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.

Fragments

Yesterday was Thanksgiving in Canada and so today we had a Bank Holiday.
I find it odd that Britain, which has an established Church, doesn't have a Bank Hol for Harvest Thanksgiving, yet Canada, where Christians aren't supposed to mention their festivals and beliefs whilst everyone else can, has one.
Gordon needs to get working on that.

I can't believe Britain has a PM called Gordon, but oh well, he's a good guy.

So divine to have a three-day weekend, an extra lie-in. But...since we have no car, we have stayed close to home. No biggie, I have enjoyed the pottering, cleaning the ceiling fan blades, chopping back the dead stuff in the patio pots, while working around the massive spider's web.

Since it is vid rental day, we also walked down to the plaza and rented two dvds. One was 'Iraq in Fragments' a trio of film clips following the lives of three different sets of people in Iraq after the war. This was a fascinating film, funded partly by the Sundance Movie Festival, which I believe is on at the moment. A Seattle filmmaker spent time in Baghdad and Kurdistan.

The first clip focussed on a young boy, Mohammed, in Baghdad. When filming started he was working in a café, he said that his boss loved him, looked after him like a father. His real father had disappeared. He had been a policeman under Saddam, but had criticised the dictator and had been put in prison.
Soon, the boss wanted Mohammed to go back to school, which he did, but then he could only work in the café for one hour a day. He wasn't making any progress with his spelling either, so he was soundly insulted by the café owner and sent packing.
There were hardly any women in this clip apart from the schoolteachers, boys and girls didn't seem to be taught together.
The old men in the café sat around doing the philosophising that only men in bars and cafés do. And as uneducated men in bars everywhere, they came up with second-hand thinking.
They decided that the Americans were just after their oil, but who cared, it was never theirs anyway. For 35 years, Saddam had taken everything, so there was no difference to them if the Americans took it.
Of course, it would make a difference to Canadians in Alberta, whose oil the Americans actually buy to supplement their own, but that's another story.

The second clip was a bunch of confused Shia. They were complaining, in between a bit of self-flagellation - that apparently Saddam didn't approve of, presumably he preferred to keep the flagellation of Shia to himself, that the Dawa party had suddenly reappeared after 35 years. Where, they asked, had the Dawa party been for the past 35 years, why had they not bothered to take Saddam out themselves during all that time.
This lot seemed to be generally of the frothing-at-the-mouth variety, narry a woman in sight. They had fat, bespectacled clerics to whip them into a frenzy at the drop of a hijab. Not that there were any in sight, the more psychotic the fundies, the fewer the women.
The only one we saw was begging the Shia militia to return her husband to her, they'd taken him while he was selling scrap metal.
They were against the American occupation, they were against Saddam, they were against the Dawa party. Nobody loved them, everybody hated them, they just refused to go down the garden to eat worms, they just hated everyone right back.
This bunch you just wanted to put in a pit and leave to fight it out amongst themselves until they were all dead.

The third section was in Kurdistan. These people were poor but worked hard and had a sense of humour. And there were women. We saw the elections, a smiling woman on her way in joked that they should make sure they searched her properly, she looked like she was enjoying it.
The focus was on a family of seven. The old man had six children and he was sure he would die soon. One of the sons, strangely light-haired, worked in the brick factory, went to school - where boys and girls were taught side-by-side and looked after the sheep as well.
He liked to eat quickly so that he could spend more time asleep, but he prayed to Mecca before he did so.
The old man wanted his son to go to religious school, but didn't have enough money. He wanted one of his sons to be for God. They must protect their beloved area of Iraq, Kurdistan, that God had given them. God had sent them the Americans who had liberated Iraq. God was good to them.

Later, on Food TV, Alton Brown, our favourite American TV chef, was showing how to make pretzels. Why? Who the frell eats these things? I hope they're a secret weapon, because otherwise they're a waste of ingredients and shelf space.

Lemony

I do feel ok really. The RCMP officer told me I would ache today, but I don't. I know it could still come, so I'll leave it there.

Kevin and I discovered another cultural difference yesterday, and one I hadn't noticed before.
Lemon Meringue Pie.
I always thought this was one of the top puddings when I was a kid, and that in spite of the fact that my mum used to make it with a packet of 'Lemon Meringue Pie Mix'. Birds, the custard people I think.
But here's the thing, it was always a hot pudding for us, yummy cold the next day, but essentially, at its best served warm.

