Belgium is an extremely interesting country. I probably get more questions about Belgium than any other country in Europe. People ask me, "I've heard about Belgium lots of times, but I don't really know the first thing about it. What is it actually like?"
These sorts of questions got me to thinking, and pretty soon I realised that I didn't even know what it was like - and given that I know so much about so many countries, including all those little ones down the left side of Africa that most people don't even know the names of, this seemed quite peculiar. When I thought about it more, I realised that not only had I never been to Belgium, but I've never met anyone from Belgium, or anyone who has actually been there.
The amazing fact of the matter is that Belgium doesn't exist! There is no such place as Belgium! I did a lot of research, and discovered that the apparent existence of Belgium is all an accident, stemming from a boy's weekly paper called Chums which was published in Britain early this century. In 1911, in a serial by Andrew Soutar titled I Smashed His Face In, there is a scene where several dozen boys get locked in a shed, and to pass the time have a huge fist-fight. At one point, one of the incidental characters remarks, "So I suppose you learned that trick in Belgium, eh Musden?" Of course this remark doesn't really make any sense, and I have no idea why or how an entire country managed to get manufactured out of it, but there you are.
Some facts about Belgium
