Fatigue

The United States through Laurence's eyes; the doughnuts are bigger, the tax on goods is less. Canada through Laurence's eyes, everyone smokes dope all the time.
'Well we don't Laurence.'
'No, but across the road in the park, people do all the time.' Ok.

Laurence had difficulties at school. Now difficulties are just that, they make things more difficult, not impossible. When he was at school, a modern foreign language was compulsory for all unless there were special reasons for disapplication. Laurence was disapplied. Any language teacher will tell you that people who aren't language teachers are always squinnying on endlessly that lower ability children who have difficulty with reading and writing shouldn't be learning another language.
Well, the thing is, that unless the child can't actually speak, learning another language can reinforce first language because when we teach it, we teach more of the same. So numbers, nouns, present tense verbs. We probably don't get as far as the pluperfect and subordinate clauses, but that doesn't negate what they can learn. The problem is that everyone undermines that and the children assume they can't do it. That coupled with the fact that language learning is the most difficult subject they have to do makes for poor motivation.

At the moment, I feel that idea is made more certain. Laurence goes to Karate every Tuesday and he has been learning his numbers in Japanese. It's tough for him, not easy at all, but he is so highly motivated.

America for me means apple-pie beds. Well, ok, not really. At the RV the bed there just had sheets and a thin blanket. I had remembered the discomfort of simply not having a duvet, but I hadn't remembered this point. When you have a top sheet and a blanket, it gets tucked in all the way round so that you get in and feel completely restricted and uncomfortable, then have to spend five minutes kicking it all out. The apple-pie bed is one prank you really can't play with a duvet.

Today I had three helpers at work and the school that was due in at 9.30 rang up and cancelled at nine. Not for any good and unforeseeable reason, because they hadn't organised drivers and booster seats. The four of us ran through the programme anyway. The Catholic school with two disabled children who came in the afternoon were much better fun anyway.

Someone told me today that a new scientific report had shown that caffeine can in some way lower the amount of calcium in the bones, but only in women. I know there's someone I can take this inequity up with, but it seems impolite challenging God on her/his design.

Obituaries. Now last week I was reading the obituary for Avenger Gareth Hunt, who died at only 65. It was an interesting read, but the delicate subject of what he died of was avoided. And when I thought about it - that was what I was reading to find out, but I guess that's private. Well, if I can read about your life in a public forum, I want to be able to read about your death too, because, like many, I'm nosy.

Stephen Fry has had a part in the last few episodes of Bones and I'm thinking maybe I can't be arsed with his character. He is of course entitled to a part in a big old American series just like former comedy partner Hugh Laurie, but, I'm a bit sick of him just playing the part of every English person that everyone hates.

I'm tired. Can you tell?

Breathless

This might sound harsh, well, I'm sure it does, but there was an article in the Graun the other day about how Alzheimer's patients who were being given particular drugs were dying compared with others who weren't taking the drug. This was presented as being an outrage. My take on it is, let sleeping dogs lie, don't rattle their cage. We've all blogged back and forth about Alzheimer's before and really, if there's something that is dispatching them early, why the hell would you stop giving it? Just shut the hell up and hope no-on finds out. Yeah, I know they have already, but you know what I'm saying.

Colin and Justin, do I love them enough? They have a new show called 'Wedding Belles' or something like and whilst I adore them to pieces, watching a programme where they get to organise weddings, I'm sorry lads, it's just too bloody much.

The Canucks are in the playoffs and thus the painful bloody spectacle of cars going around with those little flags on either side of the car has to be endured. I dunno why it bothers me really, just you have the feeling that everything's about to get hectic. And it probably is.

The Prestige was a damn, damn fine film. We took it with us and watched it at the RV. Christian Bale was superb, Hugh Jackman was superb. Michael Caine was superb, oh goddamn it, everyone was.

I have to rush, today was my first day of full-time work. I came home at lunchtime and rang England. Then I had to take Ben to the bank to sign a form, now that I am back from work, I have to go straight out again.
Life is busy.

'I hope....

...you get your guys back,' said the border guard. It was a good sentiment. He had asked me where I had lived in the UK and I'd told him Portsmouth.
'Ah, isn't that where the British Navy are?' he asked and I had said that yes, it was the home of the British Navy.

Friday morning it started to look as though we weren't going to the States. Laurence couldn't find his Permanent Resident card - needed to get back into Canada. But we're in a grey area at the moment. Just as Canadians now need to have passports to go to the States by 'plane, so our British passports have to be accompanied by our PR cards. But it is not yet the case if we simply drive across the border.

'Have you brought any goods with you?' asked another official.
'Just a box of cereal,' said Kevin.
'Shreddies?'she asked.
'Yes!' said I, astounded.
'It's always Shreddies,' she said, 'Americans cross the border to buy Shreddies. Everyone brings Shreddies back.' How bizarre.

It's still six dollars to buy a three month visa waiver. I handed the officer twenty and he gave me two dollar bills back. It took me by surprise, I'd forgotten there are one dollar bills in the States, up here we have coins. The smallest bill for us is a fiver.

It's easy to forget that Nature itself doesn't know international boundaries, the trees, the shrubs, the wildlife just over the border in Washington State are the same as in our part of BC.
It's the human activities that change. The US still uses miles as we do in Britain, so suddenly we are driving not at a sedate 50 Kph (in fact in Canada we say Kmh) but at a much faster 45 mph and then a MUCH faster 70.
It's beautiful along that coastline that we share. The mountains, the sea, the trees, the eagles and hawks that sail the air just for the sheer joy of flying. But that's romantic, of course they're always looking for prey, but when you see them ride the air currents it's easy to think they are flying for pleasure.

