#belgium — Public Fediverse posts

#Belgium: #Meteo: Une averse sera possible en début de journée. La journée débutera dans la douceur avec 16°C en début de matinée, suivi de valeurs proches de 20°C peu avant la mi-journée. En seconde partie de journée, éclaircies et passages nuageux se partageront le ciel et le temps restera généralement sec, avec une douceur marquée et 24°C au thermomètre. Le vent sera très faible de secteur nord-est. https://www.meteobelgique.be/previsions-meteo-belgique/106/cote-belge #sail #sailing

Daniel Hule, born OTD in 1945, began his career in advertising before collaborating with several weekly The Adventures of Tintin and Spirou #comicstrips https://cromwell-intl.com/travel/belgium/comic-book-art/?s=mb #travel #Belgium #BandesDesinees

A video of this coal mine building: https://youtu.be/az7h5ZtNPJQ

Abandoned Coal mine (Charbonnage du Hasard Cheratte) Belgium Feb 2008

#abandoned #urbex #factory #belgium #YouTube #lostplace #photography

The Belgian Revolution began OTD in 1830 https://cromwell-intl.com/travel/belgium/mons/?s=mb #travel #Belgium #history

Oscars: Belgium Selects Lukas Dhont’s ‘Coward’ For International Feature Film Race
#News #Belgium #BestInternationalFeatureFilm #Coward #LukasDhont

https://deadline.com/2026/08/oscars-belgium-lukas-dhont-coward-international-1237049673/

#Belgium: #Meteo: Le soleil brillera avec quelques nuages durant la matinée. Le thermomètre affichera autour de 14°C au lever du jour, suivi de températures de l’ordre de 19°C peu avant la mi-journée. La situation restera globalement inchangée au fil de l’après-midi, le soleil brillera avec quelques nuages, dans une ambiance agréable avec 24°C au meilleur de la journée. Le vent soufflera faiblement de secteur est. https://www.meteobelgique.be/previsions-meteo-belgique/106/cote-belge #sail #sailing

German troops captured Namur OTD in 1914 https://cromwell-intl.com/travel/belgium/namur-dinant-ardennes/?s=mb #travel #Belgium #history

The treaty creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization went into effect OTD in 1949 https://cromwell-intl.com/travel/belgium/mons/?s=mb #travel #Belgium #NATO #history

German troops captured #Namur OTD in 1914 https://cromwell-intl.com/travel/belgium/namur-dinant-ardennes/?s=mb #travel #Belgium #history

museumPASSmusees 2026#Wiels - Call me gravity
#Belgium #Brussels #Callmegravity #Museum #MuseumPassMusees #Wiels
https://www.flickr.com/photos/151639852@N07/sets/72177720335276887/

Book Reviews

Anthology #70

Far Above the World, by Paul Morley

This sprawling anthology, subtitled The Time and Space of David Bowie [if you didn’t instantly recognise the lyric, although the cover image is instantly unmistakable] is part-biography and part philosophical exposition of David Bowie’s multifaceted personality and the ideas and experiences he craved & explored, driven by the impulses he didn’t, or couldn’t, understand, but which he didn’t dare question, for fear that they might evaporate, leaving him stumbling through life as an ordinary mortal; unexceptional, and unremarkable. Morley is obviously an admirer, and there is so much that can be said about Bowie, and his influence on late twentieth century music and the wider creative arts, but I do feel that Morley has made this work more extensive than it needed to be, with occasional diversions into the lives of other people, who didn’t necessarily even work with Bowie: they might just have been a person whom Bowie admired, or whose work might have influenced him. Having said that, there is plenty of interesting biographical material here, and some of his regular collaborators, such as, first & foremost, Tony Visconti, and Carlos Alomar, are given plenty of space of their own. There is a small — regrettably so, given how public a figure Bowie was — selection of photographs accompanying the text, but other than these, the book is subdivided into many relatively short chapters: even the layout of the contents list at the front of the book is designed to mimic the lightning flash image which Bowie wore on his face only for a fairly short period. He was undoubtedly an enigma, unknowable even to himself to a large extent, but he produced an incomparable wide range of music in many different genres; although his later misunderstood, and even reviled, expedition into the Tin Machine experiment is only very briefly touched upon; but he is a creator whose music I find it impossible to envisage having lived without in my formative years & early adulthood: I can still remember the shock, including my own, that reverberated around the world when his unexpected death was announced in 2016. If you have the stamina, and are a fan, this is a book worth ploughing through. The paperback I read was published in 2026 [2025] by Headline Publishing Group Limited, London, an Hachette UK Company, ISBN 978-1-4722-8948-3.

