Well, Coldplay finally came to Halifax and Halifax fucked the sound up.
Some Canadian Idol alumnus who looked like Brian McFadden won all the awards.
Pamela Anderson hosted the awards but Buck 65 actually hosted them from the orchestra pit. Because she is that stupid. Or on drugs.
No other possible reason.
Broken Social Scene complained about television executives who think they can create pop stars through Canadian Idol, presumably because they didn't win as many awards as the CI bloke and his fellow alumni.
Hurrah. There’s no BS about BSS. And they won a gong too and deserved it.
The CI bloke kept banging on about Canada the way BMcF used to talk about Kerry (Katona that is). As in how great it is.
Methinks the CI bloke doth protest too much…
Queenie gave up watching after that, being in the middle of a very intricate scissors-related task that couldn’t co-task with extended advertisement viewing interspersed with occasional musical interludes, and so missed Bryan Adams playing 18 Till I Die after he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
Mark it down on ‘things I didn’t realise I wanted to do until they were over and I missed it.’
And all of Halifax is knackered after the weekend, except Queenie, who missed it all.
Monday, April 03, 2006
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Speciman Days a total letdown
And if all that posting and ranting wasn't bad enough...My favourite author Michael Cunningham has let me down terribly.
Shame on you, Michael.
And shame on all the people listed at the back of the book as his readers and collaborators. Has he succumbed to the hype and surrounded himself with sycophantic hangers on?
It would appear so. Or else his mates don't know shit about structure, plot, etc.
Do not buy it. Do not read it even. Unless you don't believe me. I would understand if you didn't. I don't believe me.
I read a New Zealand review of it which says:
Specimen Days is a genre-bending, haunting, and transformative ode to life in our greatest city-a work of surpassing power and beauty by one of the most original and daring writers at work today.
No it's not. It's a pile of stinking fish poo.
Funny how they always say 'original and daring' when they're too scared to say 'this is a pile of stinking fish poo'.
I borrowed it from the library and read it over three nights - it's in three parts - and when I was discussing it with Jersey Girl on the phone last night I had already forgotten the middle section.
It's that poor. Compared to The Hours, which was riveting, A Home at the End of the World, which was heart-breaking and mesmerising, and Flesh and Blood, which was an unforgettable portrait of how an unhappy man can destroy a family.
I'm not even going to bother reviewing it, apart from saying putting together an appalling pastiche of immigrant Irish life, the pre-menopausal hallucinations of a cop with a PhD in psychology (!?!), and an android who falls in love with a lizard from another planet, pretending it's all connected in some really deep way by setting it all in the bit of New York that aspiring writers want to live in, and calling all the characters by variations of the same names is rubbish. Even if the Walt Whitman quotes in the text are nice.
Of course they are. They're Walt effin' Whitman.
What is the grass? The grass is life you muppet!! Even the child knows that.
I'm not falling by the wayside lightly. I own every one of his books except this one.
Maybe I'm not getting it.
I don't think so. Even when I don't get it, if it's good, I like it without understanding why. Plus JG didn't like it and we can't both be wrong about a book.
Goodbye Michael. It's been great. I even enjoyed the lazy tome, Land's End: A Tour of Provincetown about your summer pad. In fact, it inspired my blog in ways, back when I had a summer. Maybe you should do like me and re-enter the real world for a bit. Get your edge back.
I hereto announce that Joseph Boyden is the new Michael Cunningham in my life and he's coming to the Halifax Writers' Fest next week so I shall tell him that.
Buy the Three Day Road. It's fab.
But you knew that already, as it was my favourite book last year.
Third attempt to blog about something nice
This day has gone pear-shaped. And it started out so well. Queenie woke this morning all refreshed instead of feeling like a dog’s dinner as usual, and pottered quietly for an hour like she needs to in order to face the day. And then murmured to Himself for a bit while she had her coffee outside in the sun.
Yes, outside in the sun. It hit thirteen degrees today. It felt like twenty five.
Then she got dressed and put on a jacket and sauntered into work and was too hot when she got there.
And then the government had a really, really bad day. And some of it was partly her fault. And she talked to yet another senior civil servant who joked about her being in a big office in a few months. Wondered whether we sit around trying to decide what jobs we’ll have when we win the election.
Like we have time.
Queenie only remembers one conversation like that, and it was more about which of us would actually get to keep a job, rather than corner offices being divvied out by the fall of a pair of orange dice.
Funny how all the senior CSs are sucking up already and the junior ones are getting rattier and ruder by the day.
Not really. Cream rises to the top, doesn’t it?
Christ on a bicycle, Queenie has just spent twenty minutes writing nasty texts and deleting them. She must be getting her period. Of course, there’s a big eclipse today as well.
That’s probably it.
Yeah, so the day went fairly well until about 3.30 and then it was just too nice to be in the office, so Queenie sat in the office staring out at the sun on the harbour, mesmerised by the little silver quickenings on the crests of the waves.
Tick. Tock. Piles and piles of work to do and no inclination to do any of it till 4.45, which meant she had to stay late.
Then off down the library for the ESL class. Which is driving her crazy now. It’s just too much on top of a day in the Office of Being Prepared for Every Eventuality, those Eventualities being the Subject of much Discussion and Change on a Daily Basis, without any Sign of the Pile of Said Eventualities being Reduced in Order to Affect Some Order.
Ever.
Definitely pre-menstrual. Queenie always Capitalises far too much when she’s pre-menstrual.
Then after she got out of class, she decided to hang around town so she went for a burger, which is still sitting half-way down her oesophagus.
And so to this evening’s original post
Queenie should just give up and go to bed.
But she’s had too much coffee so she’ll be wide awake until three this morning.
And Himself has either switched the phone off (which is against the Rules), or gone to a friend’s house that’s not within range of the tower (which is against the spirit of the Rules).
The fish are still excitedly examining every inch of their clean bowl.
Some days, Queenie wishes she were a goldfish. Instead of just feeling like she’s one.
Yes, outside in the sun. It hit thirteen degrees today. It felt like twenty five.
Then she got dressed and put on a jacket and sauntered into work and was too hot when she got there.
And then the government had a really, really bad day. And some of it was partly her fault. And she talked to yet another senior civil servant who joked about her being in a big office in a few months. Wondered whether we sit around trying to decide what jobs we’ll have when we win the election.
Like we have time.
Queenie only remembers one conversation like that, and it was more about which of us would actually get to keep a job, rather than corner offices being divvied out by the fall of a pair of orange dice.
Funny how all the senior CSs are sucking up already and the junior ones are getting rattier and ruder by the day.
Not really. Cream rises to the top, doesn’t it?
Christ on a bicycle, Queenie has just spent twenty minutes writing nasty texts and deleting them. She must be getting her period. Of course, there’s a big eclipse today as well.
That’s probably it.
Yeah, so the day went fairly well until about 3.30 and then it was just too nice to be in the office, so Queenie sat in the office staring out at the sun on the harbour, mesmerised by the little silver quickenings on the crests of the waves.
Tick. Tock. Piles and piles of work to do and no inclination to do any of it till 4.45, which meant she had to stay late.
Then off down the library for the ESL class. Which is driving her crazy now. It’s just too much on top of a day in the Office of Being Prepared for Every Eventuality, those Eventualities being the Subject of much Discussion and Change on a Daily Basis, without any Sign of the Pile of Said Eventualities being Reduced in Order to Affect Some Order.
Ever.
Definitely pre-menstrual. Queenie always Capitalises far too much when she’s pre-menstrual.
Then after she got out of class, she decided to hang around town so she went for a burger, which is still sitting half-way down her oesophagus.
And so to this evening’s original post
Queenie should just give up and go to bed.
But she’s had too much coffee so she’ll be wide awake until three this morning.
And Himself has either switched the phone off (which is against the Rules), or gone to a friend’s house that’s not within range of the tower (which is against the spirit of the Rules).
The fish are still excitedly examining every inch of their clean bowl.
Some days, Queenie wishes she were a goldfish. Instead of just feeling like she’s one.
Something nice after a glass of wine
Or during, rather. I’m still sipping my wine, which I put in a glass even though I felt like putting the neck of the bottle into my mouth and just not gagging, no matter what, in an alcoholic’s version of Deep Throat.
The Brewster has returned Chez Queenie and is currently running up and down the stairs talking to himself. He put a six pack in the fridge as soon as he came in though, so he’ll be sleeping near that and my plans to run naked around MY house this evening in the knowledge that I am alone (except for Justin the stoner downstairs who wouldn’t even blink as I streaked by, unless it was on a skateboard) are currently on hold.
Never mind, I am currently skidding through the lounge, butt-naked and hair flying behind me, in my mind.
Amazing what a few grapes, water, yeast and some Chilean peasant’s smelly feet will do to a girl’s mood.
And Himself is back on radar, after thirty hours of not answering his phone, (apart from a minute this morning) due to having to sort his life out.
Funny how women sort their life out on the phone and men sort it out by not being on the phone.
It wasn’t Queenie that he was avoiding of course. ‘No phone games’ is one of the Rules.
One of which Queenie has just broken. Well, the spirit of one of the Rules. Not the letter. That took her all of four days to figure out. She’s not a political maven for nothing.
