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Never simple

July 24, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple”

Oscar Wilde

It need hardly be said that the truth is far from being the only thing that is ‘never simple’ and I could – at this point – be referring to any one of a great number of subjects. Those who pursue the many strands of this online delectus will not, however, be surprised at my current target.

As divulged within these meditations but a few posts back, I am currently engaged with the relevant authorities in the pursuit of an application for Canadian citizenship, as well as for the renewal of both my Canadian permanent residence card and my UK passport. Anything connected to citizenship or passports can be guaranteed to conceal a veritable minefield of obstacles, obfuscation, obstruction, obscurement and obduration.

The opening salvoes in this particular engagement were fired back at the start of July and things had reached the point – I surmised – that it was time to sit back and to wait for the inevitable interminable months to pass before anything further happened.

With regard to my UK passport renewal I had – as directed – completed and submitted the online application form and – somewhat nervously – entrusted my current passport to Canada Post (cue sharp intake of breath) in the expectation that it would wing its way back over the pond to Durham (in the UK) whence it had originally come.

Somewhat to my surprise I received, a couple of days ago, an email from the UK Passport Office advising me to do (again?) what I had already done. Naturally I had sent the precious document by recorded delivery, so I was able to check the tracking log. According to Canada Post’s records my passport had been delivered to Durham on July 9th – some two weeks ago. I figured that the best thing to do was to call the UK Passport Office to check that it had – in fact – arrived.

Easier said than done, of course!

Using Skype to make a trans-Atlantic call at a reasonable rate I suffered the expected multiple attempts at connection before finally a ‘ring tone’ was heard and I shortly thereafter found myself listening to the usual robotic instructions. After the familiar ritual of the system refusing to acknowledge that I had in fact pressed the numbers that I had, I reached – on the fourth or fifth attempt – an accommodation with the insensate automaton by which it agreed to connect me with my desired service if I were prepared first to listen to a whole bunch of badly recorded music punctuated by incessant and identical informational missives.

Eventually the call was picked up – not by a real live human (oh no!) but by another machine. This one had but a single purpose in mind. It demanded that I key-in a telephone number on which I could – at some unspecified point in the future – be called back. I could not – naturally – recall the correct recipe for calling Canada from the UK in the first instance, but eventually the machine seemed to be satisfied and abruptly disconnected me.

I thought that I had better check what was likely to happen next, so I approached the InterWebNet with a suitable query to determine what experiences others had had with this ‘service’. I rapidly discovered that my call-back might be anything up to about three days in coming. Given that there is an eight hour time difference between the west coast of Canada and the cathedral city of Durham it further seemed likely that the call would come sometime in the middle of the night – assuming that whoever made the call might not figure out that he – or she – was calling the far side of the world.

The Girl made it clear that this meant one or more nights on the sofa for me as she had no intention of being woken at some god-forsaken hour by a disinterested British bureaucrat.

I was sleeping the sleep of the just at five thirty the following morning when the phone duly rang.

“Good afternoon” – quoth a British voice (betraying the fact that – as suspected – my being a number of time-zones away from Blighty had escaped their notice) – “How can I help?“. The transition from being in deep REM sleep to having to explain why I was calling the far side of world went more successfully than might have been expected and the northern gentleman explained that – though my passport had undoubtedly reached them on July 9th, it would take a further ten to fourteen days for it to be entered into the ‘system’ – and until such time as it had done so the clock did not start ticking on the processing of my application.

There was a brief pause as we each mentally ticked off the two weeks that had already elapsed since my passport had reached Durham.

“I expect it will show up any day now” – he said, slightly unconvincingly. I mentioned that I lived on the west coast of Canada – more than anything to let him know why I felt so exposed as a result of not being in possession of a passport. “Ah!” – he exclaimed, unable to hide a note of triumph in his voice. “If you have sent your passport from abroad it takes three weeks for it to appear on the system!“.

Riiiiiiight!

Oh well – nothing to do but to wait – and to simply swat away any further spurious requests to send back my precious passport.

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Good form…

July 13, 2020 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

…good grief!