Decline and Fall, by Evelyn Waugh

I don’t normally feel obliged to seek out books which are regarded as classics, merely for that reason alone, but I was pleased to find this book, given that it is the first example of this author’s work, perhaps surprising to some, which at the tender age of 72, I have ever read. It is set contemporaneously in England, just before it was published, so in 1926: a world recognisable in some respects, given the continuity of its culture, but also very different. Much of his work appears to be a gentle satire on British life, especially the middle & upper classes; he was from a comfortable background himself, so it’s not as if he had a chip on his shoulder, but he was clearly conscious of the wealth divide, a situation which is regrettably still with us just as evidently today. The story relates the transit in early adulthood of a young man who is rootless, being raised by a guardian, and begins when he is sent down from his fictional Oxford College, Scone, for a charge of misconduct, arising from an incident during a rowdy party in which he doesn’t participate, but which nevertheless results in him being ‘debagged’. Strangely— although this is an early indication of his character — he doesn’t try to refute this charge, and consequently his guardian withdraws his allowance and even his inheritance, so he is forced to seek employment, which he finds at a rather seedy private school in north Wales. What follows, given his complete lack of experience and even aptitude for the post, is a mixture of good fortune & misadventures: without revealing any details, he seems to be rising towards a golden future when fate intervenes, and he comes crashing back down to earth, hence the book’s title; although he seems able to accommodate these vicissitudes with some equanimity, which was perhaps a message from the author: that we are always capable of more than we probably give ourselves credit for. The humour is dated, of course, but most human characteristics don’t change very much in 100 years. The paperback I read was published in 2017 [2001, 1962, 1937, 1928] by Penguin Random House UK, London, ISBN 978-0-2412-9906-7.

Service Model, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

This clever novel deserves to be read very widely, to serve as a stark warning of the dangers of rampant AI-driven automation; unfortunately, it isn’t possible to reveal very much of the plot without spoiling the story, which unfolds nicely; although the main premise is pretty obvious from early on in the narrative; not that this diminishes the import of the message in any way. The story is set in an unnamed country, which could be Britain, given that the author is British; but it could also be the USA, because some of the spelling & dialect is US; however, that could also be another example of my aversion to USAmericanisms, as a result of being out of touch with the way the language is commonly used now, by younger people in English-speaking countries, concomitant with my age. Charles is a robot valet, working for his Master in a mansion on an estate: this is apparently a very common situation in this time, and as far as it might be possible for a ‘human-facing’ robot to have what could be interpreted as feelings, Charles is perfectly content with his function, and fulfils it diligently to the best his programming will allow. That is, until an event occurs which changes his whole existence: the death of his master, which Charles inadvertently has a hand in. What follows thereafter is a complete unravelling of the logic of the world as Charles understood it, and he embarks on a quest for answers, encountering increasingly bizarre situations along the way, and one intermittent companion which will prove to be fundamental to his resolution of the conundrum. Although the author clearly has a good understanding of high-level technology, the latter doesn’t hinder the story, and to reiterate, I only hope that people with sufficient influence absorb the message here: if it wasn’t already blindingly obvious, that is. The paperback I read was published in 2025 [2024] by Tor, an imprint of the Pan Macmillan, London,  ISBN 978-1-0350-4568-6.

A Damned Serious Business, by Gerald Seymour

The name of this espionage thriller from this accomplished author, who has very wide experience reporting from locations of political tension & warfare around the world, derives from a saying from the hero of the protagonist: the former being the Duke of Wellington, and the latter going by the nickname Boot. The reason for this is that Boot is almost obsessively fixated on the battle of Waterloo, and spends as much of his free time as he is able to at & around the field of action in Belgium, which he is able to do reasonably freely, given that he is a senior figure in MI6, which is here referred to as VBX [for Vauxhall Bridge Crossing]. Realistically, it probably is very difficult to escape the shadow of Smiley in such characterisations, but there is a distinct similarity here in personality, clothing & physical description; which could of course be a respectful tip of the hat from the acolyte to the master. The mission, which isn’t explicitly Boot’s last, but he is well advanced in his career, involves delivering a bomb to a meeting in Russia, just over the border from Estonia, of young but highly valued computer hackers with their gangmasters and the FSB officers who provide a roof, i.e., a place of safety in which to work, which consists of stealing any valuable data from the enemy, the West but also, ideally, money; so Boot wants this to be an unattributable strike back at this thorn in the side of the UK. His rationale is that the bad actors are so paranoid that they will immediately blame each other first for whatever damage transpires, rather than thinking that the Western security services might be responsible. I think I’ve read enough of this type of thriller to cynically expect the mission to go wrong; otherwise, it wouldn’t be much of a story, would it? The main question is how badly, and where & when. Using his trusted & competent subordinates, the Maid [Marian, his office-based fixer & occasional carer] and Daff [Daphne, the ‘field fixer’], he recruits Merc, a battle-scarred but fearless solder, currently serving in Afghanistan, and three middle-aged but unattached Estonian men, all of whom lost grandfathers to the Russians, to assist him on the ground by passing the bomb to one of the hackers. The book is written in Seymour’s trademark breathless style, often detailing a stream of consciousness lacking personal pronouns, and I am guessing it is quite accurate, so it is a gripping read. The paperback I read was published in 2018 by Hodder & Stoughton, an Hachette UK company, London, ISBN 978-1-4736-6351-0.