Minor scuffle over the invisible communication wires due to an unfortunate choice of words that meant a potential scenario was presented as a fait accompli rather than as a topic for discussion and joint decision-making, which annoyed her no end. Queenie was not up for being mollified by some protestation of innocence on the matter. It’s been a long day and Service Canada are being typical Canadian public servants par excellence (why Queenie's countryfolk bang on about how great Canada is she will never know. She will go home with the Holy Grail of that at some point) and PsychoB is still here and Queenie’s TESL classes in the library are rapidly turning into SocialWorkersRUS. So she’s not in the mood for any slippage on the presentation front.
Plus we’ve been here before and we have to learn the Rules. So the minor tussle was followed by a long silence. Which was then followed by:
‘I’m not allowed to hang up on you, so is there anything else?’
‘No??? (Where is she going with this?)’
‘Okay. Bye so.’
Click.
That’ll show him.
Back to Athabasca…
He can fuck off if he thinks he’s going back to Athabasca.
Queenie means it.
And he can take the goddamn fish with him.
She spent half an hour this evening scraping fish poo off the bottom of the tank.
Time for another glass of wine.
The Brewster has returned Chez Queenie and is currently running up and down the stairs talking to himself. He put a six pack in the fridge as soon as he came in though, so he’ll be sleeping near that and my plans to run naked around MY house this evening in the knowledge that I am alone (except for Justin the stoner downstairs who wouldn’t even blink as I streaked by, unless it was on a skateboard) are currently on hold.
Never mind, I am currently skidding through the lounge, butt-naked and hair flying behind me, in my mind.
Amazing what a few grapes, water, yeast and some Chilean peasant’s smelly feet will do to a girl’s mood.
And Himself is back on radar, after thirty hours of not answering his phone, (apart from a minute this morning) due to having to sort his life out.
Funny how women sort their life out on the phone and men sort it out by not being on the phone.
It wasn’t Queenie that he was avoiding of course. ‘No phone games’ is one of the Rules.
One of which Queenie has just broken. Well, the spirit of one of the Rules. Not the letter. That took her all of four days to figure out. She’s not a political maven for nothing.
Minor scuffle over the invisible communication wires due to an unfortunate choice of words that meant a potential scenario was presented as a fait accompli rather than as a topic for discussion and joint decision-making, which annoyed her no end. Queenie was not up for being mollified by some protestation of innocence on the matter. It’s been a long day and Service Canada are being typical Canadian public servants par excellence (why Queenie's countryfolk bang on about how great Canada is she will never know. She will go home with the Holy Grail of that at some point) and PsychoB is still here and Queenie’s TESL classes in the library are rapidly turning into SocialWorkersRUS. So she’s not in the mood for any slippage on the presentation front.
Plus we’ve been here before and we have to learn the Rules. So the minor tussle was followed by a long silence. Which was then followed by:
‘I’m not allowed to hang up on you, so is there anything else?’
‘No??? (Where is she going with this?)’
‘Okay. Bye so.’
Click.
That’ll show him.
Back to Athabasca…
He can fuck off if he thinks he’s going back to Athabasca.
Queenie means it.
And he can take the goddamn fish with him.
She spent half an hour this evening scraping fish poo off the bottom of the tank.
Time for another glass of wine.
Who's going to have the last laugh?
Words cannot describe how fucked over I feel this evening.
PsychoB sat there and lied through his yellow teeth about moving out today. ‘Oh yeah, I’ll be going on Wednesday’, he said to me. ‘It’s my day off.’
Something about the truck coming and packing his stuff before the hockey game and then leaving a few bits and then getting a friend to swing by for that on Friday.
My bullshitometer started ringing madly when I heard that, because I’ve never seen him in the company of a stranger never mind a friend. Although one or two rough-voiced blokes call him on the phone occasionally.
But I allowed myself to get excited.
Left it nice and late to get home this evening, just so he’d be gone.
He wasn’t there.
BUT ALL HIS FUCKING STUFF IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Going to calm down and have a glass of wine now. And then blog about something nice.
PsychoB sat there and lied through his yellow teeth about moving out today. ‘Oh yeah, I’ll be going on Wednesday’, he said to me. ‘It’s my day off.’
Something about the truck coming and packing his stuff before the hockey game and then leaving a few bits and then getting a friend to swing by for that on Friday.
My bullshitometer started ringing madly when I heard that, because I’ve never seen him in the company of a stranger never mind a friend. Although one or two rough-voiced blokes call him on the phone occasionally.
But I allowed myself to get excited.
Left it nice and late to get home this evening, just so he’d be gone.
He wasn’t there.
BUT ALL HIS FUCKING STUFF IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Going to calm down and have a glass of wine now. And then blog about something nice.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Sitting in bed, Sunday Morning
Sunday morning. Lovely and sunny. The bells of the church are ringing for Mass down on Spring Garden Rd. The denizens of the South end are gathering in the Baptist Church down the road.
Queenie and Himself are sitting in bed. Queenie is blogging. Himself is reading some dreadfully boring magazine about trucks. And showing her pictures of the nice ones. Queenie could give a shit…
What is it about men and magazines about machines?
The fish are puddlin’ around in the tank, grazing the bottom for the remnants of their breakfast. The only sounds in the house are the oxygen bubbling and the keys of the laptop. Missy is asleep. It’s her last day in the house. She’s moving to Toronto to live with her boyfriend next week. PsychoB is asleep. He’s leaving next weekend. Queenie will have the house pretty much to herself for a while after that.
Queenie loves Sundays. Particularly here, because there’s nothing to do. So you don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. Although Queenie is going canvassing at one o’clock.
By-election.
If it’s not a federal election, it’s a provincial election. If it’s not a provincial election, it’s a by-election. This one would be in Queenie’s riding.
Queenie was out canvassing on Thursday too. Crappy night. Cold, so Queenie wrapped up well. Then we ended up doing an apartment block so she was too hot.
Lots and lots of people who aren’t Canadian citizens. Who can’t vote. And students. Who don’t vote. Queenie was well ratty by the end of it. We might have got seven votes. And she wasn’t getting phone numbers from people, because she hates imposing on them in that way. So the candidate was getting a bit annoyed, but hey, Queenie didn’t care that night. Although she felt a bit guilty afterwards.
And then we met an Irish couple from Templeogue, who had moved to Canada fifteen years ago and hated it, but couldn’t go home (presumably had sold the house in Templeogue). He was working down in the shipyard in the harbour. There was some issue about his employers not realising his huge worth and letting him work on propellers. Queenie switched her ears off and just nodded while he talked. Then she asked for his vote. He couldn’t. He refused to become Canadian, didn’t want to take the oath of allegiance.
“My father fought in the War of Independence and he’d be spinning in his grave”, he said. Queenie just looked at him.
My father would spin in his grave. Are you so scared of your parents that you imagine their anger can touch you from there? Or is it your own prejudices, that you suspect might be archaic and completely out of touch, so you are using your father as an excuse to be a historical aberration?
Eejit. As they would say in Templeogue.
His wife in the meantime hovered in the background, grumbling at him for not taking the oath and saying ‘I’m a citizen’. Queenie was trying to canvass her over the murmur of the propeller idea but hubbie was having none of it. He pulled the door too a little so he could have the canvassers’ full attention. We gave up then. Moved on down the corridor to the next apartment.
Chinese. Turkish. Iranian. Korean. All of them here to study. Paying exorbitant fees for the privilege.
Education is some moneymaker in this province. Second biggest growth industry after call centres.
Anyhow, time to get up and make breakfast for Trucker Guy. He had to haul Queenie out of bed, dump her in the bath, towel her down and feed her yesterday because she called round to see Shazz with a bottle of wine the night before, and then drank most of the bottle of wine because Shazz doesn’t really drink alcohol. And consequently felt as sick as a dog all day because her days of necking a bottle of wine and then being able to function the next day are well and truly behind her. And she hadn’t realised. Mental note to self to remember this truth.
But Shazz and she agreed that it was a very pleasant evening.
Damn, damn, PsychoB seems to be stirring. A long day in front of the telly watching sport, followed by the weekly boiled chicken debacle. He puts the chicken on to boil the fat off it. (Why he doesn’t just buy lean chicken we don’t know). Then he cuts the potatoes and carrots into little pieces and boils the fuck out of them too. When they boil over he doesn’t notice because he has no sense of smell, so Queenie has to get out of bed and shout at him. (And then spend an hour cleaning the cooker on Monday evening).
When ALL of the nutrients in the food have boiled away for at least an hour, Bruce eats some of his dinner and puts the rest in empty yoghurt pots for snacking on during the week.
One. More. Week. Of this shit.
Queenie can do this.
Queenie and Himself are sitting in bed. Queenie is blogging. Himself is reading some dreadfully boring magazine about trucks. And showing her pictures of the nice ones. Queenie could give a shit…
What is it about men and magazines about machines?
The fish are puddlin’ around in the tank, grazing the bottom for the remnants of their breakfast. The only sounds in the house are the oxygen bubbling and the keys of the laptop. Missy is asleep. It’s her last day in the house. She’s moving to Toronto to live with her boyfriend next week. PsychoB is asleep. He’s leaving next weekend. Queenie will have the house pretty much to herself for a while after that.
