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Flotsam and Jetsam

Notre-Dame

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It has taken a few days since returning from our trip to Montreal and Vancouver to upload and to organise the photographic images which it has become my habit to capture when traveling – particularly to places that are new to me. Naturally I am now keen to share same with any gentle reader imbued with a sufficiency of patience and indulgence.

This batch of images are of the Notre-Dame Basilica in the old town of Montreal. This impressive edifice – construction of which started in 1824 on the site of a considerably older place of worship – can accommodate 8000 souls! What I like about it – particularly by comparison with many Roman churches in Paris and elsewhere – is that instead of the interior being gloomy and oppressive (with an atmosphere reeking of sin!) it is instead full of light and colour. Apparently the model in this case was that of the Parisian exception to the rule – Sainte-Chapelle.

Less guilt – more gilt!

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 Reid

 

Innocents abroad

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Photo by Andy Dawson Reid“In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.”

Mark Twain – The Innocents Abroad

Let it be said at once that in Montreal there is no need at all to try to make anyone understand their own language. The locals will – in a nanosecond – detect that French is not your native tongue, from which point on they simply abjure its use – effortlessly showing up your linguistic shortcomings and contriving so to do without effecting the distainful air that one so often encounters in Paris.

Should you, like us, have transported your existence to the paradise that is the west coast of Canada (some five and a half thousand miles distant from the European continent) but still on occasion find yourself assailed by yearnings for the sophistication and epicurean delights of the French capital… then Montreal is the perfect halfway house in which just such a fix may be obtained.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidThis is specifically so of the old town, in which we are currently staying in a perfectly decent Air-B’n’B apartment. Unlike much else in Canada Vieux Montreal is properly old and has a strong European heritage. On our first day here we ventured forth looking for a suitable bistro. In the ‘Modavie’ we found one that was so French that we might easily have been in the backstreets of Paris itself.

The fare was excellent French bistro cooking, with a truly authentic Soupe a l’Oignon followed by a lamb burger made with pulled lamb for me and sea bass (really hard to find on the west coast) for The Girl. We wrapped up with a Pouding Chômeur which reminded The Girl of her childhood.

The evening was made, however, by the wonderful hospitality of our server – Caroline – and the larger than life maître d’ – Lorenzo Baldassarre – who went out of his way to make the occasion memorable.

Now – Canadians (and those who have visited) will need no convincing of the ‘Frenchness’ of Montreal. To others, have a look at the photos in this (and subsequent) posts and see what you think.

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

 

Big country

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A reminder of just how big this country is…

Yesterday we travelled east to Montreal. Now – granted we were not able to go by the most direct route (when utilising loyalty card points one is at the mercy of the airline) and were thus routed via Vancouver and Toronto with all the commensurate delays during flight transfers, but nonetheless the trek took around thirteen hours! From Victoria one can be in London in less time…

Furthermore – Montreal is three hours ahead of the West coast. As a result it was long gone 3 am when we finally collapsed into bed in our rented apartment!

As The Girl is wont to say in such circumstances:

“Did ya get the number of that truck?”

Fortunately we seasoned travellers are alert to such rigours of the road and our only engagement for our first day in Montreal (aside from some explorative dining out of course) is a visit to a Scandinavian Spa and Massage Studio for some seriously recuperative pampering.

Bring it on, say I!

O Fortuna

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“O Fortune,
like the moon
you are changeable,
ever waxing,
ever waning,
hateful life
first oppresses
and then soothes
as fancy takes it;”

O Fortuna
Carmina Burana
Various

 

Regular cohorts of this cornucopia of little consequence will know that I am a great fan of Rugby Union Football. The more ardent amongst you will also know that I am a long term follower and supporter of both the Scottish national side and – at club level – of Bath Rugby. Both of these venerable institutions are quite capable of producing delight and despair in equal measure.

For many years I suffered along with many other Scots the painful cycle of blind optimism dashed by crushing reality as I followed the fortunes of Scottish rugby. Then – all of a sudden – over the last couple of years we have been delighted to observe the most scintillating recovery of form to the extent that Scotland can now (with the occasional unfortunate aberration) almost always be relied upon to play an adventurous and exciting game – resulting in not infrequent and often famous victories.

Bath also play the adventurous game (for which we love them dearly) and back in the old amateur days of the game (which only turned fully professional in the mid 90s) they had a long and glorious record. Since then they have struggled a great deal more but they are still capable of considerable achievements. A mere three years back they made it to the Premiership final – sadly being overpowered on that occasion (as so often) by the merciless Saracens.

Since then they have found themselves in something of a unfortunate cycle. They start each season well, win some brilliantly exciting and dashing games against serious opposition and find themselves at the mid-point of the season hovering around the top four. Sadly they then go into a decline as the season takes its toll on bodies and spirits, ending up disappointingly lower in the table than once seemed likely.

