Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Bhangra and barbies
I've finally decided that Canadians, contrary to what I first thought, do appreciate my sense of humour. They just laugh at different stuff. Like my tendency to put on different voices when I'm making fun of myself or other people. We made friends the other day with a couple who'd visited England, and we bonded over jokes about Chavs. My Chav impression goes something like this:
“So I said to Trice, ahm not ‘avin it, y’know wha’ I mean? Cos like, she’s a complete cah, an a filfy slaig, so like, ahm not pu’n’ up wiv it, know wha’ I mean?”
We also had a laugh about inner-city schoolboys:
“Imk omk um mfcm im ump oom immk emp mb ump, innit?”
Whenever I catch myself sounding old-fashioned, I put on my mock old person's voice (which comes out Bristolian because that's where my grandparents are from), which also has everyone in stitches. So now I know what makes them laugh, I can make the right jokes! Everyone's happy!
We met the aforementioned couple last Saturday night, at a party thrown by a used-car dealer Joe works with. You would have thought a party thrown by a used-car dealer would have fake beer and two cakes iced together to look like one (not to mention the clock wound back so everyone thinks it’s earlier!), but this was actually a really good bash.
It started off with lots of curry (the dealer's from India), then a prize draw (in which we won a faux Greek urn…what’s a Greek urn? Ooh, about 10,000 drachmas a year… *canned laughter*), then they stuck on the Bhangra and we hit the dancefloor. It was great! Everyone just danced in their own bizarre way and didn't care what anyone else thought. And in fact dancing to Bhangra is easy. I used a combination of four moves:
1. A variation of ‘Walk like an Egyptian’
2. A variation of the hula dance
3. Hanging up the laundry
4. Screwing in a lightbulb
The next day we went to see an incredibly distant relative who my uncle had found by researching the family tree. Okay, this is how friendly Canadians are: I was the great great-granddaughter of her great-grandfather, and she hugged us both as soon as we walked in the door! I felt like her niece rather than her fourth cousin several times removed.
It turned out her husband was a champion barbecuer so dinner was pretty good. Then later he regaled us with all his hog roast exploits. He'd actually been to Lynchburg, Tennessee for the Jack Daniels World Barbecue Championships (yee-haa!), and his stories involved suspicious amounts of beer considering Lynchburg is a dry county. With his love of simple pleasures and his bizarre pride in schoolboy pranks like nicking a Jack Daniels figurine (‘we stoled it’), he reminded me of where I grew up in Bournemouth. I think that's a good thing.
One thing that struck me about their house was their bathroom. Bathrooms in England sometimes have a hand towel (if you're lucky) with a little scrappy bar of soap to wash your hands with, and they often need a good clean. Canadian bathrooms are immaculate. The towels match, they’re all hung neatly, and you never have to dry your hands on someone's manky bath towel. The soap is in liquid form in beautiful bottles that smell of jasmine and aloe vera. Sometimes there's even moisturiser. There’s candles, baskets of pot pourri, and everything’s shiny. It's like I’ve died and gone to the loo. I love Canadian bathrooms.
Talking of dying (stay with me, readers), I had to interview a funeral director on Friday (for Grimsby/Niagara, not the Hamilton Spectator). I got a tour round the funeral home and everything. It was fun in a creepy kind of way. I even got to pick my casket (I chose the maple one – what a patriot!), and if I really wanted to go the Canadian way I could have chosen a maple-leaf adorned box for my ashes. I suppose you could even be embalmed in maple syrup if you wanted. Sorry for sounding flippant – but I find it hard to talk about death without either joking about it or getting sad. And who wants a tear-stained blog?
Finally, this afternoon I’m off to my third Canadian driving lesson. The ridiculous thing is I already have a licence, but I have to get lessons in Canada to bring my outrageous insurance costs down. Anyway, it’s all pretty fun. There are only about three of us in the theory class, including one girl who lives in the same apartment block as me, and I keep everyone entertained with tales of English driving. Like thick London bus drivers who block the intersection so traffic coming the other way can’t move. Or taxi drivers who do U-turns in Zone 1 at rush hour (in Canada you’re supposed to wait until no traffic is coming in either direction. In London you’d be waiting till the next Ice Age!).
The thing that really makes me laugh is when they start going on about the cost of stuff. The instructor said we should take the bus into downtown Hamilton because parking is “very expensive”. Let’s get things into perspective here. Downtown London: 1 pound for 20 minutes = 3 pounds an hour. Downtown Hamilton: 50 cents an hour = 20p!!!! And fuel (or gas)? UK: 90p a litre (if you’re lucky). Canada: 80 cents a litre = 30p!
I love telling people all this because it makes them more appreciative of where they live. Everyone thinks their place is a hole until someone tells them of somewhere worse. And heck, even in England, at least we don’t have to walk a day to the nearest well and we’re not about to get hacked to death with machetes. Unlike in Rwanda or Sudan. But does the UN do anything about it? No! (Sorry, I watched Hotel Rwanda last night). Beats me why everyone thinks the UN is the solution to everyone’s problems. If by ‘solution’ you mean ‘stand by and watch’, then yes, I suppose they are. Anyway, I’m starting to rant now, and I have to go anyway. We’re off to look at some amazingly cheap houses : )
“So I said to Trice, ahm not ‘avin it, y’know wha’ I mean? Cos like, she’s a complete cah, an a filfy slaig, so like, ahm not pu’n’ up wiv it, know wha’ I mean?”
