Following on from a post earlier this week, where a man was confusing aeroplane passengers flying over his home, today we’re in Belgium where a farming company have also been plagued by landing planes.

Situated only 2Km from the main runway of nearby Antwerp International Airport, the farm must have low-flying passenger planes pass over every few minutes.

However, rather than complaining about the noise, they claim to love aircraft noise! They even painted it on the roof, just in case you didn’t believe them.

Unless there’s a hint of sarcasm in the message…

Thanks: Romanov & felle

It’s still the 14th of February for another hour in some time zones, so we’d like to wish everyone a Happy Valentine’s Day with this heart-shaped swimming pool in Belgium!

Yes okay, that’s a stretch. In reality the only places to actually use UTC minus 12 hours are the uninhabited American territories of Baker Island and Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean (links are to Wikipedia).

As for the islands themselves, Baker has no coverage unfortuantely, but 68 kilometres to the north, Howland is captured with excellent quality imagery.

Not that there’s much to see of course. In fact other than using UTC-12, the only likely reason you might have heard of Howland Island is that this is where noted American aviator Amelia Earhart famously failed to reach during her attempt to make a circumnavigational flight in 1937.

Thanks to virtualglobetrotting.

On the day this image was captured there was something slightly unusual going on in this derelict factory in Brussels, Belgium. Inside the walls of the roofless building, there’s some tents and several lorries, a Helicopter, and… an African village?

How do I know it’s an African village? Well, it transpires that on this very day the abandoned factory was actually being used as the set for a TV advert – an advert which features a man being chased through an African village by a helicopter! Here’s a direct link to the 6.8MB Quicktime movie of the ad.

Spot the same car in both shots!

The tents and lorries to the west are presumably for the cast, crew and equipment and I suspect that the walled factory was chosen because it would hide Brussels from sight of the cameras perfectly. Suddenly it all makes sense!

Thanks to Romanov (via belgeoblog.be).

Could this possibly be the largest example of using a lake as art? Deliberately shaped like a handgun, the lake was excavated to use the land for building a nearby highway way back in the seventies.

Why on Earth they decided to shape the lake into a 2.5km long handgun is anybody’s guess. It looks to me like the sort of gun James Bond would use, but reader Jan suggested it was a ‘Colt‘ gun. Perhaps gun nuts out there could identify the exact model?

Today the lake has a bustling wildlife and is a popular destination for water sports and for the secret service to dispose of dead bodies (I made that last bit up).

Thanks: Jan Fabry

Belgian news last week picked up the story of a fountain in Maasmechelen which, after sitting happily in front of City Hall since 1979, will now be torn down and rebuilt. The reason for this change is the recent Google Earth discovery that when viewed from a satellite the fountain is in the shape of a Swastika.

Apparently the fountain’s designer always knew it was a Swastika, an ancient symbol of the Sun god which the Nazis tarnished. But the mayor cried “Tear it down!” and it will be rebuilt in the less offensive shape of a shamrock.

Thanks: jaques, fievel & Brecht