...ontheroad

It's over...

2006-08-01T10:06:00.000-04:00

That's it. I'm done. I've had enough of Blogger's "reliability issues". It's time to update your bookmarks folks, because the blog is moving to Wordpress. The new address is:

jamesbrownontheroad.wordpress.com

All the posts and comments up to now have been moved across, and I've finished re-uploading the photographs as far back as February 2006. I hope to have all the photographs from archived posts updated soon.

See you there!

*j*

Roadside: Canadian service station...

2006-07-29T22:16:00.000-04:00

Globalisation may have killed off many individual trading names, but just in case you thought that McDonald's was an evil multi-national, note how (north of the border) they add a little red maple leaf to the middle of their golden arches logo. That'll fool 'em. Petro-Canada, on the other hand, has no such 'branding' issues...

"What are you guys doing?"

2006-07-29T08:19:00.000-04:00

A few hours ago, I was woken from my slumber by the sound of someone shouting the above. The clarity of the call seemed to make me think he was standing on one of the roofs adjacent to my new bedroom, perhaps on the balcony above. With the move to a new apartment comes the adaptation to the new sounds of my surroundings. I've spent the last ten months in a haven of tranquility, in a room that down onto a first floor courtyard. I'm now hearing a lot more traffic noise, and the distant sound of a night club pumping house music into the air. It's not a bad thing at all: I can sleep through these sounds; in fact they are already beginning to wash over me and calm me. Falling asleep in a big city like Montréal is a comfortable experience. As you slip into your slumber, you are reminded that outside the world continues to spin, and that if you need something to eat at three in the morning, there are plenty of places near-by.

I lay in bed for a while wondering what the possible stimulus could be for the shout that woke me up. A friendly hello from a man who's looked up the balcony of a friend's apartment, and seen an early morning party still going on? Or maybe an agrier responce to two 'yoofs' attacking the paintwork of a car with some keys? Probably not... this is not Belfast.

My new room is opens onto a fire escape that leads down to an overgrown back yard. On the opposite side of the house, the apartment has the most essential of Montréal real estate features: a wide balcony that faces the street, and which is leaning out from the building just enough to appear safe but feel slightly unnerving. I'm sitting here, having made an early morning sortie to the Jean-Talon market. A big bowl of fresh fruit salad featuring strawberries, raspberries and blueberries (all Québec grown) is now in the fridge, and I'm tapping away watching the traffic go past. Traffic signals about two hundred metres south of here regulate the one way traffic: periods of acceleration en masse are intersperced with periods of blissful silence, when the engine sounds recede, and I can here the wind rustling the trees that are dotted along the pavements. A hodge-podge of different shops, offices and apartments (all with their blinds and curtains still closed) reflects the sunshine back towards me.

My new place on Main

2006-07-29T00:01:00.000-04:00

My work here is done (part one)

2006-07-28T10:58:00.000-04:00

I returned home last night through stifling humidity. The artificial environment of my office carries me through the day in a state of suspended animation, insulated from any natural environmental or climatic variety. Stepping out onto the pavement through the underground car park (it is assumed that if you work in this building you arrive by car, probably an air conditioned one) the eight hours of climatised enclosure are rapidly made up for with a pounding cloud of hot, damp air. By the time I got home, I was dripping with sweat, embarassed to be wearing light coloured trousers that were clinging to my legs.

Unable to face physical exersion of any kind, I skipped making my own dinner and ate downstairs in the bustling Mont Royal Hot Dog. A found a seat by a vast open window that looked onto a broad pavement, occupied by outdoor tables with parasols that advertised beer and customers who advertised the food. Throughout the long, dark, cold days of winter (I've eaten poutine in this joint when it's been -25 C) these enormous floor to ceiling windows have reassured me. They're insulated enough to keep the restaurant warm in the winter, yet act as a reminder that as soon as it becomes warm enough, the window will be wound up and into the ceiling like a garage door and the outside will be allowed back in. In fact these up-and-over windows seem to be the must-have feature of any self-respecting Plateau bar.

After eating a big plate of fries and a stacked club sandwich, I climbed the stairs to the apartment. Tonight is the night I have to begin packing. I'm not returning to England for another six weeks, but with the recent return of this apartment's rightful occupant, my days as a house and cat sitter are over. I believe I may have racked up the longest ever stay through the Hospitality Club: it's been more than ten months since I hauled by suitcase and backpack up the stairs to this apartment. Now I'm dusting them down, and filling them with clothes once more. As I cleared out my wardrobe and drawers, Toast (the youngest and most inquisitive of my four feline housemates) jumped onto the bed and started sniffing around and getting inside plastic bags. She investigated an interestingly Toast-sized space in my suitcase, but I decided against taking her with me. She looked at me in the eye, and mee-owed in a voice I haven't heard before. I don't doubt she is as intelligent, if not more intelligent than me. Maybe she knows I will miss her late night company and the affectionate licks my arms receive when they are above the sheets.

I did as much packing as I could, and then retired to the balcony. Charlotte joined me for a glass of white wine, before popping out with Maya to visit friends. I sat alone on the balcony watching occasional flashes of lightning strike silently between clouds high above and to the north-west. No storm showed up, leaving me as sweaty as ever when I went to bed.

You can't take that away from me

2006-07-22T18:19:00.000-04:00

Is it stupid to have a personal philosophy? I always used to think so. I didn't like the idea of trying to pre-determine my approach to the world and the things that I do with some witty motto or belief. But as the weeks pass, and my diary suddenly begins to look very full between now and my home coming, I've realised that I have been living my life this year according to a very important principle.

I am most certainly not a person who is motivated or inspired by material goods or money. I don't covet anything in particular, and despite being a bit of a car nut and book lover, I don't depend on having possessions to live my life. The only things that are likely to cause problems with my luggage allowance when I fly home to the UK in September is a small box full of books. And style is certainly something that turns me off. Right now thousands of people are dying in wars, conflicts and famines around the world. I don't personally believe that there is anything particularly useful or relevant about fashion or style. I spend very little on clothes, shoes and haircuts. In fact, my outgoings are really not extravagant. Yet, despite all this, I have no money. In fact I am one of the thousands of British students in higher education who is riding the wave of easily accessible free overdrafts.

How is it, if I spend no money on clothes, gadgets, a car, or even CDs (and if I live almost rent free) that I have no money?

It's because all my money has been going on intangible experiences: the things that I I will not need to post or check in as luggage when I fly home to Britain. As I've written here before, I'm eating out a lot (for me) at the moment. At least once a week I've been out for breakfast or dinner at a restaurant or diner somewhere on or near the Plateau. Since eating out is such an expensive luxury in Britain, I'm savouring every chance that I have to be able to eat out cheaply while I'm still here. I don't go out to eat so much for the food itself (although it was heavenly to have someone cook Eggs Benedict for me the other at L'Anecdote on St. Hubert the other day) but for the intangible atmosphere I get to experience sitting in a Montréal diner or café: the attention of a friendly server; the over heard conversations; the smells and feelings of a busy diner that I won't be able to experience again when I get back home.

But eating out more often is a temporary luxury because of my present situation (living almost rent free in a country where eating out is just cheaper than back home). While flicking through my new diary this week, and thinking ahead to the plans I have for the next month or so, I realised the permanent addiction that I have. If one day, things do not work out, and the bailiffs come to take away my possessions to pay off my debts, I won't have any regrets about losing my material goods. The real reason I have no money is that I am an incurable traveller. I am not tempted by the round the world or far eastern oddyseys of many of my friends, but I am always excited by the opportunity to construct my own itinerary to a destination that is far from the beaten track. The old saying goes that the journey can be more important than the destination. For me, I have realised that the journey begins even before I leave the house. In quiet lunch hours and stolen moments online, I am a compulsive dreamer of voyages and travels. I get so much value from my holidays, because every moment spent planning and researching the trip is as rewarding as the trip itself. The never ending hunt for the elusive cheap train or plane fares encourages me to investigate new or unconsidered itineraries. New opportunities and options pop up and tempt me at every turn. I don't believe that this time last year I could have predicted all the journeys that I have taken this year: they are delightful products of an inquisitive and exciteable mind... I am as surprised as you are that I managed to visit the world's largest mushrooms in Vilna, Alberta (see photo above left) or a frozen sea in Churchill, Manitoba (see photo below right).

If all goes to plan (and I don't get fired for spending too much of my lunch break checking train tickets online) I will be spending the next few weekends enjoy a few final blissful North American trips. Next weekend will give me the chance to explore some of the countryside around Montréal with friends and a hire car. After that comes the possibility of a long weekend in Toronto to see JS's show and finally join the dots in a city that I feel I really haven't been able to grasp in my previous rapid visits. Then I've been roped in (quite happily) to help LN move to New York. I've also been invited to come along to a weekend in the cabin of a friend of a friend in New Hampshire... and all that is before I head south on the big Alabama and Louisiana trip. The Venice Architecture Biennale was very interesting four years ago, and it could be a reading week trip for this autumn. Plus, a happy combination of circumstances could bring me back to this side of the pond in January, and I'd very much like to spend some time in Chicago.

