Brussels Binge

Go to Belgium? To find records. What insanity is this. Well I sent the lovely girlfriend there on an unofficial scouting trip last year and she came back bearing chocolates and informing me that beer stocks were holding up well. In passing she also mentioned a record shop she thought I might enjoy scavenging in. So this weekend we hopped on to the Eurostar and headed for Brussels. The fun game we all know and love is, how many famous Belgians can you name? To which I reply, how many famous Swiss can you name? But I digress. We were greeted with the exact replica skies we left in London, grey and drizzly. And it remained that way. The first shop was swollen with vinyl and had a good array of 60's and 70's LP's plus an extensive selection of 7"'s. The latter yielded very little except a Sylvie Vartan EP dressed in a striking cover from which one may assume that French women had a nits problem. Also found a Fehlfarben LP, a CD of girl group sounds of the early 60's called The Girls Of Hideaway Heaven and a Luv LP for the queenly sum of 1 euro.
The next shop presented us with an Eggplant LP and a Samantha Jones LP My Way which does include that My Way, a song best left to die a lonely death in working men's clubs. We also rooted through a graveyard of gormless 80's pop stars captured for eternity on 7". There were thousands of them among which was Nottingham Forest's deluded boast "We've Got The Whole World In Our Hands". Maybe not lads but at least you extended a finger or two to Brussels. What we did buy was Luv: You're The Greatest Lover; Baccara : Parlez Vous Francais; Middle Of The Road : Bottoms Up ; La Bionda : One For You, One For Me and Dolly Dots : Leila (The Queen Of Sheba). I have to emphasize that they only cost 10 cents each.
Shop three was called Juke Box and it was not offering any bargains except for Odessey And Oracle by the Chrysanthemums; yes it is the Zombies LP lovingly recreated by Alan Jenkins and his crazy cohorts. A mere 15 euros. Take my money.
We were done then and repaired to a pub to quaff beer and guzzle a vast plate of cheese which helped reinforce the dams in our arteries.
The next day we were thwarted in our attempt to visit the Brel museum, it was closed, and almost failed to locate the chocolate museum. Fortunately we did discover another record shop where we purchased the db's : Living A Lie; Pink Noise : Move For You and Lizzy Mercier Descloux : Suspense. Also rummaged around a flea market and discovered two Jacques Dutronc singles.