Bah Humbug

I went shopping with my boy.
I have to get my Christmas shopping organised early on account of going to the UK halfway through December, and going to San Fransisco at the beginning of it. So it is a little unreasonable of me to be quite so pissed off with all the premature ho-ho-ho.
But I am.

Who, outside of the back streets of Pompey, needs a blow up Father Christmas with fake snow blowing around inside some see-through bits?
Why do they have to pump napalm-strength synthetic cinnamon-smell around stores?
Who needs Christmas songs in November?
Frankly, the familiar and welcoming smells, sounds and tinsel of Christmas seem false and just plain tired in the November rain.

In town, the place was hopping.
A Clinique cosmetics representative popped up and accosted people in the department store, but she seemed more like a Tupperware lady, a Tupperware lady with a lab-coat style dress on, to make us associate the product with scientists. We did that thing that rugby players do to avoid someone getting the ball from them, we swerved round her.

Outside in the mall, horrified faces prefaced more swerving; as I was about to put my foot down, a woman screwed her face up and pointed, blood on the floor. A boy of about twelve was being shuffled to one side, blood streaming from....somewhere around his head, who could see, maybe a nosebleed, maybe he fell. There was a lot of blood. As we walked, blue uniforms with medical cases ran towards us, around us, doing the rugby thing.

My trusty standby stores let me down. No inspiration but at least Old Navy has a toilet.

Later, outside Shoppers Drug Mart, an Indian guy, partly dressed as Santa Claus, huddled into the doorway, collecting money for the Sally Ann. He was skinny. This REALLY gets tedious. Between now and Christmas, you have to ignore this guy or some other, wearing the red and fur and ringing a bell every time you go to the shop, and it's one of those local stores I go to several times a week.
I don't mind Santa being Asian, not at all, but skinny, nope, that's not working for me. And the Sally Ann Santas get so un-festive by the end. And this guy was huddling already.

Call me Ebeneezer, but I can almost hear those ghostly chains a-clanking.

No Sense, No Feeling

Good bloody grief, I cannot believe this. In Saudi Arabia, a woman who was gang raped by seven men a total of 14 times, has been sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison. When the crime originally came to trial, the men were convicted and sentenced to between 10 months and 5 years and she was sentenced to 90 lashes for being in a car with a man who wasn't a family member.
The young woman - 19 at the time - protested at the leniency of the sentencing of these men and what happens? She gets punished even more and her lawyer is suspended from practising and is charged with 'criticising the judiciary'.

Meanwhile the Saudi ambassador to London refuses to pay his £3 million debts and generally behaves like a complete arsehole.

I can't believe we even share planet space with these monsters.

On the subject of bear poo, Kris told me that in the spring, when the new growth is on the trees, the bears eat a whole mess of new green shoots, especially very purgative plants and...well basically get purged.
More rhubarb anyone?

Kris also told me that when she was in Australia last month, they saw a lot of windfarms, which is encouraging, clearly the Aussies are addressing their power problem.

Vancouver airport is actually in Richmond, thus it is really Richmond in the news for the incident involving the RCMP tasering a Polish man to death. Caught on video and released on U-Tube, although the police's first act was to confiscate the video and say they couldn't give it back while the matter was sub judicae. But in the end they did.

We don't yet know why he went berserk at the airport. He was arriving to live with his mother in Kamloops and spoke neither of Canada's two official languages. An interpreter had been called, but who knows whether it was an appropriate one, since he was Polish and everyone around him said he spoke only Russian.

What a sorry tale all round.

Estivation

Not that we watch very many ads on TV these days, but they're back - the recycled Christmas ones.

Unlike some of the animal kingdom, those ads go into estivation. In Britain, it was perfume ads, liqueurs, up-market chocolates, here, the last couple of years we have seen the resurrection of a whole slew of ads whose tune has been,
'Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow....'
The one I have just seen however was one for supplier of electrical and electronic goods, 'Best Buy'. It's good....but tired already.

I'm interested to see the movie of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's book, 'Love in the Time of Cholera', who hasn't had a Garcia Marquez period of total insanity, devouring every word the man has written? No, really?
Well anyway, what I can't see that the film can possibly capture is his utterly unique writing style.
The same goes for Graham Greene, the writer of course, not the Canadian actor. I could see that his writing cried out to be filmed, and yet his writing style was so singular, it could have been done - it could have been translated to film, it just never was.
I suppose the thing to do is to watch with a different expectation, allow the director to overlay her or his own style.

Record numbers of Brits are going to live abroad, but they're not coming to Canada. In fact, one of the main destinations is Australia, which has just been outed as the world's number one polluter in terms of emissions from power stations.
This is positively bizarre! Surely they have enough sunshine to be able to run entirely on solar power.

Fix it Aus, don't make me come over there.

Bear Poo

God, according to Denny Crane, is in British Columbia.
I rest my case.

I now know that the answer to the seasoned 'does a bear shit in the woods?' is 'well not in the winter apparently'.

The bears that we saw yesterday were preparing for winter, not full hibernation, but 'denning'. They wake up and come out of their dens about twice a day and then go back in and resume their sleep.
The Wildlife Team on Grouse Mountain have cameras in the bears' den to check that all is well. But they don't poo. Oh well, I've no doubt that the Wildlife Team poo when necessary, but the bears - not so much. In fact right now they are munching on large quantities of evergreen wood to block themselves up. Alex and I wondered what happens in the spring, how do they get that wooden bung out? Perhaps Denny Crane will be standing outside the bears' den with a humongous bowl of All-Bran.
I'm sure they have it covered somehow.

I'm watching the French. This whole business with Sarkozy and the French is interesting, so very interesting. It's as though the whole nation WANT Sarco to be firm with them. 84% of the French people plus myself, think that Sarko will stand firm over the pension reforms, and to recap on those,

"The open-ended strike is a show of strength over the president's plans to axe special pensions privileges enjoyed by around 500,000, including railway and energy workers and backstage staff at Paris Opera and the Comédie Française. Some of the special deals date back to the second world war or centuries earlier and allow certain workers to retire as young as 50 on favourable terms."

Even the socialists seem to be saying that the reforms are long overdue, but they pretty much have to strike, because not to do so wouldn't be cricket - French cricket I guess. And in the meantime, the whole thing has given a massive boost to the new bike-hire scheme in Paris.
What can you do? If the public believes that Sarco will stand firm, and they certainly seem to, then they will back down before he does. If they see weakness, they'll exploit it.
I can think of a few jobs Sarco could take on.

Kevin and I celebrated our second anniversary today. We went out for dinner. People here eat much earlier than in Europe in general, so at the time we were arriving, everyone else was just about to leave. It's a system that works for us and.....it worked for us.

First Snow

Not down here in the lowlands, but for me up in the mountains.

Everyone hates meetings right? I mean that's just a given. A meeting is a slow and often tedious way of conveying information that could be done by e-mail.

Often, yes.

But not when your half-termly professional meeting is hosted by your colleagues that run the bear habitat on a local mountain.
And they get you issued with free parking and ski-lift passes.

And on the way up the mountain you are able to look down and see wolves in one direction, and in the other, the whole of the lower mainland glittering beneath your gaze.
Then halfway up you pass the snow-line and outcrops are frosted with snow. And then the snow itself starts falling.

You are taken across beautiful, glistening snowfall to a chalet where you get to sit in a cosy room around a wood-burning fire, eating fruit and cookies and Nanaimo bars while snow swirls outside the windows.

