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Ticking boxes

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Image from PixabayThe antithesis of my love of language is a complete loathing for jargon in all its forms. This antipathy can manifest in different ways, from sitting in the back row at a product launch playing ‘Jargon Bingo‘* with colleagues, to getting into trouble at a high level meeting for snorting derisively and rather too publicly when one of the great and the good insisted that we must ‘get all of our ducks in a row‘. I won’t go so far as to claim that that faux pas cost me the job but I was gone from that worthy establishment within the year.

As you might imagine, ‘box ticking‘ registers fairly highly on the list of management-speak activities that sets my teeth on edge. Box ticking – however – is what the Kickass Canada Girl and I have been engaged in as we attempt to effect our egress from the country without forgetting anything important.

These things have we done in the past few days – in no particular order:

  • Cancelled the landline at our Berkshire apartment for our day of departure
  • Cancelled the broadband circuit at our Berkshire apartment for our day of departure
  • Ensured that we would not be liable to pay Council Tax on our Buckinghamshire apartment
  • Ensured that we would not be charged over the odds for gas and electricity at our Buckinghamshire apartment
  • Booked hotels for the nights between moving out of the Berkshire apartment and leaving for Victoria
  • Arranged an appointment with the bank to discuss our legacy financial arrangements in the UK
  • Spoken with Her Majesties Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to clarify how to get my tax coding changed after retirement
  • Responded to further queries from our purchasers solicitors regarding the sale of our Buckinghamshire apartment
  • Booked carpet cleaners for the Berkshire apartment subsequent to our moving out

This I have not done – though not for want of trying:

  • Cancelled my mobile (cell) phone contract. The contract actually runs until November 17th and would cost more to bail out of than to continue paying until then. However – it can only be cancelled by giving 30 days’ notice by phone, which means remembering to call Vodafone on or around 17th October – by which time we will of course be in Canada. Bah!

Still much to do!

 

* ‘Jargon Bingo’ appears usually to be called ‘Buzzword Bingo’ on the American continent. Same game!

jargon

Oh – I forgot ‘Brand Essence’…

Doh!

 

Now eat the pie!

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Image from PixabayBy the time we leave our Berkshire residence – in a little more than a month’s time – we will have been in occupation for just under four years.

We have greatly enjoyed living in such a lovely, quiet, rural location, but we are very much looking forward not only to actually owning the house in which we live in but also to having a whole property to ourselves. Renting an apartment is all very well but it ain’t the same, and it has been more than a decade and a half now since I lived in an actual house.

One thing which I have absolutely no recollection at all of noticing when we first explored the grounds that surround the elegant property of which our apartment is but a portion… is the rabbits!

Which is odd…

Because there are now hundreds of them!

OK – yes – I do know that that is what rabbits do… but from there being no population at all to the current multitude would seem to me to be pretty good going even so.

I throw back the curtains of a morning to greet the day and there – sitting on the lawn in the hazy sunlight – is an arc of rabbits, all sitting perfectly motionless looking up at the house. They are frozen into postures as though having been caught in the act – but of doing what?

“Blimey!” – I exclaim to the Kickass Canada Girl, who is still in bed – “It’s like Watership Down out there”. She scathes me with a bleary look and grunts (delicately!)…

It does make one wonder, though. What do all those rabbits do out there (apart from the obvious)? What can they be thinking? Are they just waiting for us to move out – so that they can move in? Will the next occupants trip lightly across the threshold and throw the light switch to be greeted by a veritable sea of bunny eyes all looking up at them – in a guiltily petrified tableau – from the drawing room carpet?

Who knows?

 

Aaaaaaaargh!!

Compare and contrast

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vennOn Saturday last the Kickass Canada Girl and I enjoyed a really rather splendid day in town. ‘In town‘ refers – of course –  to ‘The Smoke‘… to London! I don’t normally feel much inclined to drive all the way in to town again at the weekend – having done most of the journey each and every day during the working week – but on occasion exception must be made – and made it was on Saturday.

We lunched with good friends in what was probably the first of a number of such ‘farewell’ events at one of our favourite eateries in St James – The Wolseley. We then indulged in a little retail therapy in one of London’s iconic department stores – Selfridges – before heading for the West End to see a show. This latter – David Mamet’s ‘American Buffalo‘ starring John Goodman and Damian Lewis and currently playing at Wyndham’s – was a late addition to the day’s festivities in that we only decided to try for seats on the morning itself.

Why – you might wonder – am I regaling you with this directory of Dionysian delights?