We also had a laugh about inner-city schoolboys:
“Imk omk um mfcm im ump oom immk emp mb ump, innit?”
Whenever I catch myself sounding old-fashioned, I put on my mock old person's voice (which comes out Bristolian because that's where my grandparents are from), which also has everyone in stitches. So now I know what makes them laugh, I can make the right jokes! Everyone's happy!
We met the aforementioned couple last Saturday night, at a party thrown by a used-car dealer Joe works with. You would have thought a party thrown by a used-car dealer would have fake beer and two cakes iced together to look like one (not to mention the clock wound back so everyone thinks it’s earlier!), but this was actually a really good bash.
It started off with lots of curry (the dealer's from India), then a prize draw (in which we won a faux Greek urn…what’s a Greek urn? Ooh, about 10,000 drachmas a year… *canned laughter*), then they stuck on the Bhangra and we hit the dancefloor. It was great! Everyone just danced in their own bizarre way and didn't care what anyone else thought. And in fact dancing to Bhangra is easy. I used a combination of four moves:
1. A variation of ‘Walk like an Egyptian’
2. A variation of the hula dance
3. Hanging up the laundry
4. Screwing in a lightbulb
The next day we went to see an incredibly distant relative who my uncle had found by researching the family tree. Okay, this is how friendly Canadians are: I was the great great-granddaughter of her great-grandfather, and she hugged us both as soon as we walked in the door! I felt like her niece rather than her fourth cousin several times removed.
It turned out her husband was a champion barbecuer so dinner was pretty good. Then later he regaled us with all his hog roast exploits. He'd actually been to Lynchburg, Tennessee for the Jack Daniels World Barbecue Championships (yee-haa!), and his stories involved suspicious amounts of beer considering Lynchburg is a dry county. With his love of simple pleasures and his bizarre pride in schoolboy pranks like nicking a Jack Daniels figurine (‘we stoled it’), he reminded me of where I grew up in Bournemouth. I think that's a good thing.
One thing that struck me about their house was their bathroom. Bathrooms in England sometimes have a hand towel (if you're lucky) with a little scrappy bar of soap to wash your hands with, and they often need a good clean. Canadian bathrooms are immaculate. The towels match, they’re all hung neatly, and you never have to dry your hands on someone's manky bath towel. The soap is in liquid form in beautiful bottles that smell of jasmine and aloe vera. Sometimes there's even moisturiser. There’s candles, baskets of pot pourri, and everything’s shiny. It's like I’ve died and gone to the loo. I love Canadian bathrooms.
Talking of dying (stay with me, readers), I had to interview a funeral director on Friday (for Grimsby/Niagara, not the Hamilton Spectator). I got a tour round the funeral home and everything. It was fun in a creepy kind of way. I even got to pick my casket (I chose the maple one – what a patriot!), and if I really wanted to go the Canadian way I could have chosen a maple-leaf adorned box for my ashes. I suppose you could even be embalmed in maple syrup if you wanted. Sorry for sounding flippant – but I find it hard to talk about death without either joking about it or getting sad. And who wants a tear-stained blog?
Finally, this afternoon I’m off to my third Canadian driving lesson. The ridiculous thing is I already have a licence, but I have to get lessons in Canada to bring my outrageous insurance costs down. Anyway, it’s all pretty fun. There are only about three of us in the theory class, including one girl who lives in the same apartment block as me, and I keep everyone entertained with tales of English driving. Like thick London bus drivers who block the intersection so traffic coming the other way can’t move. Or taxi drivers who do U-turns in Zone 1 at rush hour (in Canada you’re supposed to wait until no traffic is coming in either direction. In London you’d be waiting till the next Ice Age!).
The thing that really makes me laugh is when they start going on about the cost of stuff. The instructor said we should take the bus into downtown Hamilton because parking is “very expensive”. Let’s get things into perspective here. Downtown London: 1 pound for 20 minutes = 3 pounds an hour. Downtown Hamilton: 50 cents an hour = 20p!!!! And fuel (or gas)? UK: 90p a litre (if you’re lucky). Canada: 80 cents a litre = 30p!
I love telling people all this because it makes them more appreciative of where they live. Everyone thinks their place is a hole until someone tells them of somewhere worse. And heck, even in England, at least we don’t have to walk a day to the nearest well and we’re not about to get hacked to death with machetes. Unlike in Rwanda or Sudan. But does the UN do anything about it? No! (Sorry, I watched Hotel Rwanda last night). Beats me why everyone thinks the UN is the solution to everyone’s problems. If by ‘solution’ you mean ‘stand by and watch’, then yes, I suppose they are. Anyway, I’m starting to rant now, and I have to go anyway. We’re off to look at some amazingly cheap houses : )
Monday, April 18, 2005
Hacks and Tax
This city is seriously growing on me. Not only am I starting to get something resembling a life (with these funny people I know called ‘friends’), but the Hamilton Spectator liked my stuff!!!!! So now I’m officially a freelance journalist, and my first article will be on the experience of South Asian immigrants to Hamilton. And the best part? I’m getting paid!!!!!!!!!! My first paid article! I’m so excited!!!!!!
