Belgian Angles
The following eight articles are all from my early years as a journalist, when I was writing for The Bulletin, an English-speaking magazine in Brussels. It was here I got my first taste for throwing myself down rabbit-holes in search of arcane pieces of information—the goal was always to find an unusual story with broad appeal that also had a ‘Belgian angle’, however tangential that might be. I interviewed Jean-Claude Van Damme about his early life as a ballet dancer, Alan Moore on Hollywood and pornography, Marti Pellow about his heroin addiction, and tracked down unreleased music by soul legend Marvin Gaye. During these years I was also researching my first novel, Free Agent, and some of my fascination with spies, mercenaries and assassins seeped into my day job. I wrote dozens more articles in this time, but I think these few stand up well enough to be aired again all these years later.