The answer is that it occurs to us – as it must do to others in a similar position – that we might, subsequent to our departure from these shores, rapidly come to realise that we miss terribly all the cultural and epicurean delights of the big city. We might even compare – unfavourably – our new home with that which we have left behind and become – as a consequence – ‘homesick’.

I decided to get my comparison in first!

The Wolseley is indeed lovely and serves one of the three best ‘Eggs Benedicts‘ in the world (from my admittedly somewhat limited experience). The second such of these may be obtained just a few hundred yards further along Piccadilly at The Fountain restaurant at Fortnum and Mason. The third – at John’s Place in Victoria!

You might cavil that this latter is clearly an entirely different proposition when compared with the pomp of London’s finest, and you would be right… the ambiance is very different. One need only – however – look at the testimonials on their website to realise that John’s is a very special Place, and that their food really is of the highest order. That one has to fight to get a table for Sunday brunch tells you all you need to know.

Victoria can also offer plenty of other good dining experiences and you will doubtless find me waxing lyrical as to their qualities in future posts.

Could The Bay in Victoria really be compared to Selfridges? There is no denying that the London store is really rather flash and that if one is searching for what the younger folk might at some juncture have referred as ‘bling‘ – then it is probably the place to be. Of a weekend – however – it is also jam packed, overheated and extremely noisy. Frankly I prefer my retail experiences to be a little more civilised.

It will come as no surprise that Victoria cannot hope to compete with London when it comes to the theatre… but then – nowhere else in the world can either (not even the Big Apple!). We did see – however – only a few years ago Eric McCormack in Mamet’s ‘GlenGarry, Glen Ross‘ at the Arts Club Theatre in Vancouver. Certainly we could not reasonably wake up of a morning and expect to be able to book tickets for a hot show starring internationally respected talent that same evening! Both Vancouver and Seattle are within range, but serious planning would be required to mount an expedition to either. We will just have to spend more time on preparation. Fortunately, time will not be in short supply…

On the other side of the equation – driving into London from Berkshire can take up to two hours of traffic-crammed grind – and one must then repeat the odyssey on the way home later. The public transport alternative is no better – hot, exhausting and very, very long. From Saanichton into central Victoria takes around 20 minutes by car, and one gets to look across the Strait of Juan de Fuca at the Olympic mountains for much of the way.

Hmm! Not much in it by my reckoning…

 

One month…

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Photo by Andy Dawson Reid…until I retire!

Actually it is a little less than a month, being a mere four weeks… or twenty working days…

A rapid (and doubtless wildly inaccurate) calculation suggests that over the last forty years I have worked somewhere around nine thousand and two hundred days. And now I have only twenty to go!

Further – there are only six weeks left until we leave these shores and head west.

So – how is it all going?

In many ways things are going well, though there is no point in pretending that for either the Kickass Canada Girl or for I will the run in to our final days at work involve anything much beyond hard work and barely suppressed panic. Any notion of a gentle wind-down complete with much appreciative backslapping and ‘take it easy old chap – no point in busting a gut now‘ bonhomie was swiftly disabused by our respective managements on realising that some three quarters of a century of accumulated knowledge and wisdom was about to walk out of the door and that – for a variety of reasons – the ensuing skills-transfer and handover was probably not going to provide the well-oiled succession that might have been hoped for.

No matter. This too shall pass!

Other issues at the UK end are more promising. As previously reported my Canadian PR has been confirmed – our movers have been booked – our finances are as organised as it is possible for them to be.

You may have observed that I have – quite intentionally – remained remarkably reticent regarding the sale of our Buckinghamshire apartment, for fear of hexing the enterprise. I am not about to uncross my fingers – or indeed anything else – at this stage, but we do continue to be cautiously optimistic that all will be well in this regard.

At the Canadian end promising progress is being made. Our dear friends in Saanichton have already booked season tickets for us at The Belfry Theatre in Victoria and – on a completely different note – have also passed on to us details of a couple of possible contacts with as yet unlisted houses for sale. I for one continue to believe that all of this stuff will shake out just right at just the right time.

It is now up to the universe – in the words of Captain Jean Luc Picard – to “make it so!”.*

 

* Incidentally – I found on the InterWebNet a discussion on the origin of this distinctive phrase. It turns out to be considerably older than one might expect and is most likely naval in origin. Here it is in Herman Melville’s ‘White Jacket’ of 1850:

“The captain’s word is law; he never speaks but in the imperative mood. When he stands on his Quarter-deck at sea, he absolutely commands as far as eye can reach. Only the moon and stars are beyond his jurisdiction. He is lord and master of the sun.

