Selwynites descend on Bruges

Last weekend I had 6 visitors come to Bruges. Chris and Mike drove over from Dover (that's a bit of a tongue twister!) and stayed in my room from Friday to Sunday. Zoryana came on the Eurostar and also stayed Friday to Sunday. Rachel came on Saturday just for one night, and Alex and Nicki arrived on Saturday and went back today. So it was quite a hectic time!

I was late coming back to meet Mike and Chris, the first arrivals.
I had spent the morning at the Volvo factory in Ghent, filming cars being made for the documentary film I'm currently involved in making. It was really exciting to see the production line with all the robots and sparks flying, and we got some really good shots.


The weekend was spent having really nice meals in restaurants, good beers in pubs and generally catching up. The highlight was definitely Saturday evening. We started out at my room for a bit of Cindies-revival cheese and karaoke, and then went out wearing suits for a good meal at Ter Burg. By the time all that finished, it was almost midnight and time to go to the Nordic Party. It was held in a really fantastic venue and the Nordics had got so much sponsorship that they were able to give everyone five free drinks when they arrived!
That, combined with the music, atmosphere and mood of everyone, made for a great evening. All my friends who came really seemed to enjoy themselves, particularly, dare I say, the boys. Alex and Mike were dancing on the stage at one point - I could tell they were very much at home. All in all, it showed the College at its best in terms of sociability and nice people etc (though they were oblivious to all of the pulling/politics going on with people they didn't know!)

Unfortunately today it was back to work with a bump: five and a half hours of lectures in a row :(

European countries I've visited

This is quite exciting...


create your personalized map of europe

Eternal Christmas

You may think Christmas was almost 2 months ago, but in Bruges it still hasn't finished. The Hollywood movie 'In Bruges' is currently being filmed here, and it's set at Christmas. This means a Christmas tree on the Markt and Christmas lights all over the city - much to the perplexment of unsuspecting tourists.

It's quite exciting in some ways living on a film set - with film crews and famous actors everywhere. It's become run-of-the-mill to see Colin Farrell or Ralph Fiennes around town - here's a photo a took of Ralph opposite the College. Some of the weirder things about the filming are the HUGE floodlights that are everywhere at night - making the Markt look beautiful, but also a bit strange. There was the biggest crane I've ever seen, reaching the 83 metres to the top of the Belfort. One evening I had to cycle through an artificial fog on the Markt and another it was a fake snow storm on Rozenhoodkaai. Although it definitely adds an element of unpredictability to life, I won't complain once the Hollywood circus leaves town again!

Study trip to Strasbourg and Luxembourg

Last Wednesday the politics department set off for a 'study trip' to Strasbourg and Luxembourg. None of us were quite sure what to expect, or what the balance between studying and free time would be. Thankfully - especially after a very tough first 6 weeks of term - it was much more of a holiday than study trip.

I know Belgium is a small country, but it took over 4 hours to drive across it and get to Luxembourg. (I like to think you can get anywhere in Belgium in 2 hours, which was proven wrong!) We went to a weird triangular service station on the way, replete with Christmas decorations. This is a slightly disturbing theme: everywhere I go there seems to be Christmas decorations. The Belgians don't seem to be able to let go and accept that Christmas is over.

We passed through Luxembourg and finally arrived to a very rainy Saverne (a nice little town about 20 miles from Strasbourg) in the early evening. We were staying in a youth hostel that was actually part of the château, which was quite nice. Given it was Valentine's Day in a small town, Ramesh, Magnus and I decided to go for dinner pretty quickly and in a small group to ensure we got some food. I had a very good chèvre pizza in an Italian restaurant, but we were lucky to get the table. Most other students, who came later or in larger groups were forced to get take-away pizza or kebabs.

The next morning, we departed for Strasbourg, hit a traffic jam, and arrived a bit late. It was nice to go inside the building of the European Parliament - I had been outside there in September 2004 (a sort of pilgrimage). We had a couple of talks (one interesting, one not) and then saw a plenary session - the voting was the most interesting part, and the speed of it all really struck us.

That evening we all went to a restaurant for a meal paid for by the College. I had (quite a poor) tarte flambée, but the meal was great - we were in a private room in the cellar, which meant we could make as much noise as we wanted. Between David's singing and then Daniele saying that we weren't making enough noise, this was assured. Lubricated by the free beer, there were shouting competitions and 70-man sing-alongs. We also had a very good game of Yee-Ha. After the meal we moved en masse to the student area, and looked for somewhere to go out. Most people went to a very busy club, but 10 of us (Claire, Lavinia, Helena, Antonio, Hans, Jakob, Mihai, Anna-Maria and Corina) went to a small bar around the corner. When we first got there I was very dubious - it was full of middle-aged people and was a bit dull. But those people soon left and we had the place to ourselves. The barman was very funny and camp and kept putting on good dancing songs - so the bar soon became our own club. The highlight was probably the ceilidh (why do all nights out now descend into a ceilidh?), though I did swing Helena around and drop her on the floor (again).


