The Hold Steady, Cat The Dog - Electric Ballroom, London - Thursday 30th August 2007

After rounding off a long and gruelling festival season in Europe by headlining the new bands tent at the Reading Festival, The Hold Steady swung through London for one last show before heading back to the US for some Autumn dates. Their reputation has been growing in Europe with every date they have played, and even Daniel Radcliffe, who has surprisingly good taste in music, likes them. So, a last chance to see the band, before they head home, not to return for a while I'd imagine.

The support band were Cat The Dog, who I'd seen a bit of a few weeks ago, and who sounded OK. This time, I could actually see them properly, and they looked a bit like The Kooks. I wrote last time that their song called Gotta Leave was the obvious standout track, and I'd stand by that view. Even latest single I'm A Romantic, which they played as their last song, didn't compare. They played all the power riffs well, but seemed to be lacking a good number of really strong songs. In short, they were interesting, but not that interesting.

The Hold Steady came on stage to triumphant cheering, in a venue which seemed to fill up massively in the 5-10 minutes before they came on. They said nothing, but immediately started playing Hot Soft Light, which prompted even more mad cheering, and a good deal of beer throwing. Chips Ahoy and Stuck Between Stations followed fairly soon afterwards, and by 15 minutes into the set, it was pretty obvious that the band were preaching to the converted. The crowd was younger that at the previous show I went to, although there were still relatively few teenagers, and still quite a few old Springsteen fans there.

Over the summer, the band have spent a lot of time in the UK, playing their festival set aimed at winning sceptical and curious people over to them. So, it was good to see that this has been successful, for a decent crowd of people at least. They finished up with an 8-minute version of Killer Parties, which seems to get better and better each time I hear it (and don't be fooled by the album version, it is a million times better when you hear it live). Good band, good gig, and hopefully they will be back before too long.

Work trip to Zeist, Netherlands - 27th to 28th August 2007

A fairly flying visit to the Netherlands, for some work. Flying out of Heathrow on Bank Holiday Monday was surprisingly hassle free - the airport (at Departures at least), was pretty empty, so I was checked in and through security in less than 10 minutes. Totally unheard of! The journey down there was a bit more annoying, getting strange looks for wearing a suit on a Bank Holiday, and also having to fight through crowds of Notting Hill Carnival go-ers on the Tube.

When I arrived at Schiphol airport, I still had to get the train to Utrecht, where I was staying for the night. This involved a minor navigation of the Dutch railway system, but the journey was easy, cheap, and in fact reminded you of what a decent public transport system could be like. It cost 7 Euros for a the trip, which is only a little bit more than a cash single on the Tube. Everything is well signposted, easy to work out, and the staff are really helpful and informative. And, the trains are clean, with plenty of space, and they run totally on time, every time. How other countries seem able to do this, but we are utterly unable to even get close to it in the UK, I will never know. Most annoying, but a very easy and pleasurable journey.

After staying the night in Utrecht, and sampling the delights of The Guardian Irish Bar for a couple of drinks, I went to the small town of Zeist for a day's work. This is a very quaint place, extremely flat, and basically stuck in the middle of the countryside. A beautiful setting, but it was a bit weird to be in the middle of countryside that is not at all "rolling" like we have in the UK - it was totally flat.

An equally good train journey back to Schiphol airport, where I was amused to see Triple Whoppers on the menu at the Burger King there - quite why you would need all that, I'm not sure, but it sounded interesting anyway. The flight home took 45 minutes, then it took another 45 minutes to get from touching down at Heathrow, to get off the plane. Standard Heathrow behaviour really, and I'm glad I haven't had to go there for the last month, with climate change protesters and all.

Arsenal vs Manchester City - Emirates Stadium, London - Saturday 25th August 2007

Well, it wasn't the greatest Arsenal performance, but against the early league leaders, we got the result. Which I guess is what's important. This was the first "one nil to the Arsenal" at the new stadium - good in that we managed to avoid conceding a goal at home for a change, and in that we had an off day but still snuck a narrow win - and its always nice to play badly but still win. But by usual Arsenal home game standards, we weren't looking as fluent as usual, and weren't really troubling the keeper or creating many chances. So, a very welcome but quite unconvincing 3 points.

