Born to Hand Chime, Baby

Last week for the first time:

Guest blogger Pauline played hand chimes

Being a lady of a certain age I decided to join the U3A.  Which for the uninitiated is University of the Third Age?  No, it is not a hippy or happy clappy organization before you ask. Various volunteers lead groups of over fifties to teach them new skills in the prime of their lives.  The scope of subjects is amazing. One can learn anything from Latin to Hand Chimes. 

Which joining the latter, brings me to being the guest blogger for Claire.

I decided as I have never played a musical instrument it would be very nice, as my family are all very musically talented, to learn something new and meet new friends.  Little did I know what I was letting myself in for.

On arrival at the local parish hall I was met with an array of expectant faces with quite a buzz about the place. Eventually, Patricia stepped forward and introduced herself as the leader of, hopefully, her second group of hand chimers which consisted of about 16 budding musicians of different levels.

We were all handed a sticker with our names on which we had to wear proudly on our bosom. Then it started.

A catalogue of do’s and don’ts, which left the majority of us wondering whether we had had a time shift back to school.  Nevertheless, we all smiled and carried on listening. We had to have special black gloves, ordered from the website of Hand Bell Ringers of Great Britain, so our hands wouldn’t slip and could we please have them for next time. 

Eventually we were all allocated a chime, but as I don’t read music it meant nothing to me.

Now a hand chime is a metal tube (even though it is square, I know, I know I’m getting pernickety) with a beater attached to it.  Each one has a different note and varies in size.

Patricia handed the three men in the group the larger ones and then sized up all the ladies allocating the size of the chime to the size of the lady.  I was very pleased as I had quite a small one, which boosted the ego tremendously!

We then stood round in a circle with a sheet of music between two people.  The problem was there were too many people and not enough chimes, so four of us had to share.  Which was ok, as one could look around and see chimers' faces as they struggled through the music.

After a very shaky start, we managed to perform quite a good rendition of Bobby Shafto – so I’m told!  I have to say it didn’t sound like it to me but having to concentrate on finding my notes, it could have been the Hallelujah Chorus.

I am by nature a giggler and watching everyone’s faces was very amusing. They ranged from the smug – obviously the music readers – to the absolutely petrified.  I was somewhere in between. 

The technique was explained in graphic detail from Patricia as though we were about to perform open heart surgery: 

• STAND UPRIGHT
• FEET APART
• CHIME IN AN UPRIGHT POSITION
• FLICK OF THE WRIST WHEN IT’S YOUR NOTE
• DAMPEN THE NOTE ON THE OPPOSITE SHOULDER BEATER SIDE UPPERMOST

All went according to plan until one of the ladies in my foursome came to play her note. Either in her enthusiasm or fear,  instead of the flick and dampen on the shoulder technique she completely missed out the flick of the chime and whacked herself on her left shoulder with such gusto it made the windows in the church hall rattle.

Everyone was stunned, Patricia looked over openmouthed and me and the other three ladies dissolved into fits of uncontrollable laughter.

“Time to call it a day”, lamented Patricia.

We all heaved a sigh of relief.  Packed up our music stands and gave ourselves a big pat on the back.  Well let’s face it, Bobby Shafto after one session is no mean achievement.

Will I try this again?  Well I have ordered the gloves and they won’t be suitable for gardening.

The Winter Tyres

Once upon a time, a talented young man based in the North West of England wrote a handful of beautiful songs, set to work with his acoustic guitar and recorded them on a C90 cassette, scribbling 'Songs for a Girl to Sing' on the spine. Slipping the tape into a padded envelope, he popped to the post office and asked the kindly assistant for international stamps: desination: Belgium. Across the English channel a budding songstress waited eagerly, checking her letterbox every day....and waited....and waited.......

Skip 10 years. MP3s fly across the internet faster than you can say "dropbox" and cassettes are practically prehistoric. During a Facebook conversation with friend and songwriter Brian Bordello a couple of months back, we pondered the disappearance of said cassette and mourned the loss of interpretations that were never to be. Or were they?

