Irish Coffee

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What are the origins of Irish coffee, now iconic of the Anglophone culture? One of the popular beliefs was that aviators added cream to their coffees to be able to drink it warm and thus quickly, whereas the whiskey was supposed to give them courage. Nevertheless, after research, the following story was made official.

A young Irish chef named Joseph Sheridan worked in the restaurant at Foyne’s airbase (later Shannon airport) in Ireland in the forties. In order to warm up passengers coming back from a particularly unpleasant flight, he simply added whiskey to coffee. The American passengers were surprised by this cocktail and first thought they were being served Brazilian coffee, but Sheridan called it Irish coffee.

The travel writer Stanton Delaplane then brought this drink to the United States in 1952 after having tasted it at Shannon airport. Together with Jack Koeppler and George Freeberg, two bar owners from San Francisco, he worked to re-create this drink. The cocktail was popularized by Delaplane who frequently wrote about it in his travel columns.

This beverage consists of Irish whiskey, black and hot coffee, heavy cream and brown sugar (for more details about the recipe, please have a look at the video below). People have always struggled to obtain the famous floating cream on the top of the beverage. Another and easier variant among many others would thus be to use whipped cream instead of heavy cream. The look is crucial, indeed “A perfect Irish Coffee should look pretty much like that other famous Irish drink – Guinness”

Stéphanie de Wilde and Marie Defraigne

Chris Evans

Christopher Evans is one of the most famous British presenters. He was born in 1966 in Warrington and was the youngest of three children. His father died when he was 13. After this tragedy, Chris entered the Padgate High School but left it at 16 and had quite a number of jobs before setting up and working in his private detective agency.

His broadcasting career started in Piccadilly Radio in 1983, where he worked on Sundays afternoon and weekdays evenings before moving to the BBC London Radio station GLR. He worked there from 1990 to 1993 firstly as a producer and then as a presenter of a Saturday afternoon show. At that moment he decided to devote his time to his TV career.
His first show on Channel 4 was called: ”The Big Breakfast". He presented this mix of news, weather, interviews, audience phone-ins and general features from 1992 to 1994. He had a huge success from the first sitting and became a national star. Meanwhile, he formed his own company called Ginger Production and performed a new variety Saturday night show “Don’t forget your Toothbrush”. It was very successful and the number of viewers reached 6 millions. A year after he moved to the unique end-of-the-week TV show on Channel 4: “TFI Friday” from 1995 to 2000. At that time things went bad for Chris Evans who became a swellhead and got less “success”.

In 2002, he developed programmes for his new radio and television production company, UMTV. One of these was “Terry & Gaby”, a weekday morning magazine host by Terry Wogan and Gaby Roslin, Chris’ former co-host in the Big Breakfast. But the show failed because the audience numbers stagnated.

Nevertheless, he pulled himself together and presented the Breakfast show on UK Radio Aid’s day of programming for the victims of the Asian Tsunami in 2005. The same year, he also presented a number of shows for BBC Radio 2, especially the Easter Bank holiday, the Brit Awards and the Comic Relief. He finally rejoined Radio 2 to present his regular Saturday afternoon show. In April 2006, Chris and Sir Terry Wogan worked together on "Drivetime", a show about business, sport and traffic

In January 2010, after 4 years on Drivetime, Chris will move to the Breakfast Show, presented until now by Terry Wogan. For the occasion, Chris will host on Wednesday 23 December « Bye Bye Drivetime: Hello Breakfast » from the O2, a concert arena in London.

Laurence Henriet and Bérangère Piccinin

Garrison Keillor

Garrison Keillor is an American writer, humorist, musician and radio personality. He was born in 1942 in a conservative religious family in Anoka, Minnesota. He has been married three times and has two children. He began his radio career on a student radio station while at university. In 1969 he hosted a morning programme called “A Prairie Home Entertainment” on Minnesota Educational Radio. However, the masterpiece of his radio career is the programme “A prairie Home Companion” which started in 1974 and which is still followed each week by 4 million listeners. It is an old-style variety show consisting of comedy sketches, music, fake commercials and a weekly monologue read by Garrison Keillor about Lake Wobegon, a fictional Minnesotan town. In 2006, “A Prairie Home Companion” was turned into a movie for which Garrison Keillor wrote the screenplay and in which he also acts.

