Antwerp
July 13th 2008 07:41
Never had a city just by its name held such promise. The Big Apple, Gay Paris, The Windy City all seemed in adequate when place alongside The Twerp. Surely this was to be an exciting time. I had an image of a city a bit like a girl in a Freddy Prinze Jnr movie: nerdy at first by virtue of a sidelining by elder sister Brussells, but when you figuratively take of her glasses, she magically becomes quirky, likeable, sexy.
Much like a Freddy Prinze Junior movie Antwerp was in actual fact quite disappointing. I tried to reanalyse, give it another chance if you will, but, again like some US teen movie, a second running is extremely hard to take. And so I racked my brains, my photos, the maps, the snippets of film my digital camera, and I came to the following conclusions.
The Twerp struggles to stand out from any other western European city. They are all a hotchpotch of grand boulevards, winding alleys, pointless statues, towering churches, central plazas, and Spanish tourists travelling round in groups of three [have not been able to figure this one out yet]. What stands each city apart is some grand erection or other, perhaps its cuisine or liberal drug laws, a sprawling museum, a little boy urinating, or its fashionable shopping. The Twerp does not. In marketing parlance, Antwerp has no point of difference – no p.o.d.
To be fair, I quite liked this about The Twerp. It was independent - it had moxy. It had no tourist slogans or shameless self-promotion and there was no special effort to beautify one part of the town and ignore another – all areas were ignored without prejudice. When you ask a native why you should come to them and not some other major centre up the road, I dare say your question will be met with an upraised middle finger. And when you see a map…and squint a little…and abandon all sense of reality…and take my word for the layout…and grant me several books worth of poetic licence; if you do all this, with The Twerp’s central market and looped roads looking like a fist, the central boulevard running east to the station wide and finger like up the middle, it’s hard not to imagine (well it’s very hard to imagine but it doesn’t sound as good) that this was exactly the attitude the city planners were trying to convey.
But it wasn’t that which cooled my passions for The Twerp. It was not that I was an anti-twerpite. It was just that something about this city had left me feeling out of place. Like wearing anything other than lycra in an aerobics class; like a white guy in the NBA; like a 23 year old at a Freddy Prinze Junior movie; like someone with a brain at a Freddy Prinze Junior movie; like – while we’re on the subject of movies – an original joke in Goldmember. It seemed that The Twerp was an anti-davidite, my suspicions were first aroused when I was shat on by a bird with a rectum the diameter of a dinner plate.
So turned out it was anti-me. And why? Because I pee with the seat up. Yes, I am a man, The Twerp is the diamond capital of the world and as well all know, diamonds are a girl’s best friend. This was, I suppose, as close as The Twerp got to having a point of difference, it was the commercial home of the diamond. For me this became nuetralised by my penis, ability to read maps, pack car boots, and reverse trailers. It is how a female would feel if Paris were stripped of its points of difference and was just left with its dogs whose best friends they are, I’m sure I need not spell out.
And so I withdraw my name for Antwerp – it has been made clear to me from my experience that we are not on nickname basis. Henceforth I shall address it respectfully and by her full Flemmish name of Antwerpen, though I reserve the right to giggle behind her back because she’s not all that. Antwerpen had taken off her glasses, brought down her hair form that tight bun, dressed in a prom dress and I was un-aroused, I couldn’t even fake an affectionate interest, (though I am a terrible actor). So I guess that’s the point of difference between me and FPJ, he can see some sort of diamond in the rough and I can’t. The p.o.d. is certainly not our acting.
Stone Cowboy - Rhine
Much like a Freddy Prinze Junior movie Antwerp was in actual fact quite disappointing. I tried to reanalyse, give it another chance if you will, but, again like some US teen movie, a second running is extremely hard to take. And so I racked my brains, my photos, the maps, the snippets of film my digital camera, and I came to the following conclusions.
The Twerp struggles to stand out from any other western European city. They are all a hotchpotch of grand boulevards, winding alleys, pointless statues, towering churches, central plazas, and Spanish tourists travelling round in groups of three [have not been able to figure this one out yet]. What stands each city apart is some grand erection or other, perhaps its cuisine or liberal drug laws, a sprawling museum, a little boy urinating, or its fashionable shopping. The Twerp does not. In marketing parlance, Antwerp has no point of difference – no p.o.d.
Antwerp
To be fair, I quite liked this about The Twerp. It was independent - it had moxy. It had no tourist slogans or shameless self-promotion and there was no special effort to beautify one part of the town and ignore another – all areas were ignored without prejudice. When you ask a native why you should come to them and not some other major centre up the road, I dare say your question will be met with an upraised middle finger. And when you see a map…and squint a little…and abandon all sense of reality…and take my word for the layout…and grant me several books worth of poetic licence; if you do all this, with The Twerp’s central market and looped roads looking like a fist, the central boulevard running east to the station wide and finger like up the middle, it’s hard not to imagine (well it’s very hard to imagine but it doesn’t sound as good) that this was exactly the attitude the city planners were trying to convey.
But it wasn’t that which cooled my passions for The Twerp. It was not that I was an anti-twerpite. It was just that something about this city had left me feeling out of place. Like wearing anything other than lycra in an aerobics class; like a white guy in the NBA; like a 23 year old at a Freddy Prinze Junior movie; like someone with a brain at a Freddy Prinze Junior movie; like – while we’re on the subject of movies – an original joke in Goldmember. It seemed that The Twerp was an anti-davidite, my suspicions were first aroused when I was shat on by a bird with a rectum the diameter of a dinner plate.
So turned out it was anti-me. And why? Because I pee with the seat up. Yes, I am a man, The Twerp is the diamond capital of the world and as well all know, diamonds are a girl’s best friend. This was, I suppose, as close as The Twerp got to having a point of difference, it was the commercial home of the diamond. For me this became nuetralised by my penis, ability to read maps, pack car boots, and reverse trailers. It is how a female would feel if Paris were stripped of its points of difference and was just left with its dogs whose best friends they are, I’m sure I need not spell out.
And so I withdraw my name for Antwerp – it has been made clear to me from my experience that we are not on nickname basis. Henceforth I shall address it respectfully and by her full Flemmish name of Antwerpen, though I reserve the right to giggle behind her back because she’s not all that. Antwerpen had taken off her glasses, brought down her hair form that tight bun, dressed in a prom dress and I was un-aroused, I couldn’t even fake an affectionate interest, (though I am a terrible actor). So I guess that’s the point of difference between me and FPJ, he can see some sort of diamond in the rough and I can’t. The p.o.d. is certainly not our acting.
Beer sponsored horse
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