Shall We Allow England Into The Commonwealth?

Now that the Brexit business is moving forward and the economic and legal toils that Great Britain wound round itself in European Common Market days are slowly being removed, the question of which way forward for the realm occurs. And we of the Commonwealth need to think through the business of re-integrating the British Isles into our structure.

Of course there is no question of unsettling the monarchy. Neither history nor the women’s picture press would be served by this. We will accept the succession without too much of a fuss, provided the succession pins his ears back and doesn’t make an arse of himself. Even then we have now seen what Justin Trudeau behaves like so anything under that is fine.

The British military, naval, and air forces are welcome any time. I am hoping for a battalion of ghurkas as guards for the local railway stations.

We will be delighted to extend tourist visits to GB citizens provided they are prepared to do the same for us, but it would be wise to make sure that both streams are looked at carefully as they pass – there are enough dodgy illegal entries as it is.

And then perhaps we can consider the business of re-establishing the chilled mutton and wool trade and the re-entry to Australia of British-manufactured goods. I want a Hillman or a Humber.

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Oh, Candida

In honour of the Dominion Day a’coming, I have written a little song that can be played and sung at school assemblies. It is perfectly suitable for Edmonton and Ottawa.

Oh, Candida

 

Oh, Candida, the home of native scams.

True, reasonably patriotic love, if that’s not too strong a word, in all our non-gender specific citizens command. Well, not command as such, but suggest, eh?

With glowing bongs we see thee rise, Trudeau’s North stoned and twee.

From far and wide, we stand aside, we stand aside for thee. Sorry.

God keep us all, even Quebec…

God keep us all from being Yanks, By Heck.

God keep us all from being Yanks, By Heck.

 

Sorry.

 

Poutine – Cultural Cuisine Or Misspelling?

We are just about to encounter Canada Day. It’s the 1960’s revision of the first of July –  Dominion Day – that allows Canadians to make slightly sad cultural asses of themselves throughout the world…or throughout the world that actually notices. This would be about 0.08% of humanity…

Shorn of its fun features – picnics on the shores of freezing lakes, fireworks, and a couple of months off school – Dominion …Oops…Canada day is a time of wild celebration for Canadians overseas. All through Kenya ice hockey and curling is breaking out. The mountains of Holland echo to the sound of gunshots as Canadians open fire on moose. The Indians dedicate another temple to Justin Trudeau and then flush it…

Just kidding. We go out a buy a carton of Molsons or a bottle of rye and some ginger ale and  scuff round the kitchen to see if that recipe for butter tarts has turned up. And we contemplate poutine.

I say contemplate, because I do not know any Canadian overseas who has eaten the stuff. Indeed, I passed a childhood and youth in the Dominion of Canada without ever seeing it, and I lived in Montreal and Chicoutimi for years. I did see strawberry pie in Quebec, but my parents were wise not to let any of it get on me.

Poitine would seem to be French fries with cheese and gravy. I should like to hear the Canadian Heart Association’s take on the dish, as it seems to be comprised of equal quantities of cholesterol, oxidants, and toxins. I am surprised it is not linked to Donald Trump. In an age that views anything other than salad as sin, how has poutine become a star dish? Is it because it is French Canadian, and is therefore excused from any goodness? Is it the culinary version of the Cirque du Soleil?

Well, for me, I shall celebrate Dominion Day with the aforementioned rye highball and something else Canadian enough to do the trick. I am going to get a pound of small fish, split them and roll them in cornmeal, and fry them in Crisco like Fraser River Smelt. Add some PEI potatoes and creamed corn and it will be as close to the True North Strong And Free as you can get in Western Australia. Unless I can gun down an elk on St Georges Terrace.

I may even put up a picture of the current Prime Minister, if I can find the dartboard, eh?

The Ages Of Mankind

I see I’ve made a slight error – that should be Ages Of Man. Not mankind. I’m in no position to decide things for other sexes.

