TickeT shakedownWhen tickets to Adele sold out so fast, the federal consumer affairs ministry took a closer look – and found massive fraud
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Apart from its beer, fries and cycling champions, Flanders has a long and proud quiz culture, which over the years has become one of the region’s most popular weekend activities.
It’s a Saturday night, and we’re in Herenthout, a small town in Antwerp province. A long queue snakes out from the Ter Volcke community centre. The
atmosphere is relaxed. But these people aren’t queuing for a party, a concert or any other performance. They’re about to settle down in a chair and be bombarded with questions.
The blitz will last for more than four hours, and, when it’s over, many of these people will return home with a bottle of beer from a nearby brewery, a rucksack branded by the local bank branch or – for the lucky ones – a voucher for the town’s chip shop. Welcome to the Flemish country-side, where quizzing is an integral part of folk culture.This quiz night in Herenthout was a historic one for the organisers of FC Fortuna, a local amateur football team, because it was both the 10th and the last edition. The Fortuna Quiz has earned quite a reputation on the circuit over the years. It was rated C – a moderate degree of diffi-culty – with some occasional excursions down to a D.
The purpose of these dips in rating is to prevent “occa-sional quizzers” (see glossary on p5) fleeing the hall after two or three rounds. Every quiz organiser who wants to maximise profits – whether it’s a football club, bowling team, youth movement, political party or charity – knows it must cherish these occasional quizzers. There are lots of them, they tend to drink more than the dyed-in-the-wool quizzers, and they fill the hall with the right Friday or Saturday night atmosphere.Indeed, it’s fundraising that lies at the origin of Flanders’ quiz culture. In the coming year, along with the obligatory barbecue or mussels dinner to support some local organ-
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noT jusT a movieA new initiative is putting cinema screens in area hospitals to give patients a bit of normalcy in sometimes challenging situations
Ready, seT, goCarnival is in full swing in Flanders, with Aalst gearing up for the country’s biggest parade this weekend
Question timea beginner’s guide to flanders’ enduring love affair with the community quiz
senne starckxMore articles by senne \ flanderstoday.eu
Flemish welfare minister Jo Vandeurzen is focussing on the problem of so-called lover
boys, a term that refers to young men who lure teenage girls into relationships before turning them out onto the street as prostitutes. According to a study carried out for Child Focus, which combats sexual exploitation, 60 victims were reported over the last two years, but the organisation said that there were certainly many more. And the
girls involved have got younger: One case concerned an 11-year-old girl. Vandeurzen’s department has abandoned the term “lover boy” as euphemistic, and refers to the young men involved as teen-age pimps. The offenders are no more than human traffickers, Vandeurzen said, who use what-ever means available, including violence, to achieve their goal. The men, the study showed, are
mainly aged between 20 and 30, come from difficult backgrounds and have a record of petty crimes. But they are attractive and very attentive to the victims as they befriend them and become their boyfriends. The victims are mainly girls, but occasionally boys, with low self-esteem and a need for attention and affection, accord-ing to the report. Many will already have been in contact with youth services before being entrapped by
the pimp. Among the measures proposed by Vandeurzen are raising awareness among certain groups, like taxi drivers and hotel receptionists, and asking them to report any suspi-cious activity. “By the middle of this year, there will also be increased capacity in the community care institutions,” he said. “Places in specialised youth assistance will be set aside for these victims, allowing us to deal with up to 60 in a year.”
More government support for young victims of prostitutionmore specialised assistance will be offered to teenage girls lured in by ‘lover boys’
Flemish municipalities plan to lower personal taxes or the levy charged on property tax this year. One authority is cutting both. Three towns on the coast do not impose the property tax
Single tickets for De Lijn sold via SMS in 2015 – an average of 30,642 a day, or one in three of sales. Since the service was introduced in 2007, more than 40 million digital tickets have been sold
applications for premiums received by the Flemish government in less than a month for the purchase of electric and hydrogen cars. So far reguests have all been for electric vehicles
of employees in Flanders are unable to use up their full allow-ance of vacation days. On average, three days go unused, but one in five has five days left over, and 4% more than 10
hours a week worked by the average Flemish mayor, according to Radio 2, which polled all the mayors in the region. More than half of them, however, have other jobs
alan HopeFollow alan on Twitter \ @alanHopeFT
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Antwerp will have to wait for a planned suburban public transport network until the design for the Brussels network is further advanced, federal mobility minister Jacqueline Galant has said. The latest date for completion of the Brussels network is 2025. With Brussels, Antwerp is one of Europe’s congestion black-spots. A suburban trans-port network is under discussion to ease pressure on traffic by providing an alter-native way for people in outlying areas to reach the city centre. That was the thinking
of the parties negotiating to form a federal governing coalition in 2014, when they included a pledge for suburban networks in Ghent and Antwerp in their governing accords. Rail authority NMBS is already discuss-ing plans for the railway contribution to the network, but Galant has now halted proceedings. “It’s the tradition in Belgium to begin 10 things at once, with chaos as the result,” she said. “I suggest we first complete the Brussels network before we even discuss Antwerp. I recognise the needs of Antwerp,
but better co-ordination of what’s already available can solve a lot.”Antwerp alderman for mobility Koen Kennis said that in his city, “unlike Brus-sels, there’s no need to lay new tracks. We simply need to improve and strengthen public transport into the city. We’re await-ing large-scale works like Oosterweel, and people’s requirements have to be taken into account. This is a chance for the NMBS to gain new customers with what we hope will be a good service. Things were going very well. I’m a little surprised at this rebuff.” \ AH
Antwerp suburban transport network put on hold
According to the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) produced by Yale and Columbia universities in the US, Belgium is the second-worst environmental performer in Europe, behind only Montenegro. The EPI evaluates coun-tries’ efforts to protect public health and ecosys-tems from toxins. On the global list, Belgium ranks 41 of 180 coun-tries, but in Europe it comes in 46 out of a list of 47. In the previous EPI (2014), Belgium took 36th place of 178 countries, ahead of several Euro-pean countries, including Latvia and Bulgaria. Belgium’s total score of 80.15, however, is some 10% better than a decade ago, showing that, while Belgium is improving, other countries are improving faster.Belgium’s score is due mainly to air pollution – a result of a dense population and industrial activ-ity. The EPI’s top score went to Finland, and the top four was filled by Scandinavian countries. All the countries in the top 10 are European. Soma-lia ranked last.“The index gives policymakers a clear signal about the state of the environment and provides them with data to consider for targeted solutions to these challenges,” said Kim Samuel, profes-sor at Canada’s McGill University, who assisted in compiling the report. “We hope that it will encourage leaders to take action, especially in urban areas.” \ Andy Furniere
Belgium has second-worst environmental quality in Europe
The state intelligence services were aware of the existence of a cell of Islamist extrem-ists in Molenbeek as early as the beginning of 2012, and communicated their suspi-cions to the federal prosecutor’s office, according to a memo uncovered by Het Laatste Nieuws. The cell of about 30 people would later become involved in recruiting volunteers to go and fight in Syria, as well as the Paris attacks of last November. The memo refers to tapped telephone conversations in which members of the group discuss the overthrow of West-ern democracy. They also discuss how to obtain weapons and explosives. Authori-ties did not prevent members later moving back and forward between Belgium and Iraq and Syria.
At the time the memo was received, a spokesperson for the federal prosecutor said, the phenomenon of the Syria fighter was not as well-known as now. “The memo was one of the elements that led to the judicial investigation that resulted in the verdict of 29 July 2015 when sentences of up to 20 years were handed down for terrorism,” the spokesperson said, refer-ring to how the information was used. Among those sentenced in their absence were men later suspected of taking part in the attacks on the French capital, includ-ing Abdelhamid Abaaoud, supposedly one of the masterminds, and Chakib Akrouh, who blew himself up days later when police raided an apartment in Paris. The apartment in Molenbeek at the centre
of the cell was the property of Gelel Attar, who was arrested last month in Morocco on suspicion of being involved in the attacks. \ AH
State security knew about Molenbeek cell four years ago
Molenbeek mayor Francoise schepmans talks to the press last november following the attacks in Paris
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Sigiswald Kuijken has received Klara’s career prize this year, awarded by the classical music station to someone with an outstanding career in jazz or classical music. Kuijken is a teacher, conductor, performer and pioneer of playing baroque instruments. He received the prize from Chantal Pattyn, head of the VRT station, at the Klara in deSingel event in Antwerp at the weekend. Born in Dilbeek, Flemish Brabant, in 1944, Kuijken stud-ied violin at the conservatory in Bruges and later in Brussels. He was born into a musical family: one brother is a cellist, and another plays the flute. After graduating from the Brus-sels conservatory in 1964, he joined his brother Wieland in the Alarius ensemble, tour-ing Europe and the US, and became caught up in the move-ment towards historic instru-ments and authentic classical and baroque performance. The movement turned away from the lush sound of the Roman-tic era to a more spare sound – not always to the delight of audi-
ences. In 1972 Kuijken formed La Petite Bande with Gustave Leonhardt, going on to tour and record to great acclaim. They performed and recorded Bach cantatas with a vocal quartet and covered works by Rameau, Corelli and Lully, as well as more familiar names like Haydn and Mozart. In 2004, Kuijken began playing a viola da spalla, also known as the shoulder viola or shoulder cello, an instrument with a range simi-lar to the cello, but played while strapped around the neck, as it is too large and heavy to play under the chin. The instrument was common in Italy in the 17th and 18th centuries and may have been the instrument for which Bach composed the pieces we now know as the six cello suites.At 72, Kuijken shows no sign of slowing down. He performs in the Kuijken Quartet with his wife, Marleen Thiers (viola), brother Wieland and long-time collaborator Francois Fernan-dez (violin). They often perform with the two Kuijken daugh-ters, soprano Marie and pianist Veronica. \ Alan Hope
sigiswald Kuijken
Catholic observance in Flan-ders, as throughout the West, has been declining for some time. But even so, it was a bit surprising to discover that nearly half of young people polled – 47% – said they don’t believe in Jesus. The survey was carried out by the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) among students in Flanders’ Cath-olic school network between 2008 – three years into the reign of the hardline doctrinaire Pope Benedict XVI – and 2015, two years after the arrival of the kindler, gentler Pope Francis. The survey covered nearly 15,300 students from the fifth and sixth years of primary school and
from all years of secondary school. Some 4.3% said they were devout; 44% prayed from time to time, 26% prayed before but don’t anymore, 30% never did. “We cannot conclude that young people are not interested in Christ or have an aversion or a collective indif-ference to the Catholic faith,” said KU Leuven vice-rector of educa-tion, Didier Pollefeyt, who led the research. “That’s the case for some but not for the majority.” Of course the answers were provided by youngsters between the ages of 12 and 18. Is there are other population group more likely to rebel against authority and give
the answers their elders don’t want to hear? \ AH
suffer the little childrenoffside
week in bRiefFlemish pro cyclist Femke Van den Driessche has denied know-ing anything about the concealed motor that was found in her bike at the Cyclo-cross World Championships in Limburg at the weekend. The bike was seized by cycling authorities, and she was forced to pull out of the women’s under-23 race. The International Cycling Union says this is a case of “technological fraud”, but Van den Driessche insists she borrowed the bike. “It’s not fun when you are accused of something. But I would never cheat,” she said.