There is something very appealing to me about RV living. It's compact, but it's not basic like camping. You have a shower and TV, a cooker, microwave, heating, everything really, just smaller and right in there among the trees.

For me, we were on the border of a State Park, so although we didn't have much time to spend, it's a great location.
And I too hope we get our lads and lasses back soon. Very soon. And yet again I'm reminded that it's a good thing that I'm not in charge, because I'd have sent in the gunships by now.

Turtles

There are so many moments when I am walking or driving around both in Richmond or Vancouver, when I am struck by the beauty, awed by the mountains. You can crest a hill and suddenly, there they are, or the clouds lift, or rain falls and on the mountains it can fall as snow, so you round a corner and they have been renewed.
Today, after a warm, sunny afternoon, the mountains had the look of a painted backdrop. It's weird how that happens, but I've noticed it before.

I went shopping after work, I wanted to buy something for Lori as it's her last day at work tomorrow. I bought something for myself too, a book that caught my eye, I couldn't leave it there on the shelf when it was clearly written for me personally. Bill Bryson's 'Troublesome Words'. Yes, a book that feeds my obsession for language. Ah, how I love the idea that there is an actual right and wrong way to use language. Lovely.

Today was the first day we saw turtles, and they were out in force, I think we spotted six in all, the one I saw was sunning itself on the bank opposite the pond platform.
We had two older classes in today, much more my cup of tea. I enjoyed teaching them and their teacher was very fullsome in her praise of me. Of course I basked in it, but the truth is, I'm a trained and experienced secondary school teacher, the grade 5's that she was having trouble with weren't even a blip on my radar.

Tomorrow we're crossing the border. Sounds more than it is, we're just dropping down over the border into Washington State, but I don't expect to be able to post until Sunday evening.
So I'll wish y'all a happy and restful weekend. And a Happy Birthday to Canadian Karen.

Equipment

This, to me, is indicative of how TV and the American film industry sees the two professions of teaching and medicine.
Last night on House, and I have realised on many episodes before, Greg and his little posse of trainee docs were brainstorming the symptoms of the impossible and unusual case of the week on a whiteboard. In contrast, every advert, TV prog and film that takes place in a classroom, features a blackboard, even though in my entire teaching career I have never had to use one. So doctors get up-to-date equipment to use, teachers get old-fashioned shite. There you go.

The UN paper tiger is once again advocating the genital mutilation of men in Africa. The most amusing thing about today's assault on the manhood of a continent is that the director of the AIDS department of the WHO is called Dr.de Cock. Second most amusing thing was the statistic that a quarter of the world's males are circumcised, 'mostly Muslims and Americans.' I know, you can't help wondering can you....?

It seems there is something new that is keeping the gene pool healthy. Sleepy sent me an article about a piece of research that shows a lower sperm count in men whose mothers ate beef more than seven times a week. Who does, or rather did that I wonder? Let me see...people who eat burgers all the time, or the inhabitants of beef rich States and Provinces like Texas and Alberta. So.....people who eat hamburgers every day and bigots. Oh dear.

Another rather shocking story that Sleepy sent me was about a new service in Germany where mothers could deposit their babies instead of killing them. It seems that there have been 23 infanticides so far this year. I find this beyond belief in some ways, in Heaven's name I can't see how anyone could kill their baby having carried her or him for nine months and then given excruciating birth to them, on the other hand, hormones affect the brain, there is no doubt about it and post-natal depression is an appalling thing.

Today at the Nature Park saw the return of the twitcher with the enormous equipment.
'I remember him from last year,' whispered Lori as the guy set up his camera that looked more like a telescope capable of seeing rainfall in Alpha Centauri.
'I remember his equipment,' I whispered back. His equipment and his enthusiasm with it was so overwhelming that Kris had to go out and ask him to back off since he was intimidating the poor little hummingbirds he was trying to photograph.
Big cars and cameras with gigantic lenses, just two ways that some men try to regain what once they lost.

Reality

Here's the thing. No-one wants to be me. Which is ok for this week, because I am me until Friday, but after that I become Lori and we need someone else to be me.

I read that Gabriel Garcia Marquez is 80. Hasn't everyone had a love affair with Marquez? Didn't you voraciously read everything he had written after the first page of 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'? I know I did. The other day I heard or read some writer's work being described as 'North America's version of magic realism'. I'm sure this was an allusion to GGM, and yet, he didn't actually invent magic realism for pity's sake. The mediaeval Arthurian Cycle was full of it. And I love magic realism because it's how I think life really is, just below the apparent layer.

Last night, someone was talking about Carlos Castaneda. Another writer, another love affair. A man who wrote about a hidden reality, a 'separate reality' that he reached by taking mind altering drugs. And then last night someone said that Castaneda had confessed that he had made it all up. I joked that I didn't want to know, and it does make a difference to know that even he didn't believe in what he said he believed in, but it doesn't alter what I learned from his books, and the alternative reality that reading them gave me at the time.

I'm taking the liberty of quoting from my friend Raymond's blog.

"I was just reading about the value of "life lies." It was referring to an Ibsen play I think I studied but didn't remember. Anyway, it was about the value of believing something that pulls you through life, regardless of what reality might be."

Raymond gives the example of religion and I can see that. He also goes on to say how reality in any case, is emergent. We have changed our views on the nature of reality. And by 'we' here, I'm not using the royal 'we' I mean in the sphere of thought, the strata of human ideas, like a sea, a soup, in which everything we think is exchanged with and touched by other thoughts.

