The latest collection of snaps taken while out and about in the capital of Europe:

Simon + Becs | brussels 13

Closed for several years to have its aluminium cladding replaced with stainless steel, Brussels' finest post-war building (there isn't much competition) reopened last year. Then closed again because some of the new panels had to be replaced. Happily all is well now, though the long queues (one to pay and one to get in!) and fine weather meant we restricted our visit to the outside, amid the rubble and cement mixers of the incomplete landscaping:

Simon + Becs | brussels | atomium | re-clad | april 2007

And this is what it looked like in November 2002 and May 2005:

Simon + Becs | brussels | atomium | november 2002 + may 2005

Two Macs, one mixing desk, playing Bontempi versions of pop classics from the likes of Madness and The Proclaimers.

Spend your Friday evening dressed as Zombie invading an Apple retail store:

Zombies? No Problem

Spend your Sunday on an exercise bike in a cage in a Brussels park:

Caged cyclist

Oh why:

iPod Amnesty Bin

Apparently Microsoft has 'sold' - corporate speak for shipped, which is not the same thing - one million Zune music players. In six months. If the willingness of its own employess to shed their iPods en masse is any indication, it will take them another six months to sell the next million. It takes Apple a mean of five to six days to sell - as in sell - a million iPods.

I'm happy to admit that I take malevolent pleasure in Microsoft's failure to convince the US public to buy a product it doesn't even seem to believe in itself - why else would they not make it available worldwide like Apple did from day one with the iPod? But I do feel justified in my animosity, because Zune is such a poor product that pretends to be much more than it is.

I learnt a cool new word today, encomium, meaning 'a speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something highly'.

In fact you could say that this blog posting is an encomium for encomium.