Social media company Facebook has invoked Belgium’s language laws in its appeal against last year’s ruling banning it from tracking the online movements of non-members. According to Face-book, the ruling is invalid because it uses English words like “cookie,” “browser” and “homepage”. Face-book is also arguing that Belgian law is not applicable since the company is not based here and that the Privacy Commission does not have the authority to file a complaint. The appeal court will rule in May.
Salah Abdeslam, suspected of taking part in the Novem-ber terrorist attacks in Paris, is Europe’s Most Wanted, accord-ing to a list of fugitives published by Europol. The list is made up of the two most dangerous crimi-nals from each of the 28 member states of the police organisation. Abdeslam is a French national who lived in Molenbeek with his family, including a brother who blew himself up in the attacks. Belgium’s other submission was Mohamed Abrini, who drove Abdeslam to Paris two days before the attacks.
The government of Flanders will launch a wide-ranging survey into family life this month, when 9,000 households with at least one child under 25 will receive a ques-tionnaire on life, health and work. The results are intended to inform
future government policy on the family.
The Brussels-Capital Region government has offered to pay part of the security costs incurred by RSC Anderlecht if they move to the planned new Eurosta-dium when it is built at Heizel. The football club said that the offer of about €1.1 million a year had not been made at its request. Opposi-tion party Groen said the govern-ment was in breach of a promise that the stadium would not incur costs to the public.
The first of the new season’s aspar-agus went on sale last week at BelOrta auction in Sint-Katelijne-Waver, with four 500g cases fetch-ing a total of €3,200. BelOrta added €1,600 to the total and the whole was donated to former triathlete Marc Herremans’ To Walk Again Foundation. The public will have to wait until the full harvest begins in April.
Investigators looking into the alleged attack and robbery of Karin Gérard, president of the assizes court in Brussels, have found no evidence that the inci-dent took place. Gérard recently reported having been mugged outside the Justice Palace in Brus-sels and came to work three days later with facial injuries. CCTV cameras show no sign of any attack. According to one report, Gérard was in a neighbourhood bar at the time of the alleged inci-dent. “I stand by my version of events,” Gérard said.
The Flemish Audiovisual Fund (VAF) will lose an annual contri-bution of €2.6 million after tele-coms company Telenet decided to finance productions directly. Since 2013, TV distributors have been obliged to contribute to Flemish audio-visual productions. The money was originally spent through VAF, but first Proximus and now Telenet decided to go their own way. The VAF continues
to collect €140,000 from smaller distributors, on top of its €3.6 million annual government grant.
Fairground attraction opera-tor Jean Bodet, who runs the big wheel at Brussels’ annual Winter-pret, has applied for permission to install a permanent 80-metre-high wheel in central Brussels. “The wheel should become a land-mark, as the London Eye has,” a spokesperson said.
Nieuwpoort has been voted Flan-ders’ best beach destination, with a score of 8.7, knocking upscale Knokke into second place, ahead of De Haan. The poll was taken by Zoover, an online forum for travel reports, based on more than 80,000 consumer reviews of Belgian beach destinations in 2015.
Leuven is carrying out a major public opinion survey regard-ing police services. The enquiry will ask 6,000 residents and a large number of students for their opin-ions on safety, priorities for police and expectations of the public. The results will be split up by neighbourhood to allow the police to tailor their priorities closer to local needs, a spokesperson said.
Controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders plans to visit the Flemish parliament in March, at the invitation of members of Vlaams Belang. Wilders will attend the final day of a series of study days and a seminar on the subject of freedom. Last Septem-ber, again at the invitation of Vlaams Belang, French politician Marine Le Pen attended a seminar on sovereignty.
The first stone was laid last week of a new crematorium intended for household pets in Tessenderlo, Limburg. The 1,000 square-metre Adio centre will host funerals both intimate and larger, with a central space suitable for 50 people.
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.
Editor Lisa BradshawdEPuty Editor Sally TippercontriButing Editor Alan HopesuB Editor Linda A ThompsonagEnda Robyn Boyle, Georgio Valentinoart dirEctor Paul Van Dooren PrEPrEss Mediahuis AdProcontriButors Rebecca Benoot, Bartosz Brzezinski, Derek Blyth, Leo Cendrowicz, Katy Desmond, Andy Furniere, Diana Goodwin, Catherine Kosters, Toon Lambrechts, Katrien Lindemans, Ian Mundell, Anja Otte, Tom Peeters, Senne Starckx, Christophe Verbiest, Denzil WaltongEnEral managEr Hans De LoorePuBlisHEr Mediahuis NV
Tunnel visionBrussels’ crumbling tunnels have reinforced the view that many Flemings have about the capital. How is it possi-ble that maintenance of the tunnels, major arteries in a traffic-burdened city, has failed so spectacularly?In just two weeks, two tunnels had to close: the Stefania tunnel, leading incoming traf-fic to Louiza, and the Leopold II tunnel, from the Koekelberg basilica to the city centre. Both have problems with the concrete, calling for major repair works. Closing the tunnels will only increase traf-fic jams in Europe’s conges-tion capital. This reinforces the Flemish view that Brussels is badly governed. Many fail to under-stand the capital’s institu-tional mesh, which consists of one region, two communi-ties, 19 municipalities and six policing zones and, to top it all off, also has a (non-elected) governor and vice-governor. This city is costing us a lot of money, is another popu-lar view. Brussels politicians argue that it is only logical that the city should receive more means, as it is the capi-tal, the home of many inter-national institutions and the workplace of hundreds of thousands of commut-ers, who pay their taxes else-where. And who are the main users of the tunnels? Yes, these very commuters, driv-ing in from Flanders. These arguments cut no ice in Flanders. Brussels already receives €125 million annually from the federal government to fulfil its “metropolitan and capital function” under what is known as the Beliris agree-ment. Tunnel maintenance is a perfect example of this money’s intended purpose. In the last state reform, Brus-sels cashed even more in a typical Belgian trade-off between more competences for Flanders and more money for Brussels and Wallonia. This explains the strong reac-tion by Flemish minister-pres-ident Geert Bourgeois when it was suggested that Flan-ders contribute to some of the costs of works in the tunnels. Is there no end to what Brus-sels will ask from Flanders? Issues like this one are typi-cally discussed in the Concer-tation Committee of Regions and Communities. It’s made up of representatives from the respective governments, but they are from different coali-tions and are reluctant to co-operate constructively.So that leaves Flemish and Brusselaars alike stuck in the capital’s traffic, with plenty of time to ponder the political situation that has left them there. \ Anja Otte
5Th column New economic policy announcedBusinesses and other stakeholders create region’s new economic strategy
Flemish minister-president Geert Bourgeois has presented the outline of a new international strategy for the Flemish
economy. Bourgeois was speaking at the first Flanders International Economic Summit last week in parliament. At the creation of the new Flemish coalition under Bourgeois in 2014, the minister-president gave Flanders Investment & Trade (FIT), the region’s agency for international business rela-tions, the job of drawing up a new international strategy for the Flemish economy. FIT consulted more than 80 businesses and other stakehold-ers, resulting in the new strategy. The strategy is made up of four main goals: speeding up internationalisation, encouraging
more businesses to export, reducing fragmen-tation and bringing down existing barriers. “The challenges for the future are not negligible,”
said FIT chief executive Claire Tillekaerts. “We have to make more effort than ever before. It’s business that will make it happen; they provide the jobs and the added value. We as a govern-ment have to choose the right proactive focus, to give companies the right kind of support and reinforce our competitive position.” FIT aims to follow up the broad lines of the strategy with an action plan, to be ready by June. “We have to work together, according to each other’s strengths,” Bourgeois (pictured) told those attending the summit. “The lines have been drawn; in the coming months we have to turn those into concrete and viable actions in which a maximum number of partners have an active role.”
Flemish ministers, athletes and other representatives have launched a campaign against bullying and harassment among children in sport. Time Out tegen pesten (Time Out for Bullying) aims to recruit sports clubs and coaches to spread its message. Sport is a competitive activ-ity, which can lead to pressure being put on children not only by their peers but also by coaches, which can go as far as bully-ing and harassment, according to the campaign. Time Out was launched last week by Flemish sports minister Philippe Muyters and hurdlers Eline Berings and Axelle Dauwens. The campaign has five goals: developing a shared vision on bullying, gathering support for a bully-free sport environment, preventing bullying, finding
ways to react effectively to inci-dents and taking concrete meas-ures to ensure permanent bully-free sports. “The Flemish government will ensure that sports leaders and assistants receive all the neces-sary knowhow and support to fight bullying effectively,” said Muyters. “Together we will work to create a bully-free sporting environment in which every child can grow in every way.” \ AH
Flemish sports and politics join forces to fight bullying
Christian Van Eyken, a member of the Flemish parliament for the French-speaking party UF, has been charged with murder. However, hours after he was arrested, he was released because of a procedural error. Van Eyken is the former mayor of Linkebeek, one of the municipali-ties in the Brussels periphery with language facilities. He is the only French-speaking member of the Flemish parliament, where he sits for Flemish Brabant for UF (Union des Francophones). The victim was found dead in his home in Laken in July 2014, killed by a single shot. His wife eventu-ally revealed that the couple were divorcing because of her relation-ship with her boss, Van Eyken. The two could not agree on the custody of their daughter. Last October, the investigation led to search warrants being carried out at Van Eyken’s home in Zaventem and office in the Flem-ish parliament. The victim’s widow was arrested shortly after.