Garrison Keillor has more than one string to his bow: he is also a well-known writer. He is famous for his articles in magazines and newspapers. Until 2001, he was the advice-giving Mr Blue at Salon.com. In 2004, he published a collection of political essays: “Homegrown Democrat” and the next year, he began a syndicated newspaper column about political issues. His interest in politics led him to support Barack Obama during the presidential campaign. He has also written several books for adults and children as well as poetry. In 2006, he opened an independent bookshop in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Besides his impressive height (1.90m), Garrison Keillor has a distinctive voice too. This has allowed him the opportunity to do voiceover work. His voice is to be heard, for example, in advertisements, animated series, documentaries and audio readings.

Throughout his brilliant career Garrison Keillor received many awards. He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame under the comedy category in 1994. He also received the Moth Award – Honoring the Art of the Raconteur.

Thanks to the fame he has progressively achieved, Garrison Keillor has become a cultural icon. He is often referred to and parodied, partly because of his distinctive voice –as some say: his hypnotist tone– and his monologues are sometimes considered to be boring. He appeared, for example, in an episode of “The Simpsons” as a monologist with Homer exclaiming: “Stupid TV! Be more funny!” He is also referred to by music bands. The Pennsylvanian singer Tom Flannery for example wrote a song called “I want a job like Garrison Keillor’s”. This shows the important impact of Garrison Keillor’s work on the Anglo-Saxon culture.

Florence Vandevondele & Hélène Verhaeghe

Ford Model T

The Ford Model T was a car produced by Henry Ford's Motor Company from 1908 to 1927. The first Model T was manufactured on September 27, 1908 in Detroit. Its popularity was mainly thanks to its low price and robustness. Henry Ford was the first to introduce assembly line production for cars. This accounted for a reduced production time (about one tenth of the time it took to assemble any other car!) and, thus, a reduced price. A Model T indeed cost about $850 ($20,000 today) in 1908, but by the 1920s, the price had fallen to $290 (about $3,000 today).

Ford had an obsession with diminishing costs. That is why he introduced a series of measures: he reduced the working hours from 9 to 8 hours a day, so that there could be three shifts of 8 hours' work, covering the entire work day. From 1913 to 1926, Model T's were only painted in black, in order to reduce the costs. This accounts for this famous quote attributed to Henry Ford: “You can have any colour you want as long as it's black”.



Ford also made many efforts in order to shorten the time of assembly and, by 1913, it took only one hour and 33 minutes (instead of 12 hours and 8 minutes in 1908) to assemble a Model T! In the year 1927, the company was producing a car every 24 seconds! In the early 1920s, two thirds of American cars were Model T's.

Model T's were very robust cars. They could ride on nearly any road, and even through snow, with a top speed of 40-45 mph (64–72 km/h). Their parts were also replaceable, so that it was really simple to repair them. Model T is thus really the car that “put America on wheels”!

The 'Thin Lizzie' (or 'Flivver'), as many Americans called Model T, is now part of the American popular culture. There are a few songs about it, like 'The Little Ford Rambled Right Along' (in 1914) or even 'You Can't Afford to Marry If You Can't Afford a Ford' (sang by Jack Frost in 1915). There's also an Irish hard rock band called 'Thin Lizzy'. Model T has really become the symbol of industrialisation, in such a way that, in Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World' (a book from 1932), Henry Ford is worshipped as a God, and the years are dated 'After Ford'. In this novel, people are created in assembly lines and make the 'sign of the T' instead of the sign of the Christian sign of the cross.

Amandine and Madeline

The Haçienda

Fac 51 Haçienda, also simply known as The Haçienda, was a nightclub and music venue located in Manchester. Its name comes from a slogan of a radical group: « The Haçienda must be built » which was a plea for a new urbanism. In Spanish, the word hacienda refers to a beautiful house or an estate. However, the cedilla was added in English so that the “çi” resembles the “51” from FAC51, which was the official number given by the Factory Records.



