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In Bruxelles' dark corners lurked strangeness and comedy: wry street vendors, complaining about profits; buskers, rich on pennies and tuppences; apprentices piling in, grubby from work or tech; builders' mates from the few working sites in 80s' Dublin with tales of near calamity; rock-band members, who made sure everyone saw their leather pants and guitars; prim office girls who wore denim in the evenings; long-haired lotharios with winning smiles and disappearing tricks; performers all, whose enthusiasm would sometimes spill over into long, loud, drinking sessions; scenes of breaking glass or table-top, bar-stool sing-alongs. Within a few months of my first Bruxelles visit, I considered myself a regular. That is to say, I had the right to look down my nose at the 'kids' that came in, trying to get served at the bar. I could nod sagely at the improvement a new jukebox would make to the general ambience, and race, knowingly, to the selection buttons when the timer cut off Thin Lizzy's "Whiskey in the Jar" before its end. I approved Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild" as the unofficial anthem of the place, and glared, disapprovingly at the trendies that inhabited a new disco bar in one end of the pub... Actually, I seldom really disapproved of anyone, but the neon blue lights of the trendy bar (as we called it), and the fact that we would not be served in it made it a natural target of general hostility. Whether rocker's bar or disco bar, the punter's money inevitably ended up in one place. When we lads lined up at the urinals, conversations were struck up and, generally -- even the refugees from the trendy bar -- strangers proved to be just ordinary Joe Soaps like the rest of us.... if a little better dressed.
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