All was not lost. Brian found a second copy of the cassette somewhere gathering dust in the bottom of a cardboard box and this time, the Belgian post did us proud (we were possibly a little naive to attempt the same scheme again, but hey ho). After handing it over to somebody with more advanced equipment than mine, the cassette went through a conversion process and was reborn as an MP3 file which was waiting in my inbox in next to no time at all (thanks Benjamin).

The big question for me was how to bring these magical songs to life; my guitar playing is extremely limited (I must be the only person who claims to play guitar who can't throw out a rendition of  'House of the Rising Sun') and my honest feeling was, that to do these melodies justice, I would have to devote myself exclusively to the vocals, or at least for the time being, until I gained the necessary experience and confidence to branch out.

There was only one solution and, luckily for me, friends Maria and Remy were completely on board when I made the suggestion that we form a band and, The Winter Tyres were born! Remy is an accomplished guitarist and a joy to watch on stage with his other bands The Hype and Blue Velvet. But the project I had in mind was a far cry away from the heavy grungy riffs of these other ensembles and I wasn't sure whether bitter sweet acoustic pop would be his bag. Coincidentally, he had listened to a few Bordellos' numbers on my Facebook page and was filled with the same admiration as me. Maria has never performed in a musical capacity before, but her enthusiasm and diligence has led her to master the glockenspiel in no time and some imaginative touches with maracas and cabasa are a positive addition to our music.

Sunday afternoons have now taken on a new dimension for me. Instead of lounging around in a semi-melancholy haze, channel hopping between Columbo and the Eastenders omnibus, now I have band rehearsals. Venues alternate between our respective apartments, but there is one constant: every week somebody provides sweet treats. Muffins, scones, pancakes, cupcakes, loaves - you name it - baking is the new rock 'n' roll! I've been contemplating renaming the band The Spare Winter Tyres, or even The Fat Winter Tyres, but it doesn't quite have the same ring.

I have made half-hearted attempts at pop groups before but, more often than not, it's been little more than a singsong over a few cans and nothing has ever made it out of the comfort of somebody's living room. This time, I feel like an essential part of a winning formula of creativity, productivity and good old fashioned fun. And that's what making music should be: damn good fun. Coldplay may be racking up the award nominations, but since when did it all get so serious? Don't get me wrong; music should be approached with the love and attention it deserves, but the kind of over-sincerity that seems to be in vogue these days makes my skin crawl. Massive Attack's 3D allegedly crosses the road if he spots Daddy G coming his way and, while this may well work for our miserable Bristolian friends, I would genuinely find it impossible to be at my most creative without the kind of camaraderie that I have with Maria and Remy.

Friday was our first ever gig. We played a selection of Brian Bordello's songs and added one of my tunes plus an uptempo number that Maria and Remy wrote together. We know we have a long way to go, but the reception was very positive (we were amongst friends, of course) and we enjoyed every minute and are all looking forward to the next gig, writing more songs and finding out what's in the oven next Sunday afternoon.

Now That's What I Call....a Pop Quiz!

Last week for the first time: I hosted a Pop Quiz

All has been quiet on the blog front for the past few weeks. But, despite appearances, I am still wholly committed to my endeavour of indulging in a new experience on a weekly basis. The difficult task is finding enough hours in the day to put pen to paper and share my exploits with you good people who invest your time in this nonsense.

I threw myself into January with gusto and determination and probably developed a few more wrinkles and grey hairs in the process, but all in the name of adventure and good fun. Over the past month, I have dined at an exquisite restaurant where I had my first ever five-course meal, seen a live gig featuring a hurdgy-gurdy and started my very first band, as well as viewing some great films such as Black Swan, Westworld and, my new favourite Rogers and Hammerstein number, Flower Drum Shop. I am short of breath just thinking about it.

