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Modern life

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WTF…

September 24, 2019 in Life in England | Permalink

Image from Pixabay…is going on in the UK? (subtext: with Bre**it!)

Safe to say that this (or a more polite form of it) is the question that I get asked more than any other – as a Brit – here on the west coast of Canada. Usually the best I can do is to reassure Canadians that no-one back in old Blighty has much of a clue either.

After today’s momentous events in the Supreme Court I feel that some further enlightenment is required. Being myself totally unqualified to offer any such (though I accept that that doesn’t usually stop me) I am directing the gentle reader to this useful opinion piece by Rafael Behr in The Guardian.

It will certainly do a better job than could I!

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Something important

September 4, 2019 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“Come back!” the Caterpillar called after her. “I’ve something important to say.”
This sounded promising, certainly. Alice turned and came back again.
“Keep your temper,” said the Caterpillar.”

Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Well – this little corner of the year always takes me by surprise – comprising as it does an unexpected overload of events/things to do/world-wide happenings etc…

Sometimes it all feels as though it is just a little bit too much, but – hey! – it’s not as though I am supposed to be retired and taking it easy or anything, is it?

Oh – wait…

So – what has been/still is going on:

  • the end of August is Fringe time – and this year was no exception. I will report back further on how that went in a future post.
  • the academic year has just restarted. This morning at 8:30am (brutal!) I was facing a new class of 32 keen-eyed students. My timetable is somewhat unkind. More on that later also.
  • the Kickass Canada Girl (who grows more kickass by the day) is about to spend four days on another course. For logistical reasons the instructors – who hail from Vancouver – are staying with us for the duration of the course. This has meant that we must…
  • …finish off the redecoration of our big ‘family’ room downstairs (more on that too) and put our guest suite back into service.
  • the garden – as ever – demands constant attention.
  • I have been working hard to prepare a whole bunch of tracks for mastering, so that we can finally get some music up on the web. More on that… you get the idea!
  • Brexit rumbles on in ever more convoluted contortions and the Canadian election campaign is about to kick off. I will do my best not to comment on either, but you know how it goes…

 

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Mountbatten

August 28, 2019 in Life as we know it | Permalink

As an addendum to my post on the documentary concerning The Troubles in Northern Ireland that was shown recently on the BBC I thought I should make mention of a second BBC programme that was broadcast but a short while later.

This excellent and most moving film – by director Sam Collyns – concerned the assassination of Lord Louis Mountbatten (second cousin once removed to the Queen) at Mullaghmore in County Sligo, in the Republic of Ireland. The programme also detailed the bomb attack that was carried out on the same day at Warrenpoint on the Irish border, the which resulted in the single greatest loss of life suffered by the UK armed forces during the conflict. I was particularly moved by the testimony of those who lost loved ones on that dark day – not least one of Mountbatten’s granddaughters who was able most eloquently to put into words the terrible and lasting void left by that senseless act.

The reason for these documentaries being shown in such quick succession is that their respective anniversaries – of the start of the troubles in 1969 and of the death of Lord Mountbatten ten years later in 1979 – both took place during the month of August, at a time when many peoples would have been thinking more of holidays, sunshine and relaxation. Mountbatten was himself, of course, on a family holiday at the time of the tragedy.

August 27th 1979 was a bank holiday Monday in the UK (in Canada this would be called a long weekend). The date sticks clearly in my mind because the band in which I then played (my first band) had driven from London to Edinburgh overnight that very day to commence a week of engagements playing at the Fringe Club (then as now this bank holiday fell during the Edinburgh festivals). The first that we knew of these atrocities was watching the news reports on the TV screens in a bar on the south side of the city. Two of our number hailed from Belfast and we were all too aware of the significance of what had happened, which led to a somewhat sombre evening.

It feels strange to be living in a time when the memories of those appalling events appear to have faded sufficiently into the historical past that the pale shadows of politicians that we now suffer can in such a cavalier fashion set a course of action that is quite likely to have all too foreseeable and catastrophic consequences.