Yet Kevin has never eaten it warm. I have noticed that we always seem to have it cold when we do have it here, but assumed that was for logistical reasons.
The logistics of the LMP.
In Britain, it's one of the few puddings we don't pour custard on. Pies, sponge puddings, crumbles, stewed fruit, anything we can pour custard on, we do, but the LMP gets cream.

I looked up a few recipes from British food Czars and the main dissent seemed to be the amount of time you should leave it to stand after it comes out of the oven, this varied from 0 to 20 minutes. I think Delia might have been the 20 minute leaver.

Kevin cooked a superbly lemony pie yesterday, and since I was needing comfort food, against his own better judgement, put mine back into the oven.
Yummers.

This afternoon we have been listening to Bill Shatner (genuflect) telling us how difficult it will be for people to get to Mars. Very, apparently. However, he felt it might happen, 'in our lifetime', but I'm thinking maybe not so much in his.
May he live for ever, but just in case, well, you know.

We managed to view a couple more new shows that we had backed up yesterday, 'Chuck' which we both thought was excellent, and 'Life' which we felt had potential.

The weather has turned serious. Strong winds and heavy rain. There's a big, fat orb-weaver spider who has spun the most enormous web on our patio. It seems to not be anchored to anything you can see, so the spider is being battered by the wind as its web gets blown around like a see-through sail, it's probably a spider's equivalent to some of those theme park rides.

The Life Idiotic

I'd like to enthuse - or even waffle - about the rugby, but
a) y'all remember being curt with me about my fumbled attempts at making any comments about football and
b) car accident beats rugby hands down.

So here's the thing.
I spent the afternoon selling cranberries. It was raining, we were under the shelter, but it was rainy cold. Afterwards, I went to Shoppers Drug Mart.

On my way home I had stopped just before a pedestrian crossing on Five Road that is placed bizarrely, just before an intersection. I was indicating that I was turning left onto McNeely.

I had waited until the oncoming traffic was clear, checked that there was no-one about to step onto the crossing and was just about to turn left.

There was a loud noise, I was moving forward and steering, but other than that, had no control over the car, the wind was coming in the back, I was lying back in my seat, I couldn't see very well. When I reached the curb, I braked. I guess I braked, I stopped. I thought the back of the car had exploded. I couldn't work out why or how. I opened the door, I looked out, but couldn't turn, I didn't have the presence of mind even to take the seatbelt off.
There was a strange taste, like chlorine.

An Indian man was running towards the car, he looked in, asking me if I was ok, that he was so sorry, his brakes had locked, he had sneezed and his brakes had locked. Only then did I realise he'd gone into the back of me.
I undid my seatbelt, I was shaking, badly.
'Where are my glasses?' I asked. He told me they were on the back seat. I reached back and they were there, so was the windscreen. I got out. The man was still apologising, asking how I was.
He asked if it was ok if he moved his vehicle from the middle of the road to the side road that I had been about to turn into. He was driving a pale blue Chevrolet pickup truck.
The radio was talking to itself. I fiddled with the key and couldn't seem to turn it off. I realised the car must have stalled when I was hit and my foot must have slipped off the clutch.
I looked for the phone in my bag, couldn't find it, kept looking, found it, phoned Kevin.
'Call 911,' he said.
By the time Kevin got to me, the police were there and the fire brigade (first response medical) soon after.
I was still in shock, but when Kevin got there I knew I didn't have to think anymore, just as well, I couldn't think. Couldn't find my driver's licence, found it. Kevin found the insurance.
The glove compartment and cup holder had opened out. The driver's seat had gone into a reclining position.
The police did all the paperwork, getting the man's details, giving us the case number. The Indian guy was there right to the end, still apologising.

The whole thing was shock. I just kept saying,
'I thought the car had blown up,' in a shaky voice. And yet the car protected me. The back lights were all crushed and the windscreen blown in, but it didn't crumple. The emergency services arrived quickly.
But first and foremost, I'm generally a calm person, and yet given this situation, I couldn't even think to undo my seatbelt or call 911.
I was lucky that it happened just as I was about to turn, ie when there was no oncoming traffic and that the guy wasn't the kind of shit who just buggers off. He could have done, since I didn't even realise I'd been hit.

