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2023

You are currently browsing the yearly archive for 2023.

“He roller-coaster, he got early warnin’
He got muddy water, he one mojo filter
He say, “One and one and one is three”
Got to be good-lookin’, ’cause he’s so hard to see”

John Lennon – ‘Come together’

It is – as I have repeated many times before – my habit at around the turn of the year to look back and ponder on the twelve months that have recently ended, before turning my thoughts toward the nascent year just arriving, there to surmise what might be expected in each of the most important areas of our lives. At around this time last year my wits were full of the then recently taken (and, as it proved, fateful!) decision to mount a trip-of-a-lifetime safari to Botswana. My meanderings concluded thus:

“Such is the mental magnitude of the undertaking that we don’t have much space left in our imaginations at this juncture to conjure up other aims and ambitions for the year – with the exception of a musical ambition on my part. The Chanteuse and I have decreed that this year we should prepare ourselves to perform live. Even should we not manage so to do before the year’s end – we will be ready and raring to go immediately thereafter. More on this also – later in the year”.

So – how did we get on?

Well – we haven’t played live… yet!

These things are complex and take time. Our music is emotional and cinematic and not easily transcribed to a single acoustic guitar and a washboard (neither of which either of us plays). The whole business clearly required careful consideration and not a little experimentation.

What we did first was to release a couple of singles – ‘Perfect‘ and ‘The Journey Home‘ – with the idea of keeping our music in the public eye. Through these releases we achieved a number of firsts:

  • We got our first playlistings
  • We had our first reviews
  • We had the first articles written about us in online blogs
  • We appeared on several compilation releases courtesy of the wonderful Aldora Britain Records
  • We made our first video to accompany one of our recordings

We also had enjoyed another first… but more of that later.

The trouble with playing complex music live is that there are basically two different ways of achieving it: one can work with a lot of technology – or with a whole bunch of people (musicians!).

Finding the right musicians is difficult. One is asking folk to voluntarily give up a lot of their time and expertise to do something for which the rewards could be precious but nebulous. When one is young finding musicians is easy and in my chequered past I have done so many times. Young people have energy and ideas and want to get involved. They don’t much care about being rewarded and they tend to be only partly formed – which makes it easier for them to adapt and to meld themselves to their chosen project.

Older people tend to be more set in their ways – more cynical – more particular about what they want to do and what they won’t do – and also about whether or not they expect to get paid for it.

In short – putting a band together when you are young happens almost without effort. When one is older – it don’t!…

…hence the interest in the technology. Using all this wonderful gear is very much the thing of now – but it does have down-sides. It is expensive and complex to do well – and it is difficult to get a truly human result unless one is very good at it. We spent a chunk of the year playing around with various setups trying to see if we could get things to work as a duo, but the truth is that our music properly requires real people, playing together.

So – our other first… the first time we played with another musician – the fiddle player who provided a session for one of our singles (thank you)…

…which led ultimately to this year’s really big news: we now have a new member! – who shall, for the purposes of this blog, be awarded the sobriquet – The Jongleur.

This exciting development brings us a most important second voice – the which will be essential for playing live and one which miraculously blends beautifully with The Chanteuse.

Welcome! Welcome!!

Of course, this won’t just affect playing live. The other looking-forward news item is that we are writing furiously and have already compiled more than half the material needed for a new album – the which we anticipate appearing in public sometime around the middle of the year.

So – much excitement – much to look forward to.

Find us here:

 

 

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…to friends, acquaintances and gentle readers…

…from the Kickass Canada Girl and the Imperceptible Immigrant…

we wish you a safe and peaceful Christmas and a Happy Hogmany!

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

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My humble apologies to those who receive regular updates from this blog by email. The service that I have been using for the dissemination of said new posts since April 2021 has – on the whole – worked reliably and consistently. Now – all of a sudden – many things appear to have changed, including – to my great annoyance – the sudden inclusion of adverts or sponsors messages in those emails.

Even more annoying from my point of view is the fact that I received no notification that this was about to happen!

If you are at all like me I feel sure that you will be greatly displeased by this intrusion of a very different world into this gentle forum. I will, of course, do everything that I can to get the situation rectified as soon as possible.

Please do bear with us in the meantime…

 

Grrrr!

 

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“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”

William Arthur Ward

I promised a catch-up… Here is part one!

When The Girl and I booked our ‘once in a lifetime’ trip to Africa (‘never in a lifetime’ as it turned out) we spread the financial load by each using our own individual credit cards. This seemed a perfectly logical thing to do – at the time – but as things turned out it created more difficulties both before the trip and in the aftermath.