The most time-consuming task at hand was, without doubt, the Pop Quiz that I volunteered to organise for my colleagues at the Thursday evening office bar. After witnessing a previous general knowledge quiz event, which had more in common with a history test than an alcohol-fuelled battle of wits, I decided that myself and collegaue Rebecca had what it takes to provide a night of entertainment for the hard-working, high-flying types that hang out in our building (ie nobody from my department turned up).

There were two difficulties: setting the appropriate atmosphere and pitching the questions correctly. I have been to hundreds of pop quizzes over the years, demanding varying degrees of expertise and levels of competitiveness. If you ever attend a pop quiz in Belgium, you will witness first hand a laid-back ambience where shameless cheating is totally acceptable, if not encouraged, and teams vary in size from 2 to 25 players. On the other hand, at a recent event in Holland, after arriving late, we were banished from the quizzing area as contestants fought it out in deathly silence under exam-like conditions. As most of my colleagues are from the UK, and with lessons learned from the previous office quiz, I decided to keep it light-hearted but with the healthy competitive spirit that the Brits seem to enjoy. I kept it fun but challenging, whilst bearing in mind that not everybody is as big a music nerd as I am.

My lengthy train journeys and precious iPod proved invaluable in the preparation of the 6 rounds of 20 questions that I cobbled together, which, I hasten to point out, do not in any way reflect my musical tastes:

Pictures
Simply name the artist pictured. Images of a wide variety of pop stars from Puff Daddy to Crosby Stills and Nash via Bryan Ferry wearing a very strange hat and looking nothing like Bryan Ferry. My favourite answer was from the team who mistook Kraftwerk for Los Lobos and then went on to actually try to explain the logic behind their thinking. ("We knew it was a German band...")

General Pop
2 rounds' worth of music excerpts covering all eras and genres from lame "we're not a boy band" Maroon 5 to 70s Dad rock ELO via Katy Fucking Perry.

Covers
Name the song, the artist and the original recording artist.
Contestants scored highly on this round despite my feeling that I had raised the level of difficulty. Surprisingly, nobody recognised Ian Brown's Mancunian mumblings on Billie Jean and I would really love to hear the original version of Nothing Compares to U by Dolly Parton.

Film and TV
Popular theme tunes from both the big and small screen, that people didn't spot as easily as I anticipated. A shame Spandau Ballet didn't do the Ghostbusters theme.

Don't Give Up Your Day Job
Songs recorded - or in many cases, slaughtered - by celebrities who achieved stardom via a route other than music, including classic gems from Samantha Fox (Double D for effort), William Shatner and the velvet-throated David Hasselhoff. Alas, the dulcet tones of Russell Crowe and Ricky Gervais in their respective bands The Ordinary Fear of God and Seona Dancing passed everybody by. The final few questions focussed on the previous occupations of international superstars before they picked up their first microphone. Most people know that Sting was a teacher, but who would've guessed that Cyndi Lauper once cleaned out dog kennels for a living? (although I do prefer the idea of her being a jockey as one team suggested).

With the additional bonus of Belgian special beers at the bargain price of €1,50, the evening was a resounding success. Knowledge was impressive and scores were really close with the competitive element present right until the very end. A good time was had by all, including myself and glamorous assistant Rebecca and I learned a very important lesson that I am sure will serve me well in future quizzes and perhaps if I ever enter the European Commission Concours; if all else fails, write down Tom Jones.

Will I try this again?: Round 2 in May. Maybe.

Under the Boardwalk

This week for the first time:
I watched Boardwalk Empire

The best thing about January - possibly the only good thing about January - is that you can get away with staying in and hibernating every night using post-festive blues, dreary winter weather and hardship as acceptable excuses. I have been politely declining most invitations in favour of cosy nights in curled up with my better half and, at the weekend, I even treated myself to a 'Staying in on a Saturday night' outfit consisting of elastic, drawstrings and velour for optimal comfort. My cousin's in-laws refer to these rather fetching combos as 'loosies'.

