The 2026 fig crop is underway. It's most odd to think that a tiny wasp at end of life is in charge of production.

And the AI-powered analysis tools that say they do are bollocks.

Zerogpt...

"AI-assisted stories accounted for nearly 20% of Fortune’s web traffic in the second half of 2025. Most were written by Lichtenberg." www.wsj.com/business/med...

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Brussels 100 years ago, a revolutionary 5-minute city-within-the city emerged on a seemingly-worthless site. Huge luxury apartments above a private high street with shops, restaurants, hairdressers, carsharing, a bank. The story of Résidence Palace. [Alt text] www.brusselstimes.com/2021048/a-ci...

UK Telegraph European city breaks ranking. That's three places above the former head office, Vienna.

From award-winning cocktails to €1 beers, Brussels' bar scene has it all. Cheers to that!

Passa Porta's new English-language bookstore to open April 4, next door to the existing shop. It's in an ornate townhouse that was once home to Julius Hoste, owner of Het Laatste Nieuws. www.bruzz.be/select/liter...

Social housing, rue du Rempart des Moines. One of the last unreconstructed skylines in Brussels courtesy of Groupe Structures (1964-66 and soon to go, probably). In the 1830s, there was a medical equipment supplier here (leech farm).

Postcard to Mrs Johnson of Hull from friends holidaying in Belgium, summer 1928: "We went to Ypres yesterday, saw the Menin gate - also Hill 60! There is a tremendous front here, very like Blackpool." 'Visit Ostend, the Queen of Seaside Resorts', the postmark reads in English and Spanish.

Ostend to Brussels, 1839. The line only opened the previous August. Belgium stole a long march on France, which connected its coast in the late 1840s. Looking at the alternative by coach from Calais, a thunderclap in travel more impressive than Concorde. And built by the state.

Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-ter-Duinenkerk on the western edge of Ostend. There's been a church here since the C12. Destroyed in the C16 by the English (sorry about that) and in the C17 by the Spanish (sorry about that). But these days, sheep safely graze.

Then and now view.. The Berlaymont Convent's tennis court 115 years ago and the European Commission HQ now.

The future Kitty O'Shea's from the Berlaymont under construction in 1965.

Cheap deco. The low-cost Hotel Alfa at Mariakerke, Ostend from 1934. Demolished 1996.

Pedal to the metal on the new autoroute from Brussels to Ostend in 1940.

Léon Spilliaert and Oscar Jespers, children of the fin-de-siècle. Photographed in modernist middle age on the terrace of the Kursaal in Ostend, 1925. Plotting a world in which these lacy relics of their youth will be erased and which for better or worse will arrive very soon.

Hôtel du Parc in Ostend, 1928.

Brussels Central Station under construction in December 1938. An ailing Victor Horta is in charge of the site.

"The city is like an apartment. You move in, you renovate then one day you move out and the next person lives among your decisions without wondering why they are there" Paris, Roman d'une Ville by François Loyer and Stan Neumann is on Dailymotion. www.dailymotion.com/video/x33pp1x

"The radio building lends the brooding menace of a place of torture, a place where terrible things happen in the night" - Richard Cobb, born 1917 on place Flagey, perhaps expressing a generational unease over buildings of the 1930s.

Take your time to read the full story about Résidence Palace, as one of #Brussels' most iconic apartment complexes turns 100 - h/t @goodclimate.bsky.social www.brusselstimes.com/magazine/202...

"The sculptural drama of Polak’s opposing facades still make Résidence Palace a first-rate example of Brussels interwar architecture but the very carefully composed approach from Rue de la loi has been damaged leaving this set-piece swimming in a sea of asphalt."

The full façade of the 1899 personal house of the rather forgotten architect Antoine Aulbur. Mangled over the years, sgraffites painted over, spire cut off. Because maintenance costs and he's a rather forgotten architect.