On May, 21 1982, the Haçienda, which was designed by Ben Kelly, opened its doors. It was mainly directed and financed by New Order from Factory Records. In 1986, during the “Madchester” years and the birth of the rave movement, it became the first nightclub to play (acid-)house music. DJ Mike Pickering, who regularly performed there, helped the Haçienda to have more success so that it could pack up to 2,500 people on a good night. However, the nightclub had constant financial problems. At the beginning, they did not make profit at all, and when they did, the money ended up being spent for drugs. As a result of these drug problems, a teenager died of an ecstasy overdose in 1989 in the club. From then on, the Haçienda was in trouble with the authorities leading to its closure in 1991. Despite its reopening the same year with a better security system, shootings in and outside the club as well as assaults regularly broke out. As the violence increased, the Haçienda had to close for good in July 1997. In November 2000, a charity auction was held allowing people to buy bricks from the building as well as all sort of memorabilia. In 2002, the nightclub was demolished and flats were built instead.

Many famous artists are well-known for having performed at the Haçienda. The club featured bands like Joy Division, New Order, The Smiths and some bands from the Madchester years such as The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays. Moreover, some DJ’s are still known for their nights at the club, like Mike Pickering, Dave Haslam or Laurent Garnier. Last but not least, Madonna’s first visit in the UK was in the notorious nightspot in 1983.

The Haçienda achieved an iconic status as it was “the place to be” in the 80’s. Furthermore, Newsweek designated it as the “most famous nightclub in the world”. More recently, the British movie “24 Hour Party People” (2002) showed the Haçienda as part of the Manchester life in the 80’s. In 2007 and 2008, there was an exhibition where the visitors could (re)discover the nightclub and see the impact of the Haçienda on the economic and urban development of Manchester. Finally, Peter Hook (member of New Order) published the book “How Not To Run A Club” which is about his experience as one of the owners of the famous nightclub. To conclude, the Haçienda will always stand for a place of huge importance to the global music scene.

Sylvie and Caroline

Alan Titchmarsh

Alan Titchmarsh is an English broadcaster, novelist, journalist and gardener. He is especially famous in the field of gardening programmes on British television. He presents programmes on the BBC TV and also BBC Radio 2. He considers his life as colourful and active.

Titchmarsh was born on 2 May 1949 in Ilkley in Yorkshire, England. He is the son of Bessie, a textile mill worker, and Alan Titchmarsh, a plumber. His sister, Kath, is five years younger than him. Titchmarsh developed his love of gardening at a young age. He went to Ilkley County Secondary School, leaving in 1964 at age fifteen to become an apprentice gardener. In 1972, he enrolled at the Shipley Art and Technology Institute to study a City and Guilds course in Horticulture. Following that, he studied at Hertfordshire College of Agriculture for his National Certificate in Horticulture. He then gained a Diploma in Horticulture at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London.

Titchmarsh stayed at Kew, being employed as a supervisor and latterly as a staff trainer, leaving to pursue a career in gardening journalism in 1974. In 1979, after editing gardening books and magazines, he became a freelance writer and broadcaster, making his first appearance on BBC Nationwide. In 1996, he presented “Gardeners’ World” on BBC 2 from his own Hampshire garden. In 2002, he presented “How To Be A Gardener” before working on “British Isles – A Natural History” and then “The Nature Of Britain” both on BBC 1 and BBC 2. Later he also had programmes such as “The Proms” and “Songs of Praise” on television and “Melodies For You” which you can catch on Sunday evenings on BBC Radio 2. He has presented “The Alan Titchmarsh Show” since 2007 on the ITV.

He met his wife Alison in 1972 when he was still student at Kew and married her three years after in 1975. They have two daughters, Polly and Camilla. The family home is in Hampshire, England. Titchmarsh also keeps a second home on the Isle of Wight, where he likes to do most of his writing.

Patron and president of more than 30 charities, he is trustee of his own charity, “Gardens for Schools”, which helps with the funding of gardens and green spaces in and surrounding primary schools. “Seeds for Africa”, another charity of which he is trustee, is involved in encouraging sustainable vegetable gardening by providing communities with the seeds and tools, as well as the training required for starting their own vegetable gardens. The charity also prepares the land and provides water installation. His charitable work with wildlife includes being Vice President of Butterfly Conservation and he is a supporter of The Wildlife Trusts. In line with his love of boating, Titchmarsh is a trustee of the National Maritime Museum.

