Maybe the Wrong Side Won

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t sour grapes.

My ancestors fought on both sides. Of course, I was taught history by folk from the losing side.

The War of American Independence was presented as a side affair, all the real action being in Europe against those horrible Frenchmen and others.

The American thing was all about a small expeditionary force being beaten by superior numbers and dumb luck.

We (long suffering wife and I)’ve been watching Outlander, which is about a whole load of hairy combative 18th Century Scots and the occasional likable raunchy woman from the future.

At one point they stumble into the early stages of the Revolution, and realize that in trying to save hairy Scots lives they could change history and cause America to never happen.

Taxes would then continue to be sent to the aristocracy in England, rather than to the white, male, land and slave owning aristocracy in America The suddenly Beautiful.

Never having tried time travel myself I can’t comment on whether one can go back in time and change history.

One thinks about it, of course. For example, one could go back and sell Baby Donald to the Gypsies.

But moral issues would have to be considered.

I mean, I’ve always rather liked Gypsies.

But what if the Brits on side “A” had not beaten the Brits on side “B”?

Let us guess:

There would still be a Country called America, or possibly South Canada.

Slaves would have been freed a lot sooner.

Thanksgiving would have been called Harvest Festival, with far less fuss…. but Boxing Day would be a Federal Holiday.

The Westminster System of Government would be implemented, with no need for those really weird Founding Fathers. Americans would still be able to claim to have the Best System of Democracy in the World, but this time with some chance of being right.

There would still be a game played with a pointy-ended ball, but it would be called Rugby not Football, and even in America the round ball game would be called Football not Soccer. This would avoid multiple fist fights and the Doomsday Clock moving ever closer to midnight.

There would be Universal Health Care, so everyone would receive care and sickness would not mean bankruptcy for the uninsured.

My wife would not be rude about Cricket, which would have spread north of the border and become Canada’s national sport.

The judicial system would not be corrupt.

America would have joined the rest of the Commonwealth and joined the War in 1939, helping end it in 1941.

Police Officers would not all wear guns and anyone with half a brain (or close to it) would support gun control.

Vietnam would have been left to the Vietnamese.

Fundamentalist Christians could go their simplistic way without having to contribute to wealthy pseudo-pastors or vote Republican.

America would have gone metric, so no more 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 1760 yards in a mile…

But then, without the American need for simplicity, we might never have had Decimal Currency. So, 4 farthings or 2 half pennies in a penny, 12 pennies in a shilling, 20 shillings in a pound (or 21 in a guinea.)

Ah well.

Forget it.

Time travel is a dead issue.

At least 40% of Americans have learned to rewrite history without leaving home to do it.

Our Goose is Cooked

AGAIN.

“Christmas is coming

The Goose is being cooked…”

The Muppets’ version of the song will, of course go down in sophisticated history as one of the greats.

My slight adjustment to the wording (the Cook is Being Goosed) does not altogether have the approval of the local authorities, so we shall return to the theme that Our Goose is being well and truly cooked.

Again.

Though Toronto has got off lightly compared with most of the rest of the continent.

Three years ago, we were looking forward to Christmas.

And also to a bright New Year.

2020.

We all know how that worked out.

Three years of mandates, should be mandates, testing, voluntary or involuntary isolation.

One day, we will look back and call them the Good Old Days.

Nope.

We might look back and convince ourselves it wasn’t that bad.

Perhaps a dream, a passing fancy.

So now, a universal sigh of coming relief. In China, the restrictions came off and they plan massive travel to visit friends and family for New Year Celebrations.

In North America, Christmas promised to draw people together. Vaccinations, weaker Covid, stronger medication.

The flu and RSV -yes- but well, whatever.

Hooray.

Life restarts.

The doors open.

Slam. Slam. Slam.

The doors shut, hard, on our fingers.

A Generational Storm, they call it.

At the Dance Club we cancelled a dance due to weather for the first time in a decade, breaking the chance for friends to get together and exchange pre-Christmas pleasures.

All those plans, anticipated joys and thwarted reunions, blown away by powerful winds bearing ice and snow.

A small compensation that some may be stuck in town and end up going to our Dance on Christmas Day.

