The day after…

Tags

Birthday, CBC, cooking, Covid 19, Food, Quarantine

So yesterday was a gray day with light fluffy snow which melted before it even touched the ground. Given that the City is dead quiet, no car traffic, very few people, it is nice to have this kind of silence. We live by the Hillsborough river and the Cruise Port of Charlottetown in the old original part of this small town. It can get noisy and hectic with people, businesses and visitors. Now it’s quiet and am happy about it, though I realize it is so for all the wrong reasons.

I had a wonderful Birthday, Will has a recipe for Pizza, making his own fresh dough, letting it rise and then he made fresh tomato sauce ( no jar or can stuff) with 3 topics no more, just like in Italy when we went to our favourite Pizza place, Disco Volante on Via Alessandria 50 or Pizzeria San Marino, Corso Trieste 163. The secret to any good pizza is freshness and made from scratch. The rest is absolute rubbish. For dessert we had a little dessert I made from a roll of puff pastry usually used for pies. So I simply unroll the dough, then I butter it up and then apply a generous portion of dark brown sugar, thin slices of Cortland Apples, a sprinkle of Raisins, sliced almonds. Then I roll it all up and put on a baking sheet covered in parchemin paper, I also use an egg wash on the dough for that nice golden colour. Bake for 18 min at 400 F. Voilà!

Birthday Dessert with candles at 94 years young. WELL NO!!!!! Someone was having fun at my expense. Nonetheless the dessert was very good, if I say so myself.

We also had a bottle of Prosecco well chilled. Many people phoned me and I also got some fun videos and one was a live concert from my next door neighbours who are professional classical musicians. It all started at 8am with a delivery by a friend of a bouquet of live tulips. It was all great and I did promise everyone that once this is over we will have a proper party.

We only listened to the news at 9am and again late in the afternoon. Yesterday I was trying to find out what was going on in Parliament in Ottawa, where an emergency debate with a quorum of 30 Members took place to pass emergency financial help and other measures. The package was finally passed at 3am on Wednesday Morning 25 March, it was passed by the Senate today and on to the Governor General for Royal Assent.

I also refuse to listen to the CBC who is deliberately undermining the Government to get more click and bait.  We do have a wide choice nowadays of what you wish to listen to, with internet Radio I can listen to stations everywhere, like KBAQ 98.5 Fm in Phoenix.

The news in PEI is that we now have 5 cases. Also one liquor store, the big one on University Ave is re-opening, which is a good move, given that we are the only province in Canada who went so far as to close all liquor stores. Cannot imagine doing that in Quebec, their would be an insurrection. This is the Province where you can drink on Election day and enjoy a drink at 8am. In the rest of Canada it is NO liquor before noontime.

Today is another Sunny day, Spring is here and we are busy washing and cleaning the house. Curtains, floors, carpets etc… We also bought a Lampe Berger which is a French invention to purify the air and eliminate odours, it works like a charm. In 1898, a Pharmacist named Maurice Berger invented the Lampe Berger.

 

He came up with the groundbreaking idea of using catalytic combustion to purify the air, and once he proved his theory, the Lampe Berger became a fixture in hospitals, morgues, and household throughout France.

I really had to go out for a short walk around the block and enjoy the fresh air and the Sun. The streets are deserted like Great George Street which leads to the Legislature.

 

Finally at midnight tonight the Quarantine Act comes into effect nationwide. Too many people were not self-Isolating upon returning from foreign travel. Some real horror stories today of people deliberately infecting others knowingly because they did not want to be stopped and put in quarantine. A bit late but now at least its jail and fines for those people. So much for those nice Canadians.

 

Music you listen too

Tags

CBC, classical, Music, opera, Radio Canada

We listen to a lot of radio and every morning the minute we get up we turn on the radio. Per example this morning, a very bad storm was raging and we turned on the radio morning show from Halifax on the CBC. It has lots of music which appeals to a wide, if older audience, + 50. But the music has lots of references to souvenirs and memories relevant to anyone over 50. You also get the regional weather and news. The weather for the Maritimes, which impacts the whole area despite the fact we do not live in Nova Scotia. It is just across the Strait from us and quite visible some 12 Km away.