Philosophers have always questioned the nature of reality. Theologists have questioned it too. Is God in fact reality, the afterlife, or is it this life? And what is this life? Is it our perception of it? Does our perception change reality, in the way we can alter quantum events, by our own choice?

Even today, in my job that no-one wants to do, I was thinking about reality. Children often ask if the stuffed deer it real. 'Yes,' I always say, 'yes it is, but it is not alive.' Today, the teacher was assuring them that it used to be real, but now it wasn't. So she equated reality with living. And yet the deer and my television set are quite, quite real, as real as I am, just that maybe I can create reality with my mind.
And that brings with it another question. Is my mind real? Because I can't touch it or see it, just use it.

So to me, the life lies are important. It doesn't matter whether they are 'true' or not, and there's yet another can of worms. Is truth reality, does 'truth' apply to something 'real' or is it something we all just agree on? Pragmatism in fact.

Medusa

You had to love Medusa, but you had to love her from afar, to look her in the eyes was to turn to stone.
There was a fantastic expression in last night's final episode of Rome. 'She'd give you a look like Medusa on the rag.' Even more expressive than just 'giving me the evils.' We're hoping that there will be more series of Rome, although we're not far short of where 'I Claudius' started and it has been fascinating stuff. Sometimes history has been interestingly interpreted, othertimes, just told.
Sadly, Kevin's researches seem to suggest that this was the last series. Poo.

There's nothing quite as mind, soul and body clearing as Spring Cleaning. I have been able to take a pile of junk to the Sally Army this morning. I'd like to do a load more, but with the increase in my working hours, there is a decrease in pootling ones. Pootling is so much fun, but so much more fun when time is limited. Today will be my last Monday off for a while, or maybe a week, I've a feeling I may get Easter Monday off, but I'm not yet sure.

So, the Guardian thinks that Anna Nicole Smith was killed by a drug overdose, sort of what we all thought. The National Enquirer on the other hand, think she was murdered by someone they have a picture of retreating down the corridor, and who made it look like an overdose. I say again, what fun it must be to write for them, and yet, I criticise based solely on the front covers that I see when standing in the supermarket queue, I've never actually opened one up.

The Graun also has a tantalising speculate on how Life on Mars might end. We too wonder this, although not on a daily basis. As with Rome, I was kind of hoping for another series, and yet, and yet, I also want to know the truth about Sam Tyler.

Back to Medusa. She's a chthonic character. Brilliant word that, in my opinion, relating to the underworld. Sort of, darker supernatural beings, which one would be, what with having venomous snakes for hair. I certainly have uncooperative hair sometimes but that's just nasty.

It's always a pity when icons of childhood are found wanting. It was bad enough when we discovered that Ribena had enough sugar to rot your teeth on contact, but no matter, Ribena came up with 'Tooth Kind' drinks. Now, two New Zealand schoolgirls, have discovered it contains no vitamin C. Whatever next. Surely to contain no vitamin C it must have been nowhere near a blackcurrant, those blackcurrants on the ads just burst with ascorbic acid.
Oh well. Those girls' science project may be costing the company $1.1 million.

Hair Bears

So late last night I was channel hopping and came across a proggie with some resurrected Brit bands of the 60's. I caught several of them, including Eric Burden and the Animals and Rod Argent and the Zombies. Petula Clark was hosting. I'm pretty sure that Eric Burden has actually changed the spelling of his surname, which seems to now be 'Burdon'.

Now there is an oft repeated opinion that men get more 'distinguished' as they age, whereas women go to seed. This show gave the lie to that little thought. Lulu was still fabulous. Pet Clark looked older but still attractive. The blokes in the bands though, here I suck my breath in through my teeth.......
I tried to work out what the problem was. I mean they hadn't lost their voices or the ability to play instruments, several of them had put on weight, but so what, they could still dress well, although there was also a tendency towards the Hawaiian shirt, which isn't a good look for anyone except Chin-Ho. Most of them had slightly grizzled faces, but then again, so what, they were still sparkly and looked like the kind of blokes that could come to your house and be entertaining, fun, share a few laughs.
No, it was the hair.

I'm not a fan of Phil Collins, I find his music boring, but he knows what to do about the thinning old guy hair. He can work that grade 2 shave. And that, in my opinion, is the direction some of these guys should have gone. The collar length straggle look to me screams,
'Scissors, Clear! Get Carson Kressley and the boys over here stat.'

This morning, on the National News, we had the disingenuous spectacle of Halle Berry playing the race card. Clearly at some point in her career, someone had said to her about a part that they 'didn't want to go black with it.' Shucks. She has had plenty of other parts where the character could have been played either by a black or a white woman. Here's the thing Halle, your job is all about how you look.
'Oh,' she trilled, 'I don't give a thought to being beautiful.' Well duh! How about if some director said to you,
'Oh, we don't want to go beautiful with this part.'? Hmmm?? Another thing that pissed me off is her having to use the expression, 'women of colour'. You are black Halle, black be fracking proud of it like everyone else.

Now compare and contrast with the non-whingeing of the likes of Queen Latifah. I wonder.....I just wonder....do you think she ever gets passed over for parts because she's a 'woman of substance' ? See, I'm thinking in anorexia-obsessed Hollywood, that maybe yes. She's a fine actor and a fine-looking woman, hell she advertises cosmetics, someone has some nous, and yet....

To one of the other newscasters this morning, 'Hey idiot, the term to talk about the exploits of British explorers is 'Derring-do' not daring-do.' Twonk.

The sun is out. But.....