Things started to knock us out of our stride in the warmup, when apparently Senderos got injured, forcing Gilberto to make his first start of the season after an extended summer holiday. Within 25 minutes, Bakary Sagna had also limped off, so Flamini was at right back, Gilberto at centre back, and Fabregas and Denilson in the centre of a midfield that could definitely be described as skilful, but not exactly very good at the physical side of the game. This constant change of plan obviously didn't help the team put in a fluent performance, and the game struggled to really get going. A cross which flashed across the face of goal, but eluded all Arsenal attackers, was one of the few memorable parts of a stop-start first half. But, with the sun blaring down on a glorious day, at least the tan was coming along, even if the football wasn't really.

The second half got a bit more lively, as Kasper Schmeichel came to the north end of the stadium, to get a bit of friendly abuse from the Arsenal fans. In truth, I thought he looked a bit unsure of himself on a couple of occasions, and he doesn't seem like the biggest of guys. That was until the otherwise excellent Micah Richards tripped Hleb, and the ref gave a penalty.

On his previous attempt this season, Robin Van Persie absolutely crashed his penalty into the roof of the net - almost breaking the net, and leaving no chance at all for the keeper. That made this penalty all the more strange, a fairly tame kick which was ideally placed (both height-wise, and in being nicely central), for the keeper to save. After that, Schmeichel got all his confidence back, and made a few decent saves when called upon. Not a great day at the office all round for Van Persie, he was unlucky on a few occasions, and the penalty miss ensured that his head was well and truly down when he was substituted a few minutes later - but the crowd gave him a big ego boosting ovation nonetheless.

Given the lack of fluency from Arsenal, many around me were beginning to think that we were on for a 0-0 draw - although Arsenal had probably done more than City, we weren't looking particularly likely to score. That was until Cesc Fabregas found himself in a very crowded penalty area, and drove a pretty unstoppable shot through what seemed like the only gap in existence - right into the roof of the net. The relief both in the stands and on the pitch was obvious. Kasper Schmeichel gave us some amusement in injury time when he came forward for a corner, and got a header onto it, but other than that, Arsenal managed to close out for victory with relatively little fuss.

All this means a pretty decent start, with 3 wins and one draw from the first 4 games in all competitions. A quiet but solid start, and one that we'd all have taken before the season began I'd think. City were deposed as League leaders, and Arsenal fans sang "Top of the League, you're having a laugh". Arsenal fans do confuse me sometimes - because the team that took over at the top of the League were Chelsea. Are we happy about that? I really do hope not, so why were singing a song that points it out, and almost celebrates it??!

Arsenal fans also spent some of this game shouting at Alexander Hleb (again), despite his winning a penalty, and setting up Fabregas for the winner - and his scoring the winner in the previous home game against Fulham. I must admit, he does sometimes seem to take an age on the ball, and this often results in him being surrounded by opposition defenders before he can do much - but it really does surprise me that lots of Arsenal fans can't see his obvious effectiveness. It can be frustrating to watch, but 2 goals and 2 assists so far this season really do make the Hleb-haters sound like fools. Martin Samuel dedicates his match report to the man, and deservedly so in my view - he might be frustrating, but he played a massive part in winning us the game today.

The Maccabees, Johnny Flynn & The Sussex Wit - Buffalo Bar, London - Thursday 23rd August 2007

Second night in a row at the Buffalo Bar, this time for Rockfeedback's incredible Basement Club. Almost every decent British band of the past few years has played this club night, usually on their way up, but sometimes also when they are well-known. This time it was the turn of The Maccabees to play the role of conquering heroes in front of 150 sweaty, adoring fans. After what seemed like an age waiting outside, we were eventually let in, and Toby from Rockfeedback took a tenner from each of us. The venue was already pretty busy, but then it only takes about 30 people for that to be the case.

Support came from a band called Johnny Flynn & The Sussex Wit, who have recently been signed to Vertigo records. They played folky songs which reminded me at times of Willy Mason, but also (especially on the songs where the lead singer played the violin), of Irish folk bands that you see in pubs - and I mean that in a good way. They were also a bit like The Holloways, Larrikin Love, or the Rumble Strips, in that they had the air of a busking band. Many of the songs had singalong parts, and the band were certainly very successful in getting the crowd to play along. All in all, I thought they were pretty good - some of the songs sounded like great, and I'd quite like to see them again.