Queenie loves Sundays. Particularly here, because there’s nothing to do. So you don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. Although Queenie is going canvassing at one o’clock.
By-election.
If it’s not a federal election, it’s a provincial election. If it’s not a provincial election, it’s a by-election. This one would be in Queenie’s riding.
Queenie was out canvassing on Thursday too. Crappy night. Cold, so Queenie wrapped up well. Then we ended up doing an apartment block so she was too hot.
Lots and lots of people who aren’t Canadian citizens. Who can’t vote. And students. Who don’t vote. Queenie was well ratty by the end of it. We might have got seven votes. And she wasn’t getting phone numbers from people, because she hates imposing on them in that way. So the candidate was getting a bit annoyed, but hey, Queenie didn’t care that night. Although she felt a bit guilty afterwards.
And then we met an Irish couple from Templeogue, who had moved to Canada fifteen years ago and hated it, but couldn’t go home (presumably had sold the house in Templeogue). He was working down in the shipyard in the harbour. There was some issue about his employers not realising his huge worth and letting him work on propellers. Queenie switched her ears off and just nodded while he talked. Then she asked for his vote. He couldn’t. He refused to become Canadian, didn’t want to take the oath of allegiance.
“My father fought in the War of Independence and he’d be spinning in his grave”, he said. Queenie just looked at him.
My father would spin in his grave. Are you so scared of your parents that you imagine their anger can touch you from there? Or is it your own prejudices, that you suspect might be archaic and completely out of touch, so you are using your father as an excuse to be a historical aberration?
Eejit. As they would say in Templeogue.
His wife in the meantime hovered in the background, grumbling at him for not taking the oath and saying ‘I’m a citizen’. Queenie was trying to canvass her over the murmur of the propeller idea but hubbie was having none of it. He pulled the door too a little so he could have the canvassers’ full attention. We gave up then. Moved on down the corridor to the next apartment.
Chinese. Turkish. Iranian. Korean. All of them here to study. Paying exorbitant fees for the privilege.
Education is some moneymaker in this province. Second biggest growth industry after call centres.
Anyhow, time to get up and make breakfast for Trucker Guy. He had to haul Queenie out of bed, dump her in the bath, towel her down and feed her yesterday because she called round to see Shazz with a bottle of wine the night before, and then drank most of the bottle of wine because Shazz doesn’t really drink alcohol. And consequently felt as sick as a dog all day because her days of necking a bottle of wine and then being able to function the next day are well and truly behind her. And she hadn’t realised. Mental note to self to remember this truth.
But Shazz and she agreed that it was a very pleasant evening.
Damn, damn, PsychoB seems to be stirring. A long day in front of the telly watching sport, followed by the weekly boiled chicken debacle. He puts the chicken on to boil the fat off it. (Why he doesn’t just buy lean chicken we don’t know). Then he cuts the potatoes and carrots into little pieces and boils the fuck out of them too. When they boil over he doesn’t notice because he has no sense of smell, so Queenie has to get out of bed and shout at him. (And then spend an hour cleaning the cooker on Monday evening).
When ALL of the nutrients in the food have boiled away for at least an hour, Bruce eats some of his dinner and puts the rest in empty yoghurt pots for snacking on during the week.
One. More. Week. Of this shit.
Queenie can do this.
Monday, March 20, 2006
FBIII: Cast a cold eye... last march revisited
Here’s another peep at the stuff Queenie was saying last year.
Here’s the headlines from one of her favourite posts for March 2005; the five reasons why she should go to Canada. With some exciting, new perspective.
Canadian society does not revolve around alcohol
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
God, how naïve is Queenie. She’d totally forgotten about the joys of homegrown.
Seriously, but, alcohol is frowned upon more in Nova Scotia than in Ireland, as the Baptist influence is very strong here. But the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation is doing pretty well all the same, thank you very much.
Canadian society revolves around ‘family’, watching family members playing hockey/soccer (which Queenie reckons is the Nova Scotian choice of hurling or rugby) at the weekend, watching telly (thirty hours a week per person), playing Grand Theft Auto, and eating.
And there’s the occasional pig roast.
All of which can be accompanied by beer. If you’re not a Baptist.
And the Queen Dad was right when he declared his opinion about Canadians from his hospital bed a year ago.
Queenie won’t print what he said, being in the middle of a visa renewal process and not wanting to be rude.
Well, he was right about most, but not all Canadians. There’s a small island off the coast of Western Nova and a social democrat party that have what Queenie would consider a more Celtic notion of fun than many Nova Scotians.
And most of Cape Breton of course. And probably one or two others in Halifax. Eleven thousand students for a start.
Funny how Queenie managed to find them all!!
But yeah, family… very complicated subject over here.
In Ireland, mostly, still nowadays, well where Queenie comes from anyway, you get stereotypical Irish mammy, pretty good chance of Irish daddy, fairly likely to have a brother or two, one of which will have a beer gut and the other of which’ll have hurler’s bum (unless they’re from Terenure in which case it’ll be rugby gut/ bum), and lots of sisters. Or vice versa.
Here, you could walk into anything. I keep being shocked by how shocked I am at the situations I find here.
Ya can take the Catholic boggirl out of the bog, but you can’t take the whipmarks off her back, no sirree bob no.
Queenie might get a date in Canada
Well, Queenie got Himself here, didn’t she? Although she might not have him for much longer if she doesn’t stop waking him up for company at one in the morning when she can’t sleep for worrying about stupid things, and tending towards being ‘not a morning person’ because she’s had no sleep.
Although he did rub her neck till she got sleepy last night after she woke him up, while managing to go back to sleep himself. So he’s ruined any chance of a full night’s sleep for Himself if she’s around now.
Queenie is a nicer person when she is not in Ireland
Not this week she ain’t. But that’s just because mercury’s retrograde and there’s two lunar eclipses and it’s just wrecking her little crab head.
That and the stress horse roundabout.
But overall, she’s a nicer person. In fact, she’s almost stopped being rude to waiters.
But she gets very homesick for Everyone Except Himself now and again. And that makes her miserable.
That and slave wage employers and lazy civil servants and people who don't clean up after themselves.
Queenie might be able to change career direction in Canada
Hahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Enough said.
Bad enough that the Queen Dad has been proven right twice in one post. Not going to underline it.
Queenie is doing a course in the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design this term. She is. She is going to embrace her innate creativity.
No really. She sent for the brochure today.
Paper arts, possibly, she's always wanted to make beautiful notebooks.
Having a notebook thing.
And they do the course here.
Queenie’s emotional baggage regarding her last, failed relationship might get sent to Alaska by mistake. Which would be NO BAD THING.
Well it didn’t of course, but it sure looks different under the western Atlantic light.
Time to get the rug and the plate, Queenie reckons.
Anyone up for it?
Here’s the headlines from one of her favourite posts for March 2005; the five reasons why she should go to Canada. With some exciting, new perspective.
Canadian society does not revolve around alcohol
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
God, how naïve is Queenie. She’d totally forgotten about the joys of homegrown.
Seriously, but, alcohol is frowned upon more in Nova Scotia than in Ireland, as the Baptist influence is very strong here. But the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation is doing pretty well all the same, thank you very much.
Canadian society revolves around ‘family’, watching family members playing hockey/soccer (which Queenie reckons is the Nova Scotian choice of hurling or rugby) at the weekend, watching telly (thirty hours a week per person), playing Grand Theft Auto, and eating.
And there’s the occasional pig roast.
All of which can be accompanied by beer. If you’re not a Baptist.
And the Queen Dad was right when he declared his opinion about Canadians from his hospital bed a year ago.
Queenie won’t print what he said, being in the middle of a visa renewal process and not wanting to be rude.
Well, he was right about most, but not all Canadians. There’s a small island off the coast of Western Nova and a social democrat party that have what Queenie would consider a more Celtic notion of fun than many Nova Scotians.
And most of Cape Breton of course. And probably one or two others in Halifax. Eleven thousand students for a start.
Funny how Queenie managed to find them all!!
But yeah, family… very complicated subject over here.
In Ireland, mostly, still nowadays, well where Queenie comes from anyway, you get stereotypical Irish mammy, pretty good chance of Irish daddy, fairly likely to have a brother or two, one of which will have a beer gut and the other of which’ll have hurler’s bum (unless they’re from Terenure in which case it’ll be rugby gut/ bum), and lots of sisters. Or vice versa.
Here, you could walk into anything. I keep being shocked by how shocked I am at the situations I find here.
Ya can take the Catholic boggirl out of the bog, but you can’t take the whipmarks off her back, no sirree bob no.
Queenie might get a date in Canada
Well, Queenie got Himself here, didn’t she? Although she might not have him for much longer if she doesn’t stop waking him up for company at one in the morning when she can’t sleep for worrying about stupid things, and tending towards being ‘not a morning person’ because she’s had no sleep.
Although he did rub her neck till she got sleepy last night after she woke him up, while managing to go back to sleep himself. So he’s ruined any chance of a full night’s sleep for Himself if she’s around now.