This business of Iran holding British Naval personnel cannot end well. But then, someone should have done something about that little twat some time ago instead of pussy-footing around. Iraqi eye-witness accounts support the British position. I can feel the onset of a bit of derring-do.
Unless....could the UN actually DO something for a change?

Shopping

This is Ben and Laurence. Ben and I have had a shopping day. This is a kind of dual-culture ritual. Before I came to live here, whenever I'd come over, I had to go to the town centre mall, eat Chinese fast-food at the 'Flaming Wok', buy something from 'Au Coton' - there isn't even one of these in Richmond Centre, go to various other shops we don't have in England.
Now, whenever I'm in Britain I have to head straight for Boots, M&S, Dotty P, WHSmith, again, the bog standard High Street stores.
When Ben or Alex comes over, they too have to do really standard stores, Zellers, the Bay, American Eagle, Old Navy.

Ben is usually fairly reliant on his sister for advice on clothes buying, which is odd, since his part-time job is in a clothes shop. In fairness though, I think he has a sense of his own style without realising it, he wouldn't know, but I think he has Alex's voice inside his head advising him even when she's not there.
But for me, it's nice to be out shopping with either of them. You get a feeling of being important again when you are shopping with a stylish teenager, both of them are striking looking young adults, well-mannered, I'm proud to say and I can be the mum rather than just a past-her-sell-by-date woman on her own.

For the past week I have felt monstrously pre-menstrual. For those of you of the gender who suffer from our PMS rather than your own, this doesn't mean I've felt like a rabbid psycho-killer, but rather a starving watermelon. Bloated and yet noshing anything and everything. It happens from time to time, I'm not sure whether it is connected to Lycanthropy, could be.

However, whilst on the subject of werewolves, and really, does one HAVE to choose between werewolves and vampires, I don't think so, where was I? Oh yes, Ganesh. Yes you do know who Ganesh is, that elephant god that Apu prays to. Now we were watching a National Geographic documentary last night about elephants in must or musth, a frenzied state of adolescent male elephants, where they almost drown in their own hormones and become quite mad, sometimes killing their Mahouts, dismembering them and trampling them. One Mahout survived, saying that he prayed to Ganesh, which made me think, hmmm.... I've always taken for granted the existence of such Indian gods, we used to have a whole set of brass ones that sat on our mantelpiece, remnants of my grandparents' time in India.
But here's the thing, is an elephant god going to put the best interests of humans first, will he or she think like a human, in fact, will they have the same breadth of ability to think as a human does. Now I know that many animals are smarter than we ever realised, even in extraordinary ways, but surely no-one's suggesting that any animal has awareness of its own consciousness as we do? So how does that work for an god that is an animal?
Would it have been an animal once and transcended? Was it already a god just with an animal's head, in which case, wouldn't it feel a bit 'god of lesser children-ish'? I'm having some theological problems with this and now that they're there, they won't go away.

As you know, I have a short list of ideal jobs, so far I have Yvette Fielding's job on my list. But it also occurred to me that writing for the National Enquirer must be pretty cool too. I mean they just make up anything they like about anyone they please and people buy their publication. What an awesome job that must be, I'd love it.

That's all.

Ducks

My friend Ree sometimes talks about having her ducks in a row. Well after the Thursday line-up of things all happening on the same day, I have my ducks in a row. The friend who was having surgery - that went well, the friend who was taking an exam, passed (with flying colours in my opinion, but she never thinks she's done well enough), Karen got back safely although I'm sure she'll soon be blogging about being ill on the plane, and I was offered the job I applied for. It's a full-time position at the Nature Park, the work, place and people I love, the pay is abysmal, although slightly less so than at present.

So, this afternoon, I did some stinky, smelly science. This week in our part of Canada - or could be the whole of North America for all I'd know - has been Spring Break and so whilst Lori and I haven't had any programmes to teach, a science teacher has been in doing a series of programmes, and that was the name of this afternoon's. She's rather a charismatic teacher, as well she needs to be because she also makes educational videos. The afternoon therefore was rather good fun for me.
Erica told the kids, to get them in the right mood, that before science, there was magic, and she wore a black cloak and magician's hat.

I enjoyed watching and helping and the kids all had a great time. Some of the experiments were ones I remember and some were using new things, such as the gel in nappies and how it reacts and mixing glue and borax to make silly putty.

And the weather - well, it continues to be duck weather. Everyone else is complaining about it, I'm starting to feel guilty about enjoying it, but I reserve the right to join in, since it is apparently set to get even worse tomorrow.

Swishy

Ben was awake at 4am. Yep, jetlag, poor guy. At the other end of the day, he was in bed by 20.00.
Today it has poured with rain all day long, but we were able to go for a long walk in the rain, wellies, hoods up. I love it, I'm like a happy little duck out there. We met some walkers in full Gortex rainwear and brollies up, presumably to protect the rainwear. Lightweights.

So, with the aggravating programming scheduling we have on TV here, Six Degrees is finally coming back to our screens after a gap of....three months? Not quite as abysmal as the August - April mid-series gap in one of the best shows on TV, Entourage.

Mr. Miaowington, what a fabulous name for a gay man's mother's cat. It should definitely spawn a spate of similar cat naming. I just won't say which TV Gay man's mother. Let's just say that 'swishy' is the new gay.

I have a box of Cadbury's creme eggs from the UK and they don't taste sickeningly sweet, this is brilliant, and odd, because virtually everything tastes sickeningly sweet to me at the moment.

