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october 28, 2015 \ newsweekly - € 0,75 \ read more at www.flanderstoday.eu current affairs \ p2

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World wants more Hoegaarden

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Forty winks at work

Leuven-based AB InBev is sinking €5.7 million into its Hoegaarden production facility to meet export demand

Ghent University’s new sport science lab researches physical exertion with exoskeletons and climate chambers

A cat nap after lunch is just what workers need to recharge their batteries, according to Derek Blyth in this week’s Talking Dutch

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© Courtesy Ambulance Wens

Finding light in the darkness In difficult times, charity brings comfort to patients and their families Sally Tipper Follow Sally on Twitter \ @sallybtipper

For four years, a Limburg-based team of volunteers has offered terminally ill patients the chance to lead a normal life for a few hours and be with the people they love one last time.

T

he neon green ambulance sticks out a mile on a driveway in this quiet Diepenbeek street, at the family home where Jan and Miet Schraepen run their charity, Ambulance Wens. Miet is a nurse, her brother Jan a paramedic. Based in the house where they grew up, they grant one last wish, free of charge, to terminally ill people who often have just days to live.

“There are about 40 of us, all volunteers,” says Miet. “It’s not

just nurses and paramedics: our mum does all the washing and ironing, our dad sends out the brochures and does the adverts, our sister and aunt do the accounts... We’re really a team.”

Set up in 2011, Ambulance Wens (Wish Ambulance) grew out of an initiative in the Netherlands but is now run independently and relies entirely on donations and bequests.

Jan, the youngest paramedic in Limburg when he started at the age of 17, explains how the Flemish branch started.

“I had a friend who worked for Pallion, which provides palliative care in Limburg. She said to me one day: ‘Jan, I’ve seen a great project in the Netherlands that would really suit you.’

So I called my sister…”

Miet laughs. “I didn’t have to think about it too much. It was a great idea.”

Patients, or their families, doctors or nurses, get in touch with Jan and Miet – having seen their posters, Facebook page or website – and explain their request. The things people long for on their deathbed tend to be remarkably simple: to see the sea, to spend an afternoon at home, to drop their children off at school. Some want to visit a loved one’s grave or attend a wedding. In short, Ambulance Wens offers them the ability to lead a normal life for a few hours and be with the people they love one last time.

The volunteers do all the necessary paperwork and fix a date. On the day, they collect the patient from the hospicontinued on page 5

\ CURRENT AFFAIRS

More investment needed in traffic safety, says institute Specific traffic phenomena are slowing the decrease in road victims in Flanders Andy Furniere More articles by Andy \ flanderstoday.eu

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o significantly reduce the number of victims of traffic accidents, Flanders has to improve its efforts in traffic safety, according to a new report released by the Institute for Mobility (Imob) at Hasselt University. The report is the basis for the new Traffic Safety Plan that mobility minister Ben Weyts wants to have ready by the end of the year.

Figures show that Flanders has made major progress in traffic safety over the last two decades. In the period between 2001 and 2013, there was a decrease of 51% in the number of traffic deaths. This decrease has stalled in the last couple of years, and there was even an increase in 2014.

The statistics confirm specific phenomena in Flanders, such as an over-representation of young drivers, among the victims.

Imob also pointed out that a shocking 82% of the dead and wounded victims of traffic accidents in cities, are “vulnerable road users” – pedestrians, cyclists and car passengers – rather than drivers. Outside city limits, this number drops to 38%.

In 2013, Flanders formulated an ambitious programme of goals to be achieved by 2030. The number of traffic deaths, according to the plan, should be lower than 133 and the number of seriously wounded lower than 1,000 annually. In 2013, there were 384 deaths and nearly 3,000 seriously wounded.

Imob proposes a traffic safety campaign focused on motorcyclists during the summer months, elderly cyclists and pedestrians in the inner city, and young male drivers, particularly in the weekend. Alcohol and speed are mentioned as major risk factors among the young male group.

Water main leak causes sinkhole in central Antwerp

Human traffickers fined €942,000

Rooseveltplaats, a major transport hub near Antwerp’s Central Station, was closed for part of last week following a water leak on the nearby Italiëlei, which led to subsidence in the area.

The leak in a water pipe appeared in the early hours of Wednesday. Police closed off the Leien – the main Antwerp boulevards – from De Keyserlei near Central Station to Paardenmarkt, as well as Rooseveltplaats, Osystraat and Maerlantstraat.

Underground, the escaping water washed away sand under the road surface, and at one point a van belonging to the fire brigade sank into a pit up to its front wheel. No-one was evacuated from the area, but there were some reports of flooded cellars. The metro station Opera was closed for a time, and some trams were cancelled when electricity had to be cut off. Buses were able to circulate normally, avoiding Rooseveltplaats.

The Leien were opened up again at about 10.15, but

A court in Leuven has sentenced a gang of 11 human traffickers to a total of 31 years in prison, with fines amounting to €942,000. The men were charged with smuggling 157 illegal immigrants and received a fine of €6,000 for each case.

The court heard how the gang organised 61 transports between October of 2014 and January this year. The victims were supposed to be transported via Belgium to the UK, although many were picked up by border patrols.

Migrants were loaded into lorries at parking places along Belgium’s motorways, as well as industrial estates and ports. The traffickers were of various nationalities – Iraqi, Turkish, Bulgarian, Syrian and Albanian – but the two gangs were organised into one Turkish-Kurd and one Albanian group. The gangs’ operations were closed down after a raid at Rotselaar, Flemish Brabant, in January.

One Turkish man of 23 and an Iraqi of 22 were considered the ringleaders and were sentenced to five and four years respectively and fined a total of €222,000. Other sentences ranged from three years to six months. Two vehicles were confiscated by the court. / AH

© Courtesy Het Nieuwsblad

Rooseveltplaats remained closed until the next day.

Works will be required on sewers and electricity cables.

“We’re talking about a period of several days,” city official Bart Bruelemans told De Morgen. Public transport would be back to normal sooner, he said. \ Alan Hope

Brussels public transport authority to invest €5.2 billion in next 10 years Brussels public transport authority MIVB plans to invest €5.2 billion between 2016 and 2026, an increase of 10% on original plans, according to the region’s minister for mobility, Pascal Smet.

Smet described the plans as both “ambitious and realistic”. A large part of the funding will go to the construction of a new north-south metro line from Bordet in Evere to Albert in Vorst. If all goes well, he said, the line should come into operation by 2024.

The existing metro lines will be modernised in

phases to improve safety and increase frequency.

However, the introduction of self-driving metro trains, he said, is “a long-term goal” that does not form part of the 10-year plan.

Two other projects have been shelved for the time being: an extension of the metro to Parking C at Heizel, site of the planned new national stadium, and the “skytrain” from North Station to Tour & Taxis. The conversion of bus line 71 to a tram will not take place, after the Elsene administration objected.

€2.7 million

paid for the painting “Girl with Duck” by Flemish artist Michael Borremans, making him the most expensive painter in Belgium, taking over the title from Luc Tuymans

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Meanwhile, MIVB has released details of some of the changes it plans to the bus network in the capital over the coming years. The number of bus routes will go up from 50 to 54, with new lines serving Vorst-Central Station, HeembeekSchuman, South Station-Drogenbos and Erasmus-Diesdelle.

A number of existing routes are being extended, including buses 42, 53 and 54. Other lines in the vicinity of the new tram 9 route will be changed.

In the city centre, bus 89 will replace bus 86 to

circulate around the pedestrian zone, while bus 46 creates a direct link between the city centre and Tour & Taxis.

New lines will be introduced gradually from 2017. MIVB said only one in three bus routes will remain unchanged by 2020. The plan will require the acquisition of 235 new buses, with older diesel buses being replaced by cleaner versions. In the coming weeks, Smet will carry out a market survey to look at the possibility of using electric buses. / AH

2.6%

9%

complaints about noise nuisance received by the ombudsman service of Brussels Airport in the first nine months of the year, up from 57,202 in the same period last year

of young people in Flanders wear a helmet when cycling, although one in four thinks of cycling as unsafe. 45% have no high-visibility clothing, according to a survey by motoring organisation VAB

signed up to use free wi-fi on De Lijn buses and trams so far. The service started one year ago in Antwerp and Ghent, and now extends to 210 vehicles in Leuven, Turnhout, Hasselt and other cities

growth in 2014 in added value for the port of Ghent, ahead of Zeebrugge on 2.1%, while Antwerp and Ostend followed with 1.6% each. Total added value was €16.68 billion

october 28, 2015

WEEK in brief The price of passes for Flemish public transport network De Lijn will go up in February, the company has announced. Details are not available prior to the proposal being presented to the government of Flanders, but De Lijn said single and multi-fare tickets would not be affected.

Tariffs as a whole went up in 2015, at the same time as the company scrapped free travel for seniors and other groups in a bid to cut costs by €60 million.

Dredging company DEME has been voted Enterprise of the Year, a title awarded by consultants EY, newspaper De Tijd and bank BNP Paribas Fortis. DEME, based in Zwijndrecht, won for the Dutch-speaking businesses, ahead of the other nominees: temp agency Accent, construction group B&R and ventilation specialist Renson.

Brussels Airlines will introduce five new destinations next year – to Crete, Jerez, Belfast, Tenerife and Las Palmas. The airline is increasing the number of several more flights, including to Edinburgh, Manchester, Lisbon and Venice.

A family court has officially declared Britta Cloetens dead.

The 25-year-old from Antwerp disappeared in 2011. A man confessed to having killed her but claimed to have forgotten where he dumped the body, which has never been recovered. The man was sentenced to 30 years in prison, but because the body could not be found, Cloetens could only be declared dead by a court ruling.

Rail infrastructure company Infrabel has released details of one of its largest-ever projects: the removal of five level crossings on the line between Aalter in East Flanders and Beernem in West Flan-

face of flanders ders, to be replaced with pedestrian tunnels and bridges. Works begin next spring and should be completed a year later at a cost of €13.5 million. Belgium has some 1,600 level crossings, a number Infrabel aims to reduce so that traffic and pedestrians will no longer be required to cross the tracks.

Bread and cakes from the famous Bloch bakery in Ghent are entering the market again, seven years after the bakery closed and sold its name to food company Culinor of Destelbergen. The company has engaged Stefan Elias, Bloch’s former head baker, and is now producing the recipes for the market. Two sweet breads and four cakes are on sale at Delhaize nationwide, and a food truck is planned for Ghent by the end of the year.

The unrest at Technopolis science centre in Mechelen was back in the public eye last week, after an anonymous email was sent to Flemish work minister Philippe Muyters calling for the dismissal of CEO Erik Jacquemyn. Jacquemyn was accused of mismanagement in a letter from staff to the Technopolis board late last year, which led to the suspension of a €4 million government subsidy. Muyters’ office said that members of staff would be polled for their views later in the year.

All 19 mayors of the Brussels commune signed on to a request to federal mobility minister Jacqueline Galant to extend night flight regulations to cover the hours from 23.00 to 7.00. The minister said that she has to “take account of the interests of all three regions”. Her Flemish counterpart, Ben Weyts, pointed out that Brussels suffers less from aircraft noise than does the Flemish Brabant periphery around the capital. And the mayors of the municipalities in

the periphery warned that tighter limits could bring the airport into financial difficulties.