And in China their brilliant leaders realized they had been controlling too much even by their own standards, so they removed all controls and the country is reaping the Covid whirlwind even prior to their New Year celebrations in January.

So Christmas Cheer on this side of the Pacific, there being none for the other side?

In a superb act of irony, pathos, or something, the weather gods have done what Mr. Ford and others have not dared do. Clamp down on Christmas activities, one more time, as Covid, the ‘flu, and RSV reign Supreme.

Maybe, just maybe, the weather wrecking Christmas travel will slow down the spread, save lives even in Florida, help us out of the surge and allow life to open up in the Spring.

So, here’s to a Mucky Christmas and a Healthier New Year.

Put another way, Excrement Happens.

Maybe T. S. Eliot was wrong, and December is the cruelest month.

Ho Ho Ho hum.

The Joys of the Season to you.

Send In The Clowns

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but surely even those desperate for votes would flinch to flatter a country that was hurtling to Hell in a supersized handbucket.

But we aren’t going to dwell on the United States.

Even so, some of our elected leaders are seeking electoral success by pursuing power through paranoia.

I suppose it is a moot point as to whether they actually believe the evil they proclaim, or whether they are simply using the rhetoric that will solidify their base.

Solidify? One has to believe most of their base are pretty thick already.

In Alberta, Danielle Smith stroked and stoked the United Conservative Party members who elected her to its leadership by immediately referring to the unvaccinated as:

“The most discriminated against group that I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime”.

I will not waste space or your patience by discussing whether or not the group suffered discrimination, nor, if they were, which groups clearly suffered more during Smith’s uninspiring lifetime.

And now Smith has expanded the breadth of her breathtaking irresponsibility by moving to make it a human right to be not only unvaccinated  but to spread the Virus du Jour to all available victims … so a person working in a hospital may continue to do so without being vaccinated.

The more responsible of these geniuses may choose to walk around the cancer wards while bearing a sign warning patients to Duck, or Hold Your Breath.

Not to be undone in the sphere of collecting votes by utter foolishness, Premier Scott Moe of neighbouring Saskatchewan also threw red meat to those of his supporters close to achieving brain death. He assured them that he would protect their Province from “destructive federal policies” designed to protect Canada and the world from climate change.

To make room for Mr. Moe’s pronouncement, the local headlines moved on from exploring how their school system had tolerated a version of Christian education that involved physical and sexual abuse along with debilitating, terrifying exorcisms.

This might lead us to discuss the level of education achieved by the more ardent followers of Ms Smith and Mr Moe, and perhaps look south for a comparison with brain developnent in North Dakota, rural Texas and parts of Florida.

We will, instead, leave that to you to ponder

We will, instead, turn to our Federal, no longer Progressive, Conservative Party, blessed for the last month by the leadership of Pierre Poilievre.

Mr Poilievre has locked up the Trucker Vote by supporting their objections to Public Health Mandates, and the disrupting of the lives of people living or working in the nation’s Capital.

Since these Truckers do not represent a majority of Canadians, we may anticipate an ongoing cacophony of dog whistles to snag the votes of xenophobes and others who fear and hate.

Of course, a large group of people to the south of us, Trump and Trumpers, DeSantis and … umm… DeSantisers, and their like, make Canadian life look like a Sunday School picnic.

Our democracy is not on the brink of collapse, even with Premiers touting unconstitutional attempts to weaken or obstruct Federal power.

Smith, Moe, and Poliviere seem to be appealing to a pitiful minority of people, be they anti-vaxxers, anarchists, or simply anal retentive.

But politicians or voters, even when they are Clowns, can be dangerous to a country.

OKAY, BLUE J…

Oh, shut up.

Another inexcusably beloved Toronto Sports team, on the cusp of greatness…

-well, to be strictly honest, the potentially pre-cusp-

…snatches impossible defeat from the jaws of a victory its fans were already celebrating.

The Blue Jays went down quickly and horribly, two for two in the only two games of their much heralded post-season.

And so, early in October, again we settle down and prepare ourselves for the long hard winter of our malcontent.

BUT WAIT!

Remember that Cheesy TV advertisement by a retail chain that may and should since have gone toes up:

The Last Day of one Sale

Is the First Day of the Next!