Then this afternoon on the eve of the new season of Metropolitan Opera Broadcast from NYC we had Canadian Tenor Ben Heppner of the CBC Saturday at the Opera with his guest Mary Jo Heath,Host of the Metropolitan Opera broadcast. The Opera today was a classic Hansel and Gretel usually played around Christmas time by Humperdinck.

On any given day we have music playing it is usually classical on the CBC or Radio-Canada. We never listen to local radio stations which only play musak pop with loads of advertisement.

What do you listen too or do you listen to the radio? Here are two songs I heard this evening at dinner on the Radio Canada show from Montreal with host Claude Saucier. Do you remember them?

 

 

The results

Tags

CBC, Charlottetown, life

Well the election took place and the results surprised me and I am puzzled. The bulk of the votes went to one candidate, I think it is called a landslide in election parlance. No that person was not me. However I did receive a flood of message from friends and supporters this morning who congratulated me for a dignified campaign, well run, focused on issues and the City and that is always nice to hear. Yes I am proud of my campaign despite the nastiness, I stayed above it all and refused to engage in negativity.

During this campaign there was a lot of talk about change and how the people wanted fresh air, a new approach. There was also much talk about engaging youth and how they could be voting for change at City Council. All that was nothing more than talk and nothing came of it.

The local newspaper held a televised coverage on Eastlink which is a private service available only to subscribers, the CBC only offered radio coverage. The Guardian invited the out going Mayor to comment on the election of the new Mayor and for the youth panel we had the same 3 faces who represent all youth in the Province to offer their comments which were not terribly illuminating and dovetailed with the out going Mayor’s comments. Engaging youth and youth is our future are themes that come back all the time but I found few young people under 35 willing to put their money where their mouth is. Even the youth panel when asked why they had not put up their names for the election avoided answering and instead fell back on the old canard of no time and other priorities and blame the boomers.

On City Council only 2 new faces in my ward 1 (downtown) and ward 9 (near the airport) out of the ten councillors again not exactly the massive change the people were apparently asking for.

During this campaign I learned an awful lot, this being a small place, the political/business alliances do control all and in some cases in a pernicious way and if they support a candidate, will expect much for their support.

Ward 1 in particular being the downtown core is now firmly in the grasp of big corporate and business elite. This means that the corridor from Pownal to Prince streets and Euston street to the river will see the change business wants and gentrification will now happen in accelerated mode. This is not a bad thing much needs to be improved upon in that specific area if we are to revitalize the downtown core.

Now comes with the end of the year the Budget period and I have a project on this one I started last year and got a little bit of result and now with a new Mayor and renewed City Council I will propose again an open process for the budget. The one councillor who blocked my motion last year is gone, so I may get better results.  I have not lost any time and already reconnected with those councillors with whom I have been working in the last year.

So now time to move on and first a vacation with a departure date fairly soon to Portugal. For my new look, I know with this new look I could be Freddy Mercury’s twin, I bet that is what you are thinking or is it Hercule Poirot.

People now refer to me as a politician, in my life I have been a Public Servant, a Diplomat and now a Politician, it makes me smile.

 

Nostalgia

Tags

Birthday, CBC, Family, Montreal, Music, Peggy Lee, Radio Canada, San Francisco, Tony Bennett

The definition of the word Nostalgia is thus; a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.

I always get this at this time of the year as my birthday approaches. Lately we have been listening to Radio-Canada the French language national broadcaster whose head office in is Montreal. They have a lot more music than the English service of the CBC in Toronto who appear to be big on talk show, Radio-Canada also has a wider choice of music, I find it more agreeable.

Radio-Canada plays a broad range of classical music and popular music but will do more retro music from the 1930’s to 1970’s, Brazilian, South American, West African, Middle Eastern. I do prefer it to the mostly American/Canadian hipster music played on the CBC which is very limiting and who has developed the unfortunate habit of talking to listeners as if they were 5 years old and on the French service you do not get news every hour.