When darkness falls, you crunch outside over the mountain to the bear habitat where the zoologist talks to you about the impending quasi-hibernation of the two grislies that you are watching.

On the way down again, the beautiful city stretches out before you, sparkling and twinkling, like an illuminated model city surrounded by descending cloud and dark, shimmering water.
In the night sky ahead of you, a golden sliver of moon, which you can see reflected in the river below.

Wouldn't you go willingly, excitedly to that meeting, wouldn't you drive across the entire city just to spend an hour discussing and receiving information that could have been sent out by e-mail?

Yeah, me too.

Furies

All night long, the wind howled and rattled and shook the house.
It tore things outside and the rain beat down.

In the morning, many people were without power, traffic lights were out, a whole shopping mall not far from us was closed down for lack of power.

We drove to the other end of town and there, a fire engine blocked the road, an accident, two cars, one mangled, being hauled up onto a tow truck.
An ambulance came down the road behind us, sirens and lights going. Only Kevin moved over and stopped. Behind us, another driver hesitated, on her cell phone, but finally wobbled to the side. A third car pulled over but then sped up and went straight through. The ambulance had to cross the central divider and drive against the traffic to get to the scene.

In 'Woken Furies', Takeshi meets the wife of a priest. She is wearing clothes that cover her completely, all her hair is covered too.
She remarks to Takeshi that it is warm, but he replies by telling her that she is inappropriately dressed for the weather. She asks him if he disapproves and he says that yes, he does. She criticises a politician and a trampy celeb, but he says that the politician at least wouldn't beat his own daughter to death for bringing dishonour to the family by being raped and that the celeb was a cheap trollop, but at least she was living her life as if it belonged to her.
He tells her that her religion is gynocidal.
The priest's wife counters that she herself has chosen this and Takeshi responds that that makes it worse.
"You've thrown away centuries of political struggle and scientific advance so you can sit in the dark and mutter your superstitions of unworth to yourself. You'll let your life, the most precious thing you have, be stolen from you hour by hour and day by day as long as you can eke out the existence your males will let you have..."

Sheer brilliance.

Poppy Day

Remembrance Day.
In Britain it is difficult to avoid poppy sellers, here, I hadn't come across one at all. And yet people seemed to be wearing them.

At church we were bagpiped in.

The bagpiper always looks more impressive than the bagpipe sounds, but it did give the appropriate gravitas to the proceedings.
It was a very emotional service, never more so than when the Canadian National Anthem was sung. The hymn book had both the French and English words and I must say, the French managed to avoid the sexist '...in all thy sons command,' although on Remembrance Day, difficult to forget that the Québecois, unlike other Canadians, didn't step up to the plate in any significant numbers.

But Canadians can sing, and they filled the church with rich harmony. It was beautiful.

Afterwards, I had a luncheon appointment with Canadian Karen. I went to see her flat in one of the most breathtaking areas of Kitsilano. The building itself reminded me of a traditional theatre in Britain, the stairs that lead up to the separate flats like the stairs that lead to the seating areas. A building with character, but one that is also clearly well looked-after.

We drove downtown and went for brunch. Karen navigated us there very competently and I don't mean that to sound patronising, but I had, not so long ago, had a far less smooth, calm driving experience with someone else navigating. And I know Karen will be laughing reading this, since she doesn't think of herself as calm.

The main purpose of our afternoon was to visit the Circle Craft Christmas Fair. This was located as far downtown as you can go. You'd be in the sea if you went any further. We had complimentary tickets, which we were quite pleased about.
Parking wasn't easy - and that in spite of deciding to opt for the expensive underground car park.

When we reached the Fair, we walked around, looked at things, but not too closely, turned over a couple of price tags, $200 for a bag, $300 for a jacket, $80 for a rather flimsy top, and then left. It was all interesting to see, but neither of us felt we needed to spend more time there and we certainly didn't feel compelled to buy anything.
Some things are good to look at but you wouldn't want them in your home.
I think Karen thought I said that too loudly at one point.

Tomorrow is a Bank Holiday for Remembrance Day. Gordon needs to get onto that one. Britain should have a similar day off and definitely needs one at this time of year. I'm looking forward to an extra lie-in.

Spirits

There is something so comforting about a glass of your favourite spirit. I don't like to drink more than a glass these days, but I can really savour a good brandy or whisky.
And I do mean savour, in that almost existential way that Hugo from 'Les Mains Sales' watches Hoederer drinking coffee and thinks about the coffee having flavour because it is in his mouth.

Spiritual.
Spirits.

My son Ben went for an audition at a Music College in Brighton and against the odds, has been offered a place. We're all dead chuffed. Ben doesn't have the problems that Laurence has had, but he has been becalmed for the last little while, unable to motivate himself, unsure what he wanted to do. So I'm mightily pleased about this.

And Alex, my Alex, the unsung heroine, has been down staying with her brother in Portsmouth, helping to look after her niece and nephew during Reading Week, while Sue has been experiencing some difficulties late in her pregnancy. Now Alex, my Alex, has to go back to London because lectures start again.
It's hard to be here and not able to help out when Sue and Austen could use the help.

'The Blair Witch Project' was creepy, not as scary as its hype, but creepy nonetheless.
And sometimes, when we are out in the woods, we see some twigs stacked together for no apparent reason and we say, 'Blair Witch Project'. It happens more often than you'd think.
Perhaps people passing are driven to put sticks together, who knows.

But why is the idea of a crone in the woods so creepy? Was it because you never saw anything, just heard sounds and this witchy ikebana kept appearing?

And then, is it less creepy if the unknown is an alien? Or a half-human, half-beast? Or just spirits?

When a friend of mine went on a vision quest with a First Nations guide, she had to spend a night alone in the forest.
She heard voices, sounds she couldn't identify. She would have been comforted by coyotes, being a naturalist, she wasn't afraid of them, but human voices, quarrelling, out in the forest where she knew there were no human settlements for miles and miles, when she had been brought up river by canoe and dropped there - that kept her awake and petrified all night.

There is nothing to fear but fear itself.
And really bad spirits.

Mysterious Ways

Three people I know are going to the States for shopping tomorrow. Now this could go one of two ways.
It's sheer co-incidence and they are the only three people crossing the border, or everyone and her dog are planning a shopping trip mañana. Let's hope it's the former.

Britain is planning to pay Afghan farmers to grow something other than opium. I'm pretty sure someone's tried doing that before. ".....subsidised purchase of legal crops to make returns more like those from poppy." Well, so far I'm following. And I'm sure they'll do their very best to keep the Telly-tubbies from destroying the farmers' crops. All good stuff.
But here's my plan.
Send the market price of opium down and then buy it all legally, through government channels and use it for research and medical pharmaceuticals and....bio-fuel or something we haven't yet discovered.
But..of course the flaw in my plan is that the only way to send the market price down is to flood the market with it, so essentially that plan doesn't work. Except I'm quite convinced that I'm onto something, I'm just missing some input from a non-evil genius.

Global warming has caused the $US to weaken and the TV writers to go on strike. Seriously, I can prove it scientifically.
Global warming has upset the planet, or Mother Earth is having her menopause if you will, and when Mother Earth gets upset, then God is annoyed. BUT...God is forgiving.
Now what does any parent do when their child misbehaves and wrecks the homeworld? Why takes their pocket money away and stops them watching TV of course.

Mysterious ways.

