And this little piggy went...

...aaaaargh! We're all going to die!

Well, at least he would have had he been watching CNN this weekend. The 24-hour rolling news networks simply love a crisis, and they've been simply revelling in the swine flu outbreak that's come to public notice over the last few days; they've been like a pig in s**t, you might say.

That people have died in Mexico as a result of this outbreak is undoubtedly tragic. However, almost as many people died from regular flu in America last week, and the fact that more people were killed (three) in one shooting incident this weekend than died from swine flu (zero) seems immaterial; the rolling news networks are never ones to let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Now, should I find myself in an I Am Legend scenario once the rest of the world has been wiped out by this flu, then I shall be the first to apologise, but until that time comes, I'm not going to lose any sleep over the whole deal.

But I won't be going to Mexico either.

Calming down

I now feel a little calmer following my vitriolic outburst yesterday - sometimes it's good to get things off your chest, such as hair if you're an Olympic swimmer - and I am currently content in the knowledge that today is the last working Friday of the school year. I shall just give you a moment to digest that fact....

Next Friday is a ped day, and the following Friday (May 8th) will see me catching my flight home, weather permitting. I add this meteorological proviso because, after our relatively tropical start to the week, we actually had a blizzard warning in place today, although nothing actually came of it in the end. Once we're into May there should be no such problems, but you never know.

In the meantime, I've been relaxing this afternoon by revisiting Grow Cube. This game was introduced to me some time ago (thanks, Sally), but there are plenty of variants once you've cracked the original. Try it here; in a couple of hours from now you'll wonder where the time went!

Coffee wars

It is true to say that Canadians have a very close relationship with both hockey and coffee, and whilst I can't yet confess any real affinity with the former, my love for coffee and, more specifically, Tim Hortons, runs deep. Consequently, any java-related story is always of great interest on both a national and personal level, and one such story hitting the headlines at the moment concerns McDonald's perceived declaration of war on our Tim's.

The House of Ronald is giving away free coffee at the moment, at least in the mornings, and this has been seen by many as a direct attack on Tim Hortons, traditionally the everyday-Canadian's (and my) coffee-stop of choice. Now, one would expect it to be the patriotic duty of any red and white blooded Canuck to defend the honour of Tim's at times such as these - to the death if necessary - so you can imagine my horror as I watched Global TV's take on the issue yesterday morning.

Global TV is based in Edmonton which, last time I checked, was most certainly in Canada, and they ran a report on the whole 'coffee war' issue on yesterday's breakfast news show. Come the end of said report we were handed back to the studio where the two anchors, Andrea Engel and Shaye Ganam, were to be seen with a McDonald's coffee cup. Ms Engel then proceeded to explain that this was the type of cup that you would get if you took your business through the Golden Arches, an action that she wouldn't blame you for doing, which led Mr Ganam to comment that that would be a good move, considering the horrendous line-ups at the 'other place.'

Now, whilst I fully appreciate that there are greater woes about which to worry than coffee, I was amazed, nay shocked, to hear such statements from a supposedly unbiased pair of news anchors (I shall resist the obvious rhyming slang connotations for the moment). Not only was this a flagrant endorsement of one company over another on what should be an impartial news programme, but this pair of anchors were actively dissing a Canadian institution live on air.

Global TV, you should be ashamed. Be assured, you have not heard the last of this; the real war starts now.

The heat is on

Things are hotting up here at the moment, both literally and metaphorically. The temperature climbed to +1° yesterday, which felt almost tropical when you apply the Law of Relativity (that's my Law of Relativity, not the other guy's). I was able to walk to school with coat unzipped and my stride was most certainly on the jaunty side of normal; temperatures are set to drop over the remainder of the week, but at least for now it feels like spring is most certainly here and summer is on its way.

However, to offset the good weather, problems with the internet have most certainly been making most of us decidedly hot under the collar over the past few days. We are now entering a fourth day without any service at home, and I'm writing this using the connection at school, which thankfully is separate from the one that serves the town. It's at times like these that I realise just how much I rely on the net for information, entertainment and communication, especially in my relative isolation here, and one can only hope that we will be reconnected soon. It does mean that I can't possibly pay any of my bills online at the moment though, so every cloud does indeed have its silver lining!

And everybody lived

I am very proud of myself today.

I am also very relieved.

I had guests over at the weekend, and I cooked for them; I'll just give you a moment to take that in....Now for me, cooking is very much the equivalent of landing a man on the Moon. No, I don't mean the 'being faked and it didn't actually happen' part; rather, it very rarely happens and takes a huge amount of planning when it does.

I admit that I did receive some help from Betty Crocker in making part of the dessert, but I made pizzas from scratch and I also baked a rhubarb crumble, which was very much a first and actually came out very well indeed, even if I say so myself.

But the most gratifying part of the whole experience was that, upon my return to work today, my weekend guests are still alive and well.

As is my motto in the kitchen, any meal that you can walk away from is a good meal.

Boyle-ing point

If you typed the name Susan Boyle into Google this time last week you probably wouldn't have had many hits; do it now and you get 2,750,000, a figure that, by the time you actually read this, will probably be higher still. It's also only just less than the number returned by typing in Simon Cowell, which is ironic in a way seeing as he is one of the judges on the show Britain's Got Talent, which is where Susan has made her name.

I'm not going to go on too much about her story - if you haven't already heard about her you can just watch the video clip on YouTube - but what seems more remarkable than her actual performance is the way in which her story has travelled around the world. Internet and reality show phenomena are ten-a-penny nowadays, and most fall by the wayside as quickly as they rose - where are you now, Tay Zonday - but Ms Boyle's performance seems to have gripped the world's imagination like few others. She has even been offered the ultimate accolade of a seat on Oprah's sofa; for the sofa's sake, I just hope that she and Oprah don't both choose to sit on it at the same time.