Would a charitably disposed Almighty, for one moment, leave us without hope in a world with a Russian leader threatening Armageddon, weather about to shut down our country for the statutory six months, and Donald Trump still not in prison?

Obviously the Almighty would not.

He gave us The Leafs.

First time I saw a game at Maple Leaf Gardens was in the (approx.) 1967/68 season, just after the last time (until 2023, oh yes) they won the Stanley Cup.

We beat the crapdoodles out of Montreal, arch rivals in the six team league.

6 – 0

“Should have quit while we were ahead,” you say, callously. “Leafs should have packed it in and left five teams in the league!”

Time out: I did attend Canada-Russia games in 1972 and 1974 with happy outcomes.

Next time I remember attending Leaf games was in the early 1980s. The team had returned triumphantly from Philadelphia, having won the first two games in a seven game playoff series.

“Them Phillies”, as I recall the great Tiger Williams, team intellectual and forward, saying “is done like dinner!”

I joyfully enthusiasted the next two games, joining a party atmosphere for the first two periods of each.

We had a commanding lead going into each third period, as I recall, even commandinger in the second game than the first.

Of course, we were tied by the end of the third periods, and then lost each game in overtime. Ecstasy to misery twice in a row.

Nonetheless, I later bought a pair of $4 season tickets in the Greys. With my brethren (and occasional sistren), I learned to second guess the referees’ calls – we had a better view of the action, from our seats one row from the roof.

I gave up the seats shortly after our sweet six year old daughter came home from a game chanting “Bullshit! Bullshit ! Bullshit!”.

Possibly it would have helped had she not added “Hit him again, he’s still moving!”

But all these years later, we have The Leafs to take over where the Blue Jays, shall we say delicately, left off.

This will be the season!

Trust me!

Well worth desperately gluing to the television for 82 games, and shelling out for the occasional actual tickets (no longer $4 prices).

Of course our Leafs will make the playoffs, and then…

GO LEAFS G…

Oh, shut up.

All the nice girls…

…love a Sailor.

Almost undoubtedly, this is not true.

Now, I admit that I have not researched the subject extensively, but I believe that if my mother had any daughters they would have been told to stay as far away from Sailors as they could get.

Nothing against Sailors, don’t get me wrong.

It’s just that I grew up in an age when one avoided rudeness and inappropriateness.

So if a nice girl were found to be unaccountably starting a family… When fault was assigned, as fault would most assuredly be, it would be assigned not to the by now wisely floating around the other side of the world Sailor, but to the nice girl who had disobeyed her mother and consorted with him.

The whole issue of sexual encounters seemed less around morality (unless being bandied around as a topic in a sermon) as

Infection,

Detection, and

Conception.

Well, these days, by applying Available Options, 1 and 3 can be avoided by the wise and self controlled.

Detection doesn’t seem to be an issue in many parts of western society although if one is considering being Born Again, the Facilitator is likely teaching otherwise. Doubtless all those people begatting each other at the beginning of the Bible were only doing so to move the plot along, and had certificates.

What I’m actually leading up to, but haven’t seemed to be able to smoothly introduce, is how our Universities are handling the changing situation.

In my day, the big fuss was that the University was being sued by a Condom company. As I recall, the bid selection was made by what it was claimed by the losing bidder to be unqualified young female students.

I could digress into talking about the defence of extensive product testing. However, I am scared of my wife and will move on despite the lost comedic opportunities.

After extensive research (checking in with a student at a university whom and which shall not be named), I have discovered that the latest potential for lawsuits against universities is:

Consent.

Or lack of it.

Thorny enough issue these days, even without people whizzing in from cultures and the United States, from all around the world. The concept of No meaning No, or of even asking, is alien to some in Canada also.

So First Year University Student Orientation includes a chatty session on Consent.

I know this is a serious issue, please don’t get me wrong.

But imagine how you would phrase it if YOU had to present the topic to a wild variety of young students away from home with diverse plans of their own. 

You would have to balance Protecting the University, with Academic …ummm… Freedom. If you had a conscience you might even want to protect the students.

I support Employment Equity, but one of my happiest memories is of an exhaustingly politically correct speaker talking about unnecessary restrictions on women being firefighters in Ontario (a White Boys Club if ever there were one).