The hours spent rooted to the sofa have practically doubled over the last few weeks and the desire to watch TV versus quality programmes being aired ratio is sadly not in my favour, meaning that, without illegal downloading I would potentially be staring at a blank screen or resorting to a game of dominos. A sorry existence? Quite possibly. But I think January has managed to redeem itself thanks to HBO's addictive series 'Boardwalk Empire', that I downloaded at the suggestion of my Mum and brother who are both leading authorities on everything that is good television.

Set in Atlantic City in the 1920s prohibition era, Boardwalk Empire has everything you could want from a TV series; drama, gangsters, sex, violence, a killer soundtrack and Steve Buscemi. Not many actors can make your skin crawl and be sexy and heart-warming all at the same time and this is why Buscemi is high on my list of favourite actors and why the nominations and awards have been flooding in for his potrayal of dodgy Atlantic county treasurer Enoch 'Nucky' Thompson.

The quality of the cast doesn't stop with Buscemi. A buff looking Michael Pitt (Funny Games) smoulders as Ivy League boy turned gangster and the addition of Michael Kenneth Williams was a stroke of genius after he very clearly stole the show as Omar Little in HBO's other gem The Wire. Casting doesn't get better than Kirkby up-and-coming star Stephen Graham (Combo in This is England) as Al Capone, who ditches his scouse accent for a thick Brooklyn drawl.

Stephen Graham was recently sat in front of us on a Liverpool to Brussels Easyjet flight. He was collared by cabin crew for carrying what was very clearly oversized hand luggage and made to wait and board the plane last so that they could place his luggage in the hold for an extortionate fee. Every single passenger had to walk past him and, scousers being scousers, there were constant cries of "Y'alright Stephen, lad?" and "How's it goin' Al Capone?" The last passenger to climb aboard a full plane, I'm sure he was relieved when he discovered that a stag party of about 15 semi-drunken blokes had saved him the final seat right in the middle of their group and were only too keen to quiz him about what his Mum had cooked for Johnny Depp when he was invited to dinner at the Graham family home.

A visual feast, no stone is left unturned when it comes to detail in the television masterpiece that is Boardwalk Empire. The first episode was directed by Martin Scorcese and cost $18 million, but this does not take the shine off subsequent episodes with jaw-dropping cinematography the likes of which is rarely seen on the small screen. I confess that usually, I hardly pay much attention to set or costume design but in every episode so far, I have found it difficult to hold back on verbalising my appreciation. Just take Kelly Macdonald's (Margaret Schroeder) hats - each episode is in competition with the last in terms of elegant headwear design - and I can only imagine the look of delight on Buscemi's face when he was first introduced to his wardrobe. Why don't they make suits like that anymore?

Boardwalk Empire is groundbreaking and honest in its approach to scenes of a sexual nature. Without being overly gratuitous, it makes a refreshing change to the usual fully-clothed erotic scenes from other American series (Jennifer Aniston's bra probably needs surgically removing) and pays a fitting tribute to the somewhat louche morals of the era. It doesn't hold back on the violence and at times, my squeamish nature leads me to avert my eyes from the screen. There's a certain amount of humour involved in the show and many of the belly laughs come from the clever portrayal of the social and technological differences between the 1920s and the modern day.

My next step will be to investigate the music. I am already hooked on the Donovanesque Brian Jones Town Massacre theme song 'Straight Up and Down'.

Would I try this again?: They can't make series 3 fast enough.

Fun with Steve Buscemi: Chicks with Steve Buscemeyes

The Voice of Reason

This week for the first time: I was a member of a studio audience

Whenever I catch an episode of X Factor, I am always rather envious of the shiny red buzzers that are pressed when the judges are not impressed. Life would be fantastic if we could be born with a similar mechanism that we could put into play every time something displeases us; Nicolas Cage walks on screen - buzz..........my boss asks me to fill out my appraisal form - buzz..........somebody serves me a big plate of goat meat -buzz..........Coldplay - buzz...........

