…and breathe!
You are currently browsing the archive for the Life as we know it category.
Tags: Celebration, Modern life, Politics
Sean Connery
1930 – 2020
RIP
There is very little that can be said in addition to all that has been and will be printed on the subject of the sad passing of Sir Sean Connery. To those of us who grew up in the 1960’s he was an icon – a legend – a larger than life character who somehow managed to encapsulate the dreams and ambitions of that age… almost certainly without any intention of so doing.
There will be many lists of favourite or best performances: my two top Connery films – “The Man Who Would be King” (an incomparable pairing with Michael Caine) and – unsurprisingly – “Goldfinger”.
In later life even a minor cameo in some otherwise mediocre picture would almost inevitably imbue the project with an added sheen, a sparkle that it might not otherwise have deserved at all. And should you think this mere hyperbole – well, you may be right – but there was a world in which Sean Connery was alive… and now there is not.
A sad day…
There is no Victoria Fringe Festival this year, for reasons which will require no further elucidation. Indeed, fringe festivals are – in this exceedingly difficult time – exceedingly thin on the ground.
In common, no doubt, with other similar organising companies Intrepid Theatre juggled for a while notions of alternative festival forms (online only – local companies in carefully socially isolated venues…) but in the end had to admit defeat. One of the major problems is that many small fringe companies can only make their festival visits work financially if they can hop from one such to another, filling their summers with a brief international tour of fringes. Economies of scale – dontcha know…
Well – no-one is doing international fringe tours this year – so that all went out of the window. Intrepid – like many small companies heavily reliant on grant income – is having to work hard just to survive, without taking on further major challenges. Kudos to them – say I – for keeping the ship afloat.
So – the gentle reader will doubtless be musing – at a time of year when things are normally pretty frenetic, the Immigrant must be able to kick-back and enjoy the dog days sitting on the deck, chilled white in hand, enjoying the late August sunshine.
Not a bit of it! I am busier than ever and cannot frankly imagine how my fringe duties might have been fitted in at all.
The chief source of such busyness is my rapidly upcoming computer literacy teaching. Term starts in a couple of weeks and, because the course is being taught entirely online, all of the course structures and materials must be re-designed and re-written accordingly. It is one thing in normal times for students to slumber gently for ninety minutes in a lecture theatre whilst I drone on about the good-old days of computing (after all, when I am done they can all head off to the cafeteria for cheap sustenance and the chance to ‘diss’ my efforts) but quite another being taught online. In the comforts (or otherwise) of their own homes not a one of them would put up with an hour and a half of a disembodied voice emanating from the equivalent of a Zoom session. They would more likely just go back to bed and do what students do best.
No – the canny lecturer just has to get a whole bunch more canny than ever in order to keep them engaged. I will report back as to how it all goes.
My other busyness is much more fun. Since The Chanteuse and I discovered how to record with each other safely at arms-length we have been rampaging our way through our back-catalog of as-yet unrecorded tracks – trying to complete them before she too has to go back to work in September. Though I say it myself, we have been doing some great work. There is much to do on the mixing and mastering fronts – not to mention all the other bits and pieces that go to make up a release – but we have an album’s worth of material and we aim to get something out into the big wide world this autumn.
Now – that is exciting!
Tags: Anam Danu, Fringe, Intrepid, Music, teaching, Theatre, work
I thought it only fair that I should add quick addendum to my previous missive on the difficulties of turning out blog content using WordPress 5.5 (the latest update at the time of writing) – should one be wedded (as am I) to the ‘Classic’ editor rather than whatever it is that WordPress want us to adopt now.
My complaint (should you have missed that message) was that the ‘Classic’ editor (which WordPress is trying to phase out) ceased to work after the recent upgrade to WordPress 5.5.
After further research online I have ascertained that the problem actually lies elsewhere – probably with one or more third party plugins that get referenced by the editor.
OK – now this is going to get a tiny bit technical, but I promise to keep it as simple as possible.
