Brussels Sprout ! .. .. uncovering of a river !!

 

London has the Thames, Paris the Seine, Vienna and Bratislava and Budapest are all on the Danube. And then there's Brussels, which had the Senne -- until they paved over it.

I was curious to know about this vegetable, seen in a Super market .. .. and some thoughts flowed !  - do you know that you can no longer call Uber taxi ??

Uber Technologies Inc. joined a protest of its drivers in Brussels on Thursday with an unprecedented suspension of its service in the Belgian capital. Rules dating back to 1995 prohibit drivers from using smartphones, meaning those that use the Uber app to pick up customers and to drive them to their destination risk losing their vehicles, Uber said in a blog. "This is not acceptable in 2021," Uber said, adding the sector had been waiting seven years for reforms.

In an email to clients, the hail-riding company said its services would be unavailable for three hours in the morning because the Brussels government had failed to present a reform plan before the summer, contrary to its pledge to do so. Uber said the suspension was "exceptional and unprecedented" in Europe and that it stood with the 2,000 independent drives who use its app daily and who "fear for their work and are worried for their future." During the suspension, hundreds of Uber drivers drove their cars in a procession through central Brussels to the office of the regional premier, who met a delegation.

For the next month, at Amos Zittel & Son Inc. Farm in Eden, they will be harvesting Brussels Sprouts, one of the most universally hated produce. Brussels Sprouts show up on numerous "least favorite vegetable" lists. Evan Zittel doesn't understand it. He says "I think it's just an old wives tale growing up that Brussels Sprouts are gross. I love them. Especially the way my wife cooks them for me."

The vegetable that you saw at the start of this post ‘Brussels Sprout’ - is a member of the Gemmifera Group of cabbages (Brassica oleracea), grown for its edible buds. The leaf vegetables are typically 1.5–4.0 cm (0.6–1.6 in) in diameter and resemble miniature cabbages. The Brussels sprout has long been popular in Brussels, Belgium, from which it gained its name.

.. .. .. and one cannot but think of our own Buckingham canal, which once was navigated in boats  !!  

The preparatory phase of the progressive unveiling of the Senne was cleaning up its waters. The small river was cemented over in the late 19th and early 20th centuries because it had long served as a sewer and industrial dumping ground, whose turgid course stank up Brussels and posed a health hazard.

Now, bit by bit, the Belgian capital is starting to uncover its long-hidden waterway to eventually "return nature to the city". "It's a real paradigm shift," Benjamin Thiebaux, heading up the project for the regional environmental agency, told AFP. "We can now start thinking about no longer covering up the river and giving it back to Brussels residents," he said.

The small river was cemented over in the late 19th and early 20th centuries because it had long served as a sewer and industrial dumping ground, whose turgid course stank up Brussels and posed a health hazard. The French poet Charles Baudelaire, while taking refuge in Brussels from his creditors, notably called it a "big open-air toilet".  Most of the Senne's course through the city was erased from the surface, built over to create boulevards and big buildings, with its course diverted and only parts left accessible on Brussels's outskirts.

It was only in 2007, when the first of two water purification plants was built, that the clean-up of the river got properly under way. With that monumental task having mostly sanitised the once-malodorous watercourse, the Brussels region on Tuesday is inaugurating the first 200-metre (650-foot) stretch of the Senne to be brought out of the dark.  Thiebaux pointed to where a mechanical digger was placing large blocks of vegetation on the riverbed.

Interesting !

 

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

6^th Oct 2021.