Actually, It should read Ages Of Me, because I can’t even speak for others of my own sex. They may well have different ages in their lives. I can only tally up my own.

0-10 – Kiddyrazzi – Just a kid, doin’ what kids do. In my case doin’ what kids in western Canada in the 1950’s did and then having to strip down in the basement and take a shower afterwards. Spring in Alberta had enough mud to make another entire planet, and if you were not careful most of it stuck to your sneakers. And your hair.

10-20 – Studyrazzi – Always at school preparing for life. On television everyone was already living theirs, but I was just between school holidays and exams. This was the 1960’s minus the drugs and the music. Also minus the sex.

20-30 – Moneyrazzi – Well, add the sex. Plus the university fees, loans, commitments, fees, leases, and childbirth. They even charged for the child.

30-40 – Workerazzi – I was meant to produce so I did. And a great deal of what I produced was taken away to pay for the 20-30 period.

40-50 – Thickerazzi – How did I thicken and wrinkle at the same time? And where was the El Dorado that was promised in the 10-20 period? El Dorado was running well behind schedule. The sneaking suspicion starts to dawn upon me that I may have been hoodwinked.

50-60 – Doggerazzi – Thinking ( mistakenly ) that harder work and more spending and networking and wine evenings and investment counselling would make it all come right, I lurched onwards. It did not come right, of course, and the cynicism started to gel.

60-70 – Cooterazzi – I just started to realise that no-one was listening and no-one was watching. This made me alternately despondent and elated. It was a good time to start robbing church poor-boxes.

70-80 – Bloggerazzi – I intend to spout the most errant nonsense and the most brilliant wisdom and no-one will take the slightest notice. I’ll get ’em used to the flow of sound and then tell the truth in the middle somewhere. They may not even  notice that I cut them off at the ankles. You can preserve ankles in jars and make a rather nice collection.

I shall not presume to calculate past 80. It is a period of time that might be devoted to anything.

 

” You’ll End Up Eating Beans “

” You’ll end up eating beans ” was always the go-to threat when I was at school – generally uttered by a teacher predicting a sad life of utter failure if I did not take an interest in whatever they were saying. It had the immediate effect of making me lose both  interest in what they were saying, and respect for them.

You see…I knew the Secret Of The Beans.

I had been initiated into the society of bean eaters early in life. Unlike some children, I was not raised on Heinz Baked Beans as a quick sop to just fill a gap. I did get Heinz, but when I got Heinz they had been supercharged, spiced, and done to perfection. My Heinz were superior beans, and they were just the start. You see, my mother was raised in New Mexico in hard times and beans were an art form.

Mexican beans, Texican beans, Boston Baked Beans, green beans, yellow beans, pinto beans, chickpeas…and there were as many variations of sauces and sides as there were beans. Fresh, canned, dried..we had ’em all and we loved ’em all.

The south of the bean border ones were so potent that the Army used them to clean out the receivers on machine guns. The Boston beans were proper. The green beans were always accompanied by bacon and onions. Beans and rice with cornbread filled all the requirements.

Mexican beans were always a meal that drew us home – the other favourites being sauerkraut or fried smelt. We rarely ate out and never missed it.*

And the Secret Of The Beans? The secret was we loved ’em! They nourished us and comforted us and gave us terrible gas. A long drive in a closed car with the Stein family was a risky proposition for the stranger. You could have a lot of fun guessing who dealt it.

But seriously – beans are a family food that scores high on most dietitian charts. Protein, fibre, taste, energy…you never feel like you have to snack halfway through the evening if dinner was a good bowl of beans.

But back to my teacher’s dire prediction. I have arrived at retirement age and am now rich enough to do as he says – I can afford to eat beans every week. I’m grateful to him for his insight.

*  Even now I eat out less often than my friends do. I like home cooking. Invite me to your house.

