Ouch! Stop it!

Now that Brussels is in a heightened state of terrorist alert I have to say I feel much more relaxed about going on the metro. It's about time they sealed off the waste bins down there, what have they been waiting for?

It's nice to see the authorities acting like this, usually people have to die before anything gets done. Does anyone feel like we are now also embroiled in The War Against Terror? Or were we more roused by the Sales? Perhaps neither.

Isn't it odd that the Americans have been bombing Afghanistan for four years now and they're still not finished? Just how big is this country? (647,500 sq kilometres, just a bit smaller than Texas). According to Google the population of Afghanistan is now 31,889,923 which is pretty much the same as it was five years ago, are they dropping water bombs or they just bombing the same little village every week? Are they even in Afghanistan? I've seen the pictures on the news but frankly that could be Arkansas for all I know, it wouldn't be a huge shock if Dubya had sent them to the wrong place.

The population of Iraq is now 27,499,638 I make that an increase of 7 since the war on terror began. 51 people die every day from suicide explosions (the 1 being the bomber), thats about ten times the success rate of the American bombs. What the hell is going on there? Does it really matter if the Americans stay or go? Most of the damage is what those people are doing to each other. The birth rate must be astronomical to keep up that population count, I guess the new borns are half American which would explain the lack of progress on the military front, too busy to fight. Imagine if America bombed Sweden for four years, assuming they could find it first, surely they would have surrendered by now. I think it's safe to say anyone can pick a fight with the modern American military, they are utterly useless.

I bet the Brussels bloggers group, armed with a handful of rocks and a few camels could invade Charleroi and challenge the American army to take it back. The hard part would be invading Charleroi, how do you get four camels into a taxi? (don't send in the answer, there are no prizes attached to this nonsense)

Needless to say I'm not a military expert by any stretch of the imagination and I don't gamble for obvious reasons. The rest is all true, it's all true, we're doomed, doomed! We're all going to hell in a hand cart!

But that's a long way away, today we're just going to Aachen for a party and I need to get some new skiing gloves to go skiing with.

JJ

Travel XVI, Here and There

Yeeeh, I've been having a wander, last week I was in Helsinki for a couple of days, the view from the office shows a largely frozen Baltic sea which still looks odd no matter how many times I see it. Other that that it's quite mild for the time of year, apart from the freezing wind, that was horrible. No snow, that was wierd, the fins are all disorientated because they didn't get a white christmas.

The Elk Burger was very nice, unlike reindeer they don't farm the elk it's always caught in the wild, lean and tasty. The wolf and bear populations are up again and some people want to resume hunting them too. The skins are still used for clothing and some people even eat bear meat.

The week before that I had a drive to Den Haag. Almost had KFC for dinner but my boss was there and I didn't think I'd enjoy it as much with him tagging along. The Dutch don't have the interesting wildlife of the Fins and their wind is warmer but somehow I think that makes the trip less entertaining.

But this weekend we've been to Baden-Baden for a fabulous party. It's only a four hour drive through France and Luxembourg into Germany, we left on friday morning and came back this afternoon. Even in that small amount of time the French managed to extract two toll charges in each direction for a grand total of 22 euro. Bloody cheek, as if they don't syphon enough cash out of me via the EU on top of double charging of rent in Strasbourg. It was a fortieth in a private function room, formal dinner and some less than formal dancing afterwards. Tremendous fun.

So, after all that it's back to watching snooker on TV. Looks like Selby to win, he only needs one more frame and Lee needs seven. I still haven't unwrapped my Spiderman game and I'll probably be too busy again this week there's another trip to Helsinki in the pipeline.

Hmmm... I think I'd better put the kettle on.

JJ