It is not twelve o’clock till he says so. For when the sailing-master, whose duty it is to take the regular observation at noon, touches his hat, and reports twelve o’clock to the officer of the deck; that functionary orders a midshipman to repair to the captain’s cabin, and humbly inform him of the respectful suggestion of the sailing-master.

“Twelve o’clock reported, sir,” says the middy.

“Make it so,” replies the captain.

And the bell is struck eight by the messenger-boy, and twelve o’clock it is.”

Cavaliers and roundheads

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"The Saracen Army outside Paris, 730-32 AD" by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld…though that should in this case more properly be ‘Crusaders and Saracens’!

Those old enough to have been – in their youths – enchanted by W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman’s wonderful parody history – ‘1066 and All That‘ (does this joyous tome register at all with anyone under the age of fifty?) – will recall that one of the memorable events of English history was the struggle between the Cavaliers and the Roundheads during the English Civil War. The Cavaliers were characterised as “Wrong but Wromantic” – the Roundheads as “Right but Repulsive“.

As reported in this recent post the latest skirmish in this particular conflict was enacted last Saturday in south west London. Sadly – for all of us ‘wromantics’ – the wrong side won, though the outcome might have been somewhat different had the Roundheads been just a little less… er – ‘repulsive’!

No sour grapes however! Well done the Saracens.

Until next year…

One nation?

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Benjamin_Disraeli_by_Cornelius_Jabez_HughesI have – to this point – made no comment on the somewhat startling outcome of the recent UK general election. This is in part because – as I have stated before within the compass of these scribblings – this blog has no inclination to major on politics. It is also in rather greater part because the result was just so dashed depressing!

Actually – the further we travel from the election night itself the less truly startling the outcome appears, and the more all would seem to have been a dreary inevitability. Similar ballots involving Christmas and large birds of the genus Meleagris spring to mind… but then – I am hardly an impartial observer.

No matter. It is what it is – and I am in any case pretty much disqualified from judgement by my imminent departure to a different – though perhaps no more agreeable – political clime.

One thing – however – I can’t just let go…

I am appalled by the Tories’ post-election notion – courtesy of Cameron himself it would seem – to attempt to re-appropriate the ‘One Nation‘ soubriquet. Benjamin Disraeli (from whose 19th century novel, ‘Sybil‘, the term originates) truly believed in paternalism as a mechanism by which the poor and the needy should be offered support, and that it was the duty of those fortunate enough to have gained thereby to assist those who had lost out in the amoral jungle of the free market. Considerable social reforms were effected as a result during Disraeli’s terms in office.

This paternalism formed the basis of the Tories’ ideology – on and off – for a considerable stretch of its history until the New Conservatism – of which Thatcher was the flag bearer – swept it away during the 70s and 80s in favour of a belief in the unfettered power of the market to shape whatever actually existed of ‘society’.

You might expect me to raise at least two cheers for the return of the Tories to their former doctrine, and I might indeed be persuaded so to do were it not for the fact that – as in so many other things – this new direction is simply another cynical attempt to co-opt a meaningful philosophy (which actually has a track record) as some sort of promotional device for something lesser (which clearly does not!). This is nothing more than marketing and PR at its very worst.

Disraeli’s ‘One Nation‘ was intended to be just that. It was un-equal – certainly – but the intention was to care for the poorest and most destitute even if only by the largesse of their ‘betters’. Cameron’s nation – whichever ‘one‘ it might actually be – would certainly have been unrecognisable to Disraeli. It is – for example – apparently necessary to qualify to belong to it. There may indeed be welfare but only for the deserving – those who are ‘hard-working‘. This clearly excludes single mothers bringing up families – or the disabled who cannot work.

I could go on – but others have written on the subject with far greater lucidity than I could manage. This is The Observer’s editorial on the Queen’s Speech that opened the new session of parliament.

What perhaps galls the most is that the Tories have wasted not a second in setting in motion their campaigning for the next election – five whole years hence. No Tory is allowed to put in an appearance in any of the media without in-canting the party line on ‘One Nation‘ and ‘hard-working families‘. This is PR drivel of the highest order – presumably intending by endless repetition to hammer home the Tories’ ‘brand essence‘! Never have I been more relieved that I for one do not have to endure this farce.

What is worst of all is the sneaking feeling that just such cynical, patronising feculence very probably did help to win them the election just passed.

Doesn’t bear thinking about.

