Extra time

It's been more than 'a couple of days' since my last post I know, but as I've said before I tend to lose all track of chronological perspective at this time of year so you will have to excuse me. Christmas has now been and gone but we had a good one, and I've been able to catch up with most our friends in and around Kingston. I've also been catching up with eating too and have put on about eight pounds since I've been back, but when you consider the fact that I lost twenty pounds between August and December then it's probably not such a bad thing. I don't eat badly in the North, but there's less snacking - trips to Tim Hortons are not a particularly realistic proposition - and I guess the cold must effect my metabolism in a weight reducing manner.

It should be less than a week before my return to Kangiqsujuaq, but as is rapidly becoming a Christmas tradition (well, it happened last year as well) I need to visit the dentist, and with my appointment booked for Monday - the day I should have flown back - this will necessitate a few extra days in the South. Whilst the prospect of going under the knife (or whatever instruments dentists use) is not a pleasant one, a few extra days at home with Melanie is a good pay-off, so it might be a little while yet before the blog comes to you live from Nunavik once again.

Not sure what we're doing for New Year's yet, but I shall wish you a happy one for now as the next post probably won't be until 2010 (that's next year, not ten past eight). Happy New Year!

Christmas top 10 (part five)

Well, we finally arrive at the top of our festive countdown. Many songs failed to make the cut that, on another day, could quite easily have been there, and if I were to repeat the exercise on another occasion then we would most probably not end up with the same ten tunes. However, my top two would most certainly still be in there somewhere, and without further ado, here they are:

2. Greg Lake - I Believe In Father Christmas (1975)
Grand. Play Loud. I'll say no more.




1. Bing Crosby & David Bowie - Peace On Earth/The Little Drummer Boy (1977)
The ultimate Christmas song? In my book, yes. Log fires, woolly jumpers, harmonies around the piano, snow falling outside...and Bing Crosby. It has to be the full version though, complete with the two minute introduction from the Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas show of which it was a part; did you know that the 'Peace On Earth' part that Bowie sings was written especially for the show as Bowie actually hated Little Drummer Boy and refused to sing it? Kind of glad he refused, because the end result was true Christmas magic.



Hope you enjoyed our Christmas top ten, and all that remains now is to wish you all, wherever you may be, a truly Merry Christmas; see you in a couple of days.

Christmas top 10 (part four)

I'm back home now, and I really must be in holiday mode as I'm already losing track of what day of the week it is. Christmas shopping is almost done, and whilst in town yesterday (or was it the day before?) we said goodbye to Tarni and Dave, who are heading back to Australia; we shall certainly miss our friends, but at least we now have a holiday location sorted out for some time in the future. Haven't had the opportunity to catch up with any other friends yet - yes, we do have some and we pay them well - but there is all that to look forward to in the next week or so.

And speaking of things to look forward to, here's the penultimate part of our Christmas top 10, where we have reached the number 4 spot:

4. Jethro Tull - Ring Out Solstice Bells (1976)
One of my favourites for many years - wouldn't be in this list otherwise - and it brings some good old English eccentricity to our countdown. A song that always makes me go 'ahh..' when it comes on.




3. Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas? (1984)
The track that spawned a charitable phenomenon, and a classic the moment it was recorded. Impossible to hear it without replaying the video in your head, and a testament to the durability of the pop stars of yesteryear when compared to their modern counterparts (although quite how Marilyn got into the recording session was as much a mystery back then as it is now). Tonight thank God it's them instead of you...

Christmas top 10 (part three)

Well, I've just completed my last day of teaching before the holiday, and in 48 hours time I shall be in the middle of my flight back home (or at least to Montreal). I let my students watch a movie today, but in retrospect 'Alive' probably wasn't the best choice. At least we now all know what to do if the plane goes down en route on Thursday. We just need to find a Uruguayan rugby team to help us and all will be fine.

Now back to the serious matter of our Christmas top 10. When last we looked in the countdown had reached number 7, so today I present to you numbers 6 and 5:

6. Slade - Merry Xmas Everybody (1973)
The only time I will ever write 'Xmas' rather than 'Christmas' because that's how it's spelt in the title (although I realise that I've now written Xmas twice...damn - now it's three; this could go on for some time if we're not careful). I always think of my first Christmas teaching at MK Prep back in the UK when I hear this song. The music teacher (not you Barry, it was the one before you and Mr G!) got the choir to sing it at the big Christmas concert, and I have this abiding memory of a mass of angelic little faces singing the lines:

Does he ride a red nosed reindeer?
Does a ton-up on his sleigh
Do the fairies keep him sober for a day?

Everybody now: IT'S CHRIIIIIIIISTMAAAAAAAAAS!