I'm ok. I'm not even shaking anymore.
Now we have the inconvenience of no car and having to go to the insurance place, I have an appointment.
Here in BC, there is no competition in car insurance. The insurance company is Province-wide, and they are also responsible for issuing driving licences, so it's all a bit of a rum do.
I think this is always the way with insurance. Insurance is supposed to put you back in the same position you were in before the accident, and yet it doesn't, and nor does it in any way alleviate the inconvenience you have suffered whilst just going about your daily business.

The Life Idiotic. But at least I still have one.

The Life Aquatic

We spent the morning bagging cranberries that had been donated by Ocean Spray. Tomorrow, we'll sell them.

In the afternoon we had some odd jobs to do out in the park, and what a superb afternoon. It was sunny. Clear enough now to see the snow on the very tops of some of the mountains. Clear enough to see a school of minnows swimming in the pond, and some frogs, and these two turtles doing the dance of unrequited lust.

The great Brunhilde of a female was going after one of the frogs, the little male just wanting to get him some fine turtlicious arse, was waving his long claws in her face. She ploughed past him like a Sherman tank.

The light was glinting off the surface of the pond as the four of us park employees leant over the railings, watching the aquatic goings-on and enjoying the remains of the afternoon while above us, chickadees and robins flew between trees, twittering and maybe watching us.

A lone chickadee desperately called for females, and a last dragonfly found one.

Perhaps this afternoon was the last of the summer wine and what a strange wine it has proved to be.
An autumn that was coming from the middle of August and a summer that has hung on, fighting the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.

Mongoose

Yesterday turned cold with a real bite in the air in the afternoon. I was told that the first snow fell on the North Shore mountains, but even today, the mountaintops are shrouded so from here we can't see.

Yesterday the day was long, in the evening we had a meeting at work, and since the copper wire had all been stripped from the floodlights in the car park, it was very dark indeed, but inadvertently, a point was made, one of our city councillors was there.

And yesterday I finished a task that has been hanging over me. One of those tasks that you keep finding ways of avoiding. Now I'll have a few days' peace before starting to fret about how I could have done it better, I was always like that with exams too.

Another new show - Bionic woman. Not only is this one more programme with a British actress playing an American - Hugh Laurie certainly opened a can of worms - but yet another where almost every shot looks familiar, filmed in and around Vancouver.

Today, out with a grade 3 class, we saw a Garter snake making its way lazily through some logs. I was surprised that it was warm enough. One of the mothers, who had previously lived in Bombay, back when it was Bombay I guess, either that or the people who live there still refer to it as such, said that her family had lived in a high rise block in the city.
Even so, often, when they looked down into the courtyard below, they would see cobras, which could grow up to nine feet long, and sometimes they would see a mongoose attacking them.
'You get used to it,' she said, ' and it teaches the children respect.

I guess it does. All sorts of things can teach children respect, but frankly, cobras at the base of your block of flats seems awfully efficient as methods go.

Great Blue

It was like a cartoon. I was boldly leading my half of the rather large class from a private Vancouver boys' school out to the bridge. I was confident of being able to show them a stretch of water bristling with frogs. I looked to my right and stopped, my mouth open and with a sweep of my arm I signalled them all to stop and be quiet. They all bumped into one another. The adults crept forward, equally awed. I thought it was about to fly off with its pterodactyl lope, but it simply moved and then stood, motionless.
The frogs of course, had gone. Most likely into the belly of that heron.

Every teacher knows that the more outrageous the name a child is given, the more bizarre its behaviour.
And there are some names, maybe they weren't even names before someone first labelled a child with them, which will necessitate that those parents are pretty much contracted into paying for their kid's education, owing to the propensity towards perpetual torment of such children by the average state school pupil.

Today, we had a child who ticked both of those boxes. Let's just say that the child was named after the type of heavenly being that accompany the Cherubim around the throne of the Deity. Yep.
'But...isn't that....plural?' asked Carmen.
'Yep.'
Hmmm....

Now I'm not going to explain this, you'll either know, or you'll not know, but you don't want to be telling Sig Hansen that you have a court date that you thought you'd be back for, when he's halfway through a trip. No siree Bob, you don't wanna be doing that.

On Friday afternoon, Alex and I put some props out for the seeds programme. One of those props was a plastic parachute man, the sort of thing you might get from a cracker. Cheap and cheerful.
And yet every time this particular prop gets put out, it is stolen. And lo! By Monday morning, it had disappeared.

Schwing.

