Red Light Walloons

I’ve been in the habit these past twelve months of rumbling off to Holland to collect boxes of books for resale in the UK. The normal route is via Calais – Dieppe – skirt round Ostend and Bruges to Ghent – then Antwerp – Eindhoven. Plenty of long, flat motorway; plenty of lorries; and plenty of remorselessly aggressive Belgian drivers.

Last Friday I suffered Antwerp problems. It started with a serious traffic jam some thirty miles from the city. Then I diverted to an alternative motorway and found another traffic snarl up. And finally my normally trustworthy Tom Tom threw a fit and diverted me right through the crowded city centre (rather than the efficient ring road) and out in completely the wrong direction heading for Rotterdam. All the while I was bursting to relieve myself and no sign anywhere of an appropriate facility....

I was therefore pretty pleased that my pre-planned return journey avoided Antwerp and instead took me south via Maastricht to Wallonia – the French-speaking bit of Belgium. Neither Mrs Rumbling Nappa nor I had ever been to this part of Europe, so a little Walloon hunting sounded like a good idea.

Our chosen hotel was a popular four star establishment in the centre of Namur (capital of Wallonia) in a curious conversion of an old tannery. Our third floor room seemed to be on about seven levels and overlooked a narrow cobbled street that led to the scenic River Meuse near its confluence wiver the River Sambre, but it was comfortable and our dinner was excellent.

After our meal we decided to take a short walk through the town, following the narrow cobbled street towards the river. At this level we were rather startled to realise that at the back of the hotel and more or less directly under our room at street level was the town brothel. In the best traditions of the Low Countries a young lady in her underwear sat in the red-lit window (which might once have been a shop window) touting for custom.

“Non” opined Mrs Rumbling Nappa as she gripped my arm and led me away ....

Clever Marketing

Difficult to know what the Canadian doctor, Major John McCrae would have thought of Remembrance Sunday. He’d probably be both proud and surprised that his poem (written at a medical aid station at Essex Farm, near Ypres in 1915) would inspire the use of the poppy as the enduring symbol for servicemen killed in battle.

Since mid-October every newsreader, every politician, every football pundit, every guest on the “One Show” has worn a poppy. Pretentious I thought at first. Why not wait until closer to Remembrance Sunday? But then a bell started to ring in my head. It’s called good marketing, isn’t it? Some bright person within the Royal British Legion marketing department has actually had the good sense to actively encourage people appearing on TV to wear poppies. There are probably “help yourself” trays in every broadcasting studio in the land with the message that by wearing the poppy you help to make remembrance “cool” with the younger generation.

Having over the past couple of years visited many of the important World War I sites (including Essex Farm), I realise how important it is for children and school parties to visit these places and to try and understand the bravery of the troops who fought there. Only by convincing each successive generation both of the futility of war and the extraordinary courage of our soldiers can we be help to avoid repeating bloodshed on that atrocious scale, whilst at the same time continuing to honour those who lost their lives.

I, in turn, must visit the grave of Major McCrae next time I go through Wimereux, near Boulogne (which I frequently do). He died of pneumonia while still commanding No 3 Canadian Military Hospital at Boulogne in 1918, by that time a Lieutenant Colonel. Wikipedia tells how he received full military honours, the procession to the graveside being led by McCrae’s horse “Bonfire”, his master’s riding boots reversed in the stirrups.

Dubai (2)

I've seen camels (real ones) and strayed off-road in the desert. I've seen the underwater world of Atlantis and travelled on a monorail to the edge of the Palm resort enjoying the station-stop at "Trump Tower" (notable in that the "Trump Tower" has yet to be built). I've seen the 7-star Burj Arab hotel and swam in the Gulf itself.

At the Bab Al Shams Desert Resort I sipped lemonade while reading the regional newspaper. Best article on the front page concerned a Sharia Court case in Jeddah where a family has brought an action against a genie. Apparently the evil genie threw the family's possessions around the house in a poltergeist manner and also sent the family (who have had to be rehoused) abusive text messages by mobile phone.

Back on the subject of camels, I was driven around the huge camel pen complex by Nad Al Sheeba racecourse but we are off season and most of the 14,000-odd racing camels were elsewhere. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum holds the record price so far paid for a camel (2.7 million dollars), and the big change in recent years has been to stop the trade in 'slave' boy jockeys who used to weigh in at about 20 kilos. You now have to be 15 years old, licenced and weigh at least 45 kilos before you can be a camel jockey.

Home now. I'll have to see if I can find a camel to carry my 20 kilo suitcase to the airport.

Dubai

It may well be regarded as an international pleasure ground boasting some of the world's finest hotels, shopping malls and sporting facilities but Dubai is (charmingly) essentially an arab capital city, honouring arab traditions and the Muslim religion. I've only been here for a day and a half, but I've seen the museum, more shopping malls than I've ever encountered in my life, and a few hundred cranes. I've visited the "pork room" in the local supermarket, and been amazed by the range and inventiveness of alcohol-free mocktails on offer in restaurants and cafes. And by the same token I've seen the locals driving their Hummers and quietly wondered what it would be like to have that sort of wealth, to wear a dishdasha robe and to have five burkha-clad wives to myself.