Queenie is a nicer person when she is not in Ireland
Not this week she ain’t. But that’s just because mercury’s retrograde and there’s two lunar eclipses and it’s just wrecking her little crab head.
That and the stress horse roundabout.
But overall, she’s a nicer person. In fact, she’s almost stopped being rude to waiters.
But she gets very homesick for Everyone Except Himself now and again. And that makes her miserable.
That and slave wage employers and lazy civil servants and people who don't clean up after themselves.
Queenie might be able to change career direction in Canada
Hahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Enough said.
Bad enough that the Queen Dad has been proven right twice in one post. Not going to underline it.
Queenie is doing a course in the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design this term. She is. She is going to embrace her innate creativity.
No really. She sent for the brochure today.
Paper arts, possibly, she's always wanted to make beautiful notebooks.
Having a notebook thing.
And they do the course here.
Queenie’s emotional baggage regarding her last, failed relationship might get sent to Alaska by mistake. Which would be NO BAD THING.
Well it didn’t of course, but it sure looks different under the western Atlantic light.
Time to get the rug and the plate, Queenie reckons.
Anyone up for it?
First day of Spring
First day of Spring today (or yesterday now probably), hip hip hooray.Me hole. As accent monkey would succinctly put it.
Don and the sidekick were on CBC radio bright and early this morning burbling about the equinox and springtime coming to Canada, and the ickle bunny rabbits and bear cubs and yadda yadda, and how it was a balmy 1 degree Celsius, but unfortunately Queenie hadn’t slept well the night before so it was all heard through a red mist that was so visible in the room, Himself hid under the quilt until she left for work even though he had promised to take her there himself, and then scarpered for the island at 9.20am, when he knew Her Royal Despotickness was chained to her desk for seven hours and could not give him the evil eye as he sped across the MacDonald Bridge.
Queenie forgave him. She knows what a bitch she can be in the morning. Sunday morning she opened her eyes and when he said ‘good morning baby, how did you sleep’, she started lecturing him about what a useless layabout he was and how he’d better sharpen up. Or else.
Or else what?
Or else she’d sarcastic him to death, probably. She didn't know. It’s not Himself she’s angry at. Queenie is angry at the whole world at the moment. The magic horse roundabout of stress has started up again, just because the world is waking up, and it’s going round and round in her head and driving her crazy at the moment.
Stress No. 1: Work permits, renewal of one in particular which is taking forever.
Why does Queenie have to ask permission to stay in a place that continuously moans about how it doesn't have enough workers? Why don't they have to ask her? Why can't she produce pages and pages of forms and get them to fill them out and then keep them on her desk for weeks and weeks pretending she's busy so they'll hire more staff so she can surf the internet when she's supposed to be working for the Canadian civil service?
And why can't she stay in one of those jobs, while we're at it.
Oh that's right, she had one before and she went mad with boredom.
Stress No. 2: Does Queenie actually want said work permit? Or would she prefer to hightail it home? To what? Apart from Everyone Except Himself??
This particular painted horse goes up and down like a demented hurdy gurdy in a badly made horror film and is worthy of a post of its own. Not today though, or the red mist will spray on the computer and blow the circuit board.
Stress No. 3: Why does Queenie live thousands of miles away from Everyone Except Himself? Why can’t they all just come and live here? God knows, there are enough houses for sale on the island for everyone to fit.
Stress No. 4: Why does capitalism think it’s a good idea for us all to leave our little towns and villages, perched on the edge of the lovely Atlantic ocean, and move to horrible big urban centres with too much traffic and not enough space to go around. Why does Canadian capitalism, operating in the second biggest country in the effin’ world, which is mostly empty, think this?
Because it wants us all to work in Walmart, that’s why.
Stress No. 5: Why does Queenie ALWAYS have to put the effin’ toilet roll on the toilet roll holder?
WHY?
What sin is she paying for?
She did it when she was young. Even though she didn't want to. It’s not like she never did any chores back then and has to pay for it now.
Canadians are terrible at doing chores. Really dreadful. Queenie has never seen anything like it. In Ireland it’s just boys who are crap. Here the women are worse.
Queenie and one other person are the only people who load and unload the dishwasher and clean the kitchen in work. Queenie is the only person who does it at home. The new housemate who is replacing PsychoB insisted on dragging Queenie out of work last week, to interview her for the job of housemate, and during the interview (which focused a lot on having people round – great – more dirt) commented on how clean the house was. Queenie sat there pretending it all happened by magic, poker-faced for a change, thinking, ‘dream on bitch, my time is OVER’.
Queenie sent a text to Himself complaining about being the house mom after having to pack Missy’s jeep full of her crap for her this evening because she’s too weak to do it herself, and he sent her back a text that was so RUDE she can’t even follow through on her threat to publish it on this blog, as the Queen Mother would read it some day when Queenie’s forgotten about it, and faint on the spot.
And the threat isn't working either.
Stress No. 6: What the effin’ hell is Queenie doing living in a house full of layabouts when she could be in her own little flat with all of her things and no toilet paper holder to worry about?
Because she’s in the wrong country of course.
Stress No. 7: Does Queenie want to go back to living in 590 square foot of North Dublin? And having to queue for the shopping on a Sunday evening at nine pm?
No flippin’ way sirree bob!
There's another post. If Queenie can ever think clearly about it.
Stress No. 8: Elections, or lack thereof. Would someone piss or get off the pot? Before Queenie's politicians drive her to drink.
Queenie keeps thinking of the 1997 Irish general election, when the voices of sanity, the ones saying ‘we can keep going another year, we have a mandate’, were quelled by the overwhelming urge of the elected representatives to get a shiny new mandate from the people. And the people did what the Irish Independent told them to and fucked them all out on their ear.
Half of Queenie hopes that sanity will prevail and half of her hopes that insanity will prevail, just to get it over with.
IF THE WRIT IS DROPPED FOR JUNE WHEN THE QUEEN MUM AND DAD IS OVER, THEN YOUSE ARE ALL GETTING IT WITH A ROCK SAW.
That’s all I’m saying on the subject.
My, Queenie is shouty today. She finds shouting at the computer calms her down in a strange sort of way.
That and obscene language. It’s cathartic.
Stress No. 9: Wage slavery in Bumfuck, Nova Scotia. How in the hell is anyone supposed to live on eleven dollars an hour? Queenie doesn’t see the McCains or the Sobeys or the Irvings or any of that crew living on eleven dollars an hour. More like eleventy.
Camel. Eye of needle. And if that doesn’t tickle your fancy....
Eighteen inch rocksaw.
That’s all I’m saying on the matter.
Stress No. 10: Where’s the effing Spring?
Queenie's snowdrops are up, which makes it about January, Irishtime, she reckons.
Sigh...
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Canada records warmest winter in history
Queenie was still very very cold, so she's a bit concerned about doing another one... in case...
Mike Oliveira
The Canadian Press
TORONTO - Canada is in the closing stretch of its warmest winter in recorded history, another upswing in an apparent warming trend that supports the notion that global warming is upon us, an Environment Canada climatologist said Monday.
Between December and February, the country was 3.9 degrees above normal - the warmest winter season since temperatures were first recorded in 1948.
On Monday, Environment Canada called the winter of 2005-2006 the kind of season that comes along once every 100 years.
It was obvious early on that it would smash records, said climatologist Bob Whitewood.
"We saw it coming from mid-January on, that we were seeing something quite remarkable," Whitewood said. "January was a very, very warm month . . . and then February pretty much locked it."
It was especially balmy in Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories, where temperatures were six to eight degrees above normal, but every part of the country got a mild winter.
Winter hasn't been so warm since 1987, and this year's temperatures broke that record by 0.9 degrees.
"That's quite remarkable," Whitewood said. "We normally talk about tenths of degrees and this was almost one full degree past the previous record."
Environment Canada will spend the next year studying weather data because there's no conclusive explanation for the mild winter, he added.
Ocean temperatures can often be a factor, but there's been no significant El Nino effect - warm ocean waters creating abnormal weather conditions - this year.
While January's temperatures can be somewhat explained by the displacement of cold air that's usually parked over Hudson Bay, it still can't account for the overall record-trouncing temperatures and the trend they back up, Whitewood said.
"We historically have seen (an increasing) trend in winter-time temperatures of about two degrees (overall) over the last 60 years, so we're certainly moving towards warmer and warmer winters as time progresses."
Whitewood said the last 10 winters have been warmer than normal and along with this winter reflect what could be explained as global warming.
"When you talk about this kind of trend, it's sitting in very well with what our models would forecast for climate-change scenarios," he said.
"We're obviously a signatory to Kyoto so we are definitely recognizing it as a concern."
Former prime minister Jean Chretien signed on to the so-called Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse-gas reductions in 1997, committing Canada to a six per cent reduction in emissions from 1990 levels.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has declared those targets unattainable and promised a so-called made-in-Canada plan on greenhouse-gas emissions.
A recent international project called the Canadian Arctic Shelf Exchange Study suggested global warming has already caused irreparable damage and has left polar ice melting at a rate of about 74,000 square kilometres each year - an area about the size of Lake Superior - and has been for the last 30 years.