These older plugins had continued to work across previous upgrades because the WordPress build itself used to include a library called Jquery.Migrate – the purpose of which was to provide a mechanism for out of date code to continue to operate even if using deprecated methods. WordPress have now removed that library – hence the pain.
Some good-hearted folk from the Open-Source community have kindly and generously provided a workaround in the shape of a new plugin – Jquery.Migrate.Helper. This gets tools such a the Classic Editor working again – albeit with a constant background cacophony of warning messages.
WordPress seems to be determined to be shot of the whole affair, however, which doesn’t bode well for future upgrades… regardless of the veritable howls of protest from around the community.
Now – what else does that remind you of?
Tags: Technology, WordPress, Writing
There was an item missing from my recent list of COVID-19 pandemic losses and gains. That item was – counter-intuitively – both a loss and a gain… indeed, it was a gain because it was a loss!
Cryptic – huh?!
The fact is – since the beginning of March I have lost a healthy (see what I did there?) amount of weight – which is, naturally, a significant gain.
Now – I am aware that for some people the lock-downs enforced throughout the COVID world have had the opposite effect – and that the loss of gym sessions and other physical exercise has led to less than pleasant effects. My apologies to anyone to whom this applies (and indeed anyone else who takes offence!) should my gentle celebration come over as being in any way… smug!
Clearly I have been lucky. Now – I do habitually weigh a little less in the summer than I do when clad in my winter ‘overcoat’ and though my regular fitness sessions at our local leisure centre were abruptly curtailed in March I have continued to attend classes… first online via Zoom and more recently in the open air in the rather lovely park adjacent to the library in Sidney – but I don’t feel that these influences are great enough to have caused this difference.
No – something else is definitely going on. This is what I think has happened:
Being (mostly) retired and no longer tied to a single weekly grocery shop I have been in the habit of popping out on a day by day basis as and when we decide what to eat. Further – my two days a week at the college and my visits to fitness classes usually entailed the partaking of a coffee (or two) as part of the process. I have to admit that I had rather fallen into the habit of rewarding my endeavours with a little ‘treat’ of some variety.
Of course, under COVID one goes grocery shopping as little as possible – once a week or less – and without classes to attend (either as instructor or instructee) the notion of a reward becomes redundant.
There you have it. Cutting out the little treats helps Jack to lose some weight!
But does it make him a dull boy?
Tags: COVID-19, Exercise, Food & Drink, Health
…you lose some!
My last posting celebrated our recent tenth anniversary dinner at the Deep Cove Chalet at the top end of the Saanich peninsula. Though obviously meaningful in its own right this event carried an extra significance in that it was our first meal out at a restaurant since the COVID-19 lock-down took effect in mid-March. We have somewhat lost the habit of dining out and it felt slightly surreal to be doing so again. We were glad in the circumstances that we got to dine outside on the terrace; we are still not sure how we feel about repeating the experience indoors.
In any case the evening started me thinking about all of those good things that have been lost to us all in this peculiar summer as a result of the pandemic. I am not in this instance referring to those who have tragically lost loved ones, friends or colleagues (or even of those who have themselves been ill) – our hearts go out to them all and those that we know are very much in our thoughts.
No – in this case I am thinking of the everyday things that have disappeared or been put on indefinite hold and have as such left a hole in our lives. In addition to dining out and gathering together with friends we very much miss going to the theatre and the loss of the live music scene is keenly felt; at this time of the year we would normally be enjoying the weekly music in the park series in nearby Brentwood Bay.
Travel is not so much missed – the thought of flying at the moment gives me the shivers – but the pleasures of planning the next trip are. I do, of course, also miss live sport. International cricket has recently resumed in the UK – played in empty grounds and with the players essentially quarantined for the duration of the series. Rugby has yet to restart and is sorely missed. We have still not yet seen the end of the Six Nations tournament that was so abruptly truncated in March.