I couldn't help a wry smile at the idea that British immigration officials are going to be text-messaging visitors to the country whose visas are about to run out. See, even within Britain - where, I would argue that compared with citizens of other countries, Brits like to follow rules, they have a sense of citizenship - there are criminals and law-breakers. Now graft onto that a bunch of people whose intentions are to stay illegally in Britain, and I would imagine they might, ooh, say, not give immigration their mobile phone numbers. And why would they? Do intending illegals arrive in Britain with world phones? Hmm, seems unlikely somehow, I'm thinking more along the lines of, somewhere down the line they acquire a pay-as-you-go phone and then fail to ring up the immigration department and say,
'Here we are old chap, just got a phone, thought I'd give you a bell to let you know the number, so that you can give me a tinkle just in case I forget when I need to go back.'
Who knows, it could happen.

Now God knows who the hell watches reality TV, but we now have some old tosh called 'Are you as smart as a fifth-grader?' (Year 6). Well, here's the heads up. If you are so stupendously stupid as to put your name forward to go on this show, then the answer is a resounding no. And here's another heads-up. Not that I've watched the show, but people keep telling me about it and some of them have managed to watch as much as ten minutes before having to turn off because brain rot has set in. Intelligence and General Knowledge are not the same thing. Intelligence and being able to remember what useless bit of maths you were doing in grade 5 are not the same thing. Intelligence and not doing something so monumentally stupid as to qualify for nomination for a Darwin award do have some connection.

Swishy it ain't.

Benjamin

My boy has arrived safe and sound, thank-you Saint Christopher, Ben has always been dogged by bad travelling luck, whether coming here or just shuttling between Woking and Pompey to see his brother, so we made a two-pronged appeal to the Saint.

Tomorrow is some kind of bizarrely starred day. One friend is travelling, one having surgery, one an exam, and I have a job interview. I'm sure there must be separate saints for all those things, but what I need is a general practitioner saint.

In my house, two grown men were just discussing the different Ninja Turtles. Bizarre, but there's a new movie about them out on Friday.

A reader's letter to the Guardian said that the writer had recently holidayed in Mexico and was surprised to learn that the election promise of one candidate in the forthcoming elections is that he intends to rescind the tax that had been imposed to fund the Olympics. The Olympics in Mexico were held in 1968. I think there's a lesson here for both Vancouver and London.

A letter to the Times from a gentleman in his senior years complains that everyone now refers to him as 'dear'. When he pointed this out to a shop assistant she said, 'Sorry sweetheart.' I am looking at myself. I don't want to be patronised when I'm old (oh alright, even older) so I hope I don't do the same to seniors myself. I think I'm in the clear.

I loved this story in The Week about Margaret Thatcher, it almost endears her to me. I said ALMOST!! Anyroad, La Dame de fer had been to see a production of Amadeus at the National Theatre, and was shocked by the coarse language. She went to see the director afterwards and said, 'Mozart couldn't possibly have been like that.' Apparently he was though, which Peter Hall attempted to explain to her. The response,
'I thought I had just explained that, He.Couldn't. Have. Been. Like. That.'

Poetry

Yes, this could get schmaltzy, so if you have a low-schmaltz threshold, come back tomorrow.

I was having a Robert Browning moment this morning, 'Home Thoughts from Abroad', only I wasn't thinking about the
'Oh to be in England now that April's there,' idea, more the picture he paints of the signs of spring in England.
'Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge, leans to the field and scatters on the clover, blossoms and dewdrops at the bent spray's edge.
That's the wise thrush, he sings each song twice over lest you should think he never could recapture that first, fine, careless rapture,'

I can just picture it, I can hear that thrush, but I can't myself use language like a paintbrush in this way. I admire tremendously the way poets protect and enrich the language with their creativity. I love the English language and I love the French language. I despise misuse of both through carelessness. I really buy into the Romantic notion that the poet is an agent of elevation of the soul.

Austen told me that a big problem for him as Head of an English department, is in persuading his staff that they can teach poetry. And of course they can, they've all done it as part of their degrees. I can teach poetry but I can't write it. And the fact is that the pure emotion in much poetry is a perfect way of approaching certain abstract subjects. War, nature, love.

If I were to write poetry, it would be doggerel, 'O Tempora, O Mores, O life under the Tories, it is not fun, hun.....' and what have you.

The day, cold and crisp, pushed the poetry out and let the real world in. Finally the hummingbirds have arrived, they overwinter in Mexico like many Canadians and now they have come back to nest and breed. I was fortunate enough to see two rufous hummingbirds today, a male and a female and when I was nearly back home this evening, a bald eagle circling the field opposite.
I wonder if they noticed me.

PS. I wish I could, but I cannot claim the photo as one of mine, it is by Paul Suchanek, I borrowed it, I hope he won't mind.

Salt

Although I convey the impression that I sit here in Canada spooning Marmite into myself, the truth is otherwise. Which is why I was surprised to read on today's NetDoctor that average daily salt consumption has fallen from 9.5g in 2001 to 9g today. The surprise isn't that it has fallen, but that we take in 9 grams of the stuff every day. I mean, I can picture 9 grams, it seems such a lot somehow, but I suppose that as we are always told, it's hidden in many of our foods. I know that it's something I crave from time to time, which probably means I need it. I also know that lack of it can cause muscle cramps.

At school, when we had to translate Caesar's Gallic Wars, we learnt that one effective way to disrupt the smooth running of the Roman Army was to interrupt the salt supply. The corn supply was in there too, but the men were given a daily allowance of salt and if they didn't get it, things went exceedingly pear-shaped very quickly.

It's raining out again and this for me is a good thing because it means the temperature is slightly higher than if it were clear and sunny. I'm not a fan of hot weather but I have just put my tomato seedlings out in their little plastic tent so right now I'd rather it didn't get too cold. They made it through last night ok.

