The Diver and His Niece

When I was staying at Harberton earlier this year the little giant visited Santiago. The girl, created by Royal de Luxe, completely took over the city for three days, and her visit was shown live on Chilean television. At Harberton that is the television you get, so my host sat and watched much of the spectacle. I joined him a few times and was quite amazeda at the event. Could it be possible to create such huge characters and still make them believable and provide them with a soul of sorts. On screen it all looked pretty impressive and convincing.



Then the party came over to Antwerp, just when I had a morning to spare there. I went out into the city centre quite early, to look for the Diver or the Little Giant, and found the Diver. He was just getting ready to move on, and walked past me into busy streets, followed by a huge crowd. I took a shortcut and managed to arrive right in front of the Diver as he passed the small boat that was on its way to pick up the Little Giant. The Diver got cleaned along the way, by his escort, and took in his surroundings. It was a moving and overwhelming sight.



I had no time to seek out the Little Giant, but I will catch up with her one day, I'm sure. I might even get to see the Sultan's Elephant.

Mr Cohen

I went to see Leonard Cohen again. Late August, a beautiful sunny evening in Ghent. After all the rain, a dry day and evening, a beautiful sunset, and a great concert out in the square. Some 8000 people probably, but it didn't feel quite so big. The setting was quite intimate. For the first part of the concert we still had daylight, so everything was clear and easy to watch. I sat quite far back, but I had brought my binoculars, and the big screens helped. Then there were the beautiful pink and orange skies, the bright moon lighting those lovely old buildings, and changing the atmosphere to the intimacy of darkness and late night. Mr cohen played for about three hours, lively, and intimate, with that golden voice. The perfect night.