The Great Belgian Thread

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Living and working conditions in Wallonia in the nineteenth century were even worse than over here. So Flanders Poor/Wallonia Rich isn't really the right way of looking at the past in Belgium. It would make more sense to argue that Wallonia (or at least large parts of it) was/is home to one of the first industrial societies in Europe (with all that that entails), while Flanders remained for a long time significantly more agricultural and never industrialised in the same way.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Laïcité now roughly translating as 'making it very clear to the darkies that they don't belong here'.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Iceland (of all places) beat you to it.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, that's true. First openly bow-tie wearing for quite a while as well, I suspect.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Longer than four years, but, yeah, it has become the consensus of the self-styled 'hard headed realists' amongst press commentators in recent years.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Ah, Belgium. That strangely high density of Surrealists makes sense, doesn't it?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Interesting. So, why did the MR-FDF split?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Fingers crossed until the swearing in is finished, right?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If you're willing to go into some detail, then a thread over at the IE board would be most welcome.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If the 'after' photo looks like that one (and you say it's a flattering picture, healthwise? I was thinking of commenting on it earlier) then it's almost always a bad sign.