5. Chris Rea - Driving Home For Christmas (1988)
A tune that always reminds me of the times when I actually did drive home for Christmas: Bedford to Corfe Mullen via Milton Keynes, Buckingham, Bicester, Oxford, Newbury, Winchester and Ringwood. Now I travel from Kangiqsujuaq to Gananoque with stops in Quaqtaq, Kangirsuk, Kuujjuaq, Montreal and Kingston. How times change. For the better? Probably, but at this time of year I wish I could be making the former journey rather than the latter. Maybe next year...

Christmas top 10 (part two)

Still cold here, but not as bad as a couple of days ago and certainly not as bad as in the Prairies, where it's been as low as -25 in Winnipeg and -28 in Regina. I shall be flying home this time next week - well, the plane I'm in will actually be doing most of the hard work - so as long as the weather's fine then I really don't care what it's like now.

In the meantime, let's carry on with our festive top ten; today we reveal numbers 8 and 7:

8. Jona Lewie - Stop The Cavalry (1980)
Never intended to be a Christmas hit but it's got sleigh bells and a brass band and will always be indelibly linked with the festive season. Only kept off the number one spot by the posthumous back-catalogue of John Lennon.




7. Chris de Burgh - A Spaceman Came Travelling (1975)
"And it went laaa la la laaa la la laaa la la la..." A Christmas song that actually debunks the whole foundation of Christianity, and the only time that Chris de Burgh will ever appear in one of my top tens. Wonderful.

Christmas top 10 (part one)

It's starting to get cold here now. I'm trying to keep the Canada Goose in mothballs for as long as possible, but it was -20 today, which felt distinctly chilly even given my short journey to school. Still, in little more than a week I shall be back in the relative warmth of of the south, although with impeccable timing Gananoque is in the midst of its first winter storm warning of the season. Better now than next week, I guess.

Now, a few posts ago I talked about my penchant for Christmas music and I threatened to give you a rundown of my top ten. Well, it may be somewhat self-ingratiating, but it is my blog after all, so we will start today with numbers ten and nine and hopefully work our way up to number one before Christmas day itself.

10. Stan Freberg - Green Christmas (1958)
Not really a song and will be completely unknown to virtually everyone except my family, but I've loved this track since I was very small. We had it on 7" vinyl and the record always got stuck when it got to the "All right, Abercrombie" part, and even though I now have it on mp3 and CD I'm still always surprised when we get past that bit without me having to shove the player or weigh down the needle with coins. Ah, memories...




9. Johnny Mathis - When A Child Is Born (1976)
Whenever I hear this song I must be the only person on Earth who thinks of Subbuteo; the table football set I got for Christmas that year was just about my best present ever, and the warbling voice of Johnny Mathis serenaded my plastic players as they took the field (well, green baize) for their first game.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

I like December 1st.

It's my mum's birthday - happy birthday mater! - and it's also the day when I allow myself to start playing Christmas music. Now, I know most Christmas hits are full of throwaway cheesiness, but I've loved them ever since I was small; when I was much younger I probably liked them simply because they were associated with holidays and presents, but nowadays I find they help evoke happy memories of the days of Christmas past.

It's around Christmas time that I most miss my family back in the UK, and I guess that wrapping myself in my festive music helps create a sort of mental pathway back to the Christmases we used to have together. It's also easier and more practical than wrapping myself in actual wrapping paper, which would be messy, difficult, wasteful and just plain bizarre.

If I get around to it I might give you a rundown of my 'Festive Top 10' or something like that over the next few posts, but in the meantime I shall bid you adieu and wish you, dear reader, an early and nostalgia-filled Happy Christmas.

Christmas comes but twice a year

There are few greater pleasures in life than the late, unexpected Christmas present, and I have been fortunate enough to be on the receiving end twice in the past week. Firstly, Vikki gave me a collection of gifts that rather accurately summed up all that I hold dear and believe to be true: a trivia-based game, a toilet roll with jokes on, a scarf and a Family Guy DVD (OK, the scarf may have been a bit of a red herring, although it was rather stylish).

And then, to cap it all, at the weekend I was presented with my very own...wait for it...Sham Wow and Mighty Putty!!!!! (Thanks, Dave!).

Consequently my cup now runneth over, and the good thing is that I am now in a position both to mop up the mess and mend the handle should the cup topple over as well as runneth.

Life is sweet.

