There are some cities in the world I am really destined never to see the beauty of. Brussels is one of them.

i first encountered it in my very first job as an actor. Touring Shakespeare with the Royal Exchange Company we had two performances in Brussels in a large theatre that I cannot remember. For those of us who spoke French Brussels was a welcome relief after the German leg of the tour and I remember that twenty of us went to a restaurant where the bill was over £700 - not bad for 1978. Other than that, I don;t remember anything.

Fast forward to a Sunday afternoon in 2004 when Rich and I spent a few hours in Brussels on our way back from Bruges. Then I seem to remember it consisted of an underpass and a bizarre art museum in a subway.

2006 sees me in Brussels for a night prior to staging a play at a drug company on the outskirts. A nice hotel- actually all the hotels in Brussels seemed nice, and a bar - nothing more

Then the last two days to take part in a storytelling workshop for CNN. The hotel is luxurious, The Sofitel Le Louise. The city is icy cold, and my free two hours yesterday afternoon prior to my train back are taken up with the best intentions of a walk. I say best intentions as after an hour the weather is so cold that one has to take refuge in a cafe and indulge in coffee and cake.

So Brussels- international city of mystery - I still know no more about you than I did - and from what I do know, I won;t be booking a mini break any day soon.

Brussels is of course elysium compared to Sheffield. A visit to see Mum on Monday involved taking the flash new tram from the centre of Sheffield to Meadowhall the huge shopping centre outside Sheffield in order to get the bus home to Mum's. Every tram stop seems to be in them middle of either wasteland or an industrial estate. At no point do you feel that it serves homes or people. And yet evidently it does as people get on and off at each stop in this bleak, toxic landscape.

It's a shit hole and sad to see. It;s a few miles from Edlington where recently those two boys were convicted of assault. I could never understand what they did, but living in such a forgotten landscape as this makes it seem more believable somehow.

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