no escaping from the metro-boulot-dodo mantra of life (although these days of course it's metro-boulot-cado-dodo). Ireland may be a more majestic background to the movie of life, most of the actors don't even notice it anymore. And although I gladly trade in my 'thirteenth month' for a nice bit of nature, there's another thing that Ireland lacks: Daf, Tantje, Grobelny, Gros Lolo, Kakeir (and their respective squaws), X-man, Emma, Mieleke, Manou, Ieuwke, Mitte, Charisa, Elise, Oen, Dietn, Eleve Wiebresjt, Eleve Vandevoorde,Tutte, Walloys, Peetn en Hans, Irmine (and her betterhalf), Fretn and his chicken, Trieniepienie and Vanacker.*

So I suggest you start writing me some nice X-mas and New Yearswishes to get me over this. I, for one, am gonna fight this depression the way I've always done...

"Oi mate, another Black Bush, no ice!"

*If you feel left out: bugger off, I've obviously forgotten about you!

2004-12-02T17:31:00.000+01:00

Bush urging Ottawa to join Star Wars program
Ferengi unwilling to dump Rules of Acquisition

HALIFAX - U.S. President George W. Bush ended his official visit Wednesday with a plain-spoken plea for Ottawa to join his controversial ballistic missile defence program.

"Our two countries are working together every day to keep our people safe," he said. "I hope we'll also move forward on ballistic missile defence co-operation to protect the next generation of Canadians and Americans from the threats we know will arise."

The U.S. ballistic missile defence program – known as Star wars - was not on the agenda of Bush's first official visit to Canada.

Furthermore the president mentioned that the alliance with the Vulcans would not enable us to stop the war in the Klingon empire and trade-negotiations with the Ferengi are at a standstill, as the Ferengi will not reconsider the 15th Rule of Acquisition.

“The USS Redneck, currently in the neutral zone helping the Cardassians in suppressing the Bajoran uprising, suffered some casualties as a wormhole collapsed upon them. We received some help from Romulan vessels, who joined the coalition of the willing.”

“Live long and prosper”, Bush concluded.