So if my blog begins to suffer, with entries that are either plain dull or infrequent, please forgive me. When our time is up, we can't take anything with us, so I'm going to be busy in the next few months creating very special memories.

Snapshot: the view from my favourite wifi café

2006-07-21T17:18:00.000-04:00

Becoming a dog lover...

2006-07-19T15:57:00.000-04:00

Last night, at about 21h30, Charlotte and I went for a walk. Above us, the sky was the deepest of blues that was on the verge of turning completely black. Ahead of us, in a narrow strip above the city's toothed horizon was a band of intense colour: orange that turned to bronze that turned to blue.

Pulling us along were two dogs. Yes. Two dogs. It's complicated enough with one, but last night we found ourselves looking after a nameless five month old Boxer-Danish cross bread. Realising it would be hard to call him to heel without a name, Charlotte settled very rapidly on Chatton (Fr: 'kitten'). He's not expected to spend more than a few nights with us: the recent arrival of Charlotte's other new canine companion (the beautiful Maya) has already required a significant amount of adaptation. Maya arrived from Chandler last week, the orphan of a now empty house. She's nine years old, and keeps herself to herself. She dotes on her mistress, and has very little energy for running or playing games. It has been hard enough for the four cats to adapt to having her around; Chatton by comparison has ten times the energy. It just would not work.

But as we walked the three blocks from the apartment to Parc Sir Wilfred Laurier, I could tell it was going to be hard for us to say good bye to Chatton. I am by no means a dog lover, but I had to agree every time Charlotte, Charlotte's neighbour or the people we met in the park said "beh, il est vraiment beau". Skinny but muscular, youthful but not always bouncing, he's a gorgeous animal. Unlike our other animal companions, his hair is short and his skin is taught. His legs and tail seem too long as he gallomps around the apartment, but when you take him for a walk he suddenly becomes this eager, elegant and rather suave dog. He does pull on his leash very hard though. Charlotte tried taking both dogs leads at the same time, but found herself quickly pulled in two directions by the two wildly different dogs.

Parc Sir Wilfred Laurier, like many others in Montréal, has an enclosed dog pitch, where owners can bring their animals and let them off the leash. Enclosed by a wire fence, it's a not immediately appealing patch of grass and moss, with a few picnic tables for anyone brave enough to try eat anything with dozens of friendly dogs sniffing around. But as the sky finally dimmed completely, I stood in the middle and began to understand the joys of owning a dog. At any one time there were at least a dozen dogs running, playing and sniffing around. Their owners seemed familiar with the social protocol here... unless you knew someone already, no conversation could be initiated until your dogs met and started sniffing each other's arses. After that you would be able to break the ice with a compliment about the other's pet. From time to time, I ran about with Chatton, or tried to nurture Maya into doing a little more than just watching from the sidelines. I didn't break into much of a sweat, but by the time we left after thirty minutes or so, I felt happily exhausted. Charlotte networked at every opportunity, asking other owners if they knew of anyone who might want a beautiful dog like Chatton. I floated around, enjoying the frenzy of activity that frequently swirled around my feet. Late on this cool summer's evening, I played the game I've played everywhere I've been this year, and imagined what it would be like if all this was really permanent: that I really did live here; that I really did have a five month old cross-breed; that I really was the kind of man who'd own a dog...

Pilgrimage

2006-07-18T16:00:00.000-04:00

Here's a tough one: does James spend more time on his holidays, or planning his holidays? Time is passing so quickly. In less than six weeks time, I will be leaving the same, warm and gainful confines of my present employer. The quick mathematicians amognst you will have noted that that leaves two weeks until I return to Europe. So, what do you think I'm going to be doing with those two weeks? I'm going to Alabama and Louisiana (hehehehehe...)

On Saturday 26 August, I'll depart Montréal, travelling south to New York with my old friend, the Amtrak Adirondack. I'll connect directly to a Regional service to Washington DC, where I'll stay until Monday evening. During my first whistle-stop trip to D.C. we had no time to really see any of the capital's museums. I plan to immerse myself in the Smithsonian for a day or so before the next part of my trip begins. On Monday evening, I'll leave Washington DC on board Amtrak's Crescent. After travelling overnight through North and South Carolina and Georgia, I will arrive the next afternoon in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. From there I'm driving to the miniscule community of Newbern (population 231) to visit the world famous Rural Studio of Auburn University's School of Architecture.

I could not let this year in Canada pass without making a trip to the Rural Studio. For four or five years now, I have been in awe of the work that has been built in the small communities that surround Newbern and Greensboro, Alabama. Founded by the late Samuel Mockbee, each year the Rural Studio brings one year each from Auburn's undergraduate and postgraduate architecture courses to this remote corner of America's impoverished Black Belt. Rather than learning their profession through studio and lecture based classes, the Rural Studio's students learn their trade by the most honest means possible: practical experience. Each year the Studio builds four or five projects designed by the students themselves, often with miniscule budgets. The projects are frequently daring and employ untested techniques, but they are never anything but utterly delightful and utterly humble. The value of the Rural Studio is not to be found in the buildings that it produces, but in the questions it raises about the way architects are trained.

After a few days staying in Newbern, I'm getting in the car and beginning a 650km road trip to Opelousas, Louisiana for the annual South-West Louisiana Zydeco Festival that takes place over the Labor Day long weekend. Travelling via New Orleans, I return the car to Tuscaloosa on Tuesday 5 September, and begin the long train ride north towards New York, where I'll stop for two nights, and 'home' to Montréal.

Two days later, I will leave for England.

I hope you can join me... :)

Snapshot: Montréal bus depot, seen from above...

2006-07-15T16:16:00.000-04:00

Changes

2006-07-14T21:05:00.000-04:00

There are, from time to time, periods in my life (and yours too, I'm guessing) when you perceive that a undefined period is coming to an end. A certain job, a certain home, a certain group of friends, or a certain combination of all of the above. With the recent departure of Ulli back to Europe, and of Ryan to his new domestic bliss, I have been in a period of unsettled change for some time. I've been expecting it and preparing for it, but it was still a strange experience for it to actually happen.

A now the final pieces are in place. Charlotte, whose apartment we have been occupying, looking after and occasionally cleaning, has returned. She walked through the door just as I was flushing the toilet: isn't it funny how reunions can often be somewhat awkwardly timed? She brought with her a friendly dog named Maya, who has gradually been accepted and maybe even welcomed into the house by the existing four feline occupants. Charlotte has commenced a massive operation of cleaning, emptying and clearing out unnecessary detritus from her home. After a long sojourn in a remote north-eastern corner of Québec, most recently spent clearing out the family home of her late sister, the time is right for a few days of energetic cleaning and removal of things that are no longer needed here.

Now it is my time to move on. I will remain here until the end of the month, and then I will be moving to another apartment near by, where Ryan and Jonathan already live. Six weeks from now, I will have finished work, and will take two weeks off for one final trip (news on that coming soon). And eight weeks from now, I will pack my suitcases, throw away my own personal collection of the junk I've acquired this year, and return to England.

I am on the final straight, and every hour of every day is being taken advantage of.

The _ _ in Montréal

2006-07-06T12:12:00.000-04:00

Every year, the Montréal Mirror offers up a fairly biased suggestion of what is the Best of Montréal. Best bar, best poutine, best strip club etc etc etc. This has left a lingering thought in my mind, and I am now prepared to share with you a draft of some of my personal recommendations. I prefer to steer clear of such narrow terms as 'best' and 'worst'... since there are so many better adjectives.

Your comments are expected.

Most aromatically unpleasant bus route: 44 south Trust me on this one, especially in the late afternoon, this is the stinkiest bus I've ever set foot on.

Most frustratingly unavailable alcohol: Pimms Now that it's summer time, I'd just love to sit out on the balcony with friends and a big jug of the beautiful elixir. But the selfish folk at the SAQ would rather sell industrial strength ready mixed sangria.

Métro station most likely to be doubling up as a subterranean lair for an evil supervillain: Radisson Just imagine Giles Duceppe in a grey one piece suit with a white pussy cat, and you'll get my drift.

Quickest cure for a bad hangover: Breakfast special # 2 at the Binerie Head to 367 ave. du Mont Royal Est (just west of St. Denis) and give the man your money. He'll make the pain go away.

Franchise I'd most like to invest in: Frites Alors Rumour has it you can get the rights to open your own branch of Montréal's best burger chain with a $55,000 downpayment. I'm working on it...

Part of town I never want to go out in again: Crescent, Peel etc The music is aggressive, the drinks are extortionate and the clientelle are drunken American tourists who'd be underage if they were at home. I'm not doing it, even for Brutopia.