But the evening was really all about The Maccabees, playing here as a warmup for significantly bigger gigs at the Reading and Leeds Festivals over the weekend. Coming on stage to a chorus of shouts and cheers, they were hampered for the first couple of songs by a dodgy PA - which meant that the singer's voice couldn't be heard. When it finally started working OK, there was a big cheer, and an even bigger cheer when they immediately started playing Latchmere. Orlando was not wearing his hooded top for a change, so you actually got to see what he looks like; and Felix the guitarist was his usual engaging self.

All in all, their set was pretty riotous, given the extreme proximity of the band to the crowd. About Your Dress, X-Ray, First Love, and Lego all resulted in random limbs and bodies flying through the air, and the band even played a new song for the first time, which sounded like another fine example of what they do so well. As The Maccabees are clearly far, far too big for a venue like this, it was a real pleasure to see them so up close and personal, and to see the band milling around inside the bar before and after their set. Their album really is criminally underrated, full of great indie pop songs, and they really make you happy. Roll on the full UK tour in October, although seeing them in such an incredibly small venue can't be beaten.

Goodbooks, Frank Musik - Buffalo Bar, London - Wednesday 22nd August 2007

I hadn't been to the Buffalo Bar for a while - since last year's ultra small Magic Numbers gig in fact - but I walk past it often, and remembered the smallness, sweatyness and loudness very well indeed. The smokiness has thankfully disappeared since last year, and the fact that people have to go outside to smoke, also helps create enough space for you to physically move inside the bar.

This was the fourth and final night of a Goodbooks residency at the Buffalo Bar, the other nights of which I have missed thanks to a Kings Of Leon gig , a trip to America, and a Courteeners gig respectively. This was also part of the Goonite Club, which I had never previously heard of, but who actually seem to have some pretty decent bands on offer.

Support band for the night were called Frankmusik. They were extremely 80s sounding, with synthesisers and keyboards all over the place. Their vocalist sounded really distant and remote, but I suspect that this was just because the sound wasn't being mixed all that well. This was apparently their first gig, although they have already been reviewed in some parts of the press - I had never heard of them before the day of the gig.

Given the 80s, synth-led sound, which usually spells disaster for me, I actually quite liked some of what they played. It was clearly very contrived, and all far too clever for its own good, but some of the stuff was pretty decent - especially a song called Three Little Words, which is also on their MySpace page. I suspect that they may be a big music industry inside joke (there were loads of record company types watching them, all of whom buggered off at the end of their set), but some of the songs sounded pretty good. Very much on the indie-rave bandwagon, but if the songs are good, who cares?

Goodbooks came on stage at around 9:50, just as England's defeat to Germany was finishing. They are all from nicest Kent, and are pretty posh - the fact that one of them is called Leo von Bulow-Quirk is probably indication enough of this. Despite this, they write amazingly happy-sounding pop singles, and their recent album Control has been shockingly under-rated since its release. Latest single Passchendaele has seen them make something of a breakthrough, but compared to many other new-ish indie bands, they are still relatively unknown.

Their set lasted for only around half an hour, but that was plenty of time to play the current single, as well as previous efforts Leni and Turn It Back. I spent much of the time flitting between thinking that the band were actually fairly rock and roll - they were certainly putting energy into their performance, and getting fairly sweaty. But then, something would happen that reminded you of the utter nice-ness of everything - the singer would be very polite, or they would apologise for something. All this made me think that the band are fairly close to Keane in terms of their members, but obviously making much better music than that.

A good set all in all, and a bargain at a fiver. Goodbooks have a load of good pop songs in their armoury, are great at playing them, and really know how to send an audience home with smiles on their faces. It may be quite nice and sanitised, but it is still a shame that more people haven't heard of them (yet).

The Belgrave Scandal - Cross Kings, London - Friday 17th August 2007

I'd gone a few months without seeing those nice boys from The Belgrave Scandal (their recent gig dates seemed to have been clashing with other gigs and trips abroad), so a Friday night in central London was too good an opportunity to miss.

It was also strange to see the Scandal play in a place that I'd never even heard of - there aren't that many pubs with live music in London that fall into this category. The Cross Kings did have a former life as a grotty boozer called The Backpackers, stuck up the road in what one might call the arse end of Kings Cross. It has since been refurbished into a much less grotty boozer, but the location still isn't great of course - it is amazing how central some places are in London, but difficult to get people to go to.