Way back in the early days of this journal – May 16th 2012 to be precise – I posted to these pages an entry entitled “A Tough Occupation“. That was the first mention amidst this griffonage of a subject that was to become a major preoccupation over the following three years… my application for Permanent Resident status within Canada.

Should this subject be of the remotest interest to the gentle reader (you might perhaps be engaged upon a similar journey yourself) a subsequent post of May 20th 2015 – entitled “It’s Official!” – not only celebrated the eventual successful outcome of the application but also catalogued all of the prior posts on the subject. Useful – perhaps – should one wish to know just how the long and tortuous process can unfold.

It will not take a degree in rocket science to deduce in short order the motivation for this particular post. It is – after all – exactly one week until the fifth anniversary of our ‘landing’ upon these shores – an occasion that is not without its implications, for once one has been a resident in Canada for five years one may – subject to a variety of other criteria – apply for citizenship. Needless to say this is something that I firmly intend to do.

There are – however – other important things to be addressed first.

I think I was vaguely aware that my Permanent Resident Card was only valid for five years, but in all the excitement of finally being here I did not look too closely at what would need to be done to extend that period. I made the naive assumption that all I would need to do would be to fill out some online application, pay a fee and a new card would rapidly pop into our mailbox.

Nothing so simple!

It turns out that another complex form must be completed (IMM 5444 (09-2019) E) – which demands details on everywhere one has lived since arriving, everywhere one has worked and everywhere one has traveled outwith Canadian borders. The fee must be paid and the receipt submitted, new photos must be taken (in the prescribed format) and signed appropriately by the photographer and copies of primary identification and existing PR card added to the submission. Once this has all been dispatched as directed one can sit back and await the delivery of one’s new card – in nine months time!

What?!

If this weren’t bad enough 2020 also happens to mark the tenth anniversary of my wedding to the Kickass Canada Girl. That is in itself, of course, a significant cause for celebration (on which more in subsequent posts) but another consideration arises therefrom. We took each other’s names when we married and that process entailed acquiring replacement passports. My UK passport thus expires at the end of this year and must also be renewed.

Now – a UK passport can reasonably easily be renewed from Canada (in this age of digital photography) by means of an online application – though the UK Passport Office do their level best to dissuade non-critical applications in these times of plague (presumably once it has become critical they would shrug their digital shoulders and suggest that the application should have been made sooner!). Anyway – I applied – not wanting to be without any means of moving between my birth and adoptive countries.

The problem is, however, that the UK Passport Office requires one to physically return one’s old passport before they will process the online application – thus surely rendering this modernised online version somewhat redundant. As a result one finds oneself worrying lacking in international documentation for an unspecified length of time…

…and I have not yet begun even to look at the citizenship application!

Sigh!

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Absence of…

February 15, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

“Absence weakens mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind blows out candles and kindles fires.

Rochefoucauld

Those gentle readers who pay attention to such things will be wondering why this journal has not thus far this season featured its usual pithy observations on the great sport of Rugby Union – this, after all, being the time of year that the fabulous Six Nations tournament takes place in Europe.

Of course, those who not only subscribe to these musings but also follow the sport themselves will be very aware of one of the reasons for my silence on the subject – that being the abject performance – both on and off the field – of the Scots.

Actually – that is unfair. To be certain the Finn Russell affair shows everyone involved in a poor light and to lose one’s star player in such a manner goes way beyond careless, but on the field the Scots have actually looked considerably more competitive than they sometimes do. There is no getting round the fact that, however unluckily, they lost to the Irish in Dublin and then had the misfortune of coming up against both the English and storm Ciara at Murrayfield. The English handled the atrocious conditions marginally better than did the Scots and deserved to win, but it was not the game that either side – nor the partisan crowd – wanted to see.

The Scots absolutely must win well in Rome against the Azzuri next time out or things will look really grim. The French seem to have been re-invigorated this year and the final game against a smarting Wales at the Principality is no-one’s idea of a stroll in the park.

The other reason for the relative quiet on the Rugby front this year is that the Americas Rugby Championship – the North and South American loose equivalent of the Six Nations – has been moved from its now customary berth in February to the summer months. This year the tournament will be played in August and September. It will certainly be good not to have to sit on the cold aluminium bench seating at Westhills, nor to have to watch the players struggling with the snow covered pitch, but it remains to be seen how this traditionally winter sport transfers to the summer months.

