Mooching around Brussels or "?ooching qround Brussels"

I have just returned from dinner. It took me a long while to work out where to dine as there was plenty of choice between Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Italian, Spanish and just plain pub grub, but with the added benefit of Belgian beer. After circling round a few times I settled on Spago on the Rue Du Pont de la Carpe, Karperbrugstraat 13. There were candles on the table and a generally relaxed vibe and I wanted something simple that was not going to keep me up all night.

Fortunately, I had the latest issue of Private Eye to keep me company as there is nothing worse than dining alone unless I have something to read or a smart phone to play with. I was asked if I wanted to sit at the bar and of course I did not so they directed me to a table in the corner by the window. I opted for the seat facing into the restaurant, rather than stare at my reflection all night, and when the menu arrived I perused it and then chose Parma ham with melon followed by fillet of salmon.

Whenever I order Parma ham and melon I am always taken aback by the amount of ham they pile on the plate, but I always manage to eat it. Odd that I can eat Parma ham with melon but gag at the thought of pineapple on pizza.  The main course was wonderful, served on a rectangular white plate and accompanied by boiled potatoes, artichoke and baby vine tomatoes. I asked for a Merlot but the waiter just about understood "red wine" and I was too tired to take the conversation any further.

All was good but the service was a little slow when it came to ordering dessert, so I simply did not bother and asked for the bill instead.

I wandered around for a bit afterwards and considered two things: a Belgian beer in one of the many bars close to the hotel; and secondly, a haircut in one of the many barbers that are open late here in Brussels. In the end I did neither and instead returned to the hotel to try and work out how to the type the "at" symbol in order to access this blog. After about half an hour of getting steadily more frustrated, just like last night, I managed to copy an "at" sign, so here I am having great difficulty writing on what I have just learned is known as an "azerty" keyboard. Trust me, it is really infuriating.

And now, having reached the end of this post I've found the apostrophe key, but I'm not going to go through the post changing the text, I'm going to leave everything in place to remind myself of the irritation. To type a full point, for example, I have to use the shift key.

Allow me to give you another example of this ridiculous keyboard. Here goes:

?y nq,e is ?qtthez ?oggridge qnd Iù, the quthor of NoVisibleLycrq; itùs q blog qll qbout cycling ,qinly; but zith q bit of trqvel stuff throzn in for good ,eqsure: Iù, auite obsessed zith ,y blog so i,qgine hoz qnnoyed I zqs zhen I discovered thqt I hqd left ,y lqp top chqrger behind qnd hqd to rely; like noz; on zhqt is knozn qs q "azerty" keyboqrd: Still; I ,qnqged to zork out hoz to type qn "qt" sy,bol; qlthough the reqlity is thqt I copied qn "qt" sy,bol: I still hqvenùt zorked out hoz to type one: Zell; I better sign off qnd hit the sqck; not thqt I need to qs I donùt hqve qn eqrly stqrt: Iùve got to check out qnd heqd for ho,e:

See if you can work it out: Goodnight:

Postscript: On the morning of my last day I was told that to type the @ sign (as I just did) I need to depress control plus alt plus zero. You live and learn. But all the other keyboard hassles remain (see above).