After some beers outside in the (semi) early evening sunshine, we descended underground to the Jester Bar for their set. Brighton Away was a huge highlight, as was new song House Of Cards - hearing it live for the first time really highlighted what a great song it is - the sound of the Scandal getting funky! Generally, they seem to be getting increasingly tight - although the practically empty room didn't help build an electric atmosphere for the show, nevertheless the band ripped through their set with the minimum of fuss.

A couple of songs in the set sounded different to last time I heard them - The Collection had lost the excellent guitar solo and shouty bit; and set closer Soul And Power had substantially different words and chorus arrangements. Having heard both for the first time, I'm not immediately sure if they make the songs better - I kind of liked them as they were!

The headline band on the night were Ten City Nation, a band that have been formed out of the ashes of a number of previous bands. They sounded very good indeed I thought, pretty professional, and their CD got a listen on the stereo when I got home after the gig.

Arsenal vs Fulham - Emirates Stadium, London - Sunday 12th August 2007

After three long, long months, it is great to have proper football back at last. With no World Cup or Euros to entertain us, the football drought in the summer was significantly worse than normal. An extended pre-season, where Arsenal won both the Emirates Cup, and the Amsterdam Tournament, was an interesting diversion, but these games really don't compare to the proper competitive stuff on offer once the Premiership starts again.

The summer has been typically turbulent, with Thierry Henry leaving, a virtual unknown in Eduardo Da Silva (albeit one that scored 35 goals last season - typical Arsene Wenger!) being signed to replace him, lots of boardroom shenanigans about who will own the club in a few years time, and Arsene Wenger's contract expiring in a year's time, with no idea whether he will sign a new one. All this means that this new season will be one where we see for sure if our promising youngsters, who showed such great glimpses of excellence last season, can grow up fast - they may need to.

Oh, and Freddie Ljungberg left too. He will always be a hero for getting sent off in his first game against Spurs (then flicking the V at their fans), scoring on his debut against Manchester United, and his vital goals in the run in to the double in 2002. But more than all that, for being on the same wavelength as Arsenal fans, you really felt he was a Gooner like us. I remember when we played in Valencia in 2003, and the team arrived at the airport, they were all told not to linger and talk to the fans too much. Freddie kept himself busy signing autographs, even though club officials were even busier trying to get him not to. When the team got onto the bus to drive away, fans were singing at him, and he was banging the window back at us. And of course he dyed a big red streak in his hair - a true Gooner! Thanks for the memories, Freddie, and good luck.

Usually for the first game of the season, there is plenty of time to have a few beers before the game, catch up with friends, and more importantly swap predictions for what the season is going to be like. But thanks to London Underground closing the Victoria Line on the Saturday, this game was moved to midday Sunday - so not much time to catch up before the game. Why they couldn't switch the engineering work instead of the football match, I have no idea - nice to know that 60,000 Arsenal fans (and paying LU customers) barely register on the radar when these things are being planned.

So, with a number of Saturday night hangovers still evident, and at midday on Sunday, we kicked off the season. It was good to be back in the stadium, even though I didn't really like it at first, I have missed not coming here for 3 months. I guess that means it is starting to feel like home.

What also felt very familiar (compared to last season at least), was the way the game panned out. We conceded inside a minute or so, Jens Lehmann making a terrible hash of clearing a backpass, allowing Healy an easy chance to score. It is always difficult to break down sides like Fulham, who come and defend lots, with 10 men behind the ball - so it really doesn't help when you pile on the pressure by giving them a goal start. Arsenal had the best of the play for the rest of the first half, but it was predictably difficult to break down the Fulham defence - they actually looked OK for a change.

The pressure continued in the second half, and Fulham keeper Tony Warner (who was only drafted in at the last minute, after Niemi injured himself in the warmup), became the latest in a long line of goalkeepers to have a blinder of a game at our place. The game was a fair carbon copy of the Wigan game last season, where the opposition wasted shocking amounts of time, all of it going unpunished by the referee. So, it was good when, with about 6 minutes to go, he gave us a penalty - a bit controversial, but probably one that would be given if the same foul happened elsewhere on the pitch. Van Persie absolutely drilled it into the roof of the net - absolutely no messing around there!

Then, with a minute left, Alexander Hleb finally managed to take a shot at goal, and it didn't go directly at the keeper for a change. It bobbled into the bottom corner of the net, the place went wild, and Matt Flamini made a well-deserved hand gesture in the direction of the Fulham keeper, who had been the timewaster in chief. In truth, the win was far from convincing, we got out of jail, but it was very, very important to get the victory, to start the season the right way. Coming from behind was not ideal, and there really are issues that we need to address defensively, to stop giving the opening goal away all the time. But, 3 points today, which is the important thing.