Désirée and Jennifer

Julia Child

Julia Carolin McWilliams was born in1912 in a Californian well-to-do family. At 22 she got a “Bachelor of Arts” degree in history. The next seven years she worked in advertisement for different firms. After the Pearl Harbour tragedy, she wanted to join the Women’s Army corps but was refused because of her height: one meter 88centimetres. Thus she decided to enter the Office of Strategic Services i.e. the American information office. When the War was over, she met and married Paul Cushing Child, an artist who had lived in Paris for a while but who was working in the US at that time. The couple remained childless. Paul played a major role in Julia’s life because he was the one who introduced gastronomic cooking to her. Indeed, in having to move to Paris in1948 to fulfil his function, he gave Julia the opportunity to discover a new passion: cooking.

At a restaurant called “La Couronne” in Rouen, she had a culinary revelation. She defined the meal as “an opening up of the soul and spirit”. As a result, she attended several culinary courses where she met Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle with whom she wrote a French cookbook for Americans. In 1951, the three women began to teach cooking to American women in their Parisian school “L’Ecole des Trois Gourmandes”. For the next decade, they travelled through Europe, researching and testing recipes that Julia then translated into English, making them easy to do. After her travels she came back to the US. They published the book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” in1961 after having had some difficulties to find a publisher because of its encyclopaedic style. The accessibility of the book made it a best-seller which encouraged them to write a second volume ten years later.

In 1962, she was seen on a show on a Boston channel during which viewers discovered her way of cooking an omelette. A year later she appeared in the cooking television programme “The French Chef” which was immediately successful thanks to her enthusiastic and modest personality. Seeing that she was appreciated by the public, she wrote two other books, “The French Chef Cookbook” and “From Julia Child’s Kitchen” which were both based on her show.

In the 70’s and 80’s, she was the star in two television programmes: “Julia Child & Company” and “Dinner at Julia’s”. In 1989 she published “The way to cook”, her main work, which contained a book and some videos. In the 90’s, she appeared in four cooking television broadcasts where she invited other famous cooks like Jacques Pépin. Her home kitchen in Cambridge was even changed into a functional set which was used for nearly all her shows. In 2001 she retired from public life and died three years later.

Her last book relating her life with her husband in post-World War II France, “My Life in France”, was published in 2006 and was the basis of the film “Julie and Julia” which was released in 2009.

Amélie and Nathalie

The Reader: What would you have done?

After the moving Billy Elliot in 2000 – the story of a little boy who wanted to become a ballet-dancer – and the outstanding The Hours in 2003 – a brilliant adaptation of Michael Cunningham's novel –, the British director Stephen Daldry has once again released a new masterpiece: The Reader.

One can say that Daldry is one of the best when it comes to adapting a novel for the cinema: those who like the book of the German writer Bernhard Schlink will not be disappointed. What is more, Daldry has a great sense of staging. His stories have a particular genuineness that can do nothing but seduce you. The drab and almost grey photography brings you back to post-war Germany rising from its ashes. The music is soft, beautiful, but never invasive. It takes you by the hand and accompanies the viewer and the characters in their peregrinations.

But the best asset of this movie is its casting. A tormented and cold Kate Winslet – academy award winner – gives the line to a “haunted by the past” Ralph Fiennes. Not to mention the young David Kross, sparkling with sincerity, who takes on his shoulders one of the leading roles of the movie.

The Reader is an interesting story because it can be read at two different levels. At first sight, it is a love story. But it is a particular one. In 1959, the young Michael Berg falls in love with Hanna, a woman who helped him a few months earlier when he was sick. This almost incestuous passion – Hanna is as old as Michael's mother – lasts only one summer. A strange kind of ritual takes place: every day, Michael goes to Hanna's apartment, they wash each other, Michael reads out to her, they make love and then they lie on the bed, side by side. This strange relationship suddenly breaks up when Hanna, without warning, suddenly disappears to never come back again. This loss ruins Michael's life forever: he will never be able to really love a woman again. He will always try to find a “new” Hanna, a woman who looks like her, smells like her, moves like her. But his quest is hopeless.

