Someone else's train, someone else's countryside

Ah yes, Belgium. Famous for its linguistic divide, its inability to form a government from time to time and for its beer. Ah, beer...

But I am here for none of these things, I am here to work. And, although my meeting doesn't start until 11.00 on Monday morning, I am carrying out some important research work first. Yesterday evening, I explored the area around Place Jourdan (alright, I admit, there may have been a little beer involved), with the Hon. Jamie, and today I am off to Liege, possibly to examine European shopping.

As a member of the ELDR Financial Advisory Committee, it is important that I have a sense of such things. The beer is merely refreshment.

It must be said though, that the countryside between Brussels and Liege is very nice, quite like Suffolk with its gentle, rolling landscape, its patchwork of green and brown. And Liege-Guillemins station is described as looking like a glass and concrete manta ray. You don't see those every day...