Jack Penate - Proud Galleries, London - Friday 10th August 2007

Another night, another trip to Proud Galleries, this time for Year Zero Club, a night which only plays music released in the last (or due to be released in the next) year - last time I came to this night, I saw Ash, and also got horrible food poisoning from my late night kebab. With some friends of friends also DJ-ing upstairs as part of Club Easy Lover, this meant a place on the guestlist.

There were due to be a few bands on the bill, but then the promoters announced a "secret" solo acoustic set by Jack Penate - so the place ended up absolutely rammed full of people. Especially since Jack Penate's people spent the whole week massively promoting it. Big bar queues, big toilet queues, and generally more people than you would want in a venue of that size, meant that it was not as good a night as it could have been. But after a day drinking at the cricket, I didn't really care too much.

I did manage to hear a bit of the first band, a decent new band called Cat The Dog. What I heard sounded good, in particular their song called Gotta Leave, which was a clear standout song. They are supporting The Hold Steady later this month, so I will get a decent chance to see them again properly. By the time they finished, lots of people were flooding into the venue, including Jack Penate, and Felix from The Maccabees. I ducked upstairs to Club Easy Lover for a bit, and in the process missed Charlotte Hatherley's acoustic set - never mind.

Approaching midnight, Jack Penate took the stage for a set which included the highlights of his songs, plus some interesting cover versions. At Glastonbury, he played a "secret set" full of covers, and this seemed to be a similar thing - Marvin Gaye again being covered. Penate was also joined for one song by Dev from Lightspeed Champion (whose song Galaxy Of The Lost is one of the best of the year so far). Penate finished up with Second Minute Or Hour, and Torn On The Platform. The set was not exactly tight (despite being solo), there were some technical hitches, and he seemed more than a bit drunk and shambolic, but it was a good set which was very well received.

England vs India (Day 2, 3rd Test) - The Oval, London - Friday 10th August 2007

Day 2 of the final test against India - in the series where the visitors had been incredibly lucky to be 1-0 up after the first two tests. The weather had played completely into their hands - raining just enough to see England run out of time in the first test (and fail to take just one wicket that would have seen us win); then no rain at all in the second test, just when England needed the favour returned to help us avoid defeat. Being 1-0 up going into the final game, all India needed to do was avoid defeat to be the first visitors to win a series in England for six years.

This meant, in reality, a long and tedious spell of Indian batting. With no incentive at all to declare, hurry up, or do anything to avoid wasting time, they started the day at 316-4, and settled in for pretty much an entire day of further batting. England's attack just isn't really up to much, especially in this sort of situation, so we just watched as England's bowlers toiled and toiled, without much in the way of success. It was a glorious sunny day (for once this summer), so not a bad time to be sitting in the sunshine drinking beer, but the cricket didn't offer much in the way of satisfaction for any England fans.

Despite the despair, today's play was remarkable for a number of reasons - especially if you like the statistical side of the game. India eventually finished their innings on 664 all out, and the innings was only the 11th time in test history that all 11 batsmen reached double figures - so a pretty rare thing. Anil Kumble (at 36 years old) made a century - his first ever, after 150 innings - the longest it has ever taken a test batsman to make a century. In doing so, he left this list, of players that had amassed loads of runs, but with no hundreds. Kumble had over 2,000 runs but no century, until today - and when he got to 100, the Indian fans in the ground went wild.

And that was about all to write home about really. England did bat for 8 overs at the end of the day, and even had time to lose a wicket, ensuring that saving the series finally slipped out of reach. The BBC report of the day's play obviously has much more detail, but it was not a good day for England fans - especially since it again highlighted the lack of bite in our bowling attack.

The Courteeners, Jim Gipson - Proud Galleries, London - Thursday 9th August 2007

The Courteeners are officially the next big thing. I first found them on MySpace about 6 weeks ago, and since then, the NME seems to have gone completely mad about them. Hailing from Manchester, they are playing (and selling out) bigger and bigger venues there, and attracting more and more attention on the way. NME got onto them about three weeks ago on their Radar pages, and last week, their limited edition debut single Cavorting was NME Single Of The Week. And on the day of this gig, they were mentioned in The Sun's Bizarre column - which I'm not sure is a good thing!

