Okay, I SWEAR I’m not going to turn into one of those people who burbles on about their goldfish all the time, but fuck me, Alexa and Peter had a right set to this evening. Headbutting each other into the side of the oxygen maker, and finning each other out of the way over the food flakes, and all that kind of carry on. They haven’t done that before. Now I know what it must have been like to be the Queen Mother, watching me and Baz pull ourselves to our feet for the first time, only to pounce on and beat the crap out of each other for the following ten years.
Very disillusioning.
Having said that, I didn’t turn into her, and wade into the aquarium with a terrifying ‘you think you’re in trouble now he has you in a headlock? Just you wait till I beat him off you, missy’ expression, and a correspondingly terrifying looking wooden spoon. I’m a modern mommy.
I just waved it at the aquarium, but they were too busy scrapping to notice. Next time I’ll rap it on the side of the tank, with a grim expression on my face.
It made me think of the time we were en famille in Portugal on our holidays and they had the equivalent of the Spring Show in Setubal and we visited one evening. There was a stall selling giant wooden kitchen and farm implements (the way there always is), and the Queen Dad bought the most enormous wooden spoon in the world – about six feet high – especially for the Queen Mum, as a joke.
I think we still have it somewhere.
Maybe they’re settling down at last, and they’re just having a bit of fun. Peter is definitely bullying Alexa a bit more too.
Maybe it’s the wrath of the meek. (eh? Jersey Girl??)
Actually, having watched the fighting a bit more, I think it’s all a big scam to get more food.
Unless… oh God, they wouldn’t be trying to make baby fish, now that there’s an over-indulgent food supply, would they?
Euch, okay, enough about the fish, how about the first anniversary of the blog?
Take a bow, Queenie.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
There was a request for Percy to reappear on the magic day. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. Maybe later this week. What would he say anyway?
We went to Canada on a Quest to find modern dragons, and Queenie found some and is off fighting them?
There are those who say Queenie could have stayed in her own country and done the same thing.
Possibly.
She gets bored easy, that’s the trouble.
Having said that, there's a certain pleasure in the nearly-familiar yet not quite atmosphere of where she is now.
I wonder how long it will last.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Am I a bad mommy? Already?
Alexa and Peter* are currently amusing themselves by backing up to the end of the tank away from the pump; swimming really fast into the air bubbles; headbutting them, and then reverse swimming very fast. They they just dangle for a bit, before doing it again.
I am convinced that they are addicted to the aquatic equivalent of freebasing cocaine, but as I'm not a marine biologist I can't prove it.
But if I do they are both grounded for a month!
*Alexa and Peter are goldfish, not children, please don't call social services. Feel free to call the CSPA, they might be able to tell me what the hell is going on.
I am convinced that they are addicted to the aquatic equivalent of freebasing cocaine, but as I'm not a marine biologist I can't prove it.
But if I do they are both grounded for a month!
*Alexa and Peter are goldfish, not children, please don't call social services. Feel free to call the CSPA, they might be able to tell me what the hell is going on.
Red Fire Dog
I was born in the Chinese year of the dog. And I am Fire, and I am Red too, according to someone I was talking to the other day. So apparently, this is my big year, starting today. January 29th is the Chinese New Year - and this year is the Year of the Red Fire Dog.
I am very excited about this. So I decided to share it with you all and have appropriated the following text from some random Google desktop thingummy that appears when I log on in the morning now.
"In 2006, wrongs will be righted, the underdog will become an "overdog" and the idle rich may just become the idle poor. Watch and see. From January 29, 2006 until February 17, 2007 the disquiet, just, fair, loyal, suspicious, critical and sometimes pessimistic RED FIRE DOG will reign supreme, creating an overall positive influence.
Hooray! And we'll all live in the Big Rock Candy Mountain no doubt too. Do I get to be in charge is the important question, seeing as I know how to do all this stuff?
Fortunately, we need not BEWARE of this particular dog. Fire Dogs are generally benign, resilient, and compassionate characters--perhaps with a penchant for lust and fierce loyalty to kin and causes. They gripe often, growl when they're angry and whine when they're lonely or hungry. Bottom line? Fire Dogs are a cindery mix of moody combustion and passionate, benevolent concern for their fellow man.
Oooh, er, a penchant for lust. That strikes me as a bit of a stupid sentence, but I can't quite figure out why. I tell you one thing though, passionate benevolent concern never got me anywhere in the lust stakes. Moody combustion on the other hand...
I am very excited about this. So I decided to share it with you all and have appropriated the following text from some random Google desktop thingummy that appears when I log on in the morning now.
"In 2006, wrongs will be righted, the underdog will become an "overdog" and the idle rich may just become the idle poor. Watch and see. From January 29, 2006 until February 17, 2007 the disquiet, just, fair, loyal, suspicious, critical and sometimes pessimistic RED FIRE DOG will reign supreme, creating an overall positive influence.
Hooray! And we'll all live in the Big Rock Candy Mountain no doubt too. Do I get to be in charge is the important question, seeing as I know how to do all this stuff?
Fortunately, we need not BEWARE of this particular dog. Fire Dogs are generally benign, resilient, and compassionate characters--perhaps with a penchant for lust and fierce loyalty to kin and causes. They gripe often, growl when they're angry and whine when they're lonely or hungry. Bottom line? Fire Dogs are a cindery mix of moody combustion and passionate, benevolent concern for their fellow man.
Oooh, er, a penchant for lust. That strikes me as a bit of a stupid sentence, but I can't quite figure out why. I tell you one thing though, passionate benevolent concern never got me anywhere in the lust stakes. Moody combustion on the other hand...
This fiery watchdog will inspire us all in 2006. You'll feel compelled to emulate the playful, loyal aptitude of this great canine pal. Almost instinctually, you'll want to engender the flock's highest mission and work to save the world. You will be obliged to pitch in and give 110%. And you will be rewarded for your labors with a huge cosmic cuddle around hearth and home by the end of this fiery but positive year.
This means that there will be three more elections this year and I will have to work on all of them and it will be awful, but the party will run the world by the end of it.
And I'm not cosmic cuddling anyone I don't like....
Money: The money picture in 2006? Just okay. Don't expect to break the bank at your favorite casino, win the lottery or receive a surprise inheritance. This is not one of those windfall years. You see, a Dog is not the type to easily part with hard-earned cash. It's not that he's stingy. The Fire Dog is a cautious soul. He will definitely inspire you to think a dozen times before impulse-buying anything that you don't actually need.
This is obviously the Nova Scotian in me.
I've just realised I need to rephrase that sentence. That's the Nova Scotian influence on me is what I meant to say.
On top of that, the Dog will beg us all to double our charitable contributions and jingle change into every open hand. Dogs are fervent believers in helping the unfortunate. With so many reasons to give—and there will be tons—try not to give in to too many handouts. You may end up donating all that money you saved.
I'm registering the Nova Scotian Collective for the Integration of Immigrant Women into Society as we speak. I'll have Paypal for all you foreign donors.
Love and Lust: This year, we will all fall in and out of impassioned love at least once...and many people—more than in a long time—will get married, settle down and make a normal life for themselves and their offspring. But beware, although dogs are oddly loyal in most areas of life, dogs are rarely faithful in the matters of sex, and this year may be proof positive. Dogs don't prevaricate often if they can help it. But where sex is concerned, they fib prolifically.
This is not true. I would just like to put that on the record.
Loyalty: Dogs are notoriously faithful to causes, beliefs and institutions, and almost obsessively loyal to family and friends—in fact, they give a warning growl the way a real dog does. The loyalty level this fiery Dog year will reach heights of zeal.
Zeal is such a tiring word isn't it.
In general, the Dog year 2006 will be a time of rebuilding, renaissance, safety and security. It will bring about massive restructuring of everything from bridges and dams to houses and causes. Closer attention will be paid to environmental issues, reducing global warming, quelling warlike behavior, and improving our planet's longevity. Passions will advance and then retreat.
This is actually a bit spooky. I wonder.....
We will embrace new commitments and discover new routes to realize our dreams. It'll be up to each of us – the members of the Red Fire Dog's flock – to manifest our deepest desires for peace and prosperity.
My flock, I like the sound of that... I should write my own Psalm. Queenie is your shepherd, you shall not want/ Deep and green are the grassy meadows she bringeth you along/
.... wouldn't it be hilarious if I were the Messiah! Oh man, I could just refocus the blog a bit and let on I was!!
I should write a self-help guide, shouldn't I? This is the year to do it. It could be bigger than the Bible. I have a title and everything:
Become the Red Fire Dog:
How to leverage deeply ingrained intellectual arrogance, emotional insecurity, and unpredictable moodiness into an extraordinary leadership skillset!
2005's Top Stuff, rather belatedly
These are Queenie’s top stuff of 2005, divided into miscellaneous lists, which she submitted to Frank's in early January. and can only post now, as she had to wait for her Frank’s to arrive.
By the way, Queenie is still FUMING that someone in Frank's mailcommed her and called her taste in music anodyne. She is considering having it out with said music snob extraordinaire by way of the next article. But she is not sure of the protocol of a Frank's fisticuffs. Can you just go straight for the eyes, or the cochlears possibly, or do you have to be all louche and offhanded about the whole thing, whilst amazingly perceptive about Ukrainian belching music.
Please tell me it's the former.
Anyways...
Top Ten Purchased Albums
In no particular order, but that in which they came to me through the shuffle dream
Bloc Party: Silent Alarm
Kate Bush: Aerial I and II
Kuma: Fast Colliding
Mercury Rev: The Secret Migration
Bruce Springsteen: Devils and Dust
Rufus Wainright: Want Two
Elliot Brood: Ambassador
Colin Hay: Going Somewhere
Madonna: Confessions from a Dancefloor
Doves: Some Cities
Top Five Gigs of 2005
Again in no particular order, but as they came to me in a sweetgrass dream.
Mercury Rev, in Vicar St., Dublin. In March sometime, because it was near Trish’s birthday.
Buck 65, in Whelans, Dublin, the night before I moved to Canada, so it was 7th June. And he was late.
Afirorampo, ATP second weekend. A cold weekend in April/ May. And I drove a car in England for the first time. Much to everyone’s horror.
Elliot Brood, The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto ON, on my second night in Canada, so work that one out yourselves.
Kuma, the Bovine Sex Club, Queen St., Toronto. The other gig of the year as far as I’m concerned
Top Five Films
Once more in no particular order but the way I remembered them, which appears to be the order in which I saw them. Hooray!!
The Republic of Love, dir. Deepa Mehta
Set in Toronto, a film version of the Carol Shields novel. A good adaptation of the novel. I saw it the day my visa came through, so I spent most of the film looking at the buildings in the background.
Garden State, dir. Zack Braff
Zack Braff does the chemical dependency thing and then is saved by a mysterious yet beautiful woman. A funny take on a boring genre. And a good soundtrack.
Mysterious Skin, dir. Gregg Araki
Sexual abuse survivors survive differently and finally come to terms with their experience by talking about it together. Healing ensues.
Pretty nasty film, but very impelling.
Water, dir. Deepa Mehta
This Hindi-language film, set at a ghat in Benares/ Varanasi in India, highlights how widows were treated (and still are in some provinces such as Bihar) by the Hindu religion.
Brokeback Mountain, dir. Ang Lee
Even cowboys get beard rash.
Ang Lee explores the male psyche with his usual quiet style. And the scenery is amazing, it was filmed in Alberta.
And there’s a bear in it. Scary one at that.
The worst film by a long ways was Elizabethtown, but it had a good soundtrack.
Top Five Reads
After a year during which I read not one book to completion, I found my ability to read till the book slips from my hand again, much to my relief.
Four of these books are by Canadian authors. In fact, most of the books I have read this year are deliberately Canadian. Buy Canadian fiction. It’s fab!!
The Memory of Running, by Ron McLarty
I already reviewed this last year.
The Wreckage, by Michael Crummy
A young Newfoundland Catholic finds the love of his life in a Protestant village, only to be separated from her when they are caught ‘at it’ by her mother.
He goes to fight in South East Asia in WWII and ends up in a POW run by a Japanese Canadian with a penchant for sadism. She waits, and waits, and waits.
Three Day Road, by Joseph Boyden
Isaac and Elijah are Cree hunters who join the Canadian forces in 1915, and are sent to fight on the Ypres Salient and later the Somme. They become expert snipers and spend most of their time in no mans land waiting for a kill. When Elijah returns broken and addicted to morphine, Elijah’s Auntie, who escaped from a residential school on the reservations as a child, uses all her renowned shamanic power to save him from the evil spirits within.
An Audience of Chairs, by Joan Clark
Moranna McKenzie is a bipolar sculptor living in isolation in Northern Cape Breton. Her bastard journalist husband took her children away when she became ill. Moranna starts every day playing an imaginary piano concerto to an audience of chairs.