During the build up to the trip the ‘delightful’ British Airways took it upon themselves to change various features of our itinerary (flights, planes, routes etc) on a number of occasions – each time seating us in different parts of the plane regardless of our protestations that they knew perfectly well that we were traveling together. Each incident took considerable phone-based efforts on our part to correct.

In the aftermath of the fiasco, our attempts to recover as much of the costs as we could – through refunds from the airlines and payments from the insurance policies that we had (thank goodness!) taken out beforehand – has also proved tricky beyond belief. British Airways gave us the bare minimum that they could get away with legally and refused to compensate us for the additional $1,500 that they had changed us each to get back to Canada.

As a result of the bookings having been made separately we were obliged to submit separate but virtually identical insurance claims (two apiece) at virtually the same time. In the case of the lesser claim I received a cheque first but The Girl had to wait nearly another month for hers. For the larger claim – the which covered the safari package itself – she received a cheque (though not for the full amount!) back in October. I have yet to hear from them!

The explanation for The Girl’s partial payment – according to our insurers – is that some items for which we had claimed were ineligible for a coverage. The Girl pointed out to them that the safari packages had been sold and billed as a single items and must therefore either be eligible in their entirety or not at all. As we did not get to go on any part of the adventure (or even to share a continent with it) we are firmly of the view that we should be reimbursed the full whack.

We must, of course, needs be patient yet and wait and see what happens…

 

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“Everything has seasons, and we have to be able to recognize when something’s time has passed and be able to move into the next season. Everything that is alive requires pruning as well, which is a great metaphor for endings”.

Henry Cloud

Those who are anything but the most casual of visitors to this digital bailiwick will be aware that this has been a particularly trying year for The Girl and I. The implications of our various travails will inevitably rumble on for some time yet to come, but I will do my very best not to bore on about them too much here.

However, as the prepended Henry Cloud quote aptly reminds us, we are approaching the ending of the year and the changing of the seasons. Things can and do change constantly (of which there is nothing to be afraid) and we must needs indeed carry out some regular pruning, so that the blossoms may flourish anew in the years to come.

Those here for the long haul will already be aware of my habit of looking both forward and back (Janus-like) at this juncture of the year and will be unsurprised to find me taking full advantage of that annual ritual to update the gentle reader on a variety of present topics over the festive season.

These subjects I will certainly address:

  • The fallout from our aborted ‘trip of a lifetime’ to Botswana back in May/June. Progress on the recovery of our disbursements is glacial – but just consider what those gargantuan ice-flows are capable of inflicting upon a landscape. It may be a grind but ‘justice’ must eventually be done.
  • The Girl has decided that it is time for some major changes in her life. Old doors will be closed but new ones almost certainly opened. Stay tuned for the full details.
  • This time last year The Chanteuse and I proposed some loftily ambitious extensions to our musical project. Whereas things are taking longer to realise than we might have hoped, we are making good progress. There is exciting news to report – the which will be the subject of a post very soon.
  • Each year I ask myself afresh if I wish to continue with my periodic teaching at the College. Now, I have a big birthday coming up shortly (I do not really celebrate the lesser ones) so the question is particularly pertinent. I find to my surprise that the playing field has altered somewhat since last I gave the matter my consideration.

These – and other pressing subjects – will have lights shone bright upon them in the interests of illumination.

For now – I am writing this at 10 o’clock of the evening in the arrivals hall at Victoria International airport – awaiting The Girl’s timely return from Mexico. As I am considerably less than half the chap that I can be whenever she is not around, this is not a moment too soon.

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How cruelly sweet are the echoes that start, when memory plays an old tune upon the heart

Eliza Cook

Way back in the dim and distant past – in what was virtually a pre-historic era in blog-world-time – The Girl and I took a poor decision; that we would live on different continents for what now feels like an absolute age. In the event we managed about ten months, with her resident here in Victoria and I yet back in the Old Country.

What were we thinking?

Those whose length of service qualifies them as blog-old-timers (yes – there are a few!) will recall that her departure for the West Coast of Canada back in 2012 was indeed the spark from which this online journal took fire. Commenced as a displacement activity as much as anything it rapidly became apparent that these scribblings might be useful as a way of keeping in touch with a small community of those either related to… or long-standing friends of… this slightly odd couple with the questionable decision-making skills.

For what reason…” – I hear you ask, somewhat warily – “is this memory playing an old tune etc, etc – at this particular time?!