In the latest all-new talent show ,'The Voice', the reverse procedure is the whole principle of the show - the judges have their back to contestants during the auditions and are required to sound their buzzers when they like what they hear, with the goal of each forming a team of the creme de la creme. I have yet to decide if this adds to or takes away from the drama: Would the whole SuBo phenomenon have been toned down if Simon Cowell and co were unable to see Ms Boyle in her full frumpy black tights/white shoes glory before she exercised her lungs?

Whilst still deliberating this, yesterday I found myself in the studio audience for Round Two of Belgium's hottest singing contest. The auditions had all been filmed, the riff-raff eliminated and it was now time to sort out the men from the boys in a series of singing 'duals' performed at the Liege RTBF studios in a faux boxing ring. To my surprise, on arrival there was minimal fuss; I can guarantee that if this had been hosted in the UK, I would have been swimming in a sea of hysterical teens and ducking to avoid stray undergarments flying towards the latest wannabe pop idol of their dreams.

The first couple of hours involved some coaching sessions on how to be the idyllic congenial audience. Apparently polite applause is not enough to create the illusion of an electric atmosphere and we were required to shriek, whoop and wave our arms around like idiots. This was rehearsed repeatedly until our animator was content and we were hoarse (The Voice? I was completely minus my voice when I went home that evening) and then the opening and closing credits were filmed. Days earlier, I had asked a friend her advice on what to wear and she suggested that I should dress in bright colours to be easily spotted in the audience. Remembering the commonly know fact that TV visibly adds 4 or 5 kilos to your body weight, I decided against a psychedelic pattern and opted for a bright but plain coloured dress in the hope of blending in - quite a relief in hindsight, as the cameras were focussed on us way too often for my liking and, frankly, I'm pretty sure I looked a complete ass.

Maureen Rees
Driving School



Maureen Louys
The Voice


The programme is presented by a high maintenance-type leggy blonde, Maureen Louys. For some inexplicable reason, the Belgians seem to think that Maureen is an exotic and glamourous name. Clearly 90's docusoap 'Driving School' was never aired in Belgium.


During the auditions, successful contestants were selected by four celebrity judges/coaches for their teams, and then offered guidance and the benefit of their experience in the music industry. The celebrity judges involved in the Belgian edition of 'The Voice' are 80s bubblegum chanteuse turned raunchy rockstar Lio, yankeedoodle ex-pat smoky blues singer Beverly Jo Scott (her fellow judges refer to her as Bee Gee, which is probably preferable to BJ), Swiss Star Academy success story Quentin Mosimann and somebody called Joshua (I remain blissfully unaware of his claim to celebrity). The following stage of the competition involves four shows dedicated to each judge's team where the contestants battle it out in a duet/dual scenario and half of them get shown the door. The show we were watching focussed on Lio's team.

Once a lot of the faffing was over, noses had been appropriately powdered (I'm talking make-up) and Bee Gee's champagne flute had been topped up for the nth time, the contestants appeared and strutted their stuff around the boxing ring. While generally there was clearly some degree of talent involved, other moments verged on bad karaoke and the professional backing group were pretty sensational and the thing that impressed me the most. In between acts, there was a great deal of shuffling around of the audience so that the two families of the duetting artists had a ring side seat. Our position in the audience meant that at any given time we had one family next to us and the other strategically placed on the row in front. In essence we were in between a rock and a hard place; if we cheered on one contestant, the relatives of the other would potentially want to kill us or vice versa and all the while under the watchful of eye of the animator, insisting that we screamed ourselves blue in the face for every single performance.

At one point there was a rather sweet family to our right and we cheered on their little angel who Lio eventually opted to eliminate. This may well be a decision she will live to regret as his mother turned from nice as pie to Rosemary West in a matter of seconds, threatening a face-off with Lio after the show. I glanced over at her and felt a momentary unpleasant frisson of reminiscence of the public embarrassment of a mother with a score to settle and my heart went out to the poor boy and his red-faced brother sitting a few seats away from me. I half expected the following day's headlines to read "Lio knifed to death by pushy mum" and crossed my fingers that she had the necessary muscle in place within her entourage.