Lines and Squares

By virtue of some newly-revealed Canadian catachresis, I have been giving some thought to pavements.
That isn't entirely true, I think about pavements every day when I walk to work and it runs out, resulting in my walking for part of the way in the cycle lane, or hard shoulder of the road.

The paving slabs that form the pavement through the residential part of my journey, are big, maybe two foot by two foot or thereabouts.
And yet...and yet... I cannot break the childhood habit of trying to avoid the cracks. Pavement used to be - and still is in some places - formed of slabs just big enough to plant your foot in, with perhaps as much room again on either side, and laid in a hopscotch pattern.

I'm not sure what a child thinks will happen if they step on the cracks between the squares, I don't know what I think will happen. Sometimes I deliberately step on the cracks to break the spell.
But on the old-fashioned paving slabs, you could avoid the cracks without alerting anyone to your obsessive behaviour. With the big jobbies around here, no chance. You either bounce along like Zebedee, or take one normal step, one ballet-dancer step and then a hop.

And I bow to the Master, who better than A.A. Milne to capture the child-mind ?

LINES AND SQUARES by A.A. Milne

Whenever I walk in a London street,
I'm ever so careful to watch my feet;
And I keep in the squares,
And the masses of bears,
Who wait at the corners all ready to eat
The sillies who tread on the lines of the street
Go back to their lairs,
And I say to them, "Bears,
Just look how I'm walking in all the squares!"

And the little bears growl to each other, "He's mine,
As soon as he's silly and steps on a line."
And some of the bigger bears try to pretend
That they came round the corner to look for a friend;
And they try to pretend that nobody cares
Whether you walk on the lines or squares.
But only the sillies believe their talk;
It's ever so portant how you walk.
And it's ever so jolly to call out, "Bears,
Just watch me walking in all the squares!"

Pudding and Pie

I'm very proud of my son Laurence today. Last night he came home from Karate with his certificate for passing his test and moving to the next belt. He had done the test 2½ weeks ago, amid great stress. Laurence doesn't have much self-confidence and particularly when it comes to tests and exams. He was also convinced that he couldn't have passed. I don't think he believes it even now.
But Laurence's Sensei, William, has been a very patient man and has brought out the best in this him. And of course, Laurence has worked very hard and faced down a few demons.

In the book I'm reading, 'Woken Furies' by Richard Morgan, Takeshi has acquired a new sleeve. However he still feels afraid of heights. You might think that was a physical problem, and one that could be solved by getting a new body. But maybe Morgan is right, perhaps if you had it in your first body, the one you grew up in, it would become more of a psychological response.

If yesterday's food article dissed British food, today, an article in the Guardian reminds us of something that no-one does better than the Brits, the pudding. Since I've ruthlessly half-inched the picture from the article, I happen to know that it's a picture of sticky toffee pudding, not delicious chocolate pud as I had thought.
But it seems that Brits are no longer eating as much pud as before. I don't believe it personally, it seems to me that all the good supermarkets have some very up-market versions of the great British puddings, Spotted Dick, Roly-poly, as well as the ones I've already mentioned.
And for pity's sake, if I were there now, Sainsburys, Tesco, Waitrose and M&S would have whole rows dedicated to the great Christmas pudding in all its varieties.

I've talked about custard before, but on Sunday, two friends of ours who are Brits came over for Sunday lunch. We had blueberry pie for pudding, not British at all, but the four of us got through two cans of custard, now that is British. The best bit about the pudding is the custard.

We had a late-night meeting tonight at work. We dissected how Halloween had gone and started to look forward to Christmas. Apparently, we can dress the Nature House up for Christmas, we can have all the bits of Christmas that have nothing to do with it, but I can't run a Christmas school programme. I could talk about reindeer, or can I? Well maybe I can use the North American name, caribou. I can't talk about Saint Nicholas, but if I were to say Santa Claus...No, probably not. We can't say God, but we can talk about Mother Earth.

Oh well. This part of the year, the part I want to savour most, gallops by.

Coals to Newcastle

This is Mount Saint Helens, taken from the 'plane when Kevin went to Oregon last week.

There must be some kind of jetlag associated with the clocks going forward or back. It certainly feels like it. And strange to be walking home in the dark this evening.

A new study shows that breastfeeding can increase IQ by up to 7 points. That, my friend, is seriously significant. Also annoying, because I now realise that I could be missing out on seven whole points of intelligence quotient. Maybe maths wouldn't have been such a nuisance for me. Darn it.

I know I bang on about how much of the US as portrayed on film and TV is actually the greater Vancouver area, but today I discovered something quite bizarre.
There is a Canadian series that I have mentioned before, 'Blood Ties', that is supposedly set in Toronto, to prove this we keep seeing the CN tower, but is shot in Vancouver. There is apparently a set in Maple Ridge where much of it is filmed.

Seeing Kris, recently bereaved of her father, now coming to grips with all the bureaucracy and paperwork surrounding death, reiterates to me how lucky my sister and I were that Austen took on so much of that. It is an absolute nightmare, well it can be, and in our case, there was no squabbling over who should have what at all. Throw that in and the recipe is too potent to handle.

I was astonished to learn from today's Guardian, that Britain, the culinary laughing stock of everywhere except Eastern Europe, is actually doing big business exporting food and drink.
No surprise that Britain is exporting curry to India, nor that she is selling ale to Ireland, but I had to do a double-take over the significant rise in chocolate being sold to Belgium.
I wonder if the Swedes are buying British swedes.

I still, however, think that Canada is the real unsung heroine of world cuisine.

Blood and Magic

Ah, such bliss, getting an extra hour in bed. And we awoke to a clear sky and a crisp earth.

The Divali celebration last night was most enjoyable. The food keeps coming at you at that do and of course, the food is Indian.
But it did remind us that this time last year, I was in Britain and Kevin chose not to go to the Divali party because there had been a huge snowfall.

Tomorrow night is Bonfire Night and I am hosting the writers' group. I wanted to do Fifth of November food, so I have chestnuts and the compulsory orange coloured tomato soup but I can't do the sausage in a bread roll because I have yet to find any ordinary frying sausages like Walls'.
Superstore had something they call English breakfast sausages, but British bangers they ain't. My life remains banger free.
On the other hand, I was also too lazy to make toffee apples so I have toffee and I have apples.

And on the subject of bangers, on the cover of our local free-sheet was the shock headline, 'Dead Rabbit horrifies Mom'.
So you think, good bloody grief.
Then reading it, it transpires that the aforementioned mum came upon a group of teenagers who had put a live rabbit into a bag and set off some firecrackers inside it. There will be no punishment for these animals because they ran off, but I hope that at some point in their rotten lives they will be tortured by what they have done.

In traditional European literature, one of the recurring themes is that of the magic philtre. The philtre or potion, when taken, exculpates the imbiber of whatever they do during the period of enchantment.
'It wasn't me officer, I had taken a magic potion.' It allows us to be free of our own freedom, to act immorally without blame since we had no free will.
And in modern literature this theme endures. I include film and television in modern literature just as we include the oral tales of the jongleurs in the traditional form.
As it turns out, if we could partake of a vampire's blood, then our human judgement could be suspended and we would be like them for a while, except that while they crave our blood, we would crave theirs.
Are we not vampires in any case? Those of us who share the blood of a human who was put to death two thousand years ago?

I often wonder.

A Tale of Two Writers

One of the sci-fi writers I read, Richard Morgan, raises some interesting questions for me. His pony is the idea of re-sleeving. A human body is easily re-placed, it is a sleeve. The important part of a human is the 'stack', an implanted hardware device that contains a back-up copy of the Self of any human.