Stupidest public transit system: AMT suburban train to Delson I don't even know why I'd want to go to Delson, but now that I know that the AMT only operates four trains a day in each direction (four into Montréal in the morning, four out in the evening) I really want to...

Same old same old

2006-07-05T10:21:00.000-04:00

It's Wednesday lunchtime, and I have climbed up and out of a deep pit filled with numbers and percentages and product codes... last night I dreamt of thousands of jars of pickled onions and pickled gherkins, each one the responce to hours of frantic 'synergising' the day before. I left work yesterday with little Microsoft Excel cells burnt into my eyes, feeling giddy and suddenly very sweaty as I waited for the bus under ominous rainclouds. I hate air conditioning systems not just for the horrendous waste of energy that they entail (cars are not the environmental enemy, artificially ventilated buildings are) but for the way in which they can seduce and change you. During the eight hours I day I spend at work, my body acclimatises that so that when I step outside into the real atmosphere I feel suddenly drained and sticky.

Monday evening was the same, and I was glad to be on the bus and on my way home. But at my first interchange, the métro station Radisson, my flight from the office was halted. The diminutive turnstile gates that politely control access to the métro were locked shut (compare them with the Guantanamo Bay style armoured floor-to-ceiling devices in the New York subway and consider what they reflect about fare dodging in the two cities). Although I didn't find out until much later, a young man had given up, and thrown himself in front of a train at Préfontaine station, a few stops down the line. It's what the métro staff would call a 154-04.

Later that night I was woken by a tremendous thunder storm; the kind that sneaks up on you, rumbling placidly so as to fool you into thinking that it's 50km away, before suddenly exploding directly over your head. It made me jump upright in bed... most of the cats had already scarpered (Ben being the most nervous when storms approach - she's already hidden herself away by the time the first distant rumble is heard). The rain fell so densely that looking from my window I could barely see the door of the kitchen that opens onto the balcony next to my room. Unable to sleep for the noise, I considered that at least I wouldn't have to water the plants the next morning. These nocturnal thunderstorms are strange occurances: they wake me up and interupt my dreams, but when morning comes it sometimes feels as if they themselves were part of my dreams. I have to check for standing water in the empty plant pots outside to confirm that I didn't imagine them in the drowsy early hours of the morning.

These storms are a matter of routine now... for several days we have had hot hot days that have built up until intense thunder storms break the temperature and the humidity in the evenings. Last Friday morning's moving day adventure with Laura, Anna and Mélisse was made much easier by a breakfast time thunder storm that dropped the temperature by 5 degrees just as we started to move heavy furniture. The same happened yesterday evening, only a few hours earlier, dumping hundreds of thousands of litres of water on Montréal just before we went to see an outdoor event at the Jazz Festival. At first we were afraid the show would be spoilt by the rain - in the end it was blissfully cool and dry for us to watch a line up of singers and musicians cover some of Paul Simon's greatest hits. By the time Elvis Costello climbed onto the open air stage at Place des Arts, both the unpleasant sweaty feeling all over my body and the little spreadsheet squares in my eyes had worn away.

James in Ottawa shocker...

2006-07-01T23:00:00.000-04:00

Much of the length of Wellington Street in Ottawa is closed for Canada Day. Running along the north-western edge of Ottawa's downtown, this broad boulevard separates the cluster of diminutive skyscrapers from the elegant parliament complex that overlook river below. The pedestrians and four roadway lanes normally occupied by traffic are heaving with pedestrians, most dressed in red, carrying flags, wearing temporary maple leaf tatoos and blowing whistles. And here, at the adiministrative and symbolic heart of Canada, is a demonstration of democratic freedoms unlike any other that I have seen this year. Parked alongside the kerb from one end of Parliament Hill to the other is a line of tractors and other agricultural vehicles. Canadian farmers, frustrated by protein imports and the lack of support offered to their industry by the Liberal and now Conservative governments, have come to the capital to protest. And they have parked what must be fifty tractors, trailers and trucks here for the duration of Canada Day. The police do not (apparently) have any tow trucks big or strong enough to move them. Everywhere people are milling around wearing 'Farmers Feed Cities' badges, and eating free sample cups of Canadian pure dairy ice cream.

My previous visits to Ottawa have been interesting, but not exactly comparable with the trips I've made to other world capitals... Otttawa has a population of about 775,000 (one quarter of that of Montréal). It can feel even less on a cold, windswept winter's afternoon, when the grand wide boulevards are inhospitable to anyone not in a car. The shining skyscrapers are forgettable, and everyone here seems to be bilingual and employed in a government department. It's the governmental capital of Canada, but hardly in the same way as Paris or Berlin. Even thinking of it as a miniature Washington DC is a little off.

But today, I can understand Ottawa's qualities. Most city centre roads are closed, and three massive out door stages have been built on Parliament Hill, Majors Hill Park and in Confederation Park. Live music events are running all day, and thousands of people of milling from one part of town to another. Everyone is in red and white, everyone is smiling, and suddenly everything in the world seems alright. Is this the famous Canadian national spirit?

We watch the changing of the guard and then the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's choreographed 'Musical Ride' show. Then at 1100 I slip away through the crowds to an awful English-themed pub near the Chateau Laurier Hotel to watch a certain football match. The game is dire: neither team deserving a win and too many players auditioning for theatrical troupes with their childish dives and false claims of unfair tackles. The beautiful game has not been this poor in a long time. We eventually leave the bar, reluctant to give any of the hostile and unfriendly staff any more of our business. We watch England's final defeat in an electronics store upstairs: we're suddenly much closer to a much better television, and are enthralled by the incredible level of detail visible on a new 'HD' (High Definition) television: we watch blades of grass placidly get uprooted by the sprawling game, and then watch tears trickle down the faces of white shirted English players as the final penalty goal goes against them. I have no real emotions, except a slight twinge of sadness. Seen from a distance, England doesn't even have a decent football team any more. I decide to pretend to be Canadian for the rest of the day, and see if I can have a better time in Ottawa than I did in Québec...

Snapshot: Canada Day

2006-07-01T10:05:00.000-04:00

Losing my identity

2006-06-30T17:00:00.000-04:00

How much does the image of a nation matter to those who inhabit it? And what does the projection of that image tell us about the country itself? Still recovering from a sunny weekend in Québec City last week, it's time for a real 'national' holiday in Ottawa. With another Friday off, I was able to do some laundry, clean the apartment a bit and leave town in time for a weekend in the capital. Buses leave every hour from Montréal - more often in fact, as it seems Ryan and Jonathan (who I would be spending Canada Day with) managed to invent a bus that left fifteen minutes before four o'clock, and the bus that I caught.

Although this isn't the first time that I've been to Ottawa, it is the first time that I've driven between the two cities in daylight. Our bus parted company with the island of Montréal after about forty-five minutes and then cruised along the highway towards the border between the provinces of Québec and Ontario. Ontario announced itself with bilingual roadsigns and blue skies. Off to the north lay attractive tree covered hills: I'm planning a long weekend away exploring this part of the country some time between now and September.

As the coach rode along, I sat listening to my iPod and the distractions of Jett Loe's Letter to America podcast. The parallels between Northern Ireland and Québec are only occasionally apparent, but they always stimulate me to think about where I am, and why. French-Québecois(es) frequently portray their province as if it were an independent state, free of some unmentionable Canadian opression or an imposed alien rule: in comparison with the troubles of Northern Ireland though, I find it hard to give this point of view much sympathy... It seems that the October Crisis is the only time that the army has ever patrolled the streets of Québec. And if it is an idependent identity that is sought, it already exists in the unbelievable vitality of French Québecois music, arts, and theatre, and the destruction of the secondary language in all instances of publicly visible writing. After two successive defeats in referendums for indepedence, do Québecois and Québecoises continue to seek the confirmation of their identity? Or are they happy to continue marketing their province as a nation (with a 'national' holiday, a 'national' library etc etc etc) and living with a half-truth of faux-national-identity?

(In my experience, nothing reflects the identify of a community that the arts that are produced there: this is confirmed in the confused direction and identity that Northern Ireland finds itself burdened with, now over-hyped with government initiatives and buzz words rather than the security and atmosphere for true definition of itself.... Québec has no need to worry according to my yardstick, in that case...)

As the bus rolls towards Ottawa, I am intrigued about the celebrations that I will be witnessing. I am beginning to understand how the people of Québec perceive their province. I may be an anglo immigrant, but I work with French Canadians and French speaking immigrants, and I have been lucky enough to spend my year in the company of native French Québecois and Québecoises, bilingual New Brunswickers and anglo-Canadians. I am fiercely protective of my identity as an impartial outsider: I do not want to be dismissed as an 'anglo'. But last weekend I saw Québec celebrate itself with an enormous party, and now I am deeply interested in how Canada's capital (which I have previously found to be a windswept and over-planned vacuum) will present itself on the nation's birthday.