As is my nature I also fell to wondering if any positives could be identified from this much disrupted period. I believe that there are. Not having to commute to work is a definite plus, as is being able to spend more time at home. We are fortunate in that we have not – as have some – gone stir-crazy as a result of a paucity of things to do. We have both been busy, busy, busy… (in my case this includes the writing of many new songs and the re-writing much of my course material for the autumn).
Some people’s gardens have had more attention than they have had for a good long while and one of my great joys has been just how much more time we have spent entertaining in our garden (in a suitably socially distanced manner, of course). In some years this wonderful garden does not seem to get enough use – what with one thing and another. This year has more than made up for any previous lack.
Of course, we have not yet arrived at the hardest part of the lock-down. At the start of it we were all in a state of some shock and just wanted to hunker down and stay out of trouble. By the time we started getting really restless again the summer was upon us and there we pleasant diversions – even if only just outside our doors. Now we are heading rapidly towards the autumn and the winter – with no relief currently in sight.
I fear that it is going to be a long, hard winter…
Tags: COVID-19, entertaining, Friends, Gardens, Music, Summer, Theatre
What the heck?!
When I stopped working in London five years ago and The Girl and I upped sticks and scampered across the pond (and a continent) to the west coast of Canada, I firmly expected to be able to spend the years ahead responding to queries as to the nature of my occupation by gleefully announcing that I was happily retired.
And that is pretty much what I did (and was) for the first two and a half years…
Then – for reasons which those who really want to know are directed to the postings of that period to to this online journal – I decided that I needed a job. Not a real, full-time, balls-to-the-wall sort of a job – just something to give me a sense of purpose and to earn a little pin money.
At first nothing suitable (ie, that met my exacting criteria) seemed to be available. Then – at the point at which I really needed to make a decision – the perfect opportunity arose. A position teaching on term contracts at a post-secondary college here in Victoria looked to be ideal; my background in education and a forty-year career in IT (the subject in which I was to instruct) equipped me suitably well for the task and the notion of teaching a single course – two days a week and then only for two terms of the academic year (keeping the summers free for other pursuits) – looked like a gift from the gods…
…which for the next two years, it was!
Then – half way through this spring (winter) term – along came the novel Corona virus.
Along with everyone else I was immediately obliged to effect a rapid transition from the sort of face to face teaching with which I was familiar to a rapidly cobbled-together form of online teaching – for the last three weeks of the term and for the remaining exams. I think that it is fair to say that we just about got away with it.
Now – here we are in the early days of my wonderful summer off and I have myself (along with many others) been obliged to go back to school.
It became very clear that we are not going to be teaching face to face this autumn (fall) term – and possibly not for the remainder of the coming academic year. What we effected in the winter term was just about ok as a stop gap, but rebuilding courses for online-only delivery involves an entirely different skill set to anything that I have learned before – not to mention a great deal of time and effort. I am now attending online seminars, classes and conferences – as well as doing a great deal of reading – preparatory to starting work on converting what was once a quite familiar course structure into something suitable for this brave new world.
It is impossible not to ask myself:
“What the heck am I doing? I am supposed to be retired. Do I really want – and need – to be taking all this on at this time of my life?”
I suspect that the regular reader already knows the answer to that question…
Tags: college, COVID-19, Retirement, teaching, work
Where we live…
Tags: British Columbia, Modern life, Victoria
It is really not that far short of two months since I wrote this blog piece in which I described the business necessarily involved in a visit to one’s local grocery store (supermarket). I ended that post with the expression of a fear of just how long the restrictions then newly imposed might need to remain in place – and of how the public might react when that fact became apparent.
Here we are two months down the line and it is fascinating to observer how what then seemed like an emergency provision has after all become what is described by that increasingly hackneyed phrase – the ‘New Normal’. The business of grocery shopping here is still essentially as I described it then, but with significant improvements to the first ‘draft’. Other things have changed as well – some of them less expected.