Wasn't Alan Rickman the ultimate Sheriff of Nottingham? I mean wasn't he even better than the actual sheriff? And by the actual sheriff I mean Alan Wheatley, who played opposite Richard Greene in the old black and white series,
'Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen,
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, with his band of men,
Feared by the bad, loved by the good, Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Robin Hood.'
Yeah, that one, all steely grey hair and pointy evil looks.

But now.....(well for us, I know that for Brits it's old news)....isn't Keith Allen the most amazing and ultimate Sheriff of Nottingham EVER?!?

I rest my case.

Bogwalker

One of those long Mondays.
Programmes have started.
This morning was the first in our 'Bogwalker' series, a drop-in programme for the general public. Frankly, none of us expected anyone to turn up, but they did, and we ran over.
Shaw TV didn't, but I was cool with that.
Alex and I had to scramble to get ready for the afternoon's school session.

When the school was leaving, one of the accompanying adults came and asked me if I were a biologist, 'because I really know what I'm talking about.'
'Nope, I'm just a teacher,' I said, and then realised that I have often replied with that. Just a teacher. Why is that not as good as a biologist? Or anything else for that matter. And you know what? I know the stuff I'm teaching and that's about it, but she thought I knew more because I am a teacher, and I create an impression of confidence.
And I don't mean to be disingenuous, I was flattered by the complement.

I booked a long overdue hair appointment, then had to unbook it because I had forgotten Wednesday evening's meeting.

After writers' group, Kevin and I watched the pilot of 'Aliens in America' the series that has been partly filmed in the school opposite us and some small part of episode five at our Nature House. I liked it. I found the central character very amusing and sympathetic, Kevin was less impressed.
I hope we get to week five at any rate.

Deborah

I have been writing a long story for some time now. I read it at my writers' group and to be honest, I prioritise everything else but, even though it gives me a great deal of pleasure to write, and generally speaking only write the next part when it's my turn to read. We only read a maximum of 2,500 words at a time, so progress is rather slow.

The story is about a small town on the south coast of Britain, loosely based on Pompey, the town is called 'Horse-sur-mer' so there is a back story even to that. The action centres on a group of women who live in an Edwardian house divided into flats and on other key players in the town. Most of these people are women. There is nothing unusual about having a chief police officer, a mayor and a vicar who are women, the unusual aspect is that they are all in the same town. Someone once pointed this out to me as though it were a bad thing. Bizarre.

Last Monday it was my turn to read and I needed to name my church. I thought it would be amusing and appropriate to the town for the church to be named after a prominent woman in the Old Testament rather than a Saint - the church had originally been named for Saint Brigantia (Brigid) who had been decanonised - so the church is named 'The Blessed Deborah'.
I was however, quite surprised that no-one in the group, including those who attend church, had heard of the judge, Deborah.
Now on the one hand, I get that children do not do RE as a subject at school here, and yet I know I have discussed Deborah with one of my American friends in the past, for whom that is also true.

But they did seem to enjoy the idea of the Blessed Deborah, especially as Saint Brigantia is still watching over the congregation from the windows.

I believe there is a message in Judges 5 - I live in hope in any case.
Deborah had summoned Barak and told him to take ten thousand soldiers to Mount Tabor, and she would arrange it so that he won a great victory.
Barak is a bit of a weenie, so he says that he'll only go if she does, to which she replies,
'I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera (commander of the army who was oppressing the Israelites) into the hand of a woman.'
Oh well, Barak did defeat the army itself, but only because Deborah came with, and a woman (Jael) dispatched Sisera.

So tonight, not Deborah, but the new series of Dexter starts on TV.
Oh joyous bliss.

Sweet Fanny Adams

Rather an inappropriate picture, yesterday's sunshine has given way to rain today. Nil desperandum though, it's amazing how a little trip to Old Navy can brighten things up.

A little Pomp and Circumstance sent by Sleepy however, soon had the waterworks full on. Can't beat it.
Holy Haddock, I tried embedding the actual video in there and it took over the whole page, so I've had to edit it back to just a link.

Dubya, meanwhile, has been further annoying the rest of the world with his inability to grasp the idea of climate change and the fact that he has to do something about it.
Always, as the article suggests, a divisive subject between him and Tony, the gap is now widening and deepening. But Dubya acknowledges that there are challenges, and says that the US takes them seriously. Bollocks he does. I have no idea why he even bothers to protest. Why doesn't he simply sign up for everything and then ignore it as he usually does. There's sweet Fanny Adams anyone can do - witness the whole Canadian lumber fisaco. It didn't matter which international court told him to pay back the money, he just pretended that if he thought he was invisible then no-one could see him. And if he thinks he is invincible then no-one can touch him.

