Adventure Rocket Ship

As it turned out, we didn't stay in Bruges/Brugge (It is rather confusing that all the notionally-'English' names for places are the French versions when you're pottering about the northern end of the country and wondering if you're causing more offence than usual by getting it wrong.) and that turned out to be a good thing. The train from Antwerp filled up steadily since it was a Saturday, the fares were cheap and the weather entirely unseasonal. The entire train emptied at Brugge station. While were were milling off the platform, another train arrived and that one emptied, too. The people with elbows and haircuts and wheely-cases vanished into the haze at the far edge of the station forecourt. We followed the ticking from the pedestrian crossing - fairly safe Alpha emitter means stay where you are and avoid the tourbuses, clattering like an industrial band trying to out-run a Plutonium spill means peg it across before the bicycles get you.

There were an awful lot of bicycles. Sensible ones about twice the size and weight of anything you'd get in a trendy-yop bike-shop here. Amphibious three-wheeled child delivery machines. Actually very swish bakfiets things that warranted a careful inspection. One bloke in lycra on a hybrid, probably English.

Since I was mostly navigating via gmaps, pottering and aiming for interesting-looking steeples, we meandered into Brugge via a footbridge past a local teashop for local people. The streets were deserted and the day was warm. It was really very pleasant indeed. There were twisty wee streets and steaming BMWs to avoid, but still very few people. Although there was an odd sort of squeaky-rumble noise that seemed to be getting louder as time went on.

A horde of tourists with elbows dragging wheely-cases across cobbles sound more or less what I'd expect the APCs of an invading force to sound like. The shoppy-shop bits of Brugge reminded me strongly of Bourton-on-the-Water on a bank holiday, with bells on. Ding dong dong bang bong bong dong ding bing bang bing ding bong bong bang bing dang-a-long-dang-bang.

Antwerp's metro system seemed to have been designed by JG Ballard. There are an awful lot of empty rectilinear spaces that you have to traverse in order to read the sign at the far end that directs you toward another empty rectilinear space seemingly set at an impossible angle to the first. The carriages seem to spring into existence at the far end of the volume, apparently transport you through some un-space and then deposit you somewhere very similar to the place you may or may not have just left. When you pace it out above ground, the distances seem to be about the length of the train.

I was right about trams.

Lambic beer is really quite something. I wonder if it is available in Bristol?

As appears traditional for the winter season, the combi boiler has been playing up. It would randomly fail to restart and sit there blinking its error LED gormlessly.

I was mostly of a mind to just prod the reset button and hope it came back, which it did mostly. However, there was always the cheery thought whenever it required a second or third reboot that perhaps this was when it had finally had enough.

I rang the nice people who put it in. The obviously harried woman on the end of the phone told me that they didn't do repairs any more and that I should ring some chap called Andy. Obviously, his mobile number rang out and I left a message, expecting to have to work my way through the Yellow Pages starting with Mr AAA Hot Water. [/Severed Heads]

The chap rang back. Would first thing tomorrow be ok? (today)

Well, yes. Obv.

He turned up when he said he would, poked at the boiler for a bit in an effort to make it break (intermittent fault y'see) and in servicing the thing discovered it most likely that the control board was expiring.

Which was nice.

AA Milne and AA Gill (incy)
BB King
CC Peniston (more or less)
DD Ramone (ditto) and DD Jackson (totnesmartin)
ee cummings
FF Meta (Wins over FF VII through more surreal points. miss_soap)
GG Bailey (emzebel)
HH Munro
II Captain (mr_tom and avocadovpx need professional help) and II Claudius (It's too late for codepope though)
JJ Jeczalik
KK Downing
LL Bean (Got any better ideas?) LL Cool J (yaruar and diffrentcolours at about the same time)
MM Warburg (I'm keeping SS Great Britain now. miss_soap)
NN Pisharady (yaruar is more subculturally clued than I)
OO Gauge (That's dreadful. codepope) OO Matron (Equally dreadful. thepaintedone)
PP Arnold (orogeny)
QQ Plots (easterbunny Sensible.) QQ Kachoo (wehmuth Insensible.)
RR Lyrae (miss_glitch) and RR Xing (ellen_fremedon provides American arcana)
SS Great Britain (Yes, I know. See above about better ideas)
TT Races (And again) TT Boy (yaruar again.) Pr0n stars are going to be too easy, I think.
UU Clock Tower (easterbunny wins the Mrs. Joyful prize for raffia work.)
VV Mosshart (despina) and VV Cephei (yaruar again. That last one's genius.)
WW II (You sick children. yaruar and nalsa)
XX Sex (Fuzzbox EP)
YY(Y) Delilah (jozafeen should be ashamed.)
ZZ Top

(Help required to fill in the blanks. People for preference, but bad puns and ludicrous ideas given equal consideration)
(And I deleted the bit about the obvious anal-microphone twonk not getting a look-in because I'm both careless and autocratic. Sorry about that.)

Dishonourable mentions for OO Typhoo, MM Mattesons, ZZ 9 (plural Z alpha), PP Le Pew and probably several more.