Ostend Blog: Friday 31st April

Ostend still seems a bit of a strange place to hold a brass band contest.

Life's a beach

With the Kursaal right on the promenade and just 20 yards from the beach, it may well turn out to be an end of pier show – no crowd in for the entertainment. The sun is out today, so the Belgians have taken to the beach – and not a pleasant site it is either.

Like the Brits, the first sign of the golden globe in the sky means fat blokes in Bermuda shorts and podgy women showing too much midriff. The great Belgian delicacy of chips with lashings of mayonnaise takes its toll it seems.

It's flabulous...porkers everywhere (and not just the trio of 4BR crew in the picture)

Like the Brits, the first sign of the golden globe in the sky means fat blokes in Bermuda shorts and podgy women showing too much midriff4BR

Serious bit

We have already done the serious bit today – Malcolm Wood was sent to listen to the EBBA Conference on education, whilst the erstwhile Editor managed to scrounge a freebie pass to the opening ceremony – which contained more boring speeches than the Tory Party Conference.

Highlight

The highlight though was the playing of the Cosy Quartet on period instruments and in period dress too (David Read told 4BR that he remembered the days well!) – although they did go on a bit.

Draw

The draw was the usual anti climax – with representatives of various bands making the walk of death to draw their fate out of the velvet bag. The groan of disappointment was loudest after Treize Etoile – drawn number 1. All other band reps smiled like Cheshire cats…

With the draw out of the way it was off to the Press Conference where a few questions were raised and answered with true European diplomacy. By all accounts the Belgian Government at different levels has put in over 90,000 Euros to hold the event here.

Makes you think that….

Not long now before the composer’s talk and then it all kicks off in the Elite Section….

More to come...