Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Coming Soon

I love movies. Watching trailers for upcoming movies is something I do nearly every day. So I thought I'd share with you my must see list of upcoming movies. First off is a movie that completely escaped my radar...until yesterday that is. It's the Cohen Brothers new movie, it's a remake of one of the greatest westerns ever made, it's True grit.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Listening Post

Villagers are winning a lot of critical aclaim with their cd Becoming a Jackal. On my first listen I wondered what all the fuss was about but on my second listen I loved it. Here's the title track.

Incey Wincey

Autumn has to be my favourite season. It's like Summer and Winter had a child.
"What shall we call it?"
"What about Trevor?"
"Ummm...well I was thinking of something a bit more...you know...seasony."
"What about Salt?"
"Not that sort of season...you can be very trying at times, Winter!"
"How about Autompne?"
"Hmm...it's a bit French..."
"Autumnus?"
"A bit Latiny but ok...we can call it Autumn for short!"
Best thing about Autumn? I don't have to mow the lawn anymore.
Worst thing about Autumn? Spiders! Lots of them!
I don't like spiders. When I was younger I operated on a shoot on sight policy as far as spiders were concerned but as I've grown older I pick them up and release them into the wild which must be very annoying if you are a house spider.
Spiders abound in Autumn. You can't walk into the garden without walking into a web. Such a lovely feeling having a spiders web drape over your face!
Inside it's less noticable, house spiders tend to try and stay in the shadows, but you usually see one or two as the weather gets colder.
A few weeks ago my wife and myself were retiring to bed. Being a gentleman I always let my wife climb the stairs first. On this occaision my wife let out a yelp and shot back down the stairs.
It could only be one thing...a spider.
Smiling, I walked up the stairs and there on the wall was the biggest goddammed spider I have ever seen in my life!
Ok, it's easy to make that claim. I'm writing a blog and to make it more intresting I have to point out that this spider was the biggest spider I've ever seen...but it was.
My first reaction was to run down the stairs and join my wife on the sofa. Maybe hug a cushion for extra protection.
My second reaction was:
"There is no way that I'm going to pick it up with my bare hands!"
I took a tissue out of my pocket and walked stealthily to the spider, moving slowly so as not to startle it or appear to be a food source, all the time expecting it to either jump for my throat or scamper away. It was big enough to scamper...small creatures can't scamper. As I got closer to it I realised that my tissue wasn't sufficently big enough to pick it up with. I walked down the stairs and into the living room.
My suggestion to my wife to stand next to the spider and point at it so I could take a photo and get some idea of scale was met with less than polite enthusiasm so I returned up the stairs, took my slipper off and splattered the arachnid over the wall. I'm not proud of my actions but what could I do? You can't ask it to leave can you? If I had let it live I would have had to start charging it rent...it was that big!
The next morning I did a search on the web...pun intended!
Like I said, it was by far the biggest spider that I've seen outside of a zoo. I've heard that spiders sometimes hitch a ride with fruit from warmer climes and suddenly leap out to scare unwitting shoppers when they buy a bunch of bananas, so I searched expecting to find some exotic species only to find it was a common house spider!

Friday, September 24, 2010

Listening Post

A great version of a song I first heard on the Ryan Adams cd Heartbreaker.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Listening Post

Welcome to the Listening Post. New name but same good music. Todays video comes from the new Robert Plant Cd called Band Of Joy.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Typical

