The dog took us out for a walk this afternoon, out towards Leuven. The weather has been strange today, with angry skies and frequent hailstorms, but we walked mostly in sunshine. The days are lengthening and the bird life is increasingly visible. Today, in addition to the usual round up of sparrows, tits, chaffinches, greenfinches, wrens, blackbirds, fieldfares, woodpigeons and crows, we saw, in order of appearance, a green woodpecker, an early lapwing, a white heron (again – I suppose I shall soon have to admit that they are egrets), four buzzards gliding high on thermals, a flight of geese and a hen harrier, skittering past. Strangely, there was no sign of the usually ubiquitous pheasants, though they are clearly raised around here for hunting. On the other hand, we saw a big hare, lolloping over a ploughed field, no doubt preparing for March!

To the Palais des Beaux-Arts this morning, to a major retrospective, scheduled to coincide with the Danish Presidency of the Council of the EU, of Per Kirkeby’s work, together with an intriguing exhibition of Kurt Schwitters’  ‘forbidden paintings’. Exiled from Nazi Germany by the allegedly ‘degenerate’ nature of his work, Schwitters lived for some time in Norway, where he started to paint realistically (and very well) – this despite previously having been a major representative of the avant-garde in Germany. Kirkeby was fascinated by this discovery. Two of Schwitters’ paintings (in the exhibition) hang on his wall ‘like icons, seeing to it that I don’t forget the blessing of “stylelessness”.’ As the programme notes put it, ‘Like Schwitters, Kirkeby refuses to let himself be pigeonholed; his art transcends the dominant spirit of his time.’ That is indeed a dominant theme of this very rich exhibition. Kirkeby has been extraordinarily inventive but in artistic terms always true to nobody but himself. In short, this exhibition is a must-see.

We’re well into the second season of The Wire now and completely hooked. But something brave and rather intriguing has happened in the plot; one of the main protagonists – an attractive individual full of moral contradictions -has been murdered. Now, I know this creates a rich potential for all sorts of dramatic tensions and graphically confirms the series’ gritty realism but it also comes at the price of all the effort that went into building up the character and his credibility. The series has been been described as modern Dickens but you wouldn’t get Dickens killing off one of his favourite characters at the beginning of Chapter Six. Unlike a fantasy series, such as Lost, there is no artificial exposition (flashbacks and the like) in The Wire and, unlike Lost, the series was, I believe, written out before filming began, so characters could not be written out (or in) according to the dictates of opinion polls and focus groups. It’s a brave thing to do, therefore. Such deliberate dismissal of commercial imperatives in favour of dramatic potential is an illustration of why the series never reached the heights of popularity enjoyed by lesser productions.

To Uccle early this afternoon, to the appositely named Silence crematorium, to say farewell to John Hellon. You can see good old inimitable John in this video, playing the man whose memory lapses (starting 34 seconds in). That’s his unmistakable laugh right at the end of the clip. The moving ceremony, topped and tailed by music from one of his many friends, was delivered in turn by his bewildered son, a warmly remembering friend, and his distraught companion. Those present will not easily forget that combination nor the man whose life was being remembered. I would like to illustrate this post with an image of John but cannot easily find a good one on the internet. I like that fact, for there was, as his son eloquently put it, always something enigmatic and unknowable about John. Postscript. Thanks to my friend, Vincent Eaton, I can now post a photograph of John and here’s a link to a video of him – typical John!

Here, as promised in this post, is the link to Aphelion Webzine which, thanks to Robert Moriyama, the short stories editor, has just published my short story, The Garden of Eden. As the previous post illustrated, the story is a good example of why budding authors have to be persistent and not allow quantities of rejections slips to discourage them. On the contrary! We should wear them like badges of courage! Talking of which, my friend and fellow author, Vincent Eaton, has put together a series of humourous video clips documenting his various encounters with rejection slips. You can see the first of them, and the links to the others, here.

This afternoon I spoke, at the invitation of its Chairman, Councillor Gordon Keymer (picture), to the UK delegation of Committee of the Region members. The EESC doesn’t have national delegations in the same sense, though members of the same nationality may meet quite often. In our sister Committee, on the other hand, members work within two dimensions – their political allegiance and their national delegation. I spoke frankly about the challenges ahead but also about the undeniable success of the administrative cooperation agreement between the two Committees. It may take a lot of governance at all levels, but it works and, in my opinion it does so because it is predicated primarily (and somewhat paradoxically) on the complete institutional autonomy of the two advisory bodies, with very different compositions, roles and powers granted to them under the Treaties. Thus, there is no merging of identity but, rather, a full recognition of identity plus the pooling of resources in a mutually satisfactory way (that also happens to save the taxpayer a lot of money and brings with it a lot of synergies and economies of scale).