Supermarket chains will be able to arrange deliveries from 6.00 to 23.00, provided they adhere to new Flemish rules on noise for both stores and lorries, environment minister Joke Schauvliege has announced. Allowing early and late deliveries makes it easier for lorries to arrive at stores, reducing traffic at busier times of the day and cutting the number of road accidents, she said. But lorries will have to meet tough noise standards, and stores will have to provide low-noise unloading facilities. Colruyt has already invested €3.5 million in silent materials and training for drivers.

Telecoms company Proximus has reached a settlement in a case brought by competitors Base and Mobistar accusing it of abuse of the dominant position it held on the market from 1999 to 2004. The settlement cost Proximus €120 million.

The number of transport passes awarded to people who give up the use of their cars has shrunk from its peak of 32,000 in 20062007 to only 8,000 in 2014, mobility minister Ben Weyts announced.

Originally, the pass was good for three years, but that went down to one year in 2010. Later still, the passes became half-price rather than free.

Flanders is under invasion – from bedbugs, in hotels and youth hostels and also in private homes, report pest control companies. The blood-sucking bugs, previously virtually unknown in the region, appear to be being spread by couch-surfers and Airbnb clients from London and New York, where the pest is commonplace.

OFFSIDE What happens on Twitter…

Wouter Beke is not only the mayor of Leopoldsburg in Limburg, he’s also the president of the CD&V party.

So he’s a fairly active Twitter user, and last week, amid messages of congratulations to party colleague Marianne Thyssen for her appointment as a vice-chair of the European People’s Party and to DEME as Enterprise of the Year, he suddenly tweeted what seemed like a more personal message – complete with spelling mistake.

“Kim is verlieft op Sander” – Kim is in love with Sander.

No further details. The mystery deepened with subsequent tweets: “Sammiches are stupid I want chips and sweets!!!!!!”. Then: “waf waf,” accompanied by the photo you see. And finally: “I HATE school” followed by no fewer than 55 emoji depicting what can only be described as a smirking mound of poop. That one was retweeted 564 times.

The mystery was resolved when Beke tweeted: “My apologies, dear followers. Apparently my daughter (9) got a hold of my phone #notpayingattention”.

In the end, that wasn’t even true. The whole thing was a

© Filip De Smet

Mireille Aerens Most of us think it’s unfortunate that scientists have to carry out experiments on animals. There are those who feel strongly enough about it to demonstrate in front of a university, break into laboratories and free the animal subjects or simply donate to animal rights organisations.There are also researchers working on alternatives, and Mireille Aerens of Ostend was the toast of the Free University of Brussels (VUB) last week for her substantial donation to that cause. Some time ago, Aerens, who is now 81 years old and has no children, decided to leave VUB a portion of her estate.

Then she read an article about research being carried out by professor Vera Rogiers, who has developed a technique for growing human liver cells in the lab that can be used for the testing of pharmaceuticals and other chemical products. These kinds of test would take the place of mice, rats, rabbits and other lab animals. “Every animal that suffers pain is one too many,” Aerens said. “That’s why it is the duty of scientists to seek alter-

natives for animal experimentation. It’s as simple as that.”So instead of leaving VUB the money in her will, she contacted the rector, and they worked out an immediate contribution: With a donation of half a million euros, Aerens has instituted a chair, held by professor Rogiers, that will work on the technique for four years to develop it to the stage where it is reliable enough for industry to adopt it. “It’s like a fairy tale,” said Rogiers. “We’ve been working in this area for 30 years, and just when it appears that we’re on the right track, we obtain the budget to take on two doctoral students.” Last week, Aerens was the special guest of the university at a reception, where she was asked: What happens if the research hasn’t achieved the desired results by the deadline of 2020? “Then I’ll make another donation,” she replied. “It’s better to support one project than 10 different ones. One person with a lot of money can achieve more than a lot of people with a little bit.” \ Alan Hope

Flanders Today, a weekly English-language newspaper, is an initiative of the Flemish Region and is financially supported by the Flemish authorities.

The logo and the name Flanders Today belong to the Flemish Region (Benelux Beeldmerk nr 815.088). The editorial team of Flanders Today has full editorial autonomy regarding the content of the newspaper and is responsible for all content, as stipulated in the agreement between Corelio Publishing and the Flemish authorities.

© Courtesy @wbeke

publicity stunt for the website and hotline Opvoedingslijn.be (078 15 00 10), which offers parenting advice to parents and childminders at their wits’ end. The service is facing a growing number of questions from worried parents about children’s behaviour online, which gave rise to the new campaign.

Beke, a man who looks like he never hated a day of school in his life, was happy to help. \ AH

Editor Lisa Bradshaw DEPUTY Editor Sally Tipper CONTRIBUTING Editor Alan Hope sub Editor Linda A Thompson Agenda Robyn Boyle, Georgio Valentino Art director Paul Van Dooren Prepress Mediahuis AdPro Contributors Rebecca Benoot, Bartosz Brzezi´nski, Derek Blyth, Leo Cendrowicz, Katy Desmond, Andy Furniere, Diana Goodwin, Julie Kavanagh, Catherine Kosters, Toon Lambrechts, Katrien Lindemans, Ian Mundell, Anja Otte, Tom Peeters, Daniel Shamaun, Senne Starckx, Christophe Verbiest, Débora Votquenne, Denzil Walton General manager Hans De Loore Publisher Mediahuis NV

Editorial address Gossetlaan 30 - 1702 Groot-Bijgaarden tel 02 467 23 06 editorial@flanderstoday.eu subscriptions tel 03 560 17 49 subscriptions@flanderstoday.eu or order online at www.flanderstoday.eu Advertising 02 467 24 37 advertising@flanderstoday.eu Verantwoordelijke uitgever Hans De Loore

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\ POLITICS

5TH COLUMN The pen and the sword

The relationship between public broadcaster VRT and the government of Flanders has become troubled. One reason is the budgetary effort VRT has to make. That is a message that never goes down well, but there is more to the current tension than that.

Some believe that politics is tightening its grip on VRT’s news reporting. Bart De Wever, the president of N-VA and Flanders’ most influential politician, has never been a great fan of VRT’s news service, which he suspects of being a left-wing stronghold. Two recent incidents have cemented this opinion.

The first was an interview on the talk show De Afspraak, which allowed Younes Deleforterie, a returned Syria jihadi, to air his radical views without being challenged. After some majority politicians criticised this, VRT editors wcalled the interview a “faux pas” and removed it from its online platform.

But this angered VRT editorial staff, who felt that their bosses didn’t have their backs. As the editors tenuously held on to their position, Flemish media minister Sven Gatz (Open VLD) told the parliament that the new management agreement between the government and VRT will “clarify and accentuate” matters like the interview.

This was interpreted as an open political intervention in a service that prides itself on its editorial independence.

Less than a week passed before De Afspraak became the scene of yet another incident, as comedian Wouter Deprez was invited to talk about his ongoing battle in the media with environment minister Joke Schauvliege (CD&V) regarding a woodland in Genk.

Deprez accused the minister of lying, sending her cabinet into a rage. According to her spokesperson, the interview went “against all democratic principles and the public broadcaster’s mandate”. The interview, the according to the minister, lacked balance as she was not given the opportunity to reply.

Schauvliege’s criticism was so harsh that minister-president Geert Bourgeois stepped in to correct the image of political meddling. Criticism is allowed, he stated, but pressuring the staff is not. Maybe he was wary of the 1980s, when, according to legend, there was an open telephone line between the public broadcaster’s management and politicians.

At the time, journalists were penalised or even fired for being “too critical” in their political reporting. Is that the fate that awaits today’s journalists, who are often accused of not being critical enough? \ Anja Otte

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New UN training and research centre to open in Antwerp Cifal Flanders joins a network of 14 United Nations centres worldwide Alan Hope More articles by Alan \ flanderstoday.eu

F

landers has marked the 70th anniversary of the United Nations with the announcement of a new training centre, Cifal Flanders, which will become part of an international network of 14 centres. The centres are part of Unitar, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, based in Geneva.

Cifal (International Centre for the Training of Authorities and Leaders) has centres across the world, including Poland, Scotland, Brazil, South Africa, the US, Algeria and South Korea. The centres “provide innovative training throughout the world and serve as hubs for the exchange of knowledge amongst government officials, the private sector and civil society”.

The Antwerp International Training Centre on Corporate Opportunities (Antwerp-ITCCO), launched in 2012, has now been recognised as a Cifal centre, which will be fully operational early next year. “With this official recognition of Cifal Flanders, the city of Antwerp sees one of its sustainability partners grow into a fullyfledged UN training centre,” commented city alderman Ludo Van Campenhout, one of the founders of Antwerp-ITCCO. “As a founding partner of Antwerp-ITCCO, I consider this a logical and necessary step,”

© Courtesy Unitar/Cifal

said Ari Epstein, CEO of the Antwerp Diamond World Council and Antwerp-ITCCO chair.

“While there is a lot of work to be done on a local level, the greatest challenges for sustainability and socially responsible enterprise will be faced at the international level.”

Cifal Flanders’ task, he said, will be to promote the values and principles of the UN, to organise leadership training and to offer support to local authorities, organisations and companies for the implementation of the UN’s 17 sustainable development goals.

Flanders will easily reach wind energy target, says Turtelboom Flanders will achieve its target of 500 operating wind turbines by the year 2020, according to energy minister Annemie Turtelboom, speaking last week at the opening of a turbine park at Gingelom in southern Limburg. By the end of this year, Flanders will have 380 wind energy installations.

“The nuclear disaster at Fukushima made me realise that we need to dispense with that sort of energy and make the shift to renewable energy,” Turtelboom said. “We originally aimed to have 500 wind turbines in operation by 2020. At the end of 2015 the count will be at

380. Given the many applications still waiting for licences, the future is looking very positive.”

The installation at Gingelom is specialised in powering trains between Leuven and Liège and between Landen and Hasselt, some 170 trains a day, or 5% of the total network. There are currently seven turbines, run by a consortium of Electrabel, rail infrastructure company Infrabel, the Brussels intercommunal IBE and the city of Sint-Truiden. The Greensky consortium will eventually place 25 more wind turbines.

Meanwhile, electricity provider Eneco and

Ghent energy co-operative EnerGent plan two turbines beside the E40 at Melle, to be financed by a form of crowdfunding. Eneco will build the turbines, good for the consumption of 4,500 households, to be ready in about a year. At that stage, EnerGent will become a partner, taking a 20% stake in the project with about €650,000 raised from its members.

The Melle project is the first time Eneco has worked with a co-operative. The plan provides for a fairer distribution of costs and benefits between developers and local residents, EnerGent chairman John Vandaele said. / AH

Court bans Polar Foundation from Princess Elisabeth base

Vilvoorde city council wants recognition as “central city”

A court in Brussels has issued an injunction against polar explorer Alain Hubert and his International Polar Foundation (IPF), preventing them from visiting the Princess Elisabeth polar base in the Antarctic. Permission for the organisation to use the SES Astra system, which allows the base to be operated remotely, has also been revoked.