This season followed this familiar pattern, with a number of brilliant wins followed by inexplicable and unnecessary losses. As the final weekend of the regular season approached (this one just passed) Bath were lying in eight position. Now – there are two initial targets for any Premiership side – to get into the top four (and thus into the playoffs) or – failing that – into the top six (and thus qualify for the European Cup competitions for the following year). On this occasion, for Bath to achieve a coveted and lucrative top six finish they would need to win their final game by such a margin that they would gain full points (including a winning bonus point) and the two clubs above then – Sale and West Country rivals Gloucester – would both need to lose, in the case of Gloucester without gaining even a losing bonus point.

On this occasion fortune smiled upon Bath. Their last fixture was a home game against the already relegated London Irish. Sale hosted heavyweights Leicester (smarting from being unable to finish the season higher than fifth – thus missing the playoffs for the first time in an age) and Gloucester went head to head with the ever-present current runner-ups, Saracens. The results were as follows:

Sale Sharks 13 : Leicester 35

Saracens 62 :  Gloucester 12

Bath 63 : London Irish 19

Europe here we come…

O fortuna indeed!

A nonsense!

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Photo by Andy Dawson ReidThe previous owner of of our beautiful peninsula home left us a number of unwanted gifts of the variety that keep on giving! Quite enough has already been said on the matter of sun-rooms, law suits and heart-stopping contractors’ invoices and I promise that no further mention will be made thereof. There is one other (very minor but most irritating none-the-less) ghost-like and continuing reminder of the past.

We did not actually ever meet the old lady (who shall remain nameless). All of our dealings went through her whack-job of a realtor. We do know that we she moved to Vancouver, but we know not where or even if she still inhabits that other place. She and her (deceased) husband clearly at some stage had a small bank account with the CIBC. We know this because we still receive – through the post –  monthly statements addressed to the departed owners.

Now – I am a patient soul and quite capable of playing the long game. For the last two and a half years I have been marking the envelopes “Return to Sender” and popping them back in the post box. Towards the end of last year, however, I finally got a bit fed up with this rigmarole.

I called CIBC…

As seems so prevalent these days with customer service departments the world across the conversation did not go well and, sad to report, satisfaction was not to be had. Apparently the only way of stopping these statements is for the account holders themselves to write to the CIBC to request such. I enquired of the young man who was not helping me what might be the outcome should the elderly person concerned have expired in the meantime. He was no help with that query either.

I have no means of contacting the vendor and am certainly not prepared to go to any great length trying so to do. I returned instead to my previous course of action. Then – a couple of weeks  ago – one of the envelopes that I had inscribed reappeared in our post box. Unimpressed I added a further curt missive and pushed it back into the post box.

Two days later it was back again!

I visited the post office. They informed me (most politely) that had I just crossed through the address and written “Moved” upon the envelope they would have been obliged to return it to the sender. Clearly adding more invective gave them an excuse to abrogate their responsbilities

Now – this is all very irritating and one begins to marvel at the dogged determination that all concerned have shown in generating an entirely wasted sheet of paper, stuffing it in an envelope, paying postage to send it across Canada – only for it to be sent back via the same route presumably to be simply shredded (one hopes!) and thrown in the recycling back at the bank.

This sort of situation simply must arise all the time. I find it hard to believe that no remedy can be devised for such madness…

Bah – say I!

Here I am

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By Walter Albertin - This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3c14346.This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing for more information. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30034723This post is the second in what will be a very occasional series (the first such having been contrived back in March 2014 on the subject of The Who’s ‘See Me, Feel Me‘!) on fleeting moments of musical genius.

When I heard a short while back that Paul Simon was about to retire from touring at the conclusion of his current expedition I realised that – though I am an enormous fan of the man – I have never seen him perform live. I was, fortunately, able to acquire tickets for the Vancouver concert in May and thus to avail myself of an opportunity to rectify this anomaly before it is too late.

Now – few would deny that Simon is a songwriting genius. As I have pointed out previously, a lyricist who can use words such as ‘misconstrued’ and ‘pertains’ or phrases such as ‘doggedly determined’ and ‘arc of a love affair’ without coming over as precious, is quite clearly walking a considerably better walk than are the rest of us.

In this instance, however, the subject is not the lyrics. As was the case with The Who’s perfect palimpsest this post concerns a musical moment, one which occurs in that quintessential Paul Simon solo contribution to the ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water‘ album – ‘The Only Living Boy in New York‘ – a song written in reaction to Simon’s being left alone in New York on the occasion of Art Garfunkel’s trip to Mexico for his acting role in the filming of Joseph Heller’s ‘Catch-22‘.

The song is a magnificently wistful meditation on Simon’s solitary state, greatly enhanced by the gorgeously sinuous bass playing of the great Joe Osborn. Two verses in it hauls itself into the first of two vocal renditions of one of Simon’s brief but typically splendid tension-raising bridges. As it cascades back into the verse Simon’s solo voice is replaced with a distant ethereal choir which matches – wordlessly – the delicate acoustic guitar chords that give structure to the song. For the third line of the verse the ‘aaahs’ sweetly follow the descending bass figure, pausing momentarily before swelling into the final cadence with a heart-tugging “Here I am” that makes the hairs stand up on the back of this jaded hack’s neck.

The empyreal choir (actually Simon and Garfunkel themselves tracked a dozen or more times) reprises its verse twice more in the playout to the song – each time with a little greater intensity and drowning a little deeper in reverb. This delicious effect was achieved by recording the harmonies actually inside the echo chamber at Columbia’s LA studio.