Happy New Year

With the holidays over, the blog is back! I suppose I could have re-run old posts over the last week or so, much in the way that the major networks air re-runs whilst their top shows are in hiatus over Christmas and New Year, but I didn't want to short change you, dear reader. I say the holiday's over, but I actually have an extra week's laze to look forward to, courtesy of a cunningly booked dentist's appointment this coming Friday. I should have flown back North yesterday, but now I will probably not return until Sunday, so I can continue to enjoy my Tim's for a few more days. That said, my trip to the dentist will now hang over me like the Sword of Damocles for the rest of the week, so I suppose it's a bit of a mixed blessing.

Melanie is now safely back in the UK, and I've been entrusted with taking down all the Christmas decorations by myself, always an arduous task. It's always a touch sad to have to 'de-Christmas' the house after all the build-up to the day itself, and you can bet your bottom dollar - or your top one if you like - that I'm going to miss something, and that we'll be finding a surreptitiously hidden snowman or reindeer come Easter. Speaking of Christmas, ours was very good, and involved the usual round of eating and greeting, and public thanks to Tarni and Dave for providing such a feast on Christmas Day.

New Year's Eve was a quiet, 'at home' affair, and I must say that I was most disappointed with the fare offered on TV over here. Nothing to touch Andy Stewart's hogmanay party, and in fact many channels didn't even show anything different to their normal programming. You could very easily have unknowingly ushered in the New Year whilst watching the Sham Wow commercial. Speaking of Sham Wow, I had the privilege of actually using one over the holiday, having anticipated such a day for longer than I care to remember. However, just as in the way that it's often disappointing to meet your heroes, my Sham Wow experience was a bit of a let down. It didn't mop up vast areas of spillage as depicted on screen, and my idea of using miles of Sham Wow as a tsunami defence system looks like it will now have to be shelved.

I hesitate to try Mighty Putty now.

Happy New Year.

Happy Christmas

Well, it's almost midnight on Christmas Eve, and I don't know what's more desperate; me writing this post or you reading it! We've been following Santa's progress all evening courtesy of NORAD, and as I write he's merrily flying over Guantanamo Bay (really!). Good job Santa has worldwide clearance, because otherwise you can bet he wouldn't make it out of American airspace. Shoot first, open presents later.

It's blowing a gale here at the moment, and in true British tradition it's also pouring with rain. Incredibly, the snow I wrote about only a couple of days ago has all gone, at least in our locale, and it looks as though I won't have to dig out the car tomorrow before we head out for Christmas lunch; maybe I'll even get to drive. We're headed out to our Australian friends, Tarni and Dave, for Christmas dinner, where a good time should be had by all as another turkey is thrown on the barbie.

NORAD now informs me that Santa is headed our way, so I'd better get to bed because he knows when you are sleeping and he knows when you're awake, which is quite creepy if you stop to think about it. I shouldn't worry though; an air strike courtesy of Uncle Sam is never too far away if things get ugly.

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

A change in store

There are many positives to being back at home for Christmas, such as seeing friends, a comfy bed, Tim Horton's, clothes I forgot I had and being able to afford fresh fruit, but there are also negatives. For example, whilst I enjoy being able to drive again - although Melanie hasn't let me yet - the car had to be located and then chipped out from under what seemed like an entire glacier this morning (Melanie was more than happy to let me do the locating, though!). When we did finally get the old girl going (the car, not Melanie), our destination was the mall, and this leads me to another negative of being back.

Living in the North certainly changes your mindset in terms of what is, and what is not, important when it comes to consumerism, and although I enjoy Christmas as much as the next man (unless the next man happens to be called Scrooge), I have to say that I found my foray around the stores a little, shall I say, grotesque. I suppose my opinion is also coloured by the fact that we have less money at the moment than in years gone by, but even allowing for that I have reached the conclusion that 'things' really don't matter that much. I have learned to get by with what I have, and to be thankful for the fact that what I have is still a damn sight more than most people.

For example, for many years I have quite readily worshipped at the altar of Best Buy, but after ten minutes there today, I was done. There were many things in there that I would have loved to have but, as our good friend Kate would say, they were all a case of 'greed not need.' Now, whether this state of affairs is permanent or whether it's just a passing phase remains to be seen; when and if our financial position changes for the better, perhaps I will jump straight back onto the consumer express once more, who knows. Whatever happens though, the last few years have undoubtedly altered my perspective on life and, for the moment at least, I think I'm all the better for it.

Home!

Well, I finally made it! Our flight left at around 11am, we went straight through to Montreal (only three hours!), and then I managed to catch a lift with Stephanie and her dad, whose route home to Trenton took them down the 401 and right past our house. Result! No Snowmageddon, and no need for Bruce Willis.

It's great to see Melanie again after four months, and she's certainly made the apartment look very Christmassy; our balcony has more lights than all the other condos combined! It's also wonderful to have proper internet again - we have the cheapest service here, but it's greased lightning compared to 'Shatner-net'!

