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Street Philosopher

Bicycling in Brussels

Seán Moran suspects simple stereotypes.

A bicycle, a cartoon character, and beer: this could only be Belgium. And so it is. We are in the land of champion cyclist Eddie Merckx, of Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin, and of twenty-one different types of beer in every bar. To complete the picture, all my photograph needs is an elegant Brussels eurocrat holding a box of Belgian chocolates in one hand and a René Magritte painting in the other, a Hercule Poirot story poking out of her Delvaux handbag. But these are stereotypes.

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