Van Eyken was picked up last week, but the arrest warrant for his detention had not been signed by the investigating magistrate in the case and was therefore unlaw-ful. The prosecutor’s office asked for Van Eyken to be released. The mistake has led to calls for a disci-plinary enquiry. The error means that Van Eyken cannot be re-arrested in connec-tion with the same case unless substantial new evidence comes to light. He still faces a murder charge, however, which he denied strenuously via his lawyer, Pierre Monville. “My client denies with the utmost of his ability any involvement in the charges brought against him,” he said. \ AH
Former mayor of Linkebeek charged with murder
The government of Flanders will invest an additional €140 million over the next 18 months on roads and public transport, mobility minister Ben Weyts has confirmed. The additional funding comes from both savings and income received from the new fees levied on lorries using Flanders’ roads.“We have made savings, which allows us as a region to have more left over for crucially important investments in roads,” said Weyts. The lion’s share – €100 million – goes to road construction. The toll is expected to raise up to €500 million a year, and the reinvestment in roads was a demand made by the construction industry. Another €36 million goes to the cost of preparatory works for the construction of the Oosterweel connection in Antwerp. The project will close the circle of the city’s ring road to ease congestion and make it easier for freight traffic to travel to and from the port and the roads lead-ing north to the Netherlands, south to France and east to Germany. Flemish public transport authority De Lijn receives €4 million. Flanders’ opposition parties, Groen and SP.A, criticised the fact that so little of the extra budget was going to De Lijn. “Everyone waiting for a bus or tram now knows that it’s because the coalition government finds buses and trams a detail,” said Groen fraction leader Björn Rzoska. \ AH
Weyts earmarks €100 million extra for road improvements
Brussels opposition parties N-VA and MR have called for a parliamentary commission to investigate the city’s tunnels, following news that the Stefania tunnel under Louizaplein must be closed for repairs for up to a year. According to N-VA and MR, the parlous state of Brussels’ tunnels is the result of decades of mismanagement. A commis-sion would examine the exact causes. “The people have a right to clarity,” said Cieltje Van Achter of N-VA. The latest incident was fall-ing masonry in the Leopold II tunnel, the longest tunnel in the country. It was closed for inspection last Sunday night and re-opened the following morn-ing with a report of “no evidence of danger” from Brussel Mobi-liteit. About 65,000 vehicles a day
go through the tunnel. Federal deputy prime minis-ter Didier Reynders (MR) has joined with opposition socialist Laurette Onkelinx to call for the federal government to sit down with the Flemish, Brussels and Walloon regions to seek a solu-tion to the renovation and main-tenance of the tunnels. Flemish mobility minister Ben Weyts has rejected any proposal that the regions contribute to the cost of improving the state of the capital’s tunnels. “You can’t just send your bills over to be paid by someone else,” he said. “Brussels is responsible, and they have to pay. It makes no difference that Flemish people make use of Brussels infrastruc-ture. People from Wallonia and Brussels use the E40 to go to the coast, but we don’t ask for money from the other regions.” \ AH
Federal government to discuss repair of Brussels tunnels
Question timeQuiz phenomenon is spreading from the flemish countryside to the capital
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isation, the majority of people in Flanders will attend at least one quiz. Local organisations have discovered that arranging an annual quiz is one of the easi-est ways to bring in a bit of cash: The prep-arations are negligible, the cost reasonable for participants, and there’s no need to hire a DJ or call in security.But back to the Fortuna Quiz. “Ten years ago our football team was going through a bad patch,” says Bart Van Caeyzeele of FC Fortuna. “Unless we were able to find some new players and new revenues, we were going to have to throw in the towel. Luckily the majority of us wanted to continue, and so we decided to organise our first quiz to raise money.”
The club’s first outing was a success: 39 teams turned up. “The Ter Volcke hall is a nice place to hold it, and we always had a good date in January. We’ve welcomed up to 60 teams at previous editions.” Another explanation for the success is probably because the Fortuna Quiz is suitable for both occasional and professional quizzers. Van Caeyzeele: “The occasional quizzers always found our quiz difficult, but they still kept coming back. I guess the origi-nality of our questions prevailed over the degree of difficulty. You don’t need to know every answer to enjoy yourself at a quiz.” So Van Caeyzeele and his teammates are going out on a high. “The quiz is a success, but we fear that it will become too routine. By stopping now, we and the participants will all have good memories of our quiz.”Apart from the way local organisations have discovered the annual quiz as a tool for fundraising, there’s another trend going on. While 20 years ago, almost every quiz had a C or D rating, where questions focused on general knowledge, now diver-sity and themes are the best words to char-acterise the quizzing landscape.Take a look at the website of the Belgische QuizBond, where you can see what’s on the calendar in the coming months. There are many do-able E and D quizzes, more taxing C quizzes, plain difficult B quizzes and some “once and never again” A quizzes. (It sometimes happens that a group of occasional quizzers end up at an A quiz by mistake. Note to the inexperienced: If you see a hall full of middle-aged and oddly dressed men – and almost no women – check you’ve entered the right address in your GPS.)But isn’t quizzing easy now that every-one has smartphones? Perish the thought. Digital devices are strictly prohibited, and a quizzer would not be caught dead pulling one out. It’s a question of honour.In recent years, alongside the emergence of A quizzes, the term “professional quizzer” has come into vogue to refer to those who
quiz every weekend and always in the same team. These teams, which almost all have a first team and a reserve team, have usually been meeting and contending together every week for years. Despite the name, professional doesn’t mean these quizzers are paid for their all-encompassing knowledge. The most they’ll come home with after a quiz is a €10 coupon.Flanders wouldn’t be Flanders if these teams didn’t have original and clever names. One of the best (and oldest) teams, from Bruges, is called Alzheimer. Others are Racing Denk ( from Genk), the Last Minutes, Fie & The Hollywood Bananas, the Simple Minds and Bloemschikclub den Triestige Plant (the Sad Plant Flower Arrangement Club). All these professional teams have ratings. These marks are distributed according to another local curiosity: the official Flemish Quiz Ranking (VQR). The VQR was created in the 1990s by long-time quiz organiser Steven De Ceuster, who ran it single-hand-edly until two years ago, when he handed
it over to the BQB. This list now contains nearly 1,000 teams. The combined strength of the teams present at a particular quiz determines how many VQR points a team can earn to consolidate its position in the rankings.
The days are gone when only your general knowledge was tested at a quiz. Nowadays you can take part in quizzes entirely dedi-cated to, say, sports, music, the arts or film. These niche quizzes are – even more than normal A or B quizzes – becoming a sort of underground circuit for the real fanatics. Niche quizzers rarely come out of their own circuit. And that’s understandable, as they would find the music or sports in a general knowledge quiz insultingly easy. And the phenomenon is spreading. On 3 February, Brussels’ international house of literature, Passa Porta, is organising the third edition of its literature quiz. Even busi-ness has discovered the Flemish hunger for answering questions. Cinema chain Kinep-olis, for example, holds its traditional film quiz in Brussels every May – with quiz images shown on the big screen.Another manifestation of this aspect of Flemish culture is the pub quiz – at least one thing we share with people abroad, especially the British. The most popular Flemish pub quiz is prob-ably the one organised by the Gent Quizt collective every Monday evening during the academic year at Café De Ploeg, a jazz bar next to the Vooruit cultural centre that can accommodate 20 teams of five. The quiz is conceived according to a well-defined formula: The quizzers get five rounds of 10 questions each (general knowledge) and one photo round in which they have to identify 10 pictured people or things. Often there’s a clever connection between the 10 answers. For example, in the photo round in a previous edition of Gent Quizt, the teams had to recognise people like American skater Eric Heiden, IOC presi-dent Thomas Bach and politician Robert Schuman. For the occasional quizzers among you: All 10 answers referred to famous composers.The Ghent quiz has found a way round the problem that has led to fragmenta-tion of the Flemish quizzing landscape. To keep everybody happy, the teams compete against each other within three groups. Depending on the results, a team can be promoted or relegated to a different group. When the last question has been answered, each group winner gets the same prize: a handful of lottery tickets. One might wonder whether that’s a better prize than the free visit to the chip shop, where quiz-zing and French fries – two of Flanders’ unique traditions – meet.
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BQB.BE
Moeilijkheidsgraad: A quiz’s degree of difficulty, from A (extremely hard) to B (still hard), C (do-able), D (enjoyable) and E (easy)Gelegenheidsquizzer: An inexperienced quizzer; a non-competitive sympathiser who will concentrate on drinks and snacks after the half-time score has been announcedGelegenheidsquiz: A D or E quiz where gelegenheidsquizzers can enjoy a relaxed night outZaalquiz: A quiz that’s organised inside a hall, mostly in the Flemish countryside and in a community hall, football canteen, gym or school refectoryProfessionele quizzer: The opposite of a gelegenheidsquizzer. But don’t let the name fool you: They don’t earn anything outside of the minor prizes for their capacity for triviaLijstjesblokker: Subspecies of profesionele quizzer who’s able to recite lists of rivers in Europe, American presidents, indigenous trees and movies starring Brad PittSterktepunt: Marks indicating the strength of a team. Runs from one to fiveVlaamse QuizRanking (VQR): League table of all regular quiz teams in Flanders. The sterk-tepunten are handed out to the teams according to their position in this listFotoronde: Round in which you have to recognise pictures of people or things
a or E? Quizzes in Flanders run from the easy to the super difficult
You don’t need to know every answer to enjoy yourself at a quiz
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The Leuven travel agency Tierra is offering tickets on commercial space flights planned by Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic. For about €229,000, travellers can take a trip to outer space. Tierra’s owner, Willy Paquay, says that he’s fully aware that people will not be queuing outside his business behind Leuven’s train station. The offer – although real – is more of a stunt to encourage adventurous souls to reflect on their dream trip, he told De Standaard. “We help anyone interested with the online inscription for one of the space trips Virgin Galactic is planning to organise from its base in Mexico,” said Paquay. “We provide them with all the information they need. There are currently about 800 people worldwide signed up for a space journey.”Tierra normally specialises in travel arrangements to far-away destina-tions, such as southeast Asia and eastern Africa, respecting the people, their culture and nature. “Our business is making dreams come true,” said Paquay, “and we’re using this offer to talk about dream holidays that are more feasible.” \ AH
Leuven travel agency helps book trips to outer space
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air airlines of EuropeEurope’s largest carri-ers, including Brussels Airlines, Iberia, Lufthansa and Ryanair, have created a lobby to influence EU aviation authorities on subjects ranging from taxa-tion, airspace and airport charges. The new lobby will compete with the long-established Association of European Airlines.
air RyanairThe Irish low-cost carrier is launching new flights out of Brussels Airport to Hamburg, Madrid, Malta and Milan late this year. The airline is also launch-ing a flight to Bratislava this spring. Ryanair expects to become the largest user at the airport this year, over-taking Brussels Airlines.
Biopharma Q. BiologicalsThe Ghent-based provider of services for process devel-opment and manufacturing for the biotech industry has been acquired by the French Amatsigroup.
Financing FortinoA group of Flemish entrepre-neurs, led by former Telenet boss Duco Sickinghe, has launched Fortino Capital with some €43 million of funding to invest in promis-ing local start-ups.
Hotels Brussels sectorBrussels’ terrorism “lock-down” cost the city’s hotel sector some €25 million, according to the sector federation. Occupancy rates were up by 2% on the year before until October, then ended the year with a dip of 1%. The sector fears that it will take months to reach normal levels of activity.