Sweetness in the Belly, by Camilla Gibb
The story of Lilly, an orphaned European, who is raised by a Sufi philosopher in Morocco and sent to Ethiopia, to Harar. When Mengistu takes over, she is evacuated to London and begins the search for her lost love, Dr. Aziz. In the meantime, she co-parents Amina’s children and begins to trust others after a long period of isolation.
2005’s Five Best Days
By the way, Queenie is still FUMING that someone in Frank's mailcommed her and called her taste in music anodyne. She is considering having it out with said music snob extraordinaire by way of the next article. But she is not sure of the protocol of a Frank's fisticuffs. Can you just go straight for the eyes, or the cochlears possibly, or do you have to be all louche and offhanded about the whole thing, whilst amazingly perceptive about Ukrainian belching music.
Please tell me it's the former.
Anyways...
Top Ten Purchased Albums
In no particular order, but that in which they came to me through the shuffle dream
Bloc Party: Silent Alarm
Kate Bush: Aerial I and II
Kuma: Fast Colliding
Mercury Rev: The Secret Migration
Bruce Springsteen: Devils and Dust
Rufus Wainright: Want Two
Elliot Brood: Ambassador
Colin Hay: Going Somewhere
Madonna: Confessions from a Dancefloor
Doves: Some Cities
Top Five Gigs of 2005
Again in no particular order, but as they came to me in a sweetgrass dream.
Mercury Rev, in Vicar St., Dublin. In March sometime, because it was near Trish’s birthday.
Buck 65, in Whelans, Dublin, the night before I moved to Canada, so it was 7th June. And he was late.
Afirorampo, ATP second weekend. A cold weekend in April/ May. And I drove a car in England for the first time. Much to everyone’s horror.
Elliot Brood, The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto ON, on my second night in Canada, so work that one out yourselves.
Kuma, the Bovine Sex Club, Queen St., Toronto. The other gig of the year as far as I’m concerned
Top Five Films
Once more in no particular order but the way I remembered them, which appears to be the order in which I saw them. Hooray!!
The Republic of Love, dir. Deepa Mehta
Set in Toronto, a film version of the Carol Shields novel. A good adaptation of the novel. I saw it the day my visa came through, so I spent most of the film looking at the buildings in the background.
Garden State, dir. Zack Braff
Zack Braff does the chemical dependency thing and then is saved by a mysterious yet beautiful woman. A funny take on a boring genre. And a good soundtrack.
Mysterious Skin, dir. Gregg Araki
Sexual abuse survivors survive differently and finally come to terms with their experience by talking about it together. Healing ensues.
Pretty nasty film, but very impelling.
Water, dir. Deepa Mehta
This Hindi-language film, set at a ghat in Benares/ Varanasi in India, highlights how widows were treated (and still are in some provinces such as Bihar) by the Hindu religion.
Brokeback Mountain, dir. Ang Lee
Even cowboys get beard rash.
Ang Lee explores the male psyche with his usual quiet style. And the scenery is amazing, it was filmed in Alberta.
And there’s a bear in it. Scary one at that.
The worst film by a long ways was Elizabethtown, but it had a good soundtrack.
Top Five Reads
After a year during which I read not one book to completion, I found my ability to read till the book slips from my hand again, much to my relief.
Four of these books are by Canadian authors. In fact, most of the books I have read this year are deliberately Canadian. Buy Canadian fiction. It’s fab!!
The Memory of Running, by Ron McLarty
I already reviewed this last year.
The Wreckage, by Michael Crummy
A young Newfoundland Catholic finds the love of his life in a Protestant village, only to be separated from her when they are caught ‘at it’ by her mother.
He goes to fight in South East Asia in WWII and ends up in a POW run by a Japanese Canadian with a penchant for sadism. She waits, and waits, and waits.
Three Day Road, by Joseph Boyden
Isaac and Elijah are Cree hunters who join the Canadian forces in 1915, and are sent to fight on the Ypres Salient and later the Somme. They become expert snipers and spend most of their time in no mans land waiting for a kill. When Elijah returns broken and addicted to morphine, Elijah’s Auntie, who escaped from a residential school on the reservations as a child, uses all her renowned shamanic power to save him from the evil spirits within.
An Audience of Chairs, by Joan Clark
Moranna McKenzie is a bipolar sculptor living in isolation in Northern Cape Breton. Her bastard journalist husband took her children away when she became ill. Moranna starts every day playing an imaginary piano concerto to an audience of chairs.
Sweetness in the Belly, by Camilla Gibb
The story of Lilly, an orphaned European, who is raised by a Sufi philosopher in Morocco and sent to Ethiopia, to Harar. When Mengistu takes over, she is evacuated to London and begins the search for her lost love, Dr. Aziz. In the meantime, she co-parents Amina’s children and begins to trust others after a long period of isolation.
2005’s Five Best Days
- Trish and Keith’s wedding day
- Tuskett Lake, New France, last weekend of the summer
- The day I spent exploring Toronto and it bucketed rain
- The afternoon I spent in the courtyard at ATP
- The day I discovered New York’s 8th St and its 67 shoe shops.
Five things I did this year that I’ve never done before.
- Saw a whale
- Moved to Canada
- Delivered 63,000 kgs of poplar logs to a photo-paper mill in Northern Alberta. (not by myself obviously).
- Lived beside the sea properly
- Started a blog. It's Percy’s Depressed’s first anniversary on Tuesday, by the way, boys and girls, if you have any thoughts on how Queenie should mark it.
I suppose an appearance from the man himself would be in order. Oh, I wonder where he is....
At least it's pretty obvious who our overlords of darkness are now.
Queenie's trivia breakthrough
W-e-e-e a-a-r-e the cha-a-a-m-pion-n-n-ns, my fri-e-e-e-nd….
Queenie entered the Nova Scotia world of the trivia quiz and stormed to the top of the tree immediately by winning the Crimestoppers Inc. third annual Battle of the Wits Trivia Quiz.
She has the plaque to prove it. Bottles of booze not being considered suitable prizes for Crimestoppers apparently.
Queenie of course was ably aided by her team, which included a politician, a political activist, a psychologist, and a Canadian military pilot. Who was very calm, knew a lot of stuff, and had a preternatural talent for reading upside down, which is what won it for us really, of which more anon.
OHMYGOD it was the most insanity she’s ever had to spend twenty-five bucks on in an evening. As she said to one of her teammates during the break after round two ‘I’m still trying to get over the fact that this is supposed to be fun.’ Queenie is going to have a pub quiz forthwith and show these people how to do it.
Definitely. She just needs to find a fundraising idea. But of course, there’s going to be another election soon, so there’s no shortage of candidates to fundraise for. Queenie was thinking she would do one around St. Patrick’s week sometime, and have an Irish round, to sort out the men from the boys.
Anyone fancy coming over to be Quiz Master??
The event was held in the Halifax Forum, which is where all the hockey games are held, and the bingo hall is located, so the room was a big barn, and consequently was freezing. Which was not good as Queenie had a sore throat and a fever, due to being worn out with elections and the crap that’s going on at work at the moment. So she was in a right mood from the get go.
There were 36 teams with five members on each team. As normal in Canadian public events, there was an initial, interminable reading out of the rules and thanking of everyone who contributed in any way to the event.
When Queenie has hers, she is so going to thank the parish priest for the use of the hall, and then not explain why.
Anyways, there were twelve rounds, with between twelve and twenty questions in each round. Each round was timed – four minutes, three minutes, one was a whopping six minutes.
But here’s the thing. They don’t read out the questions. They give you a sheet of paper with the questions on it. One sheet of paper. For five people.
Hence the need for at least one team member who can read upside down writing. The Queen Mother would have done very well, as this is one of her talents. Actually Queenie is not too bad at it either. Also, being left-handed meant she could write the answers down without putting her hand on the questions.
But how stupid is it? Where’s the fun in fighting over a piece of paper? What’s the point in having a time limit if it means that not everyone gets to have a look at the questions?
Apparently, the pub quiz is not unknown in Nova Scotia, as everyone I talked to was very excited at the thought of having a proper Irish one.
Maybe Queenie could do her idea of a blind dating pub quiz night here??
Anyways, we came from behind and ass-wiped the Daily News team that had led from the start, which was particularly gratifying, and beat various other teams comprising RCMPs, firefighters, radio stations and other stalwarts of the community. As the Halifax televisual celebrity compere put it, proving that not all politicians are stupid. Gee thanks, Fiona or whatever bland tv presenter’s name you had. Should I point out that we scored more on the news round than the goddam news hounds?
Queenie entered the Nova Scotia world of the trivia quiz and stormed to the top of the tree immediately by winning the Crimestoppers Inc. third annual Battle of the Wits Trivia Quiz.
She has the plaque to prove it. Bottles of booze not being considered suitable prizes for Crimestoppers apparently.
Queenie of course was ably aided by her team, which included a politician, a political activist, a psychologist, and a Canadian military pilot. Who was very calm, knew a lot of stuff, and had a preternatural talent for reading upside down, which is what won it for us really, of which more anon.
OHMYGOD it was the most insanity she’s ever had to spend twenty-five bucks on in an evening. As she said to one of her teammates during the break after round two ‘I’m still trying to get over the fact that this is supposed to be fun.’ Queenie is going to have a pub quiz forthwith and show these people how to do it.
Definitely. She just needs to find a fundraising idea. But of course, there’s going to be another election soon, so there’s no shortage of candidates to fundraise for. Queenie was thinking she would do one around St. Patrick’s week sometime, and have an Irish round, to sort out the men from the boys.
Anyone fancy coming over to be Quiz Master??
The event was held in the Halifax Forum, which is where all the hockey games are held, and the bingo hall is located, so the room was a big barn, and consequently was freezing. Which was not good as Queenie had a sore throat and a fever, due to being worn out with elections and the crap that’s going on at work at the moment. So she was in a right mood from the get go.
There were 36 teams with five members on each team. As normal in Canadian public events, there was an initial, interminable reading out of the rules and thanking of everyone who contributed in any way to the event.
When Queenie has hers, she is so going to thank the parish priest for the use of the hall, and then not explain why.
Anyways, there were twelve rounds, with between twelve and twenty questions in each round. Each round was timed – four minutes, three minutes, one was a whopping six minutes.
But here’s the thing. They don’t read out the questions. They give you a sheet of paper with the questions on it. One sheet of paper. For five people.
Hence the need for at least one team member who can read upside down writing. The Queen Mother would have done very well, as this is one of her talents. Actually Queenie is not too bad at it either. Also, being left-handed meant she could write the answers down without putting her hand on the questions.
But how stupid is it? Where’s the fun in fighting over a piece of paper? What’s the point in having a time limit if it means that not everyone gets to have a look at the questions?
Apparently, the pub quiz is not unknown in Nova Scotia, as everyone I talked to was very excited at the thought of having a proper Irish one.
Maybe Queenie could do her idea of a blind dating pub quiz night here??
Anyways, we came from behind and ass-wiped the Daily News team that had led from the start, which was particularly gratifying, and beat various other teams comprising RCMPs, firefighters, radio stations and other stalwarts of the community. As the Halifax televisual celebrity compere put it, proving that not all politicians are stupid. Gee thanks, Fiona or whatever bland tv presenter’s name you had. Should I point out that we scored more on the news round than the goddam news hounds?
Steps, voters, and responsibilities
With apologies for not blogging for so long, here are some initial thoughts on Queenie’s first Canadian election experience:
Steps – one of the reasons why I like Halifax is because it is built on a number of hills. I love the sight of blocks and blocks of timber-framed houses weaving around the city, built against and around its hillsides. Of course this means they all have steps up to the front door.
I don’t think my knees will ever recover from three weeks of going up and down steps. Steep steps. Narrow steps. Steps without handrails. Snowy steps. Slippery steps. Steps that trip me up and send me and my poll chart flying in opposite directions.
It was like canvassing Killiney Hill over and over and over and over again.
Voters – voters are the same the world over. They’ll tell you anything to get you off their doorstep. Nova Scotia’s voters sent the same eleven MPs back to Ottowa and bucked the national trend of punishing the Liberals, increasing the NDP vote, giving the Conservatives a go at power, withdrawing some support from the Bloc, and ignoring the Greens (although they did ignore the Greens here too, but that’s another hilarious story I must relate some day).
Queenie is interested in why this happened. Is it the Maritime myth of a people proud of their independence from those bastards in Upper Canada? Is it fear of change? Is it voter apathy? Is it huge levels of satisfaction with the incumbents? Is it the fact that many young working class voters are in Alberta or Ontario? Is it the old Celtic tribalism rearing its ugly head?
