Belgium. What, why, how is Belgium? What historical miracles occurred that led to the creation of a country which has as much right to exist as a duckbilled platypus? And then what divine miracle turned this beaked, egg-laying mammal of a country into the political and economic heart of the EU? For if Belgium, why not Lurgan?
Socrates never said a word about Belgium, until his last treatise, when he wrote "Belgi. . ." - and promptly died of it. Hamlet briefly began to speculate about a flight to Belgium, but got no farther than "To Be. . ." before chickening out. Dante proclaimed in his Divine Comedy that the innermost and most unspeakable ring of hell was a dreary mud-covered plain. To the Tuscan mind, Belgium.
Holidays
This Belgium: has it got a tourist board? Apart from freaks such as myself, who else goes to Belgium for their holidays? Do foreign universities have departments of Belgian Studies? Is there such a thing as a Belgophile? Has any Belgian abroad ever been vigorously cornered at a party by a wide-eyed stranger who is yipping with glee at meeting someone from exotic little Belgium? You're Belgian? How absolutely ripping.
Name a famous Belgian. Okay. Magritte. He lived and worked in Belgium. He was a Belgian Belgian, and was mad, mad. There's Jacques Brel, who hated Belgium. And Simenon, whose master-creation, Maigret, was French. It took an Englishwoman to invent what any Belgian knows to be impossible, a clever Belgian detective. Who else?
Leopold, of course, who owned the Congo. Frightful bounder. Name the present Belgian prime minister. Can't. Belgium is a rice pudding. Trying to define its unifying essence is like trying to serve it with a knitting needle. It is perhaps most famous for the IQ of its police officers, usually about the same as their shoe size. If the RUC was recruited in Belgium, its sleuths would probably have difficulty detecting a lambeg drum in a confessional.
That is good. Beware a state where the elite run the police. Plodocracy OK. So I like the Belgians. They are amiably baffled: they know they get things wrong, but their navigational equipment is so faulty that they can't see how or why. Take the inn outside Mons (delightful town) where we were shown our en-suite room by a cheerful youth, who gestured around it with extravagant pride - see this elegant salon! - before hurrying below. Then we discovered that the lavatory opened directly and doorlessly onto the bedroom, being separated solely by a waist-high strip of curtain, over which an enthroned guest could merrily chat with her loved one. Very romantic. Ah. Il n'y a que du papier. As-tu quelque pages des Irish Times la? Ah, le golfing coverage! Excellent. Tough mais absorbent.
Condensed milk
How very Belgian. As was the Eurotoque conference in Brussels for Europe's great chefs some years ago, in which we were harangued by Belgium's finest about the absolute need for Europe to return to pure and natural and unadulterated products. Then we had coffee, served with condensed milk, and with Belgium's finest beaming on approvingly. Carnation, c'est beau, n'est-ce pas? Oui, absolument, surtout avec les tinned peches.
Yet who but the Belgians make such a splendid feast of crevettes, the fresh-water shrimps on which I feasted in the very hostelry where en-suite actually means ensemble? Served in a cream sauce on fresh and succulently crisp asparagus, they were quite exquisite, the very lad to banish anorexia nervosa. The young restaurant manager sat down and talked to us with an affable unaffectedness which would have been perfectly inconceivable a few miles south in France. The next morning, his fat, genial father sat waiting at our breakfast table, anxious to advise his Irish guests on local sights.
Belgians are neither uncouth nor couth: merely demi-couth, a nation of Tony Lumkins - nice, genial, curious, clumsy, extremely good at some things (chips, chocolates, beer), awful at others (Belgian lavatories - oh, dear me), yet not quite knowing the difference. And perhaps that failure not quite to understand the world about them, the inclination to get things a little wrong, has made possible the miraculous relationship between Walloon and Flemish. Belgium, uniquely, is the state where Teuton lives with Gaul in enduring accommodation and perpetual friction. Perhaps this nation of Lumkins fully understands neither insults nor compliments, and that is the secret. Belgium is a braille-land where everyone is missing some fingers.
Local breweries
Why should one go to Belgium? Because the Belgian people are decent and honest, as summed up by their national dish of chips and mussels: unpretentious and utterly delicious. No man or woman who loves beer can fail my humanity test; and the Belgians adore their beers, in vast variety in every pub, with local breweries abounding. And as for intelligence, don't the Belgians wisely say huitante for "eighty" rather than the idiotic French quatre- vingts?
We Irish once went to war for Belgium. I'm not sure I'd go that far again: no matter. But I have never met a Belgian I disliked; the food is excellent, and far better value than in France. And of course there are so many of our lads lying there, in Ypres and at Mons - the St Symphorien cemetery there is perfectly enchanting - awaiting your visit. They'll be glad of the company.