Monday 20 October 2008

The banner - or: Nothing else to write about

What do you do when you are living in Brussels, being the editor of a European news magazine, and you write your editor's note:

You complain about... banners!

It seems as if there are no bigger problems in Brussels than the European Union putting up banners that inform about unimportant events. That's great.

It is not that I do not agree with the substance, but as an editor of an all-European magazine you can do much better than to find a topic that is 100% unimportant for anyone outside Brussels, a nice little city far away from reality.

But maybe this is also the reason why you write such irrelevant editor's notes...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello Julien,

I completely understand why you responded in this way and agree that this week's column was indeed very Brussels-oriented.

Reading a few more of these Editor's Notes, you'll find that they are often not about "the most important problems of Europe". The column carries a particular style, and particular form of content.

If a Euro-matter is on my mind, I write about it. I try and keep it independent of European current affairs, making it a column about my thoughts on Europe and some European issues.
Living in Brussels does however sometimes take me away from the immense breadth and depth of Europe.

Your last statement does leave me with a half-smile: "Brussels, a nice little city far away from reality".

Just to make you aware that we are not on an entirely different page - two weeks ago, my Editor's Notes was entitled "Not all roads lead to Brussels."

Anonymous said...

Don't worry :-), I have read one or two of your notes before, and I am not afraid that this will be the standard, I just felt that this is a very typical example for some of the things that are going on in Brussels.

I therefore needed to write this little comment...

Anonymous said...

It is indeed!!!