Herman Van Rompuy, the Belgian prime minister, was characteristically downbeat when baited by his political opponents in the national parliament last week (12 November) about the chances of his being chosen as president of the European Council.
“I read, hear and see what is being written. Often I do not recognise myself, neither in the good, nor the bad, that is written about me,” he said.
Kristien Hemmerechts, a Flemish fiction-writer and essayist of some renown, was perhaps provoked by this comment to greater descriptive efforts. In a blog for the Flemish broadcaster VRT, she wrote that Van Rompuy always makes her think of Steven Spielberg's extra-terrestrial creation.
“I can't look at a photo of him without thinking: E.T. His nose and eyes lie close to each other, his eyebrows draw two stripes over his forehead whose outer ends are strangely higher than the inner, his ears are too large and too pointed.”
Van Rompuy will be back in the Belgian parliament today to say whether he recognises himself.