The whole bulk-food section has gone (to be replaced by shelf-loads of properly packaged offerings) as have the fresh fish and meat counters. The one-way system around the store has been refined and the checkouts now have plexiglass screens not only between the masked operatives and the customers but also between adjacent lines. Customers have also become more adept at the delicate dance of avoidance that we all perform around the aisles. Finally, even those of us ideologically opposed to the practice have adopted the use of ‘tapping’ at the credit card machines so that no direct touching is required.
The biggest practical change, however, occurred a couple of weeks back. I had been going to the store once a week early in the morning and queuing with all of the other anxious shoppers. Then – without any warning – the queues vanished. On no occasion since then have I had to wait at all to enter the store – I have just swanned right on in.
Other elements that are rapidly becoming ritualised in the ‘2N’ include the return home. Mine goes like this:
- Carry the disposable (paper) bags of shopping into the house. Place on the floor.
- Remove the disposable gloves that I wear in the store and wash hands.
- Remove each item from the bags and carefully wipe it down using hand sanitiser and kitchen towel.
- Dispose of bags.
- Wash hands.
- Using hand sanitiser and towel wipe down steering wheel, door handles and other controls in the SUV.
- Wipe down front door handles and locks.
- Wipe down keys, man-bag and glasses.
- Wash hands.
- Put away groceries.
Now – some of this may seem over the top… or not – depending on how rigorous the gentle reader has determined is necessary in his or her particular circumstances. We wear cloth face masks when we go to stores. Others don’t.
It is somewhat depressing to think that this might be how we live now for an extended period, but we can certainly do it. It is the other things that feel to be a greater loss – socialising with others – dining out – going to the theatre – music in the parks and suchlike…
Those I really do miss…
Tags: COVID-19, crisis, Health, Modern life, Shopping
This weekend has seen the seventy fifth anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe, the which was celebrated on May 8th 1945 on what was given the soubriquet – ‘VE Day’ – or ‘V-E Day’ – or ‘V Day’ – or ‘Victory Day’ – depending whereabouts on the continent one was.
That this auspicious anniversary should occur in the midst of a global pandemic has, naturally, caused some controversy, since the public celebrations that might have been thought to be the order of the day could not reasonably take place. In the UK at least I can’t help feeling that – even had the situation not been as it is – there would have been some disputes as to the nature and relevance of any celebrations.
David Lloyd George said of the end of the Great War in Europe:
“At eleven o’clock this morning came to an end the cruellest and most terrible War that has ever scourged mankind. I hope we may say that thus, this fateful morning, came to an end all wars.”
There are those among us who believe that such a hope should still be the basis of any and all remembrance. In his notable Zurich speech of 1946, Churchill said:
“We must build a kind of United States of Europe. The structure of the United States of Europe, if well and truly built, will be such as to make the material strength of a single state less important.”
There are – sadly – those in the UK who happily forget that VE Day was a celebration of the coming together of a continent of nations to defeat a small group of aggressors amongst its number and that the day itself is celebrated by more than just the plucky Brits. These zealots cleave to the image of Britain standing alone (regardless of the fact that she was backed by a huge world-wide empire and openly looked to the New World for salvation) and would love to see VE Day as a celebration of a victory over Europe rather than for it.
The exceptionalism that the UK currently shares with the US has served both nations poorly in their responses to the current pandemic and one of the rich ironies in the UK is that what remains of the generation that fought and won the war is currently dying miserable deaths in the nation’s ravaged care homes. The inevitable eventual inquiry into this tragedy will doubtless record that there had been a number of warnings in recent years as to just such vulnerabilities, the which were – sadly – ignored by successive careless or mendacious governments.
As is so often the case The Guardian cartoonist – Martin Rowson – manages to express in a single image that which I struggle to express in many words.
This moves me – at least – to tears.
Tags: History, Memories, Politics, Remembrance, WW2
Recent Comments