I found out last Friday, and that evening we went to see ‘Saint Ralph’, a movie set in Hamilton. I was so proud to see my city up on the big screen, and practically stood up and cheered when the lead character appeared in the paper, which was of course the Hamilton Spectator! The paper I write for – in a movie!!! How cool is that????
Anyway, the subject of the film is a teenage boy who thinks he can bring his mother out of a coma by running the Boston Marathon. Canadians have a thing about long-distance runners. They haven’t had much luck with the sprinters (remember Ben Johnson?), but they’re great at dogged determination. This month marks 25 years since Terry Fox, a 21-year-old who’d lost a leg to bone cancer, ran halfway across Canada to raise money for cancer research (http://www.terryfoxrun.org/). He’s the archetypal Canadian hero. The really sad bit is the fact that he couldn’t run the whole way because the cancer returned, this time to his lungs. He died aged 22. Call me over-sentimental, but I love hero stories and I always cry at cancer stories. Seems Canadians are the same – Terry Fox joins the Queen on their two-dollar coin this year.
Sigh…I’m getting sad now. I’ll talk about my new friends, that’ll cheer us all up. They’re mostly from home group, our church’s weekly Bible study that we have at someone’s house. Last Wednesday was the first time we really stuck around and talked to people afterwards. I met a really cool artist, an animator, someone who’s going on a mission trip to San Francisco, and an IT guy and his wife (can’t remember what she does, but she makes excellent chocolate peanut butter goo – I think they were supposed to be balls but the weather’s getting pretty warm now). Canadians are great – they’re so direct, no pussyfooting around, which is handy when it comes to making friends. The artist woman just came up to me and said “I’d like to get to know you and your husband better.” Yay – life’s too short (see above) to faff around with meaningless pleasantries.
The only problem I have with the home group is the actual Bible study part. The group is dominated by students who appear to have been raised by surfers. It’s like the Bible according to Bill and Ted. At one point, we were talking about who we thought Jesus was:
“He’s a dude,” someone piped up (I think he was joking. Please say he was).
“He’s, like, totally awesome?” said another (who definitely wasn’t joking. He also spoke like he was constantly asking a question, the way a lot of Canadians do). “I think the sermon on Sunday was, like, totally right on. It just totally shows that, like, Jesus is who he said he was?”
And so on, with me trying to strain a meaningful sentence from the mass of filler words: “like”, “y’know”, “totally”, “just”, “really” – and let’s not forget “awesome” (pronounced “awesiiim”). Honestly, if it wasn’t for the location I would have said they were high.
Oh well – like I said earlier Canada is a totally excellent place (great, now they’ve got me started) and Hamilton is feeling more and more like home. It just has one or two down sides. Tax, for example. Okay, so this is a down side to everywhere – but in England, if you work for someone, you don’t have to think twice about taxes except the massive chunk they take out of your payslip. Here you have to do an annual tax return whoever you are!! Can’t wait till next April. I’ll probably do a Homer Simpson and desperately fill the form out at the last minute:
Homer: “Okay, if anyone asks, Maggie is a nun, Lisa needs 24-hour care and Bart is a Vietnam war veteran.”
Bart: “Cool!”
But it doesn’t stop there. Joe is officially considered self-employed, and because I do his accounts I also have to think about the unnecessarily numerous and ludicrously complicated levels of taxes: GST, PST, QST, HST, to name a few. Can’t we all just sacrifice our first born sons and have done with it?
If I was truly Canadian I’d go thrash out my frustrations with a good game of ice hockey right now. But as I’ve yet to get round to joining a team (it’s on my ‘to do’ list) I’ve leave you on an upbeat note with another of my published articles:
http://thegrimsbylincolnnews.com/april13_05/aaaGLN_April%2013_pp5-8.pdf
Let me know what you think!
I found out last Friday, and that evening we went to see ‘Saint Ralph’, a movie set in Hamilton. I was so proud to see my city up on the big screen, and practically stood up and cheered when the lead character appeared in the paper, which was of course the Hamilton Spectator! The paper I write for – in a movie!!! How cool is that????
Anyway, the subject of the film is a teenage boy who thinks he can bring his mother out of a coma by running the Boston Marathon. Canadians have a thing about long-distance runners. They haven’t had much luck with the sprinters (remember Ben Johnson?), but they’re great at dogged determination. This month marks 25 years since Terry Fox, a 21-year-old who’d lost a leg to bone cancer, ran halfway across Canada to raise money for cancer research (http://www.terryfoxrun.org/). He’s the archetypal Canadian hero. The really sad bit is the fact that he couldn’t run the whole way because the cancer returned, this time to his lungs. He died aged 22. Call me over-sentimental, but I love hero stories and I always cry at cancer stories. Seems Canadians are the same – Terry Fox joins the Queen on their two-dollar coin this year.
