Jotie ‘t Hooft..Some do laud him as being the Jim Morrison of Flanders, because of a same lifestyle and similar untimely drug-induced death and the cult, nearly thirty years after the facts, is still very much alive. Jotie’s grave, in Audenaarde ( graf in Oudenaarde ), attracts numerous visitors who very often leave a small token of their admiration. Here, in Bruges, though, nobody ever pays attention to this street. And yet, it is here, in a small room, that on 5 or 6 October 1977, the barely 21-year old died from a fatal shot of cocaine. His friend Christian R. Drove didn’t lose any time in driving Jotie to the Saint-Lucas Hospital in Assebroek, where he simply dumped Jotie at the entrance of the Emergency Service and then sped away in his BMW. Jotie ‘t Hooft was immediately rushed into Reanimation but, it was too late. Jotie died early in the morning on October 6, 1977.

Opinions about Jotie’s writings are varied. One fact remains : his compilation of poems titled ."Schreeuwlandschap" (Screamlandscape) landed him in the world of the literary prize. One short commentary by Jeroen Brouwers reads as follows : "Jotie’s job at Manteau Publishers was that of youngest employee, a gofer (...). He was unfit for secretarial work or article-writing - in fact, he preferred to keep busy with his own affairs in his small occife . (...) Jotie never bothered anybody more did the resident cat." Just to make you understand the situation : Jotie was married with the daughter of publisher Julien Weverbergh and thus, Jotie’s job was a given. One more comment by Jeroen Brouwers, about Jotie’s literary talent " " He felt overwhelmed by his success from the very start. He wanted to work at it seriously. (...) Jotie ‘t Hooft was, in fact, kissed to death by the public. (...) When you do away with all the biographical sensationalism around Jotie, what remains is a rather primitive poetry, and neither theme nor motive have any original content." All comments are from Brouwer’s book "De Laatste Deur" (The Last Door) (1983).

"One day I shall be gone and then what?

Disappeared without giving or taking a sign

and the ruin I will leave behind is no

longer a cause for laughter."

Jotie 't Hooft

If you are travelling with a group to Bruges, you can prevail yourselves of the services of a flesh-and-blood guide, rather than a paper-guide. It does not matter how hard the guide will try to capture the attention of everybody in the group - this one even went as far as climbing on a post - her comments will be lost to all the amateur-photographers. This is not an isolated insstance. In fact, it happens all the time. And thus, back home with their beautiful pictures, those photographers will see where they have been, without having really been there.

Aren’t you a bit fed up with elections? Election of the sportsman of the year, the businessman of the year, the best pun of the year, the best....Now we are having elections for the City of Bruges Personality of the year 2006. Five top candidates remain on the list : Jan Darthet, the city’s official photographer; Geert Van Hecke, owner of the restaurant De Karmeliet (the Carmelite); Raymond Van het Groenenwoud, the singer, Luc Can Lierde the triathlon athlete who twice won the Iron Man; and, last but not least, baron Polydor. While the other four gentlemen are not losing a wink of sleep worrying whether they will have the title or not, this "baron Polydor van ‘t Smouthuus" (baron Polydor of the LardHouse) is extremely busy doing the rounds of the city trying to hustle votes for himself. So, your guess is as good as mine as to whom will be Bruges City Personality 2006...

Bruges has always had a number of special, even eccentric, but certainly popular characters, people who really were different. Did you ever hear of Vincent De Groof? No? Well, he was a true Bruges citizen. He died on July 9, 1874, in London, England, and thousands of Londoners who had paid good money - not to see Vincent die, of course, but to see him FLY.- were witness to his unfortunate demise. How did it happen? Well, Vincent De Groof, who was a plasterer and ornament modeler by trade, had engineered a machine which would allow him - so he said - to fly. At the end of the month of June of that year, he made his first trial-flight. He had his plane attached to a balloon and up he went. There was a good wind and the balloon floated quite a distance away from London. Once Vincent deemed he had reached a desirable height, he uncoupled his plane from the balloon and, as the eyewitnesses reported, he apparently did fly for about half an hour. Whether that is true or not can probably be researched but, the news spread like a brush fire and when Vincent’s second attempt was announced, thousands of Londoners had trooped to the Cremorne Gardens, where De Groof would repeat his stunt. And so it happened. When balloon and "plane" were about 5000 feet high, Vincent cut his machine loose from the balloon and... plunged straight down and crashed under the eyes of thousands of Londoners.

"Thousand of eyes, fixed upon that single object suddenly saw this huge bird, which had been loosened from the balloon, fall forward, turn upside down and fall to the ground in a bloody and unrecognizable heap."

Later, De Gazet van Brugge (The Gazette of Bruges) wrote this about the incident : "Poor devil. He never knew glory, but he had that faith and belief which moves mountains, and the miracle which he dreamed of and tried to bring about, is now in the making.’