Claudia wins the France Photoguide competition

Great news! Claudia won first prize in the France Photoguide Competition, with her "Relax" photo taken in Etretat.

First prize is a week's holiday in which to discover France, from East to West!

- 1 weekend to discover Strasbourg: 3 nights in a double room including breakfast and 2 Strasbourg passes

- 3 days in Paris: a stay of 2 nights, including breakfast

- 3 days in St Malo: 2 nights in a youth hostel (double room, breakfast included) and a Sensation pass for a nautical activity of your choice;

Eurostar - A Bad Experience

I would like to share with you a bad experience I had with a competition organized by Eurostar on Facebook. The competition rules were very easy : Upload a picture or a quote with regard to "London & Love", and post it on their facebook fanpage. The 14 members who had the highest number of votes, would win. It specifically warned contestants to make sure their entry was about London & Love, otherwise they would be disqualified.

I invited all my friends, bullied them into voting for my picture (which i'm happy to say was not a silly snapshot but a very nice picture) and I ended up 15th. Ok, so I lost. It's not the end of the world. 14 others scored better, right? Well, not really. Out of the 14 winners, at least 2 did not refer to London AND love, and one didn't even have ANY reference to either love or London.

According to the rules, they should have been disqualified, which would also mean that my picture would have won. So you can say I have been cheated out of 2 train tickets.

I have tried to contact Eurostar, but they "refuse to discuss the competition". So I will take it one level higher, and contact Test Aankoop/Test Achat.

If anybody else feels he has been cheated, you can always contact me here below.

Laura Veirs in Concert

Photo: copyright David Belisle

Last night I went to a Laura Veirs' concert in the Ancienne Belgique (AB) in Brussels. We got 3 concerts for the price of one. That is the great thing about Brussels, concert prices are still reasonable. For 12 euro you can see an upcoming band, and the big groups will only set you about 30 to 40 euro back. I remember seeing Crowded House for 20 euro, Randy Newman will be appearing in the AB for 'only' 34€ and I managed to get tickets to the U2 concert for 35 euro.

Last night we first had a concert by The Old Believers. Normally this is a duo, but today only Nelson Kempf found the way to the AB Club. He started with an a capella song, followed by a wonderfully pretty song about his granny (called appropiately "Granny's Song". It was nice to see this kid with his guitar, a bit shy in this intimate club. He's not the most talkative performer we have seen, and his songs sometimes seem to be unfinished little stories, but his careless attitude won the hearts of the audience and he even made them sing a song with him (the highlight of his performace IMHO)

The second 'group' was called Cataldo, and again only one member turned up: Eric Anderson. He looks a bit like that other famous singer/songwriter whose name starts with an E. The same beard, similar voice and the same simple honest songs. I loved "Wedding Cake" and especially "My heart is calling/following". Cataldo is a group to keep an eye out for.




And then it was time for Laura Veirs and band...a band that consisted of the previous two guitar players (Eric and Nelson) and Alex Guy (who did not look at all like a guy) on the violin/viola. Laura Veirs was wearing a polkadot pregnancy dress (she's due in April) but that didn't stop her from rocking on a great Danelectro guitar (model '59 if i'm not mistaken). She played some songs from her new album July Flame, including the radio hit (in Belgium) "Wide-eyed, Legless". Both in appearance and style she reminded me of Suzanne Vega, with a twist of Tori Amos for good measure. A very pleasant concert (although too short). I also missed my favourite song "Galaxies"...but maybe that was because I was mesmerized by the wonderful poetic atmosphere?

Getting Maried...Again

Claudia and I got married almost 2 years ago, but we decided to do it again. Not that we got divorced or anything, but last time it was a very small, sober ceremony. When we got married in Aachen we just invited our parents and brothers. But this time we want to share our happiness with everyone we love. So if you happen to be in Grimbergen on March 27th, why not drop by for a drink?

The schedule so far is :

- Church service at 4 pm in the Grimbergen basilica
- From 5pm till 6.30 pm an intimate reception service at my mum's shop, Abdijstraat 17 (100 metres from the church)

Please let us know if you will attend this. We'd love to see you