Railway InfrabelNMBS’s infrastructure part-ner is investing €1 billion over the next five years to improve security and intro-duce the European Train Control System, which auto-matically stops a train that goes through a red light.
Telecoms BIPTThe national telecoms authority has put out a call for tender for the renewal of the country’s 2G, 3G and 4G telecom frequency licences. The current contracts expire in 2021, and final bids are due by the end of 2017. The frequencies will be auctioned, and author-ities expect that offers will exceed €700 million.
week in business Massive fraud uncovered in
concert ticketing servicefraudsters use fake identities to buy up thousands of tickets
Federal consumer affairs minister Kris Peeters has ordered an investigation into a case of fraud in the sale of concert
tickets. The case came to light after the rapid sell-out of tickets for the Adele concerts at the end of last year, with tickets appearing for re-sale at exorbitant prices. An internal audit was carried out by the Sport-paleis ticket agency Tele Ticket Service, which revealed that fraudsters used multiple credit cards to buy up tickets online, which they then sell on at inflated prices. For a recent concert by the group K3, for example, two people bought 8,000 of the tickets. The agency’s audit revealed 154 suspect cards
linked to some 6,000 fake profiles. The cards were used in more than 13,000 purchases relat-ing to 63,000 tickets, for a value of more than €3.5 million. The concerts took place in the Lotto Arena and Sportpaleis in Antwerp and
the Ethias Arena in Hasselt. Tele Ticket Service tracked some of the tick-ets and found that concert-goers had bought them at a 67% higher price than face value on average. Tickets were doctored to remove the original sale price and the original buyer’s fake name. “In the first place, this is a case of identity fraud, which is a crime here and in the Neth-erlands,” Peeters told VTM News. “I’ve given our economic inspectors the order to assess whether there is enough evidence of a crime to pass the information over to the prosecu-tor’s office.” His ministry is also in touch with its Dutch counterpart.
alan HopeMore articles by alan \ flanderstoday.eu
The federal competition authority has approved the takeover of mobile operators Mobile Vikings and Jim Mobile by Medialaan, the TV and radio broadcaster that owns VTM, Q-music and a number of other stations. The deal now requires the approval of the European Commission. Mobile Vikings started in 2009, offering mobile packages tailored for young people, as well as creating a community of 240,000 users unlike any other customer base. Half of the company was taken over by Base mobile operator, but now Base is the subject of a takeover bid by Telenet. Before that can be approved by the Commission, Base needs to let Mobile Vikings go. Medialaan Mobile will now become the fourth major player in the tele-communications market, after Proximus, Mobistar and Telenet/Base. Its takeover of Mobile Vikings will be reinforced by taking Jim Mobile fully into the fold. Medialaan already owns the brand – a spin-off of its music video station – but until now customer relations have been outsourced to Base. “Jim Mobile may have seemed to be a misfit in the Medialaan portfo-lio, but it’s been a good performer for years,” said Medialaan CEO Peter Bossaert. “With Mobile Vikings, we’ll be bringing in the experience of maintaining strong relationships with users.” \ AH
Medialaan takeover of Mobile Vikings approved
Ostend-based QBMT’s care robot Zora has been so successful that the tech company is moving into new headquarters and plans to begin assembly of two new robots, with a third to follow soon, found-ers Fabrice Goffin and Tommy Deblieck have announced. Zora, a humanoid standing 57 centimetres high, made its first appearance in 2014, when it was presented as an aid to help care for the elderly in rest homes. The robot is now being used in 200 facilities in Europe, the US, Japan and Australia. The new robot “Pepper” will be manufactured elsewhere, with software developed by QBMT. “James” and “Vergeet-me-nietje” (Forget-me-not) will be assembled
in-house in the company’s new premises, which remain in Ostend. Pepper has a price tag of some €10,000 and is intended for the B2B market. James and Vergeet-me-nietje are intended for domestic use. James is a kind of butler robot and will cost about €800. “Just like a butler, he will make life at home a little bit easier,” Deblieck said. Like Zora, Vergeet-me-nietje is involved in care for the elderly, as an increasing number of seniors are living at home longer. Part of her mission is to give the elderly someone (or something) to take care of, which, according to research, leads to an increased capacity for independence and autonomy. She will carry a price tag of about €250. \ AH
Ostend creators of Zora make two new models of robot
The planned merger between textile machines manufacturer Picanol and Brussels-based chemicals group Tessenderlo has come up against opposi-tion from a group of Tessenderlo shareholders. Luc Tack, CEO of Picanol in Ypres, has effectively been told to present an amended proposal. The merger was to be the subject of an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) of shareholders on 29 January but failed to attract a quota of 50% of shareholders present. The postponed EGM for 23 February has now also been cancelled, when it became clear that not enough pro-Picanol shareholders would attend.In the original proposal, Pican-ol’s activities are valued at €811.6 million, about 50% more than the cost on the market at the time of the announcement, while a premium of only 17.5% was made on new Tessenderlo shares,
26 million of which would be sold at a price of €31.50.Tack must now come up with a new proposal for the share-holders, who include the direc-tor of Berkshire Hathaway, the stock market vehicle of the prolific investor Warren Buffet. Tack must devalue Picanol or raise the price of new Tessend-erlo shares – or find a suit-able combination of both. \ AH
For Flemish energy minister Annemie Turtelboom, the most sustainable energy is energy that’s not used. That’s why –
in addition to encouraging local industry to produce its own, preferably renewable energy – she has pushed for companies and organisations to embrace energy-saving measures.According to experts, Flemish businesses still have a lot to learn when it comes to energy effi-ciency. “Companies tend to be selectively blind to the energy consumption of their machines and installations,” says Robin Bruninx, CEO of Encon, a Genk-based engineering firm that helps companies find ways to save energy. “Of course, every business wants to lower its energy bill, but very often they lack the knowhow to realise concrete savings.”The government of Flanders could theoretically impose energy use limits on local companies, but, according to Bruninx, such policies would likely be ineffective. “When a limit is imposed, a company will automatically start to ‘flirt’ with this limit,” he says. Instead, Turtelboom has chosen to get behind the umbrella organisation i-Cleantech Vlaan-deren, which unites the government and 50 companies exploring technology that reduces the use of natural resources. i-Cleantech has just launched the first Leen network in Flanders, short for Learning Energy-Efficient Network. The Vleen network – the “V” stands for Vlaan-deren – brings together nine companies that have committed to making energy savings in their own organisations, for a duration of at least four years. The new network was recently launched in Genk at stainless steel producer Aperam. Bruninx’s company will help the nine partici-pants develop energy-saving measures. “Leen networks already exist in Germany, Austria and Switzerland,” he says. “So the concept has a proven track record.” Crucially, Leen networks are run by and for companies, without any involvement from the government. “The nine companies in Vleen will meet quarterly,” Bruninx explains, “and they will share information about the measures they’ve taken, their knowhow and best practices and the results that they’ve obtained. The idea is that they learn from each other. We are also count-ing on some form of competition arising, which should trigger every company to do better.”Among the companies involved are Belorta, the country’s largest fruit and vegetable auction;
plastic netting producer Conwed Plastics; logis-tics firm Essers Steenfabrieken; brickyard Nelis-sen and a hospital in east Limburg.At a glance, the only thing these companies seem to have in common is their participation in the Vleen network. Can you imagine another setting in which the CEO of a steel production company might bounce around ideas with the general manager of a hospital?
“This is actually one of the core principles of a Leen network,” explains Bruninx. “Because they are so different, these companies can achieve a really unique cross-pollination in the field of energy saving. A hospital has totally differ-
ent ideas about how to save energy than a steel producer. The philosophy is that they can learn from each other’s expertise in the field.”The results from Germany, where 260 compa-nies have united in more than 50 networks, underscore the effectiveness of the concept. The collaboration resulted in mean energy savings of 2 to 3% in the participating companies, which amounted to a total cost reduction of more than €60 million.According to Turtelboom, Flemish businesses need to start investing in energy-saving meas-ures now. “Today’s historically low oil prices might convince CEOs that it’s currently not worth investing in saving energy,” she said at the launch in Genk. “But they should be concerned about the future. The long-term evolution of oil and gas prices is highly unpredictable. They should seize the moment now when energy-saving investments are paying for themselves in less than five years on average.”The minister also would like to see more Leen networks in Flanders. “It’s not a coincidence that the first Vleen was launched here in Limburg, which is rapidly becoming a hub for innovative energy management in Flanders,” she said. “But because of the simplicity of the system, other networks can rapidly be rolled out elsewhere, too.”
Two minds are better than onediverse flemish concerns co-operate to share ideas for saving energy
Developed by Faro, the government of Flan-ders’ heritage agency, and the Swiss company Vidinoti, the ErfgoedApp (HeritageApp) may soon make audio guides look like relics from the past. With the app, additional information about artworks and locations in front of visitors is now just a quick scan away. At the app’s launch in Antwerp’s M HKA museum, eyes of the attendees were, understandably, glued to their smartphones and tablet. As part of the demonstration, they watched videos, listened to audio fragments, played games, examined pictures and read information about the Turkish artist Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin related to a M HKA exhibition. Flemish culture minister Sven Gatz, also present, emphasised that “the ErfgoedApp is the first of its kind”.
The app is partly based on Apple’s iBeacon tech-nology, which relies on small Bluetooth trans-mitters to automatically send information to the app when users with a smartphone or tablet
walk past. “Many museums are experimenting with this, but Flanders is the first to introduce such an ambitious app,” explains project leader Bram Wiercx. Visitors can also access the ErfgoedApp infor-mation by scanning QR codes. For now, the app only offers information about exhibitions at M HKA and the Museum of Industrial Heritage and Textiles in Ghent. “But via workshops, we are training heritage sector staff to integrate the app into their operations all over Flanders,” says Wiercx. He hopes the app might also be used to make heritage events, like historical parades, more interactive in the future. The ErfgoedApp is currently only available in Dutch, but versions in English, French and German will be released over the next few months. \ Andy Furniere
First-of-its-kind app enhances visitors’ museum experience
uGent launches pornography survey Sexology students at Ghent University (UGent) have launched an online survey to examine how Flemings expe-rience pornography. All resi-dents of Flanders aged 18 or over can anonymously fill in the survey until 15 February, and the results are expected by the summer. According to a 2012 study by UGent and the University of Leuven, about three-quarters of Flemish residents have viewed porn at least once. But little is known about the motivation behind the use and its impact. The study will examine to what extent porn affects self-image and sexual behaviour, and whether single people have a different attitude towards porn than people with a part-ner.