I found myself alienated on Saint Jean Baptiste Day. The celebrations were excited, lively and absolutely enormous. But it centred on an image, or an identity, that was not mine. I left Québec City last weekend feeling detached, as if the nine months I've spent in Montréal have come to nothing. Imagining myself as a real, permanent immigrant, I tried to imagine if I could have felt proud at the celebrations I had witnessed. I could not. And as much as I love Montréal, I am realising that this province is not for me. But what I have yet to discover is whether I have the same feelings on the national holiday of Canada. Am I incapable of ever detaching myself from my British identity, or have I just not found a suitable destination for hypothetical emigration?

So long, and thanks for all the good times

2006-06-28T21:25:00.000-04:00

Time Lapse: Ryan talks and drinks

2006-06-27T20:30:00.000-04:00

Snapshot: Ryan lets Caca have her seat

2006-06-27T19:25:00.000-04:00

These four day weeks are killing me

2006-06-26T19:12:00.000-04:00

I'm back at work, with confirmation in hand that I will be benefiting from not one, not two, but three long weekends this month. This coming Friday is another national holiday for Canada Day, and the following week I will be flying down to Boston "on business". I have never flown anywhere "on business" before and am looking forward to the trip, even if a visit to a new city is being tempered by a very serious commitment on my part. Watch the blog for news and views from Beantown next week.

Until then, Ulli is leaving us very soon... I have two and a half months left, but for her the year is up. So, less blogging, more enjoying of the last few moments.

*j*

Snapshots: Québec street scenes

2006-06-25T11:15:00.000-04:00

Lounging in someone else's hammock

2006-06-24T16:30:00.000-04:00

The afternoon catches up with us, and the warm sunshine finds my lying in someone else's red hammock, under a tree beside the Montmorency River, about 15km from Québec City. After a morning avoiding my hangover exploring Québec City on foot, I met up with Kari and Vincent for my second breakfast. On their suggestion, we've driven out of the city to be beside the river, just upstream from precipitous Montmorency Falls. Kari and Vincent are out sun bathing on the rocks, I'm happily reading the newspaper and writing postcards here in the shade. It's by reading Kari's Lonely Planet guidebook to Peru that I am offered this hammock. A South American man is stretching on the rocks when he sees it and I tell him about Kari's forthcoming holiday. He goes to introduce her to his Peruvian friends, and I doze in the gently rocking hammock.

After an hour or two in the sunshine we divert for an ice cream and to look down on the waterfalls from the footbridge that is slung almost directly above the drop. More than twenty metres taller than Niagara Falls, these crashing foaming chutes of water drop seventy-six metres to the St. Lawrence River below. Kari discovers I have vertigo, but I take a few photographs by standing as close to the middle of the bridge as possible, and by holding my camera out as far as I can. This slightly better view is afforded from round the corner of the hill, looking back towards the falls...

A little later we drive back to the city, via a loyal pit stop at a Metro supermarket to get food for a barbeque outside the city. We pass the evening with friends of Kari, including an ex-NHL hockey player and his friendly wife from Indiana. On the way home we agree to disagree on tastes in domestic architecture, and by twelve o'clock, I am lying face down, almost asleep, on the bed in Kari's apartment. I've had a great weekend, and owe 99% of it to the generosity and hospitality of friends... thank you :-)

I return to Montréal tomorrow...

Québec City: the morning after the night before

2006-06-24T10:00:00.000-04:00

I'm cursed with an inability to sleep late in the mornings. Regardless of whether I go to bed at 02h00, 03h00 or 04h00, I will generally wake up before 09h00, and be unable to return to sleep. It hurts, but does not surprise me to full the sunshine burning through my eyelids just after eight on this bright Saturday morning. Before I have even opened my eyes and turned to look at the alarm clock, I know that I am now awake, and that I'm going to have to live with whatever time it is.

My head hurts, and my stomach is not as stable as I would like it to be. With every year that passes, it's get harder to recover from a night on the sauce. Time was now would be the time to start again in preparation for the following evening. Urgh. A half empty bottle of Molson Export eyes me from the kitchen counter, as if to say "why didn't you finish me, aren't you man enough?"

The cause for this pain was a long, drawn out evening of celebrations for Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, otherwise known as the national holiday of Québec. With my adopted-Québecoise friend Kari and her pure bred Québecois boyfriend Vincent, I was guided through the celebrations. Foolish plans had been suggested to make contact with a few of my Montréal friends during the evening, and to meet up. However, as ever, we made the mistake of believing that it would be easy to just call someone's mobile telephone and then find a large and obvious landmark to meet beside. Unfortunately it seems that the other 250,000 people who converged on the Plains of Abraham in the city that night had the same idea, and repeated attempts to use one of the two mobile phones available to me failed: perhaps the networks were overloaded with people trying to make the same calls ("What? No! We're right beside the hot dog stand on the right of the stage beside the tree next to the flagpole....")

We began the evening with a beer on the deck of the family of Vincent in the suburbs of the city. The sun was setting behind a row of trees, lawn mowers were buzzing and the swimming pool was looking tempting. After an hour or so chatting in the sun, we made our excuses and headed to the next party, a barbeque back in town. A quick beer stop was made chéz Vincent, and we managed to bag the last vaguely barbeque-able meat from the near-by supermarket (minced veal, which was soon shaped into burgers). The atmosphere continued to build at this party, where I knew no-one but was soon introduced. It turned out most of the people there were anglophones from other parts of Canada.

At around ten o'clock, it was time to leave, and join the throngs of people in the streets heading towards the Plains of Abraham, the large national park that hugs the hill down the spine of old Québec. It's here that a massive outdoor stage is constructed each year for a free music spectacle that runs late into the night and which is followed by fireworks and bonfires. Out on the streets, I met more people holding Québec flags that a western Canadian might be comfortable with. The queue for beer and cigarettes at every dépanneur snaked out onto the pavement. We turned east along the Grand Allée, Québec's busiest and trendiest street for nightlife. The traffic had been diverted away, and the road became a throbbing sea of people heading to the plains. Thousands of people were moving in the same direction, being held up only by the controlled entrance to the plains, where all alcohol was to be stopped from entering the site. I shan't go into the details, but a little bit co-ordinated magic transported our backpack of twenty bottles of beer across the barrier, and we carried on along our way. Slightly tipsy by this stage, we felt like we'd managed to pull off a major bank heist...

We plodded on towards the stage, and disappeared into the crowds...

Snapshot: René Lévesque nurses a hangover

2006-06-24T09:40:00.000-04:00

The car sharing house sharing rush

2006-06-23T15:12:00.000-04:00

I am delivered safely to Québec City about two and a quarter hours after leaving Montréal. My driver, Frederic, is a friendly man who drives fast and has questionable reaction times. Being a front seat passenger with someone like that is interesting, because as with two memorable incidents on highway 20 between Montréal and Québec City, there are times when you have about one second of realisation of what is happening on the roadway in front of you before your driver does. This one second difference between the two of you is a moment of mild panic and confusion. Is it rude to say something (like "ffffffuuuuuuuuuuccccc.......") or scrabble helpless on the floor of the footwell for the imaginary set of dual controls you desperately want the car to have acquired?

But fear not, loyal blog-fan, I am safe. Frederic braked in time for us not to hit the back of a suddenly stationary Ford in the fast lane, and honked his horn after being cut up by a dozy looking Hyundai driver. I have no complaints, however. A car is always more comfortable than a bus, and besides, flying along at 130km/h for most of the way, we overtook at least one bus of the Orléans Express fleet, which ply the highway between the two cities every hour.

The Allostop terminus in Québec City is actually just outside the city limits, but is within the green sprawl of the provincial capital. So I wait out in the sunshine (continuing to heed my doctor's words and keeping my leg in the shade) besides a run down pyramid-shaped shopping centre that has been relegated to being occupied by rather tatty looking owner-operated florists, clothes stores for retirees and a horrendous looking nightclub. It's around lunchtime, but the nightclub is already testing the sound system for the weekend, and the walls are shaking.

This weekend the network of close friends I have been privileged to have made in Canada is looking after me. I'm staying in the studio apartment of Kari, a cousin of Ryan, close to the old town centre of Québec. This weekend, however, she's beginning to move out of the apartment, to live with her boyfriend down in the 'ghetto'. I'm told that he lives in an old bra factory, which must be a clear sign of urban regeneration. All around me, it seems, people are rushing to co-habit. I've already lost one house mate to the calls of domestic bliss, and in just a few months time it looks like this independent blogger will also be giving it a go. After watching the French-dubbed version of Four Weddings and a Funeral the other week, and after receiving the first wedding invitation of a friend I met at university, it seems as if I am entering the stage of my life when everyone starts to move in, marry and probably make babies. Mortgages and estate cars are on the horizon.