Sigh…I’m getting sad now. I’ll talk about my new friends, that’ll cheer us all up. They’re mostly from home group, our church’s weekly Bible study that we have at someone’s house. Last Wednesday was the first time we really stuck around and talked to people afterwards. I met a really cool artist, an animator, someone who’s going on a mission trip to San Francisco, and an IT guy and his wife (can’t remember what she does, but she makes excellent chocolate peanut butter goo – I think they were supposed to be balls but the weather’s getting pretty warm now). Canadians are great – they’re so direct, no pussyfooting around, which is handy when it comes to making friends. The artist woman just came up to me and said “I’d like to get to know you and your husband better.” Yay – life’s too short (see above) to faff around with meaningless pleasantries.
The only problem I have with the home group is the actual Bible study part. The group is dominated by students who appear to have been raised by surfers. It’s like the Bible according to Bill and Ted. At one point, we were talking about who we thought Jesus was:
“He’s a dude,” someone piped up (I think he was joking. Please say he was).
“He’s, like, totally awesome?” said another (who definitely wasn’t joking. He also spoke like he was constantly asking a question, the way a lot of Canadians do). “I think the sermon on Sunday was, like, totally right on. It just totally shows that, like, Jesus is who he said he was?”
And so on, with me trying to strain a meaningful sentence from the mass of filler words: “like”, “y’know”, “totally”, “just”, “really” – and let’s not forget “awesome” (pronounced “awesiiim”). Honestly, if it wasn’t for the location I would have said they were high.
Oh well – like I said earlier Canada is a totally excellent place (great, now they’ve got me started) and Hamilton is feeling more and more like home. It just has one or two down sides. Tax, for example. Okay, so this is a down side to everywhere – but in England, if you work for someone, you don’t have to think twice about taxes except the massive chunk they take out of your payslip. Here you have to do an annual tax return whoever you are!! Can’t wait till next April. I’ll probably do a Homer Simpson and desperately fill the form out at the last minute:
Homer: “Okay, if anyone asks, Maggie is a nun, Lisa needs 24-hour care and Bart is a Vietnam war veteran.”
Bart: “Cool!”
But it doesn’t stop there. Joe is officially considered self-employed, and because I do his accounts I also have to think about the unnecessarily numerous and ludicrously complicated levels of taxes: GST, PST, QST, HST, to name a few. Can’t we all just sacrifice our first born sons and have done with it?
If I was truly Canadian I’d go thrash out my frustrations with a good game of ice hockey right now. But as I’ve yet to get round to joining a team (it’s on my ‘to do’ list) I’ve leave you on an upbeat note with another of my published articles:
http://thegrimsbylincolnnews.com/april13_05/aaaGLN_April%2013_pp5-8.pdf
Let me know what you think!
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
UK today, gone tomorrow...
A lot of people are under the impression that Canada, being English-speaking and not American, has basically the same culture as England. In some ways this is true. But if you really want to see the differences, move to Canada for 6 weeks and then go back. That's what I did last Wednesday.
I was visiting the UK for a friend's wedding. It was a really short trip (about 4 days), and, what with sleeping only 1 hour on the (night) flight over, it was all a bit disorientating. The first thing I noticed was the space. London is like an overpacked suitcase. There's so little parking that a lot of the roads have cars on either side, so only one car can get through and it takes about ten minutes to negotiate. None of the houses have space between them (unless you're a pop star in Notting Hill, and even then...). There are people everywhere - you can't walk down the street without shoving or being shoved. Living in London is the feeling of constantly being squeezed.
And then there's the prices. 30 dollars for a 15 minute cab ride, and the driver didn't know where Sloane Square was (so much for 'The Knowledge')!!! And how much for a Starbucks? Exsqueez me? 10 bucks for a coffee and a muffin? Were the beans picked under gunfire by mercenaries in Columbia or something? I don't know.
Anyway, I'll leave off the whingeing for a bit. Like I said, I went to Starbucks (in Borders, where they let you read the books for free while you have your coffee - in Canada you have to buy them first, so one up to England there). I knew how Canadian my thinking had become when I tried to calculate the tax on top (let's see...2.99...so that's about 50 cents...). Of course in England it's included. And when I'd finished my coffee, I tried to roll up the rim to see if I'd won anything
(here’s why: http://www.timhortons.com/en/about/marketing.html).
That evening, I went to see Kitsch in Sync rehearse (KIS is the accapella group I was part of in England, and loads of my good friends are from there). It was great to see all the old crowd (I say ‘old’, but it was only 6 weeks since I’d last seen them – it almost felt like I hadn’t been away). By the end of the evening, though, I was seriously tired. I walked out of the pub and saw all the traffic driving down the wrong side of the street, and it took me about 2 minutes to work out why. Switching continents is seriously disorientating!