What?
It’ll be years before I figure it out of course. In the meantime, Queenie hopes that this trip against the trend will go unnoticed by the Conservatives as they divvy up the money around the provinces.
Responsibilities - Queenie has inherited two goldfish. Their previous mommy, MacKenzie, has gone to live in Alberta with her mommy and daddy and sister. So now they live with me. It was a last minute decision, the aquatic version of a crisis pregnancy. Will I, won’t I? Oh go on, it can’t be that bad. So now they live in a smallish aquarium in my bedroom.
I have named them Peter and Alexa; it being the middle of an election when they arrived, and the fish being orange, which is of course the colour of the NDP.
I named them randomly, but in actual fact, their names suit their personalities perfectly. Alexa is bright orange and is in total charge of the aquarium, as befits a fish who bears the name of one of Canada’s most successful and popular politicians. The human Alexa romped home this time with a 10,000 vote majority.
When I trickle the food into the aquarium, Alexa gets right to it, elbowing Peter out of the way with her tail and getting all the big flakes with a kind of sweeper system she has going at the top of the water.
Peter is a little smaller, a paler golden colour and a little more reticent. I worry about him incessantly. But he swims around the bottom of the aquarium and sucks up all the smaller flakes as they fall to the bottom of the bowl, so I hope he’s getting enough.
When there’s no food left in the water, Alexa sucks up the stones at the bottom of the aquarium and divests them of the crumbs that are left. This is quite a noisy task, and is generally undertaken when I am trying to sleep. It irritates me and makes me feel incredibly guilty at the same time – am I not feeding my pets enough? I’m sure I am, but the nagging feeling is always there.
Normally when I come home in the evening and turn the light on in the bedroom, Alexa and Peter put their mouths up to the side of the aquarium and wiggle their bodies excitedly, like a pair of dogs. It’s amazing how happy it makes me, even though I know they are fish and it’s the food they’re after, not their new mommy.
But the day after I arrived home from Amherst, the pair of them turned their backs to me and wiggled their tails at me. I was devastated. I don’t care that they’re probably so stupid they got their directions mixed up. They were ignoring their mommy as far as I was concerned.
So, yeah, responsibilities – when you work on an election campaign and you lose, you feel a huge sense of responsibility to your candidate. Because loss is devastating in politics.
Imagine being interviewed by thousands and thousands of people for a job you really, really want. Imagine that those people have very little interest in your curriculum vitae, but prefer to base their decision on all kinds of factors that are not relevant (or indeed legal) in the modern workplace – the way you look, where you’re from, what other people (on tv, newspapers) have said about you. Imagine you know who else is up for the position, and that they are telling everyone why they shouldn’t hire you. Or trying to expose some secret you may have, or something you did in your past, or just bad-mouthing you to everyone.
(Which reminds me, I hope who ever ‘outed’ Queenie’s former colleague Cllr. Malcolm Byrne gets outed him/herself as the nasty little scumbag s/he is. Malcolm’s politics are not Queenie’s, but they agree on one thing - his personal life is his own business. And boo hiss to the Irish media for making it into a national story. They’re saying the Shinners did it… hmmm… I wonder… Queenie would be looking closer to home.)
The upside of this HR insanity is that you are allowed to have hundreds of people who give up their time and their money to help you get the job. And they all get very involved in your bid. Some more involved than others of course. So they are all very upset if you don’t win either.
So I have spent a large part of this week wondering what more I could have done. Not much, I think. But still.
I’ll compensate by feeding Peter till he glows as brightly as Alexa.
Now I must go and have some breakfast, and think about what else to tell you all…
Steps – one of the reasons why I like Halifax is because it is built on a number of hills. I love the sight of blocks and blocks of timber-framed houses weaving around the city, built against and around its hillsides. Of course this means they all have steps up to the front door.
I don’t think my knees will ever recover from three weeks of going up and down steps. Steep steps. Narrow steps. Steps without handrails. Snowy steps. Slippery steps. Steps that trip me up and send me and my poll chart flying in opposite directions.
It was like canvassing Killiney Hill over and over and over and over again.
Voters – voters are the same the world over. They’ll tell you anything to get you off their doorstep. Nova Scotia’s voters sent the same eleven MPs back to Ottowa and bucked the national trend of punishing the Liberals, increasing the NDP vote, giving the Conservatives a go at power, withdrawing some support from the Bloc, and ignoring the Greens (although they did ignore the Greens here too, but that’s another hilarious story I must relate some day).
Queenie is interested in why this happened. Is it the Maritime myth of a people proud of their independence from those bastards in Upper Canada? Is it fear of change? Is it voter apathy? Is it huge levels of satisfaction with the incumbents? Is it the fact that many young working class voters are in Alberta or Ontario? Is it the old Celtic tribalism rearing its ugly head?
What?
It’ll be years before I figure it out of course. In the meantime, Queenie hopes that this trip against the trend will go unnoticed by the Conservatives as they divvy up the money around the provinces.
Responsibilities - Queenie has inherited two goldfish. Their previous mommy, MacKenzie, has gone to live in Alberta with her mommy and daddy and sister. So now they live with me. It was a last minute decision, the aquatic version of a crisis pregnancy. Will I, won’t I? Oh go on, it can’t be that bad. So now they live in a smallish aquarium in my bedroom.
I have named them Peter and Alexa; it being the middle of an election when they arrived, and the fish being orange, which is of course the colour of the NDP.
I named them randomly, but in actual fact, their names suit their personalities perfectly. Alexa is bright orange and is in total charge of the aquarium, as befits a fish who bears the name of one of Canada’s most successful and popular politicians. The human Alexa romped home this time with a 10,000 vote majority.
When I trickle the food into the aquarium, Alexa gets right to it, elbowing Peter out of the way with her tail and getting all the big flakes with a kind of sweeper system she has going at the top of the water.
Peter is a little smaller, a paler golden colour and a little more reticent. I worry about him incessantly. But he swims around the bottom of the aquarium and sucks up all the smaller flakes as they fall to the bottom of the bowl, so I hope he’s getting enough.
When there’s no food left in the water, Alexa sucks up the stones at the bottom of the aquarium and divests them of the crumbs that are left. This is quite a noisy task, and is generally undertaken when I am trying to sleep. It irritates me and makes me feel incredibly guilty at the same time – am I not feeding my pets enough? I’m sure I am, but the nagging feeling is always there.
Normally when I come home in the evening and turn the light on in the bedroom, Alexa and Peter put their mouths up to the side of the aquarium and wiggle their bodies excitedly, like a pair of dogs. It’s amazing how happy it makes me, even though I know they are fish and it’s the food they’re after, not their new mommy.
But the day after I arrived home from Amherst, the pair of them turned their backs to me and wiggled their tails at me. I was devastated. I don’t care that they’re probably so stupid they got their directions mixed up. They were ignoring their mommy as far as I was concerned.
So, yeah, responsibilities – when you work on an election campaign and you lose, you feel a huge sense of responsibility to your candidate. Because loss is devastating in politics.
Imagine being interviewed by thousands and thousands of people for a job you really, really want. Imagine that those people have very little interest in your curriculum vitae, but prefer to base their decision on all kinds of factors that are not relevant (or indeed legal) in the modern workplace – the way you look, where you’re from, what other people (on tv, newspapers) have said about you. Imagine you know who else is up for the position, and that they are telling everyone why they shouldn’t hire you. Or trying to expose some secret you may have, or something you did in your past, or just bad-mouthing you to everyone.
(Which reminds me, I hope who ever ‘outed’ Queenie’s former colleague Cllr. Malcolm Byrne gets outed him/herself as the nasty little scumbag s/he is. Malcolm’s politics are not Queenie’s, but they agree on one thing - his personal life is his own business. And boo hiss to the Irish media for making it into a national story. They’re saying the Shinners did it… hmmm… I wonder… Queenie would be looking closer to home.)
The upside of this HR insanity is that you are allowed to have hundreds of people who give up their time and their money to help you get the job. And they all get very involved in your bid. Some more involved than others of course. So they are all very upset if you don’t win either.
So I have spent a large part of this week wondering what more I could have done. Not much, I think. But still.
I’ll compensate by feeding Peter till he glows as brightly as Alexa.
Now I must go and have some breakfast, and think about what else to tell you all…
Saturday, January 28, 2006
A close call, but Queenie made it home again
It's amazing what you think about when you think you are about to be horribly injured/ die.
There was Queenie, sitting in a car on her way to Amherst, up by the New Brunswick border, last Thursday night. The trip was work-related and a colleague was driving. In a snow storm, because the stretch of privately-built road that brings you up over the ridge to the toll plaza has created a mini-vortex of wind and snow that bears no resemblance to the rest of the provincial weather. Although if Queenie remembers rightly, it was a bad night anyway, snowing when they left Halifax.
Anyways, up the ridge we were going at a steady clip, but I felt as if I were in safe hands. Up the ridge we were going, talking nineteen to the dozen about some movie or another, which is what we often talk about, I can't remember now when suddenly, whhoooooooooh, the car takes off and slides over into the right hand lane of the highway. The driver tries to wrestle it back towards the centre lane and neither of us have said a word or reacted out loud yet, when whoooooooooooh, the car slides to the left, then SPINS round in the middle of the highway.
To me it felt like a couple of times: it was probably only once. But all I can see in my head is the car sliding round and round in a white, white landscape that was completely disorienting. I could feel the back end of the car pulling away from the steering wheel and the tension in the steel as the car teetered on its wheels.
I'm thinking, wow, the car is spinning really fast. I wonder what's going to happen next? Which way are we going to face when we stop?
The correct way as it happens. In the middle of the highway. Unfortunately, the car then slid really fast, sideways, towards the other side of the highway. We felt the same sensation as if you slid off a ski-lift without being ready, down a steep slope very fast with one ski turned the wrong way!
Uh-Uh-uhh-Uh-Uh-Uh-waaaaaaaah.
I was waiting for the car to flip. I kept thinking, it's going to flip now. I can feel it wobbling. I wonder will it hurt? I really hope I don't die. I don't want to die here in this place. And my poor parents. They will be well put out if I die here this week - I'll ruin their holiday plans. Although I don't want to be injured either. Ohhhhh, I really hope it doesn't hurt.
I even thought about those three Canadian soldiers who were injured in the car bomb last week. I wondered whether they got a chance to think about it before it happened.
And then we slid to a stop against a snow bank facing the road we had just left.
We sat for a moment. Neither of us had uttered a sound throughout the whole incident. I coudn't believe how calm I felt.
Are you okay?
Yeah, he said
That was fun.
I'm not sharing your idea of fun, he said.
He put the car in 4WD and got us back on the road, and we kept going and eventually got to a petrol station and checked the car and it was fine. Then we made it to Amherst and went to the hotel bar and had a couple of drinks and we were fine.
Except every time I close my eyes now, I am sitting belted up in the car with my hands loosely folded in my lap, and I am spinning round and round in a white white night-time world.
Round and round I go.
I marvel at the fact that there were no other cars around. That we had all that space to spin and slide without hurting ourselves or anyone else.
That the driver had the presence of mind to pull the car back towards the middle of the highway, so that we didn't plunge down the side of the ridge and hit the trees.
That he remembered to take his foot off the accelerator.
That the guy who designed the road put a wide enough strip in the middle that we stopped before we slid into the path of the oncoming truck I remember. Although I don't know if that's an accurate memory or a false one.
That there was no railguard in the middle for us to slam against.
Shazz says I have to put the thoughts away because I could inadvertently call it upoon me again. I'm sure they'll go away in a bit.
Anyways, Queenie's back. What's left of her anyways, after an eight week election campaign and a mental week at work this week instead of a nice calm restorative week. The rest of her mind will be along eventually, after she spends the weekend pulling herself together. Unfortunately, she's very tired and has a fever today. So we might not get up to blogging speed immediately.
But she's very glad to be back.
There was Queenie, sitting in a car on her way to Amherst, up by the New Brunswick border, last Thursday night. The trip was work-related and a colleague was driving. In a snow storm, because the stretch of privately-built road that brings you up over the ridge to the toll plaza has created a mini-vortex of wind and snow that bears no resemblance to the rest of the provincial weather. Although if Queenie remembers rightly, it was a bad night anyway, snowing when they left Halifax.
Anyways, up the ridge we were going at a steady clip, but I felt as if I were in safe hands. Up the ridge we were going, talking nineteen to the dozen about some movie or another, which is what we often talk about, I can't remember now when suddenly, whhoooooooooh, the car takes off and slides over into the right hand lane of the highway. The driver tries to wrestle it back towards the centre lane and neither of us have said a word or reacted out loud yet, when whoooooooooooh, the car slides to the left, then SPINS round in the middle of the highway.
