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Modern life

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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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O Canada (post!)

December 7, 2018 in Life in BC | Permalink

Image from PXHereThis is a Canada Post post…

…and this will not be the first time that I have muttered darkly about the services offered by Canada’s postal office – and in particular the vagaries in the delivery thereof.

I still haven’t quite gotten over having our doorstep deliveries whisked away from us when we had barely had a chance to get used to them, to be replaced by an impersonal postbox stack (as decreed by the now recently discontinued communal postbox program – and if it is no longer policy why can’t we have our home delivery back?!) at the wrong end of our cul de sac (dead-end road). That I now get some much needed exercise every day and the opportunity to say ‘hi’ to our neighbours is completely beside the point.

Regular dippers in the pool of these dribblings might remember previous  grumbles concerning the problems that I had getting Canada Post to stop delivering communications for one of the former owners (now deceased) of this abode – or the time that it took so long to deliver an item that I had dashed near expired myself in the meantime.

Things have been busy of late, which is how the run in to Christmas has snuck up on us virtually unnoticed this year. I realised somewhat abruptly that if I wished – as I do – to fire off Christmas cards to my nearest and dearest in the UK I had jolly well better get on with it – particularly as Canada Post’s army of workers have of late been indulging themselves in industrial action. A more cynical expat from the UK might feel almost nostalgic for the days of militant postal workers and wildcat strikes causing millions of urgent correspondences to be dumped in sacks at the back of  the sorting offices (before Thatcher put a stop to all that ‘sort of thing’!) – but not me, of course…

No, my first eager move was – as ever – to trust the efficacy of the InterWebNet. I surfed to the Canada Post site and looked eagerly for the banner headline advertising last posting dates for Christmas.

There wasn’t one!

In fact, the whole site looked distinctly un-Christmassy. I used the search box to look for ‘Christmas’. I was offered some stamps!

I tried ‘Post dates for Christmas’ and was directed to a page telling me how to write a letter to Santa! I don’t know about you, but my Santa writing days are long behind me and, anyway, surely the kids these days send a text or use whatever messaging app is currently trending.

I searched on and on, but to no avail. Canada Post is not giving anything away when it comes to last posting dates for Christmas. Realising I had better get my skates on I rapidly scribbled a whole bunch of cards for the UK and elsewhere and headed for my local Canada Post office. The staff there were most helpful with regard to selling me stamps, helping me to stick them onto my cards and popping them in the box for me. However, when I enquired as to why their website was so lacking in festive spirit – not to mention essential information – they informed me that as a result of the backlogs following the strike they were not guaranteeing any delivery times – to anywhere!

There was – therefore – no point in advertising such!

Bottom line for those eagerly awaiting a card from the wilds of (west coast) Canada is that one will get to you – eventually (probably!)…

Previous advice re: holding breath is still pertinent.

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The rice trick

November 2, 2018 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidIf you know about the rice trick then there is a good chance that you – or someone of your acquaintance – has done that which I was unfortunate/careless enough to do a couple of weeks back… to drop my mobile device into a liquid! In my case it was into a hot bath…

OK – I feel the need to explain how a Capricorn such as myself (and thus naturally cautious in all things) contrived to do something so careless/stupid. Well – towards the end of the week I find myself pretty tired these days. Thursdays are particularly hard work, starting as they do with a fairly tough exercise class, continuing with a quick shower (no time for lunch!) and a rush to the college at which I teach for two and a half hours of classes and lab supervision followed by an hour or so in my office and on occasion a meeting of some sort… and then on some Thursdays on to something else in the evening.

Come Fridays I am usually ready for some relaxation – but not until domestic chores, shopping and cooking prep are done (yes – poor me!). Anyway – there eventually comes a point at which I like to immerse myself gratefully into nice hot bath.

If The Girl is out and about – as on this occasion – I leave my mobile phone somewhere to hand in case she should call. And, of course, call she did. Unfortunately I was fast asleep in the bath at this point. Being wrenched abruptly from my hard-earned slumber by the ring tone I grabbed sleepily for the phone with wet hands, jabbed at the speakerphone button and watched horrified as the device slipped from my grasp like a bar of soap and tumbled into the tub.