Whether Susan Boyle's fame will be permanent or fleeting only time will tell. I plump for the latter, but at least for the moment her 15 minutes don't look like running out any time soon. Indeed, since I started typing, she now has over 3,000,000 returns on Google and has overtaken Simon Cowell. Which leads me to my final observation of the day. Maybe it's just me, but I can't help but think that there's more than a passing resemblance between Susan and Simon....

Take away a couple of chins, give her a short back and Cowell.....it's just me, isn't it?

When the dogs have hit their stride

Whilst I was on my Easter break, the Ivakkak finished in Ivujivik, the northernmost community in Nunavik. My pre-race pick, the team of Willie Cain Jr. & Joseph Cain, came home a creditable second, whilst the crown of Ivakkak champions went to the mononamic Novalinga Novalinga and his partner, Aibilie Moses.



Depending on your source, the word Ivakkak can mean either 'running at a comfortable speed' or 'when the dogs are at their best pace', but the definition I prefer is 'when the dogs have hit their stride.' As I have said before, it was a privilege to have been able to witness the start of the race, especially when one considers its historical and cultural significance, and seeing the dogs hit their stride that day is one of the fondest memories of my time in the North.

So, hats (or tuques) off to all those who competed, and given that the Ivakkak is now a biennial event, here's to 2011.

And we're back...

After ten most relaxing days of vacation, I am now firmly ensconced back in the North and the blog is finally back online. I hadn't planned such a hiatus from my musings, but with irony of which Ms. Morissette could only dream, I was more busy on holiday than I usually am at work, so blogging ended up being put very much on the back burner.

It was great to see Melanie again, and she still has another week in Canada before she has to go back to the UK for the summer term at her school. She is going to use that week to draw up a list of chores for me, so that when I return home in May I will be suitably occupied until her school year ends in July, at which time she will be coming back out to Canada. Just how many of these chores can be left to the last minute I don't know yet, but I'm sure that I'll be able to work that out soon enough.

So, what were the highlights of my vacation, I hear you ask? Well, I managed to get the haircut I was looking forward to, rather a good one I thought as well, but both Dave and Celine have commented that I must have gone to the same barber as Simon Cowell. Now, I happen to like Simon Cowell so I will take this as a huge compliment, but I don't know if that's what was intended! Alongside the long-awaited haircut I was also able to enjoy my long-awaited return to Tim Horton's - three visits on the first day back alone - and I managed to win three coffees and a donut by rolling up the rim, which is a very good return, given my track record of (not) winning things. I did win a Jimmy Hill football trivia book once on a Radio Bristol phone-in quiz, but that's about it. I wonder how many donuts you could fit on Jimmy Hill's chin...

But I digest.

It was also mighty fine to catch up with friends over the course of the last week, and the normal southern staples of fast internet - yes, Cogeco did finally reconnect us - and being able to drive felt like refreshing novelties. It was also very pleasant to be able to see trees and grass again; I had forgotten what the colour green looked like. One sad happening during the week was the broadcast of the final ever episode of Corner Gas. I admire Brent Butt's decision to end the show whilst it was still at the height of its popularity, but I wish he hadn't made it! Maybe a trip to Dog River will be in order during the summer...

Not long after watching Corner Gas on Monday I had to leave in order to start my journey north, and on Tuesday afternoon I found myself back in Inukjuak, which is still cold and white, but not quite as cold as when I left. My flight was uneventful, although I was treated to a full body search as I passed through security in Montreal. The officer even searched my hair - I kid you not - but unsurprisingly found nothing; maybe he just wanted to admire the fine craftsmanship of my haircut at close quarters. I wonder if Simon Cowell has to go through all this when he flies? Bet he doesn't.

Hanging on the telephone

A lot can change in the space of a couple of days, and since my last post I've decided to return home for our Easter break, meaning I'll get to see Melanie for the first time since January. She flew out from the UK earlier today, and for the first time since January we are now in both the same time zone and the same continent. January was also the last time I was able to visit either a Tim Horton's or a barber, and trips to both establishments are now high on my to do list. As luck would have it (or was it a cunning Baldrick plan?), there is a Tim's right next to where I get my hair cut, so one stone is going to account for two birds as soon as I get back.

Another thing to look forward to upon my return is access to a speedy internet service once again, and to that end I have had to arrange for all our cable services to be reconnected ahead of Melanie's arrival today. I phoned Cogeco, our cable provider, on Monday to arrange said reconnection, only to be told that I may as well do this on Wednesday when Melanie was actually going to be at the apartment as otherwise we'd be paying unnecessarily for two extra days.

Pleased with the fact that the cable company was trying to help me save money I duly called back today, but I was immediately suspicious of the agent's tone of voice and was eventually put on hold for what became an interminably lengthy period of time. At this point in proceedings a succession of upbeat chart hits is normally fed down the line so as to keep you, the valued customer, in a suitably cheerful frame of mind as the time ticks by, but today I was subjected to a journey through the back catalogue of Alanis Morissette, hardly the dictionary definition of 'feel good pop.' At this point I should have realised what was coming next. The agent finally returned to tell me that our services could not actually be reconnected until Thursday, and when I asked if he knew what time this might be, he had no idea other than the usual 'some time between eight and four.'

I'm fully aware that my post about Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the man who survived not one, but two nuclear detonations, has now been sandwiched by rants about sewage trucks and cable companies, but it's my blog and I'll rant if I want to, and I'd wager that you would rant too if it happened to you. I feel all the better for venting my frustrations, and I thank you, dear reader, for allowing me to do so.

'Til next time then.......will sometime between eight and four be good for you?