Flotsam and Jetsam – Page 34 – The Imperceptible Immigrant

Rock, paper, scissors – 2

July 30, 2016 by admin

My enthusiasm and regard for the talents, oeuvre and achievements of Mr. Peter Gabriel will be familiar to those who know me even a little and have been well flagged previously in these jottings. Posts acclaiming the London concerts at the commencement and the culmination of the 2013/14 tour celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of his seminal album – ‘So‘ – can be found here and here.

For several years prior to that particular odyssey I had been venturing the opinion that – since Mr. Gabriel was no longer a ‘spring chicken’ – each time a fresh concert series was announced it might well be his last. Each time he contrived to confound this uncharacteristically (for me) pessimistic view. Finally – upon our departure from my native shores last year – it seemed probable that we had indeed now attended our last Peter Gabriel performance, since previous tours which encompassed Canada had tended to include only one or two concerts within the country, and then usually only in the east.

Then earlier this year – to our great surprise and unconfined joy – the man announced a new tour… of the North American continent. Though sadly neither Vancouver nor Victoria were to be on the schedule Seattle, Calgary and Edmonton would all be within reach.

To our even greater joy we learned that the tour was to be a collaboration between Peter Gabriel and Sting! Wow!

By now even the most casual reader will have registered (pace my previous post) that this was the second objective of our recent visit to Edmonton. (The Seattle show had already sold out by the time we looked for tickets and given the choice between Calgary and Edmonton we chose to go to where we could combine the concert with a visit to dear friends).

Well – concerning the show, what can I tell you? I went to my first gig at the age of sixteen and I have been a pretty consistent attendee – at a wide variety of events – ever since. So – when I tell you that for me this was most probably the Best. Gig. Ever! – you’ll get some idea of just how highly I rated the show.

Had either star simply supported the other the night would have been magical. In the event they played a single seamless two and three quarter hour show. They played each other’s songs – they alternated verses and sang harmonies for each other – they interspersed songs, each climbing a little higher than that which went before… they were both in great voice and were clearly having fun! The two bands of massively accomplished musicians mixed and matched from track to track, regardless of to whose band they belonged. Given the extent, quality and familiarity of each artiste’s back catalogue it was little surprise that there was scant requirement for inter-song introductions – the audience duly went berserk as each much loved number became apparent.

We danced – we clapped – we whistled (well – the Girl did!) and we sang ourselves hoarse. A splendid, splendid night!

“Rock, Paper, Scissors”? – the name of the tour…

Rock, paper, scissors – 1

July 27, 2016 by admin

To Edmonton for a long weekend – on an excursion with two objectives. The first of these – and the subject of this post – was a visit to long-time friends who previously lived in Victoria. It was lovely to see them and they spoiled us rotten – plying us with all manner of sweetmeats and tinctures and laying on the most excellent and generous entertainment (even if the price thereof was having my a*se kicked at street-hockey by our friends’ ridiculously talented six-year-old progeny).

With my Canadian experience limited thus far to British Columbia (it is a very big country!) all that I really knew about Alberta beforehand was that it was flat – relentlessly flat – and that this is not the best time to be in oil! This first visit confirmed that it is indeed flat (with impressively big skies) but also that there are numerous other places of interest in and around Edmonton – a fact to which these photographs will attest.

At Elk Island National Park we had the truly magical experience of being able to get up close and personal with the splendid herd of plains’ bison. It was possible – if only for a fleeting moment – to gain some sense of what this country must have once been like.

It is also possible to get a sense of the past at Fort Edmonton Park, where the history of the city is brought to life in a series of recreations of the townscapes of different eras.

That ship…

July 15, 2016 by admin

“The day you hear someone call me captain will be the day I buy a boat.”

Guy Lafleur

To all those gentle readers who were way too polite to enquire just why I had suddenly taken to posting the lyrics to songs by mid 80s Glaswegian ‘Big Music’ bands (ignoring the fact that you were probably not the slightest bit interested!) – here is your answer:

…after a year of living on these glittering shores I have finally purchased a boat! Here she is…

For those who like to know these things she is a 20ft Double Eagle Sedan built in 1978. She has a Volvo Penta 350 5.7 litre V8 inboard motor and an 8HP Yamaha kicker. She’s no spring chicken but the Kickass Canada Girl and I both recognised her immediately as the boat for us. She was pretty thoroughly checked out – a marine survey and a mechanical inspection – and she is now up at SeaPower Marine in Sidney having some bits and pieces tidied up before we put her in the water for a sea trial.

Most exciting!

The Girl was very keen that she be called ‘Boaty McBoatface‘ – in honour of the splendid(!) eccentricities of the British peoples – but she was out-voted and the ship will indeed be called ‘Dignity‘.

God bless all who sail in her.