We had a festival of rugby here in the village a few weeks ago. Yes, you read correctly...rugby. In Flanders. The place where the bicycle is king and a woman called Kim is the biggest sporting star in the country. To be fair, we are close to the Wallonian border and I guess it's inevitable that a certain amount of Gallic influence abounds in these parts; I've seen more than one person wearing a beret since I've been here.
What really intrested me was that 2 English teams had been lined up to play in the tournament. I'm afraid that I'm one of those dreadful people that become ultra patriotic the moment I leave the port of Dover. The merest glimpse of an Eddie Stobart lorry on Belgian roads is enough to start my bottom lip wobbling. I do like rugby. For a few years it took over from football as my favourite sport. I like the commitment from the players. Unlike football there's nowhere to hide on a rugby field...unless it's at the bottom of a collapsed scrum. So, the appearence of the English teams was an added bonus, as was the fact that the festival was taking place at the end of our street.
Here's a fact about Belgium that I've always found curious. They hide things.
I was stopped a few months ago and asked for directions to the vis winkel. The fish shop is so fiendishly positioned that I wondered if it was a secret. Would I be breaking any local customs by imparting the knowledge to outsiders? After all, when the wife and I asked for directions to the vis winkel we ended up sitting in a field surrounded by cows 20 Kms aways.
In Belgium there are very few shopping centres outside of the bigger towns. This means that you can be driving down a country lane surrounded by farm land on either side and suddenly come across a shop selling beds or computers. It's always struck me as odd. How do people make a living? The fish mongers isn't sign posted from the main road. If you didn't know it was there you would happily drive past the road in which it is situated, which is probably what happened to the people I gave directions to as I actually gave them directions to the place we buy our wood from, a 30 minutes drive away.
Ok, I admit that there's a thin line between hiding something and something being hard to find; almost the same but not quite. So maybe my accusation of hiding things is wrong, maybe Belgians, rather than thinking:
"Hmm, this is a prime spot for my business, lots of houses and other shops, good amount of traffic passing and there's even enough parking space for a few cars!"
They think:
"Yay cows!"
My point being that the stadium...yes, remember that?The stadium is hidden behind the convenience shop at the end of the street.
( Now despite being a convenience shop, the convenience shop is not that convenient because it closes on tuesday, exactly the same day as every other shop in the village. In my opinion, the convenience shop would be a damn sight more convenient if it opened on tuesday and closed on wednesday.)
A stadium hidden behind a shop? Makes it sound pretty impressive doesn't it? Actually it is pretty impressive. It has two playing fields and a stand that would put most amatuer football and rugby clubs in the UK to shame.
There was an English coach parked next to the convenience shop. I saluted it as we walked past.
As we approached the stadium the sound of Englishmen wafted on the late summer breeze.
Barking laughter and incoherent shouts.
On the field, rather confusingly, were two teams wearing almost identical kit. Off the field, a string of pot bellied Englishmen, hugging the touchline and shouting encouragement and advice to their team mates.
We felt strangely drawn to the bar. At the bar, two English players, both older and fatter than me. Both drinking the local brew.
Shouldn't they be playing? I wondered.
"They're giving us a hard game!" one said to the other.
It was true. The local team were mostly young men in their 20's. The English, as I said, were mostly men who looked like me. Those that weren't balding were grey. Stomachs protuded above their shorts. Obviously men in the prime of life!
We found out that some of the teams hadn't turned up. A shame, because some of those teams were local, or at least more local than the one English team that turned up. Because of this the festival ended early and we only got to see about twenty minutes play. I say play, but it was mostly lots of fat blokes trying to catch lots of skinny ones. Surprisingly, the English won. I think. There was no score board. But they got a trophy. It could have been a 'thanks for coming' trophy for all I know.
We found ourselves left with a sheet of beer tokens that we had to use up...damn!

Where do we go from here? I couldn't post this blog without bringing to everyone's attention that this is the first post for a few weeks...ok months...ok 7 months!
I was going to start a new blog but then I saw that In Flanders is still getting a regular trickle of people visiting the page and whilst 99.9% come here by accident maybe that .1 % sticks around long enough to read something. Feed back is very important to this blogger. If I feel that no one is reading then I lose interest in writing for it. From now on I shall post at least once a week. I shall continue with the music videos and I will be starting a regular feature called ' The Duvel Made Me Do It!' which I hope will be a weekly post. There may even be the odd book review in there as well.
 

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