Concrete Block

“The paranoid time of the Gang of Nijvel, the CCC, the German boy who landed on the Red Square with a sports plane as a joke but paid dearly for it … The idea for the block came about at the beginning of July during a meeting with my technical team in Trefpunt. First as a passing joke, but it soon got an increasingly stronger grip on my brain to actually realize it: a Tijl Uilenspiegel project, a gift from Trefpunt to the city. The general atmosphere in Europe was right for it.”

In a borrowed open Cadillac, three comedians, dressed in the three girls’ schools, grey, green, brown, left from the start of the procession and put on a show in front of the stands. With the block wrapped in gold foil and a big beautiful red bow, they join the procession at Sint Jacobs. The team forms a cordon and is trained to execute the manoeuvre at lightning speed. “The orders are carried out perfectly and a moment later the block is shining in the middle of the street. Fear everywhere, the thunder of the crash and the violence of the dragging down, police in a frenzy chasing the tractor and handcuffing driver Danny, the next groups that can’t go any further, terraces that have to be evacuated. General consternation. In the meantime I approach the mayor, he knows me and my family and is immediately reassured. Thanks to the soothing mayor, the atmosphere changes into a wonderful general hilarity. After the procession everyone crowds around the block, I manage to get mayor Monsart to open his present and with a disgusted look on his face he comes across the still wet wallpaper paste.”