About 120 scientists from 11 countries were involved in the Canadian-led research project and said there should be a focus in Canada and internationally on coping with the reality of global warming and minimizing the damage.
Whitewood said studying this year's winter will add more data to contribute to the debate on global warming.
"It'll give us more information on whether this is just a warm winter, or whether or not we're seeing some sort of trend."
'That's quite remarkable. We normally talk about tenths of degrees and this was almost one full degree past the previous record.'
Mike Oliveira
The Canadian Press
TORONTO - Canada is in the closing stretch of its warmest winter in recorded history, another upswing in an apparent warming trend that supports the notion that global warming is upon us, an Environment Canada climatologist said Monday.
Between December and February, the country was 3.9 degrees above normal - the warmest winter season since temperatures were first recorded in 1948.
On Monday, Environment Canada called the winter of 2005-2006 the kind of season that comes along once every 100 years.
It was obvious early on that it would smash records, said climatologist Bob Whitewood.
"We saw it coming from mid-January on, that we were seeing something quite remarkable," Whitewood said. "January was a very, very warm month . . . and then February pretty much locked it."
It was especially balmy in Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories, where temperatures were six to eight degrees above normal, but every part of the country got a mild winter.
Winter hasn't been so warm since 1987, and this year's temperatures broke that record by 0.9 degrees.
"That's quite remarkable," Whitewood said. "We normally talk about tenths of degrees and this was almost one full degree past the previous record."
Environment Canada will spend the next year studying weather data because there's no conclusive explanation for the mild winter, he added.
Ocean temperatures can often be a factor, but there's been no significant El Nino effect - warm ocean waters creating abnormal weather conditions - this year.
While January's temperatures can be somewhat explained by the displacement of cold air that's usually parked over Hudson Bay, it still can't account for the overall record-trouncing temperatures and the trend they back up, Whitewood said.
"We historically have seen (an increasing) trend in winter-time temperatures of about two degrees (overall) over the last 60 years, so we're certainly moving towards warmer and warmer winters as time progresses."
Whitewood said the last 10 winters have been warmer than normal and along with this winter reflect what could be explained as global warming.
"When you talk about this kind of trend, it's sitting in very well with what our models would forecast for climate-change scenarios," he said.
"We're obviously a signatory to Kyoto so we are definitely recognizing it as a concern."
Former prime minister Jean Chretien signed on to the so-called Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse-gas reductions in 1997, committing Canada to a six per cent reduction in emissions from 1990 levels.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has declared those targets unattainable and promised a so-called made-in-Canada plan on greenhouse-gas emissions.
A recent international project called the Canadian Arctic Shelf Exchange Study suggested global warming has already caused irreparable damage and has left polar ice melting at a rate of about 74,000 square kilometres each year - an area about the size of Lake Superior - and has been for the last 30 years.
About 120 scientists from 11 countries were involved in the Canadian-led research project and said there should be a focus in Canada and internationally on coping with the reality of global warming and minimizing the damage.
Whitewood said studying this year's winter will add more data to contribute to the debate on global warming.
"It'll give us more information on whether this is just a warm winter, or whether or not we're seeing some sort of trend."
'That's quite remarkable. We normally talk about tenths of degrees and this was almost one full degree past the previous record.'
Monday, March 13, 2006
Buoys and Ghost Trees on the Nova Scotia Shore
Nova Scotia threw off the ragged coat of winter last weekend and Himself and Queenie were lucky enough to be down on Long Island to see it.Queenie skipped out of work on Friday afternoon at three thirty, having been hard at it since eight am, and we hit the road and headed into the sunset down the long steep slope to Cape Blomidon; then through the valley to Digby and down the Neck to the ferry. We had Himself’s nephew Branden with us, so we enjoyed ourselves making him squirm with embarrassment at us elders and our views on things and our goddamned embarrassing taste in music. Although I had my recently purchased Sleator-Kinney album so I could lord it over him a little.
We got the five thirty ferry and headed to his dad's house for a couple of beers before dinner. Then we watched some godawful movie that had Nicholas Cage wandering around Liberia pretending very unsuccessfully to be a big shot at smuggling guns.
Man, that guy can’t act his way out of a paper bag. His face is permanently stuck on ‘where the hell am I?’.
Queenie was tired after a hard week slogging over air emissions and sulphur dioxide limits and acid rain and all kinds of exciting environmental issues, so she was in bed asleep by one.
It was worth it though, because next day the sky was blue blue blue and we had breakfast early on the deck and planned a trip to the shore.
We walked up to the lighthouse in Tiverton and then cut down through the woods to the shore. The sun dappled through the birches and the spruces and shone on the winter grass, warming it up. It was a steep slope and difficult to manoeuvre, because the tree trunks were often rotten from the wind and sea salt; we had to take our chances with each grip. But we made it down with no problems except for the lower branches sweeping my hat off my head as I ducked under them.
The shore was exhilarating. The waves pounding the rocks, some snow drifted into dark crevasses, and the sun glaring down on us with a white, flat light that truncated the shadows. The sea was a lovely deep blue. We walked along the rocks to find the buoy that Himself had seen from the boat the other day.
A walk on the shore in Nova Scotia is a geologist’s dream. The rocks are a deep, dark brown, with seams of quartz and amethyst that run along like the joins in a patchwork quilt. The flatter rocks look like some giant’s children’s hopscotch game, crazily zig-zagging across the shore. In between the rocks, there are little pockets of purple amethyst and white that glisten beautifully in the sunlight.
We came across a birch tree that had had its bark completely stripped off by the wind and waves. It was a ghostly white, its skeletal remains stark against the sky and sea. The base was knotted and gnarled, the roots having been pulled up by the wind I suppose. It glistened like alabaster in the sun.
We found the buoy eventually. It was like an iceberg; two thirds of it is under water. It leaned against a big chunk of basalt, towering over it. There wasn’t a mark on it, despite being washed up on the strand for three weeks.
We weren’t the only ones there, although we were there first. The first gathering of this year! A chance to talk and laugh and enjoy the wind and sun in our faces. Queenie came home with sunburn and a big smile.
Himself had thought to bring a few Schooners in the knapsack, and I sat there nursing one while he wrestled a huge brass nut off the buoy bell as a keepsake for me.
Spring’s a comin’, boys and girls!
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Golden Boy burned by electronic shadow
In exciting news that I just happened upon in the paper today Liberal golden boy and HisHighness' favourite (remember him boys and girls - Liberal 4 Life), Scott Brison, who has been humming and hawing and pretending to be thinking about running for the Liberal leader's job, got nicely shafted today when a dodgy email he sent before the last election mysteriously surfaced in the newspaper.
It had something to do with high finance, and insider trading, and a scandal that broke during the election but nothing was ever proved, and all that kind of nefarious stuff.
Of course, innocent until proven guilty etc.
I love the Liberals. They think nothing of eating their own for breakfast.
I wonder who leaked it? Belinda Stronach? Stephane Dion? Michael Ignatieff? They were all in town last weekend gladhanding the local Libs at their annual convention. The leadership battle is going on for months.
I should email HisHighness.
No, I should be nice.
It had something to do with high finance, and insider trading, and a scandal that broke during the election but nothing was ever proved, and all that kind of nefarious stuff.
Of course, innocent until proven guilty etc.
I love the Liberals. They think nothing of eating their own for breakfast.
I wonder who leaked it? Belinda Stronach? Stephane Dion? Michael Ignatieff? They were all in town last weekend gladhanding the local Libs at their annual convention. The leadership battle is going on for months.
I should email HisHighness.
No, I should be nice.
Toffees, Telly and Terrorists
I keep finding weird differences between Canada and Ireland, and then forgetting to write about them. For example, the Werthers Original Toffee ads here are set in some random mittel-European country, that vaguely looks like Switzerland. And the toffee makers and the voiceover have a slight German tinge to them.
But Werthers Original are made in England!!!!
Should that be is, Ian?
The bus drivers are really polite here and always say 'good morning' in a really chirpy manner when you stagger on in the morning; and are happy to spend a few minutes waiting for an elderly person to get to their seat etc.
Today, I realised there was something else I was missing. There were a load of gruesome murders in this week. A thirty five year old guy got kicked to death for telling some skangers to shut up on the bus in Edmonton; a guy killed his wife and two kids in Toronto; a twelve year old girl here in Halifax was murdered by her godfather, who then killed himself. Her stepfather found them after beating in the door of the killer, who was a friend of the family.
The girl was buried today.
There was a curious lack of commentary on these events. Curious to a girl who has grown up with the Gay Byrne Show, the Gerry Ryan Show, Liveline, John Waters, Nuala O’Faolain and the entire gamut of Sunday newspaper opinion formers. Who would be frothing at the mouth with the reasons why this rash of deaths had happened.
I used to get annoyed by the cacophony of local, national and random opinions I was subjected to all day every day. Here it’s more peaceful and I get to form my own opinion about things.
Waaaahhhh!!!!