I understand from Austen that Canada were playing England at cricket yesterday. This surprises me in some ways, less so in others. In the park across the road, teenage boys can be seen playing cricket all through the year, so it certainly does go on here, but these boys are Indian or Pakistani boys. Now when I was in Portsmouth, the only kids I ever saw playing cricket in the summer in recent years were Indian and Pakistani boys, so you might think that the England team would be full of them, but Austen tells me not, so presumably these are the youngsters who end up playing for the Indian or Pakistani teams. The Canadian team however, seemed to have a fair number of Indian and Pakistani names. Another surprise seemed to be the Irish and Scots putting up teams, and in the case of Ireland, on St. Patrick's day, actually winning.
Ah well, I suppose it's all an unexpected result of global warming.

I was just horrified at the story about people being kept on board planes overnight at JFK airport in New York because of weather conditions. What in the name of all that is holy gives airlines the idea it's ok to keep people shut on a plane for nine and a half hours? Unbelievable. What not just allow them off the plane? I was stuck on the tarmac for three hours in Toronto once and it was bloody awful. And guess what? Does the aircraft have enough supplies to keep people fed and watered for an extra 9½ hours? Of course bloody not. In this case, I hope there are some flaming class action law suits go on.

Mutter

Ah, Mother's Day, which began for me at 6am when I had to get up and ferry Laurence to work since he had been called in for an extra shift, starting at 6.30. He was a bit grumbly at that time on a Sunday morning. Me, not so much, I knew that I'd be back in me bed in half an hour. And I was.

Ah, Mother's Day. Ben rang me to say Happy Mother's Day, annoyed that my cards and package hadn't yet arrived, but the real Mother's Day pressie for me is that my boy arrives on Wednesday.

Ah, Mother's Day. The dark side. I couldn't believe this, it's one of those things you read about, yay even then, feel outraged by but don't think it affects you. My daughter, and thus so close it hurts, was travelling on the tube from New Cross Gate to... wherever, was laughing and chatting with her friend. The tube was fairly packed. A lanky black man with pockmarked skin suddenly starts loudly addressing first Alex then her friend Fran.
He mentioned her colouring, my daughter has quite a Mediterranean colouring and has dark chestnut hair, her eyes are blue-green like mine. Then he starts in about her clothing, and she certainly can be drama-student dressed, but on this day, not, on this day she was wearing a cardi and skirt.
'Jew,' he shouts at her, 'I can tell you're a Jew, both of you, you're white trash Jews.' he continues in this vein for several minutes, completely ignored by everyone on the train. My daughter and her friend were stunned into silence, panicked, scared.
When they recount the incident everyone has a 'you should have....' but the fact is, they were just completely shocked by this.
The following day, Alex was again at New Cross Gate station and she saw the same man. She stared at him. He avoided her eyes. She sat in the same compartment as him, having undergone the verbal abuse, she no longer feared this and assumed that he wouldn't actually attack her. He again tried to avoid her gaze by half covering his face.

'Tell the police,' I said, 'they can't do anything, but you can give a good description and the fact that he shouted racial abuse at you meant that it could have escalated.' She said that now she had gotten over the raw shock of it, that she intended to, and yet felt lame telling them about this, as though she were just telling tales in school.
'Ok,' I said, 'and think how you would feel if you actually were Jewish, and then, what's the difference whether you are or not?' She said she would call.

It was a horrible incident, but one that other young women of her age have to endure more frequently. Horrible.

According to 'The Week', the result of a survey done in 27 countries shows Canada as people's favourite country. But it seemed to me to be a case of damning with faint praise, 54% of respondents said that Canada was 'mainly positive'. Oh cool. Or....maybe just tepid.

SNL is a legendary show, no doubt about it, but for me, it rarely lives up to its own legend. There are some great performers on it, Amy Poehler and Keenan Thompson to name just two, and many more great comedic actors have come from this stable, but the material rarely makes me guffaw. Last night however there was one sketch that did make me chuckle. The question on everyone's lips, 'Is the US more ready for either a woman President or a black man?' 'Why not?' was the response, 'they were ready for a retard.' But then a more serious point, made as a joke, but nonetheless..... 'white women are in the majority in the US, so you'd think they'd elect one, everyone loves white women, white men like white women, hell black men like them even more, no, the only people who hate white women are white women.' Hmmm...many a true word spoken in jest.
Still, SNL scored brownie points with me last night. They had Snow Patrol on. What an unprepossessing bunch, and I like that. I love that their music is so good, so extraordinarily good and yet they are just four Scots lads who might live next door to you. I love that they are not showmen. Long may it last.

Alex said she had recently seen the Brecht play 'Mutter Courage'. Or perhaps she said she'd seen 'Mother Courage'. A wonderful play either way, but some things just sound right in their original language. Like Sartre's 'Les Mains Sales' - sounds so much more expressive than 'Dirty Hands', so much so that in English the play is often called 'Crime of Passion'.

McGinty

Well, if I'm not very much mistaken it is St. Patrick's day today. Difficult to ignore here really, they even have special green beer to celebrate. Bizarre, bizarre. St. Paddy would turn in his grave. After being taken to Ireland as a slave from England or Wales, then escaping, returning home and entering the priesthood he went back to Ireland to bring them Christianity and arguably the start of all their troubles, although that may be from reading Edward Rutherford the writer and historian who depicts Ireland as being fairly comfortable with their religious practices pre-conversion.
He was accused of driving the snakes from the Emerald Isle (St. Pat, not Ed Rutherford)- presumably he had some proxy to drive them out of New Zealand - then died, fortunately without any of the horrible martyring Saints freqently had to suffer, so he must be perplexed at the strange goings on in his name.

