Any other business

As the party games turn nasty, Sharapova shows bankers the elegant way to lose

6 October 2007

Call me sentimental, but I’m sorry to see Belgium on the brink of divorce. My Flemish ancestors came to England before Belgium broke away from the Netherlands in 1830 — they were silk weavers who took advantage of an early local-government enterprise scheme, offering migrant craftsmen freedom from taxes in the city of Norwich. But still I feel a certain affection for the stolid, damp, unlovely country where I lived in the early 1980s, and which is now enmired in mutual antipathy and political stalemate between its Flemish- and French-speaking communities.

Perhaps there’s still time for the two sides to reunite in irritation at the fact that the British media uses any story about Belgium as an excuse to revive another party game, Name a Famous Belgian: the BBC’s Politics Show has a version on its website. René Magritte, Eddy Merckx and Jacques Brel are popular answers, but let me throw in a couple more. The first was suggested by an affronted Belgian to whom I undiplomatically outlined the game: he nominated Georges Nagelmackers, a banker from Liège who made a giant contribution to civilised travel by introducing the railway sleeping-car, or wagon-lit, and founding the Orient Express from Paris to Constantinople. The second was a lawyer who made his name defending outspoken journalists and went on to be a founder member of Belgium’s revolutionary government, its representative in London and its prime minister, for nine months, in 1845: his name was Baron Sylvain Van de Weyer, and I’d love to claim him as a cousin if I could trace even a remote connection.

Blimey, Governor

‘King eyes nation’s maidens to find a 14th wife,’ said a headline on the month-old page of the Daily Telegraph that happened to be underneath my golden retriever puppy. Closer examination and some forensic reconstruction revealed this to be a story about King Mswati III of Swaziland picking a new bride from among the 100,000 nubile participants in the annual Umhlanga, or reed dance ceremony. Obsessed as I have been with blame games, however, my first reaction was: blimey, no wonder old Mervyn can’t shake off the accusation that he failed to focus properly on Northern Rock.