Hugo Slimbrouck

Business Networking - Meetings & Events Industry - @Withlocals @ToursbyLocals guide - SITE & JMIC past president - Bruges Tour Guide

[Hugo Slimbrouck @HugoSlimbrouck]

@AlexanderNL Plaza Athené, Parijs

[Bruce @bruce_barrett]

I don’t want to hear about my carbon footprint ever again.

[FIFA World Cup @FIFAWorldCup]

🇧🇪⏰ One of the best endings to a #FIFAWorldCup match!

[Event Confederation @EventConfedera1]

Belgians are flocking back to events in massive numbers. While the desire to connect and enjoy is stronger than ever, 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗲𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴. Today’s visitors demand a clear focus on event safety and well-being. https://t.co/IhHGHJv4ok

[Hugo Slimbrouck @HugoSlimbrouck]

Heading to Belgium 🇧🇪 this summer and planning to visit Bruges?
https://t.co/DBndrqwSR0

[Hugo Slimbrouck @HugoSlimbrouck]

@SundaeDivine @FoxNews What about rapeublicans then? 🤣

[Hugo Slimbrouck @HugoSlimbrouck]

@BasedMikeLee Bye-bye 👋🏽

[🌸🎵 Beautiful Melody 🎶💖 @Ducnghia16]

Very rarely does a live version of a song surpass the original studio recordings, this is definitely one of them!

This song was written by Lindsey Buckingham during his breakup with Stevie Nicks while recording Rumours. Though Stevie was hurt by the lyrics and asked him to change them, he refused, and she still recorded backing vocals despite their intense studio conflicts.

[Science girl @sciencegirl]

This is not stained glass

It’s the wings of a dragon fly

[Hugo Slimbrouck @HugoSlimbrouck]

@Hanne_Lemmens @BartGonnissen

[Hugo Slimbrouck @HugoSlimbrouck]

@WhiteHouse Bunch of idiots !

[Hugo Slimbrouck @HugoSlimbrouck]

@Sofie_vHy Wel kwaliteit

[Hugo Slimbrouck @HugoSlimbrouck]

Nice executive summary of who is Mr Trump

[James Tate @JamesTate121]

*BRITISH WRITER PENS THE BEST DESCRIPTION OF TRUMP*
Someone asked "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?" Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote the following response:
A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump's limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever.
I don't say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.
But with Trump, it's a fact. He doesn't even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty. Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.
And scarily, he doesn't just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness. There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It's all surface.
Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don't. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He's not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He's more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.
There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless or female – and he kicks them when they are down. So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think 'Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy' is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and most are.
• You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.
After all, it's impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.

[Hugo Slimbrouck @HugoSlimbrouck]

And so say all of us

[Maxime PREVOT @prevotmaxime]

🇺🇸 Mr. Ambassador @BillWhiteUSA,
I urge you to exercise greater restraint and to view your role in its proper context. It is inappropriate to publicly criticize a country and tarnish its image simply because you disagree with judicial proceedings. I have already told you this. Would you consider it acceptable for our Ambassador in Washington to do the same?

In Belgium, the judiciary is independent and makes its decisions—whether one agrees with them or not—free from any political influence.

I recall that the proceedings in question were initiated by representatives of the Jewish community themselves. To portray those as a country’s desire to undermine the religious freedom of Jews is defamatory. This freedom has never been called into question and never will be in our country. Our Constitution protects it.

And it is not for an ambassador to dictate the government’s agenda.

@BelgiumMFA @StateSEAS @SecRubio @DeputySecState

[Vincenzo DM @DM_Vincenzo]

#OTD in 1432, one of the greatest paintings in the history of Western art was revealed at the St John’s Church in Ghent. The ‘Ghent Altarpiece’ by the Van Eyck brothers, commissioned by local magistrate Joos Vijdt, is still considered a wonder of the world.

[Vincenzo DM @DM_Vincenzo]

#OTD in 1835, the first railway in continental Europe was inaugurated on May 5, 1835 connecting Brussels to Mechelen in Belgium. The opening emphasised Belgium’s role as the world’s second industrial nation.

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

The MAGA crowd in Washington has decided that since Europeans don’t sufficiently appreciate Trump, the American bases on the continent must go. This is the strategic reasoning of a man who burns down his own kitchen.

American bases in Europe were never a favour. They are the logistical spine of every war the United States fights east of Gibraltar. Ramstein moves the cargo, Aviano launches the jets, Rota services the ships. Without them the Pentagon does not project power into the Middle East. It projects PowerPoint.

The fantasy assumes the alternative is aircraft carriers gliding majestically into the Persian Gulf. That era is ending. A modern carrier is a thirteen-billion-dollar trophy that can be reduced to scrap by a couple of hundred cheap missiles fired from the Iranian coast. China noticed.

The other fantasy is that America simply fights from home. Picture the alternative: twenty thousand transatlantic sorties shuttling spare parts, munitions, fuel bladders, mechanics and replacement pilots from Norfolk and Dover to wherever the war happens to be. A C-17 burns through roughly 35,000 dollars of fuel every hour it flies, and the round trip from the American east coast to the Gulf is the better part of a day. Multiply that by every bolt, every missile, every spare engine. The war becomes a sustained airborne traffic jam with the bill arriving by the second.

So you need land, specifically land near the war. Modern combat aircraft are not Spitfires you fuel up and send off with a wave. An F-35 demands an entire Walmart of spare parts, a small city of technicians, climate-controlled hangars and a supply chain stretching halfway round the planet. Drones need operators, networks, satellites and a steady diet of components no carrier can store. Modern war arrives by container ship and lives in a warehouse.

Close the bases, and Washington loses the warehouses. Lose the warehouses, and the next confrontation with Iran is either fought by phone or fought from Kansas with a flight schedule that bankrupts the Treasury before the first missile lands.

MAGA thinks shutting Ramstein punishes Europe. It punishes America. Europe will be inconvenienced. America will be unarmed.

And so, after a thousand insults, a thousand sneers, a thousand late-night posts about freeloading allies, Europe is quietly drafting the politest letter in diplomatic history. It thanks America for its service. It wishes the troops a safe journey home. It suggests, with great warmth, that Washington might now turn its attention to its neighbours in Latin America, where a fading superpower can busy itself with whatever a fading superpower busies itself with.

Spain had its century. Britain had its empire. The Soviets had their parades. Each ended the same way: as a shadow of itself, with the historians left to argue, volume after volume, about precisely when the rot set in and why nobody noticed in time. America is welcome to join them on the shelf.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

If you like what you read, please follow Gandalv on Substack:
https://t.co/2TO5x2O8nI

[Hugo Slimbrouck @HugoSlimbrouck]

@WhiteHouse @TrustMaximum That’s UNO you moron, the one who wins is the first one who has NO cards left!

[Hugo Slimbrouck @HugoSlimbrouck]

@alexandradarch Kloostertuin in Brugge

[Jo @JoJoFromJerz]

@WhiteHouse The goal of the game UNO is to have NO cards you fucking idiot.