She took 10 seconds to say how good the firefighters are in South Korea. And then ten minutes to say it was despite most of them being, by our standards, on average, being …ummm..  short.

Imagine her talking on this topic instead.

I’ll leave you to work out how you would phrase it, if you were the presenter of the joys of Consent to a bunch of first year University students away from home for the first time, without turning the whole speech into a Monty Python farce. Pay particular attention to:

1

At precisely which critical juncture of the Sexual Endeavour the lucky couple, or, Heavens, threesome, should adjourn to agree further progress; and more importantly,

2

Who was going to rush over to the Administration Building and pick up the Official Consent Form in both Official, plus 63 other, languages represented on Campus; and equally importantly,

3

Who was going to witness the signatures at 2.30 in the morning; and after all that-

4

Who was still going to be in the mood?

Leadership matters

In May 1940, Britain very nearly made peace with Hitler.

We can all have a good guess at how that would have worked out.

Had the Duke of Windsor not abdicated, and remained King, his right wing sympathies may well have kept Churchill out of power and left Europe, Africa, parts of the Far East, and ultimately Britain, under the Nazis.

The historical guessing game at that point becomes endless. One assumes the isolationists in the United States would have sat and watched while Germany developed a northward looking power base in South America and while Japan prepared for a more successful bombing of Pearl Harbour.

And so on.

Of course, Charles is an interesting name for a King, given what happened to the first King Charles.

His head got voted off the Island.

And his shoulders.

However, after a dozen years everyone agreed that the Puritans were sanctimonious, no fun, and just plain icky, so in came Charles II, who was succeeded by future monarchs who continued the Kinging and Queening business up to Charles III.

They took careful note of King Charles I’s success rate and were very careful not to piss off the populace.

One of the advantages about having a King is a check on a wicked politician coming into power and being what in the book 1066 And All That (a supposed schoolboy version of history) would be called a Bad Thing.

In Canada, for example, the armed forces report to the Monarch’s representative, the Governor General, who among other things gets to say who qualifies to form a government.

The GG acts as a Check and Balance, and the system works because he or she has to get it right … or else.

One Governor General, who after a lifetime with the name Byng had surely suffered enough, refused Mackenzie King when he asked to call an election in 1926, but when the election was finally called Mackenzie King aced it. Checks and balances create a crisis, winner take all, and Byng was de-Governor Generaled and consigned to the outer darkness.

Actually, with or perhaps without a Monarch, the Westminster System of Government seems to work extraordinarily well.

A sort of Shining City on a Hill that you can actually count on. Avoids all that chronic stupidity with two elected bodies, a President, and a judicial system locked in an eternal struggle to stop each other from achieving anything and causing the decline and fall of an Empire that never fully rose.

Aside: I remember watching a desperately competitive pair of twins paddling a canoe to a standstill as they tried to go in opposite directions. I guess the obvious analogy would extend to triplets or quads and the canoe capsizing.

But add a King or Queen to the Westminster System of Government and it makes it possible to give allegiance to someone other than the political leader half the country didn’t vote for. And a Monarch only rules by the will of the people, so … checks and balances but the work gets done north of the world’s longest undefended border..

A Monarch allows the folk to rally behind a non political person, instead of pledging allegiance to a constitution, or something else really silly like a Flag.

Even before the days of voting machines and a country where an astonishingly large portion of the population managed to complete, or at least attend, high school without actually learning anything, a Monarch could have decided who won an election.

And if the loser refused to leave quietly , or treasonously tried to interfere with the orderly transition of power:

Off with his head.

Search Warrant

I am on the board of a well known Dance Club.

Stop laughing. It isn’t for my dancing skills. You are doubtless thinking it is for spiritual guidance and moral leadership.

More like, because nobody else would do it.

When we are “elected” (this word usually presumes others ran for the job), we are required to look very silly and say an oath.

I forget most of the oath, but a key section comes to mind: we promise faithfully to hand back any Club documents at the end of our term.

Now, Our Donald, former brief leader of approx 50% of our southern neigbours and despite claims to the contrary, 0% of the Free World, did not take that oath.

I think there was a Policy Book assigned to me, but I never took it off the shelf in the Club office, but had I done so I would gleefully give it back.

