Wednesday, 18 November 2009

Famous Belgians

There are quite a few, but most people don't know that Audrey Hepburn was Belgian, or assume that Simenon and Lévi-Strauss were French.

Didn't we once fight a war at least ostensibly to defend Belgium, historically our principal ally and trading partner on the Continent, an entity not unlike our own United Kingdom, even headed by a monarch of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and with a social democracy based on Christian principles?

So, if there must be a President of the European Council, then we could do a lot worse than a Belgian, provided that he is not one of the SS nostalgists of Flemish separatism, a carve-up in the interests of global capital such as would be brought to the United Kingdom next. That Belgian might not be quite as pro-British as John Bruton. No one could be. But nor would he be quite as anti-British as Tony Blair. No one could be.

7 comments:

  1. Plagiarising Kammo are we? That's more sensible than writing to him as "Stephen Alexander"!

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  2. Wash your mouth out! I never read him. But he does read me.

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  3. None of these three paragraphs could be less Kamm. They are so much better for that.

    Loving your Harry's Place description of those who are both Euston and Jackson as Red-Browns and Molotov-Ribbentropps. Exactly right.

    You have surely never written TO Kamm? Maintain some standrads, man.

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  4. Don't worry, I do. I have enver written to him in my life. What would be the point?

    Then again, if he is now a Unionist, monarchist, Christian Socialist, Eurosceptical Blair-hater...

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  5. Anonymous 17:22 is Kamm. He really does think that no one else would know that Hepburn, Simenon or Lévi-Strauss was Belgian unless he had graciously informed them. He really does not think that no one would ever have heard of Simenon or Lévi-Strauss were it not for him.

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  6. Oliver Kamm the Tory-voting hedge fund trader of the Henry Jackson Society is no friend of Belgium. For all the reasons David loves it, they hate it as they hated Yugoslavia, hated Iraq and hate the United Kingdom. Those must all be broken up to serve international capital. European federalism is a means to that end but not the only one and the others are far less peaceable.

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  7. Oh, well, I suppose that that is almost on-topic.

    Actually, I think that Anonymous 17:22 is one those people who genuinely wouldn't ever have heard of Simenon, Lévi-Strauss or even Hepburn if Kamm had not mentioned them. He is their only education...

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