Thus, in Morgan's world, you can be re-implanted, or 're-sleeved' as another gender, or in a synthetic body, a cloned body, a specially enhanced body, the options are great.

But say you had yourself cloned. Presumably you could use a copy of your own body at the optimal point in its life, and potentially un-poisoned by the myriad little abuses we inflict upon the vessels of our being.

Or maybe, in replication, we might incorporate a fatal flaw that wasn't there before.
Morgan is a really good writer. He's not an easy read, he uses all sorts of made-up words and his subject matter is sometimes hard to stomach. Were he NOT such a good writer, I can see that this could be distracting, whereas in fact it flows well.

I have just finished a book by another sci-fi writer that I like, Ben Bova.
Bova writes about the colonisation and exploitation of the solar system and the potential of going beyond. His ideas and the exploration of them are fascinating, but he really is not a good writer, and I must admit, that although I like his books, the writing itself does interfere with the flow.
For example, Bova describes what people wear, but all this does is to convey the idea that in the future we will be wearing what people wore in the 1950s. The dialogue is stilted, and in the most recent book I read, the bad guy could easily have been one of the evil Arabs out of a Tintin story.
Bova's character also swear unconvincingly and his dialogues in general are often equally unconvincing. It is a pity, but it is true that it doesn't stop me either buying or reading his books.

So Pakistan is a powder keg. It's difficult to know what would be a good outcome. President Musharraf has been an ally against Al-Qaeda in Pakistan, but he has also failed to silence Islamic militants or has he succeeded in keeping them from rising up ?
And he has been promising an election for the past five years.
It was wonderful to see Ms Bhutto riding back into Islamabad in a car with a rather random hole in the roof, smiling at happy, rose-petal throwing throngs. Who couldn't think of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on an ass, people strewing his way with palms.
But it's not just about ruling Pakistan, it's about keeping the people of Pakistan free, keeping it secular and resisting the evil forces who mis-represent the nation's main religion.

There is a superbly written and well-balanced article in today's Guardian about the dilemma faced by Metropolitan Police Chief Ian Blair, over the wrongful shooting of Jean-Charles de Menezes. He makes all the points and gets it spot on. It is good to question, good to probe even, but if we want the police to do their job, to protect us, we must stop treating those who make mistakes in good faith like criminals. And frankly, the same goes for our soldiers.
Any of us, doing any job at all, taking all the care in the world, can make mistakes and especially in emergency situations.
This is not the same as someone doing a shoddy job under ideal circumstances.
And if you treat good officers like criminals, then they will stop doing a good job.
For pity's sake, let's be British about this.

Tonight, Kevin and I are going to the winter celebration of an Indian company that supplies his with electronics. You might say it's for Divali, but they couldn't possibly since that would be to make a company do a religious one.
In any case, it was fun last time. Good food and dancing to Bhangra and the host company are a nice bunch of people.

Wild, West Wind

'Oh wild, west wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves, dead are driven,
Like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing...'

not my words, Shelley's, but apt for today.

The sky was deeply clouded, the wind was biting and the red and golden leaves were being driven before it, then swirling in the air. Perfect, absolutely perfect. I know that some people suffer horribly when the days get shorter. I wouldn't wish depression on anyone, but I love this time of year, just LOVE it. The dankness of November, the fog, the cold, the rain, the dark mornings.
I love all the rain months, the -ember months. This season has always inspired poets, artists, writers.
They inspire me, just not to anything in particular.

'Yellow and black and pale and hectic red, pestilence stricken multitudes.....'

The beauty of the season, the beauty of the language.

Bedevilled

Now, bear in mind that the Devil's Bounty Hunter - Sam in 'Reaper' - drives a Prius hybrid.
Last Sunday, Kevin and I witnessed a man driving a mini-van down the street with a small child sitting on his lap, a very small child. Spears was arrested for something similar. What relative to the devil must that guy have been?

There's a new series of 'Always Sunny in Philadelphia' starting on Sunday. One of the funniest things on TV and intensely quirky.

The Canadian dollar has reached equity with the American dollar and has now passed it. In order to acknowledge this, certain stores such as Chapters and Sprawlmart, have agreed to sell their goods at the American price, for example on the covers of some of Chapters' books.
It's a start, but it's like pulling teeth.

Last night, a bus driver who stopped for some trick-or-treaters, was dragged from her bus and beaten up. Later, the bus was set on fire on Commercial Drive.
On the radio, Kevin heard that a similar incident happened in Surrey, kids dragged driver from bus and beat him up. It seems that the Devil doesn't drive buses in BC, and maybe doesn't want anyone to travel on them.

But Oregon, Oregon is the Paradise State. Well, in fairness, I don't really know what State it is, Washington is the Evergreen State, in my opinion it should be re-named the Nevergreen State.
But back to Oregon. Oregon is supposed to be supremely beautiful, I hope to see its coastline and its desert one day.
I was up at something after five to take Kevin to the airport today, he was flying down to Oregon on business. He certainly didn't get to see any of the beauty of Oregon on this occasion, but he did experience some of the things that impress us up here.
They are green. They have amazing recycling facilities and ones that are easily accessible. They have genuine - ie not just lip-service - schemes to allow people to rent, buy and win, and of course ultimately ride, bikes.
AND....in Oregon, the price you see on something, is the price you pay. For some reason, both shopkeepers and consumers are able to cope with the alien practice of including the tax in the price.
How bizarre, how bizarre.

Samhain

Here, you can avoid having other people's children annoy you during your well-earned evening by not turning the light on outside the door. This is the signal that you're not going to fuel their habit.

Quite a few of the children came to the programmes wearing costumes today. I get the demons and bats and so forth, but why princesses? What tortured version of anything links princesses with Halloween?
Also, in one class, there was a child called Apple sitting next to one called Coco. How can you not titter?

The Eve of Samhain, the Celtic New Year, end of summer, death of the summer god. Traditionally celebrated with fire, and outside, fireworks are exploding in the sky. A celebration of the non-human, the time when that veil between the worlds is at its thinnest. The time of the Crone, the time of the White Goddess, of women and their spiritual power. The beginning of the darkness.
All Celts had councils of elder women who chose the leaders for the community because of their wisdom.

We all come from the Goddess,
And to her we shall return,
Like a drop of rain,
Flowing to the sea.

GMT - 7

So I got up at 6 to take Shaniah to the airport. Even at that time in the morning, one of the bridges into Vancouver that we could see was solid with traffic going nowhere.
Somewhere, someone should be doing some bloody joined-up thinking on this.
On Thursday morning I get to take Kevin to the airport even earlier, we will see how early this madness starts.

The thick green make-up is making my skin break out. It's not pretty either way, but at least it will be Halloween tomorrow and so after that, programming will be back to normal - well, mostly.

One of my work colleagues lost her dad while she was on holiday in Australia. Not in the careless sense you understand, but in the true sense of loss.
And her pain brings back memories of my own loss seven years ago now. Same time of year, and in my mother's case, I was away too. And as with my friend, although the loss was anticipated, when it happened it was a shock because of the finality of it.
Death separates us from them for ever or until our own death, whichever is in fact or pragmatically true.

We're an extra hour adrift from Europe at the moment. Britain went back to GMT last weekend, we go back to GMT-8 next weekend, since Britain obviously owns Greenwich Mean Time, it must be they who are right.