So here is this song by Tony Bennett, I left my heart in San Francisco which was a favourite of my parents, I heard it last night on the radio programme C’est si bon, I remember this song from the late 1960’s, lots of family memories.  I visited San Francisco in 1982 and stayed at the St-Francis Hotel, the have a very good memory of the city. Another song by Peggy Lee, my favourite being Is that all there is, again it brings back vivid memories of Montreal between 1966-1972 the downtown core.  All this was 50 years ago but it was a far more optimistic period than what we see today.  A lot of the people I knew then are gone now and the City has changed beyond recognition. This is not to say that we did not have a good life afterwards. Like a lot of people the past it seems was less complicated than life today one wonders about all the change and if there is just a little too much of it.

 

 

The National Anthem

Tags

Anthem, Canada., CBC, EXPO 67, Montreal, Quebec City

This morning on CBC Radio 1, Michael Enright on Sunday Edition had a program all about Canada. The first segment was about our National Anthem O Canada, the second part about EXPO 67 which was held 50 years ago in Montreal, the most successful World  Exhibition ever held in the World, something I remember well I was 11 yrs old. How wonderful that was, one of my best childhood memories. The third segment was about how there his 3 founding Nations in Canada, the Indigenous, the French, the English and how we are finally coming to understand that fact.

He had Musicologist and Historian, Robert Harris to explain it all and how wonderful it was to hear. http://www.cbc.ca/listen/shows/sunday-edition/episode/13062323

Just wonderful, Robert Harris explained so many secrets about our National Anthem, the opening two stanzas of O Canada is taken from Mozart’s March of the Priest from the Opera Magic Flute. How wonderful is that given that our Country was born from a series of drinking and dancing parties here in Charlottetown and Quebec City held by the Fathers of Confederation in 1864.

The second incredible secret is that the National Anthem of Canada was written/com posed for the Saint Jean Baptiste Society in June of 1880. A French Nationalist Anthem to be sung at a Convention of French Canadians who had gathered from all over North America in Quebec City. The lyrics are about the French in North America and the music is martial, reference to God, the King (France) and our ancestors in this land.

How did it become the National Anthem of Canada? Harris explained that in 1902 King Edward VII was visiting Canada and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir in Toronto decided that they needed to sing an Anthem about Canada and not the Royal Anthem, God Save the King. So they arrange for a quick translation of the lyrics into English to sing for the Royal visit, the result was not very good and was difficult, cumbersome to sing, nothing like the French version. A few years later in 1906 Judge and poet Robert Stanley Weir wrote the English lyrics to O Canada, he changed them again in 1908, 1909, 1913. For a long time we had the 1921 lyrics which most English speaking Canadians know.

We will have to wait 1964 and the debate on the New Canadian Flag in Parliament to have another debate about making O Canada the Official National Anthem.  But that did not work out, to much opposition, too many English Canadians wanted to keep the Royal Anthem and having to swallow a new flag to replace the old Red Ensign was too much politically. Again in 1967 and 1968 Parliament tried and failed and again in 1976 and again in 1980 at the time of the first referendum on Quebec Independence. This time it worked and O Canada became our Official Anthem. Though many Canadians had taken it as the Official Anthem for many previous decades.

Currently a Bill in the Senate C-210 would amend one sentence of the English Lyrics of O Canada from IN ALL THEY SONS COMMAND to IN ALL OF US COMMAND. This to satisfy the Feminists in Canada. It would appear that many do not know that the English lyrics have been amended in the past many times, this includes the media who are very confused on the topic. Senators who hold a more traditional point of view oppose any change.

All this to say that the radio program was most interesting on the history of our Anthem, they also played several various versions from 1908, 1910,1927 and a famous one by Roger Doucet, tenor who for years would sing the National Anthem in both French and English before the beginning of a Hockey game at the old Forum in Montreal. He changed 2 words of the Anthem in 1979 before a game, at first the crowd in the Forum is silent not quite understanding what went on and then suddenly the reaction. The words, inserted by Doucet were Our Rights and Liberty, a reference to the upcoming Quebec Referendum and the demands of French speaking Canadians.

Nothing is ever simple in Canada. My favourite rendition c.1960 is the one with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal with Maestro Wilfrid Pelletier and chorus sung in French. It is quite beautiful.