To me it felt like a couple of times: it was probably only once. But all I can see in my head is the car sliding round and round in a white, white landscape that was completely disorienting. I could feel the back end of the car pulling away from the steering wheel and the tension in the steel as the car teetered on its wheels.
I'm thinking, wow, the car is spinning really fast. I wonder what's going to happen next? Which way are we going to face when we stop?
The correct way as it happens. In the middle of the highway. Unfortunately, the car then slid really fast, sideways, towards the other side of the highway. We felt the same sensation as if you slid off a ski-lift without being ready, down a steep slope very fast with one ski turned the wrong way!
Uh-Uh-uhh-Uh-Uh-Uh-waaaaaaaah.
I was waiting for the car to flip. I kept thinking, it's going to flip now. I can feel it wobbling. I wonder will it hurt? I really hope I don't die. I don't want to die here in this place. And my poor parents. They will be well put out if I die here this week - I'll ruin their holiday plans. Although I don't want to be injured either. Ohhhhh, I really hope it doesn't hurt.
I even thought about those three Canadian soldiers who were injured in the car bomb last week. I wondered whether they got a chance to think about it before it happened.
And then we slid to a stop against a snow bank facing the road we had just left.
We sat for a moment. Neither of us had uttered a sound throughout the whole incident. I coudn't believe how calm I felt.
Are you okay?
Yeah, he said
That was fun.
I'm not sharing your idea of fun, he said.
He put the car in 4WD and got us back on the road, and we kept going and eventually got to a petrol station and checked the car and it was fine. Then we made it to Amherst and went to the hotel bar and had a couple of drinks and we were fine.
Except every time I close my eyes now, I am sitting belted up in the car with my hands loosely folded in my lap, and I am spinning round and round in a white white night-time world.
Round and round I go.
I marvel at the fact that there were no other cars around. That we had all that space to spin and slide without hurting ourselves or anyone else.
That the driver had the presence of mind to pull the car back towards the middle of the highway, so that we didn't plunge down the side of the ridge and hit the trees.
That he remembered to take his foot off the accelerator.
That the guy who designed the road put a wide enough strip in the middle that we stopped before we slid into the path of the oncoming truck I remember. Although I don't know if that's an accurate memory or a false one.
That there was no railguard in the middle for us to slam against.
Shazz says I have to put the thoughts away because I could inadvertently call it upoon me again. I'm sure they'll go away in a bit.
Anyways, Queenie's back. What's left of her anyways, after an eight week election campaign and a mental week at work this week instead of a nice calm restorative week. The rest of her mind will be along eventually, after she spends the weekend pulling herself together. Unfortunately, she's very tired and has a fever today. So we might not get up to blogging speed immediately.
But she's very glad to be back.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Have these people never read Moby Dick?
Jane Smiley is one of Queenie’s favourite novelists. All of her books have taken on a literary challenge – epic, mystery, confession, history, or just plain tale – and created something unforgettable. I am currently reading her Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel, which arose out of Smiley’s writer’s block in the wake of 9/11, and her consequent decision to read 100 novels.
It’s fantastic and well worth buying for Chapter 8 alone, which is called The Novel and History. The chapter assigns an important role for the novel in political and personal historical terms, and warns of a world without novels, or more importantly novel readers. I’ve typed some of it out, with apologies to Ms. Smiley, but this is important stuff, so I hope she won’t mind too much:
“I saw with some surprise, that my world is fragile not only because of forces from the East, but also because of forces from within the West, forces from Texas, forces from Wyoming, forces from the evangelical right, forces from the corporate world, forces from the world of think tanks and political institutes. We seem to live in a world now where all thoughts are focused on the idea of prevailing, of imposing one’s beliefs on others, and no thoughts, no thoughts are given to the costs of prevailing, or even what it means. Have these people never read Moby Dick? Well no, they haven’t.”
“These are current concerns that perhaps someday will seem momentary in retrospect, but they remind me that those who don’t read novels are condemned to repeat the oldest mistakes in literature – the mistake of hubris, a Greek mistake, and the mistake of attributing one’s own emotions to God, a Judeo-Christian-Islamic mistake. Pride, arrogance, moral blindness and narcissism are endemic among humans, especially humans who occupy positions of power, either in society, or in the family. But when I have read a long novel, when I have entered systematically into a sensibility that is alien to mine, the author’s or a character’s, when I have become interested in another person because he is interesting, not because he is privileged or great, there is a possibility that at the end I will be a degree less self-centred than I was at the beginning, that I will be a degree more able to see the world as another sees it. And there is the possibility that I will be able to reason about my own emotions. In the end I will be more empathetic … and I will be more sympathetic....”
…
“When we talk about the death of the novel, what we are really talking about is the possibility that empathy, however minimal, would no longer be attainable for those for whom the novel has died. If the novel has died for the bureaucrats who run our country, then they are likely not to pause before engaging in narcissistic and foolish policies. If the novel has died for men … then the inner lives of their friends and family members are a degree more closed to them than before. If the novel dies, or never lives, for children and teenagers, who spend their time watching TV or playing video games, then they will always be somewhat mystified by others, and by themselves as well. If the novel should die, what is to replace it?”
“My guess is that mere technology will not kill the novel. It is too different from movies and other forms of visual entertainment to be replaced by them. Nor do I believe that novels are bannable. Too many of them reside in private hands; they would be as hard to get rid of as guns and bullets. But novels can be sidelined – dismissed to the seraglio, where they are read by women and children and have no effect on those in power. What that happens, our society will be brutalised and coarsened by people who speak rather like us, and look rather like us but who have no way of understanding us or each other.”
Queenie would like to point out that she has read Moby Dick three times. Not because she liked it over-much, mind, a brain storm the day she had to pick an essay topic one time years back caused it. But Smiley is right about the book's lessons.
It’s fantastic and well worth buying for Chapter 8 alone, which is called The Novel and History. The chapter assigns an important role for the novel in political and personal historical terms, and warns of a world without novels, or more importantly novel readers. I’ve typed some of it out, with apologies to Ms. Smiley, but this is important stuff, so I hope she won’t mind too much:
“I saw with some surprise, that my world is fragile not only because of forces from the East, but also because of forces from within the West, forces from Texas, forces from Wyoming, forces from the evangelical right, forces from the corporate world, forces from the world of think tanks and political institutes. We seem to live in a world now where all thoughts are focused on the idea of prevailing, of imposing one’s beliefs on others, and no thoughts, no thoughts are given to the costs of prevailing, or even what it means. Have these people never read Moby Dick? Well no, they haven’t.”
“These are current concerns that perhaps someday will seem momentary in retrospect, but they remind me that those who don’t read novels are condemned to repeat the oldest mistakes in literature – the mistake of hubris, a Greek mistake, and the mistake of attributing one’s own emotions to God, a Judeo-Christian-Islamic mistake. Pride, arrogance, moral blindness and narcissism are endemic among humans, especially humans who occupy positions of power, either in society, or in the family. But when I have read a long novel, when I have entered systematically into a sensibility that is alien to mine, the author’s or a character’s, when I have become interested in another person because he is interesting, not because he is privileged or great, there is a possibility that at the end I will be a degree less self-centred than I was at the beginning, that I will be a degree more able to see the world as another sees it. And there is the possibility that I will be able to reason about my own emotions. In the end I will be more empathetic … and I will be more sympathetic....”
…
“When we talk about the death of the novel, what we are really talking about is the possibility that empathy, however minimal, would no longer be attainable for those for whom the novel has died. If the novel has died for the bureaucrats who run our country, then they are likely not to pause before engaging in narcissistic and foolish policies. If the novel has died for men … then the inner lives of their friends and family members are a degree more closed to them than before. If the novel dies, or never lives, for children and teenagers, who spend their time watching TV or playing video games, then they will always be somewhat mystified by others, and by themselves as well. If the novel should die, what is to replace it?”
“My guess is that mere technology will not kill the novel. It is too different from movies and other forms of visual entertainment to be replaced by them. Nor do I believe that novels are bannable. Too many of them reside in private hands; they would be as hard to get rid of as guns and bullets. But novels can be sidelined – dismissed to the seraglio, where they are read by women and children and have no effect on those in power. What that happens, our society will be brutalised and coarsened by people who speak rather like us, and look rather like us but who have no way of understanding us or each other.”
Queenie would like to point out that she has read Moby Dick three times. Not because she liked it over-much, mind, a brain storm the day she had to pick an essay topic one time years back caused it. But Smiley is right about the book's lessons.
The Politics of Socialising Politically
Queenie just read her comments and realised that HisHighness wants to know why she writes in the third person.
Because we are royal, of course.
Ah no, seriously, sometimes I write in the first person. As you will see if you read back through the archive, which I don’t expect you to do. Just take my word for it.
I write in the third person for a number of interlocking reasons.
I am trying to teach myself to write and writing in the third person is really difficult, so I invented Queenie to get the hang of it. Once I invented Queenie, she took on a personality of her own and some days she is in charge of the keyboard and there’s nothing I can do about it. Instead of being annoyed at this peremptory bitch taking over my blog I realised that when I want to say something that I could get into trouble over, I can just get Queenie to say it.
A bit like when I was young and made a mess and said that my imaginary friend did it.
Hope that clears that up.
The confusion, I mean, not the mess.
I have another character as well, the last surviving knight of the round table, who goes by the name of Percy, hence the name of the blog. He went bear-hunting in June and I haven’t seen him since. I reckon he’s holed up somewhere in Northern Quebec with a sexy young Separatist and I’ll see him in the spring when she tires of his unrelenting optimism in the face of whoever wins this goddamn election.
So anyways, as I was saying before I got sidetracked by the Notwithstanding Clause and HisHighness’ unfamiliarity with the traditions of royalty (a Johnny Come Lately prince I fear – Queenie is very upset by the realisation and has swept off to sulk in her boudoir), I watched the debate with some people from the party last night.
I had gotten three invitations and managed to merge two of them so that was a happy outcome. Because of course in politics, it’s all about who you’re with when the interesting stuff happens. And what witty things you said to them. And vice versa. And what insightful comments you made, which get repeated next day. And vice versa (unless you pretend you said them).
I’m still riding a wave of ‘I’m from Europe and I don’t really give a fuck about your schoolboy politics’ posturing, so I’m safe for about another month I reckon. And I can just swear if I’m really stuck. So the pressure was on everyone else.
We were two blokes and three women, then four. It was hilarious.
The girls listened intently and took it all in, and also talked about Rosebud’s makeup and how cool Giles Duceppe was and made inane comments about the whole thing, and the blokes listened intently by cocking one ear to the telly in that ‘I’m too polite to shush you but I really want to’ way that men have when you’re multi-tasking in front of the tv so effectively you’re spoiling their concentration.
Poor lambs, I’d hate not to be able to walk and chew at the same time.
Queenie used to want to be like the boys. (oh, she’s back!!) Okay, I wanted to be like the boys when I was younger. I used to hang out with the male politicos and try to keep up with the banter. And developed strategies for forcing myself into a political conversation being held by a group of men (which I can still do – it’s all about pitching your voice lower than normal). But it never got me anywhere except backed into a corner at closing time by one of them trying to get into my knickers.
So I gave up.
At least they don’t do that here.
Well, they don’t do it to me anyway. I’m probably too old for it now anyways.
A long time ago I decided that if the party blokes want to pretend they have the keener political insight they are welcome to do so.
Maybe one day one of them will stumble on the insight that the reason why us girls listen and absorb and talk all at the same time is because we’re a little b-o-r-e-d by the spectacle of four white middle-aged men in dark suits and make up and colour-coded ties shouting and roaring at each other about ethics in a television studio that’s being overseen by another white middle-aged bloke in a suit who, according to the girls last night anyways, appeared to have had a face job.
Because we are royal, of course.
Ah no, seriously, sometimes I write in the first person. As you will see if you read back through the archive, which I don’t expect you to do. Just take my word for it.
I write in the third person for a number of interlocking reasons.
I am trying to teach myself to write and writing in the third person is really difficult, so I invented Queenie to get the hang of it. Once I invented Queenie, she took on a personality of her own and some days she is in charge of the keyboard and there’s nothing I can do about it. Instead of being annoyed at this peremptory bitch taking over my blog I realised that when I want to say something that I could get into trouble over, I can just get Queenie to say it.
A bit like when I was young and made a mess and said that my imaginary friend did it.
Hope that clears that up.
The confusion, I mean, not the mess.
I have another character as well, the last surviving knight of the round table, who goes by the name of Percy, hence the name of the blog. He went bear-hunting in June and I haven’t seen him since. I reckon he’s holed up somewhere in Northern Quebec with a sexy young Separatist and I’ll see him in the spring when she tires of his unrelenting optimism in the face of whoever wins this goddamn election.