The IPF went to court to contest a new law that changes the structure of the polar station, virtually wiping out the role of the IPF in its operations. “This ruling is confirmation that our restructuring of the polar base was a lawful decision,” commented Elke Sleurs, federal minister for science policy, under whose department the base falls. “The court recognised that there are two parallel expeditions being organised and that this could give rise to difficulties.”

The court’s ruling puts an end to Hubert’s plans to return to the South Pole and leaves the field open for AntartiQ, a private company based in Wervik, West Flanders. AntartiQ will act as technical operator for the government-backed expedition, preparations for which are “almost complete,” Sleurs said.

AntarctiQ was created by two of Hubert’s former collaborators. The company was selected by the council of ministers in September to lead the expedition. Hubert, a leading polar explorer and founder of IPF, accused the government of being “a Mafia-like state” and of not respecting its own laws. / AH

The City of Vilvoorde has threatened to take legal steps against the government of Flanders to be considered a centrumstad, or central city. According to the city council, the lack of the designation is costing the city €519,000 this year alone.

A central city is considered to provide services such as education, health care and commerce not only to its own inhabitants but also to surrounding municipalities. Thirteen Flemish cities are designated as centrumsteden: Aalst, Antwerp, Bruges, Genk, Ghent, Hasselt, Kortrijk, Leuven, Mechelen, Ostend, Roeselare, Sint-Niklaas and Turnhout.

“It’s absolutely not clear what the criteria are to be a centrumstad,” said mayor Hans Bonte. “For a long time we were told that Vilvoorde is too small, but now, with almost 43,000 inhabitants, we’re bigger than Turnhout. Flemish Brabant has only one central city, with none at all in the difficult Halle-Vilvoorde region. The other provinces are a good deal better off.”

Vilvoorde offers employment for 30,000 people, the council argues, while also facing the major urban problems associated with its proximity to Brussels, including radicalisation, slum landlords and overcrowding. Yet Vilvoorde is facing a cut in its budget of €519,000 this year – cuts that the 13 central cities escape.

Bonte has asked the Halle-Vilvoorde Future Forum, a co-operation between 35 mayors in the Halle-Vilvoorde area, to address the question. He will not rule out, he said, a judicial procedure before the Council of State. / AH

\ COVER STORY

october 28, 2015

Finding light in the darkness Team of volunteers grant sick patients one last wish

ambulancewens.be

continued from page 1

tal or care home in their ambulance and fulfil their wish. There’s always a nurse and a paramedic on hand – sometimes in the background, sometimes joining in – in case they’re needed.

Only when the patient has decided they’re ready do they make the return journey.

“It’s the patient who decides how long the wish will take,” says Jan. “We never know what time we’ll finish. We always tell them, today is your day. We’re not there tapping our watch and saying: ‘Hey, come on. It’s six o’clock, time to go’.” But for many, a couple of hours is enough.

Aside from the emotional toll, it must be draining running this enterprise alongside a full-time job. “Not at all. It really gives me so much energy,” Miet insists. “It’s a very special experience, for the patients and the families, but for us, too.”

It gives this same energy to people at the end of their life and allows a family the chance to say a proper goodbye. “Sometimes the family will call us and say that the patient can’t do it after all, that they’re too tired,” says Jan. “But we know it brings them comfort to do it.”

In the four years since they started, Miet

It’s really powerful; often I’m there with tears in my eyes and the hairs on the back of my neck standing up and Jan have granted about 100 wishes to people from all over Flanders. Ambulance Wens’ Facebook page has 7,500 fans, and it’s regularly updated with moving stories and photos.

Their first-ever patient was Martha, a woman from Vliermaalroot, near Hasselt, who wanted to put her feet in the sea, sit on a terrace in Blankenberge and eat mussels.

She even found the strength to ride a pony along the beach.

“Then last month we had a woman, she was about 30, who had two young children who she wanted to take back to school after the summer holidays,” says Miet. “So we arranged it with the school, picked her up and took her there. And there was a mum who was in palliative care who wanted to be there on a Wednesday afternoon when her children arrived home from school. It’s such a normal, everyday thing, but it meant so much to them.”

Another patient from Antwerp wanted to see his hometown one last time, so Ambulance Wens took him and his family to the roof of the MAS museum on a glorious autumn day, from where he saw the whole city spread out before him. He passed away two days later.

How does it feel to be with someone during the last few hours of their life? “It’s incredible, really incredible. I can’t describe it,” says Jan. “It’s really powerful; often I’m there with tears in my eyes and the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.”

“It’s so wonderful to see them enjoy every

minute of the day,” adds Miet. “They have a special sparkle in their eyes. They know they’re going to die, and most of the time they’re ready.”

Despite progressive legislation on euthanasia and a high standard of palliative care, talking about death is still something of a taboo. “People need to learn to talk about it with their families more because it’s always difficult for the people left behind,” says Jan. “But professionally, palliative care here is really very good.”

The relationship between doctor and patient is different to what the patients share with Ambulance Wens volunteers, explains Jan. “We listen a lot; we act almost like psychologists at times because people get to this point, and they want to talk.”

“Some of the conversations I’ve had with people, I will always remember,” adds Miet.

“They talk to you about everything they’ve learned, what’s worried them, and sometimes they offer advice.”

One woman told Miet: “If I could tell you just one thing, it would be to do what you love.

Don’t worry about what other people think.

Do it for yourself.”

“You have to remember that the time you’re spending with them is really the last moments of their life,” says Miet, “and it’s incredible to be sharing it.”

Two young women can attest to the difference a service like Ambulance Wens makes to the family left behind. Ambulance Wens arranged for Jessica, a young wife and mother from Diepenbeek, to meet singer and TV personality Koen Wauters at the recording of a TV show. Photos show a smiling young woman in what should have been the prime of her life, enjoying a night out with her sister and husband.

“When Jessica heard what had been arranged for her, she was so looking forward to it,” her sister Kirsten recalls. “To get away from it all:

© Photos courtesy Ambulance Wens

The final wish of Martha, Ambulance Wens’ first patient, was to put her feet in the sea (top); Jan and Miet Schraepen run Ambulance Wens with the help of dozens of volunteers and rely entirely on donations (above)

first a nice dinner, then meeting Koen Wauters and Jonas van Geel, experiencing the show. And all this with proper medical care if she needed it.

“She enjoyed the meet-and-greet so much; she was really beaming. It was an escape from the harsh reality. That evening when we came home, she was exhausted, but it was so worth it. Afterwards she looked back on it as such a happy experience, and so did we. It’s something we’ll always remember, a unique memory thanks to Ambulance Wens.”

The father of Nele, 26, from Alken wanted to spend one last day in his garden with his wife and daughters (pictured on cover). “He’d been in palliative care for a few weeks, and he just wanted to come home and spend some time in his garden and really say farewell,” Nele recalls.

“Friends, family and neighbours came round,” she continues. “He drank a beer and chatted and gave everyone advice. He loved to chat, and he always said: ‘When I can’t talk any more, I want to go’. He stayed all afternoon and evening until the sun went down.

The whole day he was so full of life, and that was enough for him, and for us.”

Two days later was Father’s Day. “My mother was with him at the hospital, and she called us to say it didn’t look good,” says Nele. “He died that night. At the funeral, I was in a bit of a daze, and the wish was the only thing I could remember. That was one of the last images I had of my dad. He was at home, we all gave him a big hug, and that was our farewell. Without it, I wouldn’t have felt I’d had a real chance to say goodbye.”

\5

\ BUSINESS

week in business Air Brussels Airlines The airline is launching Loop, a frequent flyer programme that allows up to five family members to earn points on flights within Europe. Meanwhile, the airline’s traffic has increased by 12.4% for the first nine months of this year compared to the same period in 2014.

Banking Saxo The Danish online banking group is closing its local affiliate Saxo Bank and transferring the customer portfolios to its Dutch and French subsidiaries.

Dredging Deme The Antwerp-based dredging group, which won Belgium’s Dutch-speaking Enterprise of the Year award this week, is bidding for the €600 million project to double capacity of the Coo hydraulic power station in the Ardennes to some 1,200 megawatts. Deme would need to build additional retaining lakes upstream from the power station to stock water.

Engineering TPF The Brussels-based engineering and infrastructure consulting group has acquired 85% of the Portuguese Cenor research consultancy and will merge it with its own local TPF Planege affiliate.

Packaging Datwyler The Swiss-based packaging group is investing a further €25 million to increase capacity of its production unit in Alken, Limburg, specialised in sealed packages for the automobile and pharmaceutical sectors.

Supermarkets Colruyt The Halle-based supermarket chain has plans to open a second Cru outlet in Ghent early next year, following the successful launch of the concept in Overijse last year.

The Cru stores sell artisanal products in a marketplace atmosphere. The group hopes to open a further 20 such outlets throughout the country over the next five years.

Technology SoftKinetic The Brussels-based motion control and video software developer has been acquired

by Sony. The Japanese company wants to incorporate SoftKinetic’s technology into its PlayStation products and into its 3D self-drive features for vehicles.

\6

Smart tills law postponed

Federal government must amend legislation on “smart” cash registers Alan Hope More articles by Alan \ flanderstoday.eu

T

he federal government will have to amend its legislation on the obligatory “smart” cash registers for the food industry, after the law was struck down by the Council of State last week.

The law was the government’s attempt to tackle undeclared work in the restaurant and cafe industries. The law obliges all premises used for food service to have a special intelligent cash register that identifies every member of staff using it.

The register is required in all premises that make 10% of their total turnover from the sale of food.

The aim was to introduce the register by January.

However, the 10% rule was specified by VAT tax administrators and is not specified in the legislation, which notes only businesses that “regularly” serve meals. Industry federation Horeca

© Ingimage

Vlaanderen took the case to the Council of State, arguing that since the term “regularly” was not defined, the law left itself open to arbitrary decisions.

In August, the auditor of the Council of State argued that the case was proven; the full council has now followed his advice. According to federal finance minister Johan Van Overtveldt, the government had expected the council’s decision and prepared the necessary changes to the law. “I will be presenting a proposal to the government very shortly,” he said.

The new law is expected to meet another objection to the previous law, on the grounds of equality. Horeca Vlaanderen objected that some businesses were being forced to introduce the cash registers, while, under the 10% rule, others would escape it. The new law is expected to cover all premises serving food, excepting those that provide only bar snacks such as crisps, sausages or peanuts.

Competition for payment service Worldline comes to Belgium

Port of Antwerp announces new sustainability award

A new competitor on the market of electronic payments management is about to arrive in Belgium. Adyen International Payment Services, based in Amsterdam, promises to avoid the problems that have plagued market-leader Worldline in recent weeks.

On at least two occasions in the last two months, Worldline has suffered a breakdown – in the first case for several days, in the second case for less than an hour.

Retailers that accept electronic payments found the money paid by the client was not transferred to their account, causing serious cash-flow problems and, in some cases, forcing retailers to stop accepting electronic payments.

Adyen has been in business for nine years and counts Facebook, Netflix and Dropbox among its clients for payment services.

