No, Japan! FFS this is worse than the end of Game of Thrones.

What on earth is the point of all the praise for AB's social media game when the first reply that comes up on X to the whizzy tweet showing him about to give his speech turns out to be this poisonous crap. Show some guts, Andy, and get off X.

The red dots represent buildings on the legal inventory of architectural heritage. The mostly-grey swathe on the left shows the path of the north-south railway junction, which cut through the ancient city. The grey on the right shows the EU quarter. A density map of "Brusselization".

Morning all. Week two of the fight back:

Brussels' first suburb, the Léopold Quarter (right) was designed to provide a low-density escape for the wealthy from the stifling and crowded historic centre (left). Now the EU Quarter, its gardens and courtyards have long since been built over and the plots are as densely occupied as the downtown.

Takeaway chips. www.rtbf.be/article/sain...

Official

BruGIS Digital Terrain Model showing the Senne and Maelbeek valleys. The red dot shows the mouth of the Lesbroussart Pass.

After Italy, now the Spanish right wing party wants to make elections less proportional (on the basis that the right wing are the largest party/bloc but don't have majority support, so let's give them a majority anyhow).

Storm damage, Brussels. Boulevard du Régent.

They were playing Agadoo yesterday in Delhaize.

Still going after 35 minutes. The neighbours opposite left their window open. The curtains were out like streamers lit up in the flashes, doing the horror film cliché.

The first crack set the car alarms off. Brussels. ⚡

Lightning ⚡ it's here

Do teams other than England have supporters with their club's name on the national flag? I'm not very observant.

Anyway, the media are to blame too. He may have a point. But what are you meant to do when the information is defective? When the authorities can adjust the permit after the fact when the budget runs out. When you're briefed that the canopy can be added later, that more greenery will follow..

As I suspected, not even the people who designed the new Schuman are fans. www.euractiv.com/news/new-sch...

Urgh, the greywashing of pubs has even reached Belgian brown cafés. Look at De Bareel, Olen 🇧🇪 Just...why?

So hot! I'm going to have to wear short trousers in my home. Not in the formal reception rooms of course 🙏

There needs to be a dedicated Mutter tab where you grumble about something. Nobody can quote-post and replies are limited to that gif of Robert Redford nodding.

Alexis Dumont. A Belgian architect's journey in 4 buildings. Tiny Doll Cottage, 1899, built on the sand dunes at De Panne.

My utmost sympathy to whoever lives in my old flat.

A missed opportunity for some reflection. For example, why did British political parties that did not want to quit the EU pledge in/out referendums in 2015? Instead of origins however we got two hours of nostalgia. Anyway. Brexit will over. Let's hope we get better for the 20th anniversary.

I haven't had tea in the afternoon for 3 days. This is climate distress.

From 1925: a prediction that, as more people choose to drive to the countryside, cars will end up destroying the very beauty that people go to see.

Thanks to the BruGIS tool, I learn that this corner site in the EU Quarter was the probable location of a very large C16 property known as the Hof van Toulouse. Soon to be home to the European Defence Agency. Which will have many dealings with Toulouse.

A great new website and app allows you to map present-day Belgium onto 7 historic atlases and explore topographical quirks. Like the hooked boulevards in Liège that were once waterways. topoferraris.ngi.be?baselayer=fe...

Say join, not 'rejoin'. About 11 minutes in, Chris Grey explains in 60 seconds why this matters to anyone who wants the UK to be in the EU. pca.st/episode/2b2b...

Say join, not 'rejoin'. About 11 minutes in, Chris Grey explains in 60 seconds why this matters to anyone who wants the UK to be in the EU. pca.st/episode/2b2b...

So we can close the tunnels after all www.brusselstimes.com/brussels/220...

Extraordinary modernist townhouse in Ixelles. A 1959 collaboration between architect André Jacqmain and interior designer Jules Wabbes. And it's for sale, so you get to look inside. www.immoweb.be/en/ad/town-h...

Turned this on myself. Beautifully cool for ten minutes and I am now free of greenfly.

"Comme dans un réfrigérateur" : les troglodytes échappent à la canicule

I remember a friend's Mum saying she didn't like the 'taste' of tapas.

I hope Newsnight pre-films interviews with its favourite Tufton climate-denial guests in Trafalgar Square away from the shade today.

The Walser House has a new owner! Local nonprofit Austin Coming Together will restore this 1903 Wright design on Chicago’s West Side as a community asset. After more than two years of active advocacy, we're thrilled it has a new steward with a vision for its future. buff.ly/9skoLeT

There's nothing aesthetically wrong with exclusively 'mineral' urbanism. It's an artistic expression of human domination of nature. But now that nature is showing that this was an illusion, some adjustments are needed and purity is no longer a luxury than can be afforded.

Powerful freeman-on-the-land energy to these holidaymakers who mistake their timeshares in Spain for sovereign British enclaves. They would of course describe Spaniards doing this in the UK as 'illegals'.

Can you imagine how unbearable Boulevard Anspach would be in this heatwave if they hadn't pulled out all the cars and replaced the with trees? And can you imagine that people are fighting tooth and nail to prevent this anywhere else in Brussels?

I wrote about the Cinéma Palace, the city's most modern movie house and also one of its oldest. My 20th article for the Brussels Times Magazine. In shops now.

Belgium's railway company turns 100 this year. 🇧🇪🚆 Passenger numbers are rising. Climate goals should favour trains. Yet the real rail experience is often delays, strikes, overcrowding and crumbling stations. The new @BrusselsTimes.com Magazine asks if SNCB-NMBS is ready for its second century?

The question....

Hotel? Museum?

Art-deco nightclub Dancing Changhai at Porte de Namur, 1935. Fitted out by De Coene Brothers of Kortrijk. It was under the tall, white building on the left.

Shop & Go rue de l'Ecuyer preserves a ghost of Michel Polak's modernist restaurant refit of 1934. The London Taverne opened here in the 1860s, owner William Meatyard. Perhaps an offshoot of the Grande Taverne de Londres owned by his father Thomas on rue des Princes, the other side of the Opera.

Turn the attic into a dancehall thanks to Masonite engineered wood for soundproofing. 1934 feature on better roofs.

My thoughts about Schuman ✨👇 www.linkedin.com/posts/dimitr...

House in Etterbeek. From 1932, replacing a turreted neo-Flemish renaissance corner mansion. By Léon E Govaerts and Alexandre Van Vaerenbergh (4 years after their Van Buuren mansion in Uccle).