So anyways, as I was saying before I got sidetracked by the Notwithstanding Clause and HisHighness’ unfamiliarity with the traditions of royalty (a Johnny Come Lately prince I fear – Queenie is very upset by the realisation and has swept off to sulk in her boudoir), I watched the debate with some people from the party last night.
I had gotten three invitations and managed to merge two of them so that was a happy outcome. Because of course in politics, it’s all about who you’re with when the interesting stuff happens. And what witty things you said to them. And vice versa. And what insightful comments you made, which get repeated next day. And vice versa (unless you pretend you said them).
I’m still riding a wave of ‘I’m from Europe and I don’t really give a fuck about your schoolboy politics’ posturing, so I’m safe for about another month I reckon. And I can just swear if I’m really stuck. So the pressure was on everyone else.
We were two blokes and three women, then four. It was hilarious.
The girls listened intently and took it all in, and also talked about Rosebud’s makeup and how cool Giles Duceppe was and made inane comments about the whole thing, and the blokes listened intently by cocking one ear to the telly in that ‘I’m too polite to shush you but I really want to’ way that men have when you’re multi-tasking in front of the tv so effectively you’re spoiling their concentration.
Poor lambs, I’d hate not to be able to walk and chew at the same time.
Queenie used to want to be like the boys. (oh, she’s back!!) Okay, I wanted to be like the boys when I was younger. I used to hang out with the male politicos and try to keep up with the banter. And developed strategies for forcing myself into a political conversation being held by a group of men (which I can still do – it’s all about pitching your voice lower than normal). But it never got me anywhere except backed into a corner at closing time by one of them trying to get into my knickers.
So I gave up.
At least they don’t do that here.
Well, they don’t do it to me anyway. I’m probably too old for it now anyways.
A long time ago I decided that if the party blokes want to pretend they have the keener political insight they are welcome to do so.
Maybe one day one of them will stumble on the insight that the reason why us girls listen and absorb and talk all at the same time is because we’re a little b-o-r-e-d by the spectacle of four white middle-aged men in dark suits and make up and colour-coded ties shouting and roaring at each other about ethics in a television studio that’s being overseen by another white middle-aged bloke in a suit who, according to the girls last night anyways, appeared to have had a face job.
Notwithstanding the over-application of blusher and lipgloss
Queenie’s flattened. And it’s only Tuesday.
Don’t know why. Can’t be the cold – the weather is great here at the moment. Like an Irish winter except with very little rain.
So it's better than an Irish winter.
She was up late last night, along with every other politico in Canada. Watching the second Leader’s Debate. There’s another one tonight, but it’s in French, so she doesn’t have to watch it as she hasn’t told anyone in work that she understands French.
It was very dull apart from Giles Duceppe, who rocked, and some kerfuffle that had something to do with the word notwithstanding, which had everyone up in a heap and shouting at the telly. (Queenie had been watching the debate with some people from the party, of which more later).
The Notwithstanding Clause
The Charter of Rights is the Canadian Constitution, as far as Queenie can make out. It has a notwithstanding clause, as follows:
Section 33(1) of the Charter of Rights permits Parliament or a provincial legislature to adopt legislation to override section 2 of the Charter (containing such fundamental rights as freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, freedom of association and freedom of assembly) and sections 7-15 of the Charter (containing the right to life, liberty and security of the person, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, freedom from arbitrary arrest or detention, a number of other legal rights, and the right to equality).
In the middle of the debate, Paul Martin, whom Queenie thought had been doing pretty well up till then (with the help of the CBC who were giving him a lot of very nice, tight camera shots and including him in shots of the other leaders so that they were being seen in profile, not that the CBC are biased at all after what Brian Mulroney did to them and most journalists being Liberals as far as Queenie can make out) waved his arms in the air a lot and said he’d abolish the notwithstanding clause if he won the election.
The reason he said it was to highlight the fact that Stephen Harper could use it to overturn same-sex marriage.
The real reason he said it was presumably to imply that Stephen Harper can’t be trusted with it, it conferring on him as it does the ability to turn Canada into a police state in emulation of the neo-Cons south of the border he’s supposed to be sucking up to.
Because Paulie never sucks up to our Great Yankee Overlords and didn’t spend the last ten years warning Canadians not to upset their biggest market. Or threaten to bring in swingeing anti-terrorist laws which would have trampled on quite a few rights outlined above.
Or maybe I am reading too much into it. We'll see. It usually takes journalists a couple of days to internalise what politicians really mean when they say things (and sometimes politicians are surprised at their own perspicacity when they read the paper on a Saturday).
Anyway, they spoke of nothing else in the corridors of power today.
Yawn.
All Queenie could see was a big red, scaly fish. But maybe she’s missing something really important. Maybe Stephen Harper is going to turn into a right-wing yankee bastard. Maybe he already is. Maybe Paulie is all that’s standing between us and Armageddon.
Jesus on a bicycle, Queenie is bored to death with all of this shouting and roaring. It’s an effing democracy. People can vote for Straight Steve if they like the cut of his jib. Or if they don’t like the cut of Paulie’s. Or they’re feeling reasonably prosperous and fancy a change. Or if they are inherently right-wing and conservative and feel that he represents their views. Or whatever.
Pulling cheap media stunts is not the correct way to show him up for the uncaring idealogue he is.
Unfortunately, it’s the way that seems to work the best.
But why is it that when you knock on doors and talk to decent people who take their civic duties seriously they ALWAYS tell you that cheap stunts drive them crazy? If it's not the electorate, then who is causing it to be the most effective method of getting elected?
The media?
The pollsters?
The bloggers?
They're always moaning about it too. Even though it pays the mortgage on the cottage.
The Third Way
So if nobody likes this, when is someone going to have the balls to try to get elected some other way?
This of course is the opportunity that presents itself most apparently to the Third Party. It's a good fit with basic Third Party strategy in the final two weeks of a campaign. When you’re the third party, the best thing to do is in the last couple of weeks of a campaign is to hunker down while the First and Second Party throw shapes at each other in the form of expensive negative advertising and cheap political stunts, and keep repeating over and over and over ‘if you want something different vote for us’.
Because you are going to get ignored by the media anyway, because they prefer two horse races.
Queenie has seen this up pretty close thirty eight times already and it's no different this time. The Greens used it to great effect in Europe in the eighties. The PDs use it in Ireland all the time (even though they're the fourth party/ or is it the fifth now?)
Did anyone hear Jack Layton in the midst of all the shenanigans last night?
Queenie couldn’t take her eyes off his makeup. The man with the swinger’s oobit will be forevermore known to her as ‘Rosebud’, and the person who did his blusher should be taken out and shot.
But apart from that, and apart from fluffing the question on swingers (the answer to which was the government should stay out of people’s bedrooms, not HealthCare is Important), that's what Rosebud did last night. Queenie would like to think that his debate strategy came about because the Third Party has listened carefully to the voice of the people and decided to be the headboy of schoolboy politics.
But she is almost too cynical to believe that.
Almost.
Presumably the rest of Canada feels the same as Queenie about The Clause. Himself wasn’t jumping up and down about it anyways, and thought Rosebud won the debate. But he’s a little biased.
But the media could speak of nothing else today of course.
Was it for this the boys burned down the White House in 1812?
The effing notwithstanding clause?
Don’t know why. Can’t be the cold – the weather is great here at the moment. Like an Irish winter except with very little rain.
So it's better than an Irish winter.
She was up late last night, along with every other politico in Canada. Watching the second Leader’s Debate. There’s another one tonight, but it’s in French, so she doesn’t have to watch it as she hasn’t told anyone in work that she understands French.
It was very dull apart from Giles Duceppe, who rocked, and some kerfuffle that had something to do with the word notwithstanding, which had everyone up in a heap and shouting at the telly. (Queenie had been watching the debate with some people from the party, of which more later).
The Notwithstanding Clause
The Charter of Rights is the Canadian Constitution, as far as Queenie can make out. It has a notwithstanding clause, as follows:
Section 33(1) of the Charter of Rights permits Parliament or a provincial legislature to adopt legislation to override section 2 of the Charter (containing such fundamental rights as freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, freedom of association and freedom of assembly) and sections 7-15 of the Charter (containing the right to life, liberty and security of the person, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, freedom from arbitrary arrest or detention, a number of other legal rights, and the right to equality).
In the middle of the debate, Paul Martin, whom Queenie thought had been doing pretty well up till then (with the help of the CBC who were giving him a lot of very nice, tight camera shots and including him in shots of the other leaders so that they were being seen in profile, not that the CBC are biased at all after what Brian Mulroney did to them and most journalists being Liberals as far as Queenie can make out) waved his arms in the air a lot and said he’d abolish the notwithstanding clause if he won the election.
The reason he said it was to highlight the fact that Stephen Harper could use it to overturn same-sex marriage.
The real reason he said it was presumably to imply that Stephen Harper can’t be trusted with it, it conferring on him as it does the ability to turn Canada into a police state in emulation of the neo-Cons south of the border he’s supposed to be sucking up to.
Because Paulie never sucks up to our Great Yankee Overlords and didn’t spend the last ten years warning Canadians not to upset their biggest market. Or threaten to bring in swingeing anti-terrorist laws which would have trampled on quite a few rights outlined above.
Or maybe I am reading too much into it. We'll see. It usually takes journalists a couple of days to internalise what politicians really mean when they say things (and sometimes politicians are surprised at their own perspicacity when they read the paper on a Saturday).
Anyway, they spoke of nothing else in the corridors of power today.
Yawn.
All Queenie could see was a big red, scaly fish. But maybe she’s missing something really important. Maybe Stephen Harper is going to turn into a right-wing yankee bastard. Maybe he already is. Maybe Paulie is all that’s standing between us and Armageddon.
Jesus on a bicycle, Queenie is bored to death with all of this shouting and roaring. It’s an effing democracy. People can vote for Straight Steve if they like the cut of his jib. Or if they don’t like the cut of Paulie’s. Or they’re feeling reasonably prosperous and fancy a change. Or if they are inherently right-wing and conservative and feel that he represents their views. Or whatever.
Pulling cheap media stunts is not the correct way to show him up for the uncaring idealogue he is.
Unfortunately, it’s the way that seems to work the best.
But why is it that when you knock on doors and talk to decent people who take their civic duties seriously they ALWAYS tell you that cheap stunts drive them crazy? If it's not the electorate, then who is causing it to be the most effective method of getting elected?
The media?
The pollsters?
The bloggers?
They're always moaning about it too. Even though it pays the mortgage on the cottage.
The Third Way
So if nobody likes this, when is someone going to have the balls to try to get elected some other way?
This of course is the opportunity that presents itself most apparently to the Third Party. It's a good fit with basic Third Party strategy in the final two weeks of a campaign. When you’re the third party, the best thing to do is in the last couple of weeks of a campaign is to hunker down while the First and Second Party throw shapes at each other in the form of expensive negative advertising and cheap political stunts, and keep repeating over and over and over ‘if you want something different vote for us’.
Because you are going to get ignored by the media anyway, because they prefer two horse races.
Queenie has seen this up pretty close thirty eight times already and it's no different this time. The Greens used it to great effect in Europe in the eighties. The PDs use it in Ireland all the time (even though they're the fourth party/ or is it the fifth now?)
Did anyone hear Jack Layton in the midst of all the shenanigans last night?
Queenie couldn’t take her eyes off his makeup. The man with the swinger’s oobit will be forevermore known to her as ‘Rosebud’, and the person who did his blusher should be taken out and shot.
But apart from that, and apart from fluffing the question on swingers (the answer to which was the government should stay out of people’s bedrooms, not HealthCare is Important), that's what Rosebud did last night. Queenie would like to think that his debate strategy came about because the Third Party has listened carefully to the voice of the people and decided to be the headboy of schoolboy politics.
But she is almost too cynical to believe that.
Almost.
Presumably the rest of Canada feels the same as Queenie about The Clause. Himself wasn’t jumping up and down about it anyways, and thought Rosebud won the debate. But he’s a little biased.
But the media could speak of nothing else today of course.
Was it for this the boys burned down the White House in 1812?
The effing notwithstanding clause?
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Himself and Queenie - the saga continues
Those of you who follow this blog will know about Himself in Nova Scotia, who moved too far away and became Himself in Alberta, and the dastardly way in which he asked Queenie to go visit him there because he missed her, and then told her (seven effing hundred and fifty dollars later) that he thought it would be best if they didn’t see each other anymore.
And how Queenie had a right royal tantrum about the whole thing.
Because even though she was happy for him to make his own decisions, she thought that maybe this was the wrong decision. Being very taken with Himself. Herself.