The company claims to offer a simpler service than anything currently available. “Our prices are competitive, but we compete more on the level of qual-

The Port Authority of Antwerp has announced the creation of a new sustainability award, to be given to one of the port businesses for the first time in 2016.

Last week the Port Authority presented its third sustainability report. The first report in 2012 was considered a baseline, setting out the challenges for the coming years. It was named Best Belgian Sustainability Report by the Institute of Auditors.

The second report, released in late 2013, set out seven major themes under the headings People, Planet and Prosperity. The third report, the Port Authority said, “has grown into a touchstone for the port of Antwerp’s ambition to be a front-runner in the creation of sustainable added value”.

The report looks at 80 indicators, ranging from legislation to water consumption and client privacy, as well as the safety of the 60,000 port workers. The figures reveal a reduc-

© Courtesy Bancontact.com

ity,” commented Julien Marlier, Adyen’s manager for Belgium.

Adyen already has an agreement with Bancontact/Mister Cash, the payment card system used

by Belgian banks.

Worldline has a virtual monopoly of the Belgian payments market. The bank BNP Paribas Fortis, however, has started offering business clients its own terminals, which use the Swissbased Six Payment Services.

Large customers like Colruyt and Ikea have also moved away to the competition. Last year Worldline turned over €1.15 billion, showing growth of 2.8%, under the forecast of 3-4%. / AH

tion in the number of workplace accidents, the growth of cleaner transport and an increase in company investment in sustainability research.

Advances include a new liquid natural gas (LNG) service station from Antwerp Distribution and Product Operations to supply a fleet of 12 LNG trucks.

That figure is expected to rise to 40. Gyproc Belgium, meanwhile, created an artificial “wadi” – a broad channel dug to catch and recycle surface water to prevent it from infiltrating groundwater.

To stress its commitment to sustainability, the port, together with the Flemish Chamber of Commerce Voka and the Left Bank Management Company will give an award in 2016 to the most successful sustainability project devised by one of the port area’s companies. A full prospectus for the award will be published later this year. / AH

AB InBev invests €5.7 million in production of Hoegaarden

103 accused in record diamond tax fraud trial

Leuven-based AB InBev is investing €5.7 million in increasing the brewing capacity of its Hoegaarden wheat beer by one-third, to meet increased demand, particularly in export markets.

Hoegaarden, brewed in the Flemish Brabant town of the same name, is enjoying a boom in popularity even as pilsner-type beers such as Stella and Budweiser – the mainstay of AB InBev’s business – are in worldwide decline.

Hoegaarden is sold in 70 countries, with Asia a major growth market.

The investment will include new fermentation tanks, yeast propagation tanks, a centrifuge and pasteurisation equipment. Works will also be carried out on the warm chamber, where refermentation takes place, the cooling capacity and the site laboratory.

“We are delighted to be able to announce this new investment for the Hoegaarden brewery,” said Eric Lauwers, business unit president for AB InBev Benelux. “The original Hoegaarden white beer as well as the new Hoegaarden Rosé are enjoyed enormously in Belgium, the Netherlands and France.”

Works will start this week, to be completed in the second half of 2016. / AH

The biggest-ever trial for diamond fraud started in Antwerp last week, with 103 defendants accused of operating a system that cheated the government out of half a billion euros in taxes in five years.

The prosecution alleges that the diamond transporter Monstrey Worldwide Services set up four circuits that allowed its customers to import and export diamonds without paying tax. Representatives of Monstrey and 36 diamond trading companies stand together in the dock. Among them is the leading company Rosy Blue and its owner, Dilip Mehta, who was made a baron by King Albert in 2006.

The case came to light in 2005 when Monstrey couriers were found in possession of large sums of cash without being able to give a satisfactory explanation of where it came from. The accused face charges of forgery, tax fraud, money laundering and criminal conspiracy.

The court has scheduled 16 sittings to hear arguments, including 67 hours of pleas from the defence. The trial is expected to finish in about four weeks, barring delays. / AH

\ INNOVATION

october 28, 2015

Ready, set, go

week in innovation

At home and abroad, iMinds puts start-ups on fast track to success Andy Furniere More articles by Andy \ flanderstoday.eu

creatifi.eu

Flanders’ digital research institute iMinds has co-ordinated an EU project that aims to put creative companies on the road to success by surrounding them with veteran entrepreneurs and offering them technical and financial assistance.

M

ultiple Flemish creative and start-up companies recently received a big, fat boost in the form of cash, entrepreneurial networks and technical knowhow. Together with many other companies based across Europe, these local entrepreneurs were coached as part of CreatiFI, a project funded by the European Union that aims to accelerate innovation processes in the creative industry, such as companies working in the cultural, media, arts and advertising sectors.

The project, which is being co-ordinated by Flanders’ digital research centre iMinds, will also help 20 innovations reach the global market next year. Several dozen European companies have received financial, technological, entrepreneurial and networking assistance as part of the CreatiFI project. “The 59 projects were selected from 332 applications.

That demonstrates that there was a big need for our guidance,” says Ingrid Willems of iMinds.

The majority of the selected companies were start-ups. “In the first phase of CreatiFI, we focused on helping companies to develop new ideas into products that are ready to be launched on the market,” she says.

The chosen projects each received up to €50,000 in funding, but another crucial aspect of the CreatiFI programme is the access it provided to so-called Fiware technology, which was created with funding from the European Commission.

© Photo courtesy iMinds

To help them adopt an entrepreneurial mind-set, iMinds introduced the CreatiFI participants to experienced entrepreneurs and investors

them to experienced entrepreneurs and investors. “Among other things, they helped them develop a realistic business plan and a convincing pitch for investors,” says Willems.

Finally, the CreatiFI programme also helped the entrepreneurs expand their networks. On the one hand, participants learned from each other by exchanging their experiences. On the other, the European dimension of CreatiFI helped put the projects in the broader international spotlight.

“Thanks to us, many initiatives

They helped them develop a realistic business plan and a convincing pitch for investors “Fiware is like a digital toolbox full of technological instruments that creative enterprises can use to fine-tune their products,” Willems explains. “It includes, for example, technology that makes it easier for users to log on to digital platforms.”

To help the CreatiFI participants adopt an entrepreneurial mindset, the iMinds team introduced

attracted the interest of global players in the creative sector,” says Willems.

For Jan Hameeuw of the Brussels-based post-production enterprise The Fridge, a larger network was the most important result of his participation in the project.

Thanks to CreatiFI, Hameeuw was able to attend events where he learned to speak the language of

investors.

“Like many creative enthusiasts, I used to have the tendency to talk up a storm to investors about the content of my projects, but now I get quickly down to business,” he says. “If you can’t offer a clear marketing strategy or predict the return on investment, a conversation with investors quickly comes to a conclusion.”

CreatiFI also helped the Brussels company develop its AtEx (AssetExchange) product. AtEx is an online service that makes it easier for developers of games and animated movies to transfer their creations from a design environment – for instance, a 3D digital workshop – to the virtual world.

“Where the integration of new elements used to take days, it only takes a few minutes with our new service,” says Hameeuw.

“That makes the whole production process shorter and, thus, less costly.”

Hameeuw and his team have already used AtEx to produce two animated series for children’s channel Ketnet, The Baron and ZOOks. “AtEx can make it easier to develop such transmedia projects and make them more accessible,” Hameeuw explains.

With the help of CreatiFI, the Ghent company Limecraft developed a new online production

platform that makes it easier to quickly share and evaluate highdefinition media.

“Because we can more efficiently compress data on the platform, the videos can be loaded faster,” explains Nico Oorts of Limecraft.

“So we are addressing a need felt by many producers faced with an increasing amount of video material and consumer demand for video.”

CreatiFI helped Limecraft create a specific business model and analyse market opportunities. The new tool, Rush, has already been used in the production of two Flemish movies due to be released soon.

CreatiFI also supported several other initiatives. The Brussels company OpenGraphy, for example, developed the social media monitoring tool GraphyStories for news agencies. “It will help journalists quickly determine which topics are starting to trend,” Willems explains.

For OpenTelly, the help of CreatiFI proved essential to getting a foot in the door of the US tech industry. The Leuven company created a player that allows videos to be streamed online, with no browser plug-in required.

MmmooOgle, another CreatiFI participant, is a digital platform that allows farmers, their clients and veterinarians to access and exchange information about dairy cows. “Because of the expansion of farms, many farmers are no longer able to follow up the evolution of each individual cow on their own,” says Willems. “Via this system, which bears resemblances to Facebook, the status of cows is continuously updated and communicated.”

The majority of the companies that participated in the first phase of CreatiFI have also submitted an application to be admitted to the second phase. The application process for this second stage is ongoing.

Until September of next year, 20 selected companies will receive coaching to bring their products to the market as quickly as possible. They will also receive up to €100,000 in funding.

Meanwhile, iMinds is already looking further ahead to the development of a new EU project, The Creative Ring. This will be a digital network that allows creative entrepreneurs, universities, local administrations and ICT companies to share their knowhow. iMinds envisions The Creative Ring as an online community where solutions for infrastructure, innovative ICT systems and new applications are brought together through open collaboration.

Blood test detects Down’s during pregnancy

Flemish company Multiplicom has brought the first commercial blood test for the detection of Down’s syndrome during pregnancy to the Belgian market. Multiplicom, a spin-off of Antwerp University, is based in Niel, Antwerp province. University hospitals have developed their own tests to detect Down’s syndrome, but until now other labs have depended on foreign kits that had to be sent to the US for analysis. In both cases, the results took about three weeks.

With the new test, called Clarigo, researchers will have results in about three days.

Clarigo, which costs about €400, tracks the baby’s DNA in the mother’s blood, searching for deviations on specific chromosomes. During evaluations, the non-invasive test has not missed one case of Down’s syndrome.

UHasselt spinoff to clean up contaminated soil Hasselt University has created the spin-off Bio2clean within its Centre for Environmental Sciences (CMK). The company’s expertise is in phytoremediation, the use of plants to clean up contaminated soil and groundwater, which is cheaper than classic remediation, doesn’t disrupt the soil ecosystem, doesn’t require transport and works with solar energy. The spin-off ’s work will entail bringing the product to market, consulting, project management and training. There are about 12,500 contaminated terrains in Flanders, of which 2,700 are being cleaned up, CMK said in a statement.

Fine dust dangerous for foetuses Exposure to high concentrations of fine dust during pregnancy can be harmful to the foetus, according to Antwerp University researcher Sylvie Remy. Her study of the subject is the first of its kind in Flanders. Through blood and umbilical cord samples, researchers have determined that fine dust confuses the gene activity of the foetus. Some cells of newborn babies showed either an excess or a shortage of certain key molecules.

“These kinds of deviations interrupt blood vessel formation in the placenta, resulting in a reduction of the flow of food substances,” Remy told De Standaard. The level of disruption of cell activity is highest in areas with high concentrations of fine dust. \ AF

\7

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Sign up now for our daily and weekly newsletters with local headlines, events and features, tailor-made for expats in Belgium Subscribe for free at www.thebulletin.be

\ EDUCATION

october 28, 2015

Science meets athletics

week in education

Ghent University unveils its brand-new sport science laboratory

A near science fiction experience awaits athletes at Ghent University’s new Sports Science Laboratory

Small children with parents seeking asylum in Flanders should get lessons in the Okan reception classes, according to the Catholic education network, the community education network GO! and the Education Secretariat for Cities and Municipalities. There are about 500 children younger than five living in asylum centres in Flanders, and the region will receive about 7,000 underage asylum-seekers this year.

