Other - Martijn.be

Join me in the Fediverse!

Published on 24 January 2025

If you haven’t noticed how the social media landscape has changed recently, you probably haven’t used it for a while… In short: the ‘classic’ social media—X formerly Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram—are now either nazi owned or have otherwise become very toxic! Time for a move!

Mastodon

I actually left Twitter quite a while ago already, and found quite a happy new home on Mastodon, my first venture into the Fediverse… What makes the Fediverse unique, is that that it’s decentralised and not owned by big corporations. That means that there isn’t just one central website or server for it, but you have to look around for a bit for an instance. You’ll be able to find and follow anyone you know the account name of from any instance, but you’re more likely to find interesting new accounts to follow if your instance suits your needs and interests. That’s why I use the instance Mastodon.green for my personal account, and Mastodon.beer for our Beers ‘n’ Bites in Brussels account!

Mastodon is still a bit lacking Belgian media, institutions, businesses, and other organisations so far. While Bluesky—where a lot of them are migrating to now, only to discover in a couple of months or years, that it can be bought by a tech billionaire just as easily as Twitter—is not quite part of the Fediverse (yet), with a bridge it is even possible to follow Bluesky accounts from Mastodon, and vice versa!

Promotional image of Global Switch Day - 1st of February 2025: switch from Instagram to Pixelfed (logos of each with an arrow pointing from the first to the second)

Promotional image of Global Switch Day - 1st of February 2025: switch from Facebook to Friendica (logos of each with an arrow pointing from the first to the second)

Pixelfed & more

But the Fediverse is way bigger than Mastodon! Another ‘platform’ that is booming right now, the fedi-replacement of Instagram, is Pixelfed, which I’m on already as well.

Bookwym is the fedi-version of Goodreads, and I found a home on the Rambling Readers instance!

I’ve only dipped my toes in Friendica, the fedi-version of Facebook, but still have to find another person I actually know on there…

But what’s the use of the Fediverse, with all those different platforms, you ask? Well, the beauty is, you don’t have to create an account on all of them—like I did—but just one(s) that suits your style most. For instance—pun intended—if you’re mostly in sharing photos, you’d create an account on Pixelfed. But with that Pixelfed account and app, you can then actually also follow a Mastodon account, without creating one yourself! Or, if you’re on Mastodon, but still interested in what I’m reading, follow my BookWyrm account!

Well, I hope that some of you will join me somewhere in the Fediverse soon!

Homage to a Clansman 2024

Homage to a Clansman 2024

Published on 5 October 2024

Once again, the Scottish clans with members in Belgium, gathered in Ypres to pay homage to their kinsmen fallen in The Great War. This year, there were representatives of the clans Hay, MacLaren, Ramsay, MacKinnon, Lamont, Sutherland, MacLeod, MacMillan, and Scott.

Read here why I am a member of the Clan MacLaren Society

For the clan MacLaren, I was the only one member able to make it to the ceremony this year. I knew this quite a while In advance, so I was able to order a poppy wreath made at Lady Haig’s Poppy Factory, with the MacLaren clan crest and motto already mounted in it. Apart from the convenience, it is also nice to know that it keeps disabled ex-servicemen and women employed, and that the proceeds help out veterans and their families in Scotland.

So early on Saturday morning, I found myself at the train station in full, traditional Boy Scouts of Belgium uniform—including hat¹ and thumbstick—and my MacLaren kilt, to start my journey to Ypres. Earlier than I would have liked, but due to engineering works on the rail network my trip would include a replacement bus and take much longer than usually… Since it was a matter of of arriving 15 minutes late or 45 minutes early, I at least had some time for coffee and cake at local roastery SloWWings before the ceremony would start.

After meeting up with the other clansmen and clanswomen and the Grote Markt of Ypres, we marched to the Menin Gate, headed by the Clan Hay Pipe Band. After arrival, we waited for the stroke of twelve and the sound of the bugles playing The Last Post. The ceremony then started with a reading of the fourth stanza of “For the Fallen”, a poem written by Laurence Binyon:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

A representative of each clan than read out five names of their kinsmen fallen in Belgium and France in World War One. As the only Maclaren present, that honour fell to me. After that, each clan then in turn laid down a wreath. Again, for the MacLarens, for the first time, that honour fell to me.

After the ceremony we headed back to the Grote Markt of Ypres, for an aperitif in Clans Pub Les Halles, and a lunch in the In Flanders Field Museum café.

Since I had a long journey back to Brussels ahead of me, I said my goodbyes then and went back to the station, sadly missing out on the afternoon ceremony at the Scottish Memorial in Zonnebeke.