I do not complain of course: Kari has chosen very well, and because of her upcoming move, I have a conveniently located downtown studio apartment in Québec City to myself for the weekend. The festivities of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste holiday are warming up, and it's now a beautifully sunny day. Let the celebrations commence...

A rendezvous

2006-06-23T11:00:00.000-04:00

I ascend the escalator of the métro station with an overnight bag in one hand, and a slip of paper in the other. In my bag are some fairly light odds and ends, and a cheap nylon flag found in a Dollorama. On the piece of paper is a cryptic message:

10h30 Frederic, Ford Focus grise, stationment de métro Rosemont

I walk out into the grey morning, and take in my surroundings. Like a secret agent in a thriller film, I attempt to adopt the nonchalent pose and expression of someone who is meeting someone he doesn't know, but who doesn't want anyone to guess. Maybe I am the only one who is meeting Frederic. Maybe there are others. A stocky looking man in a tracksuit is pacing up and down in front of the market by the métro. A young lady is reading a paper on a bench next to the métro entrance. She looks me up and down, and returns to her free morning newspaper.

I have not been recognised. I walk to the edge of the car park, and sit down on a bench. There is no sign of Frederic's most noticable feature - a grey Ford Focus. With that sort of description, it should be easy to find him in a small car park. I, however, am not that noticeable... maybe I should have worn a rose in my lapel? Or a hat?

"You'll know me by the expression of the dog I am walking..."

Maybe not.

I am (unfashionably for a faux-secret-agent) a little early. So I give up on the adolescent pretence and try to wait in an obviously waiting manner. I'm not here to sell contraband or to discover the truth about what happened on the Grassy Knoll, or who paid who how much prior to the 1995 referendum. Nope, I'm here for a lift.

The details scribbed on the piece of paper were given to me by Allostop, the rideshare agency that has been putting passengers in touch with drivers since 1983. The agency is unique in Canada, serving only the province of Québec. Much like the Hospitality Club, another travellers service that I love and use frequently, Allostop can sound strange and unsafe to the unitiated. But it's been working now for over sixteen years. Membership costs $6 a year, and comes in two formats: driver and passenger. If a driver is planning a trip somewhere within the province of Québec, he or she simply calls the Allostop a few days before departure to inform them of where and when he's going. Passengers then call or visit, and register an interest in a destination with a rough time of departure on a given day. The energetic employees of AlloStop then join up the dots. A one way ride from Montréal to Québec City (AlloStop's most successful and popular corridor) costs $16, compared to $35 by bus or $45 by train.

It would be great if hitchhikers could rely on the service for rides out of the province of Québec. Since the service is safe, it's also fun and a great way to meet people. But following complaints from the Voyageur, Greyhound and Trentway bus companies to the Ontario Transport Commission, the service had to be withdrawn between Québec and Ontario. Passengers heading to Toronto, Ottawa and the other cities of the densely populated southern province now have little choice but to resort to the rideshare pages on sites like Craigslist, where there is third party to record or regulate the rides that are arranged, let alone confirm the safety of the vehicle in which your ride is booked. The complaint from the bus companies was one of a legal definition: Allostop is proud to call itself a 'covoiturage' service. The bus companies said they were providing a form of 'public transit' and as such were flouting the rules applied to public transit providers. Interpret that as you will, and don't forget the former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin did then and continues to own a majority percent stake holding in Voyageur bus lines.

So while this utopian dream remans limited to the confines of Canada's largest province, it remains a successful and popular service that fills empty seats in cars that would have already been going places. Since there's no guarantee that Allostop can find passengers for a driver, it doesn't encourage extra vehicles on the road.

Just after 10h30, a Ford Focus pulls onto the car park, and the driver hops out and smiles at me. I'd say his car was more silver than grey, but that's not important. How did he manage to recognise me so quickly...? I leave by bag in the boot, and hop in the car. I'm off to Québec City for the weekend.

The apartment empties

2006-06-20T18:23:00.000-04:00

With the humid summer days come changes to the apartment. Ulli is away on holiday in the Îles de la Madeliene before she returns to Germany next week, and Ryan has begun to steady process of moving out. Without a car, this is done in fits and starts using the bus. Each time I come home something has been boxed and/or removed. The process has been anticipated for some time, but it's still a surprise to walk into a room and to see that a computer has vanished (don't worry Charlotte, it was his, not yours...).

On Sunday night, however, the wooden floors of the old apartment creaked and complained as a few more pairs of (human) feet came together for dinner. This weekend I had the pleasure of hosting Abby, a friend from New York who was in town to launch her new book at a local comic book store. She brought a friend who knew the city, and my evenings were enlighted with their stories of what they had found while they were around town. Ryan was back for the evening, enhancing the atmosphere with his compulsive summertime half-nakedness. To finish the scene, Laura was over with a nicely chilled rosé.

The menu reflected the high humidity: asparagus fried in butter and garlic leaves on cream cheese bagels; spinach and avocado salad, tomato and boccacini salad, and a big chilled bowl of berries, kiwi and apple salad with ice cream for desert. I now understand the secret to summer time cooking: do things that can be made and eaten without too much effort or without using artificial heat when there's already 75% humidity.

With a cold tall gin and tonic, and with some careful shielding of my burn allowed me to savour the end of the hot afternoon out on the balcony. Ryan caught the rays, Laura lamented not having achieved anything, and I just savoured being there. I'll miss this place when I'm gone, but the gradual departure of the people I have begun to associate with this place is preparing me for the inevitable. It's time to think about my departure, and more importantly, about my return to another place.

Snapshots: Nova Scotia

2006-06-18T16:50:00.000-04:00

In this digital age, it takes me a few days to remember to take a black and white film to be be developed at the lab across the street. Since it's esoteric black and white instead of good ol' colour, development takes another five working days; then another few days have passed before I remember that I left the film there in the first place, and then a I leave it for another few days deferring the inevitably extortionate cost of collecting them. But here, at last, are a few snapshots from some explorations of Nova Scotia with Bea...

Bea's namesake in Halifax cut my hair, and told us the story of how she came to Canada as a refugee from Kosovo. My problems with uncontrollable hair pale into insignificance.

Contrast of scale: Mahone Bay City Hall and a GMC pick-up.

Beatrice photographing two churches on the Lighthouse Trail.

Bea apologises to the flattened bugs we have collected on the front of our Chevrolet Impala...

...and then tampers with the license plate.

On the train back to Montréal.

Snapshot: our thermometer today

2006-06-18T16:02:00.000-04:00

White socks not permitted

2006-06-16T18:10:00.000-04:00

Disastrous news this week with regard to my self inflicted injuries. They are healing rapidly and very well, but that does not mean I am out of the woods yet. My last scheduled hospital visit had been arranged for this morning at the near-by Hôpital Notre-Dame here on the Plateau. I walked down to the hospital early so as to try and deal with all the paperwork required for treatment to be given to non-Québec residents. It turns out this can be dealt with very quickly when you have a thin slice of plastic with either 'Visa' or 'Mastercard' written on it.

I was given permission to see the doctor, and proceeded to wait for a couple of hours in the subteranean 'Omni-chirugie' waiting room. When the doctor was able to see me, the wounds were undressed and many approving sounds were made by the doctor and nurse. The special silver-based cream that has been applied to the burn every two days since the accident has down wonders: with every change of bandages, dead skin and multi-coloured gunk has been lifted away from the rapidly healing wound by the dressings. I need not be convinced that I am lucky to have been born into this generation: the wonders of modern medicine have helped to practically heal a superficial second degree burn in less than two weeks. My skin has recovered and is now re-growing, but it remains exceptionally thin and sensitive to light.

It was the news that followed, however, that brought me to my knees. The skin has been left so sensitive, that I've been advised to stop the wound being exposed to any direct sunlight for the next two years. Sunscreen cream is not enough - trousers or long socks need to physically protect the portion of my leg above my ankle from the bright rays of the sun. And what's worse, I am now strongly recommended to break the only important rule of men's fashion. I must wear white socks.

From operating theatre to day patient wards, my screams of anguish could be heard, echoing on bare lino-floored corridors. In order to stop my sweat from seaping dye out of dark socks and into the fragile skin, I should only wear non-coloured cotton socks. If I were a tennis player, that might be ok. But I'm not, and I don't own a single pair of white socks. The horror of wearing white socks torments my dreams, and last night I dreamt that my boss made a mocking comment about me wearing white socks with my dark office trousers.

Snapshot: cats on a hot tin roof

2006-06-14T15:00:00.000-04:00

Feeling ill for the Canadian consumer

2006-06-13T12:22:00.000-04:00

One rule I want to share with you today. Don't volunteer for things. Even if they seem like really fun things to do.

