About ten years ago, in the millennium year to be exact, I decided on a few things: I put my full-time job in the financial sector on hold, put my name down for an art course in ceramics, and confiscated an old laptop that was lying about in the house. With a husband working abroad and two daughters at university, I started to write in the evenings, having previously done only the occasional dabble in local cultural journalism. Without a second thought, I started writing in English. Why? As an avid reader, I’d seen my Flemish language become increasingly dominated over the years by Dutch influences, the translations alien and grating on my ears. Consequently, I’d turned to reading English full time from the seventies onward. And as our esteemed linguistic professors continued to issue one incomprehensible grammatical rule after another, only very dedicated students – with the exception of those few professors – knew how to write correctly as a result. Besides, most of our musicians write their lyrics in English – so what? It’s one form of globalization I am in favour of.