Reply to: Oh dear: Belgium has its own version of the Apprentice

[eurodude]

Groland and Guignols de l'info

The best French language telly I find is the News in Spitting Image format which takes the p... out of the TF1 news - The Canal+ programme "Les Guignols de l'Info" I know its French but all my French-speaking Belgian friends watch it too.... its on Canal + every evening at 7.55 PM.

The other great one is Groland , on the same channel, totally silly student humour, weekly summary on Sundays at 1.35 PM. I get these sketches e-mailed to me all the time...

Apart from that I agree @7 is better than WG, but it depends how desperate you are... ;-) What about Bazaar & Havana Club? Place Lux on Friday nights is also not bad for after work beers with the euro-crowd.

Have you seen this new site BrusselsJobs ? Comes from these guys EuroBrussels.

Off to Place Lux in 3 hours...

[Joe Black]

Ja sorry, een klein grammaticaal foutje...

Maybe I shouldn't have stopped with the language courses.


PS. It's on again tonight apparently, so make sure you have the popcorn ready!

[jenever]

Nederlands?, er is geen Nederlandstallige mensen in Belgie!
-----------------------------------------------------------

er zijn?

</FWNLmode>

[Antman]

Wild Geese on Thursday is scraping the barrel, all the slappers with pretensions to class are going to @7 in Madou.

[Fleetwood]

The Flemish part is certainly richer than the French speaking part ATM, so effectively they are subsidising, (and boy do they not like it), but up to the 70's say, it was the other way round, and they didn't have a problem then. Funny that.

[Joe Black]

You need to be more precise here, JB, and say it's the Dutch-speaking bit of Belgium that has the Apprentice.

F in "FDF" mode

I thought that would be obvious Fleety, given that there is no enterprise to speak of in Wallonie, and Vlaanderen (Belgie that is) has to provide financial aid most of the time...

Nederlands?, er is geen Nederlandstallige mensen in Belgie!

Joe in "VB" mode (not sure if thats Vlaams Blok, Vlaams Belang or Vlaams B*******)


Edit:

"As for French language skills either get yourself a French-speaking bird (Wild Geese on Thursday night is a cattle-market)"

And what do you suggest if you want to be cuni-lingual?

[Rantor]

Thanks for the pointer...

...I'll check out FR2. Quite ilke the suggestion of a French femme (of the moin lourde variety) but I'll have run that past my English gf first - might have to stick to the conversation clases that seem to be getting somewhere.

I like Belgium too, even considering buying a place, but sometimes I get floored by how dysfunctional it is just below the surface. I work with a lot of flemish guys who have all, separately, given me the same unprompted diatribe about the ways things 'really' are - strange bunch indeed but make me feel well adjusted.

Are there many UK freelance guys out here?

[Fleetwood]

Belgium is great. I like it anyway (8 years 4 months and counting - although there was a period on the bench down en France). As for French language skills either get yourself a French-speaking bird (Wild Geese on Thursday night is a cattle-market), or start by watching the news. France 2 at eight o'clock is good. You know vaguely what's going on in the world anyway, and your brain makes the link between the commentary and the pictures, so you start to understand better.
hth

[threaded]

No that is continentals, it is their way.

I always take the attitude that the continentals are not English, this attitude has served me well.

[Rantor]

Ah, autre travailleurs independents...

Only found this forum recently and was going see if there was anybody out here in Belgium but an informed whinge about local telly and linguitic chipiness answers that one.

I just got cable installed here after a year, ostensibly to improve french listiening skills (not attempting dutch yet), but the quality of the francophone
telly programming makes it an uphill struggle to last more than twenty minutes - it all seems like community access tv. Still, free 'Art Movies' n some French channels after 10 most nights it seems.

On a unrelated topic - is defenestrating ones colleagues considered bad form in the belgian office environment? Just wondering as some people seem to have some strange ideas about continually gobbing of to people and then acting shocked if there is any comeback

[Fleetwood]

No.
You said that the Flemish speak Flemish, whereas they speak Dutch, a language which they refer to indifferently as Dutch or Flemish.

[threaded]

That's what I said innit?

[Fleetwood]

No Threaded, it's Dutch, but not as we know it. The Flemish say they speak either either Vlaams or Nederlands. This is to distinguish themselves from the Dutch as a race, with whom they don't get on at all.

[threaded]

Erm Dutch, I thought it was Vlaam?

[Antman]

you mean "hu-de-hu-de-hu-de-here am de topmanager en vt4"?