Tonight I've broken my no telly rule (well, I've broken it a bit lately because they're showing Series 5 of the West Wing every night at eight pm on CLT at the moment and that's the series I missed. But tonight I’m also watching the premiere of The Unit, which is the new uber-tv show that’s executively produced by a veritable host of uber-tv people, including David Mamet. And it has the added excitement of random episodes written by Mamet, so you have to check in every week to see if it’s one of his.
A bit like checking the dress rack in Frenchies for that Miu Miu number that sometimes pops up.
So far it’s a Mamet episode and it's very exciting. Afghanistan, laser-guided missiles, American Special Forces led by the guy who plays the President in 24. And then a sub-plot concerning the wives and families at home. Sort of Footballers’ Wives with guns. And people who say Ma’am and Sir all the time.
So far I’m not seeing a lot of Mametology; the 24 influence is showing a bit. Possibly worth a download if you do the technology. I’m trying to do the technology, but I can’t, even though Angela wrote me out line-by-line, moron-proof instructions on how to do it.
I should introduce her to the Irish people who have tried to help me do technology. And failed.
I miss the BBC. You could always just flick over to the BBC when the ads were on so you didn’t have to watch the ads. And then you often stayed because it was Newsnight or a cool documentary about something very English.
Here I have the CBC News at Ten, which is like the ITV News at Ten.
Utter shite. From Kandahar tonight.
It’s all about Afghanistan this week in Canada.
The Canadian forces recently moved south from their initial Afghan base, into Kandahar to take over from the Americans who have moved their troops to Iraq. So far three of them have been killed and another poor guy had an axe buried in his head during a village meeting the other day, by some tribal villager who was ‘upset about the searches of the women’. The soldier had put down his weapon and taken off his helmet as a symbol of trust. The Canadian army say he was in the Taliban. Was. The soldier’s friends shot him dead after the attack.
Canadians are in shock. They are freaking out because firstly, they’re not used to having a couple of body bags coming back a week, and secondly, because they’re worried that the rest of the world is going to think they’re a pack of warmongers. So far I have been saying that firstly, the rest of the world hasn’t clocked that this is happening, and secondly, it would take a lot more than three casualties and some return fire to make the rest of the world think that the Canadian army is like its big brother due south.
The calls for a parliamentary debate are just getting going and so far Harper seems to be playing it reasonably well. However, the Foreign Minister is from Nova Scotia, as are 20% of the current troop deployment, so he must be getting a bit worried, as this province is bearing the brunt of the deaths.
The army is saying they’ve committed to this mission and it’ll be a ten-year process to rebuild Afghanistan. I think it’s got all the makings of Canada’s Vietnam.
But Werthers Original are made in England!!!!
Should that be is, Ian?
The bus drivers are really polite here and always say 'good morning' in a really chirpy manner when you stagger on in the morning; and are happy to spend a few minutes waiting for an elderly person to get to their seat etc.
Today, I realised there was something else I was missing. There were a load of gruesome murders in this week. A thirty five year old guy got kicked to death for telling some skangers to shut up on the bus in Edmonton; a guy killed his wife and two kids in Toronto; a twelve year old girl here in Halifax was murdered by her godfather, who then killed himself. Her stepfather found them after beating in the door of the killer, who was a friend of the family.
The girl was buried today.
There was a curious lack of commentary on these events. Curious to a girl who has grown up with the Gay Byrne Show, the Gerry Ryan Show, Liveline, John Waters, Nuala O’Faolain and the entire gamut of Sunday newspaper opinion formers. Who would be frothing at the mouth with the reasons why this rash of deaths had happened.
I used to get annoyed by the cacophony of local, national and random opinions I was subjected to all day every day. Here it’s more peaceful and I get to form my own opinion about things.
Waaaahhhh!!!!
Tonight I've broken my no telly rule (well, I've broken it a bit lately because they're showing Series 5 of the West Wing every night at eight pm on CLT at the moment and that's the series I missed. But tonight I’m also watching the premiere of The Unit, which is the new uber-tv show that’s executively produced by a veritable host of uber-tv people, including David Mamet. And it has the added excitement of random episodes written by Mamet, so you have to check in every week to see if it’s one of his.
A bit like checking the dress rack in Frenchies for that Miu Miu number that sometimes pops up.
So far it’s a Mamet episode and it's very exciting. Afghanistan, laser-guided missiles, American Special Forces led by the guy who plays the President in 24. And then a sub-plot concerning the wives and families at home. Sort of Footballers’ Wives with guns. And people who say Ma’am and Sir all the time.
So far I’m not seeing a lot of Mametology; the 24 influence is showing a bit. Possibly worth a download if you do the technology. I’m trying to do the technology, but I can’t, even though Angela wrote me out line-by-line, moron-proof instructions on how to do it.
I should introduce her to the Irish people who have tried to help me do technology. And failed.
I miss the BBC. You could always just flick over to the BBC when the ads were on so you didn’t have to watch the ads. And then you often stayed because it was Newsnight or a cool documentary about something very English.
Here I have the CBC News at Ten, which is like the ITV News at Ten.
Utter shite. From Kandahar tonight.
It’s all about Afghanistan this week in Canada.
The Canadian forces recently moved south from their initial Afghan base, into Kandahar to take over from the Americans who have moved their troops to Iraq. So far three of them have been killed and another poor guy had an axe buried in his head during a village meeting the other day, by some tribal villager who was ‘upset about the searches of the women’. The soldier had put down his weapon and taken off his helmet as a symbol of trust. The Canadian army say he was in the Taliban. Was. The soldier’s friends shot him dead after the attack.
Canadians are in shock. They are freaking out because firstly, they’re not used to having a couple of body bags coming back a week, and secondly, because they’re worried that the rest of the world is going to think they’re a pack of warmongers. So far I have been saying that firstly, the rest of the world hasn’t clocked that this is happening, and secondly, it would take a lot more than three casualties and some return fire to make the rest of the world think that the Canadian army is like its big brother due south.
The calls for a parliamentary debate are just getting going and so far Harper seems to be playing it reasonably well. However, the Foreign Minister is from Nova Scotia, as are 20% of the current troop deployment, so he must be getting a bit worried, as this province is bearing the brunt of the deaths.
The army is saying they’ve committed to this mission and it’ll be a ten-year process to rebuild Afghanistan. I think it’s got all the makings of Canada’s Vietnam.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Let us rise
I am a typical, twenty first century lapsed Christian. I have no time for the mumbo-jumbo, unless it suits whatever loop of the psychological roller coaster I am on at a particular time.The last time I prayed was July past, when I was panicking about finding a nice place to live. I was walking around Halifax in the sun, and nipped into the Catholic church on Spring Garden Rd. for a bit of shade. And to see what it was like - to add it to the list of temples, ghats, shrines, churches, chapels and cathedrals I’ve seen over the years, so to speak, even though it wasn’t terribly old or architecturally significant.
Then I saw the candles down near the altar. I dropped a loonie in the slot, lit one and all of a sudden found myself on my knees.
Kneeling
John Kinsella
It's a sultry afternoon and the inverted gothic
of the chapel draws all to its ecumenical centre,
as if prayer might help reduce your troubles,
or take you far away, or make you cooler -
air-conditioning for the soul - a guilty conscience
like an attack of Legionnaire's disease.
So the hazy reddish light is doubly altered
through the coloured glass and you tell yourself
nothing is to be trusted. And yet here you are -
tacky icon from the bedroom wall - kneeling
as if the air's so heavy you can barely hold it up,
as if the tricks of the light are too much,
as if you're being watched and won't look up.
Please, please, help me find somewhere to live. And let this job go well, and let me fall in love with Nova Scotia.
I don’t know if it worked for Kinsella, who was praying for a friend who was ill, but the very next day I found the house in which I now live. The job is still paying the rent and I am well past the infatuation stage with this province.
Of course, I got psycho Bruce as part of the deal.
Which could prove there’s a divine being that is half-scorpion.
Anyway, after eight months, this evening found me on my knees again, by the side of my bed this time. I have no idea why it happened. One minute I'm rooting through my chest of drawers looking for the bar of chocolate I know I have stashed in here somewhere, the next minute I turn, look at the bed, and suddenly I am leaning my elbows on it, eyes raised to heaven exactly as I was taught during childhood.
Hilarious.
Please, please, can you sort out this issue for this person, because it would just make my life better too. Thanks.
I have no doubt but that my wish will be met – it always is. I don’t think there is a divine being listening to me, although if there is then he/she/it rocks in terms of giving me pretty much what I ask for (with all the caveats about being careful what you wish for). But no, I don’t think there is, unfortunately.
Just as I don’t think that a partner can save you from yourself, unfortunately.
What I think happens is that at the moment when the search for resolution to some issue becomes too much to bear for me, I drop to my knees in a symbolic gesture of the load I am carrying and it gets lifted off me by the small act of that gesture.
And as I have found out again and again and again and still haven’t internalised; it is only when I stop trying too hard to sort out something that it miraculously sorts itself out.
I should spend more time on my knees, I suppose!!
I had a priest teach me religion once who told me that. If he thought I was finally agreeing with me, he’d fall off his chair. But he ran off with a woman and some parish funds a long time ago, so I doubt he cares anymore.
Anyways, whenever I do kneel down to ask for resolution, the first thing that always happens is that Larkin quote runs through my head:
The great only appear great because we are on our knees. Let us rise.
