So Long And Thanks For All The Chips
September 25, 2006
 As it's the last day, we stay in Bruges and do another walk, hoping for better weather than last time. But it's even more overcast this time...
So, we spend a bit more time in bars than may have been neccesary, adding Leffe Bruin, Kasteel Bruin [which may be my favourite of this trip], Juliper [which is pretty poor by Belgian standards] and a few others that I can't decipher in my notebook! Try this website for more on Belgian Beer. Wish I'd spotted it before we went!
We lunch at Zandloper and have even more chips before setting off for the chocolate shop, where purchases include, Bloody Mary, Cabernet Sauvignon, Kirsch and Cointreau flavoured chocs. Back to Brussels for the Eurostar and home. A great weekend which we hope to repeat next year. Just hope those Beaufort folk get themselves a guide in English together. Actually, they could improve their website and the signposting as well but maybe it wouldn't be so much fun if you could find everything that easily.
Still, I'd go to Belgium again, Beaufort or not. The coast is lovely, the transport is great, the people are really friendly and the beer is fantastic. And it takes less time to get there [and costs less!] than it takes to get to St. Ives.
Picture: Grafitti in subway near Bruges Station
Categories: Art, Food & Drink
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East Of Ostend
September 24, 2006
 Today we decide to get the train to Knokke and tram it along to Ostend for the return journey. The first port of call was to Zhan Wang's Floating Mountain Of The Immortals but it looks a long way from the tram stop so we opt for the Pedro Calapez [a Portugese Howard Hodgkin anyone?] painting/installation in the Church Of Saint Margaret. We'd like to have learned a bit more about this piece but when we finally find a copy of the catalogue we find that there isn't one in English. Just Dutch, German and French. Which is a pity as Beaufort is so "do-able" from the UK and did feature in a large Guardian article... Maybe next year.
Next we stop at Zeebrugge and so begin the long search [1 hour - half of which was spent going in the wrong direction] for Michael Ray Charles' The Three Graces [left]. Well worth the perseverence though. Three large, bullet like, silver representations of KKK members, denouncing racial discrimination and social injustice. The location, tucked away on a small green amidst a circle of cottages might have made the piece difficult to find but gave the feeling of a clan meeting with the pieces starck against heavy grey clouds.
We then pop into the grim, Southend-esque, Blankenberge where Stephan Balkenhol's Das Schiff is perched halfway up the pier. Not one of the better exhibits and not one of the nicest of Belgium's coastal resorts. So we carry on to De Haan for lunch...
Unfortunately for us, the lovely little town of De Haan has been overrun with dog lovers and their dogs. There had been a Dog Show on the beach earlier and there are literally hundreds of dogs of all shapes and sizes everywhere we look. It had struck us over the previous couple of days that Belgium is a nation of small dog lovers but there was every size imaginable here! After a Croque Monsieur, an aptly named Beaufort Blond beer and another Kreik, we head off to see La Peau Du Vent on the beach by Vosseslag. This tree/slab of marble installation by Giuseppe Penone represent the effects of ageing, erosion and time... I don't think it has been there long enough to pull it off really.
Our last stop, before we head back into Ostend is Bredene. A very small town, where the dunes hide the sea and there is very little else to see. The work by Josep Van Lieshout is out of place and unpleasant. The Body Bar is exactly that. A large female torso with severed limbs, lies, bikini clad and reeking of piss. Inside is a table, a couple of arrangements of wine bottles hanging from the ceiling and a dart board on the wall. Not nice and unclear what it was that the artist was trying to say.
Back in Bruges, we find that most of the other interesting restaurants are closed, it being Monday, so we head back to De Vlaamsche Pot. Stopping first for a few more beers on the way. Carmeleit, Bruges Zot, Westmalle and a raspberry beer. We both opt for smaller starters, Fish Soup and Ham & Melon, then I opt for the Beef Stew this time while Sam has the mass of Moules. This time we go for a walk before heading back for bed and don't hear the clunky plumbing at all!
Categories: Art, Food & Drink
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Along The Coast By Tram
September 23, 2006
 The train journey to Ostend from Bruges is only 15 minutes, so we stay in Bruges and commute to Beaufort 2006 for the next couple of days. At Ostend we buy two three-day passes for the De Lijn coastal trams. At 10 Euros each for the three days it works out cheaper than individual tickets for 2 days. We head West to De Panne and make our way back, getting off at selected stops. The sun manages to shine all day on the coast.