As you may know, my career has taken a brief diversion away from architecture and into the interesting world of retail. No, I'm not a check-out clerk, but a 'synergy technician', crunching numbers as part of the on-going process to reduce prices in the supermarket chain that I work for. While mostly involving long days in front of a computer, trawling through interminable Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, there are some interesting days away from my clavier and my souris. This morning, a colleague put her head round my door and asked if I would like to take part in a taste test. It was approaching lunchtime, so I said yes.

And now my stomach is hurting.

Taste tests are an important part of our business here. Many suppliers compete to provide our private label (own brand) products. The selection process looks at many things (cost, production capability, delivery costs etc), but by the far the most important is the quality of the product. Quality Assurance tests are carried out to compare products by numbers, but there's still room for the good old fashioned taste test. And today it was the turn of our biscuit suppliers to seduce us.

We tried out a couple of rounds of regular butter biscuits, rating their texture, taste, aroma and appearance with a numeric scale and a box for commentaries. So far, so so good. I learnt that it was not necessary to always eat the whole biscuit to make a fair judgement.

But then the final round approached, and the discomfort began. Being a foreigner, I don't have quite the same connection to this type of product, and in fact had never seen them before moving to Canada. We were each presented with ten maple syrup cream biscuits. British readers will remember custard cream biscuits. These are similar, with two thin biscuits held together by a splodge of processed cream or icing. In this instance, they're made with maple syrup or maple syrup flavours. Apparently these are extremely popular with Canadian children, and inspired images of sitting by the fire in the middle of winter with a big glass of cold milk and a plate of sickly sweet biscuits. That image would work for me, but after five, I was beginning to feel queasy. Other members of the taste panel agreed that this was going to be a difficult category to sample. With so many submissions, we were forced to curtail our reviews before sickness ensued. One conclusion did emerge from the discussion, however, which did not relate to taste. According to my Québecois collagues, the biscuit must be shaped in the recognisable form of a maple leaf. The round ones, even those with little maple leafs stamped on the biscuit, just don't cut it.

I lurched out of the room just as the break for lunch was beginning. I decided to skip my sandwich for now and go for a long walk to try and remove the sickly feeling in my stomach. Round 2 of the taste test will come tomorrow. I will not be volunteering...

Behind closed doors

2006-06-12T20:12:00.000-04:00

On Saturday night Ulli and I took our first dip into the Montréal Fringe Festival with the opening night of You Like It at Club Lambi on St. Laurent. We can't deny our close links to certain members of the company that has produced the show, but I encourage you to go out of your way to go and see the show. It'll be in Montréal until the end of the week, and then heads south in this or maybe a slightly evolved form to the Toronto Fringe in August. I won't attempt to summarise or review the show here, but it's a tightly improvised and unscripted work that started with Shakespeare's As You Like It and finished up with a piece that teases you with amusing and touching interweaving stories gender and identity.

After the show (and a quick plate or two of poooo-tine) we headed to the after show party. It was rude not to, since it was being held in an apartment two doors from our own. We went to congratulate the cast and crew, enjoy some sangria (although yours truly had to refrain because of the continued medication...) and, most importantly, to peak around one of our neighbours apartments.

The apartment itself was slightly smaller than 'ours', and also much more sparsely furnished. White walls reflected more light, yet somehow made the place feel smaller. It was also a 'reverse' of our pad, with the rooms arranged in a reflected plan. Ulli says she prefered 'our' place. I said I wasn't sure, feeling rather jealous of the blank walls that I could imagine painting and decorating to my own personal specification.

The next afternoon, I walked down to the Biblioteque National to browse and blog without wires. On my return to avenue du Mont Royal, the sun had come out and the street was packed. The 'Nuit Blanche' festival (see photo below), in which artists are assigned four square meter blocks of the street to paint on, had been a bit of wash out this year. Rain fell both during and after the nocturnal painting session on Thursday night, and when the sun rose the next morning virtually all the paintings had been smudged and blurred by the water. It continued to rain for most of the weekend, also dampening the atmosphere between the tents which extended the noisy and intimidating reach of the street's trendier clothes shops. But on Sunday afternoon the sun was shining down, and people were out in throngs along the temporarily traffic free street. Just a few doors before I reached our apartment, I noticed that an artist had opened up their front door for an open studio event.

So naturally, I had to go and have a little look...

I wasn't drawn to any of the paintings, and while some of the pencil drawings were amusing, nothing grabbed my heart's lust. But of course, I was more interested in the apartment. Poking my head through doorways, eyeing up the long kitchen and imagining what furniture occupies the spaces when the place isn't converted for use as a gallery.

I trotted back down the stairs (past a hideous internal wall of bricks) and back out into the street. In one weekend I've managed to sandwich 'our' apartment with visits to two of our mysterious and rarely seen neighbours. We only expose ourselves as residents when we slip in and out of the heavy front door (closing it carefully behind us so as not to break any more of Sylvie's pot plants), so we don't often see our neighbours. On the one hand, I love this place because we are so central, right on the busiest street of the Plateau, with everything our hearts could desire just a few steps away. But then it's also comforting to climb the stairs, unlock the door, and retreat to our private balcony, warmed by the sun and insulated from the city by two storeys and a quiet ruelle behind our building. And just sometimes, it's fun to sit out and imagine our neighbours, who probably feel just the same, but whose paths never cross with ours.

Milk, sugar, and no second degree burns...

2006-06-11T14:49:00.000-04:00

Regular readers will be delighted to hear that I made myself a cup of tea this morning, and was able to drink it without being interupted by a quick trip to the Emergency Room. Water was boiled in a water boiling device, and after the gas had been turned off, said boiling water was safely decanted from said water boiling device into a sturdy mug. Thanks to living with a unashamed Anglophile, I was even able to make my tea with a genuine Tetley tea bag. These series of events obviously brought me much satisfaction, having thought throughout much of the week that I am now incapable of making myself a hot beverage without severely burning myself. It seems that last Sunday's early morning incident was, however, a one off, and I am gaining re-gaining confidence with my kettle.

Various other events and situations have combined to make this a not particularly enjoyable week. I'm working, but have no money to show for it for another week or so. And while my leg is healing very rapidly, I still have to go to my neighbourhood clinic every two days for a change of dressings and to the hospital once a week for a three hour wait followed by a five minute check-up. So I'm feeling particularly unproductive at work and will have to go to my first review tomorrow after logging just twenty five hours of work last week.

But the future is calling. Three months today, I will leave Montréal to return to England. Where did those nine months go to? Last night we indulged in some poutine at the Mont-Royal Hot Dog Restaurant downstairs, and I recalled those frigid sub-zero nights when the same food had brought much needed warmth to my heavily insulated body. Now the winter coat is hanging up in the wardrobe gathering dust.

E-mails and phone calls are shuttling across the Atlantic as plans are made for a place to live in Sheffield. We have two interesting options shaping up, one of which I've been spying at from above with Google Earth. After almost two years living away from Sheffield, a sense of nostalgia and a hint of broodiness is coming over me. I know the next few months are going to fly by, so while I will make sure I enjoy the remaining weeks here in Canada, I can't help thinking about the future. Such broodiness manifests itself in some unusual hypothetical browsing of the internet, encouraged by the discovery of a remarkable number of blogs recording the progress being made on allotment gardens across Britain. Sheffield City Council maintains a large number of allotment sites, and I'm very tempted to commit to a productive form of exercise by investing in the remarkably low rent that allotments are leased for (less than £30 a year). Some of the most amusing and rewarding blogs I've found today is Plot Holes... I'm already encouraged to give it a go.

Snapshot: a Greyhound far from home

2006-06-10T23:45:00.000-04:00

Snapshot: Nuit blanche sur avenue Mont-Royal

2006-06-09T00:12:00.000-04:00

Courrier interne

2006-06-08T12:38:00.000-04:00

Internal e-mail, received today, at 11h05:

Bonjour!

Prenez note que les vendredi 23 juin et 30 juin, nous serons fermés pour les congés de la fête Nationale et la fête du Canada.

Bon congés à tous

Living in Northern Ireland last year, I benefited from two sets of public holidays - those derived from important Catholic festivals and those derived from important Protestant festivals. For instance, St. Patrick is the patron saint of the predominantly catholic Irish Republic, but St. Patrick's Day is also a full public holiday in Northern Ireland. For the Unionist community, much of July was occupied with the preparation before and clean-up after the notorious 12th of July festivities. The night before the twelfth sets the tone for the follow day's Orange Order processions, as orange flames leap into the sky from five metre high bonfires that are constructed in the preceding weeks in abandoned lots all across Northern Ireland's unionist communities.