Whilst I rail at JRM for being unable to cover his Irish accent, the worst Irish accents currently on TV have to be from Katie Carr as Caitlin and Dominic Keating as Will in 'Heroes'. Both Brits. And Keating with a name like Keating too. No frelling excuse.

I was interested in this article in the Guardian by a woman called Margaret Sandra who decided after divorce to ditch using any surname, either that of her father, or her ex-husband's.

She says "...in February 1979 I became Margaret Sandra. "(Please use my name in full)," I would add in correspondence. It says a lot about my confidence at that time that I thought I need only ask for the change for it to be easily accepted."

I know what she means on that score. When I was first married as a young woman, I thought I only had to point out politely (and shouldn't have had to) that I did not share a Christian name with my husband and my wishes would be respected. Far from it. In fact, to the extent that the two of us lost friends over it.

My then husband whined about this, in spite of my feeling that anyone who was rude enough in the first place to address me by a man's name, let alone persist when I had pointed out that I was deeply offended by this practice, wasn't actually a friend.

I admire this lady. Good luck to her.

No Denny

We came back earlier than intended, several reasons, but let's just say Denny Crane was involved - or lack thereof.

The border, arbitrary line that separates one country from another, really is annoying. We came back late last night, but there was still a wait. Why? What is it about? Terrorists coming in from Canada? Cheap goods coming in from the States?
Bollocks.

In general, the American Homeland Security just hassle the Chinese. Why? There are a lot of issues the West has with China, but so far they don't seem to be part of Al Quaeda.
The flights coming into Vancouver all seem to be from Britain, Germany, possibly one or two other European countries, other Canadian cities, the USA and the far East, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and the Philippines. So....... perhaps the Border guard think the terrorists coming into the States via Canada from the Middle East are changing in Beijing or Shanghai. Hmm.... but why would they look Chinese?

Oh, or maybe we could all be working down there. Or they could all be working up here. Would it matter? Would it matter if we all went down and did our weekly shopping at Fred Meyer?
Well, I suppose it would add a bit to global warming, but then probably not as much as having all those cars constantly idling at the border.

I'll tell you one thing they have south of the border that we don't up here. Road markings that you can see. Here, at some time in the history of Canada someone went along with a white-liner but the fact is, you have to keep re-marking. And cats' eyes? As rare as if they actually waited for cats to die and then used the real thing.
But you get across the line into the forgotten north-west corner of Washington and suddenly, you can see the lines and there are enough cats' eyes to light a runway.

Anyhoo, another reason we decided to come back last night instead of...well, around now I suppose, is that our friend is flying in from Toronto and is spending tomorrow night with us.
I sandblasted the bathroom that Laurence has to share with the guest and flicked an invisible duster around the spare bedroom. And thus I found a stack of books that Sleepy had left for me to read. Thanks m'dear!

Our friend's name was borrowed by a well-known Canadian country(ish) singer when my friend was working at a place at which the aforementioned singer made an appearance before she was famous, in fact when she was still called Eileen.
This fact was mentioned in the MTV biopic of said singer, but recently on TV I saw a dramatised clip of the actual incident.
The person playing our friend seemed to be a rather plump First Nations person, à la Marilyn from Northern Exposure. The name in question is said to be of First Nations origin, so I suppose it fitted the drama.
Our friend is in reality, pretty, petite and white.
Less believable I suppose but frankly, that don't impress me much.

Machete

I never thought I'd be doing a job where I was cursing because the machete was too blunt - although there may have been times teaching at Mayhem when even a blunt one would have been welcomed.
And in fact, this afternoon, we were glad of it.
On the way to the river we came across two likely lads skulking off the beaten track. We couldn't see that they were doing anything wrong, just...well, skulking, but they looked shifty and when they saw us coming along with the big kick-arse secateurs that look like bolt-cutters and a machete, they kind of took a step back.

Hacking through the undergrowth however, made us realise that a blunt one was worse than useless since it had to be carried as well. In the end, Alex used it for flattening some of the brush.

We didn't find any lost tribes, nor Dr. Livingstone, but we got further down the great, grey, green, greasy Limpopo all set about with fever trees and we felt like explorers.

So, we're heading south for the weekend. It was frosty here this morning, and more than likely it'll be frostier still in Birch Bay, but the journey down there should be more comfortable than before.

Hasta domingo.

Dumb

Why don't people on TV watch TV? Well, to be fair, sometimes they do, usually some old crap, stuff that people don't really watch. But in general, people on TV spend their evening down the pub or visiting each others' houses.
It's annoying. If we didn't watch TV, we would, apparently, suffer from depression, but we'd also have twice the amount of time we have now, we'd have our daytime life and our evening life.

But you do learn things from TV that you couldn't possibly learn anywhere else. For example, I learnt from watching 'Reaper' that even the Devil washes his hands after going to the toilet. Who knew? And what does what say about the skanks who don't?

Then there's reality and non-reality. I don't mean reality TV. But consider two programmes we've been watching recently.
The first one is 'The Tudors'. Sleepy sent me an article in the Daily Nazi this week that I found I almost totally agreed with. The story of Henry the Eighth is so compelling that it doesn't need to be tortured and invented. The Beeb claimed artistic licence. Well they must need their bumps read. When something has the BBC stamp on it, you expect everything to be polished, historically correct and correctly pronounced.
But not so. Rhys Meyers continues to take liberties with the language whilst the writers continue to take liberties with history.
'If you accept American money,' said several of the commentators, 'I'm afraid you must expect Americanisation.' In this case, I'm afraid that Americanisation equals dumbing down.
One commentator pointed out that Katherine of Aragon had quoted TS Elliot. Dear God.
And I have reached the point where I would like to punch Jonathon Rhys Meyers in the face and honestly - in my entire life, I have never punched anyone.

On the other hand, the excellent series 'Waterloo Road', shows where it is acceptable to use a bit of artistic licence.
The school seems to have a staff of about eight, and a student body of twenty, and yet they show things that really do happen in schools unlike the usual romanticised rubbish.
In this week's episode, the Head tried to exclude a pupil who had sexually threatened a member of staff.
The parent came in and complained about the pupil being picked on. They actually tried to get the exclusion rescinded, to 'win' against the school. This happens.
The member of staff had to give evidence at a hearing, where her word was doubted because she was the only one in the room apart from the boy. This happens.
The exclusion was reduced from permanent to 15 days. This happens.
It was all so real it had to have been written by a teacher.

Off the topic of TV, but still on children's behaviour, I have noticed since doing the Halloween Howl play up to three times a day, how true it is that the kids, usually boys, well, to date it has been always boys, who make the most noise and draw attention to themselves, are the ones who won't touch the snakes, slugs and worms. The ones who claim they love yucky things, and who hassle the others the loudest, back off when faced with the beasties themselves.

And wouldn't you think, that parents who bring kids to a play, would perhaps NOT talk all the way through it?
And then there are the things that go missing.
While Alex and I have been indoors, our 'un-nature trail' for one of the programmes has gone missing. I can almost, almost mind you, understand the parachutist and the helicopter disappearing, but why oh why, would anyone crawl through brambles and undergrowth to take a plastic squirrel and a child's wellington boot?
Beggars belief.

Spookiness

Sleepy and I have been discussing spookiness. And I can feel it, something in the ether. Not that I feel something's about to happen or what have you, just that I feel kind of...connected, like a spider in a web.

I can taste something in the air, like Terry Pratchett's Octarine, the metallic taste of magic.
I can smell the heavy scent of the otherworld, see it in the dreamworld, but I'm not receptive. I can feel, taste, smell it there, behind a heavy curtain, but I can't see through it.