¹ The keen observer will have noticed the dents on my hat are wrong for a BSB hat. This is because I only replaced my old hat eaten away by moths the day before with a hat from the catholic scouts shop, and didn’t have time to reshape it.

“Gay for a Day” in Amsterdam

“Gay for a Day” in Amsterdam

Published on 3 August 2024

The Amsterdam Hash House Harriers—with whom I ran only a couple of weeks ago—have a tradition of organising a run on the day of the Pride Amsterdam Canal Parade. So when they announced this run a couple of months ago, I asked for the day off, booked some Eurostar tickets, and ordered a theme appropriate kilt and T-shirt…

The red Eurostar—still carrying the Thalys branding here and there—was bang on time, which left us with just enough time for a coffee at Black Gold, a coffee shop slash record store for the proper vinyl kind, the other ‘black gold’… Lovely coffee, and great music as well!

At eleven it was time to gather in the Wertheimpark for the run. We weren’t the only visitors who had come over for the occasion, so it was a nice mix of very colourful hashers. AH3 had a logo designed for the run, to be printed on your own T-shirts, but I was one of the few to have actually done this. My kilt for the day was in the Pride of LGBT tartan!
The run was rather short and sweet, allowing us to be back in the park in time to still see the first boats float by.

After the run, circle, and barbecue, there was still some time to kill in Amsterdam. Obviously there would be beer involved, so we headed to the American beer bar Beer Temple, the way more Dutch Proeflokaal Arendsnest, and the logical last stop, BrewDog Amsterdam Centraal. Then is was just a few paces to the platform, where surprisingly a gold and blue Eurostar arrived to take us home.

Brussel Breweries Tattoo Tour 2024

Brussel Breweries Tattoo Tour 2024

Published on 15 June 2024

The infamous Brussel Breweries Tattoo Tour was exactly on the birthday of my breweries tattoo this year, the 15th of June. Like for the first and second edition, the turnout for this third edition was great!

In the end, three persons managed to visit and drink in all seven breweries, although in a slightly different order than myself: two needed to catch a train, so squeezed in Surréaliste somewhere in the middle, and another had to go to a concert, so he did the same with La Mule, the then join me again in the last brewery. They truly earned their patch!

A Beery Birthday in Rotterdam

A Beery Birthday in Rotterdam

Published on 9 May 2024

A midweek public holiday in May was for me an excellent occasion to check out the newest additions to the craft beer scene in Rotterdam. Coincidentally, it was also my birthday, which meant I could claim a free birthday beer here and there…

After taking a very full train—even people standing in the corridors—from Brussels to Rotterdam, I really needed a coffee! There were definitely some decent coffee bars nearer to the station, but to get me closer to the rest of the locations I planned to visit, I decided on Urban Espresso Bar West this time. Breakfast was already more or less digested by now, so I had a nice piece of salted caramel cake with my cortado as an early dessert.

For the main dish, and to add another name to my long list of visited BrewDog bars, I then went to BrewDog Witte de Withstraat. The place was much larger than I expected from a bar in this street, but I was almost alone inside: the sun was shining, and terrace therefore more popular. After finishing my The Big Pastrami One pizza, I spent quite some time here, since none of the other bars I planned on visiting would open before 4pm… And I did get to enjoy my first free birthday beer!

Completely different, and way more local, was Kaapse Will’ns, the newest bar of the Rotterdam brewery Kaapse Brouwers. With just a limited number of taps, it tried to stay true to its origins as a traditional, local bar. Considering the number of people still asking for a Heineken, I’d say they succeeded! Funny detail: one of the tap handles actually says “Heineken“, but it’s the tap for sparkling water…

In the next bar—Bierboutique—the taps with “Heineken” on them actually did serve the horrid beer, and most of the other taps were from the same producer… The bottle and can list however was way more interesting, and I was able to try some more interesting local beers.

As last stop of the day I revisited the BrewDog Rotterdam Outpost. It wasn’t that busy when I came in, but considering the number of booked tables that would later fill up, it was probably smart they actually booked a table for me as well! One of the nice things of an Outpost is a selection of unique beers, brewed on-site. They were actually brewing while I was there! That beer obviously wouldn’t be ready in time to have as my free birthday, so I had another one instead.
For dinner I had the local special Brews Springstew, a six hour slow cooked stew with beef cheek, onion, celery, carrots, and Black Heart stout, served on a bed of fresh fries. Very nice, but I could hardly finish it!