Here in Québec, there are no bonfires. But there are two 'national' holidays. Saturday 24 June is Saint Jean-Baptiste Day, or Québec's National Day. One week later, Saturday 1 July is Canada Day. And for those of you who are confused, let me explain. Québec is not a separate country. The last time a referendum in favour of independence was taken in 1995, the result was just approximately 49% in favour, 51% against. But rather than get bitter over this narrow defeat, Québec sovreigntists went right ahead and continued to celebrate a 'national' holiday every July. In the same manner, Montréal recently acquired it's own 'National Library of Québec'. So while Québec remains in the steely iron grip of the oppresive Canadian Empire, and while the army patrol the streets in armoured Land Rovers (just kidding), Québecois everywhere can at least pretend they are free.

And in the mean time, we in Québec get two national holidays, which means two days off work, and two long weekends in a fortnight. C'est pas pire, ça?

I plan to take full advantage of these two long weekends, and plan to be in Québec City for Jean-Baptiste day. I have yet to decide where to spend Canada Day. Asking for opinions on the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree produced a fairly broad consensus that Ottawa would be more fun (it's also closer and cheaper to get to) but I wouldn't mind finally spending that long weekend in Toronto I've been promising myself. My last visit was too brief, and I'd also like to go before a friend leaves the city. Watch this space for my eventual decision...

Yours for $15

2006-06-06T12:10:00.000-04:00

On the bus on my way to work this morning I found fifteen dollars, in crumpled, used and non-sequential $5 notes. The bus had just turned at the terminus to re-trace the route, and no-one was sitting near me when I sat down and found the notes - so I am presuming their owner was no longer on board.

What do I do with the cash, which is now burning a hole in my wallet? Your comments and suggestions are welcomed.

*j*

Medication central

2006-06-06T12:02:00.000-04:00

On our kitchen table we now have a selection of prescribed medcation. Novonaprox, Stantex and a strange silver based cream for me and my burns; and some antibiotics for Cucu, our most elusive feline friend.

On Monday night Ulli and I walked through the quieter side streets of the Plateau carrying a very distressed Cucu to a vetinary practice on Saint-Hubert. The condition of her teeth has deteriorated over time, and she continues to have a very matted and dandruff clogged coat of hair, worsened by her poor standard of hygeine. Although to be honest, if I had a mouth as sore as hers, I probably wouldn't be inclined to lick myself that much.

An extremely friendly vet examined Cucu, who had now also endured a noisy ten minutes in her box in the waiting room of the practice, surrounded by ugly little dogs yapping at their ugly owners. She was not happy, but like many cats in similar situations was quite calm and placid while she was examined. A sad history prefixes her condition: at age 12 she has endured a troubled life, and now I feel guilty for ever dismissing her as simply the 'one with the strange smell'.

To cut a long story short, an operation to remove two teeth is necessary, as well as other treatments and medication. Charlotte has wired money to us for the work, and we are now enduring a painful week in which antibiotics have to be administered twice a day and which will include a day long stay tomorrow at the vet for the treatment to be carried out. Ulli has become the domestic nurse, administering the drugs with some difficulty. We are taking extra care to all take the right drugs: although the antibiotics from the vet are for Cucu, because it was my name on the appointment the label has been printed with my name on it. I am reading the label of every pill bottle twice before swallowing...

Snapshot: Sunset over the Plateau

2006-06-05T12:38:00.000-04:00

A sandwich and a shot of morphine please...

2006-06-04T15:24:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I forget to lower the blind in my bedroom before going to sleep. Last night was just such an instance, so I was woken far too early by the ever longer and brighter summer sunshine. I ignored the friendly advances of Toast and Caca who noticed that I had woken, and buried my head under the sheets for another hour or two. The bizarre dream that followed managed to include an awkward moment with a documentary film crew, the house of family friends I've not seen in years, my darling BMM and a character from Green Wing. It might have been better to get up when I first woke...

After the disturbing apparitions had cleared, I stretched, said good morning to the cats, and went to the kitchen. I put the kettle on, poured a bowl of home made granola cereal mix and sliced some bread (also home made, incidentally... aren't I good?). The door to the balcony was open, and it was a bright, fresh morning.

The kettle began to bubble, and I fetched some margarine from the fridge and honey from the cupboard. I turned off the stove, and wrapped the sleeve of my fleece top in on itself several times to lift the old kettle.

What follows can perhaps be best expressed by an account of the sounds that followed.

"Holy f****************" (extended expletive deleted)

Clatter

Crash

"Huuuuuuuuurrrgghhhhh" (sound of pain and shock)

Shoooooosh (cold water)

"Errrrrrr" (Ulli, rudely awoken)

Pep-pep-pep-pep (James dialling 9-1-1)

- a few moments later -

wow-wow-woW-WoW-WOW-PAAAAARRRRRP (Urgances Santé ambulance siren)

- a moment later -

"Beh-saluuuuhh..." (Urgances Santé paramedic entering the apartment)

- a few moments later -

Vrrrrroooooooooooom (Urgences Santé ambulance on Christoph-Colomb, now with passenger)

- a few moments later -

tick-tock-tick-tock (clock in waiting room of Notre Dame Hospital Emergency department)

-

A few hours later, at 12.15, I took several tentative steps out of the Emergency department, and breathed in some fresh air. After an hour or so of triage, registration and waiting, I was eventually seen by a friendly doctor. My early morning attempt to make myself a cup of tea has left me with second degree burns down the lower inside of my left leg, and shortly after arriving I was injected with morphine to calm me down. And my my my, calm me down it did. Nothing was a problem after that point. The shakes have now passed, and after one failed attempt by a nurse who was later taken aside and remonstrated, my leg is now doused with cream and dressed. The next week will be punctuated by visits to my local CLSC (primary care health centre) to have the dressing changed and to hear nurses looking at my wounds and saying "oooooph, c'est pas pire ça"

A taxi took me home ($15 - my insurers had better help me out on that one) through the slow moving Sunday traffic. Today's Tour de l'Isle bicycle tour has brought thousands of Montréalers out to explore the city on two wheels. I'd forgotten this until I saw the disproportionate number of lycra clad cyclists in the waiting room of the emergency room, all apparently nursing minor injuries caused by parting company with their bicycles at speed. Stuck in a traffic jam, I told the cabbie to pull up a few blocks short, and I tentatively walked the last few hundred metres to my door.

Ulli was home. She had, in the intervening period, brought me a packed lunch of sandwiches in the hospital which had thankfully staved off hunger and stopped the morphine going to work on an empty stomach.

I put the kettle on to finally make my morning cup of tea.

"Be careful with that." said Ulli, with a smirk.

Monday in the ruelles

2006-05-30T23:35:00.000-04:00

I would normally slip into James cliché, and tell you that 'normality has returned' to my life in Montréal. But in all honesty it's not easy to say what has been normal in for me in Montréal. About the only 'normal' thing to which I return is a state of being penniless. I've been on the move for six weeks now, and the excitement and variety of travelling has come to an end for now. On 21 May I left Montréal for what can reasonably be described as one of the most amazing and rewarding voyages I've ever taken. It finished up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, just over two weeks ago, when I met up with BMM who had flown across the Atlantic to meet me.

We toured southern Nova Scotia by car, and then returned to Montréal by train. A week passed quickly in Montréal before a moment of spontaneity overcame us, and we drove a 2,000km round trip to Washington DC to see 'The Prairie Home Companion'.

The wind being rather knocked out of us by this weekend road trip, once the keys to the Chevy had been returned, we spend a leisurely Monday waking up slowly and walking through Montréal to visit Habitat '67, the landmark housing development designed for the 1967 Expo by the then-student Moshe Safdie. En route, we diverted our path through the ruelles of Montréal's plateau, stopping to read graffiti, say hello to cats, and just to listen to the distant sound of muffled traffic, children playing and builders building. As a six week long sojourn closes, it's good to be back in Montréal.

Snapshots: driving back to Montréal

2006-05-28T13:15:00.000-04:00

Les objets reflechissant dans le rétroviseur sont plus prés qu'ils paraissent

Before pick-up trucks got fat...

Rest stop, somewhere in New Jersey.

Joining I-87

Taking a Ford Focus on vacation.

Portrait by BMM.

School buses.

A geniuinely useful feature in our Chevrolet Impala: these buttons can re-calibrate the entire dashboard and computer (speed, distance, trip etc) from metric to imperial instantly. Also a source of much amusement while waiting at the border crossing.

The Adirondacks.

Washington, DC

2006-05-27T12:30:00.000-04:00

Needless to say, BMM and I were very happy bunnies to have made it to Vienna, VA, in time for last night's 'Prairie Home Companion Show'. Our evening was followed by a live broadcast the next night - you can listen to the show at the Prairie Home Companion website here, and listen to most of the music, bad jokes and sound effect enhanced stories that we heard the night before. But the PHC was not the only reason to drive all this way. We also had a day out in Washington DC to enjoy.

The Hospitality Club once again saved us from sleeping in the car. We stayed with two wonderful hosts who not only put us up, but put us up in a $1.5 million mansion.. a king size double bed, en-suite jacuzzi bath and double shower awaited us, and we slept very well indeed.