The next day I met up with my friend Rachel (one of my bridesmaids). We met at Waterloo because that’s where her train came in – of course the trains in Britain are crap so she was late. I could go on forever about the horrendous state of the UK transport network, but instead I’ll just suggest sending hate mail to this address: mayor@london.gov.uk. Okay, so Ken’s only responsible for London, but you need someone to throw the darts at and I can’t think of anyone else (you could try Tony Blair).
Later I met up with my brother (and his fiancée – they seem to be in a perpetual state of engagement) and sister, which was great. The waitress at the restaurant was really friendly (and American – coincidence?). After dinner we tried to find something else to do, and spent absolutely ages trying to find somewhere that was open after 11. The only places we could find were crappy noisy clubs that charged a fiver to get in! There is a serious gap in the London market for things to do after the pubs shut, that don’t involve ecstasy and/or vast amounts of money. What I would have done for a 24 hour Tim Horton’s…
One more whinge point, before all the English people decide never to read my blog again. Is there something in the Londoners’ Bible that says “Thou shalt use thine eyes and facial expression to tell everyone to bugger off out of your way”? People there are seriously unfriendly. Most people let the door slam in your face, and when you hold the door open for them they don’t bother to say “thank you”. And try making conversation with a stranger! They’d sooner do you for harassment than answer you. In a city where everyone lives on top of each other, people have a weird way of wanting to be left alone.
Maybe I’m being slightly unfair. I took a bus to Tottenham Court Road, and the people on it were courteous, helpful and friendly. They gave up their seats for others, helped people onto the bus and said things to strangers (nice things!). So well done, people of the number 19 bus. I have to say though, you’re pretty unusual.
One good thing I’ve noticed about England is it’s beauty (outside London). No matter where on this planet I go, I always come back to England and marvel at its greenery. In contrast to the post-winter brown of Ontario, England looked like someone had spilt food dye everywhere. It was almost neon. And there’s nothing like thatched stone cottages and rolling hills dotted with sheep to bring back your national pride. The village where we had the wedding was especially beautiful, with all the flowers out and people in hats drinking champagne. Even Camilla looked nice (ahahaha…no, of course it wasn’t her wedding. I’m not that tacky, dahlings!).
So, anyway, it was a nice few days away but it’s good to be back in Canada. My husband’s here, half my family are here, we can afford a nice house (even though we haven’t got one yet), there’s loads of space, and strangers are friendly. I was making dinner and watching the sun set over the Hamilton skyline yesterday, and I could actually picture a time when England would be nothing more than a distant memory (although I’ll keep in touch with my friends and family there).
It helps that my career seems to be going pretty well here. Not only have I been published in the Grimsby News (here’s one of my articles: http://thegrimsbylincolnnews.com/april06_05/aaaGLN_Apr6_pp17-20.pdf), but I also had a chat with the managing editor and assistant managing editor at the Hamilton Spectator yesterday (it’s Hamilton’s daily paper, kind of like the Evening Standard is for London)! I’ve got to come up with some suggestions for stories and then they’ll tell me what they think. It could lead to some freelancing!!! Paid journalism here I come!!!
Finally, because I realize this entry is incredibly long, I’ve even managed to find somewhere to sing (without having things thrown at me)! It’s a female barbershop group (don’t laugh) and I went along last night. They’re good. They do paid gigs and competitions and everything. Their harmonies are perfect. Fortunately, after years of singing with Kitsch in Sync, I think I’m up to the challenge. I’d still prefer a musical, though – if I find one soon I’ll do it. I could even do a part that needs an English accent, like Mary Poppins or something. Cool!
I was visiting the UK for a friend's wedding. It was a really short trip (about 4 days), and, what with sleeping only 1 hour on the (night) flight over, it was all a bit disorientating. The first thing I noticed was the space. London is like an overpacked suitcase. There's so little parking that a lot of the roads have cars on either side, so only one car can get through and it takes about ten minutes to negotiate. None of the houses have space between them (unless you're a pop star in Notting Hill, and even then...). There are people everywhere - you can't walk down the street without shoving or being shoved. Living in London is the feeling of constantly being squeezed.
And then there's the prices. 30 dollars for a 15 minute cab ride, and the driver didn't know where Sloane Square was (so much for 'The Knowledge')!!! And how much for a Starbucks? Exsqueez me? 10 bucks for a coffee and a muffin? Were the beans picked under gunfire by mercenaries in Columbia or something? I don't know.
Anyway, I'll leave off the whingeing for a bit. Like I said, I went to Starbucks (in Borders, where they let you read the books for free while you have your coffee - in Canada you have to buy them first, so one up to England there). I knew how Canadian my thinking had become when I tried to calculate the tax on top (let's see...2.99...so that's about 50 cents...). Of course in England it's included. And when I'd finished my coffee, I tried to roll up the rim to see if I'd won anything
(here’s why: http://www.timhortons.com/en/about/marketing.html).
That evening, I went to see Kitsch in Sync rehearse (KIS is the accapella group I was part of in England, and loads of my good friends are from there). It was great to see all the old crowd (I say ‘old’, but it was only 6 weeks since I’d last seen them – it almost felt like I hadn’t been away). By the end of the evening, though, I was seriously tired. I walked out of the pub and saw all the traffic driving down the wrong side of the street, and it took me about 2 minutes to work out why. Switching continents is seriously disorientating!
