Jeudredi round-up 9/12/22

Welcome to the first Jeudredi1 round-up. This is an end of the week collection of things to read, things to listen to or watch, and things in or near Brussels. Not more than three of each, though, to keep things manageable.

Tramlines

Reading for your Friday travels

Poland’s government seems to be in trouble, caught between the need to appease Europe and its fire-breathing coalition partner. (Notes from Poland)

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Trouble to come with reform of the House of Lords, says Alex Horne at UKandEU blog. Having been involved in an earlier iteration of the process in 1999, I can certainly imagine it will be harder than people assume - but at the same time, I’m constantly frustrated by assumptions that an elected second chamber will cause legislative deadlock, which is a reflection of the UK political élite not generally looking past US politics.

A new series on the changing role of cities in fighting climate change is kicked off by Roope Mokka at Demos Helsinki’s blog. Demos are partners of my own organisation Democratic Society in the Net Zero Cities, so I’ll be reading these with particular interest. It’s the second time this week I’ve been prompted to think about how city action needs to connect to European and national levels - the first was Wednesday night in Louvain-la-Neuve, listening to Paul Magnette launch his new book - a manifesto on ecosocialism - and talk about the democratic initiatives he has been working on as mayor of Charleroi.

Radio-Télévision Brussels

Listening and viewing

🎧 This week we celebrated Saint-Nicolas / Sinterklaas. Good children, or bad children with good upward management skills, have received clementines, chocolates and presents. Vandaag (De Standaard) investigated the myth history of St Nicholas and why Belgian children think a 3rd century bishop from Turkey arrives from Spain on a steam boat with a bucketful of orange fruit. [🇧🇪-🇳🇱]

🎙️ Stromae’s Tiny Desk concert for NPR is well worth 15 minutes of your time. He performs a four-song set, using no pre-recorded sounds, at the desk of NPR’s music reporter Stephen Thompson. I love the moment at 1’07” where the pink-haired backing singer is clearly thinking “what an amazing place to be”.

🎧 The quality of state and local democracy in the US was the focus of Jake Grumbach on Ezra Klein’s New York Times podcast. The idea that the US states are small-scale “laboratories of democracy” has a long tradition but is increasingly out of date, as policy capacity and political attention at state and local level declines. For those of us interested in European governance, the similarities and differences were interesting - is there a risk that Europeanising elections creates a partisan push that reduces effective political power at member state and local level?

Vijfhoek

Around the city

Building things and regretting them since the 14th century. In the Dansaert quarter, near the canal, there is a curving road called Papenvest / Rempart des Moines. As I discovered this week, it follows the route of a “Monks’ Wall” - an extension to the first city walls designed to protect the Jericho convent. This wall was built in about 1345, and provided with a handy gate on the road towards Flanders (Vlaamsesteenweg) to allow people out of the city. However, within a decade or two, the city decided that new walls were needed, and a whole new wall was built further out. The Monks’ Wall was demolished - but the gate stayed for almost four hundred years, in the middle of the city, for no reason, until it burned down in 1727. The “Verlorenkostpoort” - the Gate of Wasted Effort - can be seen on the 1711 map by Fricx, just by where the café Au Laboureur is today.

The Plaisirs d’Hiver / Winterpret Christmas market has started, and seems to be bringing in good numbers - according to Delphine Houba, the deputy mayor for culture quoted in Le Soir, 325 000 people visited in the first weekend, with 119 000 of them from outside Belgium. My diligent research suggests that La Guinguette d’Hiver on the Nordzee side of Place Ste-Catherine / St-Katelijneplein has the best mulled wine.