I will let you know.

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Following curiosity

November 29, 2019 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“Doing a documentary is about discovering, being open, learning, and following curiosity.”

Spike Jonze

In the UK there is currently a general election taking place. This is not – of course – news to those who reside there. Canada has just been through a very pale shadow of what the UK is experiencing with its own federal election, following which those who are of a mind with me (and those like me) breathed a sigh of relief at the outcome. It could have been much, much worse.

I am not going to say anything at all about the UK’s election (for now at least) except that I fear that the old country is not going to be as lucky as much of Canada feels itself to be at the moment.

Elections do bring out the very worst in people though – and I am not just referring to the politicians and their lackeys (and masters!). One area in which this manifests itself in the UK is in regard to the BBC, against which even more bile is directed than usual.

Now – I have become slightly dismayed at the loss of nerve suffered by this august institution over the last few years, though I fully understand the reasons that this has happened. However, I do feel that those in charge simply have to stand up for themselves a little more and dig in against the constant wail of criticism from those who abhor public services of any kind; more specifically those who bitterly resent paying for something that they absolutely do not (and should not) control.

It is no secret that I am a huge fan of the corporation and have over the years admired significant swathes of its output. In particular this year I have been most impressed by the breadth and depth of its documentary offerings, particularly at a juncture at which knowledge – and thus truth – are at an all time premium.

I have – for example – in the recent past praised within these musings the BBC’s strands on the anniversary of the Troubles in Northern Ireland; important and invaluable contributions that are most timely. Here I want to mention two more offerings with which I was much impressed of late:

The first concerns one of my heroes – the author Bruce Chatwin – and is entitled ‘Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin’. When Chatwin was dying of AIDS, his friend Werner Herzog made a final visit. As a parting gift, Chatwin gave him his rucksack. Thirty years later, Herzog set out to make this film of his own journey, inspired by Chatwin’s passion for the nomadic life. The 100% positive critics’ reviews on Rotten Tomatoes should tell you all you need to know about the film.

Chatwin’s ’The Songlines’ was an enormous influence on me. I have purchased the book a number of times and each time lent it – terminally as it turns out – to others to read. I guess it is time to buy another copy!

The other inspirational program was the taping of this year’s ‘Dimbleby Lecture’ from the Design Museum in London. Sir Tim Berners-Lee gave a stark warning on the direction that his gift to human-kind – the  World Wide Web – has taken of late and a call to arms to put in place a remedy that might hopefully restore its original promise. I could write much more on this topic and at some point might just do so.

In the meantime I urge all of like mind to support the BBC – whilst it is yet possible so to do.

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Lost in translation

November 15, 2019 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Image by Igor Ovsyannykov from PixabayI have long been an enthusiastic amateur pizzaiolo.

Once I became gainfully employed (as a young man back in the late seventies) and could thus afford on occasion to eat out, it didn’t take long to discover a somewhat superior but yet reasonably-priced pizza chain that I and other close friends and associates could frequent – and where we subsequently spent a fair amount of our leisure time.

Pizza Express was founded in London back on 1965 by Italophile and pizza enthusiast – Peter Boizot. He had learnt how to make Neapolitan pizzas properly in Italy and was eager to share his knowledge. Though it has since been bought out the chain is still running today in the UK and elsewhere and is still a reliable ‘go to’ when one is in the mood for a good basic pizza.

I liked the product so much (whilst at the same time disliking grocery store pizzas with a similar fervour) that I decided that I had to learn how to make my own pizzas at home. Mr. Boizot had helpfully published a slender volume describing the art in detail and I rapidly acquired a copy. The book has long since disappeared into that mysterious place to which valuable things sadly vanish all too often, but not before I had memorised most of the essential details.

I happily spent the next three and a half decades practicing the noble art and – though I say so myself – I ended up as a pretty decent pizzaiolo.

Then we moved to Canada!…

I still make pizza – though somewhat less frequently than of yore – but I have found that I must now relearn how to make it well. The reason for this somewhat counter-intuitive fact is simple: ingredients!