These were not Presidential documents, certainly not Classified documents. (My wife is President of the Dance Club, but that is, arguably, a lesser post than Lead U.S.A. Cheese.)

The only similarity between my job and an Aide to the American Pres. is that I also follow my Pres. around with launch codes. Ours are limited to the rival Dance Club, though we prefer just being better than they, rather than ratcheting up the Defcons.

Donald seemingly hoped to skip past a couple of rules (okay, not just these two):

1

No removing, mutilating or destroying records.

2

Nobody is above the law.

We don’t know the nature of these alleged removed, mutilated, or destroyed documents, but…

…Donald may wish he had settled for his original idea of shooting someone in broad daylight on Pennsylvania Avenue.

A far more wholesome and, apparently, legal All-American activity.

But here we are, back to Donald the Victim.  Doubtless the legally executed search warrant will be recognized by the faithful as a Raid (Donald’s word already).

Doubtless Ron DeSantis, who sees himself as the heir apparent, will leap to Donald’s side, while hoping the FBI come up, no pun intended, trumps.

Now it is well known that if you want to keep something away from the Authorities, the law allows you to put it in your safe and, fair ball, no-one can look there.

A convicted felon can’t be President. (Not sure if this applies to the Dance Club, but I do see my wife as a poor man’s Donald Trump.)

But worse than the FBI placing his home “under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents”, what is most shocking,

shocking,

is Donald’s revealing that:

“They even broke into my safe!”

The Authorities are not allowed, search warrant or not, to look at what you hide in a safe so no-one can see it.

THAT is why it is called a safe.

Glory Part 4

I hate to kill your suspense, but it’s not going to happen.

Spent my time at a huge family Super Spreader, nice people but all exhaling frequently, at a lunch catered in the family Vineyard. Great food, choice of very English menu (but seriously, Eton Mess? My mother would have approved of most of the menu, but something called Eton Mess?)

Put on 2 lbs.

And no Knickerbocker Glory.

Stayed with relatives and got fresh fruit for breakfast and home cooked meals with hundreds of desserts.

Put on 3 more lbs.

And no Knickerbocker Glory.

Stayed in the Denbies Vineyard Hotel, and got a full English Breakfast. And was taken out to a fancy-assed lunch with family in their hundreds.

Didn’t offer to pay.

Put on 4 more lbs.

And no Knickerbocker Glory

Went to the coast to Eastbourne, to mooch again off relatives in their seaside “flat”. It’s a great thing having a large family, mooch and move on, mooch again…

Aha! Seaside! Knickerbocker Glories in abundance! Taken out to dinner by nephews who incorrectly remembered (didn’t disillusion them) that we had been good to them in their childhood, they suggested they spring for Chinese food but the Pizzeria they settled for didn’t have any.

Or Knickerbocker Glories.

Put on 5 more lbs but it could have been worse.

Walked  5 miles around Eastbourne today uphill all the way, lost .025 lbs but ate in a very nice French restaurant and later an Italian restaurant and put on a further 6.025 lbs.

Even walked along the decaying pier, but all the Ice Cream shops (and there were many) sold wrapped stuff straight out of the freezer.

No Knickerbocker Glories.

If our Canadian Victoria is the City of the Newly Wed and the Nearly Dead, Eastbourne is competitive except for lacking the Newly Wed.

The elderly flock… or are wheeled… here to take in great gulps of healthy fresh sea air. The town motto, roughly translated from the anglo-saxon, is:

“It might be your last breath

-but at least it’s a healthy one!”

Sudden memory of 1966 before I was thrown out of England. I had a friend with a girlfriend from hereabouts, her parents funeral directors cashing in on the local mortality rate.

I remember primarily because the girl had been named Joy.

Moving on.

Anyway, some signs of younger life, a row of rentable beach huts for those preferring not to follow the English custom of a strip tease on the Beach, wriggling a wet swimsuit off while desperately holding a towel to cover the necessaries.

A few creative people had set up tents just above the waterline, for use as windbreaks and changing rooms. As the gusts of cold air proved England’s heatwave to be over, I had visions of the tents being lifted up, with occupants, and blown across the English Channel.

A bit of your Fair Stood The Wind For France.

But most of the people were past their prime swimming in ice-cold water time, and more likely to be sitting in a deck chair.