However, the story does not end there. Seven years later, Michael and Hanna see each other again... in court. Hanna and a few other women are accused to have killed hundreds of people when they were guards in a concentration camp. Michael, now a law-student, is completely devastated by this revelation. During the trial, he also discovers Hanna's secret.

This secret could reduce the sentence, but Hanna prefers being regarded as a criminal rather than revealing it. She is sentenced to life-imprisonment.

What is so particular and interesting about this movie is that it can be read at a second level. The Reader is not only a love-story, it is above all a comment on the post-war culpability of young Germany. This subject is omnipresent in the movie, even if it becomes apparent only in the second part, during the trial for crime against humanity. The story raises an essential question: how can we live after the horrors that we have committed ? Two generations are concerned by that question. Firstly, the old generation, who went through the war: Hanna, but also Michael's parents and teachers. This generation is divided in three groups: the culprits, the victims and the others, those who did not kill anybody but who did not do anything either to prevent these murders. Has that last group the right to try and sentence the culprits? Are they not also culprits because they agreed to the regime or because they knew there were camps but refused to act?

Michael's generation is also concerned by this question. They are all children of one of the above-mentioned categories. As far as Michael is concerned, his father did not take part in the massacre, but Michael feels guilty because he is in love with a murderer. He has to face a Cornelian dilemma: that of judgment or forgiveness.

“I wanted simultaneously to understand Hanna’s crime and to condemn it. But it was too terrible for that. When I tried to understand it, I had the feeling I was failing to condemn it as it must be condemned. When I condemned it as it must be condemned, there was no room for understanding … I wanted to pose myself both tasks — understanding and condemnation. But it was impossible to do both.” (extract from The Reader, by Bernhard Schlinck, p. 157)

Many years after the trial, Michael tells his story for the first time. He also wants to decide whether Hanna's secret could reduce her culpability. But is any excuse valid enough to wipe away the weight of murder?

Go and see the movie to make your own opinion; you won’t regret it! As you leave the cinema, you will perhaps feel uncomfortable, Hanna's question echoing through your mind:

“What would you have done?”

The didgeridoo

The didgeridoo is a musical instrument which was invented by the Australian Aborigines approximately 1,500 years ago. It belongs to the category of the wind instruments, such as the flute or the clarinet. A wind instrument is usually made of a tube in which the player blows to produce different sounds, resulting in the vibration of the air. Different ways of blowing exist, each producing a different sound; to achieve this, the position of the tongue and the lips of the player is the determinant trick. In order to obtain a significant result, regular practice is said to be the only way to succeed in mastering the didgeridoo. Furthermore, in order to play this instrument, you have to be able to blow uninterruptedly in the tube which is a technique that acquires a lot of practice: for instance, very experimented players manage to blow continuously in the didgeridoo during a whole hour. Nowadays, the use of the didgeridoo is widely spread all over the world. Modern ones are cylindrical or conical, and their length differs from one another but its measure is usually from 1 up to 3 m long. The didgeridoo is traditionally made out of Eucalyptus wood, the interior part of which has been hollowed out by termites. Beeswax is used to strengthen the mouthpiece, which is the place where you blow in. It is often said the didgeridoo is the world's oldest wind instrument. It was originally used during ceremonial gatherings, but is now mostly used for recreational purposes or by music bands seeking more archaic tones, as exemplifies the most well-known didgeridoo player Xavier Rudd.

The Fortune Cookie

It only takes egg whites, vanilla, almond, vegetable oil, flour, cornstarch, salt, a lot of sugar and water to bake a handful of these moon-shaped, vanilla-flavored wafers more commonly known as Fortune Cookies. However crunchy and appealing, Fortune Cookies are remembered for the ‘fortunes’ – read: predictions – they contain. The fortune is the little piece of paper (no bigger than your thumb) inside the cookies. On it, you will find an omen or a piece of advice, which is meant to give general statement that work for anybody, anywhere, anytime. Originally, fortunes were based on verses and proverbs from the Bible or even English translations of 'Confucius’ thoughts'. Nowadays, fortunes are more and more catchy, funny, self-reflexive; they say things like: “Never believe anything you read in a fortune cookie.”

