Another one of our national prides...

It's been al long time since I'v updated this thing... I've been busy...

I'll write something extensive in the next couple of days...

But to post something, here's the website of one our belgian prides, the lovely singer Bart Kaell...

http://www.bartkaell.be/

Check out his discografie... impressing ;-)

Cya soon!!

Music!!!

Hello!!
Time for some of the finest Belgian music!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzCVtLALxwU

This song is by Luc Steeno. He sings: 'I miss you every day a little bit more... The feeling to be alone, hurts me so much...'

He's a singer of an entire generation of singer who sing about life, love, and especially... pain... That's also the feeling you'll be experiencing listening to the song...

Here are some more of these wonderful phabulous songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDnOl-2B-SM&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HDnnp05Vwg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFqg5a5b3Jc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sgsfi9aiIbY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pYpX4vlviE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZBCdq7BsSc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH_HNPAOC_A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5OBMSKiUO0


This last one is a singer from Holland. But he's the king of them all, he's so funny I just has to post him... And he's so popular with the belgian old people he's a part of the belgian culture...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwGRbAHslkM


This blog is not responsable for any ear damage caused by the posted music...

Michel Daerden Remix

And a Remix...

Daerden sur RTC Liège

And another one...

Michel Daerden

Another video of the man giving an interview drunk...

Michel Daerden - Elections 2006

Hello again...

Today some YouTube videos of Michel Daerden, the vice president of the government of the French Comunity in Belgian...

The day of the elections he gave some interviews on the french speaking tv in Belgian, in a slightly drunk condition to say the least... Funny stuff...

But hey, the man won the elections, give him a break... oh, wait, there are some more videos of him giving interviews when he's drunk...

After his interview on the election day, the video was extremely popular on YouTube, and Michel Daerden became one of the most popular politicians in Belgium...

Big Useless Constructions...

Another thing we're quite good at in Belgium is big constructions. You name it, we build it. Roads, bridges, highways, towers... The only funny thing is that a lot of the things we build are completely useless...

It's a phenomenon so current, it's actually mentioned on http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grands_travaux_inutiles

So what exactly am I talking about... Some examples...

In Antwerp, they thought they needed a Metro. So they built one... Now, about 20 years later, not even 1 metro has passed through the tunnels. So now they are used for... growing mushrooms...

In the same city, Antwerp, they started to build a tunnel, 30 years ago. During the construction of this tunnel, they built a temporary bridge. Last year, in 2006, they finally demolished the 'temporary' bridge, after more then 30 years. Funny detail... The tunnel was finished, but will never be used. The passage is too small for buses to pass...

In Leuven, another city in Belgium, they built a new hospital wing for the St-Peter hospital. 622 new beds. The wing was finished in 1983, but was never used because a change in the government's hospital policy. It'll be torn down next year...

Some people actually made a website with some of the useless building projects...

http://www.nuttelozewerken.nl/index.php

http://www.nuttelozewerken.nl/indexen.php (limited english version)

Some pictures...

Bridge, never used... Cost: 6 milion euro

Another bridge, never used... Cost: 7 milion euro

Boat Elevator, hardly never used... Cost: 647 milion euros !!!

This is an actual railway for boats. It transports a boat from a river, to an other river, 68m downhill. This is without doubt the most useless thing ever built in Belgium...

They make more money from visiting tourists than from boats passing...

Cost: a LOT of money...

For people who want to visit this thing: http://www.ronquieres.be/

On the website, linked higher in this post, there are a lot more pictures and examples of how we belgians like to throw away their money... On the website you can also find similar useless things in other countries. But what to say, if you count all the useless building of all the other countries, there's still less of them than in Belgium...

Well, the USA likes to spend billions on war, we spend it on building things we don't need...

The man who rules our army... André Flahaut

My second post is about a funny member of our Belgian goverment, the Secretary of Defense: André Flahaut. He is the man who governs the belgian army. Well, army might be a big word, we only have like a couple of thousand soldiers. And the thing they're probably best at, is drinking. But I'll leave the funny army anecdotes for a later post.

Now there notorious leader, André Flahaut. Born in 1955 in some village in Belgium. And, so he writes on the army website: "As a child I played a lot with my 2 brothers."

Except looking like a drunk, and as a Belgian military man, probably being one, he's done a lot of good for our country...

For Flemish people, in the north, he's the tipical politician from the South: lazy, clumsy and especially stupid. A couple of examples...

One of his colleagues, also from the south of the country, once called him a mule. And this because of the blunders he committed during his reign.

In 2004, he visited the victims of the tsunami in Sri Lanka. Visiting a little village terribly hit by the disaster, André wanted to leave immediately... He was hungry... A man has to prioritise, doesn't he?

Another famous story was the time he sent highly trained doctors of a military hospital specialised in burning wounds to Russia, to treat some extremely rich billionair over there. When someone asked him what the hell was going on, he answered the belgian army would do that for everyone...

Even people from in his own party call him arrogant and rude. "He doesn't have respect for the parliament, he's always late, and acts like a peasant..."

The best story of them all, was that André took a military helicopter, an Agusta (italian helicopters, who have a really famous scandal surrounding them... Will come in a later post), to go see a movie... He took the chopper, to avoid traffic, and be there faster... One funny detail, the movie was 'An Unconvenient Truth', by Al Gore, the documentary about Global Warming. When people commented on his helicopter flight, he commented: "That helicopter only uses 12 times the gasoline a car would use, and besides, the army is only responsible for 1% of the total Belgian pollution..."

You gotta love the man, always a funny response...

A shame we won't see much of him anymore, several polticians declared they will do everything to keep him out of a future government... A shame for my Blog, but maybe a good thing for Belgium...

His website: http://www.flahaut.be/

André Flahaut, with on his right, the prince of Belgium (who's gonna appear in some other posts)

Blacky, the racist dog...

Hello!!

This is my blog, about funny people and facts in Belgium, my country. In the Kingdom of Belgium there are a lot of funny famous people, and this is what this blog is all about...

So what can you guys expect, fun facts about the Belgian Royal family, famous belgian people, politicians and so on...

And the first post is about a new famous dog... Blacky... He came in the news for the first time last week, and because of the following.

There was a man from Nigeria, applying for a job. But when he arrived at what would be his new workfloor, the owner of the welding firm didn't even let the man in. He couldn't get the job, because of his dog. The dog, named Blacky, went bezerk, because of the colour of the man's skin. The dog is a notorious racist, who attacks every black man that comes near him.

The Nigerian man filed a complaint for racism, because he got refused the job because of the colour of his skin. But, the funny thing, the owner of the firm doesn't know what's wrong. According to him, he's not a racist, he even has moroccan friends! But hey, if someone wants to sue his dog, they can...

According to the man: "There's only a problem with black people: the dog even smells them. When the dog is back in the workshop, he storms to the gate like a bullet"

Blacky, the racist dog

ok, that's it for now, I'll be back soon with some more funny news from my country...