Secede From Success

I suppose I should be grateful to the people of Quebec. I might not have felt so in 1957 when I lived in Montreal and had to endure the indignities of Grade 5. The school system was split between English-speaking teachers and French-speaking ones and there were times when the kids were the football between the teams. Thankfully they had to teach English literature in English and mathematics in numbers and the odd intrusion en Francais could be endured.

Later, the pressure to teach every school child in Canada some French extended out as far as Alberta and British Columbia and I got at least two years of basic grammar in the early 60’s. I can fumble my way through a French magazine if there are pictures with short captions. If there are girlie pictures I fumble slower.

But they did contribute enough political whining and pressure to raise a great debate about ” Bi-culturalism ” and we school kids got onto the gravy train. We wrote essays, made speeches, and in some cases collected free trips to Ottawa to pretend that we were the future of the country. We were overwhelmingly snot-nosed, mealy-mouthed, and cynical, and I guess that if we had pursued that course over the time one of us could be Prime Minister of Canada right now. Come to think of it…

I didn’t win the Ottawa trip on the strength of my speech, but I won a job at the local newspaper doing anything that no-one else wanted to do. I loved it, and it has given me a taste for writing, photography, and cynicism ever since.

Secede? Oh the political pundits sometimes come out with the business of Quebec seceding from Canada and becoming an independent nation. They toy with it every few years…just long enough to get more federal money. The awkward thing is that the rest of Canada may see it as a good idea one day and take them up on it.

On one condition. Quebec gets Trudeau. All the Trudeaus…

What’s A Club? – Part Two

I consulted several dictionaries after I wrote the title to get a precise definition. Very frustrating. Apparently the people who write them are not able to agree on anything.

A club is either an association dedicated to a particular interest or activity or a heavy stick used as a weapon. As a further qualification, the people who form a club have to meet regularly and take part in shared activity. This seems to narrow the thing down a little but suggests that the only real examples are Canadian lacrosse teams or seal hunters. Not social activities for the squeamish.

Most of the list shown on the last column fit into this pattern, though the Uncle John’s Radio Club was probably just a commercial rip – as I was 5 at the time I was susceptible. Not entirely sure about the Australian Dental Association either, as it seemed to have a lot more of the trade pressure group about it than jolly dinners and picnic outings. I avoided their meetings assiduously. I wasn’t sorry about that – dentists en mass could be difficult to take – I think it was the smell of oil of cloves and the discussions about expensive cars.

The organisations which I founded – the WA Naval Wargames Society and the 42RHRA – were a lot more fun for a longer period of time. The first one eventually petered out when we discovered that we never actually finished any of the games that we started…there is more mathematics than strategy involved. The 42RHRA still goes on very well indeed, though the centre of activity shifted long ago to the eastern states  – this was not a bad thing as there are a lot more opportunities for re-enactment and show activities there than here in the West. When it shifted it gained a much better organiser and commanding officer than ever I was, and as he is a serving forces officer, the business is done with much better aplomb.

The firearms club was an extremely efficient and official thing – as befits the serious nature of the subject. It needed police permissions, legal reins, and extremely dedicated club members to succeed…and succeed it certainly has over decades. I belonged for somewhat over a decade and learned all I wanted to know about historic firearms. I have been able to reject 96% of all Hollywood movies based upon what I learned from practical experience. That alone has caused me to stop watching murder mysteries and violent shows – a distinct gain.

The model making and collecting has endured with my latest club membership. The columns you read here on HAW that dealt with The Little World* were the direct result of an ever-bigger interest in ever-smaller subjects. The joyful thing, as well, is that these sorts of clubs and activities do not need official permission, public space, or vast spending. And you can make your own Little World free of criticism from others. ( Of course you can make your own Big World that way too, but it takes more courage.)

It would seem that the social meaning from the dictionaries rather triumphs over the blunt cudgel idea – at least so far in the clubs I’ve frequented. There have been a few people in some of them that would have benefited from the stick, but that’s the advantage of moving onwards in a pleasant manner – if you go at the right time there are no ambulance sirens in the night or court appearances in the morning.

* Now shifted to its own blog: