Zinneke Stories

A few anecdotes this evening, as I've had beer and I'm feeling very mellow. (Come to think of it, I've staggered home slightly tipsy every night since I arrived - this is a very easy city in which to find both bars and people.)

Today was a day of Belgian cuisine, which - much to my pleasure - seems to consist of pub grub coated in mayonnaise. For lunch I had a croque madame at La Mort Subite, a grand old bar and local institution which happens to be my local. Tonight I had sausage wrapped in bacon, covered in gravy and mayonnaise, on a bed of stoemp, a Belgian staple which is basically bubble-and-squeak. I could eat all of this forever. Dinner was at Le Greenwich, another ornate eatery where old men play chess at the back and dotty old ladies wait for their long lost loves at the bar along the window.

After another evening trip to the 'burbs, this time to see the art-deco national bascilia in all its illuminated glory, I cycled back to town and ran out of puff just as I reached IJzer,* which makes up part of the (large!) red-light district. As a young man by myself, I was immediately surrounded by suspect-looking filles de joie who whispered "chou-chou!" as I walked past and then cackled when I scurried off. Quite the willy-shrinker!

However, the red-light district had its charms, namely in the Vlaamse Schouwberg, or the Flemish theatre, another architectural gem which was surrounded by yet more al fresco bars. The building itself (see above) has balconies running all around it on which elegant people stood smoking and surveying the bustle of the street below. There's a great deal of what the French calle mixité sociale here, and even though it might not be as legally egalitarian as goold old Sweden, the great and the good of Brussels rub shoulders with the hoi-polloi in a way that would put Stockholm to shame.

Speaking of which, a note about the title: Zinneke is the slang term for the natives of Brussels (think Weegie or Scouser). The word refers to the stray dogs who used to hang around the river Zenne, which served as Brussels' main waterway until it was diverted into a subterranean tunnel for being horrendously rancid. Today, Zinneke is also a statue of a dog pissing against a bollard on Rue Dansaert - nicely complementing the famous pissing boy statue, Mannekin Pis, and his girlfriend, Jeanneke, who can be seen squatting at the end of an alleyway near the main square.

This is a city which is grubby and proud - if Paris is an elegant peacock and London a sturdy bulldog, Brussels is a pig in shit, pissing right in front of you and shouting "chou-chou!" Dyce Academy: your homework for today is to draw that.

*IJ is considered as one letter in Dutch, so both are capitalised at the start of a word. It's pronounced like "eye."