Children older than five will be placed in Okan classes for primary and secondary school students, which provide Dutch lessons and psychological counselling.

When students are ready, they are mainstreamed into regular education. The networks are now asking the government to provide Okan classes to under-fives.

says, can help people with severe respiratory problems such as patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). De Clercq: “A COPD patient might walk 15 minutes with the exoskeleton without having any difficulties breathing.”

The researchers at the lab are an interdisciplinary team, but the lab also works with less sportsminded disciplines from the university, such as engineers and musicologists. “Everyone knows that music and sport go very well together,” says De Clercq. “We’re investigating how we can use music as a medium to provide biofeedback to athletes.”

Many joggers, he continues, “have poor running styles – they often jolt too much when they run, causing injury. There is already technology to adapt running techniques in real time, but this requires the jogger to keep paying attention. So it’s not very effective. We aim to develop biofeedback that adapts the running style more naturally, almost unconsciously.”

The mantra of top-class sport is that it pushes boundaries. To use the Olympic motto: faster, higher, stronger. So are professional athletes welcome in the lab to analyse their bodies, move-

Flanders’ secondary schools are seeing the start of the government’s anti-radicalisation plan for schools, in which a network of experts in Islam will engage pupils and staff.

Khalid Benhaddou, an imam and teacher of Islam in Ghent, will lead the team of 20 teachers and experts. “I have been invited into schools often over the last year, but this support is now integrated in a full programme,” said Benhaddou. “Teachers often don’t know how to deal with the phenomenon, mostly because they have little knowledge about Islamic sensitivities.”

Benhaddou and his team will focus on prevention among Islamic and non-Islamic pupils.

Senne Starckx More articles by Senne \ flanderstoday.eu

I

n 1974, one of Belgium’s top sailors locked himself away for days in a laboratory at Ghent University. He put himself into a dinghy – the typical small, single-handed boat used in the Olympic Finn class –mounted on a moveable axis.

Then he attached electrodes all over his body.

Finally he started sailing like he was on the open seas instead of in a lab, leaning over the sides to balance the boat and steer it in the right direction.

After the training session, he studied the electromyography he had produced. It showed which muscles he had used – and which he hadn’t. He took the results home to adapt his sailing style.

That sailor was Jacques Rogge, now worldfamous as the former president of the International Olympic Committee. Last week, Rogge was in Ghent for the opening of the university’s new Sport Science Laboratory; the lab is also named after Rogge, an alumnus and honorary doctor of Ghent University.

The lab brings together three fields of experimental sports science: exercise physiology and nutrition, biomechanics and fitness and health. The building, which has a tennis court on its roof, is brimming with high-tech, even futuristic, sports equipment.

One of the showpieces is a moving walkway built inside the surrounding floor. It’s full of sensors that precisely measure all the forces acting on it by a walking or running human. And unlike standard fitness equipment, the walkway has a split belt.

“That’s so we can measure the force from the right and from the left foot separately,” explains Dirk De Clercq, professor in sport biomechanics. “That’s important because our feet touch the floor simultaneously. By performing two separate measurements, we can record the impact on our feet much better.”

De Clercq is experimenting with an exoskeleton – a device people can wear – that has pneumatic muscles to support the stepping of the feet.

“We’ve already shown that the exoskeleton makes walking less demanding and thus more energyefficient. An adult wearing it consumes 10% less oxygen while walking.”

Devices derived from exoskeleton technology, he

© Hilde Christiaens

ments and techniques? “Of course,” says De Clercq, “but we don’t work directly with them. We provide expertise and equipment. The athlete’s trainer has to decide which results to take home.”

One of the facilities in the lab that will certainly charm athletes with an eye to the upcoming Olympics in Rio de Janeiro is the climate chamber. “Athletes can prepare themselves here for warmer conditions,” explains training assistant Maarten Lievens. “They can learn how much and what kind of body fluid they lose. With our dehydration machine, we can measure how much electrolytes, like sodium and potassium, they lose during practice.”

And companies can also sharpen their talents in the lab. Kristof De Mey’s business card says “sports technology business developer”. De Mey, who has a PhD in sports technology, is responsible for communicating research done in the lab.

“We offer access to expertise and research equipment in areas like nutrition, footwear, camera technology and even gaming. Start-ups can come to us for advice and to set up innovative projects.

The lab’s philosophy is that research leads to innovation and practical applications.”

Q&A

DIGITAL2020.BE

Steve Muylle is a marketing and digital strategy professor at Vlerick Business School, who is working with international management consultancy Accenture on a framework that will help companies exploit digital technologies more effectively What is the Digital 20/20 Chair and what will it do?

It’s a three-year partnership between Accenture and Vlerick to study digital technology’s role in business performance. At a macroeconomic level, Accenture’s digital density index measured digital technology’s penetration of a country’s industries and economy. We’re customising it for Belgium and benchmarking it against neighbouring countries to understand how adopting digital technology drives economies. At a company level, we focus on business-to-businessto-consumer and how companies can use technology to learn about

Reception classes needed for youngest refugees

tion. The key is making it clear what you’re doing with the data.

If privacy becomes an issue, it’ll come out in our research. It’s good for Accenture to have an academic partner, and it’s good for us to have a business partner because we’ll get access to industry knowledge and expertise, including pioneers and companies willing to experiment.

consumers and then best use that knowledge.

Exactly what technologies?

The most obvious is social media.

You can talk about your products directly with consumers.

Say you’re a company that makes fibres for clothing manufacturers.

You can make the customer aware of your role in the value chain, of how companies are linked and enlist industry opinion-makers – in this case, fashion houses and designers – to increase demand for clothes made with your fibres. Then there’s the “internet of things”, whereby a company can place sensors in products

to communicate information to itself and its partners, and potentially redesign the industry ecosystem.

Is this project strictly business, or will it consider consumer privacy?

If people opt in to social media, they are providing the informa-

So who sits in this “digital chair”?

Well, I do. We call it the Digital 20/20 Chair to invoke a “perfect vision” for those decision-makers who have ambitious plans for 2020, namely the European Commission with its Digital Agenda for Europe and Belgium’s minister for the digital agenda, Alexander De Croo, with his Digital Belgium plan.

Anti-radicalisation programme starts

Vlerick climbs nine places in FT’s top 100 For the third year in a row, Vlerick Business School has moved up in the annual Financial Times Executive MBA Ranking. The school, with sites in Leuven, Ghent and Brussels, has climbed from 82nd last year to 73rd this year. Antwerp Management School dropped in the list, from 59th last year to 67th this year. The Executive MBA Ranking rates the top 100 business schools worldwide, based on a survey of schools and their students who graduated in 2012. The data measures how successful alumni have been in their career in terms of salary, seniority and achievements. Vlerick and Antwerp are the only Belgian institutions to make the list. \ Andy Furniere

\ Interview by Lee Gillette

\9

\ LIVING

week in activities Theater op de Markt Five days of the best international circus artists presenting short acts and full-length shows. Reservation recommended for ticketed shows. 30 October to 3 November, Provinciaal Domein Dommelhof, Toekomstlaan 5, Neerpelt \ theateropdemarkt.be

Halloween in Puyenbroek The fun starts in the afternoon with a haunted house, kids’ activities, entertainment and games. After dark, enjoy the pyrotechnic show and fireworks, then set off with torches on a spooky walk through the park. 31 October, from 15.00, Domein Puyenbroek, Puyenbrug 1, Wachtebeke (East Flanders), €8 \ puyenbroeck.be

Wonderground in C-Mine A challenging underground adventure for kids.

Take a treasure map, try to solve the clues and find the secret code in the old mine tunnels. 31 October to 11 November, 10.00-17.00, C-Mine Expedition, Evence Coppéelaan 91, Genk, €6 \ c-mine.be

Halloween in Blankenberge More than a week of seasonal activities, including a Halloween carnival, the biggest Halloween parade in Flanders, a children’s parade and party, pumpkin carving and a spooky Halloween spectacle with music and fireworks. Until 8 November; across Blankenberge, free \ blankenberge.be

Kattekwad A mischievous black cat named Sotiz is your host for two days of family fun in Bokrijk, the open-air museum. Do all the things you’re not allowed to do at home on the Mischief Route, be entertained on the Talent Route or solve the puzzle on the Story Route. 1-2 November, 10.0018.00, Bokrijk, Bokrijklaan 1, Genk, €12 adults/€10 kids \ kattekwaad.nu

Reptile Safari Bring your flashlight for a guided walk in search of snakes, lizards and crocodiles at the Reptile Rescue Centre, then enjoy an outdoor BBQ and get your fortune told by Madame Ayenna. 31 October, 18.0023.00, SOS Reptile Rescue, Oostendsesteenweg 90, Houtave, €5 \ sosreptiel.be

\ 10

Gist reborn

Dario Puglia’s Antwerp restaurant rises from the flames Clodagh Kinsella More articles by Clodagh \ flanderstoday.eu

RESTAURANTGIST.BE

T

ransparency is often invoked in the restaurant world – most modish menus today come burdened by exhaustive supplier lists – but rarely is it manifested so literally, or so lightly, as at Antwerp restaurant Gist, which was relaunched this month in a sleek new home.

On opening night, the wrap-around glass facade disclosed a buzzing scene within, as well-heeled locals quaffed prosecco in the circular dining room. Beyond a backlit column, another wall of glass separated the revellers from the chefs – the latter doubling as entertainment, as they juggled flaming pans amid giant jars of preserves and futuristic hardware.

“It’s the most open kitchen I know,” chef Dario Puglia tells me, a few days later. “The glass comes down to the work surface. There’s no wall or other separation. I wanted a place where customers could see everything we do, see the moment when their plates are born.”

Like a televised delivery, it’s a rather magical process: the hermetically sealed space ensures that no smells linger on customers’ clothes.

Before its rebirth, Gist – the Dutch word for “yeast” – occupied a relatively modest venue in Antwerp’s upmarket ’t Zuid district. It was originally called Gigi Il Bullo (Gigi the Rascal) but the clownish Italian name gave the false impression of a simple pizza and pasta joint.

Gist seemed like a better fit for Italian Puglia’s earthy-yet-haute cuisine – as did a bigger, bolder

© Dirk Kerstens

Transparent in every way: chef Dario Puglia in the new Gist

canvas in the city centre. “I did it just to become better,” he says, chortling. “Actually, the plan was to move to Paris, but Antwerp is becoming increasingly famous for its culinary scene. We now have huge restaurants like The Jane. I thought why not just go for it here?”