Back in New Series land, the second episode of the new Kelsey Grammar comedy, 'Back to You' still makes me think that they only have their B team (at best) working on the scripts. Lame, predictable lines.

'SVU' feels like everything has been sparkled up, things were going seriously downhill during the previous series, and Olivia has the cutest hair yet.

'Cane', starring Jimmy Smits, Hector Elizondo, Rita Moreno and Attia of the Julii, looks good, hot, Hispanic and sexy but hasn't yet engaged. We'll see.

'Big Shots' is another of those shows about rich people, and when I say people, I mean men. The men are about making money and getting on in the big old tricksy world of business, the women look nice. Not nice in the Helen Mirren type of way, more the Malibu Barbie way.

Vampires abound. Sadly, in this case, the Canadian 'Blood Ties' is the one which seems formulaic and lightweight and largely dependent on Kyle Schmid's ability to smoulder whilst the American 'Moonlight' looks deeper and darker and a lot more stylish.
I mean, in my opinion, there can never be too many vampire shows, but let's push back those boundaries, let's boldly go where no vampire has gone before.
That's the ticket.

Dawn, if you're reading this, have a wonderful birthday tomorrow dear friend. The next one of us to turn half a century. As I will not tire of repeating, 1957, a great, great vintage.

Gaze

The temperature today was perfect for me. I have no idea what it was but I'm thinking maybe 11 or 12. The weather was sunny and the temperature was cool, with just an edge to it. Wearing a jumper I felt cold, but just comfortably so. Perfect.

To increase the perfection, Alex and I had to set out some props for the programmes that start next week, and we came across this little glade, the light was so perfect and there were several patches of Fly Agaric.
Later we went over to the east side of the park. Few people actually go over there but yet we found this little Blair Witch house.

We looked all around it, but there were no clues as to its origins.

The day before yesterday I received a letter in the post, unusual in itself. The letter bore the stamp of Bard on the Beach but this didn't strike me as unusual since we order tickets from them, albeit online ...... so maybe it should have seemed odd.

I opened it and was surprised to learn that I had become a member and generously donated to this non-profit organisation.
'Oh dear,' I said to Kevin, 'I'm rather afraid I've received a letter that should have gone to someone else, which is a pity because it the letter promises all kinds of good things, sit on Christopher Gaze's knee at the performance of my choice, wear a crown of autumn leaves while watching, be on their Christmas card list,' and then I found a tax receipt, and I was surprised to learn that Kevin's and my names would be put in next year's programme, in Kevin's surname. This mistake was beginning to look a little specific.

Finally I remembered that Austen had told me that my birthday present would arrive at some point. After making enquiries I discovered that this was it, and a most amazing one too.

There are all kinds of benefits to this, bearing in mind that I do adore Bard on the Beach, and there really is a handwritten addition to the letter by Christopher Gaze, the director.
Thus, I'm excited already. I have been to the website and know that I want to see all four of next year's plays. Titus Andronicus, King Lear, Twelfth Night and the Tempest.
My cup runneth over.

Watch

Here's a question - is a watch merely jewellery today? Fewer and fewer people seem to wear one, most of us use our mobile phones to tell the time, and for a fair amount of our day in any case, we are in some way connected to a computer. So when people do choose to wear them, is it just for decoration?

The new show that Canadian Karen mentioned in yesterday's comments, 'Dirty, Sexy Money' is like nails on a blackboard - for those of us old enough to just about remember the blackboard that is.

There are some superb actors in it, the deliciously evil Donald Sutherland, the divine Jill Clayburgh, the brilliant Peter Krause and one of the lesser Baldwins. And it is well-scripted. But a programme about the pathetic squabblings of a bunch of rich people is just annoying. You want to watch it and yet, you don't. Scratch, screech.

We had a volunteer come in to see us today. She had been working during the summer for a Christian Environmental group. Alex and I discussed with her the inherent responsibility that all of us feel is part of any form of Christian worship, 'wise stewards of our own inheritance'.
And yet how far is the Christianity of George W Bush et alia from this? They will claim, no, proclaim loudly that they are Christians and that everything they do is inspired by God and yet they do nothing to honour that part of our duty to do everything we can to not destroy that inheritance.

