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Speaking of a country's image, I once got a phone call from an agency that was researching Canada's (for tourism no doubt). The woman asked, "Who's the first person who comes to mind when you think of Canada?" I said, "Glenn Gould." She said, "Who's that?"

Gerard Departu?

Well done jws. Rosalind Re the ball boy I think punishing him by taking his phone off him stopping him drinking champagne and making him fly by Ryan air may be more effective!

The great Jacques Brel is my favourite Belgian...and when you can write lyrics as beautiful as these it doesn't matter that you look as if you've borrowed Shergar's teeth

http://youtu.be/za_6A0XnMyw

Couldn't agree more, bullfrog! By chance heard the Nina Simone version of "Ne me quitte pas" recently early morning in bed & looked up the lyrics properly: devastated............And when I first met my present wife over 30 years ago, we went to see that documentary film on his life that came out just after his death -- I don't know if you know it --- we were both reduced to tears like by almost no other film ever.So ugly & so beautiful at once (please don't misunderstand): simply excruciating "in the best sense" (I don't know how else to put it).

I was introduced to his lyrics at school by a visiting French teacher who read us Le Plat Pays. Sadly, we heard at the beginning of the following school year that the young Frenchman had drowned whilst swimming. Given that my abiding memory of him was his gloomy repetition of the word 'vagues' in the first verse, it really felt that he was doomed to a watery grave all along...

I've just watched the clip, bullfrog. Very moving thank you.