Flanders today
march 24, 2010
Erkenningsnummer P708816
Free ly! week
I N D E P E N D E N T N E W S W ee k l y news
Rally around............. 8
The Female Entrepreneur of the Year is Natalie Vleeschouwer, who 20 years ago closed the wardrobe door on the “tent dresses and dungarees” of pregnancy clothes, carving a fashion niche that continues to grow
Humo’s Rock Rally has been ushering in the best Flemish rock and pop talent for three decades. Don’t miss this year, when 10 eclectic bands vie for the title at the Ancienne Belgique
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Fragile. ................... 7
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interview
Far from game over.................11 The Cellars of Cureghem are buzzing with the sound of 200 video games – all playable for the price of admission to the Game On exhibition, which does its part to educate players, as well as entertain them
The thousand-year storm
A super-storm could one day flood large areas of Flanders – unless something is done to hold back the sea Alan Hope
A
t the Belgian coast on 1 February 1953, the combination of a rising spring tide and a storm depression causing southwesterly winds that later turned northwesterly led to sea levels two metres higher than normal for the time of the year. Nearly five kilometres of sea dyke collapsed, and seawater flooded 500 hectares of polder land. According to conflicting reports, between 14 and 22 people died, the loss of livestock was huge and the economic toll considerable. However, Flanders got off relatively lightly. The February storm was not meteorologically the worst of the year, although the duration and the amount of water involved made it the most damaging. Just up the coast in the Netherlands, 1,800 people lost their lives, and 100,000 lost their homes and possessions. A storm such as that is expected to happen about every 250 years.
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Tunnel under Brussels?
Say it with seeds
Alternatives to ring road urgently sought
Alan Hope
Alan Hope
A 15 kilometre-long tunnel under Brussels, stretching from the E40 Groot-Bijgaarden interchange to SintStevens-Woluwe, is just one of the options being considered as an alternative to the enlargement of the Brussels Ring. As anyone who uses it knows, the Brussels Ring road has reached, and sometimes exceeded, the limits of its capacity. The Flemish government has commissioned the Flemish Traffic Centre (VVC) to carry out a study, which has not been reticent in giving its imagination full rein. Some of the ideas being considered: • widening the Ring between the E19 interchange at Machelen and the Sint-Stevens-Woluwe A3 interchange, up to a maximum width in some places of 17 lanes
• extending the road’s capacity across the entire northern sector, from Groot-Bijgaarden to Sint-StevensWoluwe • constructing a second, outer ring road from Aalst to Mechelen to Leuven for through traffic • building a tunnel from the E40 at Sterrebeek and then completing the southern part of the Ring with a tunnel under the Zoniënwoud at the very edge of the Flemish Region The options, together with the crossBrussels tunnel, represent the full range of possibilities, from cautious to outlandish. But they are only – as everyone concerned likes to stress – food for discussion. All parties last weekend seemed to be united in considering the idea of a tunnel under Brussels as “nonsense”.
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This year’s edition of the five-yearly Floraliën botanical festival in Ghent will, as usual, coincide with a special issue of two postage stamps. For the first time, however, the stamps will be useful for something other than posting letters – each one will contain a single seed for planting. The stamps will feature images of Siertabak (Nicotiana alata, known in English as Jasmine tobacco) and Prikneus (Silene coronaria). The seeds given away are the latter, a member of the carnation family also known in English as Dusty Miller or Bloody William. “The idea to spread seeds with stamps came from the Post Office,” said Floraliën director Paul Vandenbosch. “It goes without saying we went for it right away.” The stamps come in sheets of 10 – five of each plant – with the seeds encased at the bottom left-hand corner. The choice of seed depended on one main factor: the ability of the seed to go through the whole printing process, followed by a trip through the mail attached to an envelope or package. Floraliën took advice from seed experts, and Prikneus (pictured) came out the winner. Four million seeds were delivered, to be attached to 400,000 sheets of stamps. Each seed is held in place by a specially-developed gel which will not react with the seed. Floraliën runs from 17 to 25 April at Flanders Expo in Ghent. ➟ ➟ www.floralien.be
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