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!

One flu over the cuckoo's nest

I know the blog's been a bit neglected recently, but not purposely so. As I've mentioned before, my internet connection has been decidedly unreliable of late, but at the moment it appears to be on a good footing so I'll take advantage whilst we're all still on the planet to read the damn thing.

I say that because there seems to be a real sense of end of days around at the moment. The economy has tanked, 2012 is looming large - can't wait to see the film by the way; not just one national monument destroyed, but ALL OF THEM! - Iran and North Korea are on the verge of going nuclear, there are earthquakes almost every day and H1N1 is going to kill us all before any of the other stuff matters anyway.

Vaccinations are now rolling out around Canada - we have ours slated for the beginning of next week - but at the moment, I don't think I'm going to get one. Regular readers will know all about my cynicism regarding the Swine Flu, and nothing I've seen or read has done anything to change my mind. Yes, there have been tragic fatalities but they have been exceptionally rare, and there are many more tragic fatalities as a result of other diseases, including the 'regular' flu, that simply go unreported. I still believe that the 24 hour news media has played a huge part in whipping up the current wave of hysteria regarding the virus, and that the true epidemic is in fact an epidemic of fear.

And to cap it all, that self-same media is now able to fill its airtime with reports on the ridiculously massive queues of people waiting to get their shots. In Kingston, a number of children were absent from Melanie's school today as their parents had taken them to get vaccinated, with one family joining the line at 7.30 in the morning and not getting to the front until 3.30 in the afternoon; maybe the health authority should have sold fast passes à la Disney, although I doubt you'd have got many punters going round again for a second ride. As for me, well I'm not even going round for a first ride. At this moment in time I'm not prepared to be injected with an under-tested, rush-released vaccine, and I shall take my chances with my own immune system, thank you very much. Granted, we should be concerned by the whole situation, but not afraid; after all, the only thing we really have to fear is fear itself.

And perhaps spiders.

Stan's the man

It's been a busy week thus far. My internet connection continues to be consistent only in its inconsistency, so deprived of a regular web fix I've been catching up on work and on the myriad of TV shows that I've recorded but yet to watch. At least we've had no further power cuts.

It's also been a good week weather-wise, and today some of my students came out with me to take some photographs of a Flat Stanley we'd made for The Grade 1s and 2s at Melanie's school in Kingston. We decided that a more appropriate, Inuit style name for him would be Stanwillie, and it was interesting to learn from my students that there is no real word in Inuttitut for 'flat.'

Both the students and myself enjoyed taking Stanwillie around town and we took some good photos, but none as good as this one, which shows the one-dimensional, cardboard figure in Washington D.C.:

Not sure who the small guy with the green tie is, though.

Food for thought

My internet connection has been more down than up over the last few days, and yesterday morning we had a power cut, not an uncommon feature in these parts. Normally the power comes back after a few minutes, but this time it was out for over an hour, which is really hardly any time at all, but it was enough time to make me frustrated.

There was no TV, no internet, no phone and no running water (everything is interdependent here).

I of course went outside to make sure that it was not just my house that was affected, and when I found out that it was indeed a village-wide blackout I was able to take some sort of sadistic pleasure in the fact that everyone was in the same boat. The power eventually came back, but I think the whole episode has made me realise that perhaps I have not become as detached from my material needs as I believed I had.

Food for thought indeed (but not the type of food that needs an oven to cook it in case the power goes down again).

Maybe a cheese sandwich for thought...