And why is St. Paddy the Saint of choice? I mean, possibly a Welshman, just like St. David, not to mention a Bishop just like St. David, but I was a lone daff wearer on March the first.

Ok, true there are a lot of Irish folk here, but then there are a lot of Scots and no-one even mentions St. Andrews day, although maybe that's because they think the Rabbi Burns is their patron saint.

I guess it's because the Irish are notorious carousers and drinkers, despite St. Pat's best efforts. That kind of appeals to most people.

However. On 'Life on Mars' this week, the theme was Irish, and realistic too, because I remember this time. The story was that a car bomb had gone off, but it had been blown up with dynamite and although the IRA were immediately and universally blamed, Sam knew his history and knew that the IRA weren't using either dynamite, nor Semtex at this point. The 1973 squad wanted everyone in the phonebook whose name began with O' questioned and eventually they brought in a man called Patrick O'Brien.
Now this kind of thing really happened in the seventies, everyone with an Irish name or accent was suspect.
Pat O'Brien gave up the name of someone he said was responsible, Paddy McGinty and got a good kicking for it. Of course it turned out to be, exactly as Sam Tyler had said, not an Irishman at all. And I had to explain Paddy McGinty to Kevin. I can only remember two verses, but they pretty much say it.

'Now Patrick McGinty, an Irishman of note,
Fell in for a fortune and bought himself a goat,
Says he, 'Sure of goat's milk I'm going to have me fill,'
But when he brought the nanny home he found it was a bill,
All the young ladies who live in Killaloo,
Are all wearing bustles like their mothers used to do,
They each wear a bolster beneath their petticoat
And they leave the rest to Providence and Paddy McGinty's goat.

Now Auld Paddy's goat had a wondrous appetite,
And one day for breakfast he had some dynamite,
A big box of matches he swallowed all serene,
And then he went and swallowed up a quart of parrafeen,
He sat by the fireside, he didn't give a hang,
He swallowed a spark and exploded with a bang,
So if you go to Heaven you can bet a dollar note
That the angel with the whiskers on is Paddy McGinty's goat.'

Shazam

In Galloway's today, by the checkout, they had packets of Twiglets and a sign that said, 'The Original Twiglets from Australia, baked, not fried'.
'That's cheeky,' I said, 'Twiglets are from Britain.'
'That's what I thought,' said the assistant.
'Well, they are from Britain,' I said turning the packet over, 'baked in Liverpool.'
'Ah but,' she said, 'it says Victoria Station on it at the bottom.'
'Victoria Station???? That's in London, Victoria Station??'
'Oh, no, Victoria,' she said, 'in Australia.' I looked again.
'?'
'At the bottom, under the barcode,'
'Oh, imported by Menora Foods, Victoria Australia,' I read, 'means they are imported to Australia from Britain and then imported here from Australia.'
'Oh. Oh,' she said, 'I guess I'd better change the sign.'
'Mmmhmmm.'

The honour of the Twiglets must be upheld.

You have not seen anything as spectacular as Vancouver in blossom. Well, unless you live here of course. One day, just regular old fabulously beautiful Vancouver, the next day, Shazam! The Deity has spoken.

I had an incredible afternoon working on my programme. I can't believe that I actually get to spend office time designing this, it's about the equivalent of two lesson plans. In fact, it a sodding sight less complex than a lesson plan because you don't have to work out what Programmes of Study, assessment opportunities, National Curriculum Levels, Foundation subjects KS 3 Framework and a whole slew of other shite it covers. No three-tiered Learning fecking Objectives completely separate from the Learning buggery Outcomes. No differentiation and extension. Well, maybe a couple of extension opportunities. No use of the SNA or the FLA. No homework. And I don't have to do it all in my own time.
Then once you've done it you can use it over and over again.
Unbelievable.
Sweet.

Heritage

Lori and I made a return visit to the Vancouver Aquarium for a meeting of the Lower Mainland Museum Educators. This group is very inaptly named, since it includes people like us who are environmental educators.

That sounds rather a dull point to make, but it has been part of my personal education since coming to Canada. I primarily saw museums as being about history and I always saw history as being about human actions, events, thoughts, but fundamentally about people. Ok, I can remember a couple of history lessons where they showed us how where people lived was about geography but I'm not sure how deeply that went in.

But in Canada, history includes natural history and that is true not only for the First Nations but also the history of colonisation from Europe. Human action is ordered here by the might of the land.

Well, Lori and I teach about the land. We teach about Canadian heritage. The bog-forest that we teach about has shaped human history and that is an often repeated truth in this country, it's not something that can be ignored.
And so in reality, the group should be called Lower Mainland Heritage Educators.

Today, two educators from a Museum in Malawi were sharing some insights and experience with us. Today I learned how a country's heritage can be overwhelmingly influenced not by human action, nor the landscape, but by two diseases.
The first disease that has become a foe to fight and live with, was malaria. The experience of everyone in the country is shaped by it. The second is HIV/AIDS.

Little money is given to the museums in Malawi and yet they have them and they are regarded as the 'Custodians of Tradition'. And yet, as the two men spoke, it became clear that the traditions of the people were annihilating them. Their traditions allowed for the easy transmission of HIV. So then the museums became educators, they used the knowledge they guarded to show the people how things must change. Adapt or die, simple as that.

