Next time you drop into your favourite drinkeria, listen out for the warm and well-meaning staff model of customer engagement, best exemplified by a cheery: “Can I get you anything else?”, or “Is everything all right for you?”
"While my research is limited and less than scientific, I think I can conclude that some people here in Brussels see some added value in promoting their goods and services in the English language."
Boris Johnson may no longer be Britain’s Prime Minister, even if his chaotic legacy lives on in London, Brussels and beyond.
Famous triskaidephobics include Napoleon Bonaparte, Mark Twain and two US presidents, Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt – although none of them were around to be influenced by the most famous disaster linked to the number, the Apollo 13 space mission.
"Dog-walking should be required training for civil service diplomats. This is not to insult diplomats. It’s just that nothing tests a person’s people skills to the limit more than full immersion in the art of being pulled along a pavement by a mutt intent on publicly licking the arse of a stranger’s pet without being properly introduced."
"We drivers of dirty diesels, the Brussels ‘Class of Euro 4’, have known for at least two years that at the end of 2021 our vehicles would be forcibly retired."
"We Brits tried to fit in here, really, we did. We adopted crevette grise, buckets of moules-frites, and mayonnaise in place of ketchup."
"We BBBs (Brexit-British-Belgians) must own up to being motivated by practicality more than passion."
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