There’s no mistaking the gastronomic intent of Gist 2.0. Floating inches above medieval Kaastraat, or – aptly – Cheese Street, and with views of the castle ’t Steen, the pure, streamlined venue seems to have been transplanted from midcentury LA. At one end of the 46-seat dining

room, a corridor unspools towards an elegantly sparse bar and black marble toilets. “It used to be a highend interior showroom and, oddly, there are almost no right angles,” explains Puglia’s life-and-work partner Mieke Vandenberk. “We’ve made the space flexible. All the tables are positioned so they overlook the kitchen, but we can also rearrange things for more intimate dining, like Valentine’s Day.” Puglia sources most of his produce locally but makes room for dryaged beef from the Basque country and Danish organic ham. Since he lovingly produces almost every-

thing in-house – bread made of stone-ground ancient grain and beer, cheese from raw goat’s or Jersey milk, and sausages from small-scale organic farm meat – Gist is only open for dinner from Thursday to Monday.

Mains start at €20, and four- or six-course tasting menus are €42 to €64. “A gastronomic restaurant is usually very expensive, but we, and others in Antwerp – the young chefs at Graanmarkt 13 or L’Épicerie du Cirque – are changing that,” Puglia says. “The time when you needed €300 to go to dinner is over. Food should be fun.”

BITE Gourmet burgers in your own kitchen These days, there’s nothing all that unusual about a gourmet hamburger. Most chefs have had a go at turning something pretty simple into something fancy, usually involving truffles, foie gras or both. There’s even a chain of gourmet burger restaurants operating across Flanders, from Knokke-Heist to Maasmechelen.

It’s a little different when it comes to homecooking, however, with burgers in general priced somewhere between cheap and suspiciously cheap. Until now.

Supermarket chain Delhaize has launched a range of gourmet burgers in packs of two weighing 300g (making each burger 33% larger than a quarter-pounder), featuring three speciality meats: Aberdeen Angus, Limousin beef and Iberico pork.

Angus beef, from cows originating in the Scottish county of the same name, needs little introduction. The animals are tough and hardy but only medium-sized. The meat is prized for its intense flavour and marbling.

Limousin beef comes from the region of France around the city of Limoges. The meat tends to be leaner than British beef, but in hamburger form, this is less important. Fat is

generally added to ensure a moist burger.

Iberico pork comes from the same pigs that give us Iberico ham, also known as pata negra, which comes from the west and southwest of Spain.

The animals are fattened on barley and maize and allowed to forage for grass, acorns, roots and herbs, which gives the meat a unique flavour.

To test the three sorts, we made straightforward burgers with lettuce, onion slices (slightly sweated in oil), ketchup and pickle on a sesame-seed bun.

The Iberico was cooked through and turned out to be rather greasier than expected. It was difficult to get a proper sear on this meat, and, although the flavour was extraordinary, it wasn’t quite what you expect in a burger.

The two beef burgers were cooked rare and performed exactly as you’d expect: a dark, crispy crust on the outside, moist tender meat on the inside. The flavour of both was deep and intense, and even if we’d loaded up the buns with even more distractions, the meat would still have shone through. Another round with added cheese demonstrated that.

The burgers are super-sized, so a single one would be enough for most people. They’re on sale at branches of Delhaize at €14.95/kg for the two beef varieties and €18.95/kg for the pork. \ Alan Hope

october 28, 2015

Chain reaction

A new farmer’s market is shortening the food chain, one neighbour at a time Alan Hope More articles by Alan \ flanderstoday.eu

BOERENENBUREN.BE

L

ast month there were four; last week there were five; by the time you read this there will be six. They’re springing up like mushrooms after an autumn shower, and, like an autumn shower, they’ll bring you all kinds of tasty things to eat.

The concept is called a buurderij in Dutch – a play on the words “neighbour” and “farmhouse”. Think of it as Farmer’s Market 2.0.

Here’s how it works: set up a weekly market in the local area, and recruit local food producers to sell their goods. Offer an online shop window for customers during the week, and on the day of the market, they come and pick up their orders, meeting the people who supply the food they’re eating.

The idea came over the border from France, where there are about 650 such projects, via Wallonia, where there were 31 at last count. The first buurderij in Flanders was in Mechelen, followed by Meise, both of which opened last summer. Kraainem, just outside of Brussels, and Antwerp each opened one in September, followed by Wommelgem, east of Antwerp. Last Wednesday, the latest one opened in Bruges.

Meanwhile, in Brussels, the main buurderij is at Tour & Taxis, with smaller versions dotted around in several communes, including Jette, Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe and Elsene.

“The good thing about our way of working is that we can easily open new markets everywhere there are people interested in it,” says Hannes Van den Eeckhout, co-ordinator for Belgium.

“The initiative comes from the customers,” he continues. “Someone from the local area – it could be a producer – decides to start a buurderij. They then look for a suitable location and a team of producers interested in taking part and offering produce. Then they go looking for neighbours who are ready to buy their produce online on a weekly basis and come and pick it up.”

There is a structure, but each market is basically self-running. “The organisers are pretty autonomous,” Van den Eeckhout explains.

“These are local initiatives that we support

© Mélissa Martinay

Meet the producers who grow your food at a local buurderij

and that work with the web platform we developed. We try to provide some backup along with the website. But they’re local and independent.”

The concept responds to the idea – part of the Flemish government’s agricultural policy – of the korte keten, a short food chain that tries to ensure that food consumers are as close to food producers as possible.

That idea is also, of course, centuries old: In the past, no Flemish family would have dreamed of eating asparagus in October, even if it had been possible to transport it refrigerated from Peru. Despite the technological advances that allow us to do so now, for many people the trend is turning back towards seasonal eating – which also means sustainable agriculture and support for the local economy.

“We try as far as possible to find producers from close to the buurderij,” says Van den

Eeckhout. “That’s a little bit more difficult for some products, like quality meat or dairy products, which are not so easy to find in Antwerp. Then we have to look a bit farther afield – in the Kempen, for example.”

Call me a difficult customer, but I like to see and smell the food I’m about to buy, and taste it as well if possible. The idea of buying food online seems like a sterile experience.

“You can always come to the buurderij and have a look around before buying,” says Van

Buurderij in figures 6: already operating in Flanders, in 230: producers selling their wares via the Mechelen, Meise, Antwerp, Wommelgem, Kraainem and Bruges

Don’t let the chilly winds deter you: The Flemish coast is more than ice cream and beach huts. It’s also a place you can go to look at art or listen to a poetry reading.

Here’s our pick of coastal culture.

ENSOR HOUSE This bizarre museum devoted to the eccentric Ostend artist James Ensor is above a former souvenir shop. Ensor lived in this strange shop run by his aunt and uncle until his death in 1945. The ground floor is crammed with an odd collection of shells, masks and other seaside souvenirs, while the two upstairs rooms contain Ensor’s battered harmonica, along with several

creepy puppets (pictured).

bilingual

TINYURL.COM/50WEEKENDS

kept the modernist details, such as the post office counters, but added striking new elements. The building now has six performance spaces used for dance, theatre and concerts, as well as a cafe.

\ muzee.be

MU.ZEE Not many people visit the museum of contemporary art in Ostend, but it’s worth spending an hour or two in this beautiful modernist building once occupied by a co-operative department store. Displayed in calm white spaces, the collection includes works by Belgian artists, including Ensor, Constant Permeke, Léon Spilliaert and Marcel Broodthaers. But it brings the story bang up to date with raw new work by contemporaries like Jan Vercruysse and Jacqueline Mesmaeker.

in Sint-Idesbald, a district of Koksijde. It’s filled with Delvaux’s haunting and disturbing paintings of empty train stations and melancholy nude women.

PAUL DELVAUX MUSEUM Surrealist Belgian artist Paul Delvaux lived most of his life in a whitewashed fisherman’s cottage at the coast. The little house is now connected to an underground museum

DE GROTE POST Ostend’s modernist post office closed down in 1999 and lay empty for many years until the city decided to turn it into a cultural centre. Architectural firm B-Architecten

\ muzee.be

network of 45 buurderijen in Belgium

80%: of organisers at local level are 9: operating in Brussels, two of them women

50 Weekends in Flanders: Art at the coast Flanders Today has launched an e-book with ideas for how to spend a year’s worth of weekends. Visit our website to get your free copy of 50 Weekends in Flanders. We’ll also print one of our suggestions every week here, too.

den Eeckhout. “The local organiser would be glad to show you around, and you can talk to producers and ask anything you like. Then the following week you’ll have what you need to make a proper choice online.”

Another way to see before you buy is by attending opening day of your local buurderij. “When we start up, such as this week in Bruges, we open with a party and a tasting where the producers can present their wares to people for the first time

\ degrotepost.be

\ delvauxmuseum.com

KNOKKE GALLERY TRAIL Several upmarket art galleries have settled in Knokke, selling contemporary art. You’ll find several exclusive galleries on the smart Zeedijk promenade, including Antwerp dealer Ronny Van de Velde, who deals in classic modern artists like Marcel Duchamp, René Magritte and James Ensor. Look out also for Gerda vander Kerken’s Galerie Zwart Huis for exciting new work by Belgian artists and Geukens & De Vil for edgy contemporary artists in a modern space looking out to sea. \ ronnyvandevelde.com \ galeriezwarthuis.be \ geukensdevil.com

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\ ARTS

october 28, 2015

The puppet master

Roderik Six takes us into the deep dark woods – and pysche – with his latest book Rebecca Benoot More articles by Rebecca \ flanderstoday.eu

In Twin Peaks fashion, Roderik Six plays with the conventions of the thriller genre in his new novel.

Set in small-town Canada, Val is an existential drama that takes readers on a rollercoaster ride through the darkest corners of the soul

T

hree years ago, Roderik Six, a critic for Flemish publications Cutting Edge and Knack Focus, published his debut novel, Vloed (Flood). Though the apocalyptic ecodrama won him the Bronze Owl award for the best Dutch-language debut as well as the Literature Prize of West Flanders Province, the Ghent writer decided to do something completely different for his new book, Val (Fall).

“The first image I had for Val was of a man sitting in a cabin in the woods, writing,” says Six. “And this image came to me even before I wrote Vloed, so it’s been marinating for quite some time.”

It may have been his image, but he still didn’t know what to make of it.

“How did this man get there? Who is he, and what is he writing? Over the years, I accumulated more images, but that was the core idea.”

In the novel, Doc, a young doctor, leaves the hustle and bustle of Montreal in search of a more quiet life. He settles in the rural town of Val to take over the practice of the village doctor, who has just died.

After he moves into the former doctor’s house (in the middle of the woods), he soon begins to realise that nothing in this town is what it seems.

© Studio Edelweiss

Roderik Six didn’t know ahead of time who was going to turn out to be the killer in his new novel

Val is full of colourful characters who are each battling their own demons – demons they happily share with Doc. When he discovers a gruesome 8mm film in Lyndon’s house and several women start to disappear, things take a dark turn.

Is anyone truly innocent in Val? Was Doc’s arrival really a coincidence? And what about Doc’s own demons?

Val is packed with vivid and lingering imagery, and Six’s trademark style infuses it with a distinctly

eerie atmosphere and a kind of filmic quality. “People have compared the novel to Twin Peaks, which of course is a great compliment,” the writer says.

Twin Peaks, he continues “initially claims to be a simple murder mystery, while it is in fact so much more. In Val, I attempted to play with the thriller genre, but also with that of the gothic novel and the existential novel, and, just like David Lynch, I tried to create a multi-layered story and not just

another whodunit.”