That is – however – exactly what they appear to be intent on doing.

One of the most telling elements of the documentary was its confirmation that the IRA’s then Chief of Staff – Martin McGuinness – must have given approval for the assassination, regardless of the fact that it was known that the boat on which Mountbatten was murdered would also have been carrying children and other family members. McGuinness went on to become Northern Ireland’s First Minister once the Good Friday Agreement had brought a close to that sad period in Ireland’s history and the documentary featured again the momentous occasion on which the Queen visited Belfast and shook McGuinness’s hand – an act which must have been hideously difficult for all that it symbolically confirmed the peace accord.

The role that the Queen has been obliged to carry out today in acceding to PM Johnson’s mischievous prorogation of parliament is far, far less noble, but may yet have consequences that last as long.

Sad times indeed!

 

 

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Oh dear (sick)!

August 20, 2019 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Hmmm!

I received in my mailbox just the other day an email circular from the medical practice with which I am registered. The communication commenced thus:

“Andrew,

Need a pap? If you have a cervix and are over the age of 25, get it checked!”

Now – I think that it is safe to surmise that this message was generated automatically. At least – that is what I going to assume because the alternative is that those professionals who operate the practice actually produced that missive without spotting the obvious – which would be worrying on many levels…

But then – why should we expect artificial intelligence to be any smarter than that on which it is modelled!

 

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The Troubles

August 17, 2019 in Life in England | Permalink

I watched on the BBC last night a deeply moving and thought-provoking documentary by journalist Peter Jackson – “My Journey Through the Troubles”.

The BBC website described the programme thus:

“In a uniquely personal journey on the 50th anniversary of the deployment of British troops in August 1969, reporter Peter Taylor reflects on almost a half century of covering the Northern Ireland conflict.

The programme is a highly personal account of the Troubles events and legacies, drawing on Peter’s experiences in reporting from Northern Ireland.”

Taylor has spent much of his long career in television. He was working at ITV on the current affairs programme – ‘This Week‘ – when the Troubles started and he continued his coverage of the conflict after moving to the BBC’s ‘Panorama‘ strand in 1980. He has also written eight books on political violence of which more than half concern or include coverage of the struggle in Ireland. He still continues to write and present documentaries – as evidenced by last night’s showing – as he approaches his 80s.

Gentle readers whose background is in any way similar to mine will have done their growing up – as did I – to the background of the Irish conflict. At times the Troubles seemed to us a distant and mysterious affair that featured on the TV news – like something occurring in a foreign country of which we knew little. At other times – such the various periods during the 70s, 80s and 90s in which the IRA extended their bombing campaign to the UK mainland (including the Guildford and Birmingham pub bombings, the Hyde Park bomb, the attempt to kill then Prime Minister Thatcher in Brighton in 1984 and the Baltic Exchange bombing in 1992) – it all seemed uncomfortably close to home.

The Brits were then a race, however, that had not long before survived the blitz during the Second World War. When I were a ‘nipper’ (little more than two decades after those tragic events) a fair bit of the east end of London still showed the scars and was yet to be re-developed. Nothing the IRA might do would long disturb the composure of a people that had truly seen it all.

With the end of the conflict in 1998 sealed by the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) memories of such atrocities began to fade. There have certainly been major terrorist attacks on the UK mainland since that time but – the 2005 tube bombings aside – we have not suffered incidents on the same scale. In the two decades since the agreement was signed it would seem that some in the UK have begun to forget just how terrible it was to live through such strife.

This is not the case in Ireland – of course – and Jackson’s documentary revealed anew just how raw many of the wounds from that conflict yet are. The GFA was not a one-off event, of course. It was merely the beginning of a long process that is still struggling to achieve completion.

It may be that the current UK regime under PM Johnson is simply posturing in an attempt to force an unlikely compromise from the European Union with regard to Brexit – but it looks to me dangerously as though some of the grim lessons of the past are being quietly forgotten or put aside. If that is truly the case then the potential prospect of another three decades of bloody violence could not be ruled out.