De Panne is where the highlight of the whole event is. Andries Botha's African Curios. A small herd of wooden elephants on the beach next to the Canadezenplein. At the other end of the beach is a huge lime tree carved into a boat, which some middle aged herbert is carving his initials into as we arrive with a very scary looking knife. So we leave him to it. I have a photo of him, if Bart De Zutter [the artist] wants to track him down, as he wouldn't get out of the way either! We stop for a Stella Artois [well, I had to try one while I was here] and another Kreik. The Stella tastes nothing like the stuff we get here. Far better.
Next stop for us is Koksidje. We realise that we can't see everything so have to be selective. Mimmo Paladino's installation, I Dormienti, is set among the ruins of the Duinenabdij. And it's pretty eerie there even without these dormant figures in every nook and cranny. See my Flickr photos here.
The Fallen Sky, by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, is disappointing. We thought it was going to be a large mirror in the sand reflecting the sky, but instead is a poor painting fenced off by some makeshift railings. It looks better in the photograph. Nieuwpoort is nice though.
The last stop, before heading back to Ostende for the train, is Middlekerke-Westende for David Cerny's Babies. Three large, faceless, black babies crawling from the beach. Here. We miss the tram so we go get an ice cream while we wait for the next one.
We eat at De Zandloper back in Bruges. far more manageable portions and a bit cheaper. sam has a Beef Stew this time and I have Chicken Vol-Au-Vent. Kind of like a Chick Pot Pie rather than those party things your mum makes. Some more Kreik's and a Tongerlo Dubbel Bruin, an Abbey beer.
Categories: Art, Food & Drink
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Bruges With Chips
September 22, 2006
 Arrived in Bruges at lunch time, the weather was brighter in Brussels, but we check into Hotel Lybeers and set off for a walk around. The guy on reception helpfully marks up a map with places of interest and ways to avoid the usual tourist traps.
We walk round the canals up to the windmills and try a couple more beers. A Rochefort and a kreik [cherry beer] at Brug Beertje, a local bar with 300+ beers.
In the evening we eat at De Vlaamsche Pot which is very busy due to its excellent Flemish fare. The starters are huge! Sam has a Three Pate dish and I have Goats Cheese and Honey. Both too full for the main courses. Sam's Chicken Waterzooi doesn't look too daunting to me but my Rabbit Stew comes with a mass of Chips and I don't do it justice.
Too full and disturbed by some bizarre gurglings from the plumbing, whilst I am devoured by a lone and elusive mosquito, it's not a good nights sleep.
Categories: Food & Drink
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One Night In Brussels
September 21, 2006
 Arrived in Brussels about 9.00ish after our bargain Eurostar trip - 2 for 1 tickets meant it cost us £14.50 each way each!
Checked in to Hotel Saint Michel and found out we had been upgraded to a room overlooking the Grand Place. At no extra cost. Nice one!
Straight out to the Delirium Cafe, who guarantee to have a minimum of 2004 beers... but it's been a long day and we only manage four! A Pink Killer, Floris Fraise, a Delirium Tremens and another I forget the name of. We'll go back one day and do the rest, so we head back to the hotel ready for the onward journey to Bruges tomorrow morning.
Left: Hotel De Ville, Grand Place at night
Categories: Food & Drink
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Theremin Goth Bot
September 19, 2006
 Pamelia Kurstin, with guests Jez Riley/ime and Matt Wade, will be playing at E:vent on September 27th at 8:00pm. The venue is at
96 Teesdale Street, London, E2 6PU
[MAP]
I've been listening to quite a bit of theremin music lately [not just to annoy everyone
else as is suspected round these parts].
So this is of interest to me.
Check Pamelia's MySpace site for some
snippets of her theremin expertise.
"Quite simply the world's most creative and inspired Theremin player... Pamelia has appeared alongside Anthony and the Johnsons, Lou Reed, Air, Sebastian Tellier, Foetus, David Byrne, Cibo Matto, Barbez and many more...her live shows always leave audiences amazed and inspired..."
It's £5:00 on the door and you can pre-book tickets by e-mailing your name to tickets@eventnetwork.org.uk. Doors open at 7:00pm but will be closed again at 8:00pm [latecomers will not be allowed in].
Bus: No. 8 to Bethnal Green Road or Nos. 26, 55, 48 to Hackney Road
Tube: Central Line to Bethnal Green
Roxy Bar & Screen is at 128-132 Borough High Street [Next to Sainsbury's] - It's also where Sunday 24th September is Kevin Smith day... which is an afternoon of movies from indie American director Kevin Smith... Of course! Movies are at 2:00, 5:00 and 8:00pm - Entry is free, but you need to contact them for details. They are also hosting VJ nights on Thursdays. And as Borough market is just across the road I'm hoping the food will good too. No excuse for crap ingredients at least! Not that I can go Sunday though as we'll be in Belgium, checking out Beaufort 2006 and the 2000+ beers in Delirium!
