Greatest Ever Belgian - results in
After a hard fought contest the result is
http://www.dixbert.com/blankpage.html
Another case for Poirot methinks! That’ll get his little gray cells working. 
Willie Coppens, the WWI flying ace. The balloon buster.
I vote for the brewmaster that came up with the recipe for Duvel ale… majorly wonderful stuff!
I vote for the band Fluxus, who have forever established the GHB’s and hurdy-gurdy as legitimate rock and roll instruments. 
Eddie Merckx, the greatest ever cyclist. Wasn’t he belgian?
Fluxus are brilliant, though as far as I know they don’t use the GHB.
http://www.fluxusmusic.be/spgm/fotogalerij_eng.php?spgmGal=01_NOE-Sessies_---_NOE_Sessions&spgmPic=14&spgmFilters=#pic
That’s funny. The same name popped into my head. You wouldn’t happen to be a cyclist, would you?
I s’pose you’re right - just one drone. That sound I heard on some of their clips must have been partly the hurdy-gurdy or the keyboards. Anyway, whatever it is, they use it to great effect. 
Flanders.
Oh 
, I thought this thread was about beer…
Cheers,
- Ryan
Me too, S!
He was, and still is. He celebrated his 60th birthday a couple of weeks ago.
There are actually lots of famous Belgians, but nobody knows that they’re Belgian. Or nobody has heard of them (if that isn’t an Irish bull) because their names and nationality are not linked in the popular mind with their achievements. If they’re successful and French-speaking, everyone - especially the French - assumes that they’re French.
I’ll cite some examples when I have the time.
Well my vote for the greatest Belgian to come to America was Jean Nicholas Perlot. He went from being a farm kid to one of the toughest mountaineers in California history, blazed a trail, still being used, to Yosemite National Park, left wonderful notes on everything he saw. I truly admire him. His memoirs were finally translated in 1985 into English so guys like me, who don’t read French, could appreciate him.
Unlike so many others, he went back to Belgium later in life so perhaps that’s a reason he is not better known.
You admire a grafitti artist? 
smart@#$. Written memoirs.
Guilty as charged.
OK, I know it’s all meant in good fun, but here are a few.
The inventor of the saxophone? http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Saxophone
And who would have guessed that the sand yacht and decimal currency were invented by the same guy, and he a Belgian? http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Simon-Stevin
Bakelite?http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Leo-Hendrik-Baekeland
The Brueghels?http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Pieter-Brueghel-the-Elder
etc. etc.
If they were French, every French child would know about it.
Some of you have probably heard of Jacques Brel, even though he sang in French.
But even I’m still discovering more, who everyone in France assumes to be French, like Christine Ockrent or Annie Cordy.
And don’t forget Jean Baptiste “Django” Reinhardt!
Also Hergé (Georges Remi) gave us Tintin.
Cheers,
David de la Barre
If only we could sweep Peyo under the rug :roll:
Adolphe Sax - inventor of the saxophone and developer of the saxhorns.