Back in the UK I had a reliable source of “00” flour, usable instant yeast, various ‘ready to go’ tomato bases and just the right cheeses, mushrooms, olives and artichoke hearts and suchlike.

Here in Canada these things are all subtly different and the resulting pizzas just aren’t quite as good. I found the flour but instant yeast results have thus far varied wildly, making it difficult to get a reliable ‘rise’ and the consequent fluffy texture. Cheeses are difficult in part because of the Canadian habit of selling everything in vast quantities. I used to be able to get a decent mozzarella from Waitrose in just the right portion size to make a decent pizza for two. Here I have to buy a huge thing which results either in my overdoing its use or in wasting good cheese. I can’t get quite such good goat cheeses either.

The main problem, however, has been the tomato base. In the UK there were at least two different products that delivered from the can the required thickness, texture and taste to make a reliably yummy pizza. Here there is apparently no equivalent. I am now having to resort to learning how to make my own tomato base from scratch. One might suggest that I could have done this before now, but the fact remains that there was previously no need to do so. It is now going to take me a while to learn how to turn out a decent one.

Oh well! There is – as they say – no harm in trying (at least we get to eat pizza!)…

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Phew!

October 22, 2019 in Life in BC | Permalink

Yesterday Canada went to the polls for the second general (federal) election since we arrived back on these shores in 2015; the first – that same year- having been won by pretty-boy Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.

The consensus here seems to be that the campaign that preceded this vote was one of the most bitter in memory. All I can say is that compared to UK politics – and of course to those in the US – the whole affair here has been relatively brief, painless and without any of the sort of rancour to which we have sadly become accustomed elsewhere in the world.

Some of that is because Canadians are such darned nice people whose instincts – in the main – seem to be slightly liberal (just left of centre). Maybe that’s just a west coast thing though; one does hear stories about Alberta!…

Anyhow – I am very happy to report that not only was the whole thing over in no time at all (the BBC helpfully points out that the entire Canadian general election campaign took about the same time as the gap between the third and fourth (of 12!) Democratic primary debates in the US) but also the now somewhat tarnished Liberals finally limped back over the line, albeit without their previous majority.

No matter! Given that the alternative would have been the rebarbative Tories we consider that we have had a very lucky escape (and there are those in the UK who would say an envious ‘amen’ to that).

And – of course – here on the peninsula we still have a Green MP, the redoubtable Elizabeth May. The leader of the Green party now has two companions from across Canada to keep her company, which will also be nice!

 

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So it goes…

October 14, 2019 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Oh well!

With reference to my last post concerning the Rugby World Cup… the good news was that the Scotland/Japan pool match to decide the quarter finalists did indeed go ahead.

Any good news was, however, overwhelmed by the terrible news – the tragic loss of life suffered in Japan as a result of typhoon Hagibis. No amount of other news can in any way compensate for or help with that.

This perspective should not, however, take away anything from the fact that Japan out-played, out-ran and out-thought the Scots and rightly won the match, topped the group and thus won through to the country’s first ever quarter-final place in the world cup.

The tragic losses should also put into perspective the emotional impact on the Scots of being the first of the home nations (in regard to the UK of course) to be dumped out of this year’s cup. Four years ago Scotland were the last of them to be knocked out (controversially) in the quarters by the Australians, so this represents a significant step back.

It is not even that they played badly. They did not. But they were as unable to live with the Japanese as they had been the Irish just a few short weeks back. Given the talent now available to the team they really should be making more progress than they clearly are.

Time – once again – for some serious navel gazing.

PS – I have not yet made any reference to other nations competing in the tournament. There will be time for that as the knockout stages progress. I would like to put in a word for Canada though. In the first three rounds of their pool stages they predictably lost to Italy, to the All Blacks and to the South Africans (tough pool, that one!). They were hoping for some payback in their final pool game against fellow minnows – Namibia. Sadly that was one of the three games to be abandoned because of the typhoon.

Tant pis!

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Rugby roundup

March 2, 2019 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Having threatened a few posts back to bore everyone rigid with rugby related updates the gentle reader will be no doubt wondering what could possibly have happened to that eagerly awaited content. (No – no, he or she is almost certainly wondering no such thing!).