And now we will watch Ugly Betty. I'm sure it will, as ever, be superb, but watch this space.

News and TV

Autumn TV. Yes. Really, everyone is entitled to my opinion, so here it is.

'Reaper', caring parents have sold their son's soul to the devil before conception. On his 18th birthday, the devil does what the devil does, (and if TV is in any way accurate, the Mafia, do too) and collects his due.
Amusing. There's a chunky full-on side-kick who is excellent. This one could shape up well.

'Gossip Girl' could disappear in my opinion, it seemed very lightweight and un-engaging. But.... it will probably stay, it's full of beautiful people.

'Race to Mars' however, did engage and was full of ordinary-looking people, not in their twenties and from an international community. Nicely done.

In 'Journeyman', we have to put up with yet another British actor, Rome's Kevin McKidd, doing an American accent. Somehow, it just seems wrong. I'm sure the accent itself is sound as a pound (;) ) maybe it's just seeing McKidd wearing present-day clothes and not being gritty.

The new series of 'Bones' is off to a good start. I get the feeling the ante will be upped on the sexual tension between Bones and Booth. And Hodges has better hair, which is a definite plus.

Better hair also in the second series of the superb 'How I met your mother'. Alyson Hannigan has darkened up and Jason Segel as Marshal seems to have lost weight and grown his hair a bit - which looks better. Dougie Howser as Barney still steals the show,

'Corner Gas' has never disappointed and this series looks set to be no exception.
We have the first eps of the new series of 'House' and 'Boston Legal' still to watch.

I can't really keep up with the international news either. Fortunately, on Monday, we had a short lesson about Burma from one of our writing group who had been there at a previous time of turmoil, but I still can't get my head around the whole thing.

Mad, bad, Jihad Amadjinehad, or whatever his name is, what is he like? A complete nutjob, but he keeps popping up on TV making ridiculous claims, will no-one rid us of this turbulent traffic-warden?

You don't need more than the knowledge of what HIV stands for to know that the virus can't last long outside of the human body. Therefore the lunacy of the Catholic Archbishop of Mozambique who is claiming that European condom manufacturers are out to get Africans by putting HIV in condoms, is simply laughable. Frankly, they don't need any help, many African countries are doing a pretty slap-up job of self-destruction.

I am using hyphens. Yep, they are endangered. It seems that even the Shorter OED has dropped it in about 16,000 words. So while one bastion of conservatism, the Anglican church, affects the lives of real people, and turns backwards into the darkness, upholder of standards, the OED caves to the ignorant.

Bleeding typical.

Autumn

Autumn has been creeping up since mid-August, and then suddenly, and in a technical sense, it's here. This morning, after a night-time rainfall, the huge spiders' webs in the Park were bejewelled orbs or lacy baskets. We saw the first fly agaric toadstools of the season and the frogs were sucking the last few therms of heat out of the air before they have to hunker down in the mud at the bottom of the pond.

And on TV, suddenly the drought of summer has been replaced by a downpour of new programmes, or new series of old favourites. But the trick is to save some for later. Don't watch it all at once, because just when they have you hooked, they have a week or two of desert. Sort of like the reverse of an Indian Summer.

Sandals have been replaced by boots. At the weekend I put away the summer dresses that I never wore in any case.

At work, Kris gave me a research paper to read, but fortunately she explained it first. Rough-skinned newts are prey for garter snakes, but the newts produce a neuro-toxin. The snakes have developed immunity to the neuro-toxin. So the newts have upped the ante, they have developed a stronger neuro-toxin in the areas where they are prey to garter snakes. Fascinating stuff, but with a message. Never lick a rough-skinned newt, you'll only do it once.

And the leaves are falling.

Bonza

I always liked Steve Irwin, but today at the pond, I really got him. When I saw this garter snake lying on a raft of foliage under some blueberry bushes in the pond, I just wanted to jump up and down saying,
'What a beauty!'

And it was a day for snakes. We were given two new juveniles, Badger and Racer. I left them curled up around each other under the heating lamp.

Haze

There is a haze of half- remembered conversations or posts into which my mind dips.

I see Dave Grohl on TV. He's made it, I think, he's made it without Kurt Cobain, and did I talk to someone about this? Austen perhaps. What would have happened had Kurt not died? Would Grohl have spread his wings and flown? Would Cobain have gone on producing amazing music?