And they talked about another kind of heritage, 'Intangible Heritage', the oral traditions, stories, music, customs, that are handed down within a culture, and how do we preserve that, and is it worth preserving? It is this type of heritage that can be used and is used, to change opinion and practice, to educate.

But the truth is, the truth is, there was a mismatch between their ways of sharing information and ours. The two men spoke slowly and had only a handful of pictures on a laptop to illustrate their points. We listened politely, and I did learn the points I have made above, but it was a challenge to not fall asleep in this amazing and warm room at the Aquarium with dolphins swimming around us, separated only by glass.
When questioned, for example about what feedback they had received when they had asked people what they wanted from a museum, they couldn't answer.
One of the speakers said how wonderful Canada is and how terrible the United States is, but this was an awful faux pas. The first and one of the most insightful and sympathetic questioners was a US American.
To make a gaffe like this in a city that lies virtually on the border with the US is to insult most of the people in the room to some extent or another. He had also praised Madonna for adopting a boy from Malawi, seeming to forget that she is a US citizen.

But of course, in spite of this, there was embarrassing gushing at the end, although granted, not too much.
And then we went off once again to see the sharks and starfish, the graceful sea turtles and stingrays, belugas and caymans. And to step back into our own heritage. Because what I forget sometimes, is that British Columbia is British heritage too, just another arm of it.

Surreal Sister.

Well now, something strange is occurring. One of my e-mail addresses receives other people's e-mails from time to time. If it is obvious that it's a real person, then I e-mail back and let them know that they've wrongly addressed the post, and generally, I'll get a short note saying thanks.

On Saturday or Sunday, I received an e-mail from my sister Rowena. Only I don't have a sister Rowena. So I e-mailed her and told her. Now she has replied, assuming that I'm joshing with her. We've entered the surreal zone, trouble is, I quite like the mildly surreal. I will have to see how long it takes before she realises she really isn't communicating with her sister. Ah, such sport.

So, what is this? Blue Peter having to apologise? Blue Peter is a children's magazine programme on the BBC that has been around since I was a kid. It prides itself on the quality of the content and presentation. The thing is, in my opinion, they are the victims of some pathetic uptight member of the public's righteous indignation.
They had a phone-in to raise money for some good cause - this is something Blue Peter is renowned for. But the telephone system had technical difficulties and so a child who was visiting the studio was told to phone and and she won the prize. How the hell a member of the public even found this out is beyond me, but to ring in and whine is unbelievable. Honestly, it seems like a decision that most of us would have made in the circumstances, and no-one gained any money from the whole thing except the charity, so what's the beef?

Apparently, blogging has peaked. Maclean's, a Canadian Magazine, reports that 200 million bloggers have given up and that the rate at which new bloggers are coming in is slowing. I'm not sure whether this is good, bad or indifferent.
The Guardian's own blog site 'Comment is Free' is one year old today. Again, I'm not sure whether it has been good, bad or indifferent. I have sometimes read articles on there by journos who can do a lot better, but who seem to turn out something fairly shoddy because it's a blog. And the comments are no better. Things turn nasty quite quickly, with commentators flaming each other or the article writer without much thought.
I like blogs, I like blogging, but I also like to follow the lives and thoughts of other people, those I know, those I know through blogging and those I don't know at all, they might just as well be characters in a soap, but whose styles or lives interest me.

Bunnies

I have no idea whether the bunnies and the sunshine are connected, but yesterday we had sunshine and such mild, springlike weather that I had to leave the doors open, today we have bunnies. Five, we counted five, all out there gamboling.
We don't think they have suddenly and mysteriously appeared from Outer Space. Oh, no, sorry, that is what we think. Consider the Nature Park as Inner Space, then someone from outside is helpfully dumping their pets on us. A bunny, apparently, IS just for Christmas. By Easter they get shoved out the door with not so much as a red and white spotted hankie on a stick.

I was mightily amused by the concept of the village in Thetford, Norfolk, not far from where my sister lives, that is used for training troops. Originally set up as a German village, it has now been transformed into a replica of Basra. Islamic calls to prayer and the sound of angry crowds is broadcast across the village.
Locals seem amused that the army can be so easily duped. A little German village with church spire and all can be made to feel like the Middle East by the sounds broadcast.
Still, that aside, it's brilliant that it is there for training purposes, it's just .... Thetford? This part of the English countryside is so....English countryside.

As though it were some new and amazing piece of news, the Guardian yesterday reported that all primary schools in Britain are to teach modern foreign languages by 2010. Duh. I had spent a year going to meetings and making the first preparations for this before I left in 2005, the idea being that primary schools didn't actually have linguists, whereas secondary schools did and could do outreach.
Still, glad the Graun has caught up.

In Canada, we are looking forward to a bumper maple syrup harvest this year. Still, that's in Ontario, it doesn't really have much of an impact on BC. Despite having half the population of Britain, Canada remains a country divided. We can't assume that when one part of the country does well, the whole country will feel the glow. Probably the most bonding thing Canadians do is watch Corner Gas, and who was on it as a guest last night? Why our very own Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. He read his lines well, even parried a little joke against himself.

I am totally loving this, children in 14 schools across Britain will be introduced to books with gay and lesbian characters. I really, really like this one,

"Spacegirl Pukes
A little girl who is about to set off on a space mission falls ill. Her two parents, mummy Loula and mummy Neenee take her home to look after her but then they fall ill too. When she recovers, the spacegirl puts back on her suit and goes on an adventure to space."

So, no cow-towing to eejits who don't believe God is capable of inventing science, no protests over someone mentioning polar bears, just get the hell on with it, this is how it is, get over it. Nicely played.