A ship called Dignity

July 10, 2016 by admin

There’s a man I meet, walks up our street
He’s a worker for the council, has been twenty years
And he takes no lip off nobody and litter off the gutter
Puts it in a bag and never thinks to mutter

And he packs his lunch in a Sunblest bag, the children call him Bogie
He never lets on but I know ’cause he once told me
He let me know a secret about the money in his kitty
He’s gonna buy a dinghy, gonna call her Dignity

And I’ll sail her up the west coast, through villages and towns
I’ll be on my holidays, they’ll be doing their rounds
They’ll ask me how I got her, I’ll say, “I saved my money”
They’ll say, “Isn’t she pretty, that ship called Dignity?”

And I’m telling this story in a faraway scene
Sipping down raki and reading Maynard Keynes
And I’m thinking about home and all that means
And a place in the winter for Dignity

And I’m thinking about home and I’m thinking about faith
And I’m thinking about work and I’m thinking, how good it would be
To be here some day on a ship called Dignity
A ship called Dignity, that ship

Ricky Ross
Deacon Blue

A truth universally acknowledged

June 5, 2016 by admin

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good lawn must be in want of a croquet set“

Oh dear! Not only should I apologise for carelessly bastardising the sainted Jane, but very definitely also for choosing such a tired and inappropriate gambit with which to open this post in the first place. In my defence (should such be possible) it is a blazingly sunny early June day and I am simmering gently the summer’s cauldron (thereby also misappropriating XTC!) that is our glorious garden (yard – whatever!) and frankly it is just too damned hot to come up with anything better!

Where was I?

Oh, yes! Croquet!

For reasons that are simply too tiresome to go into now we arrived from England last year in possession of a box of composite croquet balls. No mallets! No hoops! No stake… In fact none of the other essentials of the noble game whatever.

Having – however – a lawn of appropriate dimensions (albeit one that has a distinct slope to one side and whose surface comprises rather more moss than it does grass) meant that the urge to be able to play a round or two grew slowly but steadily to the point at which it could no longer be denied.

Warned off by the (occasionally) helpful pundits on the InterWebNet I chose not to purchase a cheapie croquet set from Canadian Tyre, but instead did my research and located a source of ‘decent’ (if expensive) mallets and other accessories. Forthwith did we then invite friends from near and far to spend the day with us, with a view to engaging in a little light barbecuing and the christening of our croquet lawn.

The gentle reader will hardly need me to report that when came the day in question we were subjected to the one twenty four hour period of foul weather that has been experienced in these parts for the last several months. Rains deluged upon the lawns – winds whisked detritus from the trees and deposited same all over my lovingly prepared greensward.

“Ah!” – you cry (particularly should you hail from merrie England) – “But surely you didn’t let a little thing like the weather put you off?”

Of course not – don’t be silly! Croquet was played and – at the risk of immodestly blowing one’s own brass instrument – the honour of the home team was well and truly upheld.

The following day the sun returned to its rightful place in the cloudless skies and all was again well.

Black and white

May 29, 2016 by admin

“Colour television! Bah, I won’t believe it until I see it in black and white.”

Samuel Goldwyn

Not in this case a nostalgic look back at the cinema of a bygone age – nor indeed a reference to the school colours of my erstwhile employers…

…but in this case a brace of ‘his and her’ automotive conveyances!

I made reference but a few posts back to the fact that the Girl was in the process of having to change her mode of transport in the light of her renewed need to commute – with a view to keeping herself safe and sound in the face of the somewhat erratic driving habits of some other users of the ‘Pat Bay’ highway here on the Saanich peninsula… this being – of course – a move that I endorse whole-heartedly.

Those who know the Girl will also know that she is not one to hang around when the mood is upon her. Sure enough on Friday last we drove up-island with a view to investigating a low-mileage pre-owned (so much better than ‘second-hand’ or ‘used’ whilst not being quite as wince-inducing as ‘pre-loved’!) automobile. As is the way of such things, after a long day of negotiation and paperwork she drove back to Victoria in a brand spanking new one instead! Rest assured that she came away with a particularly good deal…

For those interested in such things the vehicle is a shiny new Mazda CX-5 with all of the bells and whistles. This thing is practically frothing with technology, all of which is in the service of keeping the occupants as safe as possible out in the jungle that is the modern metropolis. If you are of the persuasion that will not rest until you know all of the details then you should consult the Girl for the full run-down – or avail yourself of the wonder that is the InterWebNet to carry out your own researches. All I know is that this thing certainly has more computing power on board than did the entire fleet of lunar modules (apologies for the extremely dated – though still germane – reference).

This leaves the Girl with a couple of vehicles to sell. She has of late been driving the little Miata in the summer months and reverting to the ancient Honda Accord when the weather turns inclement.

The CX-5 will now cover all the bases.

Everything in the garden…

May 20, 2016 by admin

Idioms

“Everything in the garden is rosy”

(British English, saying) “everything is fine”

Oxford Learners’ Dictionary

A couple of weeks back I posted some snaps of the pleasant surprises that our recently acquired garden (yard!) has been bestowing upon us.

Sadly, not quite everything in our little corner of paradise was as gorgeous as those images may have suggested. There was one rather sorry strip just below our patio – about thirty feet wide by ten feet deep – that could only be described as ‘scrubland’.

This patch – which incorporates a fire-pit – may at one point have been graveled. Much of that covering had long since disappeared and whatever it was that remained clearly provided the perfect habitat for every possible variety of weed and couch grass known to man (and a few others for good measure).

