January 2015: 50 years after Winston Churchill passed away. He was a remarkable figure, and was at times controversial. When young(er) I read most of his memoirs, unfortunately I lost the book.
Here some remarkable quotes, adapted from Knack Magazine (Belgium):

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.
Nancy Astor (the first female member of Parliament in England): ‘Sir, if you were my husband, I would give you poison.’ Churchill: ‘If I were your husband I would take it.’
A lady came up to me one day and said “Sir! You are drunk”, to which I replied “I am drunk today madam, and tomorrow I shall be sober but you will still be ugly”.
Author George Bernard Shaw to Churchill: ‘I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend … if you have one.’ The answer of Churchill: ‘Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second, if there is one.’
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
If you are going through hell, keep going.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.
‘No sports’ as an answer to the question how he managed to do so many things in his life.
I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
It has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time.
A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.
A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, then asks you not to kill him.
I have never developed indigestion from eating my words.

See here, translated from the Dutch (without changing much), an interesting perspective on the heated discussion about immigration and freedom of religion/expression currently going on in Europe. Received from a Belgian friend.
Pretty well said. I challenge anybody to question or criticize the idea. It is plain logic and reciprocity. And humorous (a word some people do not understand, obviously). Seems politicians fail to understand it either.

Letter from a Belgian citizen on the “Anatomy of the Islamic State”:
I am addressing myself to the Muslims of France, Belgium and Europe.
My family and myself would like to move to Morocco, Algeria or Turkey.
My neighbors and friends, who are close to us, would love to follow us, of course also their family and friends, as well as their friends, and so on.
We would move to your country in large numbers, and as we are all Catholic, churches should be built, streets should be closed to allow our processions (don’t worry, it happens rarely like once a year for Holy Virgin Mary and not like five times a day).
We also want you ban your religious celebrations as those would insult our Christian community.
We also want our children to attend school with the Cross hanging around their neck and we also want to enjoy our ham sandwich at school or at the office.
If that would not be allowed could you indicate the nearest police station where we can report discrimination?
I thank you in advance for your understanding,
Signed: millions of Europeans with or without a religion.

Yesterday I joined the reception at the Belgian embassy to meet with the delegation of the University of Ghent, where I graduated as master in electronic engineering in 1973. As such I must be probably the oldest alumnus here in Beijing. Most of the participants at the reception were Chinese alumni, as the University starts to be well known in China and receives a lot of attention. The University along with the Province of East Flanders have a long track record here in China, fostering relations with several well-known Chinese universities.
I was very pleased and honored to meet with the new Dean, Prof. dr. Anne De Paepe. Last year I had met her predecessor, also in the Belgian embassy.

I am proud of my Alma Mater. If I scored some unusual successes here in China I should say thanks. Indeed the most important thing I learned in my engineering studies: to learn, never say you can’t handle something, always sit down and look with a fresh mind into “impossible” problems.
Also pictured are, among others: Prof. Dr. ir. Guy Smagghe, Prof. dr. ir. Patrick Van Damme and Vice Governor of the Province of East Flanders Geert Versnick. And of course our ambassador, H.E. Michel Malherbe, our perfect host as usual.
I was born in Ghent, went there to school and to the university.
As reported by … ir. Gilbert

A recent headline in the SCMP read:
‘Hong Kong students beat us to it’: Benny Tai declares.
It reminded me of a misunderstanding with a so-called American Chinese lady, on WeChat. While she seemed well educated, her English proficiency wasn’t that good it seems.
In Sanlitun The Village there was an event with male models to promote the opening a new well-known brand. Many people posted pics on WeChat, so did she. I left the comment, well-intended. that others “beat her to the pics”. She was pretty upset about it, did not understand the expression, said she “did not know the others” etc. etc. That was the end of our WeChat connection.

Conclusion was again:

• The vast majority of Chinese who lived abroad fail to properly assimilate a foreign language, while they are convinced “they are fluent”.
• Don’t try to make jokes with Chinese people you don’t know really well. It usually ends badly.

I was left pretty annoyed and disappointed with the miscommunication, even trying my best to explain. In vain.

China has over 1.3 billion people. Belgium has 11 million, about half of the Beijing population.
Now look what Belgium has achieved in soccer (The Red Devils, in the past decades in recently) and in cycling. Let’s not even mention Chinese soccer, a disaster due to the aversion of parents to let their kids play soccer (or anything like that), the pitiful low number of professional players, the way players are selected and trained, the scandals of corruption that have decimated what existed at a certain stage.
The Tour de France is considered the most prestigious cycling event in the world. Now China is, sorry, was considered the kingdom of bikes. But Belgian trainers had to come over here in the eighties to show the Chinese how to ride a bike. Again, riding a bike here is even considered a shame. Candidates in the famous dating show “If You Are The One” (Fei Cheng Wu Rao) are immediately buzzed out by the girls if they mention they like biking. Shame on them, why not ride a BMW? Also, riding a bike is mostly dangerous, and what even most people don’t know, traffic regulations do not allow high speeds. For good reason, imagine biking at 30 Km/h or more on a Chinese road! Suicide!
Not surprisingly for me, Belgians have a long and glorious tradition in the Tour de France. We basically grew up with a bike. However, where are the Chinese?

See here in my hometown Gent in Belgium the bike parking (one of them!) at the railway station. There is nothing like that in the whole of China!
Well, this Tour makes history because for the first time ever a Chinese is participating: Ji Cheng. Thanks to a first experience with the Dutch team Purapharm he was then taken on by Shimano China.
Let’s hope it will also encourage others in China to follow in his tracks. That is, if he makes it to the end of the grueling tour.