In church this morning, the curate wants a little children's moment in the middle of the service, so I decide for no particular reason to read the Book of Esther while this is going on. Maybe from the haze I remember Sleepy telling me about the Purim, or perhaps it was a teacher from one of the Jewish schools.
I can see that Esther is a hero for the Jewish people. She uses her womanly wiles to foil the evil plotting of Haman against her father Mordecai and the Jews in general. More or less salts the earth behind him too, the Lord may have said,
'Vengeance is mine,' but Esther had her people allowed to go out and kill all the enemies who had been harbouring bad thoughts about the tribe of Benjamin. Fair enough really.
But hang on. In order for Esther to be in any position of power in the first place, her husband had chucked out his wife Vashti for not bowing to his wishes. Furthermore, he points out that if he lets Vashti get away with not obeying him, all women will think it's ok to do that.
So while you've got to admire Esther for working the system, spare a thought for Vashti who was basically a feminist.

On TV, just before Dave Grohl, there was a programme about the science of Superman. It seems that Superman travels at such a speed that the difference of speed between Lois Lane hitting the ground and Superman catching her would be so great that the more traumatic and painful thing would be to be caught by Superman.
Still, if it makes the guy look good.....

On BBC Canada yesterday, I caught the beginning of another series about British history - something along the lines of 'Buildings that Changed/Built Britain'. A historian called Simon Thurley, wrapped up against the Welsh wind, walked and talked and told us a tale of how Edward the First quashed a Welsh uprising led by Llewellyn ap Griffidd. It was mesmerising. My problem, and again, that conversation haze reminds me I've talked to someone about this, is that I have been trying to follow the Canadian series 'Historylands' where the format is not that dissimilar and yet....it succeeds in being as dry as dust.
Why? What the hell is it?

Yesterday I wanted to watch the episode entitled 'Head-smashed-in-buffalo-jump' about the place of the same name.
The First Nations story about how the place got its name, took all of two minutes, young warrior waits beneath a cliff to see how the buffalo fall as they come thundering over the cliff, gets a hoof to the head and it's all over for him. About three minutes after that I had to abandon it.

Perhaps it's an autumn haze. I think today is the first day. It's also the first day I have heard the noise of footie being played on the pitches opposite our house.

And it's also the birthday of my friend Eve.
Happy 50th Eve! 1957 was such a good vintage.

Class

In the sixth form at school we did a non- examination subject called Current Events. In the days before league tables for schools, one criterion for judging them was how many pupils made Oxbridge every year, so I guess they were preparing us in case we wanted to study PPE. The careers department in any case consisted solely of advising you about which university to go to.

And in Current Events we were told that the class system no longer existed in Britain. Five years down the line I would read the only Jilly Cooper book I would ever read - well so far - 'Class'. Thus I discovered that class was indeed alive and kicking.
Sad to say that experience down the years has led me to continue to believe that the trashy novelist was correct and the blue stocking - well just wishful thinking.

Rab Butler, architect of the 1944 Education Act which raised the school leaving age to 15 and gave free secondary schooling to all, certainly changed things in Britain, it was a deliberate step towards equality and I can see that class wasn't what it was before the war.
Education, and not money, has always been the key to class mobility in Britain. It's why we don't truly value celebrity. We will revere our great actors for their skill, and we look down our noses at those we consider unskilled, though wealthy.

It's difficult for those who haven't grown up in Britain to fully grasp how deeply ingrained this is in us. And it is equally difficult for those of us who did to grasp the ideals of a largely classless society. One where wealth itself is what people value and not class and education.

All of this preamble is an attempt to explain one level in the British class system. Not the chav, that's relatively easy to describe, a way of dressing, of behaving, beautifully depicted by Miss Vicky Pollard.

No, what I want to define is the 'Pikey'.

The working class in British society is essentially seen as just that, not that everyone who works is working class, and you can be working class and not work. British soaps such as Eastenders and Corrie are about working class people.

The Pikey isn't working class. They are lower class, but they are not decent and honest. The word is synonymous with 'gypo' although not in the sense that these people are actually gypsies. Some may be settled travellers. They may be part of large families, known by name who are responsible for petty crime and whose honour, if any exists, is 'among thieves', they will call upon members of the larger family but have no honour per se.

