Category: europe

today we did something that had an exotic feel to it. we went to eat in one of the pie and mash places on one of high streets around the corner, Roman Road. London’s most traditional food, working class food since Victorian times, east london Cockney food par excellence. minced beef pie, mashed potatoes and a green sauce called liquor, for 2 pounds or so. a small shop front space covered in white tiles, a marble counter and tables with wooden benches, partly seperated from a backroom space where the stuff is made.

east london is an interesting place to live and think of contemporary history through layers of human business and mobility. on another big road around the other corner, Mile End Road, there is a market every day to which an amount of women wearing the niqab (faceveil) come that i have never seen in any other place before. peter, a new friend of giulia (giulia makes new friends every time she goes out to the shop, the laundrette…), who did not seem so much older than us, explained that when he grew up here, the neighborhood was white, apart from three black families living next to each other, of which his family was one. the place has transformed so much since then, creating resentment among the indigenous white people. three old pie and mash houses on Roman Road testify to an older London that does not exist anymore yet is part and parcel of what this place is made of. and we’re learning something new: better to take two portions of mash, and i’m not fond of the liquor so perhaps next time i should take gravy. for the sea-food lovers, and as a testimony to the importance of the vein that runs through this city, you should try the jellied eels.

back in the new bethnal green home, which hosts yet another visitor this night, isabelle from paris. giulia does a delicious pumpkin risotto, and by the end of the evening i find myself washing up the dishes in front of the kitchen window. my eyes wonder over these old east london two-storey brick houses. then, in the middle of the empty street, a beautiful golden brown fox walks by, in all elegance. it takes a moment to believe what i just saw. when i tell the girls, they are not surprised. foxes live here; when the girls leave the front door (which gives onto the yard of the pub) open they even dare to visit the house. urban jungle in yet another sense.

my first trip to the UEL

these were the elections that would deliver the first Vlaams Belang mayor in Antwerpen. i can hardly remember elections in Belgium from before the time they were nick-named “black sunday” (since that election day in the 1980s when became clear how many people were ready and eager to vote for what then was called the Vlaams Blok). yesterday’s elections did not turn out black. ambigious, but not black. (and the mayor of Antwerpen remains red, although it’s the red of a socialist party revamped by neoliberalism and populism.) a bend in the VB growth line.

what made that happen? much talk about the charismatic populist leader of the socialist. in fact much talk about everything except… jan hertogen’s careful analysis of the elections results relates the interruption of the VB growth line to the so-called migrant vote. nadia wrote an excellent piece based on this analysis, monsterverantwoordelijkheid voor een monsteroverwinning. the affirmation of an “allochtoon” political subject in the realm of party politics and elections. but guess how difficult this is for Vlaanderen to see and recognize…

i’m kind of excited & proud today: i became a Reader of the British Library. i must admit that my card is only valid for a week, although they insisted that they keep the files and i only have to come back next time with the magic paper and i’ll get a full card. and the magic paper is… any kind of document or letter or bill or bank statement with my address on it. cause listen to this: i presented a perfectly valid Belgian passport (with a perfectly valid US visa in it), a perfectly valid Belgian identity card and Luxemburg residence permit. but in this British bureaucracy, these documents didn’t count (they lack an address).

giulia was already read to go and find ourselves another place to work, but i stay put, grow roots on the spot, and argue. the woman lists all the possible documents that she would accept, proposes that i can get a bank statement or bill faxed and come back on monday, but i’m not ready yet to accept. i get lucky cause i find my international student health insurance pass, with the old Kenneth Street address in Santa Cruz on it. she doesn’t recognize this particular kind of health insurance card (admittedly, it’s a lousy bit of paper) but surely, i argue, with all of these documents together it must be possible. she gets her superior. he agrees to do me week card. then my eye falls on the expiry date on my health insurance pass: 31 June 2006. shit. (i mean, i’m sure i have health insurance somewhere somehow – hello there mum, no need to worry – only the pass doesn’t vouch for it). but they don’t notice and 10 minutes later i have my BL plastic card with digital photo. the magic card which opens the doors to an impressive reading room, what a amazing working space…

so if i understood it well: three different kinds of valid official goverment-issued documents, but it’s a expired temporary health insurance card that does the trick. getting acquinted (again) with perks of British admin and bureaucratic logic…