Where can you find Fortune Cookies? In China? Japan? And the right answer is, surprisingly: they’re served together with the dessert in Chinese restaurants in America. While Americans believe the tradition originated in China, it appears that the Chinese have never heard about it. The rightful inventor of the Fortune Cookie is baron Makoto Hagiwara from the Japanese Tea Garden in San Fransisco and dates back to around 1900. Fortune cookies were made to match the taste of green tea and to lighten the tea garden’s mood. They were then introduced in the San Francisco markets by the Hagiwaras. Demand became larger and so did the production at the Benkyodo Company, the appointed bakery. After WWII, the cookie became largely associated with Chinese restaurants. There is one theory that explains the ‘defection’ of the confection from Japanese-Americans to Chinese-Americans. During WWII, the American government was afraid of the potential threat the Japanese immigrants represented in their own country and decided to lock them up in internment facilities: the so-called relocation camps. Chinese restaurants saw this as an opportunity to take over the cookie and the business that went with it. Americans continued to love the concept all the same. It was becoming so popular that it spread to most major cities. After a few years, San Fransico and Los Angeles started vying for the honorific title of ‘inventor of the Fortune Cookie’. Nowadays, historians try to link the origin of the Fortune Cookie with the Mooncake: a Chinese pastry that had supposedly been used during the Ming revolution (14th century) to pass secret messages between soldiers.

Much more than a dessert, the Fortune Cookie has become a real trend in the USA. Americans just can’t get enough of it. Not only do the sales hit the ceiling with 3 billion cookies each year, but the amount of by-products available is also beyond belief. Movies, usb-keys, wedding treats, jewellery, gourmet cookies... you name it.


Mélinda & Benoit

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

If you happen to be walking around the Scottish Lochs in August, make sure to visit the capital of Scotland. Edinburgh is without any doubt the place to be at this time of the year. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the biggest arts festival in the world, takes place inside its walls. Every August during three weeks the city welcomes several arts and cultural festivals, known as the Edinburgh Festival. The Fringe is by far the largest of them. Having a wide variety of events, there is something in it for everybody: theatre, comedy, music, dance, musicals, operas, children's shows and even exhibitions. The Fringe is an open-access festival, which means that anyone who wants to perform is welcome.

The first edition of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe took place in 1947. It came to life when eight theatre companies were uninvited to the Edinburgh International Festival. One of them performed the medieval morality play “Everyman” not in Edinburgh itself but 20 miles north, in Dunfermline, whereas the other seven played in Edinburgh. The festival was named after what a journalist said the year after (‘Round the fringe of official Festival drama, there seems to be more private enterprise than before… I am afraid some of us are not going to be at home during the evenings!’). At the beginning there was no organisation around the Festival Fringe until students of the University of Edinburgh decided to take the situation in hands. Beds and cheap food were for example proposed to the participating groups. A few years later a booking service took place. In 1959, the “Festival Fringe Society” was created and a real organisation was set on foot. The first guide to Fringe shows appeared and it was decided than no show was to be censored. That year, 19 companies went on stage.

At the beginning of the seventies, the Fringe became too important to be organised only by volunteers and therefore John Milligan was employed as its first administrator. In the years eighties, almost 500 companies took part in the Fringe, making it the largest arts festival in the world. In 2000, it became the first festival to sell its tickets online in real time. Seven years later, more than one and a half million (1,697,293 precisely) tickets were sold for Fringe performances, which clearly achieved its position in the world.

The 2009 Edinburgh Festival Fringe was a record-breaking edition. Let’s have a look at the figures on the official website: in three weeks time 18,901 performers took to the stage to give 34,265 performances in 256 different venues. 1,859,235 tickets were sold and 465 shows were for free. What about 2010? We already know that the 64^th edition of the Fringe will take place between the 6^th and 30^th August. Are you feeling like performing at this event? What are you waiting for? Book your tickets and live the greatest adventure of your life!