All this meant that their first ever London gig was always going to be a bit of an event. With obvious influences ranging from The Smiths and Oasis (with the guitars, lyrics and general Manchester-ness), through The Libertines (with some of their more frantic sounding demos), to the Arctic Monkeys (with the lyrics about going out and getting messed up), their tunes basically sound like the best of the last 25 years' indie music, all rolled into one.

This gig was part of the excellent (and extremely cool) Another Music = Another Kitchen, the weekly club at Proud Galleries, run by Danny McNamara from Embrace - this week also featuring the live return of Boy Kill Boy. So, a big night all round, despite the un-idealness of watching bands at Proud, as experienced previously - it is a really bad venue for watching bands, which makes it all the more annoying that they put such great nights on. The layout of the venue makes it a bad place to put gigs on, and the room where the bands play has non-existent stage lighting, and not everybody can get in there. What a waste, they could take those great artists, and put them on in a decent music venue instead.

A guy called Jim Gipson was the opening act - a northern-sounding guy who is now based in London. He was on stage, just him and his guitar, playing half an hour of heartfelt solo acoustic songs. He reminded me of Jeff Buckley and slightly of Bob Dylan, rather than the more rubbish male singer songwriters of which there are too many at the moment (James Blunt is just the most obvious example, but there are many more). It isn't really my cup of tea, as I usually prefer the guitars to be turned up a bit, but he really wasn't bad at all.

Half an hour later, the gig room at Proud started getting busier and noisier, as The Courteeners' set approached. This was in no small part due to the fact that they had a 40-strong crowd of rowdy Mancunians down in London to (loudly) support them. When the band came on, the room erupted, and instantly the band seemed to know that they would be preaching to the converted. The charismatic singer said "Hello London, this had to happen some time", referring to this being their first gig in the capital. Then they started playing one amazing indie pop song after another.

Particular highlights of this set were the single Cavorting, which was released this week; as well as manic set closer Acrylic - which is reminiscent of early Libertines material, except that this is much more exciting. They also had a great anthem, which seemed to be called What Took So Long, that sent the Mancs wild. But in reality, the set never dipped below the level of being very exciting throughout, there was literally one great tune after another.

At many points during the set, there was a real feeling that we were watching a band that will be huge in the next few months. They seemed to have 7 or 8 ready-made indie anthems in their set - every song was a potential classic. Their frontman seemed to have the swagger of another very famous singer from Manchester, the songs were great, and the support they had reminded me of early Arctic Monkeys shows. It is easy to say "new Oasis", or "new Arctic Monkeys", or even "Manc Libertines" - in truth, The Courteeners take some of the ingredients that made each of those three bands successful, and blend it into a very exciting mix, with some excellent tunes, and an incendiary live show. I can't wait for London gig number two!

Work trip to Brussels, Belgium - 6th to 7th August 2007

A trip to Brussels is rarely what you would call the most interesting of excursions - it isn't the most exciting of cities at the best of times (although the beer is good), and of course being August, many people have gone away on holiday, and much of the city seems shut. Trips like this also usually involve staying in a very functional hotel, and seeing the inside of boring offices that all seem to look the same.

So it was great this time to be staying at The Brussels House hotel, a small hotel with only 2 rooms. It is essentially just a big house in the suburb of Anderlecht, in which the owners have designed and furnished 2 amazing suites, which are like a real home from home. So, this paragraph was written whilst sitting in a massive pile of cushions in the corner of my room. Most out of the ordinary, and a million miles away from a huge, anonymous chain hotel. I will definitely try to stay here again when I return.

A good day’s work, the highlight of which (as is often the case when working on the continent), was a nice lunch lasting the best part of 2 hours, where I had an absolutely massive piece of beef fillet, cooked far better and costing much less money than you would pay in the UK. I often don’t look forward to going to Belgium, but when I actually get there, am pleasantly surprised by how nice and easy things seem to be – and in particular how good the food is.

With some time to kill before the Eurostar home, I travelled back to Gare du Midi under my own steam – taking a metro (including visits to Eddie Merckx and Jaques Brel stations - both famous Belgians in one journey!), wandering along for a bit, then picking up a tram for the rest of the way. During my walk, I saw the shop with possibly the least politically correct name ever, one that would literally be illegal if it were in the UK. As one of the last things I saw in Belgium, it summed the place up in a way – not a bad place to go, but some things there are just plain weird.