Then you’ll recall how Queenie had a wonderful day just before Christmas, which she calls Schadenfreude Sunday, where Himself sent a scouting party across enemy lines, in the form of an email, then followed it up with a phone call announcing a complete rethink on the whole ‘it would be best if we didn’t see each other any more’ scenario.
And a request to see Queenie the week before Christmas.
Which Queenie granted. Because she believes in giving people a second chance.
Having needed a few in her time.
And then Himself in Alberta flew back from Alberta and drove straight home to his mammy’s house and never called in to see Queenie.
Who thankfully had realised this was about to happen (due to having a very highly developed intuitive sense of the male psyche at this point) and therefore spent the night out on the town with Shazz revenge flirting in a series of Haligonian bars.
But Queenie was right pissed off, as we say at home.
Rightly so.
She had cooked dinner and bought him a Christmas present the previous weekend.
However, what most of you don’t know is that the day before the day before Christmas, when Queenie was packing for New Jersey, Himself called. To explain.
Queenie hadn’t called him to confirm things, he said.
Queenie pointed out that she had told him to call her.
Himself said he had thought Queenie probably wouldn’t want to see him, so he had decided not to call in, although he was regretting it very much now.
Queenie shouted then.
At length.
Himself knows Queenie well enough at this stage to know she only shouts at him when he has completely screwed things up by making what should be a joint decision unilaterally, based on what he reckons Queenie is probably thinking, rather than what she is actually thinking.
Queenie hates being thunk for.
More than anything.
Himself, being wise in the Ways of Queenie, also knows that the best thing to do when Queenie starts shouting is to keep saying sorry until she runs out of expletives and breath. And then say it a few more times until she calms down. Then say it a few more times until she starts seeing the funny side of things.
And then say it a few more times. Just to be on the safe side.
Himself requested another audience.
Queenie granted it.
Grudgingly. Because she doesn’t really believe in third chances.
Then she went to NJ/ NYC and worried about it for five days.
Himself emailed her in New Jersey to tell her he’d meet her at the airport when she got back. And never ever ever fuck up again. Ever.
Which sent Queenie into a tailspin of panic.
Due to the level of commitment being indicated by the email. Which of course meant that Queenie had to make a decision, which she hates doing.
But as Jersey Girl pointed out, she needed a lift home from the airport.
Why does Queenie constantly face these tough decisions?
Anyways, that was two weeks ago.
Himself in Alberta is now Himself in Nova Scotia. He is not going back to Alberta.
All was grand, until about a week ago, when Queenie suddenly remembered that, actually, she had given him a second chance during the summer one time when he was supposed to pick her up from the bus and sent his brother instead because he was playing hard to get.
So really, Himself was on his fourth chance.
Which is unusual; but not unprecedented in the history of interpersonal relations.
But it is probably one too many chances.
When Queenie pointed this out to Himself, he nearly laughed, but caught himself in time and assured Queenie that he appreciated ALL the chances he had been given. Very much. And he was going to prove to Queenie that he was worth all those chances.
Himself said all this in a very solemn voice.
But his eyes were smiling and dancing while he was talking.
Which is why Queenie likes Himself, of course. Because he's his own person.
This week Himself came up for a visit on Friday evening and we went to Gingers’ and Queenie stayed out too late even though she knew she had to go to work on Saturday. So she went out canvassing with a tired body and a sore head and it wasn’t that nice, what with all the underpants and marijuana clouds and the overheated apartment buildings and being dressed for the outdoors.
She finally finished and got a lift home around three thirty. Sitting in the car as it crossed the McDonald Bridge, she sighed as she realised she had no supper makings in the house and thought ‘oh well, at least Himself will drive her down to the supermarket’. Then she invited the (also) experienced canvasser in for a coffee and found Himself in the kitchen making supper for her (And enough for ten other people that hadn’t actually been invited round, but the food’s here if anyone fancies a free meal this week!), having found the supermarket by himself.
Having thought of finding it himself.
And then he listened to herself and the (also) experienced canvasser rant about politics for ninety minutes. Without yawning once.
And then he rubbed her feet till they stopped hurting. Without being asked to.
As all you girls out there know, there's nothing more indecisive than a bloke who can't make up his mind and there's nothing more decisive than a bloke who decides he has.
As Queenie found out today.
But more about that next week.
And how Queenie had a right royal tantrum about the whole thing.
Because even though she was happy for him to make his own decisions, she thought that maybe this was the wrong decision. Being very taken with Himself. Herself.
Then you’ll recall how Queenie had a wonderful day just before Christmas, which she calls Schadenfreude Sunday, where Himself sent a scouting party across enemy lines, in the form of an email, then followed it up with a phone call announcing a complete rethink on the whole ‘it would be best if we didn’t see each other any more’ scenario.
And a request to see Queenie the week before Christmas.
Which Queenie granted. Because she believes in giving people a second chance.
Having needed a few in her time.
And then Himself in Alberta flew back from Alberta and drove straight home to his mammy’s house and never called in to see Queenie.
Who thankfully had realised this was about to happen (due to having a very highly developed intuitive sense of the male psyche at this point) and therefore spent the night out on the town with Shazz revenge flirting in a series of Haligonian bars.
But Queenie was right pissed off, as we say at home.
Rightly so.
She had cooked dinner and bought him a Christmas present the previous weekend.
However, what most of you don’t know is that the day before the day before Christmas, when Queenie was packing for New Jersey, Himself called. To explain.
Queenie hadn’t called him to confirm things, he said.
Queenie pointed out that she had told him to call her.
Himself said he had thought Queenie probably wouldn’t want to see him, so he had decided not to call in, although he was regretting it very much now.
Queenie shouted then.
At length.
Himself knows Queenie well enough at this stage to know she only shouts at him when he has completely screwed things up by making what should be a joint decision unilaterally, based on what he reckons Queenie is probably thinking, rather than what she is actually thinking.
Queenie hates being thunk for.
More than anything.
Himself, being wise in the Ways of Queenie, also knows that the best thing to do when Queenie starts shouting is to keep saying sorry until she runs out of expletives and breath. And then say it a few more times until she calms down. Then say it a few more times until she starts seeing the funny side of things.
And then say it a few more times. Just to be on the safe side.
Himself requested another audience.
Queenie granted it.
Grudgingly. Because she doesn’t really believe in third chances.
Then she went to NJ/ NYC and worried about it for five days.
Himself emailed her in New Jersey to tell her he’d meet her at the airport when she got back. And never ever ever fuck up again. Ever.
Which sent Queenie into a tailspin of panic.
Due to the level of commitment being indicated by the email. Which of course meant that Queenie had to make a decision, which she hates doing.
But as Jersey Girl pointed out, she needed a lift home from the airport.
Why does Queenie constantly face these tough decisions?
Anyways, that was two weeks ago.
Himself in Alberta is now Himself in Nova Scotia. He is not going back to Alberta.
All was grand, until about a week ago, when Queenie suddenly remembered that, actually, she had given him a second chance during the summer one time when he was supposed to pick her up from the bus and sent his brother instead because he was playing hard to get.
So really, Himself was on his fourth chance.
Which is unusual; but not unprecedented in the history of interpersonal relations.
But it is probably one too many chances.
When Queenie pointed this out to Himself, he nearly laughed, but caught himself in time and assured Queenie that he appreciated ALL the chances he had been given. Very much. And he was going to prove to Queenie that he was worth all those chances.
Himself said all this in a very solemn voice.
But his eyes were smiling and dancing while he was talking.
Which is why Queenie likes Himself, of course. Because he's his own person.
This week Himself came up for a visit on Friday evening and we went to Gingers’ and Queenie stayed out too late even though she knew she had to go to work on Saturday. So she went out canvassing with a tired body and a sore head and it wasn’t that nice, what with all the underpants and marijuana clouds and the overheated apartment buildings and being dressed for the outdoors.
She finally finished and got a lift home around three thirty. Sitting in the car as it crossed the McDonald Bridge, she sighed as she realised she had no supper makings in the house and thought ‘oh well, at least Himself will drive her down to the supermarket’. Then she invited the (also) experienced canvasser in for a coffee and found Himself in the kitchen making supper for her (And enough for ten other people that hadn’t actually been invited round, but the food’s here if anyone fancies a free meal this week!), having found the supermarket by himself.
Having thought of finding it himself.
And then he listened to herself and the (also) experienced canvasser rant about politics for ninety minutes. Without yawning once.
And then he rubbed her feet till they stopped hurting. Without being asked to.
As all you girls out there know, there's nothing more indecisive than a bloke who can't make up his mind and there's nothing more decisive than a bloke who decides he has.
As Queenie found out today.
But more about that next week.
Knockin' on heaven's door
Queenie has a lot of blogging catch up to do, she knows. Here she is, over a week back from NJ/NYC and not a thing written about what's going on here in Halifax.It’s the election d’ya see. She’s busy. She’s been out canvassing.
Queenie likes canvassing. And it’s a little bit different in Canada, so it’s been interesting to learn how it’s done here.
As most of you know, at home in multi-seat proportional representation land, getting the promise out of the householder is more complicated than trading in coffee futures, but it’s all very relaxed.
“Hi, how are ya? I’m here for Proinsias (or whoever). We’re looking for your number one.”
Then you get:
Scenario 1
“Oh, Proinsias, he’s LUUU-VER-LY!!! I always vote for him, don’t I, Jim/ Joe/ Tom?” Jim/ Joe/ Tom grunts from behind newspaper. Then elector’s head sticks outside door, craning around Queenie for a glimpse of the great bearded one.
“Oh, oh, oh, there he is!! Frankie, Frankie.” Waves dementedly until he comes over to see photos of the latest grandchild/ give her a big sloppy one/ help her with some social welfare query/ have a cup of tea/ help her with her bin.
Scenario 2
“That bollix, I wouldn’t give him the steam off me piss.”
In which case you ask for his number two before he slams the door in your face.
No, not that number two! Number two on the ballot paper. Or three, or four.
Scenario 3
“Eastenders is on, ya daft yoke ya. Come back in an hour.”
In Canada, it’s a wee bit more formal.
You have a canvass sheet like you have at home. Upon which you make marks about which Queenie will not speak in case she inadvertantly lets the third secret of Fatima out of the bag.
And you get trained. Properly. Not like in Ireland, where Queenie’s training consisted of being sent to do the top floor of a block of flats in the north inner city on her own, not knowing that there were three psychotic Rottweilers living with three very angry Sinn Fein voters on that floor.
When Queenie finally got the power of locomotion back into her legs, and struggled down the stairs to safety, the two lads who sent her there were buckled with laughter. Leaning against each other with tears pouring down their faces.
Senior trade unionists both of them. And she just a slip of a girl up from the country and as innocent as Edna O'Brien getting off the train.
Queenie got iron in her soul that day. Iron that never left. Iron that got her through splits and rows and feuds and selection conventions and local and general and European elections and by-elections and mergers and christ knows what else, so Canadian canvassing is not going to scare her one liddel bit. No sirree bob!
But in Canada she got to go to a training session. With role-playing scenarios. Which Queenie sat and watched other people doing, in order to memorise the door-spiel.
So now every day Queenie accompanies the candidate if necessary, which is interesting because you get a great feel for how he’s doing, or if he’s canvassing with another Queenie works in the office, or goes out with an experienced canvasser (Queenie is now fully resigned to starting ALL over again in Canadian politics so she will just an ‘also’ to this and get over herself and her ego).
Here’s two questions Queenie’s been mulling over in her head all day. Why do men who live in apartments answer the door to strangers at three o’clock in the afternoon in their underpants? Whilst men who live in houses don’t?
Yesterday she was out with the (also) experienced canvasser, and we did an apartment block. We saw more men in their underpants than Queenie dreamed possible in one afternoon. Unless she was running a brothel in the oil sands.
And one woman.
But Queenie definitely had the advantage over the (also) experienced male canvasser in terms of ‘people answering the door in their underwear’.
Well, advantage might be a bit strong.
It’s actually very difficult to do the whole ‘Hi, I’m Queenie, and I’m here today to canvass for *** in the federal election. I was wondering, can we count on your support for *** on election day?” with a straight face when the person you’re talking to is casually scratching the underside of his left bollock while examining the leaflet you’ve just handed them.
And then sometimes, if you've had a good chat, they'll stick the hand out for you to shake when you're leaving.
Then there was the really pungent smell that wafted out of some doors…
There’s a stereotypical view of Canadians that they’re up at six am on the weekend, heading off to go pond skating, or cross-country skiing, or moose-hunting or whatever, but if you based your view of Canucks on Queenie’s canvassing you’d assume that most Canadians (who live in apartments) sit around in their underpants smoking weed all day Saturday.
