Fri 22 April - Published

Those nice people at Expatica decided to publish another one of my blog entries. They went with my 7 February entry: "Generalisms." So, many thanks to them for doing that. I have been promised that more entries may well appear on their website in the not too distant future. Here's hoping.

Tues 12 April - Lazy-arsed Belgians...

...Not my words, honest! Well, nobody's exact words, but a new survey has found that Belgians work less than any other country in the OECD, according to figures compiled by the Paris-based think tank, which researches various policies and trends throughout some of the world's wealthiest countries.

The report notes that Belgians work for an average of 7 hours a day, doing paid and unpaid work, less than any other of the OECD's 34 members. For the record, Mexicans came out on top (or bottom, depending on your perspective), working 10 hours a day. The OECD average was 8 hours.

You see, there are some advantages to being Belgian.

Wednesday 6 April

Another impromptu train strike today. Coinciding with my journey home. From experience, they usually last about 2-3 hours. They start (often from Charleroi station) at one station and quickly spread around the region as word reaches depot after depot that their colleagues elsewhere have stopped working. Within an hour or so, the whole network has come to a standstill. All you can do is sit and wait, and hope that your train arrives at some point. The presence of a cargo train shooting past is always a good sign.

Where I wait for my train, there is no information board, ticket office shuts at 1.45pm, and occasionally, but not always, there is an announcement on the tannoy. Of course, this being a strike meant no announcements were forthcoming. Luckily it was a gloriously sunny day, so I sat and waited (for 1 hour and 20mins) and read the Metro from cover to cover. Not sure these kind of impromptu strikes would be allowed back home. They're a right pain to be honest.