There is a bite in the air, the wind is blowing down the chimney and during the daylight hours, I could see the leaves being whipped from the trees, the air was full. And the ground is strewn with them, beautiful, autumnal carpets. Treacherous carpets of wet leaves.

And all the mushrooms, more and more, the amanitas, Fly Agaric now replaced with shaggy inkcaps. Evidence of life feeding on death, pushing up from the depths, through the soil. Musky soil.

All Hallows E'en is coming, Samhain, and there are certain things about the celebration of Halloween here that I like. The carving of the pumpkins, the mists, even the pretend type.

But there's a hell of a lot I don't like. It's not a time for sweets, it's not a time for plastic frippery, blow-up ghosts and witches.

Plastic and sugar, what have these to do with Halloween?
Nothing.
They debase it. They bury it beneath the cartoon spiders.

But the truth is down there, buried in the soil, rotting under dried, brown leaves, howling through the trees, slithering in the undergrowth and shimmering on the edge of perception, and contorting reason.

A and J's Excellent Adventure

Today was surprisingly warm and sunny. This afternoon's group had cancelled because they 'couldn't find drivers', whatever.

This seemed the ideal afternoon for plotting out our walk for when the TV guy comes to film it on the fifth of November.
We went to the ditch. It now looked rather like a river, the little platform that Alex and I had planted there was completely submerged, there were now trees apparently growing out of the water.

We left the ditch and started down the bog-forest trail. We looked up into the clear, blue sky and high above us were a couple of black specks, something about them made us think they were hawks.

We went a little further and found what seemed to be a trail leading off the trail. I suggested we go and check it out and Alex agreed. We got so far, and then the way became less clear, so we stopped and looked at the sky again. The sky was full of gulls, but as we watched, two black shapes appeared, and as they soared and glided, we could clearly see that it was two eagles, flying quite low.
Try as I might, I couldn't get a picture, but we stood and gazed. I thought if we made our way back to the main trail, I might get a chance to snap them, but that wasn't what happened.
Almost back at the trail, we found a plastic box.
'It looks like someone's lunchbox,' said Alex, and it did, but it also looked full of stuff. We gingerly retrieved it and opened it. There was a selection of items in it, and a notebook, a log, a number of people had signed it going back to 2003.
'I know what this is,' said Alex, 'it's a geocache box. People hide them and other people find them. '
We wrote in the notebook that the Park Rangers had found it on the 23rd of October 2007, replaced it and moved on.

As we came to a corner where there is a beautiful hemlock tree, we heard the sound of birds screeching.
'That's the sound of eagles,' I said, 'but they sound so close.'
Then two eagles arose from the forest, the most magnificent birds I have ever seen. In spite of there being a stuffed juvenile in the Nature House, I had no idea how enormous they were. They chased around for a few minutes, always appearing through the trees so that I was still unable to get a picture.

It was the most spellbinding encounter to date, we were awed.

Drawing In

It turned out that the pilot of the small plane that went into the side of a building in Richmond yesterday, was 82 years old.
There is always risk to people driving cars or flying planes, but the risk of allowing someone that age to operate machinery is too great. It was indeed a miracle that more people weren't injured in this accident, although I don't suppose the residents of the block of flats were too impressed by having to be evacuated from their homes until the building can be declared structurally sound again.

Kevin has just told me that the city pays to have them put up in emergency accommodation for six days, but they're not allowed to return to their building for two months.

Last night was the Nature Park's Halloween Event, 'Wild Things'. I was a crow. It's quite good fun once it gets dark, because you can skulk around and scare people, although in general, kids don't fear anything these days. Only one child cried. Another one kept hitting my beak and I told her to go away. Then she apologised, but there was a complete lack of parental intervention.

Last Sunday, Austen and I compared church service readings, and then on Monday I compared with Alex.
It seems that as advertised, across both the Anglican and Catholic communions, and at least over two continents, the New Testament readings are the same.
That's pretty cool in my opinion.

Someone in church noticed that George Bush had signed the visitor book. Can't have been the one we all know if he managed to sign his name.
We sang the hymn again whose tune is 'I vow to thee my country' although the words have been changed to suit the lily-livered.
I wonder where that expression comes from, why would cowardice make your liver white ? Who knows, probably I need to query 'Notes and Queries'.

There is something incredibly stirring about the words,

'I vow to thee my country, all earthly things above,
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love,
A love that never falters, a love that stands the test,
That lays upon the alter, the dearest and the best,
A love that asks no questions, a love that pays the price,
A love that makes undaunted, the final sacrifice.'

There was a rather good opening sketch to SNL last night (which we watched today). Hillary 'certain-to-be-elected President' spoke about her future victory. I'd like to think it really were that certain.

Something in the Air

Weird, a plane crashed into a building near the city centre today killing at least one person.

In Surrey, there was some kind of gas leak by the skytrain station that may have caused injuries.

This evening we had thunder and lightning both at the same time. It's rare here in any case, but that close.... twenty minutes or so later, my friend called from Vancouver and and as lightning flashed here she had the experience we had earlier.

Today is my sister's birthday and co-incidentally, we picked up our new car. It's lovely. And today the dealership was abuzz with the news that the Fit now attracts the government eco-rebate. This makes us happy.

So the Guardian reports that after ten years of Labour rule, the classless society still remains elusive. Well duh. The fact is that anyone in Britain has the opportunity to be socially mobile, but people don't want to. And that's the point, while people had no access to education they had no choices, now they do and they often choose to stay where they were. We value our class system in Britain and too bloody right that's how we judge people, just not in the way a lot of outsiders think. Possibly not in the way some insiders think either.

Today, Alex and I practised the French programme all day. And there was something strange that happened. People stopped and watched us as though transfixed. Ok, to be fair, I was screeching French in a silly voice, and yet..... it was as though these Canadians had never actually heard it spoken before. They weren't laughing, they were just...gazing. My only hope is that the kids on Monday are as entranced.

Groove

The groove, the rut, I walk to work, then back again through the rain, I graze then settle down to watch TV.

The second episode of Exes and Ohs was yet another tour round Vancouver. I'm surprised you can move in this town for film crews.
Of course it's set in Seattle.
I was amused by 'The Big Book of Lesbians' and in case anyone didn't get it, the café was called 'Beevers'.
It's tongue-in-cheek or ....... wherever, of course.

So, scientists have discovered another M class planet, and it's only 20 light years away. Perhaps we could twin with them. But I find it comforting to think that maybe we're not alone, even if we're only at the point of realising there are other planets out there that could be habitable.
If there were beings, if Gliese 581c had life on it, how would the different environment define that life? There is a whole different mind-set to being a race of intelligent beings with a year of 365¼ days than of just 13.

It absolutely appalls me that the Taliban are so twisted and perverted that they think it's ok to send suicide bombers to kill Ms. Bhutto. I hope that somehow she can be strengthened by this. Those vile, vile people need to be exterminated like the vermin that they are.
Not so long since General Musharraf was telling Britain who they could give Honours to.

But when looking at the domestic affairs of other countries, I'm pretty interested to see how things work out between Sarko and some of the leading French unions. He says he's going to stand firm, so we'll have to wait and see, but in the meantime, his divorce from Cécilia has just been announced, so he has plenty to contend with.