After a great night out, it was (thankfully) a late start the next morning and a visit to the European Court of Human Rights. We had an extremely boring talk from one of the lawyers there: not only was it boring, he spoke in French so softly you could hardly hear him, and I had a hangover - so it was never going to be a roaring success. For lunch we went (unknowingly) to the same crêperie I had been to with Jules and Cathy on my last visit to Strasbourg.

In the afternoon, I met up with Cathy and we went for an *amazing* tarte flambée - I had 3 fromages - which was Munster, blue and cheddar. It was heaven on a plate. All washed down with homemade brown beer :) Not satisfied with one dinner, I met up with Ramesh, Lavinia, Antonio, Mihai, Hans and Helena for a second dinner (well, I only had a dessert). Afterwards we went to a nice little pub, where I bumped into Cathy again - Strasbourg really is a small place!

The final day of the trip saw us drive to Luxembourg - a very strange little country. We went for lunch in Luxembourg 'City' - the high street of which Claire compared to Wrexham - hardly what you'd expect from a capital city! I had a fantastic salad and then we were back on the bus, watching the Godfather and then Scent of a Woman on the way back to Bruges.

All in all, very little studying and not really anything learned, but a fantastic time with friends.

Lots more photos here.

Journey to the fjords

Just a quick preview of what I've got planned for early April. Dad and I came up with the idea while I was at home - he's setting off from Liverpool and coming to Bruges, picking me up and then we'll travel northwards, spending a night in each place: Amsterdam, Hamburg, Gothenburg, Oslo and then Bergen. From there, he'll take the ferry to Newcastle, and I'll fly back to Brussels. Much more to come...

Baby photos

I've just come back from 5 great days at home. It was fantastic to see newborn Alexander and to spend so much time with him, as well as seeing the rest of the family. Here are some photos...

I am an uncle!

My sister Zara had a baby boy at 12.30pm today. He weighed 9lb 8oz (4.4kg), and has been named Alexander John. Photos etc to come in the next week...

Former UKIP leader speaks at the College

On Wednesday, former UKIP leader Roger Knapman MEP came to the College to talk about his views on the EU. It was certainly a change from the speakers we usually get, and a world away from Commissioner Verheugen on Monday.



Eddie and I chaired the event - I gave a speech introducing Knapman and then Eddie
chaired the debate afterwards. We had gone out for dinner with the MEP and his assistant prior to the speech, which was quite an experience... It was great from my point of view, since I'm writing my thesis on his party, and I had a captive audience for my questions. But I was struck by just how unfounded his views on the EU really are. At one point in his speech, he said that Britain would survive perfectly fine outside the EU, citing Switzerland and Norway as prosperous nations outside the Union. However, as someone pointed out in a question afterwards, Switzerland and Norway are part of the single market and have to swallow all market regulation without having had a say in its drafting - hardly a model of independence. The evening progressed in such a vein - I think he managed to offend most groups in the room: the Romanians wanted our money, the Poles our jobs. As for the "Southern Irish", they only like Europe since it gives them so much money. At one point he said, "sacrificing power to the institutions of the EU may be all right for newly democratic countries with no real experience of democracy, but we are not prepared to sacrifice our institutions, which stood the test of time while the rest of Europe fell. Even countries like West Germany, or I suppose I should say Germany now, have only been democratic for 60 years."

Needless to say, he was met with a barrage of questions and comments which revealed the ignorance of his statements - it was very interesting to see him trying to avoid questions he obviously had no answers for.

All in all, it was without a doubt the most interesting speaker event we've had at the College and the one that got people most passionate in the debate afterwards.

The results are in...

Although they feel a long time ago now, yesterday we got the results from our exams in December. I was really pleased with them - I passed everything and came in the top 25% in two subjects (one of which was, very controversially, Economics) and in the top 50% in the other two. It was such a relief and a vindication of the hard work! My average was 15.25 (out of 20) - so 76%. No time to celebrate though - it was straight back to work!

Kilts to Council

What a crazy few days! Last week it was UK, Ireland and Commonwealth week at the College. We'd been arranging events since November and in the end we had a great programme, including a Bollywood night, a pub quiz, a tea party and whiskey tasting. The undisputed highlight of the week was the national party on Saturday. We all got dressed up in fancy dress (theme: royals and rebels) and danced the night away to a fantastic ceilidh band and then an excellent playlist of cheesy classics.
It was undoubtably the best night out so far in Bruges and quite possibly in a couple of years. Despite being really tired from all the work I've had this week (9 hours of lectures on Friday and Saturday alone...), I really found enough energy to keep me going well beyond 4am, and my Scottish costume (complete with kilt!) went down extremely well! Fran and her friend Jo also came along, which was really cool too. Everyone seemed to have a great time and we got such positive feedback from everyone afterwards.

Today the other "national delegations" and I went to the Council of Ministers in Brussels for the first reading of the legislative act we're debating in our simulation game. Despite having to get up at 5am, it was fantastic to be able to go inside one of the main institution buildings and think to myself "one day... who knows?" Lavinia was very excited to see there was going to be a speech about a city near her home in Romania. The negotiations in the end were extremely long and arduous but we came to a unanimous agreement in the end, which was fantastic for us. The photo is of me with Susanne (the other half of the UK delegation) at the end of the negotiation.