Noël Godin, the famous Belgian "entarteur" ("em-pie-er", and one of my heroes, has passed away
Noël reminded us all the remain humble...

Can someone please tell Mr Gates it safe again to visit #Belgium

All 23 foundations completed for Belgium’s offshore energy island

Jan De Nul and DEME, working for Elia, installed the 23rd and final caisson for Princess Elisabeth Island.

Offshore wind, electricity grids, marine engineering #EU #Belgium

https://www.jandenul.com/news/foundations-princess-elisabeth-energy-island-successfully-completed

#Belgium: #Meteo: Le temps sera lumineux sous un ciel bien dégagé en matinée. Les températures avoisineront 12°C en début de journée, suivi de valeurs proches de 17°C peu avant la mi-journée. Après une matinée ensoleillée, très peu de nuages sont attendus, avec une douceur marquée et 22°C au thermomètre. Le vent soufflera modérément de secteur nord-est. https://www.meteobelgique.be/previsions-meteo-belgique/106/cote-belge #sail #sailing

A video of this vanished railway bridge: https://youtu.be/ZVz-v05jSAc

Remains of an old railway bridge Belgium Feb 2026

#urbex #photography #YouTube #lostplace #Belgium #railway #abandoned

Belgium’s deadly heatwave and largest wildfire in a century show climate breakdown is already overwhelming public services, while politicians remain dangerously unprepared.

Fossil-fuel polluters must pay for the protection, resilient homes and public systems people need, now.

#belgium #climatechange #heatwave #fires #makepolluterspay

Egypt, Gallipoli and Western Front

A view across the Dead End (Ypres) Canal to a destroyed building. Much fighting took place along this canal in 1914/1915 (First and Second Ypres)
National Army Museum via DigitalNZ

http://api.digitalnz.org/records/40892681/source

#Battlefield #Belgium

Heat wave-hit Europe logs over 30,000 excess summer deaths: First figures

#Europe saw at least 30,000 excess deaths across a blistering summer of back-to-back #heat waves and drought that scientists have blamed on man-made #ClimateChange, according to provisional figures.

Between mid-July and mid-August, the continent's #EuroMomo monitoring platform estimates that Europe saw more than 32,000 excess deaths—with the summer not yet over.

While EuroMomo does not publish breakdowns of deaths by country, various national health authorities have published provisional tolls covering comparable periods stretching roughly between the end of May and August.

An AFP count of those tallies found 33,000 excess deaths or deaths directly linked to the heat across just eight countries: #Austria, #Belgium, #England, #France, #Germany, the #Netherlands, #Portugal and #Spain.

https://phys.org/news/2026-08-europe-excess-summer-deaths-figures.html

#ClimateCatastrophe
#ExtremeWeather
#EndFossilFuels

Train ride from Dinant, Belgium to Thionville, France: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn2_zR8ScQQ&t=6919

#trains #webcam #belgium #france

A video of this locomotive: https://youtu.be/JvRfqrGgfq4

Abandoned locomotive (Oude locomotief) Belgium Feb 2026

#urbex #photography #YouTube #lostplace #Belgium #railway #abandoned

#Belgium: #Meteo: Une alternance d’éclaircies et de passages nuageux est attendue durant la matinée avec un temps sans précipitation. Les températures avoisineront 14°C en début de journée, suivi de températures de l’ordre de 17°C peu avant la mi-journée. En cours d’après-midi, très peu de nuages sont attendus, dans une ambiance douce, le thermomètre restant proche des 19°C. Le vent sera faible de secteur nord. https://www.meteobelgique.be/previsions-meteo-belgique/106/cote-belge #sail #sailing

European wildfires reveal buried bombs and mines

ELSENBORN, Belgium (AP) — The wildfires burning across Europe this summer have exposed a potentially deadly threat lurking…
#NewsBeep #News #Headlines #APTopNews #Belgium #ChristinaGreene #Climate #Climateandenvironment #Europe #Fires #France #Generalnews #Germany #HervJamar #JonasTepe #SarahNjeri #Warandunrest #Weather #Wildfires #World #Worldnews
https://www.newsbeep.com/701252/