Previous experience might suggest that should I not be forthcoming on such (important) topics it is most likely because the subject is just too painful to mention. Well – I don’t know about that, but it must be said that the fortunes of the sides that I follow have of late been rather – er – mixed!

The Scots have really not got going at all in this Six Nations. They warmed up against the Italians well enough but then let current champions, Ireland, get the better of them at home. The trip to Paris – even given the current woes of the French side – was never going to be easy. That the Scots were suffering from a surfeit of injuries didn’t help and the bravehearts are thus no further forward. They now face the cocky Welsh – who last week outsmarted an English side that had won its first two games convincingly. The final game is against the English themselves in their fortress at Twickenham. Hmmm!

Bath Rugby are busy doing that thing that all evidence suggests they are currently the kings of – namely all but winning games only to throw them away at the death. For the last two weeks now they have lost the match on the final play deep into overtime. Given that they have done this three times this season already it is no surprise that they are beginning to get themselves a reputation.

The Girl and I have ventured twice in as many weeks to Westhills to catch Canada playing their home fixtures in the Americas Championship. As I reported in the aforementioned post Canada started their championship run also by losing at the death to Uruguay and they repeated the feat the following week away to Brazil (of all people!). What is it with the teams I follow not being able to go the whole eighty minutes?!

Anyway – last week they entertained Chile at home on a night which was distinctly – er- chilly! It certainly was for the visitors who didn’t get a look-in, as Canada wreaked revenge (of a sort) by trampling them 56 – 0. This week they faced the Argentinians – albeit only the Pumas second string (the first team being far too busy losing to the All Blacks to worry about small fry like Canada!).

Even the Argentine second strand is a very dangerous prospect and the Canadians were expected to lose handsomely. It was, as it turned out, a most exciting game. Having given the Pumas a head-start by gifting them a charge-down try in the first minute the Canadians did well to stay in touch until near the interval. Unfortunately they then gave up a couple of soft-ish tries. Whatever was said during half time certainly had an effect because after the break the Canadians threw themselves at the Argentinians with a ferocity that I don’t recall seeing from them before. With fifteen minutes to go it was a two point game. Sadly the superior fitness of the Pumas – assisted by some dubious decisions by the officials (including a frankly ridiculous penalty try to wrap up proceedings) – told in the end and the Argentinians won the game 39 – 23 and the championship with a match to spare.

Oh well – there is still time for all concerned to furnish us with outrageous feats of derring-do – to win those David/Goliath battles against all odds and to bring unlooked for joy to us long-suffering supporters…

…and because we are optimists we believe that it will indeed be so!

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The ruffian’s game

February 3, 2019 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Field Grass Rugby Sport Water Ball“Rugby is great. The players don’t wear helmets or padding; they just beat the living daylights out of each other and then go for a beer. I love that.”

Joe Theismann

Long term followers of these scribblings (and I know for a fact that some such there be) will not be surprised should one or more of the postings that will appear over the next six weeks take as its subject the very ‘ruffian’s game’ of the post title. Indeed, a brief scroll through the archive of this blog will reveal this to be something of a theme at this time of the year.

Now, this is at least in part because it is February – in the Northern Hemisphere! Nothing much else really happens in February except that we all sit tight and wait for the winter storms to blow themselves out – or at least to get bored enough of the whole winter business that they decide to kick back and to give spring a go.

I say that nothing much happens. The exception is of course – rugby!

This very weekend in Europe the 2019 Six Nations Championship has kicked off. Here in North America the 2019 Americas Rugby Championship has done likewise – though since this latter tournament includes Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Argentina (2nds) there are at least some matches played in other than arctic conditions.

As if that weren’t excitement enough this year is Rugby World Cup year and all of the matches take on extra significance as pointers to how our favoured squads might perform in Japan come September and October.

So – how did the first weekend go?

Well, Wales and France – in Paris on Friday evening – both seemed reluctant to take the honours in the first game up. Wales were terrible in the first period – trailing at half time by 16 – 0. In the second half the French decided to help the Welsh out and gifted them a brace of tries. Wales finally squeaked through and narrowly won the match.