 

Ô Canada! Terre de nos aïeux,
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!
Car ton bras sait porter l’épée,
Il sait porter la croix!
Ton histoire est une épopée
Des plus brillants exploits.
Et ta valeur, de foi trempée,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.
Sous l’œil de Dieu, près du fleuve géant,
Le Canadien grandit en espérant.
Il est né d’une race fière,
Béni fut son berceau.
Le ciel a marqué sa carrière
Dans ce monde nouveau.
Toujours guidé par sa lumière,
Il gardera l’honneur de son drapeau,
Il gardera l’honneur de son drapeau.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Historical black holes

Tags

150, Acadiens, Canada., CBC

For the 150th Anniversary of Canada’s union into a single Nation (1867-2017) the Department of Heritage has sponsored a televised serial presented by the CBC entitled the Story of Us.  It’s been a disaster from the get go, a producer was hired to produce these televised shows on what is suppose to be our National history and many scholars were consulted. The biggest problem of the entire series is the omissions of many very foundational moments in the history of Canada. The producer decided to start the story in 1608 with the founding of the City of Quebec, then it jumps to the Seven Years War and the battle of the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec City in 1759.

Right away the screaming started not only from the public but from Provincial Governments who felt slighted by the omissions. The Story of Canada really starts for the French settlers in 1534 with the arrival of Jacques Cartier in the Gaspé Peninsula. The settlements of Louisbourg and Isle Royale, today’s Cape Breton in Nova Scotia and the Deportation of the Acadiens known as le grand dérangement 1755-1764 are completely missing and not mentioned. Given that these events by modern standard can be seen as British war crimes and crimes against humanity and help explain how the British came to control North America and much of the social tensions which exist to this day in Canada, it is rather strange that the CBC and the Office of the Minister Mélanie Joly gave the go ahead speaks of the lack of historical education of Ms Joly and the usual nonchalance of the CBC in such matters.

The same then happens for the period 1765 to 1864, one hundred years of history which shaped events that led to the Conference of Charlottetown in 1864 is cut out of the narrative. The CBC explained that they had to make choices and preferred to concentrate on what can only be described as Pop History. Given the lack of knowledge of our National History by the majority of Canadians, this if very unfortunate but illustrates a greater problem which is the little value placed on education in general by institutions like the CBC and our Federal Government. A cynic might say that the politicians try to control the official narrative too closely to suit their own purposes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If these words mean anything to you

Tags

CBC, meaning, Tom Howell, words

This past Saturday morning we got up early I had food shopping to do and other errands to run and wanted to have it done early before the crowds got out. Well I half succeeded since a lot of people had the exact same idea than me.

On CBC Radio I heard this program called If these words mean anything to you with Tom Howell who is a former dictionary writer. It was 8am PEI time and was having my morning espresso machiatto, here is one Italian word, a dash of, stained with milk.

The episode of the radio program was about the words reasonable and the other word was conservative. So the host asked; A)  Are you reasonable? B)  Are you conservative? Then he went on to interview guests and ask them if they were or thought of themselves as A and B.  Of course he explored the meaning of the words in their origin and today. It was fascinating because what he demonstrated was that you are probably conservative in some things you do, attitudes, opinions etc. while thinking of yourself as liberal in other areas of your thought process or attitudes.

As for the word reasonable the host approached the whole question of how we discuss issues, ideas, situations in our world of the internet and twitter sphere. He argued that we have lost the ability to listen to the other and even reflect on their point of view or arguments before deciding how to respond. Can we take a reasonable approach, ponder what is being said and maybe consider if we could reasonably adopt the other point of view. If not can we refute the arguments without resorting to the sort of behaviour seen so often now of personal attacks and gross insults on chatlines.

One guest, I forget his name, said that he despite being quite liberal on most issues, he was tired of the exclusive left leaning views of the CBC, excluding any right wing thought of any kind, on any topic. This is true, think of programs like The Current or As it happens or social affairs shows on Radio-Canada in French, same situation. Is it unreasonable to question the approach of the CBC/Radio-Canada.