This morning the EESC’s enlarged Presidency (the President, Vice-Presidents, Group Presidents and the SG) met and top of the agenda was a now successfully renegotiated draft Protocol of Cooperation with the European Commission. We will be welcoming European Commission President José Manuel Barroso to our plenary session next Wednesday and after the debate he and our own President, Staffan Nilsson, will hopefully sign the new Protocol. Before we get there, however, next Tuesday’s meeting of the Committee’s Bureau has to give its approval to the document, hence today’s preparatory meeting. Based on today’s discussion, all should go well. The new Protocol represents a considerable improvement on its predecessor and in particular provides for the Committee’s strengthened role under the new Lisbon Treaty’s provisions, particularly in the area of participatory democracy (Article 11).

This afternoon I attended a meeting of the EESC’s Budget Group at the invitation of its President, Jacek Krawczyk (Employers’ Group/Poland), for the discussion around the drafting of the Committee’s draft 2013 budget. I have written about the difficulties of this process before. The rapporteur, Madi Sharma (Employers’ Group/United Kingdom) and her fellow members of the drafting sub-group have had a complex task, making allowance for ‘known unknowns’ (next year’s inflation rate, for example) whilst being sure to budget responsibly so as to meet the Committee’s legal obligations, and all the while presenting a reasonable, rational, but also austere budget in a consensual fashion. My task was, for once, an easy one: I sincerely congratulated everyone!

To the writers’ workshop this evening, where many a glass was raised to the memory of John Hellon (see previous post). I am reproducing my ‘exercise’ tonight here because it is a graphic illustration of what budding writers are always told at workshops and the like: if at first you don’t succeed (and you almost certainly won’t) then try and try again. “In December 2010 I fell ill with flu. Instead of going to Tunis, I went to bed. But once the initial fever had passed I found it impossible to do nothing and so I wrote a short story, The Garden of Eden, which brought together a few ideas I had had. It was an experiment in a genre, sci fi, that I wouldn’t normally touch. Because I was ill, I had the time to finish it and was not unhappy with the result, so I submitted it to the writers’ workshop. They liked it. So, with the workshop’s encouragement ringing in my ears, I did a google search and came up with a list of the ‘top ten science fiction magazines’. Interzone (number one on the list) rejected it on 4 January. Asimov’s Science Fiction (number two) rejected it on 16 February. The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (number three) rejected it on 26 April. Analog Science Fiction and Fact (number four) rejected it on 16 June. Not One of Us rejected it on 9 July. Clarkesworld Magazine rejected it on 16 July. Our World and Another Realm no longer existed. Strange Horizons rejected it on 26 September and Challenger rejected it the same day. However, some kind soul at that particular magazine told me that the story, though not quite right for them, was the sort of thing a friend liked. This friend was the short fiction editor at another magazine. So I submitted it to that other magazine on 14 October last year and heard nothing. I wrote in December. The short story editor wrote back apologetically to tell me that they had a long backlog. And then, just last Friday, I received the following e-mail: “Please review the attached HTML-formatted and slightly-edited version of the story and let me know if any changes are required, including expansion of the minimalist author biography at the end. The story will go online within the next week or so as one of a handful of new items in our “Best of 2011″ edition.” Bingo! When the story is published I’ll provide the name of the magazine and the link.

Shortly after landing at Zaventum I learned of the sudden and unexpected death early the previous day of John Hellon, a founder member of my writers’ workshop and a good friend. In a long life, John had seen most of the world and lived in many parts of it. After (active) military service in the Korean War he had worked as a Swiss-based tour guide, a London-based advertising man and a Brussels-based business man. In between, there had been trips to Africa and the Caribbean and the Far East and a house in Mexico and an Italian wife and son before realising his true sexuality and ‘coming out’. John had a passion for cooking. He wrote a number of cookbooks, including a big hit with The Blue Elephant Cookbook: Royal Thai Cuisine. For many years he wrote an authoritative restaurant column for a local magazine, The Bulletin. (His guacamole, last tasted by me just before Christmas, was simply delicious!) A tall man, with erect stature,a booming voice and his tell-tale ‘ooh-la-la!’ (delivered ironically), John always told things as they were – or as he thought they were. His fortnightly exercises for the workshop would often involve wistful reminiscences about buildings and places that had known better times, combined with a choice quotation based on his compendious knowledge of Hollywood films, tunes and lyrics. He had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. Here’s what John Boyle (another founder workshop member) said on Facebook: “Farewell John Hellon. One of the few who really was ‘larger than life’ in every way. Outspoken, often outrageous, gregarious, generous – a marvellous host. One thing is sure: ‘il n’est pas passé inapercu.'” Just last year John completed a manuscript, entitled The Paper Museum, made up of autobiographical reminiscences triggered by particular objects or images. We must now make sure he lives on through the publication of his museum.