The 36-year-old author says that he focused on character development and dialogue in Val for a richer reading experience. “I have a sensory style, and I believe it’s my duty as an author to write beautiful and sumptuous prose,” he says. “It’s a challenge to get as close to reality as possible with words.”

With Val, Six wanted to write a novel steeped in tension and he has succeeded – from the first page. By using a first-person narrator, he also aimed to create instant feelings of sympathy for his character.

“In the first part of the book, Doc is shown as being a little awkward; you feel sorry for him, seeing that he still has to find his way. Once you’ve created tension and empathy, you can toy with the reader’s expectations. It soon turns out that he is anything but a softie.”

But Val isn’t a typical thriller. “It has thriller elements,” says Six, “but I tried to keep the emphasis on the literary aspect.”

In Six’s view, thriller authors tend to write with a certain audience in mind – those who ultimately want to know who the killer is. “If you as the writer knows who did it, an attentive reader also will know soon enough, making the novel predictable,” he explains. “I didn’t know who the perpetrator was going to be in Val, and I still have several possibilities. Otherwise, it would have been a pretty dull writing experience.”

Val’s open ending also allows readers to draw their own conclusions – another way the novel defies thriller conventions. “I love that everyone can have their own opin-

ion and can debate it,” says Six. By setting his second novel in Canada rather than Flanders, Six has also written a novel with international appeal. To set the right tone, he needed a desolate village with lots of woods and a coastline, something not easily found in Western Europe. But also, he says, “I never wanted to write a typical Flemish novel. If you’re going to use your imagination as an author, use it well. I live in Flanders, so why write about daily life here when you have the power to propel yourself to the other side of the world?”

Though Val’s plot thickens slowly, once the groundwork has been

I tried to create a multi-layered story and not just another whodunit laid, it takes readers on a rollercoaster ride through the darkest corners of the soul. The uncanny feel is aided by the dark and treacherous woods, a town with a macabre history, pitch-perfect prose and inhabitants with multiple skeletons in their closets.

At times, things can get pretty gruesome, but, ultimately, Val is a thrilling existential drama. ) is published in Dutch Val (

by Prometheus

More new books this month Zeik en de moord op de poetsvrouw van Hugo Claus (Zeik and the Murder of Hugo Claus’ Cleaning Lady) Herman Brusselmans • Prometheus Herman Brusselmans’ latest novel is a sequel to his 1960s thriller experiment Zeik, which centred on the eponymous laid-back inspector and his equally whimsically named brothers in arms. When the house cleaner of the renowned author Hugo Claus is brutally murdered, everyone becomes a suspect, even Claus. Luckily, Zeik and his fellow Ghent inspectors are ready to crack the case and take readers on a crazy adventure that is both a parody and celebration of the whodunit.

Hotel zonder sterren (No-Star Hotel) Lara Taveirne • Prometheus Fresh from winning this year’s Bronze

Owl for her debut novel De kinderen van Calais (The Children of Calais), Lara Taveirne is back with another novel about awakening. After 10 years apart, Andreas and his ex decide to spend one weekend together in the Bussaco Palace Hotel, the most beautiful hotel in Europe.

They once loved each other furiously, but both married someone else. Hotel zonder sterren is a beautiful love story that explores the origins of the choices we make.

Vraag het aan de bliksem (Ask the Lightening) Carmien Michels • Polis Carmien Michels’ second novel is a contemporary coming-of-age story in which the optimistic and resourceful Danny tries to make sense of the world.

Longing for meaning, he acts as loving and helpful as possible to the people who cross his path, only to realise that

kindness isn’t getting him very far. With this intriguing and well-written novel centred on an original and cunning protagonist, Michels has earned her place in the Flemish literary landscape.

De vleermuismoorden (The Bat Murders) Toni Coppers • Manteau When a van full of British businessmen crashes into a bank building, inspector Liese Meerhout and her team fear the incident is part of an orchestrated attack. She soon uncovers that the crash was meant to cover up a murder. After that, no-one is safe anymore, not even Meerhout. But how do you catch a killer who has nothing to lose? A classic Coppers novel, De vleermuismoorden offers a quick, entertaining read.

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\ ARTS

week in arts & CULTURE Ozark Henry appointed UN ambassador Flemish musician Piet Goddaer, better known as Ozark Henry, has been appointed a National Goodwill Ambassador against human trafficking by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Goddaer is, according to the department’s director of public affairs, “one of Belgium’s most influential modern-day storytellers, who will help UNOCD spread the word about this horrific crime that afflicts so many vulnerable victims.” Goddaer previously served as an ambassador for Doctors Without Borders and for Belgium’s campaign against road deaths. His upcoming concerts in New York and Antwerp will help fund the UNODC’s Blue Heart campaign against human trafficking.

Carlo Bonte to auction Ensor’s “Le Crucifié” Bruges auction house Carlo Bonte will auction James Ensor’s “Le Crucifié” and an untitled portrait of an Italian noblewoman by Joseph Denis Odevaere this week. Ensor, who lived on the Flemish coast for nearly his entire life, painted “Le Crucifié” in 1900. It shows a visibly conscious Christ crucified in front of a background of blue sea and sailboats, a smattering of onlookers below.

Bidding will start at €80,000.

Odevaere was a neo-classicist who was born in Bruges in 1775. His circa 1810 oil on canvas of a woman in Italian dress is expected to fetch between €3,000 and €5,000. The auction takes place from 27-29 October. \ carlobonte.be

Sam Louwyck wins Flemish Culture Prize for Film Flanders’ annual Culture Prize for Film has been awarded to the prolific actor Sam Louwyck. Louwyck has starred or co-starred in several films over the last two years, including Flemish film D’Ardennen, which is now in cinemas, the French film Les Cowboys and the Italian film The Wonders, in which he plays the lead. He recently wrapped the Flemish film Belgica and shot scenes in the upcoming biopic Emperor about the life of Charles V. Louwyck started out as a dancer with Les Ballets C de la B in the 1990s and also sings in the band Falling Man. He is known for being a remarkably versatile actor. “He takes part in many international productions,” said the jury. “And he continues to make artistically thoughtful choices.” \ Lisa Bradshaw

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The low countries divided Ghent museum provides intriguing look at 17th-century Dutch art Ian Mundell More articles by Ian \ flanderstoday.eu

MSKGENT.BE

An exhibition at Ghent’s Museum of Fine Arts revisits a curious collection of family portraits, unfortunate peasants, farmyard beasts and extravagant Italian fantasies.

W

hile the Baroque was bursting out all over Flanders in the 17th century, the newly formed Dutch Republic to the north was keeping it real with sober still lifes and cool portraits. This division in styles is explored in The Golden Age Revisited at Ghent’s Museum of Fine Arts, drawing on work from its extensive permanent collection.

When the Low Countries split at the end of the 16th century, the south remained under the control of Spain and the Catholic church, while the north chose independence and Calvinism.

Artists in the south continued to paint religious subjects, restoring the grandeur of churches damaged during the religious war and producing Counter-Reformation propaganda. The Baroque style flourished through painters such as Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens.

The north did not have centres of artistic production to match Antwerp, Ghent and Brussels, but its merchants had plenty of money to celebrate their own achievements and their new national identity. The paintings they commissioned and bought off-the-easel were more restrained, with a tendency to realism rather than extravagant religious imagery.

As big as it is, the museum’s collection cannot offer a complete picture of the Dutch Golden Age. It contains nothing by the period’s undisputed masters, Rembrandt and Vermeer – although it does boast a fine painting by celebrated portraitist Frans Hals. An older woman dressed in the austere black and white characteristic of the period looks out at us with a stern expression that seems on the brink of sorrow.

Instead what you get are the kinds of paintings that relatively wealthy people would have had in their homes. Hence the portraits tend to be of family members rather than public figures, and there are none of the guild or other civic portraits (such as Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch”) that stand out in the period.

So what did the Dutch like on their walls? For entertainment they favoured scenes of peasants behaving badly, getting drunk at fairs or in taverns, or suffering the misfortunes of everyday life. This ranged from major disasters, such as Roelant Savery’s Bruegel-ish scene of a village being plundered, to smaller hardships, such as getting medical attention from a barber/ surgeon, as shown by Egbert van Heemskerck.

They also liked landscapes, from extravagant fantasies of Italy to more domestic river and farm scenes. Life was sufficiently urbanised in the 17th century that rich Dutchmen could dream of the healthy air and freedom of country living without having to deal with its harsh realities.

Yet there is also something sombre about many of these landscapes, with the farm scenes often shown at nightfall or before a storm.

Animal pictures were also popular, from farmyard beasts to more exotic species. The birds are particularly impressive, from Melchior d’Hondecoeter’s sumptuous large painting of exotic water fowl to the more domestic birds painted by Aelbert Cuyp. It’s hard to say which has the more colourful plumage.

Once the birds are dead, they become part of another genre, the still life. This is where Dutch

© Courtesy MSK Gent

Behaving badly: “The Smoker” by Albert Jansz. van der Schoor

realism, and the museum’s collection, starts to excel. Tables are shown deluged with fish or fruit and vegetables, and cupboards are hung with feathery corpses.

One of the highlights is a pair of studies by William Gowe Ferguson, a Scotsman shoehorned into the exhibition because he lived and worked for a time in The Hague and Amsterdam. His brightly plumed game and farm birds shine against the black-brown background of the larder, a drop of blood hanging dramatically from a rooster’s beak.

Some of these still lifes allow for deeper readings. AE van Rabel’s rendering of fish, bread and wine can easily be seen as a reference to the Last Supper. Meanwhile, Hubert van Ravesteyn’s study of a pipe, nuts and pitcher has recently been restored to reveal a branded packet of tobacco in the bottom left-hand corner, an early example of product placement.

Best of all is a series of “vanity” pieces, still lifes intended to make the viewer contemplate the fleeting nature of life and its material possessions. A skull rests on old books with curled pages in Jan Hendricksz van Zuylen’s vanity piece, while in the anonymous painting alongside, the skull is wreathed in ivy and a bird appears to have ended its life by diving headfirst into an hourglass. Hendrik Andriessen’s

vanity piece is simpler: a skull, a rose, a pipe and a twist of tobacco.

Finally, an encounter with the architectural studies of Hendrik van Vliet proves fascinating.

On first glance these seem to be simple exercises in perspective, obsessed with the gaps between pillars. But once you learn to read them, the austere Calvinist interiors give up stories of freshly dug graves and mourning families concealed in the shadows. (Clues for the uninitiated are limited to the exhibition guide, which is only available in Dutch.)

The exhibition concludes with a selection of larger canvases that compare and contrast what was going on in the Dutch Republic with developments in the south. So, to counter van Vliet’s modest church interiors, we are shown the overwhelming grandeur of Saint Peter’s in Rome, painted by Wilhelm Schubert van Ehrenberg.

And to complement the still lifes, there is “The Fishmonger’s Stall” by Adriaen van Utrecht, which once hung in the kitchen at Sint-Pieters Abbey in Ghent.