Well, most appeared past anyone’s prime, to be honest.

I remember pictures of older Englishmen with  handkerchieves, knotted in all four corners, covering their balding heads from the sun.

Just for the record, it doesn’t work with a kleenex.

Don’t ask how I know.

So, the typical English Seaside town has Italian, Greek, and French (right beside a Martello Tower built in the 19th Century expressly to keep the French out of England) restaurants.

And a Placque unveiled in 2020, honouring those killed by enemy bombing during WWII but not naming the enemy because they might be tourists.

But no Knickerbocker Glory(ies).

Anyway, I’ve eaten so much already the last week I couldn’t face one if I found it.

Glory Part 3

A plunge through the Looking Glass.

An alternate reality.

A parallel universe.

Etc.

You would know what I mean if you had stepped onto the British Airways 787 last night, which we did, belatedly, a trifle before midnight.

A world without Covid.

Cabin Crew oozing their way around the Cabin, smiling over-the-topedly at all and even sundry, leaning over and breathing close with not a hint of a mask in sight.

Most of the fee paying throng leaped into the breach and joined in, tearing off their masks with the misguided enthusiasm of the rarely attending Strip Tease Dancer when told at the Church Door by the Archbishop

“We would like to see more of you!”

But let us not digress. We have sworn to eschew vulgarity, if only temporarily.

In Toronto airport, we were required by Canadian law to mask up, and there were regular announcements that masks were to be kept on except when in the actual act of eating or drinking.

I had eaten in the lounge, BA providing a hot buffet so as to ensure we were well nourished when we contracted Covid on the flight.

With Business Class tickets provided by the kind of relative everyone should have, I could have eaten well on the plane, but decided that with a late departure I would spend my entire time on the plane sleeping.

So of course everyone else tucked into the trough and then passed out for the duration.

I, of course, didn’t sleep a wink.

Marjorie, lest I worried for her, thoughtfully slept like a baby.

I was able to take the time to calculate how many passengers could be given Covid by one infected Cabin Crew member.

Once the lights went off, the traffic in the hallway died down, and there was no chance of a Cabin Attendant leaning close- so I was able to take off my mask.

I stretched out fully, but realized the gentleman in the window seat in the row ahead would have to step over my legs to go potty during the night. 

I guess BA crammed in the seats to make up for lost Covid.

Happily, although he would have to go, so to speak, three times, he had assured me he had long legs and could easily step over me.

I have three sets of bruises on my shins, to prove it.

Fortunately, Marjorie was able to even the score by lacerating the lower limbs of the person in the row behind me.

The night passed e’er so  slowly, but as I may have mentioned in the past, I have the ability to suffer nobly and in silence.

Eventually, a Cabin Attendant, spotted me watching a movie as all the other swabs (pausing only to kick or be kicked during bathroom breaks) slept their way to London. He offered me an early breakfast.

Before exiting to a remarkably empty and fast moving airport full of unmasked Brits with generous workplace sick leave policies, I queried a Crew member as to the likelihood of a full, cash, refund because everyone else slept and I didn’t and that wasn’t fair.

She smiled, Covidly.

Glory Part 1

I suppose that, when one is no longer a Spring Chicken, any trip to the country of one’s birth and childhood must become a search for Paradise Lost.

Particularly if the last visit was a decade or so ago (not counting a four day melancholia for a brother’s memorial service).

So, all aboard British Airways for a journey through Covid-infested skies to another Covid-infested land.

A land, scarily, where they don’t believe in viruses. This disadvantage, as Marjorie would assure you, is more than offset by the land being absolutely teeming with my kith.

And, to add to the joy of it all, kin.

Actually, to be honest, I lost touch with the kith fifty years ago, so I am left with the kin. Fortunately, although I regret the absence of long standing kith, I have kin in abundance.

Well, an excess of kin if one is to be strictly honest.

The purpose of our overseas venture is, ostensibly, to attend a Super Spreader event with 40 or so of my closest relatives.

One of whom sprung for our tickets.

So it seems churlish to admit that this whole venture on my part is primarily a search for Glory.

Next Part tomorrow, if you can stand the suspense, then on to the terrors of airports and beyond in my search for the Grail.