But there's a flag on the play...

The Grey Cup final yesterday was an exciting affair, and it was heartbreak for Saskatchewan when Montreal stole victory with literally the last kick of the game. The Roughriders had never been behind until that final, fateful play, and the Alouettes actually missed their first attempt at kicking what would have been the winning field goal, sparking off what turned out to be scenes of premature celebration within the Rider Nation.

There was a flag on the play though - red flags in the CFL, as opposed to the yellow dusters used in the States - and the Alouettes would be given a second chance at the kick, a second chance which we now know won them the cup. And just what was the Roughriders' indiscretion that cost them the championship? Having too many players on the field. Of all the things! You just know somebody's going to lose their job over this.

And speaking of flags on the play, I'm reminded of my one and only attempt at refereeing a game of American football. It was in my college days back in the late 80s, when 'gridiron' was all the rage in the UK thanks to Channel 4's coverage - these were the days before the Premier League and Sky Sports combined to make soccer the uberbeast that it is today. Some fellow students had organized a game for some charity or another and they asked me to referee as I, apparently, knew more about the rules than anyone else. Looking back this was probably just a polite way of telling me that I wasn't good enough to play, but suitably flattered I agreed to their request, and I even borrowed a Newcastle United shirt so that I looked the part.

Not long after my first whistle it was readily apparent that I was the only participant who was going to take the game anything like seriously, but I maintained my standards, and a few plays into the game I noticed a flag-worthy misdemeanor by one of the teams and diligently threw my yellow duster onto the field to mark the offence. The play continued, but instead of the teams then waiting to hear my verdict before restarting, one of the players came over to me in order to point that that I'd 'dropped my hankie' before getting on with the game.

Needless to say, I didn't bother picking it up.

Not such a grey day

I am now in a much better mood.

Since my last post my flight home for Christmas has been moved forward two days, Monday has been made a ped day (just this particular Monday alas, not every Monday), and yesterday Queen's University won the Vanier Cup, the Canadian college equivalent of the Grey Cup which is, in turn, the Canadian Football equivalent of the Superbowl. For those of you not in the know, Queen's is based in my adopted home town of Kingston, and yesterday's 33-31 victory over the University of Calgary saw the Golden Gaels mount the biggest second half comeback in Vanier Cup history after trailing 27-7 at the break.

The Queen's football team is known as the 'Golden Gaels' because of their garish yellow - sorry, golden - jerseys and the fact that all the players speak fluent Gaelic. I actually made that last part up; the 'Gaels' part of the name is apparently in reference to the University's Scottish heritage, and although I was jesting earlier the team's fight song is partly sung in Gaelic. It is known as 'Oil Thigh' after a phrase that is sung repeatedly - to the tune of 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic,' or 'Glory, Glory Hallelujah' to common folk like us - in the chorus: Oil thigh na Banrighinn a'Banrighinn gu brath, or 'College of the Queen forever.'

Speaking of the Grey Cup, which we were earlier, it's the Grey Cup final tonight, with the Montreal Allouettes, last year's beaten finalists, taking on the Saskatchewan Roughriders. I have no real affiliation with either team, but as Corner Gas is set in Saskatchewan I guess I'll be cheering for the latter.

Go Riders!

Thanks for what?

It's not without irony - proper irony too, none of your Morissettian misunderstanding here - that on Thanksgiving Day (for Americans, anyway) I'm feeling somewhat down and decidedly unthankful. I've been ill for the last couple of days which hasn't helped (although I've still managed to make it into school), and in that time a number of problems and challenges have presented themselves which have led me to question whether where I am at the moment is actually where I want to be.

I won't burden you with the details of my travails - after all, a problem shared is a problem doubled - save to say that none of them are life-threatening and, compared to all the troubles that exist in the rest of the world, none of them are probably worth fretting and fussing over at all. However, one doesn't live in 'the rest of the world,' and in the part of it that forms my own personal little bubble there are a great many frustrations to be dealt with at the moment. Any one in isolation could be manageable but problems, like buses, never seem to arrive on their own and their effect on each other tends to be exponential rather than summative.

The fact that I've started to use words like exponential and summative is probably a sign that I should sign off now. The working man's tonic, otherwise known as the weekend, is almost upon us, and a couple of day's R&R is probably just what I need right now. Thanks for reading, and I promise to make the next post a little more light-hearted!