The host asked his guests are you a reasonable person? We, the listener were also invited to ask ourselves that question.

On the word conservative, the host had several guests, one was the Leader of the Green Party, Elizabeth May, MP and the other was Michael Chong MP and leadership candidate to the Conservative Party, CPC. Both expressed their views on a host of issues showing that depending on the issue. they could be conservative or not. I think it is true of a lot of people, we may support or adopt an idea because for us it means something while see another issue totally differently. Chong for one has been at odds with Stephen Harper the former Prime Minister while in his Cabinet. Without naming Harper, he made it clear, he thought the man an authoritarian, top down style of manager and did not like him much. Chong did resign from Cabinet over a disagreement with Harper on Quebec.

May said that depending on the issues she could be Green, Liberal or Conservative. She did work for Conservative PM Brian Mulroney in the 1990’s and admired his approach to environmental policies. She also admired the late Flora Macdonald, MP, P.C. who was the first women Foreign Minister of Canada. I worked for Ms Macdonald and I really liked her a lot, brilliant woman.

Chong said that he did not consider himself a liberal, he believed in merit and not quotas. Attacking the position of PM Trudeau who claims to be a feminist. Chong gave the example of Trudeau achieving the 50% parity between men and women in his Cabinet and when asked about it answered glibly ”Because it’s 2015”. Chong maintains that this answer is revealing in the sense that Trudeau believes in social engineering to achieve his political goals and he, Chong does not, merit alone should be the criteria for promoting men or women to Cabinet. I agree with Chong on this point, does that make me a Conservative, no I don’t think so. But I do believe in Merit or Meritocracy to be promoted. Human nature does not respond well to social engineering by politicians. So far the women in the Trudeau Cabinet have not done particularly well in their portfolio, think of Jody Wilson-Raybould at Justice, Bardish Chagger, House of Commons reform agenda, Mélanie Joly at Heritage, Catherine McKenna, Environment, Maryam Monsef who was demoted after bungling Electoral reform and replaced by Karina Gould and MaryAnn Mihychuk who was simply dropped. So much for quotas.

An interesting program and leads listeners to question the meaning of words.

It’s Spring time

Tags

Al Jolson, April, Brendan Allen, Canada., CBC, Maritimes, PEI, Weather

Well according to Brendan Allen our new weather man who is replacing our retiring Kevin Boomer Gallant at CBC Weather here in the Maritimes, Winter is over and the mild weather pattern shows that we have broken the back of Winter. Mild Spring weather is with us now.

Brendan Allen, new radio weather man on CBC in the Maritimes, most people think he is 16 years old. A very friendly guy, he is still in school.

So I called the dealership and am having the Summer tires put on the car. Started to wash the windows, we have 18 large windows, you have to pace yourself.

I also started to clean our back deck which looks out unto the Hillsborough river, love to sit there in the morning having our coffee and Nicky loves to just take the Sun. I know that on the mainland in the rest of Canada it still Winter but hey that is why we moved to the Island, enough with the 10 months of Winter.

Tomorrow we are getting April showers say Brendan, here is Al Jolson to tell us all about it. Enjoy Spring!

 

 

Intermission

Tags

CBC, Charlottetown, PEI, storm, Wind, winter

Well this morning we got up and the storm has stopped or past us, the wind is still pretty strong but is diminishing gradually. The Confederation sea bridge is still closed to all traffic, it has been closed for 12 hours now and I can just imagine that many trucks on the mainland side in New Brunswick are just waiting, parked in the special area for the bridge to re-open. The weather was just as bad in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and Cape Breton (Isle Royale) sticking out into the Atlantic, they always get the brunt of all storms.  What it means for us on PEI is that the grocery stores will start having shortages in fresh produce like salad and imported fruits from the USA or South America. You can still get the essentials since we have lots of farmers and livestock farms.

My main concern is digging my car out from under the snow, right now the front of the car is buried in snow, our parking lot is clean, the plow guy came by early around 5am and cleaned it all out. The City and the Province have re-started the plowing of the streets and the highway and secondary roads after a 12 hour stop, so now they have to catch up. Matt Rainnie the host of CBC Island morning was telling us that another storm is coming this is just a break, an intermission if you like, the new storm should arrive by early hours of Thursday and dump another 25 cm of fresh snow. So Wednesday off I go for more food shopping and essentials.