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support for children with transgender parent
More attention should be devoted to the well-being of children with a transgender parent, according to sociolo-gist Myrte Dierckx of Antwerp University, who researched how these children experi-ence their parent’s transition. Despite the drastic changes happening to the parent and within the family, said Dierckx, the welfare of children can be safeguarded through open, honest communication. “It’s important to inform and involve partners, ex-partners, family, friends and the school,” she said. Children, however, need to have a say in how and when they want to commu-nicate about their parent’s gender transition, she said.
new game to battle cyberbullying A team of Flemish research-ers, co-ordinated by Antwerp University, has developed a game to battle cyberbully-ing among students. Friendly ATTAC was tested in Antwerp by 27 teams of students and school staff during a cyber-bullying study day. The game is meant for students in the first year of secondary school, where cyberbullying is most common because of the major educational transition and changes in group dynamics. At this age, students also start to use social media more. In Friendly ATTAC, the player witnesses a fictitious case of cyberbullying and learns how to react. The game is a proto-type, and the researchers are looking for a publisher that can integrate the game into an educational kit. \ AF
week in innovaTion
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senne starckxMore articles by senne \ flanderstoday.eu
Keeping track of the flockmechelen students’ smart vest makes shepherding schoolkids easy
Roeselare school attempts world record The Vrije Middelbare School in Roeselare, West Flanders, has announced its intention to break the Guinness world record for the largest chem-istry lesson. The school is organising the event, which will take place on 3 March at Expo Roeselare, with the University College Vives and Essenscia, Belgium’s umbrella organisation for the chemis-try and life sciences sectors. The event will be split into two parts, first a science show and then the world record attempt, in which about 1,200 students will carry out exper-iments at the same time. The current world record, also set in Flanders, is 1,018 students, set at Technopolis last spring. Several local schools will send students to the event.
schools should better prepare students for lifeFlanders’ Ouderforum, or Parent Forum, a panel of 24 parents selected by the Koning Boudewijn Founda-tion to discuss their vision for the region’s educational system, have concluded that schools should better prepare students for later life. Flan-ders’ education minister, Hilde Crevits, prepared two question for the forum: What are the priorities for what secondary education should achieve, and how can students be helped to make the right choices of study discipline. The parents’ report emphasised the need for children to know how to handle money, to be socially committed, to carry out first aid and to debate. Youngsters should also be better prepared for a diverse society through language learning and courses in cultural and religious differ-ences.
Co-teaching becoming new trend More and more Flemish primary schools are introduc-ing co-teaching, in which two or more teachers give lessons together, with classrooms often divided into sections. While one teacher leads a crafts project with one group of chil-dren, for example, another can lead language games. Accord-ing to research by the Organi-sation for Economic Co-oper-ation and Development, 38% of teachers in the first year of secondary education have taken part in co-teaching. The figure for primary school teachers is 69%. International averages, however, are higher, with the European average at 80% for primary school teach-ers. \ Andy Furniere
week in educaTion
\ EDuCaTIOn
Every parent knows the feeling: one moment you’re walking with your kids in
a busy place, and the next one of your offspring is missing. Now imagine you’re not watching two or three kids, but 25. For primary school teachers faced with this task, stress levels can really rocket when they venture outside the school’s perimeter with their charges. Schoolchildren in fluorescent safety vests are already a common sight in Flanders. But if it were up to students from Mechelen’s Thomas More University College, these vests – hesjes, as they’re known here – will soon get a seri-ous upgrade.Six students from the college’s information management and security course have just devel-oped a smart vest, an invention that will help primary school teachers, scout leaders and nature guides keep their young flocks together. The vest is equipped with electron-ics that enable geo-localisation and augmented visibility, mean-ing teachers and scout leaders can see where all their kids are just by tapping their smartphone. An app, also designed by the students, sounds an alarm when one of the children strays too far. The app can also send an audio signal to an individual or to the entire group when it’s time to go to a meeting point – a contemporary form of herding, you might say.“The communication between the teacher’s smartphone and the children’s vests is interactive, and goes two ways,” explains Laurens Cleyman, one of the students who designed the vest. “So the children
can also send emergency signals to their teacher. And there’s an illu-minated strip around the collar that gives the vest extra visibility in the dark.”The vest was designed by Cley-mans and five fellow students over 12 weeks. This part of their course at Thomas More is known as the design lab, in which teams of students are assigned to create
wearable technology – a piece of electronics that can be worn directly on the body or clothing.“The assignment usually involves the development of concept proofs, not finished products,” says course co-ordinator Hans Tubbax. “In the design lab, our students need to combine creative thought, technological knowhow and an entrepreneurial spirit. The two key
ingredients in this year’s assign-ments were social relevance and a good-looking design.”Mission accomplished: that’s what the six students must have thought after they received their feedback from the jury. Not only did the jury declare the smart vest this year’s best invention, one member even proposed investing €10,000 in commercialising the concept.“We were baffled,” says Cleymans. “This person wanted to invest in us on the condition that we would immediately start up a business. This all happened when we were preparing for exams, so you can image how hectic it sounded to us.”That feeling of being in over their heads convinced them to refuse the offer. But now that exams are over, and with support from the school, they’re working on a busi-ness plan and have started the procedure for a patent application to protect the intellectual property of the concept.This professional Bachelor’s course is unique in Belgium. And, according to Tubbax, it’s future-proof. “Data is of strategic concern in our modern economy,” he says. “Companies need employees who have business, financial and commercial knowhow, as well as technical skills. The combination of ICT and business skills means our graduates are very much sought after in the labour market.”The newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws recently published a list of the most desirable professional profiles of 2016, notes Tubbax. “Data protec-tion officer and data scientist were both on the list. These profiles match exactly what we’re aiming at in our information management and security training.”
What is the Winwinner plat-form?Winwinner is an online match-making platform that spotlights entrepreneurs with an invest-ment need and matches them with people who want to invest in their companies. We don’t secure the loans; that part is handled by ParticipatieMaatschappij Vlaan-deren.
How did the idea for the plat-form develop?It was born from a Bachelor’s assignment here at the Artevelde University College in Ghent that required us to launch an innova-tive idea. We knew the winwin
loan existed and that it was gain-ing popularity, but we also knew there was no marketplace for it – no place where offer and demand could come together. There was no physical location where people who were interested in funding a company could reach companies seeking to raise money through winwin.
What’s the aim of the socioeco-nomic label you recently intro-duced?We noticed that there were a lot of investors who were interested in investing in socioeconomic projects. So we met this desire by establishing a social committee
under the helm of Jef Tavernier [ former Groen politician]. Compa-nies that have been vetted and screened by the social commit-tee will now also be allowed to promote themselves as a socioec-onomic company.
What will you focus on in assess-ing these companies?The most important thing is that, in terms of the three Ps of people, planet and profit, profit should come last. So the idea is that the company is more committed to sustainable entrepreneurship and socially responsible entrepreneur-ship, for instance, than it is focused on profit.
What’s your ultimate goal with the Winwinner platform?The platform exists purely for companies. I see that a lot of companies are seeking capital and that they want to grow, and that’s something I find heartening. That’s the reason I do this every day – to help companies that want to grow stronger. And of course, when there’s been a match, it’s nice to see a company be able to expand. \ Interview by Linda A Thompson
Q&aThe government of Flanders’ Winwin loans make it easier for small business owners to raise money from their own acquantainces. Artevelde University College student Matthias Browaeys, the brain-child behind Winwinner, explains how his platform helps entrepre-neurs connect with investors.
winwinnEr.BE
senne starckxMore articles by senne \ flanderstoday.eu
axel schots, one of the students who designed the vest, demonstrates it at a school in Houthalen
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“A piece of normal life”new initiative offers hospital patients a welcome cinema break
A growing initiative is bringing cinema to patients in hospitals across the country.
At the end of December, Cinema for All launched in its fifth hospital, and the organisation plans to add another 10 sites to its roster of participating health-care centres by the end of the year. The project was set up by uFund, which finances films through Belgium’s tax shelter system. The system encourages companies to invest in movie production in return for tax breaks. They’ve now furnished hospitals across the country with projectors, Blu-ray players and screens. UFund spokesperson Maxime Housiaux explains how it began at the Queen Astrid site of Brus-sels’ Brugmann hospital. “I know the director of this hospital, so we decided to do a pilot here in May,”
he says. “We had several screen-ings during the year, followed by a debriefing with hospital staff, who thought it was fantastic. They said it perfectly met the needs of patients
and doctors.”That was the validation he needed to roll out the project, so he proposed it to other hospitals, including the Rekem psychiat-ric centre in Limburg and Inkend-aal rehabilitation centre in Flemish Brabant. Ufund provides the mate-rial and pays all the royalties for the twice-monthly screenings, while the hospitals provide a room and inform patients through posters on noticeboards and leaflets distrib-uted with meals. The hospitals’ role, though, is much more than that. They have to make sure the patients are able to get from their rooms to the screening, often in wheelchairs or even beds, and schedule the perfect time between therapy, meals and visiting hours. It’s a tight schedule, Housiaux says, but they know how positive it is for
patients. “We wanted to give something back to the community, something related to our core business, and it was obvious: bringing movies to people who don’t have access to cinema,” he says. “We’ve started with hospitals, and we hope that in future we’ll be able to bring it to refugee centres and so on.” The Queen Astrid site is dedicated to rehabilitation, and its medical co-ordinator, Dr Agnieszka Gierasi-mowicz-Fontana, has been involved in Cinema for All from the start. “Along with the physical aspect, rehabilitation also means social integration,” she explains. “By giving culture to patients, we’re also giving them a piece of normal life.”The films are chosen by the hospi-tal from a catalogue provided by uFund, based on two important
parameters: length and language. Many of the patients get tired easily and are unable to sit for long peri-ods, so the films must be shorter than two hours. They also avoid films that need double subtitles. “I’m into cinema myself, so I’ve seen perhaps 70% of the films that are chosen,” Gierasimowicz-Fontana says. “I try to choose ones I like, but I’m always curious to see what people’s reaction will be.”For her, the most important aspect is the interaction screenings promote. “It means patients can discuss something other than their therapy and the hospital,” she says. “It’s a different interaction between us and them, too, and I like that very much. We have some patients who are so enthusiastic about it that they come back for the film even after they’ve been discharged.”