What's mine is yours

We had an unexpected visit from representatives of the Raglan Mine yesterday, which eased the boredom of what would otherwise have been a mundane, regulation (but far from manic) Monday. Raglan is a huge nickel mine northwest of here, and as one of the larger employers in Nunavik they regularly send teams around the schools to pass on information about the work opportunities there. At the moment only 17% of the workforce is Inuit, but the aim of the mine's owners is to increase this figure to 20% in the near future.

The mine operates a profit-sharing initiative with Nunavimmiut (people of Nunavik), and last year $6.8 million was distributed amongst the 14 communities here. This sounds like a lot of money - and it is - but it is only about a fifth of the $32.4 million that was handed out in 2007. It seems that the bottom has fallen out of the nickel market in the past twelve months, a state of affairs that wasn't mentioned in the presentation at school, but despite this drop in profitability there is still a great deal of money floating around, and each community has its own method of using their share of the pie.

Salluit and Kangiqsujuaq receive the lion's share, being the nearest communities to the mine geographically, and here in Kangiqsujuaq much of the money is pooled and we now have a beautiful new community gym (the building where the Bowhead Feast was held earlier in the year) as a result. Some communities simply distribute their entire share on a purely individual basis though, and as a result, in the words of one of my students, it is often drunk away in a very short period of time. Many Inuit travel to Montreal in order to spend their windfall, and they are increasingly being targeted by local thieves who know that they have money to spend; the results are sometimes tragic, and you can read more here.

Consequently, the role of Raglan is a matter for constant debate in these parts, centering mainly on the level of Inuit employment there and the use of its profits, and with the mine having around fifty further years of potential use left in it, the debate is unlikely to be concluded any time soon.

An evening with Father Dion

One of the attractions of living and working in the North is the variety of people that you get to meet, and over the last couple of days I have been fortunate enough to spend some time with Father Jules Dion, Kangiqsujuaq's long-time resident priest and, as I was to find out later, champion Scrabble player.

Last night I was invited to have supper with Roland and his wife Hannah - Roland is in charge of the student residence here - and also joining us was Father Dion, who I had read a little bit about before I first came to Kangiqsujuaq back in August. Pere Dion, who is now around 80 years old, is originally from Belgium and first came to the North as a Catholic missionary in 1955. He worked in Quaqtaq then, and in 1964 the Bishop moved him to Kangiqsujuaq - "because a change is good for you" - where he has resided ever since. The Catholic mission where Father Dion lives and works is the oldest building still standing in the village, having been originally built by the army in 1927, and when he first arrived here it was just about the only building, with the locals still living in igloos.

Having enjoyed the wonderful hospitality of Roland and Hannah last night, I visited Father Dion at the mission tonight, where we exchanged stories for a couple of hours as he gently and graciously gave me a sound hiding at Scrabble, 351 points to 225. Whilst we were playing I commented that he must be getting help from above with his letters; he responded by quietly playing the word 'exile,' which scored 67 points and proved my theory in the process. I didn't care though, for it was a wonderful way to spend an evening, and a rematch is already on the cards.

You can read more about Father Dion here and here, and I urge you to take the time to do so as he is one of life's true pioneers and has an incredible story to tell. I look forward my next visit to the mission, and if I am ever to beat Father Dion at Scrabble I clearly need either to pray a lot or to commit my dictionary to memory, because otherwise I fear it will be a case of mission impossible.

Here in my car

A recent edition of the excellent CBC news programme As It Happens included a report on the Russian car manufacturer Dartz and their proposed new luxury car. I say 'car' but, in the words of Chris Howden, the show's presenter, it's more of a "steroidal Humvee-slash-Transformer," and would come with diamond-encrusted white gold speed gauges, gold-plated windows, pure tungsten exhaust pipes and three gold flasks containing some unbelievably expensive vodka. Oh, and the seats would be made of whale penis leather.

The seats would be made of whale penis leather.

There has been an understandable backlash since Dartz's announcement in October - why would anyone want gold plated windows after all? - and consequently the company issued a press release from which I present an excerpt here:

One month ago DARTZ presented uberluxury armored car with whale penis interior. As the world's resonance was very huge and DARTZ got lot of angry e-mails from Greenpeace, WWF and also Pamela Anderson, DARTZ make strong decision to stop their plans regarding such interior.

We just looking for most expensive products for this car -- and that's why we choosed whale penis leathure when we checked it is most of most. After wave of protest we realised our mistake and make a decision not to use natural leathure at all. We will focus on world most advanced nanotechnologies to achieve interior highest quality using artificial materials which also was never used for cars. We want to tell our hello to all whales: 'Our Sea Brothers! We all know that earth are stand on three whales - we will keep You live! We don't Earth fall down to Ocean!