Scotland hosted Italy at Murrayfield and for the first seventy minutes did what was expected and ran in five tries. Unfortunately they then decided to take their collective feet off the pedal and allowed Italy to help themselves to three late scores. Scotland still won comfortably enough but – given that they next face pre-tournament favourites, Ireland – there is clearly much room for improvement.

Speaking of Ireland – their status as bookies favourites was a result of their stellar year last year, during which they won the Grand Slam and beat the fearsome All Blacks at home for the first time to elevate themselves to the number two slot in the world rankings. This weekend they faced England in Dublin (never an easy place to win away) with the visitors themselves having endured a difficult year in 2018. To everyone’s surprise England proved to have recovered their mojo. They not only beat the Irish but they gave them a serious schooling. It looks as though the championship might be more open than previously expected.

Sadly, though leading Uruguay in Montevideo by 17 – 13 to well past the eighty minute mark Canada yielded to the hosts’ pressure under the posts at the death and lost the game 20 -17. Let us hope that the Canadians have pulled their socks up by the time we see them in Langford later in the championship.

 

 

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Give us a sign

January 19, 2019 in Life in BC | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidThere are major differences in house construction between Canada and the UK. When it comes to individual dwellings it is true that there is now a fair bit of wood framed construction in the old country, but here is BC there is virtually nothing else – certainly if the construction were done in recent times.

Such differences extend also to the estate itself. In Canada they do not go in for boundary fences… walls… hedges… dividers of any sort. The norm is that the open space between houses is just that – open. We have a lawn between us and our nearest neighbours with the actual boundary running somewhere down the middle of it. When either of us cuts the grass we make a ‘mood’ judgement as to how far to go. If we are feeling generous we take in an extra couple of metres to save our neighbours having to do it. If, on the other hand, we are feeling surly… or lazy… we don’t.

In many cases there is little or no division between individual properties and the public road either. As it happens we have a screen of shrubs, bushes and trees in front of our domicile, but many do not. They are simply open to the public in a way that would make many Brits feel somewhat uncomfortable (I am trying very hard not to slip into Brexit metaphors here – but it is not easy!).

One side-effect of this lack of dividing infrastructure is that there is often nothing at the front of the property to which to affix a sign bearing the house number or name. Our property has its number displayed on the front of the building itself, but as the house is set back somewhat it is not very easy to see from the road.

I seem to recall that in many parts of England there is a fairly relaxed attitude as to whether or not house numbers are prominently displayed. Here in BC it is considered important for emergency reasons that each property has a sign that is clearly visible from the public road. These are known as 911 Address Signs and they usually take the form of a vertical reflective sign at the very edge of the roadside. Given the relative speed with which wooden framed house can be destroyed by fire it makes good sense that the emergency services be given every opportunity to locate a property as quickly as possible.

For reasons unknown we did not inherit such a sign but with the advent of The Girl’s new venture looming it seemed important to make our residence more visible to the world.

Given that these things are everywhere I assumed that they would be easy to source. They are not – and I guess that the fact that most properties already have them means that there is little demand for new ones. Some Fire-Halls offer programs through which they may be obtained but ours did not obviously do so.

I eventually found a source online through one of Amazon’s third party suppliers. I duly placed an order and sat back to await the manufacturer making contact to check the details.

I received instead an email telling me that the product had been shipped!

Huh?!

I replied to the email, enquiring as to how they had managed ship my order without first asking me what house number the sign was for.

“Oh!”, came the reply. “There was an option on the order form if you wanted to customise the sign”.

I pointed out that I did not consider having the right number on my sign to exactly be ‘customisation’, that the option on the form was not at all obvious and asked who in their right mind would order an address sign with some random number on it anyway?

They seemed to take my point and agreed to refund the purchase price.

“What should I do with the random sign?”, I enquired. They told me that I could keep it.

Fortunately I discovered that – with a little careful effort – the numbers could be scraped off without causing damage and that Staples could supply suitable replacements – this time with the correct digits. A Home Depot mailbox post, some brass brackets and screws, a little white paint and a club hammer later we had a new 911 sign.

Now – ain’t that pretty?!

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