Why Belgium is famous

Other than Belgian Waffles (and it's debatable how Belgian those are...), Belgium is basically famous for two things: Tintin and the Smurfs.  Tintin was created, of course, by Herge, and the Smurfs are credited to some man named Peyo.  How is it that one tiny country could have produced two of the world's most famous and beloved cartoons?  

Photo above: Tintin puts on his coat while his dog Snowy runs alongside him.

Photo below: The Smurfs decorate a Christmas tree.  Notice that they are not really following the diagram.

Abandoned books/Books about hotels

I recently stopped reading Arthur Hailey's (above, holding a copy of a different one of his books) novel Hotel.  I managed to read more than sixty pages of this novel, which is set in New Orleans in the 1960s and concerns a once proud hotel that has fallen on hard times.  Hailey also wrote such classics as Airport, which spawned a series of popular movies.  Abandoning this book made me remember other books that I actually did finish and that were mostly or partially about hotels--

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

Tintin in the New World by Frederic Tuten

I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal

The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving

A Riot of Our Own- Night and Day with the Clash  by Johnny Green and Garry Barker

The World of Suzie Wong by Richard Mason