One of my students' current assignments is to correct the grammar and spelling of this press release, an exercise that should keep them busy for a while, and in the meantime I'm sure that our "Sea Brothers" will, to quote Chris Howden again, appreciate the company's circum...spection!

Czech mate

I've just been watching Ghost Hunters, which I must admit is a show I frequently tune in to, not because I necessarily believe in ghosts and the paranormal but simply because it's often just good entertainment. The use of Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) on the show always makes me smile; they will make tape recordings in the buildings that they investigate, play them back later in the hope of finding disembodied voices or unexplained noises amongst the static, and then present their findings to the owner of the building in question.

On the show we see night vision footage of the team moving around the building and making their recordings - it's always at night, with all the lights switched off - and asking questions like "if you are here, make a sign," "are you trapped in this place?" or "do you resent these people living in your house?" Most editions of the show are set in the USA - once they visited Ireland but they found no ghosts, only spirits - but today the team was investigating an old castle in the Czech Republic. They wandered around the castle - at night, of course - shooting copious amounts of video footage and posing the usual questions to the ghosts for their EVP work, and then we were shown their analysis of the footage which, to their frustration and disappointment, revealed far fewer anomalies than normal.

A thought then struck me. They were in the Czech Republic, trying to converse with ghosts...in English.

Do you want me to tell them or will you?

Buffering...

It's been a relatively relaxing last few days, and in exactly five weeks time I shall be back home for Christmas (weather and flights permitting, of course). Our holiday on Wednesday was followed up by two ped days, so I should feel refreshed when I return to school on Monday. Or at least that's the plan, as I've spent most of today being driven to despair by my internet connection.

I'm online and I can use Skype with no problems, but accessing any web pages is next to impossible. I think half the town's population must be downloading movies today, slowing everything to a crawl; it's as if the internet is being filtered through a giant piece of muslin. The visiting computer technician at school has informed me that Kangiqsujuaq has one of the quickest connections in the North though, so I guess I should be thankful for small mercies.

And for the chocolate cake I made earlier.

And then there was one...

This time last year I noted that only four British veterans remained from World War I. Sadly, three of those grand old men, Henry Allingham, Harry Patch and Bill Stone, passed away during the last twelve months, and this year's remembrance service in London was the first to be observed without the presence of anyone who fought in the Great War. The fourth member of the group, Claude Choules, now resides in Australia, and at 108 he is one of only three surviving WWI veterans in the entire world; 109 year old Canadian John Babcock and 108 year old American Frank Buckles are the other two.

Remembrance Day is a holiday in Nunavik, primarily to mark the signing of the James Bay Agreement, and I think that the time is long overdue for November 11th to be observed as such on a national, if not global scale. Thanksgiving is already celebrated in both the United States and Canada, but I can think of little else for which more thanks should be given than the sacrifices made by all those who have fought for their countries over the course of history.

May we never forget.

Ice & fire

We had a fire drill at school today, and as we were all milling around outside in temperatures that must have been approaching -10, the thought struck me that had this been a real fire, we might have had a better chance of survival in the warmth of the burning building rather than in the frigid wastes that double as a car park.

Just a thought.

Stop making sense

In the past I've made my feelings quite clear regarding hockey and, more specifically, the fighting that is tolerated within the sport. Last January the blog brought you the story of Garrett Klotz, who thankfully recovered after ending up in hospital as a result of a fight, but Don Sanderson was not so fortunate. In December of last year Sanderson, a 21 year-old player in the Ontario Hockey Association, was involved in a fight on the ice. His helmet came loose and his unprotected head slammed into the rink as he was forced to the ground; he went into a coma and died three weeks later.

Whilst idling flicking between channels this evening I came across a discussion on Hockey Night In Canada that centred around a new helmet that had been manufactured to make fighting safer, and the studio 'expert' informed us that it had been Sanderson's death that had prompted the new design. We then learned that rules are either already in place or will be in place soon - I couldn't hear exactly as the sound of my jaw hitting the floor momentarily drowned out the television - that will penalise players if they remove their helmets before fighting. Not penalise them for actually fighting, but if they fight without helmets.

At this point another 'expert' erupted into life, and you could quite plainly see him struggling to hold back the expletives as he lambasted this rule, stating that prospective players shouldn't bother getting into hockey in the first place if they weren't prepared to risk the physical consequences of fighting.

I could not believe what I was hearing.