There are other similarities with the old country, chief among them being a sort of resigned despair at what seems (to many voters) like Hobson’s Choice. Queenie feels for them. But it’s nothing a bit of reading up on the subject won’t sort out. Even though she knows most people would rather watch paint dry. That’s part of the problem of course, and why to a large extent we’re in the position we’re in today, but voting is an important civic duty, and people die for the opportunity in other countries.
When she was being trained, she was told it was probably best not to lecture people in this fashion if they say they’re not going to vote. So she doesn’t, but she finds it a bit difficult not to when she comes across someone younger than her, who’s all about the beauty of the negativity.
But she suspects that might be because they make her feel old and bourgeois.
The main difference between canvassing in the auld sod and in Canada is the respect you get from voters in Canada.
Nobody swears at you.
Nobody calls your candidate ‘that bollix’.
Nobody slams the door in your face.
Nobody shouts at you about the destruction of the trade union movement.
Nobody blames your candidate or party for their personal circumstances.
Nobody tells you that you personally are selling out the WURHKHURS of 'this country'. As if you're the Paris Hilton of the left and you're off back to the yacht when the canvass is over.
Queenie can’t decide which she prefers. She’ll have a better idea when she’s ‘more experienced’ probably!!
Ronan Bennett does a Dickens
Ronan Bennett is writing a novel in weekly installments in the new look Observer, which was launched today.
This week's installment is under the title. The novel is called Zugswang.
This week's installment is under the title. The novel is called Zugswang.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
These violent delights have violent ends*
* This is a quote from Romeo and Juliet, with thanks to Mr. Shakespeare, who was such a good poet that today's bards are still using the forms he created to produce modern poetry. Of more anon...
Have you noticed the way politics and blogging tend to collide and create little clusters of
Arrogant bloggers...
As most of you probably know, Queenie is up to her tonsils in a federal election at the moment.
And it being 2006, which is the Year of the Blogger in Canada (well, actually, it's the Year of the War Bride, but it's really all about edgy blogging this year).
A Liberal guy called Mike Klanders got sacked from Team Martin (what the Prime Minister of Canada is calling his election bid) the other day for saying rude things about the other parties on his blog. Specifically the NDP leader and his wife Olivia Chow.
Queenie was a bit bemused when she heard this. She was always taught that you should think of very rude and amusing things to say about the other parties (them lot, as we would say at home, or that shower). And then you ring journalists or meet them on the stump, and say the rude things to them in the hope they’ll get published. And she’s pretty certain that’s going on here too. In fact she heard a bit of it today, but it was all very good-humoured and witty. And that other lot had started it.
Anonymous comments don't get people sacked. So why do people blog about stuff they shouldn’t put online, and then tell everyone they have a blog, and then get sacked for having stuff they shouldn’t write on their blog on their blog? And why don't they use an effing pseudonym?
Because they want to be famous. That’s why.
They all want to be Arianna Flippin' Huffington.
Is Queenie the only European who remembers Arianna when she lived on that side of the pond, and who is therefore FLABBERGASTED at her metamorphosis into an important person in American politics?
Which is fair enough I suppose, if fame is your buzz. As it is for so many people these days.
Queenie reckons anonymity is going to be the new fame. In twenty years time, when Dick and George and Paul and Tony and Bertie and whatsername in Germany have read everything on the internet, Queenie's bland unimportant identity, and Percy's pristine credit rating, is going to be worth a fortune to the right person.
Presumably to ensure balance and fairness (so important in federal elections) Klanders had also written an entry on the offending blog, that listed one of his Top Ten hates of the election as ‘being dragged to a Liberal rally, being lied to so I turn up 30 minutes early, and having to stand in a hot room small enough to look packed”. (I’m paraphrasing here)
Yes, he said Liberal.
I agree, that’s probably why he was really sacked.
Queenie reckons there aren’t that many women who’d do something that stupid.
But that’s just Queenie being sexist.
Which brings me to confident bloggers...
As well as being sexist, Queenie is quite possibly a latent racist, apparently.
She commented on someone’s blog recently that maybe they were experiencing a bad mood dirty look rather than a racist dirty look, in a stupidly naïve attempt to cheer the blogger up, after he had mentioned that he was getting racist looks due to his ethnicity (Queenie doesn't know what it is of course, this being bloggerland).
This was because a) it happened in Halifax and she gets dirty looks on the bus all the time when she opens her mouth and it’s obvious she’s a ‘come from away’ but who cares, that’s just people, and she gets lots of smiles too, and
b) he is writing a blog about being a poet who is working for NDP candidate Alexa McDonough in the federal election in Halifax, which is Queenie's riding, so Queenie is very interested in it for all sorts of reasons, and reads it every day.
But instead of cheering him up she totally insulted him. And he made a comment about it in his next post, along the lines of SOME PEOPLE...
Because she doesn’t understand.
Because she hasn’t experienced it.
Which is a fair enough point except she has. There’s more than one form of racism in the world.
Queenie got very upset.
So she commented again that she totally understood because that happened to her all the time because she was a woman and she was always being told it was all in her head.
She just HAD to.
Then Colombo told her to stop because she doesn’t understand the racial tensions in North America and she had probably really insulted him.
So she did, because she doesn't really understand (although that doesn't stop anyone else from having an opinion) and although she had enjoyed baiting him. Not because of his ethnicity, mind, more because he has the kind of confidence that makes us Celts want to go hide under our beds in embarrassment. We being raised to put ourselves down at every opportunity.
Not that Queenie is denigrating his confidence. Queenie wishes she had some of it herself. She just doesn't understand why a dirty look on the bus would matter if you're that confident.
But Colombo is probably right. She doesn't understand.
But she kept reading. And then he wrote an article about the need for proportional representation in Canada, so Queenie wrote a sensible non-confrontational comment about the different types of PR, about which she knows more than the average person, as a peace offering. Which she then had to submit to him for clearance when she tried to post it.
Him putting up a moderated comment system is fair enough, as he got spammed recently; we all do. And Queenie had baited him the previous week.
But he hasn’t published her comment.
Why?
Queenie is going to be magnanimous and assume he hasn’t had time to post it on her behalf.
But she keeps checking the blog to see and today she noticed he had a post which was called ‘Maybe now I’ll be famous’, which was all about being filmed by CBC writing in his blog about the election, because Alexa had mentioned it.
Queenie had to sew her lips together to try not to say HAAAAA!
They say politics is meeting in the centre; Queenie reckons it’s meeting in the Green Room for Canadian Idol.
Finally, Queenie's found blogger love ...
Have you noticed the way politics and blogging tend to collide and create little clusters of
Arrogant bloggers...
As most of you probably know, Queenie is up to her tonsils in a federal election at the moment.
And it being 2006, which is the Year of the Blogger in Canada (well, actually, it's the Year of the War Bride, but it's really all about edgy blogging this year).
A Liberal guy called Mike Klanders got sacked from Team Martin (what the Prime Minister of Canada is calling his election bid) the other day for saying rude things about the other parties on his blog. Specifically the NDP leader and his wife Olivia Chow.
Queenie was a bit bemused when she heard this. She was always taught that you should think of very rude and amusing things to say about the other parties (them lot, as we would say at home, or that shower). And then you ring journalists or meet them on the stump, and say the rude things to them in the hope they’ll get published. And she’s pretty certain that’s going on here too. In fact she heard a bit of it today, but it was all very good-humoured and witty. And that other lot had started it.
Anonymous comments don't get people sacked. So why do people blog about stuff they shouldn’t put online, and then tell everyone they have a blog, and then get sacked for having stuff they shouldn’t write on their blog on their blog? And why don't they use an effing pseudonym?
Because they want to be famous. That’s why.
They all want to be Arianna Flippin' Huffington.
Is Queenie the only European who remembers Arianna when she lived on that side of the pond, and who is therefore FLABBERGASTED at her metamorphosis into an important person in American politics?
Which is fair enough I suppose, if fame is your buzz. As it is for so many people these days.
Queenie reckons anonymity is going to be the new fame. In twenty years time, when Dick and George and Paul and Tony and Bertie and whatsername in Germany have read everything on the internet, Queenie's bland unimportant identity, and Percy's pristine credit rating, is going to be worth a fortune to the right person.
Presumably to ensure balance and fairness (so important in federal elections) Klanders had also written an entry on the offending blog, that listed one of his Top Ten hates of the election as ‘being dragged to a Liberal rally, being lied to so I turn up 30 minutes early, and having to stand in a hot room small enough to look packed”. (I’m paraphrasing here)
Yes, he said Liberal.
I agree, that’s probably why he was really sacked.
Queenie reckons there aren’t that many women who’d do something that stupid.
But that’s just Queenie being sexist.
Which brings me to confident bloggers...
As well as being sexist, Queenie is quite possibly a latent racist, apparently.
She commented on someone’s blog recently that maybe they were experiencing a bad mood dirty look rather than a racist dirty look, in a stupidly naïve attempt to cheer the blogger up, after he had mentioned that he was getting racist looks due to his ethnicity (Queenie doesn't know what it is of course, this being bloggerland).
This was because a) it happened in Halifax and she gets dirty looks on the bus all the time when she opens her mouth and it’s obvious she’s a ‘come from away’ but who cares, that’s just people, and she gets lots of smiles too, and
b) he is writing a blog about being a poet who is working for NDP candidate Alexa McDonough in the federal election in Halifax, which is Queenie's riding, so Queenie is very interested in it for all sorts of reasons, and reads it every day.
But instead of cheering him up she totally insulted him. And he made a comment about it in his next post, along the lines of SOME PEOPLE...
Because she doesn’t understand.
Because she hasn’t experienced it.
Which is a fair enough point except she has. There’s more than one form of racism in the world.
Queenie got very upset.
So she commented again that she totally understood because that happened to her all the time because she was a woman and she was always being told it was all in her head.
She just HAD to.
Then Colombo told her to stop because she doesn’t understand the racial tensions in North America and she had probably really insulted him.
So she did, because she doesn't really understand (although that doesn't stop anyone else from having an opinion) and although she had enjoyed baiting him. Not because of his ethnicity, mind, more because he has the kind of confidence that makes us Celts want to go hide under our beds in embarrassment. We being raised to put ourselves down at every opportunity.
Not that Queenie is denigrating his confidence. Queenie wishes she had some of it herself. She just doesn't understand why a dirty look on the bus would matter if you're that confident.
But Colombo is probably right. She doesn't understand.
But she kept reading. And then he wrote an article about the need for proportional representation in Canada, so Queenie wrote a sensible non-confrontational comment about the different types of PR, about which she knows more than the average person, as a peace offering. Which she then had to submit to him for clearance when she tried to post it.
Him putting up a moderated comment system is fair enough, as he got spammed recently; we all do. And Queenie had baited him the previous week.
But he hasn’t published her comment.
Why?
Queenie is going to be magnanimous and assume he hasn’t had time to post it on her behalf.
But she keeps checking the blog to see and today she noticed he had a post which was called ‘Maybe now I’ll be famous’, which was all about being filmed by CBC writing in his blog about the election, because Alexa had mentioned it.
Queenie had to sew her lips together to try not to say HAAAAA!
They say politics is meeting in the centre; Queenie reckons it’s meeting in the Green Room for Canadian Idol.
Finally, Queenie's found blogger love ...
There's a wonderful political blog run out of Nova Scotia, called Liberal4Life. No, not a SPUCer (prolifer) liberal, a true grit - an 'I'm in it for the long haul' guy, who refers to himself as HisHighness.
Queenie is obsessed.
Maybe she has found her Prince Charming at last!
He was ranting today about how the US Christian Right are interfering in the election trying to get the same sex marriage decision overturned.
So they do that in Canada too??! Queenie thought they only funded religious groups in Ireland.
Although Queenie has a feeling that it may be the Nova Scotian Baptists/ Catholics/ Pentecostalists doing the running on this one. It's coming through quite strongly on certain doorsteps. Queenie was told by one elderly lady the other day that 'they'll be allowing brothers and sisters to get married next'.
What do you say to that?
But the best post is the one where HisHighness is paralytic with excitement at the opportunity to meet Scott Brison, the Liberal Minister for Local Government, and local MP, at a fundraiser for the soon-to-be-unseated Mike Savage.
The post is entitled Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!
I don't know about HisHighness, but the last time Queenie said Oh my God! three times in a row like that, she was having all kinds of kinky fun!
She would like to assure her readers that it wasn't with a politician.
Here are some photos of Scott.... mmmm...!
night night!
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Queenie's Big Chill III
What a day! Queenie is finally warm, at 9.45pm. Warm and in bed. Finally.
The electricity in the house has been acting up since before she moved in. During the summer, whenever someone flushed a toilet, all the lights in the house would dim, the odd appliance would blow for no reason, stuff like that. But as the evenings got darker and the power drain increased so did the problems. By Christmas, most of the circuits in the house were blowing at least once a day.