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How are the mighty fallen…

July 23, 2019 in Life in England | Permalink

With regard to the announcement of the election by the tory party of the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, I have (at this point) but one observation to make:

 

It is desperately sad to think that this once great nation has fallen this low!

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Nobody told me

March 26, 2019 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Nobody told me there’d be days like these
Strange days indeed
Strange days indeed

John Lennon

How odd!

I sat down to compose a brief post in bewildered acknowledgement of the bizarre period through which we find ourselves living and quite naturally the hook line of John Lennon’s song came at once to mind. These are indeed ‘strange days’.

In the back of my mind, however, was the notion that I had already used this phrase as a title to a previous post. The WordPress search tool makes short work of such trivial tasks and sure enough there was a post entitled “Strange Days Indeed” – almost exactly seven years ago to the day!

Spooky!

There must be something about the dying days of March…

On the subject of the UK and Brexit there is little more that can currently be said – and indeed there would be little point in so doing, since as soon as something is set down in type it is outdated and redundant. All that need be said is that the UK is now apparently not leaving the EU on the 29th March – though that may yet happen on April 12th or May 22nd… and indeed just about anything else could still happen. All we can hope is that when whatever it is that does finally happen – actually happens – we do get to know that it has done so.

In the US there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth (on the Democratic side of the fence) that the Mueller report failed to find a smoking gun with regard to collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Russians. This is not so much because of the outcome – frankly no-one really expected that the Orange one would actually get caught – but more that there are now endless opportunities for him to rub everybody else’s noses in it – which he will! What a loathsome prospect.

Here in Canada the picturesque PM, Justin Trudeau, seems determined to do that thing that ‘too good to be true’ leaders always end up doing (unless they are assassinated first) – which is to let down everyone who hoped for a different and better brand of politics. The affair of SNC-Lava-Lamp (as satirical TV show ’22 Minutes’ has it) rumbles on and though the Liberals are currently playing a Harper-like straight bat we are all well aware that it is federal election year, so this ain’t gonna go away anytime soon.

Sadly these vexations are but a mere scratch on the surface when one starts to look further around this poor afflicted planet.

Deepest sigh! What is the world coming to?

Strange days indeed!

 

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Democracy

March 21, 2019 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Alpha Stock Images - http://alphastockimages.com/ I am going to do something that I should probably not do – something that I have largely avoided doing over the past couple of years. However – times are critical and needs must!

It is part of our wonderful human nature that we – from time to time – make bad decisions or bad choices. Sometimes these decisions affect other people to their – and to our – detriment.

Making a bad decision does not make one a bad – nor a stupid – person. Sometimes we are big enough to acknowledge when we have made a mistake. Other times we rigidly refuse to do so regardless of the outcome. It matters not, however, whether we are in denial or not – a bad decision remains a bad decision regardless of whether we accept the fact or not.

Further – the fact that a bad decision may have been taken by a very large number of people – maybe even by a majority of those who had a say in it – still does not alter that fact that it is a bad decision!

There is a reason why in the United Kingdom and in Canada we have representative democracies rather than direct democracies. It is characteristic of representative democracy is that while the representatives are elected by the people to act in the people’s interest, they retain the freedom to exercise their own judgement as how best so to do – with the express purpose of protecting the nation and its people against choices that may be self-harming.

The use of referenda in such democracies is a very dangerous practice and enormous care should be exercised whenever such a prospect is raised. There is a good reason, for example, why there has never been a referendum in the UK or Canada in favour of capital punishment.

The resolution to leave the European Union was a bad decision; the suggestion that we should leave without a deal is a far, far worse one. Virtually nobody who will have to operate under such an outcome thinks that to do so would be a good idea. Neither business nor workers do – pace today’s joint call by the CBI and the TUC. Scientists, academics, economists, healthcare providers and on and on… no-one does. The Europeans don’t. Our parliament as a body does not. Polls (as unreliable as they are) show that a considerable majority of the population does not.