Food trucks have long been popu-lar in the US and the Netherlands. Now, the food truck movement is slowly but surely gaining steam and fans in Flanders. The key to their appeal? They allow foodies to sample a wide variety of cuisine as well as the latest culinary trends in special locations, rather than the typical restaurant setting. When he was younger, Bjorn Swenen often worked at music festi-vals. But lately he’s found it tougher and tougher to fit music festivals into his schedule. “My friends and I are at an age when we’re think-ing about kids or have them already and going to festivals isn’t as easy as it used to be,” says Swenen, one of the organisers behind the Hap food truck festival in Antwerp. “Creating a family-friendly festi-val seemed like the way to go,” he continues. “During the day, there’s food, drinks and entertainment for the kids, and in the evening, their
parents can enjoy some dancing and live music.” Food trucks are typically equipped with a fully functioning kitchen and decorated to match their special-ities. “Often it’s something that is unique or only available in special-ity outlets that aren’t that common in certain locations,” Swenen says. “And now you get the chance to try
quintessential Thai or American dishes within metres of each other.” The Hap Festival, which will welcome 28 trucks, takes place in
two locations over two consecu-tive weekends. The Antwerp City edition will be hosted at the popu-lar Cargo bar at Park Spoor Noord. In the Herentals district, you’ll find a full-on open-air festival, but sans live music. “In Herentals, we opted for the concept of a winter fair,” explains Swenen. “We wanted to do it a lot sooner, as the previous editions in Bree and Herentals were so success-ful.” Getting people to come together is a key mission for the organisers since the Hap Festival is aimed at fami-lies, particularly families who love to indulge in a wide range of good food and music. \ Rebecca Benoot
biTeantwerp food truck festival targets culinary globetrotters
sint-Hermes Crypt by nightVisit the beautiful and unique Romanesque crypt under the Ronse church, which was a place of pilgrimage in the middle ages for those seeking a cure for mental illness. The crypt will be lit by candles, and a guide will tell you about its history. Reservations required. 7 February 19.00, Sint-Hermesstraat, Ronse (East Flanders), €3
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wintervonkenThe evening starts with a spectacular street thea-tre performance featuring giant illuminated horses, followed by a concert. An outdoor winter bar adds to the festive atmosphere. 5-6 February 19.00-22.00, Burg, Bruges, free
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underground mine adventureWith flashlight and helmet, children can ride on a real mine train to help the good fairy seek the evil witch. Reservations required. 6-14 February, Beringen Mine, Koolmijnlaan 201, Koersel (Limburg), €6-€8
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Candlelight tourA show with dance and stilt walkers, followed by a torch-light walk through Wink-sele-Delle. Pancake dinner beforehand. 6 February 17.00-22.00, Parish Hall, Mechelse- steenweg, Winksele (Flemish Brabant), free
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winter walkTwo options: Follow a self-guided walk between 13.30 and 15.00 or go with a guide at 14.00. The 5km route goes through De Vroente nature reserve, and there’s a winter bar along the way. 7 Febru-ary, Donk Church, Dorpsstraat, Herk-de-Stad (Limburg), €1-€2
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underground Treasure HuntLittle Charles V has lost the key to his treasure chest, and he’s looking for brave boys and girls to help him find it. Children receive a back-pack with a treasure map, flashlight and costume, and a gift at the end of the game. Reservations required. 6-14 February, Coudenberg Museum, Paleizenplein 7, Brussels, €4
The uFund initiative aims to bring movies to people who don’t have access to the cinema
ufund.BE/nl/cinEmaforall
FEBRuaRy 3, 2016
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Golden onions and carrot peoplecarnival season is officially open, and every village has the parade to prove it
It’s that time of year when, across Flanders, people get ready to dress up for one of the region’s biggest celebrations:
carnival. Carnival is traditionally celebrated on the days leading up to (and including) Shrove Tuesday, the start of Catholic Lent. But in Flanders, carnival celebrations can take place any time between February and Easter Sunday, really. Aside from the traditional Prince Carni-val election and a lot of partying, fireworks and music, carnival season is punctuated with the festive parades of colourful floats and people that move through the streets of towns big and small. There are well over 150 parades across the region, including special children’s editions. Famous carnival processions take place in cities from Ostend to Hasselt, but also in smaller municipalities such as Merelbeke, Menen and Burcht, to name but a few. The mid-Lent carnival parade in Maaseik, Limburg, is presumably the oldest of its kind. It has been held every year since 1865, except during wartime. Indications exist that even before that time, similar parades were held in Maaseik. The parade goes through the historical city centre and is about 2.5 kilometres long. It includes floats from Maaseik as well as from over the Dutch border and even the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.Another famous mid-Lent carnival is in Halle, Flemish Brabant. Unlike most places, Halle elects both a Prince and Prin-cess Carnival. Equal opportunities are taken seriously in this municipality just outside of Brussels.In some parts of Flanders, carnival has adopted a distinctly more daring, even anar-chist, flavour. For proof, look no further than Aalst, one of the most celebrated carnivals in Europe. The Oilsjt Carnival (dialect for Aalst) is big, and it’s long – activities have been going on for weeks and culminate in the big parade on 7 February.For many people in and around the city of Aalst, carnival is the highlight of the year. It’s bigger than any national holiday, and it’s a time when almost anything goes. Many Aalst locals – famously referred to as
“onions” – take a full week off from work to do nothing but celebrate carnival. Prince Carnival receives the key to the city and becomes the symbolic leader of the people, while the local dialect temporarily becomes the town’s official language.
Floats in the traditional Sunday parade mock anything and anyone, but especially love to satirise notable events from the previous year, as well as political and reli-gious leaders. The float builders pick a new theme each year, and some of the creations
are pure jewels to the eye. The parade tends to attract as many as 100,000 spectators. On Monday, thousands of people try to catch the “golden onion”, while the Prince and other members of the carnival committee throw onion-sized packets of sweets from
the town hall balcony. On Tuesday, the Voil Jeanetten (Dirty Jennies) parade through the streets, a bawdy affair that dates back to the late 19th century, when workmen dressed in their wives’ old clothes because they were too poor to buy proper costumes.
Carnival celebrations traditionally end with the burning of a huge doll. In Ninove, where residents are known as “carrot people”, the doll is a giant carrot. This East Flemish city celebrates carnival a week after nearby Aalst. The festival includes a fun fair and lasts four days. This year’s Sunday parade – two days before the burning of the giant orange vege-table – happens to take place on 14 Febru-ary. The perfect outing for lovers looking for an original way to spend Valentine’s Day, no? So, yes, carnival season in Flanders is offi-cially open. Whether you’re in Maaseik, Ostend or anywhere else in the region, everyone is invited to join in the fun.
For an overview of carnival parades in Flan-ders, visit the website of carnival heritage association Fen Vlaanderen
fEnvlaandErEn.BE
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.
One of the most beautiful medieval paint-ings in Europe has hung in the Ghent Cathe-dral since it was painted by Jan Van Eyck in 1432. Now his “Adoration of the Mystic Lamb” is being restored, panel by panel, in the city’s Fine Arts Museum. You can track down the story of the altarpiece in several locations across town.
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SINT-BAAFS CATHEDRALThe Van Eyck Altarpiece has been stolen, dismantled and hidden many times since
it was unveiled in 1432, but it is now back in the Cathedral, complete apart from one panel stolen in 1934. The altarpiece used to hang in the Vijd Chapel, but was moved in 1986 to the more secure Villa Chapel, where it is displayed behind glass.
\ sintbaafskathedraal.be MUSEUM VOOR SCHONE KUNSTENA major project to restore the 24 panels of the Ghent Altarpiece is due to run until 2017. The work is being dismantled in stages and the panels restored in the Fine Arts Museum south of downtown Ghent. Visitors can watch the restorers at work from Monday to Friday (pictured). It’s fascinating to watch the experts use tiny scalpels to remove the dirt and apply new paint with brushes that sometimes have just a single hair.
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CAERMERSKLOOSTERAn exhibition on the Ghent Altarpiece occupies several rooms in an old Carmel-ite convent dating from 1329. The exhibi-tion includes a link to a webcam installed in Room 4 at the Fine Arts Museum where the panels are being lovingly restored.
\ caermersklooster.be STAMAn entire room in the city museum is dedi-
cated to the theft of the Van Eyck panel in 1934. The interior looks like a crime inves-tigation complete with scribbled notes on the walls and photographs of the prime suspects. You can listen to recordings of witness statements and open 17 wooden drawers containing copies of ransom letters sent by the thief to the Bishop of Ghent.
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VAN EYCK HOUSELook for the busts of Jan and Hubert van Eyck on the wall of a 19th-century corner house at Koestraat 50. The house is believed to stand on the site of the building where the Ghent Altarpiece was painted. Accord-ing to one theory, the missing panel was hidden here, although nothing turned up when police searched the house in 1991. \ Derek Blyth
50 weekends in Flanders: On the trail of Jan Van Eyck tinyurl.com/50wEEKEnds
with more than 150 parades across the region, from kiddie versions to raucous affairs, carnival in Flanders has something for everyone
Many Aalst locals take a full week off from work to do nothing but celebrate
lode demetterMore articles by lode \ flanderstoday.eu
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FEBRuaRy 3, 2016
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The British Touchthe uK shares the spotlight with japan at anima film festival
Anima, one of Europe’s most respected animation film festivals, will again be
showing animation films from around the world in Brussels this month. Festival organisers hope to welcome at least as many people as they did last year, when Anima drew 40,000 visitors.This edition (the 35th, but who’s counting?) focuses on two coun-tries with rich but very different animation traditions – Japan and the UK. Japan is typically seen as the mother of all animated cinema, and Studio Ghibli, home of the famous animator Hayao Miyazaki, is a brand as interna-tionally respected as Disney and Pixar. But the Anima festival organisers want to show there’s more to Japa-nese animation than Studio Ghibli. Through screenings and an exhibi-tion with original drawings and sets from classic titles like Ghost in the Shell and Metropolis, the festi-val zooms in on the visions of the future of Japanese animation films. Of course, the festival also presents new work, most remarkably The Case of Hana & Alice – the first venture of Shunji Iwai, one of Japan’s greatest live-action direc-tors, into the world of animation. The Japan section of the festival also includes a series of shorts made by the animation depart-ment of the Tokyo University of Arts.The UK’s most famous anima-tion studio, meanwhile, is Aard-man, which has produced some of the world’s best stop-motion clay animation (think Wallace & Gromit or Shaun the Sheep). One
of its co-founders, Peter Lord, will visit the festival with a couple of surprises. You’ll be able to see more Brit-ish gems in The British Touch, a compilation of work produced by the new wave of animation film-makers that surfaced during the 1980s and ’90s, thanks to money from Channel 4.The Anima competition for feature films will include another famous live-action filmmaker who made the transition to animation – Char-lie Kaufman of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind fame. His stop-motion film Anomalisa is currently nominated for an Academy Award. Aside from Kaufman, the competi-tion also unites household names like the Japanese Mamoru Hosod, and up-and-coming filmmak-ers like the Spanish duo Alberto Vazquez and Pedro Rivero.The festival’s dedicated children’s
section is split into two age catego-ries: toddlers and youngsters. The films for the first group are mostly in French, while those aimed at the latter are typically in Dutch, some-times with English subtitles. Another festival section is dedi-cated to shorts. Anima received more than 1,200 submissions, with some 100 selected to be shown. Here, too, you’ll find a mix of new names and veterans of the trade like Australian director Adam Elliot and US animator Don Herzfeld. Shorts are grouped into programmes, with some focusing on film schools. Of course, local institutions (there are three anima-tion programmes in Brussels, one in Flanders and one in Wallonia) are also highlighted here.