When Queenie got back from New Jersey, the only power left in the house was her light, the bathroom light, one socket in her room and the socket on the stove. Not funny, trying to run a house for five on all that. Queenie was lugging the microwave in and out of her room so that people could make dinner. But at least the furnace was working. Until last night. Everything blew last night.
So Queenie went to bed, because she had to get up at the crack of dawn anyway. So there she was, tossing and turning in bed, groaning a bit because Lady Moonbeam was making her presence felt. PsychoB and the Argonaut (Jason) were watching a hockey match loudly in the dark (no change there), but as well as being kept awake, Queenie was wide awake because she had drunk Coke that evening, had not drunk beer, had run out of relaxing holidays, and had to go to stressful, election-ridden work the next day.
At two fifty am she lost it and tore into the living room squeaking like a bat tracking a mosquito to demand they shut up. The Argonaut slunk off to bed and PsychoB banged around the kitchen a bit to show Queenie who was boss. Got to sleep despite for a bit but Lady Moonbeam is the boss in this house today and woke Queenie up again at 5.45am.
So I got up. Got dressed. Ate breakfast. Went out to get the 7.40am bus. It was minus eight and a bit windy.
No bus.
No bus for forty, achingly, freezingly, FUCKING minutes.
Queenie’s feet were sending pain shoots up her legs and into her groin by the time the bus came. As Himself would say 'Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr'.
You can only say Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr properly when your whole body is shaking involuntarily so that you don't slip into a frostbite coma on the street while waiting for the bus.
Her face hurt.
Her cheeks felt like she’d burnt them on a stove. But cold.
There was a spot in the small of her back that felt like the Snow Queen was kissing it relentlessly.
And of course it was the first day back to work so the office was cold.
Cold all day.
And then Queenie decided to work late, and then remembered she had to go to the supermarket. Which is freezing because of all the freezer cabinets pumping out cold air. Then home in the cold. And even though it was after seven when she got home, Nova Scotia Power were still foostering around the pylon in a cherry picker. And the house was down to fifteen degrees.
We issue press releases about houses when they’re that cold here.
Good thing I grew up in a Georgian house, where heat was something that escaped as soon as it was created in the radiators, and wafted up to warm the cobwebs in the ceilings. (Not that we had cobwebs very often, it’s just sometimes in the winter when it was very dark you didn’t notice them for a bit).
Now I know I can do cold.
I hate it, hate it, hate it.
But I can do it.
I was relentlessly cheerful about the whole thing because I thought my landlady was going to have a nervous breakdown and she’s a great landlady and she didn’t deserve the strop she was getting from the Argonaut.
I swear there’s nothing uglier than a whingey Cape Bretoner.
Anyways, it all got sorted in the end and Queenie cooked dinner and ran a bath and sat in it until her bones started sweating and now she’s finally warm. In bed. Warm.
Aaaaahhhhhh……………!
And she’s all smiley too because the fourth member of the Byrne clan to visit Halifax in nearly as many months emailed her today to announce the impending visit next week.
Queenie was very amused to think that there will have been four Byrnes in Halifax since she moved here and no Queenie-familias.
How ironic. I think I’ll do like my brother Baz and just move family.
I jest, I hear a little rumour that that might be on the turn soon. Just a flutter of a rumour mind, nothing in stone yet. But deliciously portentious all the same.
Yes, yes, I know that’s the incorrect use of the word portentious. Do I look like I care? You can’t see me to know? Well, get your ass over here then. Too cold furya is it? Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
I stayed late in work today, as part of my ‘January is for working and working and saving and scrimping and more working’ vibe. They all left at five on the nose (despite there being a federal election), forgot I was there and turned off all the lights.
I couldn’t be assed turning them back on, so I put on RTE's Nine O’Clock News for company.
What has Sharon Ni Bheolain done to her hair? It looks like she got the new Siena Miller look done in the Ballyragget Ladies' Badminton Society Perming Salon.
And I got such a fright when I heard the regional correspondents. Do I talk like them? They all sound like leprechauns.
I’ve gotten all cosmopolitan, you know.
That’s cos I’ve been to New York (photos under the name there).
For two nights and two days.
Shopping.
And bar-hopping.
‘Twas fab, ‘twas.
Some things I loved about this visit to New York
The electricity in the house has been acting up since before she moved in. During the summer, whenever someone flushed a toilet, all the lights in the house would dim, the odd appliance would blow for no reason, stuff like that. But as the evenings got darker and the power drain increased so did the problems. By Christmas, most of the circuits in the house were blowing at least once a day.
When Queenie got back from New Jersey, the only power left in the house was her light, the bathroom light, one socket in her room and the socket on the stove. Not funny, trying to run a house for five on all that. Queenie was lugging the microwave in and out of her room so that people could make dinner. But at least the furnace was working. Until last night. Everything blew last night.
So Queenie went to bed, because she had to get up at the crack of dawn anyway. So there she was, tossing and turning in bed, groaning a bit because Lady Moonbeam was making her presence felt. PsychoB and the Argonaut (Jason) were watching a hockey match loudly in the dark (no change there), but as well as being kept awake, Queenie was wide awake because she had drunk Coke that evening, had not drunk beer, had run out of relaxing holidays, and had to go to stressful, election-ridden work the next day.
At two fifty am she lost it and tore into the living room squeaking like a bat tracking a mosquito to demand they shut up. The Argonaut slunk off to bed and PsychoB banged around the kitchen a bit to show Queenie who was boss. Got to sleep despite for a bit but Lady Moonbeam is the boss in this house today and woke Queenie up again at 5.45am.
So I got up. Got dressed. Ate breakfast. Went out to get the 7.40am bus. It was minus eight and a bit windy.
No bus.
No bus for forty, achingly, freezingly, FUCKING minutes.
Queenie’s feet were sending pain shoots up her legs and into her groin by the time the bus came. As Himself would say 'Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr'.
You can only say Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr properly when your whole body is shaking involuntarily so that you don't slip into a frostbite coma on the street while waiting for the bus.
Her face hurt.
Her cheeks felt like she’d burnt them on a stove. But cold.
There was a spot in the small of her back that felt like the Snow Queen was kissing it relentlessly.
And of course it was the first day back to work so the office was cold.
Cold all day.
And then Queenie decided to work late, and then remembered she had to go to the supermarket. Which is freezing because of all the freezer cabinets pumping out cold air. Then home in the cold. And even though it was after seven when she got home, Nova Scotia Power were still foostering around the pylon in a cherry picker. And the house was down to fifteen degrees.
We issue press releases about houses when they’re that cold here.
Good thing I grew up in a Georgian house, where heat was something that escaped as soon as it was created in the radiators, and wafted up to warm the cobwebs in the ceilings. (Not that we had cobwebs very often, it’s just sometimes in the winter when it was very dark you didn’t notice them for a bit).
Now I know I can do cold.
I hate it, hate it, hate it.
But I can do it.
I was relentlessly cheerful about the whole thing because I thought my landlady was going to have a nervous breakdown and she’s a great landlady and she didn’t deserve the strop she was getting from the Argonaut.
I swear there’s nothing uglier than a whingey Cape Bretoner.
Anyways, it all got sorted in the end and Queenie cooked dinner and ran a bath and sat in it until her bones started sweating and now she’s finally warm. In bed. Warm.
Aaaaahhhhhh……………!
And she’s all smiley too because the fourth member of the Byrne clan to visit Halifax in nearly as many months emailed her today to announce the impending visit next week.
Queenie was very amused to think that there will have been four Byrnes in Halifax since she moved here and no Queenie-familias.
How ironic. I think I’ll do like my brother Baz and just move family.
I jest, I hear a little rumour that that might be on the turn soon. Just a flutter of a rumour mind, nothing in stone yet. But deliciously portentious all the same.
Yes, yes, I know that’s the incorrect use of the word portentious. Do I look like I care? You can’t see me to know? Well, get your ass over here then. Too cold furya is it? Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
I stayed late in work today, as part of my ‘January is for working and working and saving and scrimping and more working’ vibe. They all left at five on the nose (despite there being a federal election), forgot I was there and turned off all the lights.
I couldn’t be assed turning them back on, so I put on RTE's Nine O’Clock News for company.
What has Sharon Ni Bheolain done to her hair? It looks like she got the new Siena Miller look done in the Ballyragget Ladies' Badminton Society Perming Salon.
And I got such a fright when I heard the regional correspondents. Do I talk like them? They all sound like leprechauns.
I’ve gotten all cosmopolitan, you know.
That’s cos I’ve been to New York (photos under the name there).
For two nights and two days.
Shopping.
And bar-hopping.
‘Twas fab, ‘twas.
Some things I loved about this visit to New York
- The Stars and Stripes suspended from the ceiling of Grand Central Station.
- The Manhattan skyline from the train to Queens.
- The red, green and gold flags fluttering in the wind at the Rockefeller Centre – were they for Kwanzai, I wonder?
- Going on the beer with Stevo and Eileen after walking from 42nd to 2nd in the FREEZING cold.
- The REALLY expensive Eastern chi-chi household stuff and Just Fahblus T'ings store we found in the Village, that had Nepalese woollen hats on sale for seven hundred dollars. The kind of hats you get for a fiver when you backpack in Nepal.
- Finding a signed, first edition hardback of Salman Rushdie’s new novel in Shakespeare and Co that was reduced to twenty bucks in the sale. The shop assistant told me I should sell it on eBay. I said ‘after I’ve read it’. But I won’t.
- The gawa crab we had at in Mainland India at the end of Bleechers (am I spelling that correctly)
- Spending all night the first night looking for that Irish bar.
- Finding it.
- Having it to ourselves.
- Getting a business card that said Kevin, Solas Vibe Co-ordinator. I shit you not. Imagine getting the apostrophe wrong on that!
- Knowing we could do it all again the next night.
- Hearing the snippets of conversation. My favourite was Because I love you, I will wear socks to the airport.
- Being persuaded to buy that skirt by Jersey Girl. Who is now haranguing me on my own blog about buying clothes. Tsk…. Ahdunno!
- The people working in the shoe shops on West Eighth Street. Particularly the woman who tried to get me to try on a pair of boots and when I said ‘no, no more temptation, don’t let me buy anything. I’m not allowed buy any more shoes today’, replied ‘okay girl, but you in a shoe store’
- Being completely wrecked so deciding not to go home and change but to just keep doing it all again the next night.
- Pastrami sandwiches in Katz’ Diner for supper, sitting between the photos of Johnny Depp and Bill Clinton.
- Drinking cucumber gin with a lawyer from New Brunswick in the Rue B. Cucumber gin is almost as nice as sloe gin.
- The bouncer at The Living Room carding me, not letting me in because I had no id, and then letting me in for being honest when I told him I was thirty five and a half.
- Having ‘ceann an baile’ at almost three am, served to us by a girl from somewhere near Nenagh.
- Hailing the maddest Malian cab driver in the world to take us back to Queens. MCD – do you know which way you want to go? Queenie – no, but I know how much it costs, so don’t rip us off or we’ll kill you. MCD – Would you really? Queenie, not very upright at this point – Oh yeah. MCD laughs insanely and whizzes us across the bridge, turning round to talk the whole time. Queenie wonders who’s going to kill whom.
The How did they keep the bar up in Whelans’ while we were separated? Lower East Side Pub Crawl
Eileen would like to point out that she invented this pub crawl about five years ago. Stevo would like to point out that he used to live in New York and already knew his way round. Queenie would like to point out that she wrote it all down. Once on the back of a Delirious Tremens beer mat, and again tonight.
If she can find the effing beer mat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh no it’s okay…. here we are… I had it put away in the new wicker basket tidy set for posterity!! Queenie got to Canadian Tire this week and bought storage receptacles so she doesn’t go mad with the clutter. Nice Indonesian cane ones. For seven bucks. She dreads to think...
- 6.25pm The Fleamarket, on Avenue A. We had onion soup and glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon, and the cheese in the onion soup was soft yet chewy – perfect
- 7.42pm Croxley Ales, on Avenue B. We had the Beer of the Week, except they had run out, so we had the substitute beer of the week.
- 9.26pm 2A, on Avenue A and Second. So famous they don’t have a name on it. Apparently
- 10.21pm Katz Diner, for pastrami sandwiches, coleslaw and fries
- 10.50pm The Living room, near Arlene’s Grocery, which we didn’t go to for some reason. Marc the bouncer cards me and there’s a jazz funk band playing in the back room who aren’t as good as what’s on the stereo in the bar
- 1.52am Rue B, for cucumber gin
- 2.11am Musical Bar, 219 Avenue B, the barman buys us a drink and lets us smoke
- 2.45am, Mona’s for the last one
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