Lumière, plus de lumière.

Canadians do Christmas illuminations so much better than us Brits. Obviously we have Oxford Street and nothing is going to compete with that, but well here, December is a month of lights. In Britain we tend to put lights on our Christmas trees, and some people will have a tree outside, and then there will be a couple of houses that look as though someone has come along with a siege engine and just pelted the house with sparkly stuff. Then we go and look at it and shake our heads and tut, and the national grid groans under the strain of lighting it.
Not so here. Granted some houses are more tastefully done than others, but I have yet to see anything like the sheer horror of Portsmouth's worst.
Where Kevin's parents live, as you go through the gates to the various groups of houses, you are in a beautiful enchanted forest. It is exciting to see lights in dark branches seemingly hanging in the air. Most of the houses have lights on the outside, in the bushes, from the roofs, just lovely. Inside Kevin's parents' house there are lights in amongst foliage, along the mantelpiece, a village lit from the inside as well as trees and candles, tasteful and beautiful.
Last year we went with my cousin Penny and her husband Tim who live on Vancouver Island, to another magical world, Butchart gardens. A light display representing the twelve days of Christmas, I was just stunned by it all, there were rivers and waterfalls of lights, there were trees and cameos, and colours and white lights, if I could even begin to describe how amazing it all was I would be a god among bloggers.
My experience of lights in Canada isn't restricted to Christmas. I have always loved the lights on Grouse mountain. The lights of the piste form a stairway hanging in the night sky. When I have flown into VYR at night, I know I have arrived when I can see the lights of Grouse. Sure, most of the time the pilot announces it too, but once when I flew in from Toronto there was a mad French Canadian pilot, he didn't, but I knew.
My title for this post was from a TV advert from some distant past, it was an ad for bathroom cabinets, and the woman said,
'les armoires Alibert, jolis, pratiques,' then she would turn the lights on and say the words above. Are advertisers missing something here? How the hell can someone like me with a poor memory, remember the words of an ad that must seriously have shown in the 70s ? Clearly because it isn't in English, I can also remember an ad that showed only at Christmas for several years,
'Cointreau, inimitable chef d'oeuvre,' I rest my case ;)
An English light experience that had similar impact on me to the Butchart gardens one was at the first school I taught in. The brother of the Head of Science was an artist/actor who specialised in performances at particular sites. I have explained that badly, but I can't remember what you would call it. It sounded artsy fartsy, but the school paid him to mount one of these things. It was breathtaking. He had been able to see the school site with an artist's eyes and he built a performance called 'Bison, Bison' around it. It consisted of a simple storyline and the audience was escorted as a group from one scenario to another. Both pupils and staff took part in the short scenes, but each one was skilfully set, some inside, some out, so that for example, we were able to watch a scene around a small bonfire. It was such an amazing work of art, lighting and drama.
Finally, on the subject of light, and having now moved to Europe, last weekend we watched a film on DVD that I missed when it was on at the cinema, and I reckon that is because it was shown for less than a week. The film was 'It's all gone Pete Tong', set in Ibiza and just sunshine and light the whole way through. It was clever, it was funny, it made you think. The acting imo was brilliant, especially from the lead, Paul Kaye. Big fun, very British, sometimes we don't have to send in our army to take over a country - or part of one.
Karen's comment and a couple of e-mails questionning whether I was being ironic about Tony made me want to wax lyrical, however that will have to wait. We Brits are, I feel, always only ever a micron away from irony anyway, we are an ironic nation, nonetheless, Stephen Harper has annoyed me again, so you may want to go and make a cuppa now.
I was doing my hexercises this morning, when Stevie's melty face once again appeared mysteriously on the screen. Ok, not that mysterious, it was an ad. Now, to expand something I said yesterday, Stephen Harper wants to give ppl with pre-schoolers actual dosh, Paul Martin wants to put money into day care facilities, improve and extend kinda deal.
Harper says,
'Do people really want institutional childcare?' Um...well hell yeah! Of course they frelling do. Just like they want institutional education. Because 'institutional' comes along with accountability. Now I am drivelling on here on the basis of my knowledge of British systems, but I'm thinking it's pretty similar here. There are many fine childminders who look after kids in their homes, BUT, in daycare centres, the staff have qualifications in things like nursery nursing. Childminders have to be registered and someone will come around and check they don't have dog poo on the floor, or are wanted in several provinces for paedophilia etc, but it isn't as easy to check up on what goes on in people's homes as it is to pop into a state or province or even city run centre. The centre will have someone in charge who checks up on the staff, who imposes and maintains standards. Staff in centres have better work conditions, they can go to the loo without leaving the children alone, they don't have to put the kids in the car and leave them there while they go to the bank, they have definite hours of work, if one is tired one day, there are others to pull up the slack. Better working conditions means better work from the employee. They can learn from each other, different strengths can be utilised, eg one might be better at teaching reading skills, another at actually reading. In a day care centre, men can be employed, I would be surprised if there were many male registered childminders. It is not day care workers who appear continually on Judge Judy and People's Court because they are tired and work long hours and never get a break to pee, to eat, and they make mistakes with no backup.
Harper - don't annoy me again today. I'm going downtown to watch Capote so I can avoid your ads.