Anyone who would like to help me in this attempt to define the term pikey, please do, I am struggling.
You just know when someone is one, somehow, you just know, and you wouldn't trust them as far as you could throw them.

Coppers for Copper

Yet another series of...well not unfortunate, and in fact totally unconnected, events.

Walking to work I turned my ankle in exactly the same place as last week. Because I have to walk in the cycle lane, and in order to minimise my chances of death by cell-phone-using zombie motorists, I walk as far away from them as possible, ergo, I slipped off the tarmac onto the grass verge.

When I arrived at work, it turned out that Marco Polo, tiny garter snake, had kicked the bucket. Who knows why, maybe it had become too cold for him although we had put heating lamps above his tank.

Yesterday, the floodlights that illuminate our car park at work, had all the copper wire stripped out of them. A blue van was spotted. The RCMP came. Today, we saw three suspicious looking men walking around the park, they were carrying heavy rucksacks and they got into the same blue van. We took their number and called the RCMP. They came, but told us that if we insist on calling the non-emergency line, then they won't ever catch the thieves.....as it were.
They also took all the cable out of the streetlamps in Shell Road, the criminals, not the coppers, presumably without anyone noticing.
The Nature Park I can understand, after hours, after dark, they're pretty much only watched by the bats and owls, but a busy connector road?

Kris went to the freezer to get some ice for my ankle. She found actual food in there, all of which she chucked out and the dead animals remained. Go figure. To be honest, I wouldn't eat anything that had been in that freezer.
In the Nature House I could hear a mum drawing her kid's attention to the 'big puppy' or coyote as we call it.

In the afternoon, Alex and I went out looking for frogs and water bugs. We went to the small river known as 'the ditch'. It was indeed jumping with life, far more than our pond. I got stuck in the mud and Alex had to help me out. He actually seemed rather pleased to be out slopping around in the mud in the pouring rain. I like that in an assistant.

Kevin came to pick me up from work. My ankle was caning, although not very swollen. I had a hot bath and then settled on the sofa. The plan was to decide whether we'd drive down and across the border later, but once warm and dry with my foot up.....we decided to stay put.

I think I might break out the Horlicks that Sleepy brought over, or maybe the whisky.

Bowen Island

For those of you who are planning your next trip, here is a little taster of what is just a fifteen minute ferry ride away from Horseshoe Bay on the North Shore.
This is Killarney Lake on Bowen Island. There is also an area of East Vancouver called Killarney, no idea whether or not Mavaureen is the flower of either.














Some of the coastal areas of BC are temperate rainforest and Crippen Regional Park is a good example of this, on the forest floor, sword ferns, moss, mushrooms, plants that need little light because the forest canopy is where it's all happening.















There is a point in Killarney lake where it was dammed quite a while ago and now it appears that these trees are damned. The petrified forest stands and waits, it's green life of leaves over and its home to birds and animals yet to come. These trees become wildlife trees and they live a second life longer and with more impact on the ecosystem than the first.































Here at Snug Cove they sometimes use another method of transport. (You may need to click on the photo to see what I'm talking about.) Just as well. I was told that there were no petrol stations on Bowen Island. I'm not sure whether this is true, but I'm prepared to believe it.
I don't believe they have any secondary schools. When we were waiting for the ferry back, a huge flock of teenage children disembarked from the incoming one and filled up three waiting school buses.
Snug Cove has a cluster of little artisan shops, a gift shop, a gallery, a cafe, a dress shop with beautiful individual designs and a couple of interesting-looking restaurants.

...In Which Nothing Happens....

Nothing happened today. Nothing happening happens from time to time, it's as though the world takes a snooze.

Nothing happened in newsland either, it can't have done because the Guardian reported that
liberties had been taken over the naming of the Blue Peter cat. Apparently 'Socks' wasn't the viewers' first choice. Some poor sod was sacked over this.

When nothing happens, the English-speaking world turns by default to the weather. The sky here was ...well, sky-blue all day. The temperature was cool however. So with the weather being cooler, the bedroom window was closed. The darker morning and the lack of loud noises outside mean it's more difficult to get up in the morning, there's less time between waking up and the alarm going off.

In Jam and Jerusalem, there are no pasties for the picnic because Rosie has forgotten to order them, so the ladies are cooking them,
'I'll have no Ginchers on my picnic,' says Eileen, so Rosie is measuring ingredients against a swede.
Thank goodness we finally have it here.