Just in case I was missing the North though, it's currently -18°C here, and it's forecast to be -27° with windchill tomorrow. Oh, and there's a snowfall warning in effect too. It won't stop me getting my Tim's though.

Bliss!

48 Hours

It's bingo night again, and further to my posting of a week ago, the big prize still hasn't been won so tonight's pay out could be close to $30,000! Someone's going to have a happy Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, we're in the middle of a very exciting/nerve-racking 48 hours at the moment. Yesterday was graduation day at Nunavimmi Pigiursavik (my school); we tend to have two graduation ceremonies during the year, one at Christmas and one in the summer, as the courses we offer all start at different times and have different requirements in their hours of study. Yours truly was asked to M.C. the event - it's the third time I've 'hosted' - and if Hugh Jackman can't make the Oscars for some reason, I'd be only too happy to stand in for him.

Today was my last day with the students, and I spent most of it playing 'Copter', an inordinately frustrating yet addictive online game. One of my class introduced it to me, and I guess this was the modern equivalent of when you were allowed to bring in toys and games on the last day of school. This was always the highlight of the year, and nearly always ended in tears when someone's prized toy was trodden on resulting in the teacher having to call everything to a halt with a cry of "well now you've spoiled it for everyone, haven't you?"

Having spent most of the afternoon crashing my aircraft into the rocks, thoughts now turn to my flight home tomorrow; thinking about it, playing 'Copter' probably wasn't the best preparation for my flight, was it? Much like the way I made my friend Kevin watch the film 'Alive' the night before coming on our old school's ski trip probably wasn't the best preparation either.

I'm meant to be flying from Inukjuak at 1.45 pm tomorrow, spending the night at Montreal airport - I've already booked the comfy sofa opposite Tim Horton's - then catching a flight to Kingston via Toronto very early on Saturday morning. For those of you who know your Canadian geography this route makes no sense, but there you go. I say meant to be flying though, because the local forecast for tomorrow afternoon is not the best, and it's going to be a nervy few hours ahead as we watch the weather. A snow day is normally cause for celebration, but not when you're scheduled to be flying home for the first time in nearly four months.

So hopefully my next post will come to you from Gananoque, but I don't want to tempt fate and face waiting for Another 48 Hours, because that really wasn't a good film...

A breach of elf and safety?

It's snowing as I write (surprise, surprise!), and it's -25°C outside. Looking out the window, I've just seen the same woman walk past for the third time, a bit like when you watch a chase scene in an old Tom & Jerry or Scooby Doo cartoon and the same piece of background keeps coming around and around again. If she passes by for a fourth time, I shall be on the lookout for Shaggy and Scoobs.

But I digest.

The real reason I put virtual pen to virtual paper today is to share with you news of the demise of one of the UK's 'finest' theme parks. Lapland New Forest, situated on the Hampshire-Dorset border in the south of England, has recently been forced to close its doors due to the fact that it didn't really deliver what it promised. Its advertisement depicted a snow-covered Lapland village with Hollywood special effects, a Nativity scene and a bustling Christmas market with an ice rink, but when the public - who had to pay up to £30 (about $55) for a ticket - arrived, the ice rink was broken, the huskies and reindeer were chained up in pens, the market was four stalls in a tent and the Nativity scene was a picture on a painted wall that could only be viewed after crossing a muddy field.

As the complaints flooded in, the Park's owner, Henry Mears, stated that "six of our staff - three elves and three security - have been assaulted and all have been verbally abused," and to cap it all Santa, who at one stage was found sneaking a quick cigarette outside his grotto, was punched in the head by an irate father who'd had to queue up for over four hours only to be told that he couldn't take a picture of his children and that they weren't allowed to sit on Santa's lap. Oh, and they'd have to get in another queue to get their presents.

I think that the lesson to be learned here is that theme parks should be left to the Americans, as they simply do them so much better, much in the way they excel at opening ceremonies at major sporting events, building cars that no-one wants and destroying the world's economy.

Pass the eggnog.

Only In America

As I write, I am watching the annual Rochester Christmas Parade on TV. It's rather wonderful entertainment...the 'Older People's Commission' float has just driven by, featuring "representatives of the Commission lip-synching to a variety of all your Christmas favourites."

Oh, here comes a line of Clydesdale horses: "what says holiday better than Clydesdales?", comments the announcer. Would she like a list? And here is the Holy Family school float, with a 'Live Nativity Scene'...Push, push...I think I can see a head!

And to cap it all, as the programme came back from commercials, with the announcer proclaiming, "welcome back; you can feel the sun, you can feel the holiday spirit here," what was passing by on screen?

A tank.

Ain't that America?