The next day I met up with my friend Rachel (one of my bridesmaids). We met at Waterloo because that’s where her train came in – of course the trains in Britain are crap so she was late. I could go on forever about the horrendous state of the UK transport network, but instead I’ll just suggest sending hate mail to this address: mayor@london.gov.uk. Okay, so Ken’s only responsible for London, but you need someone to throw the darts at and I can’t think of anyone else (you could try Tony Blair).
Later I met up with my brother (and his fiancée – they seem to be in a perpetual state of engagement) and sister, which was great. The waitress at the restaurant was really friendly (and American – coincidence?). After dinner we tried to find something else to do, and spent absolutely ages trying to find somewhere that was open after 11. The only places we could find were crappy noisy clubs that charged a fiver to get in! There is a serious gap in the London market for things to do after the pubs shut, that don’t involve ecstasy and/or vast amounts of money. What I would have done for a 24 hour Tim Horton’s…
One more whinge point, before all the English people decide never to read my blog again. Is there something in the Londoners’ Bible that says “Thou shalt use thine eyes and facial expression to tell everyone to bugger off out of your way”? People there are seriously unfriendly. Most people let the door slam in your face, and when you hold the door open for them they don’t bother to say “thank you”. And try making conversation with a stranger! They’d sooner do you for harassment than answer you. In a city where everyone lives on top of each other, people have a weird way of wanting to be left alone.
Maybe I’m being slightly unfair. I took a bus to Tottenham Court Road, and the people on it were courteous, helpful and friendly. They gave up their seats for others, helped people onto the bus and said things to strangers (nice things!). So well done, people of the number 19 bus. I have to say though, you’re pretty unusual.
One good thing I’ve noticed about England is it’s beauty (outside London). No matter where on this planet I go, I always come back to England and marvel at its greenery. In contrast to the post-winter brown of Ontario, England looked like someone had spilt food dye everywhere. It was almost neon. And there’s nothing like thatched stone cottages and rolling hills dotted with sheep to bring back your national pride. The village where we had the wedding was especially beautiful, with all the flowers out and people in hats drinking champagne. Even Camilla looked nice (ahahaha…no, of course it wasn’t her wedding. I’m not that tacky, dahlings!).
So, anyway, it was a nice few days away but it’s good to be back in Canada. My husband’s here, half my family are here, we can afford a nice house (even though we haven’t got one yet), there’s loads of space, and strangers are friendly. I was making dinner and watching the sun set over the Hamilton skyline yesterday, and I could actually picture a time when England would be nothing more than a distant memory (although I’ll keep in touch with my friends and family there).
It helps that my career seems to be going pretty well here. Not only have I been published in the Grimsby News (here’s one of my articles: http://thegrimsbylincolnnews.com/april06_05/aaaGLN_Apr6_pp17-20.pdf), but I also had a chat with the managing editor and assistant managing editor at the Hamilton Spectator yesterday (it’s Hamilton’s daily paper, kind of like the Evening Standard is for London)! I’ve got to come up with some suggestions for stories and then they’ll tell me what they think. It could lead to some freelancing!!! Paid journalism here I come!!!
Finally, because I realize this entry is incredibly long, I’ve even managed to find somewhere to sing (without having things thrown at me)! It’s a female barbershop group (don’t laugh) and I went along last night. They’re good. They do paid gigs and competitions and everything. Their harmonies are perfect. Fortunately, after years of singing with Kitsch in Sync, I think I’m up to the challenge. I’d still prefer a musical, though – if I find one soon I’ll do it. I could even do a part that needs an English accent, like Mary Poppins or something. Cool!
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Local news for local people
This is the week I broke into Canadian journalism!!! Okay, my stuff hasn’t actually been published yet, but I’ve filed it so it’s only a matter of days or a week. Yay!!!!!
Local reporters in Canada spend their time a lot differently than their English counterparts. In England, I conducted almost all my interviews on the phone (unless they were those horrendous ‘vox pop’ things where you ask people on the street for their opinions – thank the Lord they don’t do that over here), and a photographer would go out and take the photo.
In Canada, the reporters are also the photographers, and all the interviews are face to face. So reporters are out of the office a lot more, although they still manage to churn out huge amounts of copy (haven’t quite mastered that one yet – I’ve done 4 articles in 2 days!!). This means that journalism is less deskbound and more people-based. The articles are also a lot longer and more feature-y, taking their time and putting in lots more background information.
All this means that Canadian journalism is much more my cup of tea. I love it! The only snag with local journalism is telling people what you do (doctors and lawyers probably find the same thing). People go “Ooh, you could write about this.” Often “this” is of no interest to local people, or completely outside the paper’s geographical area. I write for the Niagara region, but a guy today was telling me about his band in Toronto. How many times?? It’s a local paper for local people!