"Bruxelles-Propreté asked residents to keep blue and yellow bins at home. But for many, this is impossible." An infrastructure problem. For historical reasons, unlike Paris, indoor space for wheelie bins is rare here. But there's room outdoors, in the street... www.brusselstimes.com/belgium/2041...

The cusp of modernity. The rise of art nouveau coincided with that of the automobile. 1904 house/workshop for a builder of both horse-drawn carriages and coachwork for cars. By the 1920s, mass production arrived and this became a factory for communion wafers. Brussels NE, architect Antoine Aulbur.

Now and then Brussels. Top, 1929 flats ave de Cortenbergh. These replaced Alfred Poncin's forge (later garage) aimed at the carriage trade leaving Brussels to the NE. An ancient track led here from chaussée de Louvain. By 1914, thanks to expos in the Cinquantenaire opposite, it was also a guingette.

Stained glass at the home architect Antoine Aulbur built for himself and his wife, the client for the project. 1899, Brussels NE.

Brussels 100 years ago, a revolutionary 5-minute city-within-the city emerged on a seemingly-worthless site. Huge luxury apartments above a private high street with shops, restaurants, hairdressers, carsharing, a bank. The story of Résidence Palace. www.brusselstimes.com/2021048/a-ci...

F*ckers

I'm not sure I get Tony Judt's point about the rail station in Brussels. From 1999.

Interior design store Au Coin Vert in the Marolles closes after 126 years. www.bruzz.be/actua/econom...

The good news is that we have made staggering progress on renewables. Now we need to get clean, cheap, reliable European energy into our homes and businesses and transport. My thanks to the @theguardian.com for speaking with me. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Opening his 1880s portrait of his homeland, La Belgique, Camille Lemonnier says the first thing that strikes foreigners visiting Brussels is its cleanliness. Pavements are scrubbed by residents each Saturday 'until they shine like mirrors'.

Hello. Air France says Brussels is the world capital of Art Deco. And they fly all over the place. www.en-vols.com/en/styles-en...

"The sculptural drama of Polak’s opposing facades still make Résidence Palace a first-rate example of Brussels interwar architecture but the very carefully composed approach from Rue de la loi has been damaged leaving this set-piece swimming in a sea of asphalt."

In 2024, more than 4,000 Brussels region buildings from the period 1932-1999 received a degree of protection from demolition/alteration. Like these 1935 flats by Michel Polak in the downtown. At the same time, an indeterminate number of pre-1932 buildings lost an automatic degree of protection.

The Seminole Tribe of Florida has finally closed its last Hard Rock Café in Belgium on the Grand-Place in Brussels. There's been a restaurant here since at least the mid-C19. A new one will open by the summer, according to VRT. www.gondolafoodservice.be/en/post/clos...

Merci !

Paris Mayor-elect, @egregoire.bsky.social, is currently cycling across Paris to the Hôtel de Ville, and being interviewed by journalists on bikes and motorbikes throughout his journey. We are a great and wonderful country.

Source: DHnet search.app/5seSW

Fascinating results in the second round of the French local elections, with the extreme-right failing to win any of its significant targets once again. Paris remains socialist, and so - it seems - does Marseille. Lyon remains Green. Centre right and "republican right" candidates doing well.

It's the dining room so it's got to be Flemish renaissance. From the 1891 relook of the château Eenens-Terlinden in Schaerbeek.

End of watch for the cormorant at Marie-Louise.

Brussels 100 years ago, a revolutionary 5-minute city-within-the city emerged on a seemingly-worthless site. Huge luxury apartments above a private high street with shops, restaurants, hairdressers, carsharing, a bank. The story of Résidence Palace. www.brusselstimes.com/2021048/a-ci...

When your dinner service is precious. Delft plate embedded in the ceiling of the Château Eenens-Terlinden in Schaerbeek.

Botanique from the site of the demolished Jesuit convent of 1929. Soon to become a hotel, restaurant and apartments.

The 32 people who died on Tuesday 22 March 2016 are more than a number; each of them had their own story. Ten years on, The Brussels Times remembers them.