Tag: belgium

la vie est belge

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eurostarA few days after Christmas, a friend and I went over to Belgium, where I used to live what feels like a lifetime (but was less than ten years) ago. I spent a year in Charleroi between 1999 and 2000, my time there culminating with the now infamous visit of the chair-throwing England fans. It was a year that has shaped a lot of my imagination, though I did little but eat frites drowned in sauce, drink and learn about beer at la cuve à bière, and play the guitar (writing songs about this, about that). That is, however, the life. We took the early Eurostar to Brussels, and walked around the busy post-noel streets, surprised to find that there was no rain whatsoever – I nearly didn’t recognise it in the sunshine. I like Brussels. I drew at the Grand Place, crowded, touristy, disgustingly ornate, but necessary for a budding urban sketcher to draw. I wasn’t going to seek out the urban grit – we were going to Charleroi later that evening, and there would be plenty of that.

it's a lovely place

le luxembourg, charleroiI stopped in a shop I loved when I was living there: Grasshopper, an amazing store that sells all sorts of toys and books. I wanted to buy some French board books for my baby son (decided not to go with teaching him Flemish just yet). However, while I was sketching, I must have put them down and forgotten about them (very unlike me*). I went back to the store and bought some more, and asked if anybody had returned them. Non, they told me, ils sont bye-byes. Yeah, cheers.  So, we took a very modern double-decker train south to the city of Charleroi, and while Roshan napped in the hotel, I ventured out into the freezing dark evening to do some night-time pre-pub sketching, and drew Le Luxembourg, a place which although very pretty, I have never actually entered. While drawing, I kept my eyes on the shadows for, er, shadowy people,  happy to be back in my old town.

*I do tend to lose things in Brussels, though. I lost my favourite top here once, in 1999. I wrote a song about that too. It was white with thin black hoops. If you find it, let me know; it might still fit.

smelled the spring on the smoky wind

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la cuve à bière

Between 1999 and 2000 I lived and worked in Charleroi, Belgium, as my Year Abroad while studying French. Who could love Charleroi? The sprawling decayed post-industrial mess at the heart of the slag-dumped Pays Noir, derided as a bed of crime and shady politics, and the place where a lot of England fans threw a lot of chairs and got hit in the face with big water-cannons for their efforts. Well, grimy as it is, I do love Charleroi. The people are warm and welcoming, and down-to-earth, and beneath the soot and neon there is some gorgeous art-nouveau archtitecture to be found. It’s the home of some of Belgium’s most beloved BD (comic book) stars, such as Spirou and Lucky Luke. Yes there are rats the size of small cows, but so what? (I tripped over a massive rat here once, actually tripped over it – it ignored me and just shuffled along, watched by a prudent cat).

And the beer is amazing. This is la cuve à bière, a little pub I used to visit several times during the week, largely because they had a TV that would show match of the day on BBC1. I’d sit and write or draw, taste new beers, eat cheese. Sometimes, Tel would come over from England and drink Kwak. I remember that on cold sleety nights I would walk through the doors, my glasses would steam up instantly, but by the time I’d wiped them clean and gotten to the bar, my beer would already be there waiting there for me. I don’t even know if la cuve is still there; I hope it is. When I’m back in the UK this december, I might pop over there to find out.

every day i look at the world through my window

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routine

Illustration Friday this week is “routine”…this is my entry.

Now, before you say, “do what?”, I’m playing a game here I used to play when i did interactive theatre. This image, ok, it’s an image of Tel looking out of my window in Belgium, about eight or so years ago. Add the word ‘routine’ and you start to write the story in your head around it. 

This may have been the night after this night here. But it was probably after a different night. 

But that windowsill! Man, I spent so many days and nights sat on that, looking out of my thirteenth floor window, across the Square Hiernaux (I nicknamed it the Vicious Circle because of the quite crazy Belgian driving), to Ville Deux, to the Stade Mambourg (where England beat Germany in Euro 2000), and to the terrils, the large slag heaps that dot the landscape of the forsaken pays noir.

the night tel drank the kwak

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foggy

My entry for Illustration Friday (I haven’t done one in a while), theme: Foggy. Yes, I had all these ideas of San Francisco or Prague or Strasbourg, of buildings half-immersed in grey, but I’ve been drawing so many buildings in grey lately that I wanted a change, and came across an old pic from an interesting evening in Belgium in late 1999.

This is my oldest friend, visiting me when I lived in Charleroi. We went, as always, to my local, La Cuve a Biere (an excellent and warm little place), and I got one of my favourite beers, Kwak (it comes in that funny shaped glass and is pretty strong, and tastes incredible). Tel did too. He liked it so much he downed it and ordered another. The Belgians on our table were surprised (and possibly nervous), for these sort of beers you have to enjoy, not chug down – for a beer like Kwak can be a bitch.

The room went foggy, the walls started spinning, the speaker above us started changing shape – at least that’s what Tel told me at the time. He suddenly got up, went into the bathroom, and pretty much didn’t come out for almost an hour. From what I heard, it was not pretty. When he emerged, we wisely decided not to get another, and walked home in the snow, not even stopping for a kebab. He has not so much as sipped a Kwak since. I can’t say I blame him.

This is faber-castell warm grey pen, with pilot varsity ink as the wash, on bristol paper. Yes, I’m trying something new for a change. I might illustrate other chapters of my life in strip form, if I get around to it.