Having said that, I live in Hamilton which is about 30km away from where my paper’s based. So getting there to do my interviews was pretty hairy. Not only did I do them pretty much in one day, I had to hire a car for that day because I still haven’t bought one! And it was only my second day of driving in Canada! The best bit was when I had to interview a driving instructor – I parked on a hill while she watched (thinking goodness knows what as I scraped and lurched and bumped into the parking space).
But I managed to get all the interviews and return the hire care intact, with no damage to my internal organs and/or bones! So it was a pretty good day.
I pretty much spent the rest of the week writing or helping Joe out with his accounts and stuff. Sleep, once again, has been pretty elusive (totalling about 8 hours in the last 2 nights). I can still function, but in more of a zombified state with only Tim Horton’s standing between me and unconsciousness. Still, at least I can identify with my fellow Hamilton residents, most of whom seem to wander the streets clinging to life by the fingernails.
Talking of clinging to life, the weeping Catholics have been back on TV again with this whole Pope thing. I kind of thought my Italian family would be upset, but no-one even mentioned it. Weird. I guess the older generation have seen so many Popes come and go that this guy’s just one more. For me, it’s my first Pope death, because John Paul II donned his white cap in the year I was born.
Other celebrity events this week include the Canadian music awards, aka the ‘Junos’ – as in ‘Did Juno that _____________ was Canadian?” (fill in blank with Nickelback, Diana Krall, etc). Almost every Canadian who every released a record was honoured on Sunday evening, including Avril Lavigne who swept the board (big surprise there, seeing as she’s one of the few Canadian musicians anyone’s ever heard of. There’s also Celine and Bryan, who probably won Lifetime Achievement Awards or something).
Tomorrow I’ll be flying to England for a brief visit – can’t wait! And then on Sunday it’s back to Canada. I suppose it’s for the best – if I spent weeks on end in the UK, how would I ever get used to life here? Now if I can only figure out how to get all my English friends and family to emigrate...
Local reporters in Canada spend their time a lot differently than their English counterparts. In England, I conducted almost all my interviews on the phone (unless they were those horrendous ‘vox pop’ things where you ask people on the street for their opinions – thank the Lord they don’t do that over here), and a photographer would go out and take the photo.
In Canada, the reporters are also the photographers, and all the interviews are face to face. So reporters are out of the office a lot more, although they still manage to churn out huge amounts of copy (haven’t quite mastered that one yet – I’ve done 4 articles in 2 days!!). This means that journalism is less deskbound and more people-based. The articles are also a lot longer and more feature-y, taking their time and putting in lots more background information.
All this means that Canadian journalism is much more my cup of tea. I love it! The only snag with local journalism is telling people what you do (doctors and lawyers probably find the same thing). People go “Ooh, you could write about this.” Often “this” is of no interest to local people, or completely outside the paper’s geographical area. I write for the Niagara region, but a guy today was telling me about his band in Toronto. How many times?? It’s a local paper for local people!
Having said that, I live in Hamilton which is about 30km away from where my paper’s based. So getting there to do my interviews was pretty hairy. Not only did I do them pretty much in one day, I had to hire a car for that day because I still haven’t bought one! And it was only my second day of driving in Canada! The best bit was when I had to interview a driving instructor – I parked on a hill while she watched (thinking goodness knows what as I scraped and lurched and bumped into the parking space).
But I managed to get all the interviews and return the hire care intact, with no damage to my internal organs and/or bones! So it was a pretty good day.
I pretty much spent the rest of the week writing or helping Joe out with his accounts and stuff. Sleep, once again, has been pretty elusive (totalling about 8 hours in the last 2 nights). I can still function, but in more of a zombified state with only Tim Horton’s standing between me and unconsciousness. Still, at least I can identify with my fellow Hamilton residents, most of whom seem to wander the streets clinging to life by the fingernails.
Talking of clinging to life, the weeping Catholics have been back on TV again with this whole Pope thing. I kind of thought my Italian family would be upset, but no-one even mentioned it. Weird. I guess the older generation have seen so many Popes come and go that this guy’s just one more. For me, it’s my first Pope death, because John Paul II donned his white cap in the year I was born.
Other celebrity events this week include the Canadian music awards, aka the ‘Junos’ – as in ‘Did Juno that _____________ was Canadian?” (fill in blank with Nickelback, Diana Krall, etc). Almost every Canadian who every released a record was honoured on Sunday evening, including Avril Lavigne who swept the board (big surprise there, seeing as she’s one of the few Canadian musicians anyone’s ever heard of. There’s also Celine and Bryan, who probably won Lifetime Achievement Awards or something).
Tomorrow I’ll be flying to England for a brief visit – can’t wait! And then on Sunday it’s back to Canada. I suppose it’s for the best – if I spent weeks on end in the UK, how would I ever get used to life here? Now if I can only figure out how to get all my English friends and family to emigrate...
Monday, April 04, 2005
Canadian Tourist Attractions
How long have you got? Canada has to be one of the most action packed places in the world. It's got mountains, beach, plains, and, best of all, the Arctic. A tourist exploiting the country to its fullest potential would be gone at least a year. A few paragraphs hardly does it justice. But I'll give it a shot…
Animal Spotting
Anything involving wild stuff is cool. So whether it’s moose, whales, caribou, polar bears, buffalo, beavers or prairie dogs, you wanna watch it, Canada’s got it. You've got to be careful though - if an animal like the Kodiak or polar bear spots you, you're basically dead. Better just stick to beavers.