Back in January, I concluded my post concerning Garrett Klotz with the following observation:

"So, what will it take for sense to prevail? I fear that someone is going to have to be killed for action to be taken, and even then I am not so sure. I sincerely hope that this will not be the case, but until action is taken, I cannot embrace hockey."

It is my sad duty to report to you now that there appears to be no sense in hockey.

I (don't) come from a land down under

I don't know why, but ever since our move to Canada I regularly get mistaken for an Australian.

It happened again twice today; well, it was once really, because on the second occasion I was asked if I was from New Zealand, which if I actually had been Australian is probably worse than an Englishman being asked if he's really from Australia or a Canadian being confused with an American.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I really don't detect any similarity between my accent and those of our Antipodean cousins, and for a cricket-loving Englishman to be mistaken for an Australian is not exactly a complement (no offence Tarni and Dave, but who holds the Ashes at the moment?). Maybe the lack of exposure to shows like Neighbours and Home And Away means that your average Canadian can't quite distinguish the Australian the accent the way we Brits can, but one would have thought that the likes of Crocodiles Dundee and Hunter would have provided enough of a reference point.

If I ever end up moving to teach in a different Northern community I think I will put on my best Australian accent from the moment I get off the plane just to see what happens. Maybe then I'll be asked what part of England I'm from. Or not.

Pass the Vegemite.

Cloudbusting

Here's an interesting story. To alleviate a drought that threatened to ruin this winter's wheat harvest, it would seem that the Chinese have been seeding the clouds with chemicals in order to make it rain, something that I thought was still in the realm of science fiction rather than science fact. However, an incoming cold front somewhat scuppered the experiment for instead of the hoped for rain, tons and tons of snow were dumped on Beijing as the city was blessed with its earliest snowfall for over a decade.

Now, if only it were possible to take this technology and use it in reverse. We could then 'de-seed' the clouds we get here and buy ourselves some respite from winter.

That would be the ultimate Chinese takeaway.

Game, set and thatch Agassi

In his newly published autobiography, Andre Agassi makes the claim that he took crystal meth during his career and that he lied about it to the tennis authorities, who then proceeded to brush the whole affair under the carpet. Now that the story has become public, said authorities are receiving a lot of flak for their handling of the case and other cases like it, and the game's reputation threatens to go the way of baseball's as a result.

Now, whilst not wishing to condone drug taking at all, I'm not aware that crystal meth is in any way performance enhancing - in fact, I would think it's quite the opposite - and in my opinion the people who run tennis should be more embarrassed about another of Agassi's misdemeanors that has come to light in his book.

I'm talking about his wig!

It would appear that the ridiculous mane that Agassi sported in the early part of his career was in fact an even more ridiculous syrup that covered up his prematurely balding pate, and its disintegration the night before the 1990 French Open final was the reason behind Agassi's crushing loss on that day. His brother had to help him reattach the perished postiche with about twenty clips, and Agassi was consequently very wary of diving around the court lest his toupee tumble to the floor mid-rally. If Agassi is now going to receive retroactive punishment, it has surely got to be for his follicular crimes rather than his drug-related ones! Donning a wig is one thing, but to become Joe Dirt's role model out of one's own volition is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable.

Finally, I must quote you this line from the book; Agassi is talking here about the letter he claims he wrote to the ATP in 1997 to explain his positive drug test, but in a grand case of Freudian slippage I think he's really making an admission about the state of his hair:

"It was full of lies, interwoven with the truth."

Priceless - you just can't write that stuff (unless you're Andre Agassi, of course).

Trick or treat?

Huge blizzard here this weekend (why do they always happen at weekends?), and as a result Halloween was moved to Friday night instead of Saturday. The whole Halloween experience is very well organised here, with the town's municipality deciding precisely when trick or treating will take place; it was going to be between the hours of 6 and 8 pm on Saturday, but the blizzard forecast meant that proceedings were moved to Friday instead.

Halloween was never that big a deal when I was growing up - we had Guy Fawkes instead - and trick or treating was always regarded as an American thing that we only ever saw in reruns of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. However, as with all things American it slowly pervaded British society, and I think it's safe to say that trick or treating has long since replaced 'penny for the Guy' as the preferred form of institutionalised begging back in the UK.

My supplies of candy did not last long on Friday night, and consequently an empty-handed latecomer played the trick of disconnecting my cable TV by uncoupling the connection that feeds my house. Needless to say I was not best pleased but the problem was soon resolved, and if I am still here next year I will make sure that I am more prepared, either by having more candy or by hiring somebody to stand guard over my cable box.

Enjoy your November!