Sometimes it's nice to stay put for a bit though. And ask nicely if he/she/it could sort it all out to my satisfaction again.
And see what happens.
Just because a girl don't believe in God doesn't mean she don't believe in the divine.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
April Wine with beer in March
We went to see April Wine last Friday.April Wine is a stadium rock band from Nova Scotia that were big in the late seventies/ early eighties. Time has not treated them kindly, but they still play over 100 gigs a year.
They packed ‘em into The Marquee Club in Halifax this week at thirty dollars a ticket, so they must be making a tidy penny.
I got Himself tickets for his birthday, as he had spent most of the summer trying to get me to like them.
Driving along somewhere, I would take my eye off the cd player for ONE SECOND and suddenly, there would be surround sound KRAAAAANG, SQUEEEEAL, DOINNNNNG, LOOOOOOVVVVE, etc.
‘Turn that shite off now!’
‘It’s April Wine!’
‘I don’t care if it’s the effing Messiah, turn it off now or I’m walking to the shop/ the liquor store/ Kevin’s house/ Bear Cove/ Halifax, wherever. Usually Himself complied after a bit of grumbling. So when I saw they were playing in Halfiax just after his birthday and knowing he had never seen them, I bought the tickets in a fit of girlfriend-related good will.
Also, I reckoned he’d want to go with his mates.
But no. He wanted to go with me.
Great.
So we got smartened up and headed down to Ginger’s for a couple of pints to get me in the right frame of mind and then headed up to The Marquee Club which had a queue of forty-something year olds halfway down Gottingen.
We queued behind a gang of five laydeez out to relive their youth. I told them that the Marquee was very strict about ID. They all giggled hysterically. When we got up to the door, the bouncer, who was young enough to be my son and probably was one of theirs, was all for waving them in, but no, they insisted on hauling the drivers’ licences out to show him. He was mortified.
We got there at ten, which was far too early of course, not that Himself believed me, because I don’t know anything about going to gigs of course. Only having been to about six thousand more than he has in my lifetime.
Okay, I’ll drop the sarcasm dear…. I went, didn’t I!!
The support band came on at ten thirty. I can’t remember what they were called. They were about twenty. They were really nervous. They had a website address which they kept shouting out. Actually, I was staring out the bus window this morning and saw a poster for a gig they're having next week. They're called Fold of Policy, or something dreadful like that.
They started off well enough with a really loud, relentless guitars running away with themselves style opener that sounded like they had listened to The Clash a lot. I was very impressed. Maybe it was all the smoke in the room though. Then, sadly, their sound slowly disintegrated into a dreadful mixture of Pogues type rock and their version of that east coast Canadian loud guitar sound that drives me insane because it’s so old-fashioned.
Then they played a final song that was nearly as good as the first. So they have some potential. I think they probably need to get rid of their lead singer – he seemed to be responsible for the tripe in the middle.
We were sitting in the back bar through all of this, watching them on the big screen, so for a long while I thought the tambourine player they had brought on for the last song was banging it against his head. I was well impressed. Turns out my eyes were deceiving me as usual and he was holding his hand at head height.
When I grow up, I’m going to join a band and play tambourine and just bang it frenetically against my head for the duration of every gig.
I told Himself he should resurrect his band so I could do that. He took a long slow swig of his beer so he wouldn’t have to comment.
Then he sneaked a look down my top.
This is one of the reasons why I love Himself. It does this girl wonders in the self-esteem department to have someone take a long, slow swig of beer and sneak a look down her top.
Those of you who know me personally can take a stab at why this is the case.
Granted, he’s pretty tall for a boyfriend of mine, so maybe he has a different perspective on it than previous incumbents had.
Or maybe I’m filling out a bit with age.
Who knows. Who cares.
The fish are dancing to Daftpunk. They love Daftpunk. Every time I play Discovery they stand on their tails and sway to and fro all twined around each other. It’s really sweet.
Anyways, back to April Wine, who are definitely not Daftpunk.
They didn’t come on till almost eleven thirty, by which time the crowd was getting ratty, it being way past their bedtime for most of them, what with the career, and the kids, and the gym, and the commute, and the stress of it all.
Himself and I whiled away the time trying to spot the oldest person in the room (I did eventually, he was definitely pushing seventy), and spying on the strange Lebanese couple beside us. Late forties; he was wearing a cream wool polo neck and a leather coat, she was incredibly glammed up in a red dress and lashings of kohl and mascara. They sat sipping spirits, he lifted his chin onto his Sherlock Holmes pressed fingertips and stared at her unblinkingly while she squirmed around in her seat and leaned forward to whisper something to him every now and then. I was amusing myself by imagining their incredibly exotic back story when Himself had one of his ‘I know exactly what’s going on in your head’ moments and said ‘So, when are you going to write this book of yours’.
Ah, fuck.
Not you as well.
I was saved by the sound of guitars tuning up, so we went out and wriggled up to my favourite spot to the right of the sound desk and listened to the gig.
I suppose when you’ve been playing the same tunes night after night since 1979 you get pretty tight, and so they were. Very slick. Not a huge lot of ‘giving a shit’ coming from the stage though. The audience tried. There were a lot of Bud bottles being held in the air. And the crowd went wild for ‘Song of the Gypsy Queen’, from 1981’s Nature of the Beast, which was their mega-album I think (and which is available on iTunes for you rockers out there).
We waited about thirty minutes and sure enough, a big space opened up near the front as people started leaving for their washroom trips. So we went up for a closer look.
Covered in pancake the lead singer was. He looked like a metal version of Danny Kaye.
I lost the one strand of respect I had for him right there and then.
But we still had a good time.
And I got some brownie points. And so did Himself. So it’s all good.
The only sane lifeform in this house
This image was swiped from www.kateglanville.com. It's very pretty, isn't it.Okay, I have been sitting on my bed staring at my fish long enough. It is time to do a bit of blogging.
I think Nabla and Himself are right; the fact that I turn the oxygen thingy off every night so I can sleep is giving them brain damage. Currently, they are picking stones from the floor of the tank and spitting them at the glass on the side facing me. I don’t know whether they are spitting them at each other’s reflection, or whether they are trying to get my attention.
I hope it is the former; if I feed them anymore, they will explode. And we’re not really getting anywhere on the communicating with each other front. Apart from ‘feed me, feed me, feed me’, wiggle wiggle O O O type gesticulation from them and head-butting my finger when I put it up against the glass.
At least once a night they wake me up by crashing loudly into something. I have no idea what they do, as it only ever happens when it is dark. But I am not imagining it, as the other night they woke Himself up too. ‘What ‘n the Christ…?’, he started up and then poked me in the side.
‘It’s just the fish, go back to sleep’, I mumbled.
‘What the friggin’ Christ are they up to?’ he wanted to know.
We turned the light on and they were suspended motionless mid-bowl staring out at us, all big-eyed innocence and ‘tum-ti-tum, is it time to get up and feed us already’.
It was four am.
That other great fishbowl of the world, the Oscars, is currently under the microscope of the world’s cameras, but I am not watching because that would entail sitting in the living room with Psycho Bruce. He has been watching tv since two thirty pm. It is now nine o’clock. He does this every Sunday. Last week he watched the box for thirteen hours straight.
If I did that I would throw up.
We staggered in from a night of revelry at two am Friday night and found him sitting staring at it in the dark, with his coat still on. He looked mesmerised. I think he was just really pissed.
Three more Sundays.
Then he will be gone. Maybe I can smuggle the fish tank into his bags and return the house to some form of sanity.
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Some Walt to get us through...
As the time draws nigh, glooming, a cloud,
A dread beyond, of I know not what, darkens me.
I shall go forth,
I shall traverse The States awhile—but I cannot tell whither or how long;
Perhaps soon, some day or night while I am singing, my voice will suddenly cease.
O book, O chants! must all then amount to but this?
Must we barely arrive at this beginning of us?... And yet it is enough, O soul!
O soul! we have positively appear’d—that is enough.
A dread beyond, of I know not what, darkens me.
I shall go forth,
I shall traverse The States awhile—but I cannot tell whither or how long;
Perhaps soon, some day or night while I am singing, my voice will suddenly cease.
O book, O chants! must all then amount to but this?
Must we barely arrive at this beginning of us?... And yet it is enough, O soul!
O soul! we have positively appear’d—that is enough.
In Dublin's Fair City
Garda on Fire
Photo taken by a www.indymedia.ie contributer.
The combined forces of the Continuity IRA, a shower of local scumbags and some professional rioters reduced the main street of Dublin to this today, protesting against some unionists who had the temerity to think it was the right of Irish people, no matter what their politics, to hold a march in Ireland's capital city.
Ireland is completely tarnished; the DUP have been given a fabulous media victory, and the rest of us are embarrassed and sickened as usual.
And I don't care what your politics are. It is not alright to throw petrol bombs at police officers and set them on fire.
Jesus Christ!!
Sigh....