Niagara Falls
Yes, these are awe-inspiring and beautiful (see previous entry). But after five minutes you're left thinking ‘Now what?’ and trying not to be the first person to say you’re bored and want to go home now. If you want to stretch out your stay, you can either visit the gaudily lit attractions on the main drag or get married. So it's kind of like Las Vegas with a water feature.
Ottawa
I love Ottawa. In London, the Parliament buildings are surrounded by policemen and three foot high cement barricades. In Ottawa, people play football in front of them and use the steps as goals. It's incredibly relaxed and actually has character, unlike other manufactured capitals such as Canberra which has none whatsoever.
Vancouver Island
Supposedly one of the coolest places in the whole of Canada. It has whales, Indians, deep forests, tranquil lakes – heck, it was probably the inspiration for the Peter Pan books or something (it was discovered by Captain Cook). I’d love to go there, but seeing as Vancouver is further away from me than Norway, I think it’ll be a while.
The Yukon
Just the name conjures up images of Arctic wastes and howling winds. Another place I'd love to go to, if only because I've seen too many of those movies where people have to survive in the wilderness after a plane crash. It would be great to live on the edge of civilization, eking a living from the earth and its creatures. Only for a day or two though – it could get really cold.
The Rockies
These are absolutely massive and completely spectacular, and home to a funky mythical lake serpent called the Ogopogo (Canada’s answer to the Loch Ness monster). They’re also great for skiing - not that I've ever seen them...
To be honest, this whole list is a joke. Canadian Tourist Attractions? I’ve only seen southern Ontario! That’s like writing a guide to Britain having been to Slough!!! I mean, it’s pretty beautiful here (except Hamilton) but it pales in comparison to the rest of Canada. I’ll do a country-wide tour – then you’ll find out how amazing this place is.
Actually, my work visa won't come through for another six months (I got an official-looking letter the other day saying so). So I've got a bit of spare time now. I'm seriously thinking of touring the country for two or three weeks, if I could only find someone to come with me. We'll carve totem poles on Vancouver Island. We'll ride husky sleighs in the Yukon. We'll laugh at the Quebeckers and eat poutine. Who's with me? C'mon, it'll be fun! A road trip - we could be like Thelma & Louise (except without the homicide, robbery and being chased by the police)!!!
Animal Spotting
Anything involving wild stuff is cool. So whether it’s moose, whales, caribou, polar bears, buffalo, beavers or prairie dogs, you wanna watch it, Canada’s got it. You've got to be careful though - if an animal like the Kodiak or polar bear spots you, you're basically dead. Better just stick to beavers.
Niagara Falls
Yes, these are awe-inspiring and beautiful (see previous entry). But after five minutes you're left thinking ‘Now what?’ and trying not to be the first person to say you’re bored and want to go home now. If you want to stretch out your stay, you can either visit the gaudily lit attractions on the main drag or get married. So it's kind of like Las Vegas with a water feature.
Ottawa
I love Ottawa. In London, the Parliament buildings are surrounded by policemen and three foot high cement barricades. In Ottawa, people play football in front of them and use the steps as goals. It's incredibly relaxed and actually has character, unlike other manufactured capitals such as Canberra which has none whatsoever.
Vancouver Island
Supposedly one of the coolest places in the whole of Canada. It has whales, Indians, deep forests, tranquil lakes – heck, it was probably the inspiration for the Peter Pan books or something (it was discovered by Captain Cook). I’d love to go there, but seeing as Vancouver is further away from me than Norway, I think it’ll be a while.
The Yukon
Just the name conjures up images of Arctic wastes and howling winds. Another place I'd love to go to, if only because I've seen too many of those movies where people have to survive in the wilderness after a plane crash. It would be great to live on the edge of civilization, eking a living from the earth and its creatures. Only for a day or two though – it could get really cold.
The Rockies
These are absolutely massive and completely spectacular, and home to a funky mythical lake serpent called the Ogopogo (Canada’s answer to the Loch Ness monster). They’re also great for skiing - not that I've ever seen them...
To be honest, this whole list is a joke. Canadian Tourist Attractions? I’ve only seen southern Ontario! That’s like writing a guide to Britain having been to Slough!!! I mean, it’s pretty beautiful here (except Hamilton) but it pales in comparison to the rest of Canada. I’ll do a country-wide tour – then you’ll find out how amazing this place is.
Actually, my work visa won't come through for another six months (I got an official-looking letter the other day saying so). So I've got a bit of spare time now. I'm seriously thinking of touring the country for two or three weeks, if I could only find someone to come with me. We'll carve totem poles on Vancouver Island. We'll ride husky sleighs in the Yukon. We'll laugh at the Quebeckers and eat poutine. Who's with me? C'mon, it'll be fun! A road trip - we could be like Thelma & Louise (except without the homicide, robbery and being chased by the police)!!!