And finally...One for the ladies... Jimmy Choo goes online - With shoes that probably cost more, per pair, than all the shoes I've ever owned added together! [Well, close any way!] Oh... and one for the goths as well. Wait for it... Black Bog Roll! [pictured] - For the pale, spotty, gothy botty!
Categories: Music, London, Movies, Food & Drink
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Fix My Pipe!
September 13, 2006
After two days of, frustratingly, not being able to post and being on the verge of leaving Blogger I changed my ftp settings to sftp... And, bingo! No more Broken Pipe 001 errors... for the time being! So, with not much to say, here's another post! Just because I can...
Thought I'd give Aardcard a mention as I was invited to join the Flickr Group this week and I like the idea... as well as supporting Kids With Cameras.
Although it's an American site I like the idea of Map Junction. It's an open source project that helps you understand the past, present and future of places . A "Google Map" for the Psychogeographer... A combination of a number of different technologies ranging from graphical editing programs to geographic information systems [GIS], making it easy to find all the relevant information you need on a place of interest. I'd like to see something like this for London. Maybe Iain Sinclair would be interested in doing something similar for his London Orbital book? Or maybe even Iain Banks? A Scottish map, to accompany his guide to Malt Whiskeys, Raw Spirit. I'm reading this at the moment... Mr Banks sounds like a bloody good bloke to pop down the pub with I must say!
On the subject of maps, Mod My Profile have a visitor map for your MySpace page along with lots of other, less than useful adornments. I'm a bit wary of add-ons for MySpace pages as they can take aeons to load, but visits are so anonymous that I would try this... as well as the tracker they also provide.
According to the New Scientist "Neanderthals were thought to have died out as modern humans arrived in Europe. Now, artifacts found in a cave in Gibraltar reveal that the two groups coexisted for millenia before Neanderthals finally dwindled out of existence" They still live side by side round here!
Blimey, there's a storm of apocalyptic proportions going on outside... Tell us there's a hosepipe ban now!
Categories: Web, Photography, Blogging
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Periodic Sartorial Scrawl
September 10, 2006
 Take a look at Thedore Gray's Periodic Table project. A nice example of art meeting science. On the subject of art, The Scrawl Collective and Sartorial Contemporary Art are also worth a glance!
There are a heap of useful hints over at Sven's Blog - including downloading RealPlayer files and converting them to MP3... I tried it out on the BBCs Keeping It Peel programme from last year, which reminds me, it'll soon be John Peel Day again [Octber 12th].
Been listening to Jenny Owen Youngs and her side project The Robot Explosion this week. Seems I'm a year late in catching on to her but still...
Categories: Music, Art, London, Web, Photography
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Banksy Dog Unleashed On Paris
September 07, 2006
 Earlier this week we heard that Banksy had, apparently, doctored 500 copies of Paris Hilton's CD. Adding new artwork [The doctored version, apparently, includes a topless image of the celebrity heiress, as well as a picture in which she sports the head of a dog.], some fake song titles and a remix CD to replace the original disc.
The albums were, allegedly [I haven't seen any] signed Banksy/DM and distributed across 48 record stores in the UK [how, I don't know].
Rumour has it that the "DM" in question is none another than Danger Mouse . A statement credited to Waxploitation, Danger Mouse's management company, said...
"Waxploitation can confirm the rumors that the 'DM' referenced on the Banksy/DM Paris Hilton CD is in fact Danger Mouse. Danger Mouse and Banksy are believed to have met whilst shopping for disguises in a Soho joke shop. The only comment they have so far offered on their remix is 'Its hard to improve on perfection, but we had to try."
Fantastic, whether it's bollocks or not! Not having seen Banksy's effort, I've made up my own... looks like PH's left hand is on top of a pie!
Apologies to the dog [which I think is dead, but not in this picture, believe it or not!!!]
Categories: Music, London, Web
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Frieze The Noize
September 05, 2006
London's Frieze Art Fair, put together by Frieze art magazine, has revealed its own live off-site music event, Frieze Music 2006 which takes place over two days at the The Hippodrome, Leicester Square, London, WC2H 7JH 7pm - 2am £14/day, £23 both days. Tickets from seetickets.com. More info at Upset The Rhythm.
The Art Fair itself is from 12th - 15th October 2006 in Regent's Park, London. I only just found out about Upset The Rhythm... they're a live music promoter and record label based in London, started in Autumn 2003 by a bunch of kids who were bored of the London music scene. Check'em out.
You'll notice the usual amount of MySpace links in that lot above. In a direct challenge to iTunes, MySpace has announced its intention to sell songs from the 3 million unsigned bands on the site. The songs will be sold as unprotected MP3s, free from DRM.
Categories: Music, Art, London, Web
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