For those who must know such things I believe that the harmonic progression for the phrase concerned can be annotated thus:

|Emaj7 Emaj9|B Abm7#5/E|

Pure magic!

Celtic cousins

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Image from PixabayBack in the icy UK the Six Nations championship achieved its annual climax on a thrilling final day of gripping rugby matches. As is the way with this epic challenge some of the participants had reason to be well content with the progress of their campaigns whilst others did not. This year some of those who ended up in the latter camp were not, however, the sides that had been predicted so to do at the outset of the tournament. Nor – clearly – did they themselves expect such an outcome.

For the first time in many a year the Celtic cousins – Ireland, Wales and Scotland – finished the tournament in first, second and third places (respectively). I say ‘many a year’ – I’m not actually sure if this has ever happened before. All power to them, say I!

Many congratulations to the splendid Irish, who not only won the championship on the penultimate weekend but went on to record what is only their third ever Grand Slam. The Welsh may have been slightly surprised to have lost two matches but still to have ended up second in the table (or – knowing them – maybe not!).

For the Scots – third place from three wins represents their best finish for some years. They will not be content with their away record nor with the lack of precision which resulted in a fair number of points being left out on the field. They have made great strides, however, and play an attacking brand of rugby which is admired by supporters of the game of all hues. The manner of their victory in the Calcutta Cup in particular was to be cherished.

As for the remainder of the sides – well, perhaps we will draw a discreet veil over them for now…

Jings!

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Image by Stasyan117 on Wikimedia CommonsMy apologies in advance. I am aware that for some readers of a… er… sensitive disposition, this may be just a little too soon! Oh well…

I have not – contrary to my custom at this time of year – made any mention thus far of the Six Nations Championship. (I have not – in fact –  mentioned rugby at all of late, though in part that is because Canada have been having such a shocker – failing to qualify for next year’s world cup unless they can win next November’s last-gasp repercharge competition).

The reasons for my unnatural reticence are not hard to discover. Following Scotland’s excellent summer and autumn results against Australia and their close run encounter with the fearsome All Blacks, many commentators were guilty of getting rather carried away with their potential for the altogether more serious northern hemisphere championship.

True to type Scotland went to Cardiff three weeks back for the opening encounter with Wales and were – to put it bluntly – humiliated. Mercurial fly-half, Finn Russell, played poorly and the team lost by a disappointingly large margin. Russell was not much better the following weekend at Murrayfield against France, though wiser heads helped the team to keep its nerve in the face of a fast French start, clawing back enough points in the second half through penalties as the Gauls tired badly to win the game by a narrow margin.

At this point in the tournament there is a brief hiatus – a two week break before the third fixture. This gave the pundits plenty of opportunity to speculate widely as to the likely outcome of today’s Calcutta Cup fixture against England at Murrayfield. Last year at Twickenham the English had done to the Scots what the Welsh did this year – only more so! Much was written and posted about how the Sassenachs – in pursuit of a Grand Slam and eying a record third championship title in a row – would target the hapless Russell and embarrass the Scots, extending to more than a decade the gap since the latter had beaten them anywhere.

I feel that I hardly need write more – and indeed those interested should head for the sports pages for the full story. Needless to say, the Scots made the English look ordinary, Finn Russell turned in a Man of the Match performance and Scotland won a famous victory 25 – 13!

I will certainly be celebrating (more so because a depleted Bath also beat Sale by a point at the Rec in the Premiership) – and if Canada could follow last week’s storming win in the Americas Rugby Championship against Brazil by sneaking an unlikely away win in Argentina this afternoon… then I would be a very happy boy indeed!

Slàinte mhòr…

 

Solid gold!

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Image from PixabayOf course, the very day that I post a fairly flip piece about the Winter Olympics – and about Canada’s passionate though surely understandable love affair therewith – along comes a performance to take away the breath, to steal the heart and to show up as jejune any paltry attempt at humour.

I refer of course to Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir’s stunning recapture of their Olympic ice dance crown four years after their disappointment in Sochi and their subsequent (but clearly premature) retirement.

Pushed all the way by training partners, the French couple Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron (who set a new world record score in the free dance) Virtue and Moir faced having to set a record themselves were they to retake the top spot. As the scores flashed up to reveal that they had indeed done so the Kickass Canada Girl virtually leapt off the sofa – and was clearly moved to tears.

I was in no position to offer succour as I was myself busy blubbing like a baby. In my case this was less to do with the colour of the medals or the perfect justness of their win, but was entirely elicited by the impossible beauty and passion of their performance, dazzlingly choreographed to the ‘Moulin Rouge’ version of ‘Roxanne‘.

I could not help but be taken back in time to 1984, watching the grainy TV images from Sarajevo of another Olympic ice dance final as Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean stole our hearts to the accompaniment of Ravel’s ‘Bolero‘, taking a straight sweep of perfect 6.0s for artistic merit and changing the sport utterly in the process.

Wow! Many congratulations to Virtue and Moir (and to all involved) and a hearty ‘thank you’ for the great pleasure that you bring to millions.

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