Slap

'Aliens in America' continues on TV, and whilst it is fascinating to watch the students of Medora High, Wisconsin going in and out of the building opposite my home, and do studenty things in the playing fields I have to walk across to get to the shops, it kind of....spoils the fiction of it for me.
I know that all this is playing out in HJ Cambie Secondary school and I need to believe in Medora High. Next week they'll be in the 'butterfly sanctuary' that is actually my place of work.
How weird.

Alex tells me there's a storm a-coming, we're going to be whipped by the tail end of a hurricane. And Alex is learning lots of new stuff. For example, today he learnt how to apply moisturiser under make-up so that it goes on smoothly and how to cleanse fully afterwards. Yesterday he learnt how to apply foundation and lipstick - the latter not until he had broken one however. He also discovered how to use eye-liner, or mirror drawing if you like.
All things I never had to teach my own Alex, I think she just got that information passed on genetically.
Still, clearly the slap is what turns us evil, until I had him apply that he looked like a priest standing there in his long black dress. Oh and the red wig probably took away from the priest bit too, but we'll test drive it all on the Catholics tomorrow, see whether they get confused.

Fred - 'The first thing we need is an angry mob....'

Yasir - 'Where did you meet your wife?'
Baber - 'At our wedding!'

Little Mosque's second series is shaping up well.

Green and Grey

Green and grey, the colours of our uniform at grammar school.

Green and grey, the Shore Pine and Douglas Fir trees in the angry rain.

Green and grey day.

Grey because the friend of ours who is ill, but we thought would have a couple of years, has taken a turn for the worse. Those of us who pray, pray, those of us who don't, do whatever they do and we all fret.

Green because my three weeks of wearing green face paint at work has started. Our first performance went well I felt. Alex was nervous, I could tell, but he played a good Griswald. We have written into the play that he has tricked Witch Hazel into thinking he is a girl, he shares the secret with the kids and tells them not to tell me. But they are BURSTING to. Halfway through some of them couldn't hold in the knowledge any longer, so then I had to pretend not to believe them and then close them down, but it was funny.

I received a lame reply from the college tutor I complained to about her students smoking pot while I was teaching Kindergarten kids. She seemed to have missed the point. She asked whether we had 'no smoking' signs up.
Clean up the Anglo Saxon and this was basically my reply or at least, this is the reply I would liked to have sent.

'Of course we have no smoking signs you fuckwit, it's a peat bog, aren't your students supposed to be studying the environment ? A carelessly discarded fag butt in a peat bog can burn out of sight and uncontrollably for weeks and can travel under the surface until it comes up a few yards from houses. But that isn't even the point. I shouldn't have to put signs up saying 'don't break the law' that surely is taken as read?'

Yes, I know, fag butt.

I apologise to the sensitive for this, but it's raining hard at the moment. No, that's not it. It's just that in the rain, Sikhs, who seem to be much given to riding bicycles around here - for which may their God and mine bless them - wear special plastic covers on top of their turbans. It makes me smile.

Albert Schweitzer I am not -well, fairly obviously, it seems he died seven days before my eighth birthday. Today, however, I did think about him when I was forced to cut a living creature in half because it was disappearing down the throats of two snakes at the same time.
This bothered me and probably stupidly. In nature, this would have happened naturally and possibly with greater carnage. But as it was at my hand, it bothered me.

The choices and pain felt by greater beings than I however, is something I consider when thinking about history.
In spite of having reservations about Jonathon Rhys Meyers as King Henry, I do adore the choice of fellow Irish actor Maria Doyle Kennedy as Catherine of Aragon. I think she is superb in the part.
I have always admired Catherine of Aragon, and yet there was something necessary about her suffering in that without it, we would never have had the magnificent Elizabeth the First.

And it's not a great leap from the forces of history to traffic control in Portsmouth. Oh wait, yes it is. Well never mind.
Portsmouth is apparently leading the nation in reducing the speed limit in residential areas to 20 mph in order to reduce road deaths by two thirds. The country is considering following this fine example. One difference of course, is that in Portsmouth, it's rare for anyone to be ever able to drive over 20mph. When I cycled from one end of the city to the other, I would go past all of my colleagues in their cars. They were constantly telling me this, however, few of them took to their bikes.

Diablo

Ok, let's get this out of the way first.
The English rugby team are complete gods because they whipped the French, who are a bunch of preening fairies (not the good kind who work in the entertainment industry, but the bad 'up their own backside' kind) and for having previously seen off the unbeatable Aussies.

If any of them read my blog, I bow to your awesome and supreme rugby skills, and to all rugby fans who read my blog (both of you) is there anything I missed? (Because if there is, I feel sure Sleepy'll have it covered anyway.)

Ok, so, the Devil. I've been giving this some thought recently due to the new and extremely entertaining series, 'Reaper'.
Now, it has always been my understanding that Protestants are not contractually obligated to believe in the Devil, let's face it, we're not even contractually obligated to believe in God, just allow that it's possible she may exist.

So I never have. (Just in the case of the Devil you understand).

When Babylon Five was on, I didn't re-think my stance, but I did start to think around the idea of what Evil might be. All the time the Shadows were just...well, that - big, shadowy, spidery things to be feared, I didn't think too much about them, but as their real purpose started to be revealed, well, it all looked less clear-cut.
The Shadows pitted the younger races against each other so that the weaker ones didn't survive and generally clog up the universe being wimpy, also, the survivors would become stronger. Hmm.... so that seemed to be ...well, quite interesting really.

Then there was Osama et alia. Surely they are evil, their actions and intentions certainly are. And yet you could argue that they destroy and generally do bad stuff because they believe it is what they should do. Polar opposites, 'The West' and 'The Axis of Evil' (easier than typing out Al Q'aeda, the Taliban, Saddam Hussein etc.) D'oh!
Good and Evil - polar opposites. Is that all we mean by 'Evil', simply the opposite of what we believe is right ?

And then Reaper. Finally back from relatives to an absolute. The Devil in that is kind of naughty, he'll cause a meaningless accident in a supermarket car park by randomly shoving a trolley out. And he obviously oversees Hell. But he's a kind of necessary overseer, like prison warders or traffic wardens. (Only with very white teeth and a spray-on tan).
I can get my head round this, because he's not the antithesis to God, more like God's dirty jobs guy.

Not that I'm suggesting that Al Gore is in any way connected to the Devil, far from it, I can remember being very impressed by his documentary film, 'An Inconvenient Truth'. I'm just not sure it was worth a Nobel Peace prize.
Maybe something bigger than Brownie Points, possibly a letter from someone important - say the Queen or Helen Mirren, or even an honourable mention in the UN tea room, but a Peace prize???

Jon Bon Jovi has been hosting SNL, and doing a damn fine job in my opinion. I'm not a huge fan of SNL, but between Jon and the Foo Fighters, there has been some considerable entertainment value this week.

The picture is the one Crisp-e sent me for my birthday, I've finally found the perfect spot for it, which, I realise from my photo is just 'the wall', but you'll have to take my word for it, it's perfect.
Come and see for yourself if you don't believe me.

Bhangra and Chocolate

We test drove the Honda Fit today. And it was mighty fine, mighty fine indeed.

We also asked about the eco rebate, there seemed to be some debate about it. One guy said that it had been offered on the manual transmission Civic, another the manual transmission Fit, but it seems that the government is still prevaricating in any case.

It feels unseasonably warm again today, to walk down to the Auto Mall, neither of us could wear a jumper and I reinstated my summer sandals.