 

A rush of blood

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Bath_Rugby_logoRegular readers of these marginalia will be all too familiar with my love of Bath.

I do not – it should be clear – refer here to my predilection for long soaks in a hot steamy tub, though my reputation for being something of a water-baby is well founded. No – I am alluding here to that most beautiful and splendid of Georgian spa cities to which the Kickass Canada Girl and I are in the habit of repairing whenever we are in dire need of a little R & R, or indeed feel inclined to celebrate some significant event in our existence… such as it being the weekend, for example.

I am – in particular – a keen follower of the progress of Bath Rugby club. Postings such as this one make very clear my enthusiasm both for the city itself and for its practitioners of the oval-ball game.

Thus it was that Saturday last found the Girl and I ensconced in a rural hostelry some miles from home (TV coverage being sadly limited to a subscription TV channel to which we do not subscribe!) watching the semi-finals of this year’s rugby Premiership.

Bath Rugby has a long and glorious history, winning – for example – the old Courage League six times between 87/88 and 95/95. Since the game turned professional in the mid 90s – however – they have struggled to achieve their former heights and have never won a Premiership final.

Over the last few seasons a great deal of hard work – and a healthy injection of cash – has paid off and Bath are now playing at a level that has not been reached for several decades. Their scintillating, fast-flowing brand of rugby is finally reaping its due reward and this season saw them finish the regular season in second spot, thus ensuring a home semi-final against their old enemies – Leicester Tigers.

Leicester play an uncompromisingly physical (brutal!) brand of muscular rugby based on an impenetrable defence – the complete antithesis of Bath’s more adventurous style. The contrast on Saturday was all too apparent. Leicester had the lion’s share of the possession and spent much time straining fruitlessly against Bath’s stalwart defence. Bath visited the Leicester 22 only eight times during the match – and scored on seven of those occasions! The final score of 47 – 10 may have flattered Bath somewhat, but for sheer exhilaration if nothing else one could not possibly begrudge them such a winning margin.

Watching such a breathtaking display turned out to be too much for our delicate reason and before the second half was half done we were searching online for tickets for next Saturday’s ultimate showdown against Saracens. By the time the final whistle went we had already snapped up a brace thereof – before realising that the match clashes with an pre-existing invitation to lunch with dear friends. They most kindly (if with slightly rictus smiles) agreed to take a rain-check.

Oh dear!

Still – if Bath win the final in our final season in the UK…..

Old friend

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Photo by Andy Dawson ReidIt takes a long time to grow an old friend.

John Leonard

Back in the day – when this blog were a mere stripling and I had only just taken delivery of the Fuji x10 – I posted hereon some of the fruits of my first tentative photographic explorations. Of the image reproduced here I wrote:

“This is a most treasured possession of mine – the 1966 Omega Seamaster that the Kickass Canada Girl gave me as a wedding gift. It could do with a new crystal, but it is a thing of beauty and a timeless classic…”

Towards the end of last year the Seamaster abruptly ceased its measured recording of the passage of time and demanded some rare TLC. For one reason or another (time… money…) it was subsequently tucked away in its box and, if not forgotten, at least roundly ignored for a while.

By the time Easter hove into view I had built up a sufficient debt of guilt that I felt obliged to seek out some suitably dependable enterprise with whom I might entrust my precious timepiece. This naturally took some research – mostly of the InterWebNet variety – but did in the end produce precisely the result that I had sought.

The proprietor of Abacus Associates of Richmond in Surrey (the UK variants of both) has 40 years experience in the servicing of chronometers by such esteemed watchmakers as Rolex and Omega. Subsequent to the fall from fashion of mechanical movements in favour of quartz during the 70s and 80s and the concomitant reduction in demand for the old skills he became Lecturer in Horology at the British Horological Institute in Manchester.

That Abacus Associates’ services are now once again in demand is a result of the resurgence of interest in – and the desirability of – the mechanical watch. This is in part because the substitution of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets for the conventional timepiece has rendered the cheap digital watch practically superfluous. The futurist author William Gibson writes:

“Mechanical watches are so brilliantly unnecessary. Any Swatch or Casio keeps better time, and high-end contemporary Swiss watches are priced like small cars. But mechanical watches partake of what my friend John Clute calls the Tamagotchi Gesture. They’re pointless in a peculiarly needful way; they’re comforting precisely because they require tending.”

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidHe’s not wrong – and my beloved Seamaster certainly did need tending. The end result – the watch having now been given a thorough cleanse and service, and the seals, crystal and strap having all been replaced – is that it now looks even shinier and more beautiful than before.

