belgianwaffle

Belgium

Quote of the week


Posted in: Belgium

“We campaign in poetry, but we govern in prose”. So, apparently, said Mario Cuomo. Judging by yesterday’s Irish Times, there’s not a great deal of poetry in the Irish election campaign either.

Voting takes place on May 24. Everything appears frenzied back in Ireland. As an emigrant I am completely disenfranchised. The only thing I can vote in is the Belgian communal elections which are, of course, fine in their way but perhaps lack the excitement associated with national politics. Then, of course, there are the Belgian federal elections on June 10 which I can’t vote in either. Poor Mr. Waffle has bought a comic strip book outlining the main issues. You think I’m joking? I’m not.

More random odd stories from the kingdom of the Belgians


Posted in: Belgium

Belgium is a country divided by languages, namely French and Flemish (nobody seems too worried about the German speakers).

Belgian Friend: L is a Leo (lion in French).

Me: Ah, like the symbol of Belgium.

BF: No, that’s the symbol of Flanders.

Me: I think it’s also the symbol of Belgium.

BF (darkly): I wouldn’t put it past them.

The Belgian army is divided along linguistic lines.  Batches of troops (companies, battalions, divisions, who knows?) are put in the same linguistic groups.  So, when they meet doing NATO manoeuvres, they speak to each other in English until they have established the language regime applying to the other troop.

Finally, Belgians are given a licence plate at the start of their driving careers and they keep those numbers forever.  Given developments in licence plate numbering, you can tell the really old drivers by their plates.  I find that strangely satisfying which makes me wonder whether I have been married to my husband for too long.

Where there is disharmony


Posted in: Belgium

I went to a concert this evening in the Conservatoire. I know, it’s just glamour, glamour, glamour. It looks like it needs a lick of paint.

It is one of the Belgian institutions that is supported by both the French and the Flemish community (and maybe even the German speakers too, for all I know). This is deeply unfortunate because, before they can agree to pick up a paintbrush, all the parameters of the action have to be explored and agreed by both communities. I may be mixing up my communities and my regions here, it is all fiendishly complex: I think that there are two regions (Flanders and Wallonia) and three communities (French speaking, Flemish speaking and German speaking) but it’s all a bit of a mystery really. I have already written about the effect on the nation’s young orchestra conductors. Tonight I heard that the in the conservatoire, the bottom of the tympani (or drums as I used to call them before I heard the conservatoire types talking) are funded by the Flemish and the tops by the French. Something has to give.

Meanwhile, on the radio on the way home, I hear that one of the catholic cardinals has put the cat among the pigeons by saying that he disapproves of gay marriage, abortion and condoms. Um, this is a surprise?

Equal pay for equal work


Posted in: Belgium, Work

Today is equal pay day in Belgium. Here is the mildly amusing poster (it’s not that I’m emotional, it’s that I’m underpaid is a rough translation of the slogan) and here is a long pdf document from last year that the Belgians have translated into English as well. That latter perhaps only for the enthusiasts. Peggy even has a video.

When Ireland joined the EU in 1973 it sought a derogation from the equal pay legislation on the grounds that it would beggar us. But we didn’t get it. Is it any wonder I love Europe? In the 1960s and early 70s women working in the public sector and many parts of the private sector including the banks faced a “marriage bar”. If they were married, they had to give up their jobs.

I suppose in that context it’s no surprise that more than 30 years after the forced introduction of equal pay legislation, the gender pay gap continues. In an EU document (found via this blog, it is so typical of the EU that it’s easier to find its documents via a random blog than via its own multifarious and exciting websites for the various directorate generals – “corporate strategy, what’s that, we’re all individuals here” and people think they’re just faceless bureaucrats, you know) there is a table showing the gender pay gap over 25 European countries in 2002. The average gap is 25%. 25% people! Your sister, your daughter, your mother: their work is worth 25% less than a man’s. See how your country performs on page 22.

More funny children stories tomorrow.