I'm mildly amused at the notion of a 'British-Asian Glastonbury' that goes on in West London, not least because it is apparently the springboard from which Bhangra is set to go global. And why not, Bhangra is quite peppy, I don't mind it occasionally, but the problem I have with it is that there isn't much variety. I have noticed that it is played a lot in our local fruit and veg store, but it always sounds the same, however long you're in there.

At the same time as researching cars, we have been researching airlines. We hope to book our flights on Monday. Oddly, at the moment, the scheduled flights are looking like a better prospect than the charters.

The most exciting news today however, even more exciting than driving the Fit, is that the Guardian reports that next week is Chocolate Week. My, my, I wonder how I'm going to celebrate something as seriously celebratable as Chocolate. I have a few ideas, but I'm sure more will come to me.
Sweet.

Fit

Cars. We have to buy one. Personally I have a short shopping list, manual gears, hatchback, low environmental impact, not a horrible colour.
Fortunately, Kevin, whose initial list is the same as mine, has done a lot of research and has both expanded and then honed those needs into something realistic. We're looking seriously at the Honda Fit, this is sold in Britain as the Honda Jazz.
And whilst I was still living in Europe, I would never, ever have even dreamed of looking at a Japanese car.

The Honda Fit makes it into the Californian category for low emission cars, here, for some reason, the manual transmission model just misses the band that attracts a $1,000 government subsidy for low emission cars by a pip because of the safety features, so Honda gives the subsidy itself.

At some point, we'll test drive one.
For the moment we have a rented Kia something-or-other. Nice car, a little bigger than I'm used to, although still termed 'compact' here. But it has automatic transmission, and boy oh boy do I loathe and despise automatic transmission. I hate not driving the car, but rather having to restrain it. I hate not being able to change gear when I want to. I hate the whoosh, whoosh of the engine as it decides for itself. I hate the lack of smoothness that you can only achieve with manual gears. And I hate the feeling of just 'operating machinery' rather than driving a car.
But...it's a car, and it's free for a few days, so I shouldn't be looking a gift horse usw. Or maybe I should be thinking, oh yes I should, there's no reason why I am no longer able to still drive our own car, it has been taken away from us by some guy's bad driving.

There is a time and a place.
At the Park at the moment, we have a steady stream of further ed students from a programme at a local college.
Yesterday, I took a group of ten five year olds up to the pond platform to discover two of the college students there smoking pot.
I asked them to move on and tried to play it down, but several of the parents noticed. I e-mailed the college tutor but have had no response.

And yesterday MY Alex moved into her new flat in London. I hope it all went well.

Valley Girl

Oh the inconvenience of it all.

Yesterday I had to go to the Insurance Company - they had given me an appointment at 16.30. Since I was going because I didn't have a car, this wasn't easy, but Alex gave me a lift to the place.
The insurance guy was a Kumar from Swindon. He told me we could have a rental car for a few days, which will take the pressure off a bit.
The company have written our car off and we won't get anything like what it was worth to us. A ten-year-old car that was in excellent condition and with only 80k on the clock.
They said this to Kevin.

After that one, I had my long-awaited hair appointment.
'Can I do something different with your hair?' she asked,
'Yep,' I said. Later, hearing this, Kevin said,
'I can imagine what Sleepy'd say if the hairdresser said that,'
'Mmmhmmm.'

I got the last bus home, 20.08. Buses are annoying of course because they come in their own time instead of yours, and it takes hours to get anywhere, but I like travelling on them, especially when it's dark outside.

At the bus stop there was a bench, but set a way away from the actual bus stop sign. A young woman had been sitting there for about ten minutes, talking continuously on her cell. The bus she wanted came along and she stood up and teetered over on high heels, dragging a suitcase with a handle behind her. She was still on her phone and I could see that it was encrusted with fake jewels. The bus passed.
She had that Valley Girl speech pattern.
'Was that like the 405?' she said,
'Yep,' said I
'Like, that was my bus,' she said into her phone,
'Did it go past?'
'Yep,'
Into phone, 'It like, went past,'
'Why didn't it like, stop?'
'Dunno,'
'I'm like, ringing Translink,'
'Ok,'
'It's uh engaged,'
'Oh,'
'Is there another bus that goes to like, Marine Drive?'
I look up at the list of buses,
'Don't think so,'
'Like, what time does the bus to UBC go?'
'I....will look on the timetable for you,' I said, hoping it was pointed. At that moment, Translink answered her call and my bus arrived, so I was spared the continuation of such scintillating banter.

Tonight we watched 'Exes and Ohs' a new lesbian comedy, this time set in Seattle, eventually there will be one that is not only filmed in but also set in Vancouver. In case you don't get that it's about lesbians, they keep mentioning the fact, instead of women, they refer to themselves as lesbians. Still, at least they aren't all immaculately turned out as in the L-Word, there was one couple who shared a name and who dressed the same as each other. I'll stick with it through another couple of episodes, but it'll have to get way more engaging.

In the new series of SUV, Olivia's hair has grown bizarrely long in a week. Guess they don't always show the eps in sequence.

Little Houses

A day which started badly for me, ended well because of this little house of plywood.

I didn't sleep well last night, and I just felt scratchy, off-key. The first programme of the day, the bugs one that I usually love, seemed flat.

There seemed to be a steady stream of sirens all day long. Great, so somewhere, other accidents were happening.

And my hair, oh dear Lord, my hair, is way past overdue for its MOT.

But the prop house for next week's programmes turned up and was way better than I expected and I had been unsure that it would be ready in time.

If you were an advertising agency, wouldn't you research your market before sending out a thick envelope with actual photographs and a pretend letter from some worthy in the company, a letter that begins,
'Dear fellow car enthusiast...' I mean, exsqueeze me?

In the e-realm, I receive, for reasons unknown to myself, monthly bulletins from Southampton University. I have never had any truck with them, although they are a well-established and worthy uni. But somehow, they have tracked me down and added me. Sort of like Facebook.

I do love my sci-fi and one of the many reasons I love it is the imagined situations where different ideas can be tried out.

I have just finished reading Ben Bova's 'Titan'. The Titan in the title is one of the moons of Saturn, but the main part of the story concerns an artificial habitat housing ten thousand men and women that is in orbit around Saturn. The questions that Bova poses are fascinating ones, with a habitat of limited size, albeit one only partially inhabited, what happens if you allow people to reproduce, and how can you stop them?
And the artificial habitat is so fragile that the momentary act of a single man could cause the inevitable deaths of every single person in the community. What incredible trust to place in any being, to have that amount of power.

The inhabitants risk war too, by ignoring the scientific ideals of Earth - to protect new species, and yet how can they take such an enormous risk, given their fragility?
Fascinating stuff.

Another story that has fascinated me has been the real one of 'White Lobster'. Small subsistence fishing communities on the Mosquito Coast of Central America, have been transformed by a new catch, big floating bags of Columbia cocaine bobbing to shore.
God, it seems, blesses the villagers by sending them the ill-gotten losses of Columbian drug barons.
Very Robin Hood.

We have been watching the British series, 'Afterlife'. I can't help comparing it to the American series 'Ghost Whisperer'. It's difficult not to, subject matter is similar, it's just that 'Afterlife' is more real, gritty, explores how people must really feel in these situations, whereas 'Ghost Whisperer' is soft and flabby, like eating whipped cream from an aerosol can.

In the vampire series 'Moonlight' one vampire warned another not to trust a third party, 'in case he gets all Van Helsing on us.' Nice line. Not one most of us have much use for, but a good one nonetheless.