Look more closely at the picture above. It shows the base of the world's tallest building, the Burj Dubai which opens later in the year. It will boast 160 habitable floors and has already been topped out at 818 metres high. The man-made lake in the foreground boasts the world's tallest fountains, and to the right is a tiny part of the 1,200-store Dubai Mall - the world's largest shopping mall.

I laughed when told that local airlines allowed passengers in first class to take their falcons with them in the cabin, but I checked and it is true. Indeed Etihad Airways allows two falcons per passenger in first and business Class, whilst economy passengers are limited to one bird each.

The Muslim "call to prayer" resonates through the loudspeaker system of the shopping complexes, and the Rumbling Nappa very nearly disgraced himself when apparent signs for the gentleman's loo in the Dubai Mall very nearly landed him in the men only prayer room.

It will be interesting to see what adventures "day three" will produce.

Village Fete

There's an article in today's paper about the demise of the village fete. Organisers now have to complete up to 15 different licence applications, legal agreements, forms and certificates, and insurance companies require 20 pages of detailed risk assessment. Police and fire authorities, first aid centres, and local authority restrictions have turned the administrative side into an absolute minefield - resulting in the loss of many famous annual fairs and fetes.

Thank goodness that there are still some people around who are prepared to tolerate all this stuff and who succeed in putting on a decent event every year. Yesterday's Rowlands Castle Fair (outside our front door) was a terrific success. By midday the Rumbling Nappa was on his second jug of Pimms, had failed to win on the bottle stall, had declined the two enormous bouncy castles, had greeted "Eric the Orphan Sheep" with a "How Do You Do", and had agreed on the purchase of a cake. Steel bands and Irish Country Dancing enlivened the occasion along with maybe fifty or more side stalls.

The grand daughter in attendance tried out the roundabouts, Mrs Rumbling Nappa paid great attention to the horticultural exhibits, and during the afternoon the Rumbling Nappa was able to slip back indoors to watch the British and Irish Lions play how they should always have played.

By nightfall the event had transformed itself into a noisy Mamma Mia party. All good stuff.

"Boo!" to the local authority questioned by my newspaper about the forms to be completed - "To give you all the information you need would take absolutely ages. Unless you issue a formal Freedom of Information request, we won't be able to give all of it, because it really is that much information".

Air Rage

The wise and sensible daughter will have none of my moaning. If another passenger on our charter flight to Cyprus suffers from a severe nut allergy then it is fine by her for the eating of peanuts to be banned for all 250 passengers.

The Rumbling Nappa thinks otherwise. Monarch Airlines he reckons should have placed the unfortunate passenger inside a sealed plastic bubble until the plane landed at Paphos. The eating of peanuts on airplanes is a basic human right – specially on charter flights.

What if I suffered from leprosy? Would Monarch have given me a couple of rows to myself and forbidden passengers to go to the loo in case they touched me? Bah, I’m getting old and curmudgeonly, and just a bit unchristian. The daughter is right, I should loosen up.

Needless to add that as soon as we had boarded the return flight to Gatwick a week later than the inevitable announcement came from the cabin crew, “As we have a passenger on board who suffers from a severe nut allergy...”.

Ya...hoooo

I'm still not quite sure about Twenty20 cricket. Like most spectator sports it's great fun if you are winning, but over the next few days England must face the first and second favourites (South Africa and India) consecutively and that will probably be the end of it for the flag of St George. But you never know, miracles have happened, we did win the war, Gordon Brown is still Prime Minister.

Twenty20 cricket is a bit different. Test matches tend not to have dancers whirling about every time a boundary is hit, nor do they have their own Facebook pages. As someone who used to boast marketing skills I'm rather out of my depth with the sophisticed sponsorship marketing which comes complete with "jingle" promotion (that's the cry of "Ya...hooooo" that rings out for every change of batsman or bowler), the use of the scoreboard as a near-perpetual advertising medium, the carefully angled type that creates a 3-D effect out of the slogans imprinted on the hallowed turf.

Technically the new form of the game is demanding, particularly for the bowlers. Field placing also becomes absolutely critical. Although we all delight in great cow shots soaring into (or over) the spectators, there is still enjoyment to be had from watching Bopara-like run-stealing (one or two from just about every ball apart from those that reach the boundary).

I'm still waiting for a golden over (the single over 'eliminator' used to determine a result in the event of tied scores after the twenty overs), or for an umpire to impose a 5-run penalty for time-wasting. With a restriction that an incoming batsman has to be at the crease and ready to face a ball within ninety seconds of the fall of the previous wicket I'm sure that if I was to play in a Twenty20 match then with my slow, perambulating gait I would be the first incoming batsman ever to be fined penalty five runs for failure to reach the crease in time.