The only group that positively pushes the idea of a ‘no-deal Brexit’ is that hard core of right-wing free marketeers who see opportunities for themselves and their like to profit from the carnage, much in the way that spivs and profiteers do in times of conflict or war. Should one have any doubts at all as to the likelihood that these people truly have the good of the nation at heart one only need look at who they are and at how they have acted over the past three years and more.

They are not on the side of ordinary people!

In spite of everything, however, the country is slowly sliding towards a hard exit and time is running out. Protestations that all we have to do is to believe in ourselves and that all will turn out alright in the long run are hopelessly naive (or downright mendacious!). There has been some revisionist thought in recent years that the appalling decisions taken in 1914 which led Europe to sleep-walk into the Great War have been somehow vindicated by later outcomes. No-one with any awareness or compassion believes this for a moment – and there is a very real chance that in years to come a decision to crash out of the European Union without a deal would come to be regarded in the same light.

I urge those who are able to consider doing the following two things:

Sign the petition to revoke Article 50.

Take part in the march on Saturday 23rd in support a final say.

Before it is too late!

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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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Groundhog Day

December 15, 2018 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Image from PixabayI have done my damnedest not to burden these postings with further personal diatribes on the state of British politics (in particular with regard to Brexit) though I couldn’t help but agree with some commentaries this week that made mileage from references to the Bill Murray movie from which this post derives its title.

I am, however, frequently asked by bemused Canadians to explain what on earth it is all about – and I always do my best to give satisfaction. To that end I thought these extracts from a recent column by Rafael Behr in The Guardian (Westminster has known the options since 2016. Which Brexit does it want?) might go some little way towards clarification…

…or perhaps not!

The backstory:

“Brexit, as experienced by EU leaders, is the same banal dialogue played on a loop. It goes roughly as follows:

UK: We are leaving.

EU: We wish you wouldn’t, but if you must, there is a process with one fundamental principle: you cannot retain privileges of EU membership without an obligation to uphold EU law. With that in mind, here are the options …

UK: We do not like those options and refuse to choose between them.

EU: No other options exist.

UK: We believe they do.

EU: Tell us what they are.

(At this point the UK government wastes months arguing over whether it is better to use a jet pack or a magic feather to fly over a rainbow.)

UK: We would like to continue enjoying privileges of EU membership without obligations to uphold EU law.

EU: No!”

Behr rightly points out that – given where we now are – there are only three possible options:

“Option one: exit with a deal almost exactly like the one May has negotiated. By deal here, I mean the withdrawal agreement – the legal text that serves as safe passage to a transition period from where other options for the long term can be developed. The withdrawal agreement can be ratified or not. Its many deficiencies, including the notorious backstop, are intrinsic to Brexit and would be the same for any party under any leader. Changing the prime minister doesn’t change EU law.

Option two: membership of the EU – the best available outcome in strategic and economic terms, but one that incurs serious political cost by enraging already furious leavers.

Option three: exit with no deal. An appalling idea recommended only by fools, liars and vandals who relish chaos for perverse ideological reasons.”

How might any of these options be achieved?:

“Option one requires approval of the withdrawal agreement and an implementation bill in parliament.

Option two is reached by rescinding the article 50 notice, which should, for democracy’s sake, be done after a referendum, although the result of that is unpredictable.

Option three is easiest. It involves carrying on as we are, bickering about process, failing to cross tribal party lines in pursuit of consensus, refusing to be honest about what is available and watching the clock tick down.

Those are the choices. They aren’t complicated. The EU side identified them two years ago and spelled them out clearly. The British public is bored watching their politicians argue about the wrong questions. The EU is bored watching British politicians refuse to level with the public about the right questions. Everyone should be afraid of what happens in the absence of clear answers, because disaster by inaction is the default option.”

All clear now?

Splendid!…

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