Herman Van Rompuy and Catherine Ashton

On 19 November 2009, the Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy was appointed the first permanent President of the European Council, also referred to as “President of the European Union (EU)”. From 1 January 2010 onwards, he will take on this job for the next 2,5 years at the least. The function of President of the European Council was created by the Treaty of Lisbon, which will enter into force on 1 December 2009 after the Czech Republic ratified it as last member state of the EU on 13 November 2009. Until now, the function of President of the European Council rotated between the 27 member states of the EU every six months.

The reactions on Van Rompuy’s nomination were divided. For some people, Van Rompuy was the ideal person for the job, others were more sceptical. In particular the British press, who pushed their former Prime Minister Tony Blair forward as a candidate, were rather negative and sometimes even hostile. “Britain ruled by a Belgian? You must be joking” was the headline on the front-page of the Daily Express on 18 November 2009.

In exercising his function, Herman Van Rompuy will be assisted by the British Catherine Ashton, who was designated High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR). This appointment is a compensation towards the British for the non-nomination of Tony Blair. Indeed, the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown supported the appointment of Herman Van Rompuy on condition that the position of HR was given to a Briton.

Catherine Ashton was born on 20 March 1956 in Upholland, Lancashire. Being a member of the British Labour Party, she became a life peer in 1999, taking the title Baroness Ashton of Upholland. She took on ministerial positions in the Department for Education and Skills and in the Department for Constitutional Affairs and Ministry of Justice. On 28 June 2007, the new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown appointed her Leader of the House of Lords. Her main achievement in this capacity was the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon through the House of Lords. In October 2008, she became Commissioner for Trade in the European Commission, where she replaced Peter Mandelson.

A music that cannot leave you cold as a witch's caress !

Who would expect to see a lutenist wearing a kilt in the Arsenal ? Or a crowd of students dancing around the tables and a giant playing “We will rock you” on bag-pipes ? No, you are not dreaming. The Arsenal turned into a 16^th century Elizabethan tavern for the occasion!

On Thursday 15^th October, the Festival de Wallonie invaded the FUNDP. Students were invited to attend two lectures about the relationship between writing or playing music and running a business. During the evening, the atmosphere was livened up by the “Witches”, a band playing Irish and Elizabethan music. The spectators discovered the jigs, ballads and other pieces that were played in pubs in the old days. Nicolas Sansarlat played the violin, Claire Michon flitted from the flute to the drums, Sylvie Moquet hid behind her viola de gamba while Miguel Henry was tenderly plucking his lute's or his theorbo's cords and Freddy Eichelberger accompanying them with his harpsichord and his cither. But the most impressive musician of all was Mickaël Cozien, who played the bag-pipes with a speed and a precision that would make you lose your mind.

It was a real time-travel across the tunes of England. Moreover, this travel was rewarding in many respects. First of all, the audience discovered instruments they had never heard of: the cither, a stringed instrument of the guitar family, which dates back to the Renaissance ; an imposing viola de gamba, also a stringed instrument used in the Renaissance and Baroque periods ; and the theorbo, a kind of long-necked lute dating back to the 16^th century. Each in a row, the musicians took care to present their instruments and explain their main features. But the audience also learned about the styles of music which were played in 16^th century pubs as well as about the main composers of the time: Orlande de Lassus, John Dowland, O'Neil and so many others. Moreover, the musicians explained that the Irish traditional music is a direct heir of the Elizabethan music. Icing on the cake, the Witches also introduced the public to an old type of dance: as a result, more than thirty pairs of feet stamped on the floor of the Arsenal while the musicians were playing a furious jig. The evening was too short, but everyone left with a smile on the face.

Hopefully, it is far from being the only concert of the “Witches”. The band has been on stage since 1999. The five original musicians are Claire Michon, Freddy Eichelberger, Odile Edouard, Pascale Boquet and Sylvie Moquet. But the composition of the group changes from concert to concert, sometimes including special guests such as Miguel Henry and Mickaël Cozien. They also have a huge and diversified repertoire, ranging from jigs to psalms, from hornpipes to Flemish songs and from ballads to masques. If you want to discover their music, nothing is simpler. Three CDs have already come out and a few concerts are planned in November. Do not hesitate to plunge into the enchanted universe of the “Witches”, you will not regret it !

