La vie en rose

1/28/2008 3:40:00 PM

Is it just me or are the major newspapers getting worse? Why do I have the feeling they are destined for high school dropouts these days?

There is one major exception: The Financial Times, especially the weekend edition. It's great they have the guts to cover all walks of life despite their relatively small circulation.

Where would the Brussels spin doctors be without their weekly leaks to the Purple Bible.

What the hell am I doing here?

1/17/2008 9:12:00 PM

Great lyrics work in many contexts. That's why they stand the test of time.

I was just trying to go through my Facebook profile and couldn't make any sense of it.

That's when an old friend came to my rescue:

http://www.metrolyrics.com/creep-lyrics-radiohead.html

A Feeny tale

1/15/2008 11:38:00 AM

Great voice, great face and a lot of good, old-fashioned song-writing.

And a great website:

http://www.catherinefeeny.com/

Thanks, Catherine, for keeping up the Brussels connection. See you soon.

Worst of 2007

1/4/2008 7:52:00 AM

I tried to resist the temptation but I couldn't. So here we go:

Kanye West vs. 50 Cent rivalry

Please tell me this is some sort of a joke.

Mika

Another breakthrough we didn't need. One more falsetto singer in the charts and I'll find a desert island.

"Always" by Johnny Hallyday

Don't tell me I'm the only one who noticed that this is a shameless rip-off of Tracy Chapman's "Baby Can I Hold You".

Madonna's song for Live Earth (Hey You or something)

She's great but didn't anyone have the guts to tell her that this song was rubbish?

Pharrell Williams, Will.i.am, Timbaland etc.

I curse the day when the word 'guest producer' was uttered for the first time.

Best of 2007

12/21/2007 10:14:00 AM

Here's the definitive list of the best gigs in 2007:

The Church, Paradiso, 20 April

One of the few existing bands that can fill two hours with great songs.

Editors, Halles de Schaerbeek, 28 October

The perfect venue for this act. Next year they will probably do stadiums, I'm afraid.

The Waterboys, Ancienne Belgique, 13 March

Mike Scott ages well. He just gets wilder and crazier.

Indochine, Forest National, 3 March

Grand, majestic, monumental.

Evanescence, Antwerps Sportpaleis, 3 June

Same as above.

The way it really went

12/14/2007 10:00:00 AM

Autobiographies are usually pathetic. You get to know that the writer was a hero all along and the rest were just crooks and idiots.

"Madam Secretary: A Memoir" by Madeleine Albright is an unexpected exception. No excuses, no whitewash and no magniloquence. Just the bare facts and some emotion.

Can't wait to read the story of Condoleezza Rice.

Why walk away in silence?

11/29/2007 12:34:00 PM

It was nice to see Interpol live at Forest National.

There's just this one thing I don't get. Why do you guys have to play for half an hour without saying anything to the audience? Something like "Hi, we're Interpol" would have been nice.

No, it won't spoil the atmosphere. You don't have to smile or anything.