To be fair to Lio, she genuinely had a heavy heart when deciding the fate of the unlucky contenders. Visibly blubbering and melting mascara (bang went another 15 minutes of my day when it had to be reapplied) clearly she is not quite the diva she is made out to be, as she buried her face in a box of Delhaize 365 (supermaket cheapo nasty own-brand) tissues.

Five and a half hours later, thirsty and ready to gnaw off our own arms, we were invited to leave the building, but not before another obligatory congratulatory round of applause/idiotic whooping session.

Random The Voice 'Blind Audition' from Youtube

Would I try this again?:
I'll certainly have to live through it again:

Coming soon to you on a Tuesday night: My ugly mug plastered across your screen in HD.

Happy New Year!

Mesdames and Messieurs....HAPPY NEW YEAR and ALL THE VERY HAIRY CHEST!

The final couple of weeks of 2011 for me were as hectic as the end of a year can get. Much of my December timetable was clogged up with the sterotypical seasonal events of hunting out suitable but affordable gifts, the thankless task of writing Christmas cards and dipping in and out of Liege's magical 'Village de Noel' for the odd glass of mulled wine and  merry-making. The highlight of the yuletide season was the two weekends when we had the pleasure of hosting family and friends, which, added to a week-long visit to the parental home for the Christmas period, culminated in a rollercoaster of emotions from shared belly laughs to tearful goodbyes.

I'm hoping all this maybe serves as a valid excuse for my recent silence and seeming neglect of my blog. I have a tendency to scribble my thoughts down during my arduous daily train journeys, from which I have had a very welcome break, and, to put it bluntly, I have been having too much of a good time to be arsed with my blog. There I've said it!

Now it's back to business as usual and I'm hoping to keep my blog high on the list of priorities. Like every other Tom, Dick and Harry, I'm starting the New Year with the best intentions, determined to reduce my intake of alcohol and quit the 'bines and, of course, fit perfectly into a size 6 before bikini season is upon us - the latter is of particular importance after having to endure my brother refer to me as 'Mr Corden' over the last two weeks. My main focus this year will be to increase the level of creativity in my life, hopefully digging out my guitar again and attempting to write some more songs and develop my blog further (guest blogs and maybe even a new blog entirely). I already have some new experiences in mind to write about - hell, I'm even taking the day off work this week to try something new.

Before I turn my attention to 2012, I would like to dwell for a little while on the positive aspects of 2011.

Buying a bike
Despite the discovery that I am subject to bouts of road rage and have a vocabulary of French expletives that would make Bernard Manning blush, getting from A to B has been made much easier by the purchase of a city bike earlier this year. The morning ride along the river bank is a much better way to start the day than sitting with my head buried underneath my coat trying to stifle the odour of whoever has omitted to apply deodorant sat next to me on a stuffy bus.

Learning to bake
Another string to my bow that I never thought possible - has had adverse effects on my waistline but vastly increased my popularity amongst colleagues.

Starting a blog
Many moons ago, putting pen to paper came easily to me and was how I planned to earn my living. But life  got in the way and after years of writer's block and dwindling inspiration, I am overjoyed that I am finally back in the zone and have this outlet for my nonsense with the added bonus that people seem to read it and the odd weirdo seems to enjoy it.

Moving house
Good riddance to a bone idle landlord and house that was literally falling to pieces around our ears and hello to a new pad, so warm and cosy that a slanket is practically superfluous to requirements.

Learning to tap dance
For those who recall my earlier blog and lame attempts at fancy footwork, 11 lessons down the line, I can now perform a Shim Sham Shimmy (though not quite yet comfortably in public).