Well – I refer you to this post from December 2017 – back in the pre-COVID world. On that occasion The Girl and I both visited Puerto Vallarta together, on what was my first ever trip to Mexico. Her timeshare share (huh!) is still there and still being paid for, so it is entirely proper that she should make use of the facility… the which she is currently doing. The real question is “Why aren’t I there with her?” – looking after her and keeping her safe. The answer is – of course – that I have still the end of term to negotiate, with its concomitant group of students suddenly keener than they have thus far been to get a decent grade at the end of the course.

The Girl and I are thus once again living in different nation states – though only for two weeks this time. Whereas she thoroughly deserves the rest and recuperation after what has been a tough year – I still don’t care for the apart-ness of the whole thing.

Guess I’ll just have to ‘cowboy up‘ and get on with it!

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Most liveable

I have previously made mention within these meanderings of the fact that The Girl and I do not routinely read print newspapers here in Canada – a definite and somewhat unexpected change from our previous practice in the UK. Yes – I still read The Guardian and The Observer online – but sitting up in bed of a Sunday morning with an iPad on one’s lap is just not the same as having the multiple sections of a paper strewn around over the duvet.

However – just the other day The Girl returned from a few days in Vancouver where she had been attending an Engagement (what you and I might call a conference) bearing a copy of The Globe and Mail that she had picked up on the ferry. Now – if we did read a paper here regularly it would probably be The Globe and Mail – of which Wikipedia says thus:

“The Globe and Mail is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada’s most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it falls slightly behind the Toronto Star in overall weekly circulation because the Star publishes a Sunday edition, whereas the Globe does not. The Globe and Mail is regarded by some as Canada’s ‘newspaper of record'”.

Irregardless…

The reason for mentioning this at all might just be discernible from the accompanying image – of the front page of this particular issue. The piece referred to concerns the 2023 Canada’s Most Livable Cities survey – in which good old Victoria came out as the overall number one city.

Yaay Victoria!

If one is to accept that the data is accurate (and can indeed be interpreted in the way the the Globe and Mail survey does) Victoria comes out top in many categories – with the notable exceptions of the cost of housing, (which is uncomfortably high for many folk) and healthcare (where, as I have previously noted, there is a continuing shortage of doctors). There are those who gripe about such studies and one should certainly not overlook the problems that many localities face, but I believe that the great majority of those who live here are aware that they are inhabitants of a beautiful city and that to be so is a considerable blessing.

 

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Photo by Andy Dawson ReidThe Encyclopedia Britannica (online edition) says on the subject of rituals:

A complete analysis of ritual would also include its relation to art, architecture, and the specific objects used in ritual such as specific forms of ritual dress. All of these components are found in ritual contexts, and all of them are nonverbal in structure and meaning.”

Huh!” – I hear you exclaim… “Where is he going with this?

Patience!” – say I. The encyclopedia continues:

“Most rituals mark off a particular time of the day, month, year, stage in life, or commencement of a new event or vocation. This temporal characteristic of ritual is often called “sacred time .” What must not be forgotten in the study of ritual is a special aspect of ritual that is often described as “sacred space.” Time and place are essential features of ritual action, and both mark a specific orientation or setting for ritual. Time and space, whether a plot of ground or a magnificent temple, are ritually created and become, in turn, the context for other rituals.”

What time of the year is more endowed with ritual than the winter festival season that includes – amongst other celebrations – Christmas? And do we not imbue the occasion with timely rituals both old and newly devised?

Yes!” and “yes” would be appropriate responses to those questions.

Yes – the run in to Christmas is upon us and we each mark the season in our own particular fashions. For example, The Girl and I know that Christmas is shortly to be upon us when it is time to make a festive run up island to partake of luncheon with The Girl’s mother – and other venerable friends – and to exchange the first gifts of the season. This usually happens at about the same point on the calendar as does the annual charitable event that sees Barney Bentall’s Cariboo Express pull in to the Mary Winspear Centre in Sidney for its annual fundraising concert. I have written about the Cariboo Express repeatedly over the years and I will continue so to do as long as each occasion proves to be the same festival of joy and love to which we have become accustomed… the which it happily continues to be.

Sacred times – sacred spaces!

Here are some boat pictures from our ferry crossing to Mill Bay on our way up island.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

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I thought the gentle reader might appreciate a few more glimpses of autumnal hues – before everything fades to a wintery grey for the the next three months or so. Fall is glorious, though it is the season of which I am least fond. Winter serves a purpose but unless one likes to get out to play in the snow and ice it is not one that some folk – self included – find easy to love. Still – it does eventually give way to the spring and that is a very good thing.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

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Good grief! Here we are – already well into November. The Halloween decorations are coming down and the over-zealous have already started on Christmas…

Time for some soothing images of autumnal colours – to demonstrate what a beautiful world this is despite what we insist on inflicting upon it:

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

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