Rolf Harris

Rolf Harris is an Australian-British painter, musician and television personality. He was born on 30 March 1930 in Bassendean, an Australian suburb near Perth. Desirous to become a painter, he gave up his studies in Australia at the age of 22 and moved to England, where he went to the “City and Guilds Arts School” in London.





Besides being a brilliant painter, Harris was a great musician. His first song Tie me kangaroo down, Sport was recorded in 1960. In order to imitate the sound of a leaping kangaroo, he used a wobble board as a musical instrument. Harris invented this instrument accidentally, when he dried a fresh painting by shaking a hard-board, thus discovering the peculiar sound it produced.



In 1989, Rolf Harris made a remarkable cover version of Led Zeppelin’s song Stairway to Heaven. In the style of his Tie me Kangaroo down, Sport, including his famous wobble board, he performed it for the first time during his appearance on the Australian comedy / talk-show The Money or the Gun.


Nevertheless, Rolf Harris is especially known as a TV-figure. He made his debut on BBC television in 1953 and was the presenter of several animal-based and Arts programmes. The most famous animal-based programme he hosted is Animal Hospital, which showed the everyday life of a British veterinary practice. It got rave reviews and was no less than five times awarded Most Popular Factual Entertainment Show at the National TV Awards.

In this video, a vet tries to get a blood sample of a cat. However, this goes not without a hitch...


Between 2001 and 2007, Rolf Harris recorded 28 episodes of his Arts programme Rolf On Art, focussing on the life and art style of a number of notable artists from history, including the Impressionists (e.g.: Claude Monet), the Post-Impressionist (e.g.: Henri Rousseau) or the 20th Century Masters (e.g.: Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso). On 1 January 2006, a special episode was broadcast, when the BBC commissioned Rolf Harris to paint a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, on the occasion of her 80th birthday.

After its immense success, Rolf on Art was followed by a new Arts programme, Star Portraits. In it, three artists painted a portrait of a celebrity, who could then pick out one portrait at the end of the episode.


Joris De Ruysscher
Marc Sonn

A review on Macbeth

The 22nd September 2009 the English department invited its students to see the performance of Macbeth, a production of stage director Declan Donnelan, at the theatre in Namur. Here is my review of this play.
Let us start with the costumes. Every character, except one, was dressed in black. It was quite hard to distinguish one from another and so hard to understand who was who. As a Renaissance play, I expected Macbeth to be more colorful and the characters to wear period costumes. This would have made got a better understanding of the importance of each character as well as the play and even encourage spectators to watch it.
Secondly, I would like to talk about the décor. The latter was very rudimentary and dark: only a simple façade of what seemed to be a castle with kind of wooden columns and some stools. Once again, it was difficult to understand the settings and the sequence of events. Furthermore, Macbeth being dark was not enjoyable to look at.
Thirdly, the language of the play should be discussed. It was a formal language full of metaphors and images: the 17th Shakespearean language. It was quite hard to follow the dialogues and the course of the events even with the French supertitles and very soon I was lost. Let us finish by the positive aspect of the play. What was pleasant was that it was performed in English.
As a conclusion, despite a very positive review from journalists, I didn’t like this play because it was too difficult to understand and follow.

Macbeth : A review

The new play by Cheek by Jowl is a modern adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth.
But how can you modernize such a classic? The director Declan Donnellan expressed this mostly through a meagre set and simple costumes. The set as everyone would imagine for a Shakespearian play was simply not there. No castle, no forest, there was nothing on the stage except for a black curtain and some wooden boxes. And also the costumes were not the opulent ones that everyone had in mind, but just black robes. Even though these elements clearly added a sense of mystery to the whole play, they made it hard to follow the plot and to identify the characters. Moreover nearly every actor had to play more than one part and as the play was performed in Shakespearian English, it was necessary to read the French supertitles.
However the actors' performances were expressive and made quite an impression. The interpretation of the monologues, when all the other characters stood still while the monologue was presented was particularly remarkable. Lady Macbeth's role was equally delightful, even though it was sometimes difficult to understand her. However she still managed to let the audience feel her ambition and finally her madness.
All in all, this modern adaption of Shakespeare was not bad, but in my opinion, plays should be played like they were intended to be, i.e. with suitable costumes and so on.