Flemish animated feature films are a rare thing, so it was a wise move to put Cafard, an underrated gem released last September, on the bill. This beautifully drawn movie by Jan Bultheel tells the story of a world wrestling champion from Ostend and his experiences during the First World War.And did you know that Brus-sels is home to one of the most famous 3D animation studios in the world? nWave is the company behind Fly Me to the Moon and Sammy’s Adventures. Its latest international production, Robin-son Crusoe, opens the festival. This movie retells the traditional Crusoe story through the eyes of Tuesday, a parrot on the island where the eponymous character washed ashore.
In this social media age, it has never been easier to share opin-ions and thoughts; to make your voice heard and listen to what other people have to say. But according to the organisers of the You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet festival, the effortlessness of this exchange of views comes at a cost. “Because of the abundance of opinions, we lose track of what is real and important and what isn’t,” says Tom Bonte, artistic director at the Beursschouwburg in Brus-sels, which is organising the event. “We narrow our scope of vision so that we don’t collapse under the tsunami of information. Our reality becomes that part that we frame or choose to see. The rest is chaos.”You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet prom-ises to show us something alto-gether new, and challenge our limited perception with a host of film screenings, dance and theatre performances, as well as an expo
and live music over a three-month period.The opening weekend will see the screening of a new film by Amer-ican filmmaker Zachary Oberzan. In The Great Pretender, Oberzan plays himself but is later revealed to be his own impostor. The screening will be followed by a live performance, in which the film-maker in turn impersonates Elvis Presley.In another film, a young photog-
rapher documents the growth of a child. The baby isn’t hers, but she is drawn to it because she had sex with the man who became the father nine months later. “I’m a photographer in real life,” says the Japanese-Belgian artist, Lisa Spilliaert. “But in Growth Records II, I am acting out that role. And the film is in a way a
failure because in the process of making it I ignored the delicate balance between art and real life. I never stopped to think if it was OK to do it and how it would affect the baby or the father.” It is this blurred line between the real and imaginary that connects the different exhibitions, but ulti-mately there is no clear thematic link between the You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet projects. Some will shock you, others will make you reflect or laugh. Bonte hopes the visitors will embrace the festival for its ambiguity. “We didn’t start off with a subject in mind,” he says. “We decided to bring together talented artists and in the course of making the programme, the topics began to arise. Over time, the puzzle became clearer, but it is still a puzzle.” \ Bartosz Brzezinski
Brussels festival encourages visitors to free their minds
Van Groeningen wins Best Director at sundanceFlemish film director Felix Van Groeningen has won the award for best direc-tor at America’s Sundance Film Festival. His new movie Belgica opened the festival. It is the first time a Belgian film has ever won one of the festival’s major prizes. Van Groeningen has made several internationally acclaimed films, including De helaasheid der dingen (The Misfortunates) and the Oscar-nominated The Broken Circle Breakdown. Belgica, the story of two broth-ers who run a bar in Ghent in the 1980s, opens in Belgium on 2 March. Flemish filmmaker Pieter-Jan De Pue’s debut The Land of the Enlightened, meanwhile, won the Sundance award for best cinematography. The docu-mentary tells the story of chil-dren in Afghanistan fighting to survive. De Pue shot every-thing himself on 16mm. It will screen at Bozar in Brussels next month
Top year for museums in antwerpMuseums in Antwerp sold 1.5 million entry tickets in 2015, three times as many as five years ago, the city’s culture alderman, Philip Heylen, has announced. The MAS, Middel-heim Museum and Rubens House were the leading attrac-tions. “We have seen more museums open over the last five years,” Heylen noted, “and we were afraid they would simply take visitors from the existing museums. But that has turned out not to be the case. Over the next few years, we plan healthy investments in our museums.” The city is already planning an extension in the Rubens House and a new building for the Museum Mayer van den Bergh.
Directors of Black to helm Hollywood film The directors of the Brussels gang film Black, Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, have been signed on to direct the film The Big Fix, a Fox and Chernin Entertainment co-produc-tion. The crime thriller follows the true-life story of profes-sional match-fixing on the international football circuit. The movie is loosely based on the 2012 article “All the World is Staged” in ESPN The Maga-zine. The directors grew up in Flanders and met at film school in Brussels. Black has won multiple awards, and the movie’s lead, Martha Canga Antonio, was named a Euro-pean Shooting Star by the Berlin International Film Festival.
week in aRTs & culTuRe
a still from lisa spilliaert’s Growth Records II
BeursschouwburgOrtsstraat 28, Brussels
5 february to 30 april
BEursscHouwBurg.BE
christophe verbiestMore articles by Christophe \ flanderstoday.eu animafEstival.BE
FlageyHeilig-Kruisplein, Brussels
5-14 february
The underrated Flemish feature Cafard is on anima’s agenda
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Building the suspenseflemish artist virginie Bailly captures apprehensions in the abstract
Virginie Bailly’s ambiguous work is on show in Hasselt in a dual exhibition with the haunting images of Swiss artist Daniel Karrer.
“What do you think? Should we hang this painting on that wall or on the adjacent one?”
Three days before her show Odelay opens at Hasselt’s cultural centre, artist Virginie Bailly is still questioning how everything should be displayed. And so it happens that she suddenly asks for advice when she walks me through the exhibition.If this gives the impression of an insecure artist, think again. Bailly is someone who knows what she wants. But she has invited another artist, Daniel Karrer of Switzerland, to show alongside her, and since there’s no external curator, an outsider’s voice might offer a fresh perspective. “My husband normally has a very good eye for this,” she says, “but he couldn’t make it today.”I left before a decision was made, so I’ll have to go back to see the result. But that won’t be a hardship, since Bailly’s vivid paintings can be viewed over and over again. And the haunting, slightly otherworldly paintings by Karrer, whose first exhibition in Belgium this is, are a real discovery.“When I was asked to show my work in Hasselt, I thought it would be inter-esting to dialogue with another artist,” Bailly explains. “I had just discovered Karrer’s work and I think we have a simi-lar approach to painting. We both strive to catch a moment of suspense. It’s a feeling that I’ve always appreciated in visual arts.”She gives the Renaissance painting “The Tempest” by Giorgione as an example: “It has a shimmering tension; it captures the moment just before something important happens, or just after it’s happened. It’s also summoned in the frescos of Pompeii. In a famous one, you see Medea’s children playing knucklebones, while their mother, with her back turned to them, is holding a dagger, pondering the upcoming slaughter of her offspring. It’s fascinating.”It might be surprising that suspense is such a crucial element for Bailly, since her work appears abstract. But that’s just at first sight. “Observation is the basis for all
my work,” she insists. “Whether it’s instal-lations, paintings or drawings. It starts with pictures I find on the internet or take myself, or just with things I see in nature.” The result is an ambiguous view – Bailly compares it to a compound eye – built with different structures. Sometimes this leads to more abstract elements; at other times they are more figurative. Though you have to make an effort to recognise them. “By adding different elements, I create suspense, regardless of how figurative the image is. And I stop adding extra elements when I feel that I’ve captured it.”Bailly, the daughter of a Flemish mother and a Walloon father, was born in 1976 in the Brussels municipality of Ukkel. “I’m a real kiekefretter,” she says with a laugh, using the typical word in Brussels dialect that describes the inhabitants of the city
and literally means “chicken eater”.She knew at a very young age that she wanted to become an artist. “Though at first I had my mind set on becoming a farmer, suddenly one day I changed to visual artist,” she recalls. “My parents, both landscape architects, were surprised by that change. But they shouldn’t have been, because they’re the ones who nourished me with art. From a young age, I was browsing through books on Van Gogh, Soutine or Eugène Leroy with my mother.”When Bailly was 12, she hoped to attend a secondary art school. “But my parents wanted me to go to a normal secondary school. I was so unhappy there that I only stayed one year and subsequently went to
the art school.” That was Sint-Lukas in Brussels, where she also got her Master’s degree as a painter. It took a while before she could live from her art – “I started selling regularly from let’s say 2007” – though she’s still teaching two days a week at the art academy in Geel. “I like it, and it balances out my life,” she says.But back to the expo in Hasselt. The title, Odelay, will remind music fans of the masterful album by American musician Beck. “Daniel Karrer came up with it,” admits Bailly. “I know the Beck album, but this is more than a reference to it. The word ‘odelay’ can have different meanings. For instance, it’s used to express enthusiasm.”Odelay for Odelay? Sure thing.