As the spring progressed the presence of this eyesore became increasingly irritating until even this minimalist gardener could stand it no longer and decreed that action must be taken.

I spent a considerable portion of two days earlier this week removing the top surface of this blasted heath and winkling out as much weed root as I could bear to do. I discovered that not only was a fair chunk of our garden irrigation system just under the surface of this patch, but that it had several leaks, a couple of redundant spurs and was not laid in the optimal locations. All this was speedily remedied before I levelled the area and laid and pegged down a porous membrane across the whole patch – in the hope of at least keeping some of the weeds and grasses at bay.

Then it was hotfoot to my local supplier of aggregates – Peninsula Landscape Supplies – to order three yards of half inch clear crushed aggregate. I did this at around one o’clock on Thursday last and was delighted when it was delivered to our door shortly before three o’clock that same afternoon. Splendid service!

The dump pickup dropped the load as close to the patio as possible, but that was a good twenty five yards away. It was then down to me – armed only with a plastic wheelbarrow, a shovel and a rake – to transmute the resultant mountain into the rather splendid gravel strip that can be seen in the attached photo – and all before the Kickass Canada Girl arrived home from work!

If I tell you that three yards of aggregate weighs in the region of four and a half tons, you might understand why my body feels today rather as though it has been hit by particularly large truck.

I suspect it would have been considerably worse had I not been attending weights classes twice a week since September last. I knew that there was a reason for so doing…

Voyage of discovery

May 11, 2016May 10, 2016 by admin

“The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes'”

Marcel Proust.*

For each ‘new’ garden (Canadian: yard!) that one inherits there is a marvelous, scary, joyous voyage of discovery – lasting a year – during which time is revealed all that lies concealed within. This earlier post told part of the story of our garden; the images below testify to the fact that there is never (thus far at any rate) a dull moment therein.

* What Proust actually wrote was:

“The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is; and this we can contrive with an Elstir, with a Vinteuil; with men like these we do really fly from star to star.”

Going home star

April 9, 2016 by admin

Last week the Kickass Canada Girl and I attended the Royal Theatre in Victoria for one of two performances by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet of a new piece – ‘Going home Star – Truth and Reconciliation‘ – which was commissioned for the Ballet by Artistic Director André Lewis and presented with the support of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.

The subject matter of this ambitious work – concerning the residential schools programme controversy and its effect on those of First Nations’ descent – attracted a heavyweight artistic team. Joseph Boyden – award winning Canadian author of ‘Three Day Road‘ and ‘Through Black Spruce‘ – provided the story. Mark Godden – whose list of credits and awards throughout North America is too impressively extensive to list here – choreographed. The excellent music was by Christos Hatzis – two time Juno award winner.

Those without Canada may not be familiar with the background of the residential schools programme. Herewith for your benefit (should you be at all interested) is a brief history lesson.

An amendment to the Indian Act of 1876 – intended to remove First Nations’ children from the influence of their families and culture to assimilate them into the dominant ‘Canadian’ culture – made attendance compulsory at day, industrial or residential schools. By 1931 there were 80 of these residential schools across Canada. The numbers declined thereafter, with the last federally operated school closing in 1996, but by then some 150,000 (around 30%) First Nations children had passed through the system. More than 6,000 did not survive the experience, dying whilst yet in attendance.

A new consensus emerged in the early 21st century that these residential schools had done significant harm to the Aboriginal children who attended them by removing them from their families, depriving them of their ancestral languages, through sterilization, and by exposing many of them to sexual abuse by staff members and other students. In June 2008 a public apology was offered by the then Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, on behalf of the Government of Canada. At around the same time the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established to uncover the truth about the schools.

As might be gathered from the weighty subject matter, experiencing a work of conscience and of art such as this was no walk in the park. Though the music set the tone masterfully – being a highly intelligent blend of European classical, contemporary stylings, Inuit throat singing and traditional drumming – and the movement was both highly imaginative and at times exquisitely beautiful, the work was also inevitably harrowing at times. The Girl – whose grandmother and two of whose aunts were survivors of the residential schools – not surprisingly found it particularly difficult.

I think that it is fair to say that not everything came off – and the fact that the Royal Winnipeg Ballet includes not one dancer of Aboriginal origin left this attendee at least feeling distinctly ambivalent – but in general the avoidance of the obvious pitfalls and the bravery of the conception and the execution should be – and was – applauded unreservedly.

It is right that art should be able take such risks and sometime to make us feel less than comfortable by so doing. Long may it continue to do so.

Kudos to all concerned.

To dwell is to garden

May 10, 2016April 4, 2016 by admin

“To dwell is to garden.”

Martin Heidegger

The weather has at last become more clement and it has been possible to get out into the garden and to start doing all that must be done to wake it from its winter slumbers. I am a gardener only in the sense that I have a garden. I do think – however – that it would have made my father happy to see me tending my (half) acre(s). Yes – you do detect a theme… my father’s birthday would have been at the start of April!

When I got outside these ‘guys’ were already there!

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