The oddness of Belgium


Posted in: Belgium

On the way to school the other morning, the Princess and I saw four fire engines screaming their way to a warehouse near us.  They disgorged about 20 firemen who were suited up with masks and packs on their backs.  They leapt from the fire engines and sprinted into the warehouse.  This urgency was somewhat undermined by each of the firemen in turn pausing at the threshold of the building to shake hands with the site foreman before running on to the smoke filled interior.  Do you know that in their workplaces, Belgians kiss their colleagues at the start of the day?  Fancy moving to Belgium, land of old fashioned courtesy in work places.  Unless the work place is a department store in which case, the staff are paid extra to ignore you.

Recent culinary disasters or this is all very dull stuff but why should I suffer alone?


Posted in: Belgium, Family, Princess, Youngest Child

A while ago, I had some cold cauliflower which I decided to use up by turning into cauliflower cheese. I was undaunted by two significant facts which in retrospect should have daunted me: Mr. Waffle and the Princess do not like cauliflower cheese and I had never made it before. I turned to Mr. Conran for help (one of the many cookery books Mr. Waffle brought to our marriage). The quantities were for a head of cauliflower and it all seemed surprisingly complex. This is where I made my first mistake. I decided I couldn’t be dividing everything by four so I cooked the rest of the cauliflower. Then, Mr. Conran’s recipe had tricky bits in it like “make a mornay sauce” but add extra butter. So with a greasy thumb, I flicked between the cauliflower cheese and the mornay sauce recipe. And then it transpired that the mornay sauce recipe was a variant of another recipe on a different page; you know the kind of thing “as x sauce but with ingredient a instead of b and five times more c”. So I created a lifetime’s supply of cheese sauce using recipes from three different pages of the book. It tasted quite nice too but that didn’t encourage the Princess or Mr. Waffle to indulge and a head of cauliflower cheese lies waiting in small packets in the freezer to be fed to my sons over the rest of their lives until they leave home when they will be taking the remainder with them to university.

Regular readers will, I am sure, recall that I bought wild boar in the supermarket months ago. Last week, I decided to cook it. I used Mr. Waffle’s “La cuisine pour tous” which is a terse French cookbook originally published in 1932. It assumes a lot of knowledge on the part of the reader. None of your sissy modern day explanations for Ms. Mathiot although she does give excellent instructions on how to manage the hired help and how to lay a family dinner table. The recipe for the marinade gave quantities for some of the ingredients in dl. I was not sure how much a dl was and neither was Mr. Waffle and none of our cookbooks gave instructions on this point and we were too lazy to turn on the computer (foolish, foolish people). We decided how much a dl was (by looking into our hearts and comparing the results) and using the handy calpol measuring spoon we carefully spooned in what we believed to be the correct quantity of vinegar. The beast was marinaded and on Friday night served up to my misfortunate family. Actually, the boar itself wasn’t too bad. A bit gamey but not tough. Regrettably the sauce didn’t taste of cloves or peppers or sherry or red wine (3/4 of a litre) or anything really, other than vinegar. I am reassessing our guess on dl quantities. Mr. Waffle and I gamely (ha, ha) ate some but the Princess, very sensibly, refused to have any truck with it. However, later in the evening on our way to the cinema, Mr. Waffle turned to me and said “I’m not quite sure how to put this but, do you think we could stop for a toasted sandwich?”. Who was I to quibble. And to round off the evening, the film was quite, quite dreadful. May I recommend that you avoid Code 46? Having seen Samantha Morton in this, Minority Report and Morvern Callar, I have decided that I have suffered enough and I am going to foreswear any film in which she features in future. Happy Feet, anyone?

And finally, in other news, the royal grandparents are in situ for the week, minding the Princess for mid-term. They are not yet exhausted from their labours but we aim to send them back to Dublin shrivelled husks. Mind you, the Princess refused to go out with them this morning because she wanted to stay home admiring herself in her Snow White carnival outfit. They took Michael out instead (Daniel was napping) and he nearly expired from happiness at having two grown-ups all to himself. She did let them take her out this afternoon though. I am sorry, obviously, that I didn’t mention to her grandparents that she has got into the habit of putting on as many underpants as she can at a time. Not as sorry though as her grandmother who had to take her to the toilet in the local cafe and help her out of 14 pairs of underpants.