And, of course, mussels, which Belgo buys from suppliers in Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Holland and Belgium. The shells are later offered to artists and jewellers, or thrown away."Mussels are wonderful fast food," said manager Andr Blais, brother of Belgo's co-owner "The British love them. The Belgian diet is dominated by fried food, raw beef, pigs' knuckles, pats, wild boar, and asparagus served with thick, creamy sauces. Belgian food is not for the health-conscious, or for animal rights campaigners. Critics believe the comedy is likely to be as successful as the last two great Belgian cinema hits in Britain, Toto The Hero and Man Bites Dog, although it is said to lack the darkness of Harry Kumel's Daughters Of Darkness, a lesbian vampire tale set in an Ostend hotel.What is the secret of this sudden blip of Belgian-ness? A kind of earthy irreverence and unconcealed appetite may be the answer. The Chalk Farm branch gets through three tons. Replete with mussels and dressed in clothes by fashionable Belgian designers (Ann Demeulemeester for women and Dries van Noten for men), a modish couple can then savour an evening of Belgian culture at the opera or cinema.

Don Giovanni, staged by the Antwerp wunderkind Guy Joosten, is playing at the English National Opera, though not everyone loves it. Booing erupted at the first night last week during the scene in which Mr Joosten has the Don urinate on the Commendatore's grave. Some remembered the famous statue in Brussels and detected a typical Belgian touch.The cinema, meanwhile, awaits the London opening in May of The Sexual Life Of The Belgians, the work of Jan Bucquoy, anarchist and curator of Brussels' Museum of Underpants. Belgo's owners, the Anglo-Belgian Andre Plisnier and the French Canadian Denis Blais, estimate that eight tons of mussels will be consumed in their new restaurant every week. Belgo Centraal is its name and it will be designed like its predecessor in Chalk Farm, north London, as a concrete cavern (with silver vents and ducts) dedicated to the consumption of mussels, chips, mayonnaise and dark Belgian beer. The West End's biggest restaurant will open soon in Covent Garden, where 400 people at a time can stuff themselves from a sternly Belgian menu.

Belgian chic has arrived and is about to displace the country's old reputation as a place so dull and anonymous that, in the words of the dinner-party challenge, it was impossible to name six famous Belgians (Tintin, Hercule Poirot, Jacques Brel, er...?) It is mainly, though not entirely, a matter of food. Its culture is mounting a small invasion of central London, and other parts of the British Isles will not be far behind. BELGIUM is no longer ridiculous. He said: "I certainly intend to remain a party member, but my activism will probably drop off because I'm hoping to find employment and settle down and have a few kids."Selling the Ulster Unionists, Inside Story, page19.

I expected vilification when I started."He also insisted that he was not acting on behalf of any of the half- dozen or so potential successors to Mr Molyneaux. He went into yesterday's contest nervous and suffering from stress headaches. He responded to such attacks: "I know I am stepping on people's toes by doing this. Asked last week about his relationship with the UDP, Mr Reynolds said he had been friendly with Mr Smallwoods but had never been a UDP member.Unionist MP Ken Maginnis attacked Mr Reynolds as having "half a brain", but when the latter met the media last week he was noticeably more articulate than many of the Unionist MPs.

He is 21, and about to graduate from Queen's University, Belfast, in economic and social history. Beyond that, he had only ever turned up in the past as an associate of Ray Smallwoods, a one-time gunman with the Ulster Defence Association who in the early Eighties shot and nearly killed the former MP Bernadette McAliskey.Mr Smallwoods, who subsequently went political and headed the Ulster Democratic Party, was shot dead by the IRA last July. It has then used each crisis as an excuse for stifling criticism and debate in the interests of party unity. Every time, Northern Ireland is pushed further to the edge of the union."Before the vote Mr Reynolds was well aware that his support would rest on such arguments rather than on his record since, in essence, he has no record.