Doug's Personal Blog

Just fire it right in.

What's going on? Prince doesn't seem part of the Openworld line-up any more! Has he turned back into a symbol?

Billy Joel?

What's even worse is that I haven't been to Openworld for seven years and when I decide to go back, it's Lenny ****** Kravitz again! Even 'The English Beat' were on that year!

I suppose I'm going to have to attend some Oracle-related stuff

Well, I'm not sure that attending a wedding in Belgium last weekend is truly being on holiday but we had such a nice weekend that it felt like it and one of the Greece jokes sort of continued.

Kurt the Dude guy and Els were kind enough to invite Mads and I to their wedding. (I first heard a whisper of this at about the same time last year, so he's a fast mover!) He suggested that the best place to stay might be the nearby city of Leuven (well known to drinkers as the home of Stella Artois!). What a lovely city. Not unlike Edinburgh in some ways, but much nicer in others. It was clean, the buildings were beautiful and the food, coffee and beers were top-notch! From choosing to stay on Friday night for convenience, it turned out to be a great move and we had an extremely enjoyable Saturday milling around the shops and cafes. Of many welcome things we noticed about Belgian life, our favourite was probably that older people packed the street cafes, eating, drinking, smoking and watching the world go by. It occurred to us both that old people in Britain are more likely to stay at home and lead quite sheltered lives. In Leuven, we saw many families out with their older parents. My impression was that Belgians might treat their elders with a little more respect than I'm used to. Leuven looks like a pretty good place to grow old.

On to the wedding reception ...

Having cheated death narrowly alongside the craziest cab driver I've ever witnessed and getting lost on the way (despite the map that Kurt had supplied) we arrived just in time. We were probably one of the last couples to walk in, but as there was still a small queue to greet Kurt and Els and their family, we got away with it Just in front of us in the queue were some recognisable Miracle faces who were still in a state of shock having lost their rather large wedding gift on the way. In Belgium, the modern custom is to give cards with money tucked inside, which seems like a pretty sensible option when so many couples have set up home together long before. Well, the Miracle card contained a very generous gift indeed, but after placing the envelope on top of their car, they drove off with it still on the roof! I know this is true, because Kurt tracked down the CCTV footage later and you can see the envelope on the roof as they drove out of the hotel car park! Mogens retraced their steps in vain (that's why his seat is free in this photo), so someone in Belgium had a very happy week last week. At first, I couldn't resist the opportunity to take the mickey out of Mogens about it. (In fact, no-one believed him at first and just assumed it was another funny story.) Then I did the conversion from Euros to Sterling, gulped and decided I'd better stop

The venue and food were terrific (and I'm not just being polite) and Kurt was gracious enough to inject a couple of lines of English in his speech in Flemish. They were so welcome, I'll repeat them here from memory.

'For those of you who didn't understand any of that, this is a Belgian wedding.

Don't Panic.

The bar is over there.

When the dancing begins, the toilets are over there!'

As the night went on, more wine and beer was consumed, strange dances were danced (Do The Hucklebuck, anyone?) I think Mogens decided that we should have a mini stag night and that would involve cutting up some of Kurt's clothes.

Oh, and the ongoing joke? Mads pointed out to me that one of the songs during the reception was Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart, or rather a rather bizarre cover version. Not only is that the most incredible song to hear at a wedding (Sample lyrics : And we're changing our ways,Taking different roads,Then love, love will tear us apart again) but I'd never heard a bossa nova version! My well-rehearsed Curtis dance routine seemed strangely out of time. Later there was a Depeche Mode cover version as well (they're Mads' favourite band) which capped it off nicely.

In the end, we were probably one of the first couples to leave, to make sure we got a taxi and because we simply don't have the stamina these days! I promise, it was *nothing* to do with the impending Salsa dancing. (Gulp)

All in all, a fantastic event and I can't wait to catch up with both Kurt and Els in San Francisco in a couple of weeks to say proper thanks over a quiet beer.

Congratulations to them both - they make a great couple.

Always take a good book to read.

Actually, I originally thought this recommendation was going to be the continuation of a running joke from previous holidays. I always think :- 'Mmmm, if I have a whole week of nothing planned, I could catch up on my Oracle reading list'. I pack several books, most of which are not about Oracle but there is always at least one. Once I'm on holiday, I sometimes devour one or two of the non-Oracle books (but never all of them) and barely touch anything Oracle-related.

One of this year's running jokes was to say regularly 'Perhaps I should read my indexing book', so I had planned a 'stunt shot' of me reading the book. Then something strange happened. I got a little bored on Thursday, picked it up and then couldn't put it down! I've only read about a quarter of it, so now isn't the time for a detailed review, but I'm really enjoying this one and found myself making little notes constantly for a future review. This is my kind of book. On that basis, thanks to Thomas P. for pointing me in it's direction and Marco for putting a pre-holiday reminder in my head.

P.S. I couldn't resist including one of the many Pineapple Trees on our little private island

In my experience, all of the best holidays require a running joke or two. I don't mean an entertaining anecdote about the exercising masses, but something that crops up early in the holiday and provides amusement during any slightly dull moments.

There were two candidates this time. The first was that we purchased a 'Little Lost Bear' on the plane going out. The joke here is that he looked insufferably cute with his hands over his eyes, as displayed in the catalogue,

but when you take his hands off his eyes he's the most obnoxious, self-righteous cuddly toy yet.

He's full of stories (invented, we suspect) about his jet-setting previous life, spent the whole holiday criticising us and our lifestyle and frankly he's a pain in the *rse. The boys are not happy now that we're back! He's been expelled from the comfy seat but appears to enjoy his perceived superiority as a result.

The other running joke will possibly only work for Andy C. Mads and I were discussing Joy Division on the plane out, probably prompted by the fact that we were going to miss seeing Control until we got back (but Andy helped out with a review here). Anyway, I'd had a couple of beers by this point and became a little passionate about my school days knowledge and love of certain Joy Division singles, notably Transmission. Part of my defence of how much I liked them was that I know the lyrics, so could sing it for Mads if she wanted (on the plane) and that I could even imitate Curtis' unique dance style. She declined my generous offer but there were several inappropriate moments over the course of the next 7 days when I would wave my arms around madly, singing 'Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance to the radio'. I even offered to go up on stage, during an interval in an enjoyable display of Greek dancing, to share my passion with a larger audience.

I hasten to add these moments didn't last long once Mads intervened and that I promise you I'm not a boorish Brit holiday maker, just a happy man who likes to share his passions (or something like that).