To Liege With Love xxx

It was a wet, grey and gloomy afternoon in the Summer of 1999, when I drank my first Cecemel Chaud on Wallonian soil. Looking around me at the ugly rainy atmosphere, the graffiti-ridden buildings and the abundant canine faecal matter, I wondered: "What am I doing here? Is this really going to be my home for the unforseeable future? Have I made a huge mistake?"

12 years later and I'm still here. One of the stalwarts. Practically a pillar of the community. Known to many locals as 'Clairvoyant', 'Madame Android 80' or just simply 'l'anglaise'. Unable to travel just a few yards down the road without a salutatory peck on the cheek, a friendly wave or even being dragged into the nearest cafe for 'un verre'. Wherever I have lived before, my existence has been one of anonymity and, in some places, almost been met with downright resentment. Not in Liege. Its warm and colourful people have opened their arms to me, welcomed me into the very heart of their cosy community, nurtured my eccentricities and drank to my health.

I'm not sure when my love affair with Liege began. It slowly crept up on me like alcoholic intoxication and I have, metaphorically speaking (and possibly even literally), never sobered up since. In the scheme of things, Liege is pretty much a non-entity: Lacking the splendour of Prague or the glamour of Barcelona, its dreary climate and central European location makes it nothing more than a convenient toilet stop on the way to Berlin, Amsterdam or Paris. But this is the city where an elderly gentleman feels comfortable enough to walk around a town centre supermarket with his pet cockatoo perched on the edge of a trolley; where the dogs are better dressed than most people and are treated to Saturday afternoon ice-cream; where a guy with a Salvador Dali moustache arrives on horseback for his Sunday morning coffee; where the gardening shops have racks of mint condition second-hand vinyl sat amongst the bottles of weed killer; where there's an annual spaghetti eating contest; where more than a handful of people use unicycles as a valid form of transport. Liege embraces all of life's eccentricities and with its hippy philosophy, manana attitude, flair for the creative and utmost respect for the absurd, offers a haven where Australian students, Iranian political refugees and Bolivian pan pipers can use one of its multitude of festivals as a convenient excuse to celebrate life.

It is with the heaviest heart that I feel compelled to relay events that have occured this week that would be enough to chew up and spit out even the most solid of communities. On Tuesday afternoon at approximately 12h30, a local man named Nordine Amrani opened fire in Liege's Place St Lambert massacring 4 people (a toddler, 2 teenagers and a 75 year old lady) and leaving many others gravely injured and the rest of us in a state of shock and bewilderment. Just inches away from the Christmas Village; last year covered in snow, this year a blood bath. After first lethally shooting a woman in a shed that he owned, armed with an assault rifle, a revolver and hand grenades, he indulged in the kind of murdering spree alien to most provincial towns, before turning a gun on himself and taking his own life. A convicted rapist and drug dealer, also previously charged for possession of lethal weapons, Amrani was released for good behaviour in 2010. It is believed that he had no terrorist connections and acted alone.

In committing this atrocity in the bustling Place St Lambert, where the grand architecture of years gone by sits comfortably alongside popular modern day chain stores, Amrani has as good as pierced the very soul of Liege.

The aftermath of these events has left our community reeling. We need answers. We need justice. We need peace of mind. From sick jokes and unwarrented racist slurs (although a Belgian national, Amrani was of Moroccan descent) on Facebook, to demonstrative outpourings of grief at the site of the incident via genuine heartfelt compassion, nobody has been left feeling indifferent.

Whatever your religion, I urge all my compatriots to take time out and give some thought to the victims. Let's all reflect on and light candles for those senselessly lost lives and their grief-stricken families. If action needs to be taken, let's point this in the direction of the justice system and the arms industry who have seemingly failed us by allowing the circumstances for this act of evil to take place. Let's eliminate the fear. Above all, let's come together and gently pull out the arrow that's pierced our soul and focus on healing so that we can live harmoniously again and Liege can continue to be the welcoming city we all love.

Please don't change, Liege.