Showing posts with label Amy Williams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amy Williams. Show all posts

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Houses and history

A diplomatic incident was avoided when the Canadian protests over Amy Williams' helmet thankfully came to naught, and this is all just as well as we may have bought a house yesterday! We've been thinking about a move for some time now, and Melanie has looked at umpteen properties over the last few months without finding anything that ticked enough boxes to proceed with any intent.

However, she found something last week and as of yesterday it looks as though our offer has been accepted. Much water has to pass under the bridge before everything is finalised, but it could be that we will be ready to move just a few days after I return home in May, which will also be the first time that I actually get to see the house in person! Melanie has sent me a whole bunch of photos and I trust her judgment implicitly though, which is a good job as it will be too late for a change of mind by then!

Should the move go through, we will be living in the same area just outside of Kingston where John Babcock was born over a century ago. You may not know the name John Babcock, but he was Canada's last surviving veteran of World War I and earlier this week he passed away at the age of 109. Babcock lied about his age in order to enlist in 1916, and whilst he never actually saw active service he was nonetheless prepared to give his all for his country, and his passing leaves Claude Choules and Frank Buckles as the last remaining survivors of those who fought in the Great War.



As I commented back in 2008, the First World War will very soon no longer be in 'living memory'; such thoughts put protests over helmets and hunting for houses into perspective, don't they?

Friday, February 19, 2010

A bone of contention

It's been a veritable gold rush in the last 24 hours; Christine Nesbitt and Jon Montgomery picked up Canada's third and fourth gold medals in the women's 1000m speed skating and men's skeleton - the event where the competitors plunge headfirst down the bobsled run on what is basically a tea tray - respectively, whilst Britain reached the top of the podium for the first time through Amy Williams' wonderful run (or should that be slide?) in the women's skeleton....a random thought: do you think a forensic anthropologist could tell the gender of a dead competitor just by looking at the skeleton?



My loyalties face a stern test in the next couple of hours though as the Canadian skeleton team have lodged a protest over Williams' helmet, claiming that it is too aerodynamic and hence illegal. The protest is likely to be thrown out and no Canadians can actually benefit as a result - the best placed Canuck was only fifth - but were it to succeed I might have to question my citizenship application and perhaps my entire future in the country.

I'd miss my Tims though, so maybe I'll let this one slide.......did you see what I did there? Slide...skeleton racing...

Never mind.

Blogger template 'SebiruDaun' by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008