christophe verbiestMore articles by Christophe \ flanderstoday.eu
walker Evans: anonymous
Walker Evans was one of America’s most influential and popular 20th-century photographers. His book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (with writer James Agee) is a milestone, a memorial of sharecroppers during the Great Depression. In publish-ing his work in books and magazines, and writing and thinking about the art, Evans played a key role in transforming photog-raphy into a modern medium. It’s that role that’s highlighted here, presenting original pages from magazines and vintage prints. Whatever he does, in a sense he’s always looking for the greatness in everyday life (pictured). Until 3 April, Fondation A Sticht-ing, Van Volxemlaan 304, Brussels
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ryan gander
A light breeze floating through some empty ground-floor rooms of the Frideri-cianum: it was one of the most controver-sial artworks at the last Documenta festi-val in Kassel. It was thought up by Briton Ryan Gander, a conceptual artist whose works at first glance might seem very disparate. One moment he’s dissecting existing artworks, like a sculpture by Flem-ish modernist Georges Vantongerloo, and the next he’s inspired by architecture or amplifying a plasticine giraffe by his five-year old daughter into a huge sculpture. In the end, though, they all seem to be differ-ent elements of one bigger story. Until 27 March, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Muse-umlaan 14, Sint-Martens-Latem
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thomas Huber: the red frieze
This major new work by Swiss artist Thomas Huber consists of a frieze – a decorative horizontal band on a wall in a room. But above that hang several paintings, often depicting spaces, and in each of them you can see an echo of the frieze. That echo is generally, again, a frieze, though more elab-orate than the main frieze itself. The paint-ings often exude an alienating, magic-real-istic tone, as if he’s trying not to emulate an existing world but to give an idealised architectonic interpretation of a mental one that could never exist. 7 February to 20 March, Galerie Transit, Zandpoortvest 10, Mechelen
For the second season running, KVS, Théâtre National and Bozar join forces for the International Selection. The programme encompasses 14 artistically and politically progressive productions from around the world, including this provocative revival of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. South Afri-can playwright Brett Bailey updates the Elizabethan tale of witchcraft and dynastic intrigue by setting the action in war-torn Congo, where a group of refugees happens upon a discarded trunk containing worn-out costumes, a yellowed libretto and an old recording of Verdi’s 19th-century opera treatment of Macbeth. Brus-sels-based composer Fabrizio Cassol helps Bailey bring Verdi’s score into the 21st century. \ GV
The third edition of this event is a chocolate lover’s paradise, with more than 100 national and inter-national producers and vendors on hand to show their wares. There are demonstrations and tastings galore. Chocolate museum Choco-Story presents an historical exhi-bition tracing the global spread
of chocolate from the ancient empires of Central America to the royal tables of old Europe to the chocolate industry of today. Finally, one of the Salon’s best-loved attractions is a spectacular catwalk show featuring the latest in edible couture. \ Georgio Valentino
“Nothing succeeds like excess,” says Lady Violet during wedding preparations in the British series
Downtown Abbey. It’s an amusing but also pointed comment about the upper classes that could also apply to the theory behind the Ghent exhibition [email protected] exhibition takes as its starting point the idea that period pieces do not have to be completely historically accurate. Movies can certainly be educative, but they are works of art and entertainment foremost, so a bit of embel-lishment in story or form is not only acceptable, it’s required.It is made up of costumes and clips from films by the queen of period cinema: Britain. The coun-ty’s exalted status is hardly surprising, with centuries of dramatic royal history and novels by Jane Austen and Charles Dickens as source
material.The BBC TV series The White Queen features prominently – partially shot as it was in Ghent – and features memorable scenes of local hero Veerle Baetens playing Margaret of Anjou. The clothes worn in the scenes are on display on mannequins. And so it goes through Elizabeth, Pride and Prej-udice, David Copperfield and many more, culmi-nating in Downton Abbey, which gets an entire room to itself. One could be forgiven for assuming that this is an exhibition about historical costuming, as these pieces are the exhibition’s focal point. But, curiously, no mention is made in the lengthy wall texts of the costumes. The exhibition is keen to talk about the real-life history behind the films, but studiously avoids its fashionable guests of honour. It’s an unfortunate lack of a
link between what you are seeing and what you are reading.And yet I did enjoy looking at the costumes. A highlight is one of the brilliantly bombas-tic 18th-century gowns worn by Keira Knight-ley in The Duchess (pictured). And viewing the clothes donned by the late Heath Ledger in Casanova and those worn in Sense and Sensibil-ity by Alan Rickman, who died just two weeks ago, succeeded in bringing a lump to my throat. \ Lisa Bradshaw
Berlin-based American novelist Nell Zink comes to Brussels to talk about her idiosyncratic career. Legend has it that Zink edited fanzines, waited tables and worked in construction for decades before dropping her internationally lauded debut novel at the age of 50. She didn’t exactly come out of nowhere, though: In addition to building up a lifetime of material, Zink honed her writing skills through correspondence with famous pen pals, like the Israeli poet Avner Shats and best-selling American author Jonathan Franzen. The latter became a kind of mentor and literary agent, advising her to write more commer-cially, and then personally hustling her manuscripts through the corri-dors of publishing power. \ GV
PeRfoRmanceBrusselsTommy Tiernan: Out of the Whirlwind: Stand-up show by the Irish comedian, actor and writer. 7 February 20.00, Bozar, Ravensteinstraat 23
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oPeRaBrussels L’Opera Seria: Flemish musi-cian and renowned Baroque conductor René Jacobs leads the B’Rock Orchestra in this revival of the masterpiece of operatic satire by Florian Leopold Gassmann. 9-17 February, Koninklijk Circus, Onderrichtstraat 81
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visual aRTsBrussels Bullet Holes: Installation by Brussels artist Jacques André comprised of bullet holes applied to the glass of a shop window, in a critique of consumerist society. Until 5 March, Hopstreet Window, Sint-Jorisstraat 109
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fesTivalOstendPostival: Music festival featuring a talk show with special guests Triggerfinger, The Van Jets and Monsieur Paul, in addition to concerts, discussions with professional musicians, a guitar service centre and vinyl pop-up shop. 6 February, CC De Grote Post, Hendrik Serruyslaan 18a
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familyacross FlandersYouth Film Festival: Film festival for kids and young adults, featuring previews and unique screenings of new short and full-length films, opening with the magical Oscar-nominated animation Het lied van de zee (Song of the Sea). 14-22 February
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faiRBrussels EU studies fair: Politico’s annual job fair and network-ing event, an opportunity for students and young profes-sionals to discover academic and career opportunities in EU studies, international rela-tions, business, economics, public policy and law. Career seminars and counselling, guided tours of the EU insti-tutions and university spot-lights. 5-6 February, Crowne Plaza, Ginestestraat 3
\ eustudiesfair.com
Artefact has been exploring contemporary issues related to art and society for more than a decade. Each edition of this multi-disciplinary arts festival takes a specific problem as its theme and lets artists and audiences take over from there, with exhibitions, installations, concerts, perfor-mances, workshops and lectures. The theme of this 11th edition is Up in the Air. Of course, the heav-ens aren’t a specifically modern theme – the earliest humans were fascinated by them – but modern technologies like satellites and remote-piloted drones have given airspace yet another layer of signif-icance. \ GV
We’ve all done it. But that doesn’t make it any less embarrassing. Het is een
dagelijkse ergernis van 2,6 miljard smartphonegebruikers in de wereld – It’s an everyday problem for the 2.6 billion people in the world who use smartphones, according to a recent article in the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant. Je typt een word – you type a word, drukt op de spatieknop – hit the space key, en de ingebouwde soft-ware maakt er iets heel anders van – and the embedded software turns it into something completely differ-ent.Here are some examples they mention: steak wordt strak – steak becomes straight, emancipatie wordt ejaculatie – emancipation becomes ejaculation, en een zelfri-jdende auto verandert in een zelfri-jzende auto – and a self-driving car turns into a self-raising car.It has now evolved into a prob-lem because we all use autocor-rect to make life easier. Je tikt snelle berichten via chats en tweets – you type out fast messages using chats and tweets, en maakt op het kleine toetsenbord sneller spelfouten – and make spelling mistakes more frequently on the small keyboard,
die gecorrigeerd moeten worden – which then have to be corrected. Dat scheelt tijd – that saves time, als het werkt – as long as it works. But sometimes it fails spectacularly. The problem lies in our phones, which sometimes just don’t get what we’re trying to say. Misver-standen ontstaan als het systeem corrigeert wat je net hebt getypt – Mistakes arise when the system tries to correct what you’ve just typed. Het taalmodel houdt er rekening mee – The language model assumes, dat je er soms een beetje naast zit – that
you sometimes hit the key next to the one you intended. Zodat je, als je een D tikt – so that when you hit D, misschien ook de nabijgelegen S kan bedoelen – perhaps you actually wanted to hit the S next to it. Als jouw woord niet in de woorden-lijst staat – if your word isn’t in the dictionary, en het andere woord wel – and the other word is, dan blijft-ie dat suggereren – then it will suggest that one. It’s not such a bad system, accord-ing to De Volkskrant, because it’s based on the way our brain works. We maken voortdurend elkaars zinnen af in ons hoofd – We are constantly finishing off one anoth-er’s sentences in our heads. Als ik even stop – If I simply stop, dan zou jij probleemloos mijn zin kunnen afmaken – you can finish off my sentence without any problem. Het brein loopt op de zaken vooruit – the brain runs ahead of things. Omdat als je het goed hebt – because if you’ve grasped it correctly, je je verder alleen maar hoeft te concen-treren op de dingen die afwijken van je verwachting – you only need to focus on things that are different from what you’re expecting.Like when someone types the word emancipation, but it comes out as…
Talking DutchPardon my phone
\ BaCkPaGE
The lasT woRd
mechanical doping“All of my victories and results were won honestly. Despite that, people will now always look at me askance.”Cyclo-cross competitor Femke Van den Driessche is accused of using a bicycle fitted with a hidden motor (see p3)
concrete evidence“Corrosion because of road salt, carried by water seeping in. The water itself is not so bad; it’s the salt that’s the killer.”Professor Luc Taerwe of Ghent University explains why the concrete in Brussels’ tunnels is falling apart
do unto others“I don’t know what to do. My head tells me it’s not a good idea to open the doors of the church, but my heart refuses to accept people sleeping outside in the cold.”Fernand Maréchal, pastor of the Stella Maris church in Zeebrugge, has his own personal refugee crisis
Economic cycle“About 1% of our employees come to work by bike, but the potential is much bigger.”Brussels Airport CEO Arnaud Feist announced the construction of a link between the Brussels-Leuven cycle highway and the airport by 2018
a. Yes! I couldn’t live without my tablet and smartphone, my WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter. I need to be connected, man
b. No, I use digital devices, but I’m the boss, not them. I check in occasionally, but not every time I get a moment to myself
c. Not remotely. I have a computer in the office, and an old Nokia GSM. Social media is a waste of time
When a poll is online, you would expect that those responding to it will be at least a little computer-savvy. So the total lack of any Luddite response comes as no big surprise. The rest of us are hooked, in one way or another. A majority claim to be the boss of their devices, but are they protest-
ing too much? Or maybe their jobs don’t require them to spend a lot of time on social media. Hats off to those who are manag-ing a balance between digital and 3D life because, according to Flanders’ digital research centre iMinds, it’s getting more and more difficult.
A full 69% of respondents to the centre’s digiMeter survey said they think they spend too much time on new media. The centre is seeing young people taking to libraries in ever-greater numbers to study in groups to get away from devices: A first step to curing their digital obesity.
Pollare you addicted to screens and social media, suffering from what digital research centre iminds calls “digital obesity”?
\ next week's question: A Leuven travel agency is offering to guide consumers through the €292,000 process of booking tickets on Virgin’s space flights. Would you be willing to boldly go? Log on to the Flanders Today website at www.flanderstoday.eu and click on VOTE!
CONNECT WITH US LIKE USTweet us your thoughts @FlandersToday
Jezi Belle @Jezi_BelleThe war of 1812 was ended on December 24, 1814 by the Treaty of Ghent. Ghent is in Belgium. New Orleans didn’t get the memo.
Kevin Hart @KevinHart4realI just did a surprise pop up on some fans at The Kinepolis Movie theater in Antwerp Belgium....I love my fans ...
In response to: Federal government to discuss repair of Brussels tunnelsTim Verdoodt: To all the private companies in Brussels, join us in Flanders ;-)
In response to: Belgium has second-worst environmental qual-ity in EuropeBryan De Laet: Kinda figures when there’s that much indus-try located in Belgium :P
In response to: New organisation spreads gospel of local food specialitiesMonica Woodall: You forgot carbonnades!!!!
voices of flandeRs Today
In response to: Leuven travel agency offers trips to outer spacePeter O’Reilly: I could suggest a few clients, well done enterprising Leuven.
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