 

I don’t think I would want to live outside of a major town on PEI in Winter, here we have all the services and living at the corner of two main city arteries means the roads are cleaned first. I heard stories of people in the country side and they are left to fend for themselves, no one can get to them, the wind is too high and there is too much snow on the road. Stories from last night are of 3 babies being born during the height of the snow at home. The way it is organized on PEI is when a storm hits, emergency plows stand by at Fire Halls, all of whom are staff by volunteer fire fighters. If a call comes in the emergency plow will open up the road for the Fire trucks and hopefully make it on time to help, like in the case of births at home. It becomes a neighbourhood affair, since everyone knows everyone else.

 

There are some tragedies of homes burning down and the Fire dept can’t get to them because the driveway to the Farm house is 200 feet long and has not been plowed or is too narrow. Last night a big barn full of bails of hay burned, the storm delayed the Fire Dept by 3 hours. Many of our secondary roads are also nothing more than soft red earth which in Winter turns to hard icy roads and are not necessarily plowed.

I don’t think many people will be going out for Valentine’s day given the state of the roads and everything is closed today anyway. Just stay home and read and enjoy the day. Until the next storm on Thursday morning.

I have to say that the City of Charlottetown is doing a wonderful job of cleaning the streets quickly and efficiently, a much better job than Ottawa who never seemed to be able to clean streets unless you called your City Councillor to complain.

The world is a small town

Tags

CBC, Charlottetown, PEI, storm, Wind, winter

This saying figures in the title page of my blog. This is certainly true of where we are now. We go to Receiver Coffee three times a week when I am done with my duty at the Art Gallery. It is the in spot on Richmond Street behind the Confederation Centre of the Arts.

The food is quite good and the coffee superb, they also have art on the walls for sale by young emerging artists. Currently they have amongst others a photographer who is also a barber at one of the Hip Barber shops in town. His name is Jared Doyle and he has an account on Instagram Ivory Orphan. Looking at his portfolio I notice that we know all the people featured, same at the Café, everywhere we go now, look around and you see friends, acquaintances, neighbours or prominent citizens, we speak to everyone, exchange greetings and news. It is that sort of a place.

This morning I was listening to CBC Island Morning with Matt Rainnie and Rich Cormier, there is a big storm coming says Matt so you should go to the grocery store and stock up because Friday morning it is going to be a snow day and no one should be on the road. He is speaking about the entire Province of Prince Edward Island not just Charlottetown the Capital. As I write this the storm has arrived and already the wind is howling at 80Km per hour and we are expecting 40 Cm of snow or 16 inches in the next 5 hours, which is significant. The winds will top 100km in about one hour, the bridge to the mainland has is closed to all traffic and the Canadian Coast Guard has come into the harbour to dock for the night, I can understand they don’t want to be out at sea in this weather.

So I followed Matt Rainnie advice and went to the SuperStore to stock up on all the food items we may need. I was not alone at the store and it was a chance to speak with people about this and that, at the Deli counter a lady was exchanging news with the Deli Counter clerk, the polite thing to do is wait until she finishes the story, you don’t want to barge in, she might be someone’s cousin you know.

Got my shopping done, it was a beautiful day today but by 6 pm the clouds had accumulated and on the news they were giving us the run down of all the places that were cancelling activities tonight, all of it re-scheduled for a Saturday or later. So it is pretty obvious no school tomorrow, the University and College are closed. Many businesses will not open and very likely the government will also be shut down for the day. The airport has already cancelled the evening flights and many delays for tomorrow, so call ahead. At any rate who wants to land or take off in 80 Km winds, not me.

I still had to take the dogs out, they did not want to go out too much wind and blowing snow for them, but out we go, not far like a few feet do what you have to do and turn around quick.

Yes we live in Mayberry and it is a nice feeling, everyone will be at home tomorrow and just read and relax until the storm passes.