SPEAKING of Brussels, I visited the city again last week, though not to drink with politicians this time.

It’s a strange place, as befits the capital of a country whose continuing existence defies logic.

Away from the gleaming European Parliament and its surroundings, Brussels is actually a fairly scruffy city of broken paving stones and piled-up rubbish.

It was surprising to find this sort of lived-in charm in the heart of rational, efficient northern Europe.

The journey to Brussels was a highlight in itself, as it was my first ever trip on the Eurostar.

Even a cynic like me couldn’t help but wonder at the marvel of engineering that is the Channel Tunnel. Just imagining the audacity of creating the first physical link between the continent and Britain since the Ice Age lifts the spirit.

The Eurostar’s size is also mightily impressive. Twenty-four carriages is quite something for someone who’s more used to travelling on a limping two-carriage bus-on-rails from Slaithwaite into town.

But the awe-inspiring scale sat next to a strange tattiness.

As I made my way to St Pancras, I imagined the vessel awaiting me would be some gleaming behemoth, washed and waxed each day by a crack team. Instead I got on to a fairly dirty train which, in cleanliness terms, wouldn’t have looked out of place dribbling through the Colne Valley to Manchester Victoria.

Once inside, I found that the décor appeared unchanged from the service’s launch in the mid-90s. Fabrics which might have looked good back when Blur and Oasis were battling it out at the top of the charts, don’t look good now.

Like Brussels itself, the Eurostar is an interesting mix of the super-modern and the fairly scruffy.