FBPII: In comparison to last February
This is the first month in the life of Percy’s Depressed that Queenie can look back a year and see what she was writing about twelve months ago. Not sure if it’s such a good idea, but it beats coming up with an original one.Last February, there was a lot of ‘creative’ stuff about Percy’s origins and role in Queenie’s life, some discussion about the role and contents of her man-cupboard; articles about the film festival and going to the theatre; a long piece about Gerry Adams’ duplicity; grief-laden posts about Hunter S. Thompson and Arthur Miller dying, and many ranty posts about newspaper articles in the American newspapers with which Queenie had taken umbrage.
This February, the focus seems to be on the weather, politics, and reading - Queenie has been doing a lot of reading lately. And dvd-watching.
Which leads Queenie to the question: are things better this February than last?
One of her posts last year said “sorry about the delay in this post, but Queenie had a meeting over-run of seven hours today”, so that part of things is definitely MUCH better, as Queenie is out the door at 5pm any evening she wants to now.
Creative arts input-wise, it’s about the same. Except maybe a bit better.
Queenie is profoundly relieved that she has refound the ability to read for hours and hours without losing her concentration. Something to do with the absence of seven hour over-runs she suspects.
Last night, she finished Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer, who apparently is really talented and successful and has won all kind of writing awards without appearing on her radar before now. He has a ‘stunning debut novel’ call Everything is Illuminated that Queenie should probably track down in order to compare with David Eggers’ debut.
Queenie suspects it will be very similar.
The book appeared on her desk in the office one day last week as a reward for her lending Shalimar the Clown to a colleague.
It’s about a boy with some condition along the autism spectrum dealing with the death of his father on 9/11. He does this by embarking on a Quest to find the owner of a key to a safety deposit box which he finds in his dad’s dressing room. All he knows is that it might belong to someone named Black. So he decides to track down every Black in New York City.
There's a sub-plot concerning his grandparents who survived the bombing of Dresden.
Technically, it’s very clever. Lots of interesting tricks that pit themselves against the futility of modern existence in a global world rife with random acts of terrorism. Unfortunately, there's nothing that wasn't pioneered recently on the West Coast by Eggers and his crew.
Safran Foer doesn't chart any new territory in the autistic spectrum point of view either, in fact it's too like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night for my liking. My liking being that new books that purport to be daringly innovative should be.
But it was the bombing of Dresden bit that really really annoyed me. It's an obvious homage to Vonnegut. But unlike Vonnegut, the fundamental message of this book is 'life is shit when global events result in the people you care about dying - I wish it could have not happened', whereas Vonnegut said 'war is crap, we should stop declaring it on each other'.
And at the age of eighty three Vonnegut is still wryly declaiming this irrefutable fact and railing against extremism in his own and other societies. I was lucky enough to hear an interview with him a few weeks ago, where he announced several times that he was going to be dead soon, so he could say what he liked (as if he ever did otherwise), and such was his humanity, his humour and his overall optimism despite himself that I felt that I was experiencing one of the better moments of my life.
Vonnegut I will mourn when he goes.
So, back to Safran Foer, not blaming him personally, but it seems that being talented and daring and clever in New York last year was all about combining the most garish and commercially successful bits of Eggers, Haddon and Vonnegut.
Queenie is very cynical about East Coast literature these days.
We could talk about the theatre and film this February if we wanted.
She went to see The Vagina Monologues recently.
The problem with TVM is that people tend to do it to raise money for women’s charities, which means that the people undertaking the monologues can’t act their way out of a paper bag, but you still have to pay full whack for a ticket and applaud thunderously.
Queenie was really bored and cold, because the Canadian equivalent of the parish hall is just as draughty and dusty, and that’s all she’ll say about TVM. Apart from declaring that she never wants to hear the phrase ‘my vagina’ enunciated in a Canadian accent ever again.
Queenie has seen a lotta lotta movies recently, all pretty good. There’s a bumper crop of cinema being harvested at the moment. One of the benefits of an insane Republican regime in America I suppose.
Recent great movies she’s seen – Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck, Capote, Grizzly Man, Brokeback Mountain, The Constant Gardner (is it true you can’t get a table in Chapter One now because Ralphie is eating there every evening?), Broken Flowers, and I heart Huckabees.
Mediocre films she’s seen include North Country and Junebug. Although the acting in both was very good.
This weekend Queenie’s all about lounging around the house watching movies, so she’s rented the Coen Brothers’ The Man who Wasn’t There, which she hasn’t seen, In the Bedroom, which she missed last year, and Millions, a film by Danny Boyle which she only found out about yesterday, but which sounds good.
So the initial conclusion seems to be, slightly better on the work and creative inputs front; maybe too much focus on the weather, and the ranty focus moving from the ‘through the glass darkly’ medium to the actuality due to her increased political involvement.
Queenie should probably decide whether that’s a good thing or not.
February Bleughs: Pairt a hAon
Queenie couldn’t sleep last night, what with the excitement of a new cabinet that includes a Minister for Natural Resources that has his own ATV collection to go with his crocodile skin cuban-heeled boots and all. She lay awake listening to PsychoBruce cracking beer cans (seven on the windowsill this morning) and thinking of all kinds of erudite and witty things to blog about in the morning. Of course, she should have switched the light on and made a note of them in her little moleskin, because she’s damned if she can remember any of them at the moment.
They’ll come back to her.
It snowed last night. That’s the thing about snow. It’s totally silent. You haven’t a clue that your world has changed until you open the curtains the next day and the world is softly, moistly blanketed in white again.
I do hope that there won’t be much more of it. It’s not that I mind snow – I don’t. It falls; it gets shovelled to one side; it melts. It’s the downward spiral in the temperature, followed by the slow upward haul to bearable, as well as a day lost to leaden skies with no sunshine to break the wind chill that I mind.
I am bored with the Atlantic Canadian winter. Despite the fact that it is in the ha’penny place when compared to Central Europe, or Minnesota, or even Saskatchewan. I have been asking around about potential dates upon which to expect daffodils, etc, the accoutrements of spring.
Typically, my Atlantic Canadian acquaintances haven’t a clue. So they think of the worst possible spring they ever had (whether real or imagined) and then assure me that that is the norm. Those of you who follow this blog will remember that the same crap went on about the winter (and they were all wrong).
I was starting to get upset about it, but then I realised it says more about them than it does me, so I have decided to be magnanimous.
Poor Maritimers – they get the award for least glamorous manifestation of just about everything – weather (none or crappy), work (none or crappy), politics (see Cabinet photo above), scenery (mostly flat), high society (none), bear attacks (none), you name it. So they make up for it by LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH ABOUT HOW BAD THE WEATHER IS.
Apparently, the daffodils won’t appear till mid-May.
If that is the case, then they must have all died off the day before I arrived last year, as daffodils generally last about six weeks and I arrived at the end of June.
Sigh.
In my final moan about Nova Scotian winters, I like my weather to have a soundtrack. There was a gale here last weekend. I lay in bed and the wind howled around the house and it rained a bit. I was ecstatic. It was like a normal windy Friday night at home. But that’s only been the second time I’ve experienced it here in Atlantic Canada.
Maybe I should move to Nunavet.
Apparently, you can make $60,000 a year doing data entry in Nunavet.
Francis, my co-ordinator in the library TESL to immigrants programme, says I have the February bleughs.
Sounds about right.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Find your slot
Isn't it nice to have these all simply defined at last??
And to see that Baby boomers and Gen Xers don't binge drink and say whatever all the time.
Baby-boomers: broadly speaking, includes those born between 1946 and 1962.
Generation X: This grouping includes those born between 1962 and 1981. The X in the title refers to the namelessness of a generation who felt overshadowed by baby-boomers. With their teenage years spent in the patently ridiculous 1980s, it's no surprise that this generation specialise in irony and sarcasm. Many grew up under the Reagan/Thatcher axis, and were marked by events such as the fall of communism and apartheid and, later, the rise of the internet. They dismissively refer to baby-boomers as "hippies", while boomers prefer to pretend that Gen Xers simply don't exist.
Generation Y: The newest cultural generation, Generation Y, refers to those born between 1981 and 2000. They intensely dislike the name Generation Y, as they feel it's too linked to Generation X. It's a bit early to collate any meaningful material on them; however, the baby-boomers think all they do is binge-drink and say "whatever" all the time.
© The Irish Times
And to see that Baby boomers and Gen Xers don't binge drink and say whatever all the time.
Baby-boomers: broadly speaking, includes those born between 1946 and 1962.
Generation X: This grouping includes those born between 1962 and 1981. The X in the title refers to the namelessness of a generation who felt overshadowed by baby-boomers. With their teenage years spent in the patently ridiculous 1980s, it's no surprise that this generation specialise in irony and sarcasm. Many grew up under the Reagan/Thatcher axis, and were marked by events such as the fall of communism and apartheid and, later, the rise of the internet. They dismissively refer to baby-boomers as "hippies", while boomers prefer to pretend that Gen Xers simply don't exist.
Generation Y: The newest cultural generation, Generation Y, refers to those born between 1981 and 2000. They intensely dislike the name Generation Y, as they feel it's too linked to Generation X. It's a bit early to collate any meaningful material on them; however, the baby-boomers think all they do is binge-drink and say "whatever" all the time.
© The Irish Times
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