I may – as a side effect – be lacking an arm and a leg, but it has been well worth it!

It’s official!

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officialOne of the last remaining obstacles to our impending relocation to the Pacific Northwest coast of British Columbia has been officially surmounted. Yesterday – in the post – I received the Confirmation of Permanent Residency (COPR) that marks the virtual culmination of the process of becoming a full time inhabitant of Canada.

Hoo – bloomin’ – ray!

All that now remains in this regard is for me to ‘land’ on the continent and for this temporary visa to be exchanged for the actual PR document. Fears that the expiry of my medical certificate at the end of April – the which is normally used as the deadline for landing once the COPR has been issued – might cause a problem have been excised by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) extending the visa period for a year – to May 2016.

The whole process – which has felt for much of the time as though it were indeed doing its best to live up to the ‘Imperceptible’ tag – has actually taken about two weeks less than a year. Given that the CIC website originally indicated that the expected processing time would be around eleven months, I guess I shouldn’t complain.

It has – however – felt like an eternity!

Well – this is it:

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

One factor in our case for the process seeming quite as extended as it has is that we made a first abortive attempt to set things in motion back in 2012, when the Kickass Canada Girl had moved – temporarily as it turned out – to Victoria. For those with a predilection for completeness here follows the complete trail of my posts documenting the whole shebang…

  • A Tough Occupation – May 2012 – an introduction to the PR process
  • A Word from our Sponsor – May 2012 – the part that the Girl would have to play in the process
  • Prerequisites – May 2012 – a description of the documentation that would need to be gathered before completing the application
  • Doctor, Doctor – June 2012 – my first visit to the doctor to acquire a medical certificate
  • A Little Application-1 – June 2012 – details of the complete sponsor’s application
  • A Little Application-2 – June 2012 – details of my own complete application
  • Leave to Remain – December 2012 – first attempt abandoned
  • Residency Revisited – February 2014 – the process restarted a year on
  • Residency Revisited – Revisited – February 2014 – further information gleaned concerning the process
  • Spot the Difference – April 2014 – second medical and police certificates are obtained
  • Momentous Day – June 2014 – the completed application is at last submitted
  • Cause for Celebration – August 2014 – the Girl is approved as a sponsor
  • In the System – August 2014 – our first appearance on the Electronic Client Application Status (ECAS) site
  • The Waiting Game  – November 2014 – introduction to the London sponsored applicant spreadsheet on the British Expat website
  • Signs of Life – November 2014 – request for payment of the Right of Permanent Residence Fee (RPRF)
  • Glory Be! – March 2015 – finally – the application appears as ‘In Process’ on the ECAS
  • Hallelujah! – May 2015 – and now it switches to ‘Decision Made’
  • It’s Official – May 2015 – this very post – I have my COPR!

Phew!

Men at work?

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Image from PixabayIn around two months from now our tranter of choice – Bourne’s International Moves – will pitch up on the doorstep eager to crate up all of our precious goods and chattels for the bracing sea voyage around Cape Horn and on up the west coast of the Americas to Vancouver.

I am – of course – kidding! All our worldly possessions will in fact rather traverse the Panama Canal…

At least – I hope that is the plan!

The point is – big, scary things are about to transpire and pretty much everything that happens between now and the date of our departure is ineluctably bound up with the process. It is doubtless for such reasons that neither the Kickass Canada Girl nor I have much time nor patience for the minutiae and trivia of everyday life.

One such item of trivia – trivial at least as far as I was concerned – was the decision to schedule in the midst of the working week some apparently essential water mains restoration works across one of the roundabouts on the main arterial route into London that forms part of my daily pilgrimage to the School. This ‘work’ entailed the blocking of all bar one lane around this particular roundabout for three days – as far as one could tell without any concomitant commitment to actually turn up to carry out any form of labour – there being no sign of such on any of the occasions on which I struggled past the site.

This apparently careless arrangement added at least half an hour to my journey in each direction – resulting in my total in-car time rising to around four and a half hours each day!

Given that my working life has but seven weeks to run before I retire you might imagine just how dim a view I take of having to spend such an extensive proportion of it sitting in traffic.

I realise – of course – that those of you not approaching retirement may curl your lips disdainfully at the petty grumbles of one about so to do – and I do naturally sympathise… really I do!… but I find it increasingly difficult to maintain an appropriate sense of perspective as to the true import of the activities with which we fill our days.

Oh well! Thirty five working days – and counting!