Fortunately instinct cut in at this point and I whipped the phone out of the water and powered it down, before getting as much water off it as I could with materials to hand. Once out of the tub I naturally turned to that source of all knowledge(!) – the InterWebNet – and discovered the rice trick.

This is the one where one gets as much moisture out of the gadget as possible by dabbing at it and turning it this way and that, before burying it in a container filled with rice. There it must be left for 24 – 48 hours so that the rice can absorb any moisture that remains in the device. Then, if one is lucky, it can be powered up again to see what (if any) damage has been done.

Of course, it helps hugely if the device is similar to my Galaxy S7 – which is advertised as being ‘water resistant’.

The good news in this case – which I sure will delight one and all – is that my phone suffered no ill effects at all and continues providing the excellent service that it has done to this point.

Phew!!

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Bob!

October 26, 2018 in Life in BC | Permalink

Public Domain Image from Max PixelThis peaceful neck of the woods has recently been the scene of local elections and in the weeks running up to polling day – as it the way in these parts – verges, hedgerows and lawns slowly disappeared under a plethora of campaign signs and placards urging the local electorate to get out and vote.

In this day and age – and with times being what they are – it is hardly surprising that it is not always easy to encourage people to exercise their democratic right, no matter how important it might be for them so to do. I am certainly saying nothing against our local politicians – if for no other reason than that I lack the necessary knowledge of them – but on the wider scene the political classes have done so much damage to themselves in recent decades that it should be no surprise that the whole damned lot of them have become anathema (or an anathema – to your taste!).

Now – I cannot yet in any case vote in Canadian federal elections – I would needs be a citizen so to do – but I have a feeling that I could have voted in the recent local poll. That I did not do so is a sign that I am not yet sufficiently ‘au courant’ with the ins and outs of local politics, which is certain a failing on my part that I intend to rectify before the next such occasion.

One of the more prominent placards planted on the roadside not far from here, near to one of our bigger intersections (always a relative term of course) advocated the re-election of a man who apparently goes by the name of ‘Bob’ (that indeed being his name) whose surname I will not reveal (to protect the innocent!). Having dealt with the matter of the man’s name the sign simply read:

The only Bob on the Ballot!

Given the current febrile political climate in many parts of the globe it occurred to me that this might indeed be just as good a reason to vote for the man as anything else that might have been said.

It is not often that one gets a laugh from politics these days!

Go Bob!

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The last straw

September 7, 2018 in Kickass Canada Girl | 2 comments

There has of late been in these parts (as in many other places in the world) much to-do regarding the evils of non-biodegradable plastics. One area of particular concern has been their use for plastic drinking straws. Apparently Americans (which we are not – but who will do for the purposes of illustration) ‘consume’ more than five hundred million plastic straws every day, many of which end up (one way or another) in the oceans – the resultant micro-plastic fragments being ultimately ingested by seabirds, turtles and other marine life-forms.

This is – needless to say – not good!

Now – I myself very rarely ever use such (or indeed any) straws (the occasional paper parasol being an entirely different matter!) but the Kickass Canada Girl does – and she is naturally concerned. Although she fully understands that many purveyors of smoothies, soft drinks and other liquid comestibles are no longer willing to supply a plastic contrivance by which means these delights may be inhaled, she is a little taken aback that the vendors sometimes fail to provide a suitable waxed paper alternative instead.

Accepting that neither option is ideal, however, The Girl set about identifying a more permanent solution. These days – it seems – such can be found by recourse to the newly popular stainless steel drinking straw.

Since The Girl’s requirement is that such an implement be portative – and would indeed be carried around continually – it must needs come supplied with a suitable carrying case. This would ensure that – when thrust into the depths of a lady’s reticule – the item would not become sullied by any detritus that had collected therein. As a gentlemen I merely take the lady’s word that such eventualities do occur!

After some study on the InterWebNet (of course!) a suitable item was identified  – supplied by a local Canadian company entitled ‘CurrentStraw‘. Just how local I was shortly to discover.

The Girl has a not insignificant birthday approaching and dropped hints that she would like one (or two) of these gizmos to form a part of her gift package. I duly went online in the late afternoon a couple of days back and placed an order.

Imagine my surprise when – upon taking out the garbage later that same evening – I found a package containing the recently ordered straws resting on our doorstep. It had clearly been hand-delivered, presumably from somewhere very close by.

Now – that’s what I call service!

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