Until 2 February Ghent Fine Arts Museum Fernand Scribedreef 1

\ AGENDA

october 28, 2015

Hitting the books

CONCERT

Boekenbeurs 31 October to 11 November

T

he largest annual book fair in the Benelux kicks off in the halls of Antwerp Expo this weekend. More than 100 publishers and retailers spread out over 20,000 square metres will offer fiction, non-fiction and children’s books in multiple languages.

It’s a giant book market, but it’s also a chance to hear local and international authors read from and discuss their latest work. Just as British cinema was celebrated at this month’s Ghent Film Festival, British authors are well represented this year at Boekenbeurs.

Novelist Robert Harris (pictured), who shot to fame in the 1990s with

Antwerp Tout va bien: Stage name for Jan Wouter van Gestel, the 22-year-old from Mechelen with a timeless voice, performing from his debut album Kepler Star, including his single “This Fight” and more atmospheric songs strikingly reminiscent of Antony and the Johnsons. 30 October 19.30, Trix, Noordersingel 28

Antwerp Expo

boekenbeurs.be

Fatherland, will discuss his new book Dictator, which completes his trilogy of tales surrounding the Roman orator Cicero.

Kate Mosse will also make an appearance to talk about her Languedoc trilogy, which she launched in 2005 with the book Labyrinth, a best-seller across the planet and later a TV miniseries.

Santa Montefiore, meanwhile, who is as famous for being a socialite as she is for writing love stories, will talk about her new book, The Beekeeper’s Daughter.

Also at Boekenbeurs are live radio recordings, workshops, concerts and a huge number of lectures covering a variety of topics, includ-

\ trixonline.be

CLASSICAL ing literature, society, history and ecology. As the event coincides with the autumn school holidays, there is an emphasis on children’s literature, which will be kicked off with a show called Volwassenen toegelaten (Adults Allowed). Flemish children’s book author Dimitri Leue invites several other authors

CONCERT

FILM FESTIVAL

Whocat

Filem’On

30 October to 15 November After two years of writing, rehearsals and living room and cafe concerts, the Brussels foursome Whocat step forward with their first album. The six tracks on Blueprints merge the agile alto voice of Sara Moonen with the subtle grooves of three gifted musicians from the Brussels jazz, world

Across Belgium whocatmusic.com

and rock scene. The vocals can be chilly or sultry but are always compelling, while the musical vibe commutes between nervous and laid-back. Whocat’s new single “Fishy Five” is on the air now, just before their two-week release tour kicks off. \ Tom Peeters

1-8 November Targeting an audience aged 2+ and featuring a broad range of documentaries, animation, shorts and feature films, both national and international, the annual children’s film festival Filem’On is a must for cosmopolitan parents and their offspring. Especially since this year’s central theme is “colour”

to read, sing and celebrate the joys of fiction.

Boekenbeurs also hosts several theme days, including Goed Gevoel, with a focus on health and wellness, and a Literary Nocturne for the night-time crowd. \ Rebecca Benoot

Brussels Brussels Philharmonic Requiem: The orchestra, led by conductor David Navarro Turres, performs Franz Schubert’s Symphony N° 8 D759 and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Ave Verum and Requiem. 30 October 20.00, Sint-Marcus Church, De Frélaan 74 \ bpho.be

PERFORMANCE Antwerp Across Brussels filemon.be

(and its social dimension). There are films from myriad origins about far-off and more nearby cultures, but also about war and exclusion, to give a young and curious audience a more profound background than what’s in the news. Visitors can also enjoy movie concerts and take part in a film workshops. \ TP

get tick et

s now

Dara O’Briain: Stand-up comedy by the Irish comedian known for delivering witty and daring anecdotes and exchanging rapid-fire quips with members of the audience. 2 June 2016, Stadsschouwburg, Nieuwstad 1 \ livecomedy.be

FILM Brussels I Don’t Belong Anywhere: A retrospective of the work of the pioneering experimental and feminist Belgian filmmaker, Chantal Akerman, who died earlier this month.

Includes her last film, No Home Movie, which tells the story of her mother, who fled Poland in 1938. Until 22 November, Cinematek and Flagey \ cinematek.be

VISUAL ARTS

PERFORMANCE

Daniel Enkaoua

John Cleese

Until 21 November

Hangar H18, Brussels h18.be

27-29 April With an insurance salesman for a father and grandfathers being office clerk and auctioneer, it was only a matter of time before the great British comedian John Cleese, best known for his brilliant sketches with Monty Python, began to ridicule all that dullness and respectability. You can read all about it in his memoirs So, Anyway,

Two years ago, Esther Verhaeghe opened her Brussels gallery with the first local exhibition of the acclaimed Barcelona-based French artist Daniel Enkaoua.

Now she is starting a travelling program at various Brussels locations, displaying once again Enkaoua’s poetic and vulnerable paintings. His layered large-formats focus on portraits of mostly solitary kids and adolescents, often in the brightest of colours. Over the years, the boundaries between his still life and portrait paintings have become blurred, giving a spatial quality to his work, which is always looking for humanity in a hollow environment. \ TP

Ghent get tic

kets n ow

Antwerp & Brussels livecomedy.be

which recalls the now 76-year-old performer’s childhood in Westonsuper-Mare and Bristol. Or you can go see Last Time to See Me Before I Die, his one-man show, coming to Antwerp and Brussels next spring.

During the second part of the show, the audience is allowed to ask questions. \ TP

De Wereld van Raoul Servais: Retrospective of the work of the 87-year-old Flemish animation film pioneer on the occasion of his new short film, Tank, available for viewing, along with all of Servais’ work. Until 8 November, Zebrastraat, Zebrastraat 32 \ zebrastraat.be

EVENT Brussels Brussels Museums Nocturnes: 15th anniversary edition of the even that features late-night openings and festive activities every Thursday evening in 66 Brussels museums. Until 10 December, 17.00-22.00 \ brusselsmuseumsnocturnes.be

© Courtesy of Esther Verhaeghe-Art Concepts and Daniel Enkaoua

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\ BACKPAGE

october 28, 2015

Talking Dutch Caught napping

In response to: Train strikes cost NMBS €10 million in last year Stef Schuermans: Not supporting the strikers is supporting their bosses.

Derek Blyth More articles by Derek \ flanderstoday.eu

O

h no, I thought, when I read the news. Another great Flemish tradition is under threat. Het middagdutje is ondergronds gegaan – The postlunch nap is going out of fashion, it said in De Standaard.

In the good old days, everyone in Flanders took a little nap after lunch. In onze herinneringen komt die vader om half één thuis – We can remember when father used to come home at 12.30. Hij gaat na de lunch in de zetel liggen en slaapt een kwartier – He settled down in his armchair after lunch for a 15-minute snooze. Dan schiet hij wakker, drinkt koffie en vertrekt energiek weer naar zijn bureau – Then he woke up, drank a coffee and went back to the office with his batteries recharged.

But that’s all over now. Thuis is er geen tijd meer voor – There’s no time at home any more, en het past niet in onze bedrijfscultuur om na de lunch even de ogen te sluiten – and it doesn’t fit in with our business culture to grab some shuteye after lunch.

It turns out that we desperately need that little snooze after our

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sausage and stoemp if we’re to perform well in the afternoon.

Dat ‘dutje’ of ‘tukje’ is een efficiënte manier om aan krachten te winnen – That little nap, or 40 winks, is an efficient way to build up your strength.

In de vroege namiddag – in the early afternoon, en zeker wanneer we pas geluncht hebben – and particularly after we’ve just eaten lunch, voelen we immers een biologische dip – we really do experi-

ence a biological dip. En wanneer we te moe en sloom zijn – And when we’re feeling exhausted and listless, boeten we in aan efficiëntie – we pay the price in terms of efficiency.

But there is good news – napping might be making a comeback. It could be in the form of a nanonap (up to 20 seconds), a micro nap (up to five minutes), a mini nap (10 minutes), or a full-blown power nap (20 minutes).

That still leaves the question of where we can go to take our power nap. Well, there is a cool solution that could be coming to an enlightened office near you: de futuristische ‘sleep-pod’– the futuristic sleep pod, een ergonomische slaapzetel die sinds kort gebruikt wordt op diverse luchthavens – an ergonomic sleep chair that has recently been launched in several airports, en in flashy bedrijven als Apple, Nike en Google – and in hip companies like Apple, Nike and Google.

Some Flemish companies are beginning to embrace the idea of the power nap. But most have decided to sleep on it.

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Poll

a. Of course! And the practice should be the norm so that you have police who are in touch with the community

27% b. The police is a federal concern so that all officers abide by the same rules of conduct. They shouldn’t be hired city by city

18% c. Cities have different demands than rural areas, so each municipality should be examined according to its own requirements

55% placing new police officers in any town that needs them the most.

Of course consideration is given to where a potential officer wants to work, but a central system of hiring at the federal level is nevertheless used. The City of Antwerp wants to hire its own officers, which, it argues, would allow it to use local staff who know and

understand the community. It’s not clear whether any other city than Antwerp would want to recruit its own police force, but it would indeed set a precedent. A large majority of you thought the principle should be either standard or at least allowed, depending on circumstances.

\ Next week's question: The education sector is asking the government to extend reception classes for refugee pupils to pre-schoolers.

What do you think?

Log on to the Flanders Today website at www.flanderstoday.eu and click on VOTE!

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In response to: AB InBev invests €5.7 million in production of Hoegaarden Paul Goffin: Ah! The family brew! We have a couple of bottles ready for Christmas :)

In response to: Major water leak causes sinkhole in central Antwerp Miryam Van Beveren: Not only like a disaster movie, it WAS a real disaster.

Tardæsel @MaiAstrid Woops, taking a nap and organizing a trip to Brugge was more important than doing my homework.

Tom Green @tomgreenlive I am in Antwerp, Belgium, now, shooting the film Iron Sky.

Chris Hug @c089 Oh god, it’s another 1hr15 from Ostende to Nieuwpoort. “Take the tram” sounded like a short ride.

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the last word

Should the City of Antwerp be allowed to recruit and hire its own police rather than use officers officially appointed by the federal government?

Victory in this week’s vote for what we might call the Belgian compromise: make a rule, allow it to be broken, but treat each case according to its merits. Federal home affairs minister Jam Jambon agrees with you, as he approved Antwerp’s request earlier this month. Currently, the federal government is responsible for

VoiceS of flanders today

Quitting while ahead Fed up “I want to focus on other things, including my own label and interests that occupy me outside of work.”

Antwerp fashion designer Raf Simons has announced that he will be leaving his post as creative director of Dior for personal reasons

Sporting send-off “The funeral takes place in the church or in our centre. Afterwards, they go past the Ghelamco Arena for a moment of farewell.”

Funeral undertakers Dela in Ghent can organise a funeral for KAA Gent supporters, complete with a casket in the team colours

“For 12 years, I’ve sacrificed myself for this business. I never stepped outside of the kitchen.

You can only keep that up if you’re actually insane.”

Star chef Kobe Desramaults is closing his main restaurant, In De Wulf in Dranouter, West Flanders, at the end of next year

Dearly beloved “We give the cemetery a lot of attention. It’s a beautiful park where you can mourn in complete serenity.”

Danny Vangoidtsenhoven, mayor of Huldenberg in Flemish Brabant, on being declared the most expensive municipality in Flanders to be buried

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