A fast metro ride took us into the city, and up into the stifling heat of the only major American city built on a bog. It wasn't just hot, it was humid, and the heavy moist air slowed every step we took. We skirted around the Smithsonian, and walked along the mall between the Capitol and the Memorial column. Monday is Memorial Day, and this weekend thousands of people are in town for the long weekend. I would have liked to take advantage of some more of the wondeful museums that are dotted around the Mall, but free entry and a holiday weekend meant that they were heaving. We enjoyed a hot dog sitting on the grass outside the Museum of American History, watching families gambol past. By about two o'clock, the first family arguments were beginning to emerge, as hot, sweaty and tired mothers explained for the third time why Junior couldn't have another ice cream and why they had to keep walking because daddy wanted to go to the Air and Space Museum and daddy always gets his way.

Having eaten and without toddlers to drag, we were able to scamper along towards the White House, where hundreds of tourists were taking turns to peer through black metal fences that enclose the strikingly small heart of the empire. We walked around to the other side, and BMM was able to more or less acurately pin point the axis of evil... A small crowd of heart hearted protestors were in attendance: most tourists were too fired up with vitriolic patriotism on this weekend of rememberance to give them any time. I wondered what it was that so many thousands of American soldiers died and continue to die for if these exponents of the right to free speech only get harangued by their fellow citizens for highlighting the wrongs of an administration.

Our day was not completely art-less... near-by a small outpost of the Smithsonian Museum was showing a selection of paintings and objects made by the famous artists Grant Wood. Sketches, paintings and even a modified door from the painter's studio were exhibited. Most visitors were crowded around the most famous painting in the exhibition - the instantly recognisable 'American Gothic'. I was impressed to listen in on a very well informed security guard who was talking to some other guests about the piece, and explaining its importance in the artist's career.

We crossed through the quiet streets of downtown and headed towards Chinatown to eat fried noodles in a small restaurant. Unfortunately for the propriators, the waitress who served us spent more time telling people who came in from waiting outside for buses that the toilets were for the use of customers only. A shame because the food was good, and came in sufficient quantities for us to box up the remnants of our meal and to take it with us. We finished the day with a rapid tour of an excellent sustainable architecture exhibition at the National Building Centre, before going back to our green suburb by metro from Union Station. Just before going inside, we diverted our paths a few hundred metres to catch a glimpse of the Capitol building down a thick avenue of trees.

The elegant railway terminus was not a stop on my month long rail trip, so it was very nice to see inside the grand concourse that is covered by a beautiful coffered ceiling. One of the daily services from Florida was showing up on the screen as running almost twelve hours late. For once, I did not mind not being on a train. Our day in the capital of the USA came to an end very quickly. Drained by the heat, humidity and holiday weekend crowds, it was time to retreat. Tomorrow, we would return north...

The Wolf Trap Center

2006-05-26T19:55:00.000-04:00

Snapshot: with twenty-five minutes to spare...

2006-05-26T19:35:00.000-04:00

995km, fourteen hours and thirty minutes after leaving Montréal, FBV 2280 and two occupants arrive in time for the show. As you can see from this photograph, sleep exhaustion was beginning to combine with elation...

So, 'bout that road trip...

2006-05-26T10:00:00.000-04:00

Did you know that BMM is a fan of Garrison Keillor? I did, and have enjoyed installments from Lake Wobegon in Keillor's books and through BBC 7 transmissions of the weekly American Public Media radio show The Prairie Home Companion. If you haven't heard the show, it's a blissfully indulgent radio show: a memory of an era long lost: music, stories, bad jokes and the popular weekly installment of news from Lake Wobegon, MN. Last Tuesday, BMM and I were lazily looking for the Prarie Home Companion website to show Ryan something about the show. We saw that there was to be a recording of the show on Saturday, with an extra show the night before, in the Wolf Trap Foundation for Performing Arts in Vienna, Virginia, just outside Washington DC. The live broadcast was sold out, but seats were still available for the 20hr show on Friday...

So we had a bit of a credit card moment.

On Friday morning, at 5am, had you been walking down avenue du Mont Royal, you would have seen a young Englishman tearing a parking ticket off the window of a big Chevrolet sedan. With him was a young English girl, and two ride sharing Montréalers. Said parking ticket was consigned to the glove compartment until our return. As the sun rose above Montréal, the four travellers reset the odometer, and pulled away into the early morning.

Being British, I have reached the age of 23 with no real appreciation of what a 'road trip' is. If you get in a car in the UK and just drive in a straight line, you'll hit the sea in no more than six hours. It'll cost you about as much in fuel as it would to fly the same distance in business class. But North American kids grow up differently. Decades of unrealistically low gasoline prices have made driving long distances by car both affordable and sensible. Why burn thousands of litres of aviation fuel, when a car can take you there and give you the freedom to make your journey into a road trip? So as we crossed the Jacques Cartier bridge, BMM and I joined a generation of young adults who can say that just once, they got in the car and drove 1,000km for the fun of it. Admittedly we were both very excited by the prospect of seeing the Prairie Home Companion, but being able to get there in a big fat American car made it all the more entertaining.

Our route took us to the Canada - USA border (less than fifty minutes drive from Montréal) and then south through the beautiful Adirondack mountains upstate New York. Interstate 87 carried us for 280km towards Albany. This beautifully built and well maintained four lane freeway is a remarkable testament to the friendship between the USA and Canada: it goes virtually nowhere of any importance in New York state, and most of the cars travelling on it that I saw had Québec plates.

We dropped one ride sharing companion in Cohoes, just north of Troy, NY and took our first rest break at the obligatory branch of Dunkin' Donuts. The Donuts looked sickly but the coffee was good. We had one more stop to make outside New York City for our second ridesharing passenger, so we were quickly on our way again. Hitting the New York Thruway, which runs from Buffalo to New York City via Albany, we hit the real traffic and I saw developed the necessary driving attitude of your average American. This meant unlearning all I knew about safe stopping distances at 110km/h, and also the rule about not passing on the right.

A heavy rain storm and conflicting directions threw us off track a bit in New Jersey, but after an hour of flailing around through Newark's suburbs (and an embarassing incident when it took three attempts to pull the car into a service station with the fuel nozzel on the correct side). We deposited our second ride share passenger just off the New Jersey Turnpike, and then pointed the car south for our next big push.

Leaving the New York area at about 14.00, it became apparent that doing this trip on the Friday of Memorial Day Weekend might not have been a good idea. The traffic started to build, and then it started to slow. I don't want to dwell on the memories, but at 18.00 we were caught in a bottle neck at the Delaware Memorial Bridge that very nearly scuppered the whole weekend. With about 175km still to go, we were in grave danger of missing the start of the show. However, we managed to distract and entertain ourselves in our rented car (class 'E' or 'full size' I'll have you know) by trying to get the on board computer to call the box office. All North American cars produced by General Motors now come equipped with OnStar, a service that includes a telephone and emergency detection device (if the car is involved in an accident that deploys the airbags, the car alerts an emergency call centre, and an agent will dispatch the emergency services if the passengers fail to respond). It took about twenty minutes to place the call, since the voice activation system had trouble understanding our plummy British accents.

Eventually the traffic began to ease and speed up, and it was only passing Baltimore in Maryland that we began to realise we might just make it...

Roadtrip: Washington, DC

2006-05-26T05:00:00.000-04:00

Scenes from a suburb: final instalment

2006-04-19T13:21:00.000-04:00

At lunch time today, I walked down to the front entrance of our office building, and stepped out into brilliant warm sunshine. Spring is here, at last there is no doubt. People are outside again, having cigarettes in their lunch breaks. I've no idea where they all went in the winter; perhaps addicted Québecois have worked out how to quit for the three coldest months?

Away in the distance, the skyline of downtown Montréal was shimmering: fifty storey skyscrapers daring to match the height of the Mount Royal. My five month sojourn in the suburbs concludes today. I've handed in my notice to my employers, and to the agency that handles me. The former will have to manage without my skills in Microsoft Excel; the latter have to manage without a 53% mark-up on my salary. Another interesting and wholly different job has come to an end, and I can now add Excel-wizard to my list of previous occupations (petrol station attendant, delivery driver, printer technician, architect, supermarket stocker, barman, assistant librarian, call centre monkey etc etc etc).

I crossed Jean-Talon Est to the Marché Galleries d'Anjou for the last time, and did a final farewell to the commercial lots that have distracted me most days from 12:00 until 12:30 ... a few Dollarama purchases were made as a final gesture (some baby wipes and a sudoku book for a certain long journey that lies ahead).

My life has generally undergone a major change every six to nine months in recent years. Something happens and a change of scenery or circumstances follows. The next month will not just be a stand-alone holiday, but could also mark the change of my personal situation. Doors close, doors open, and James carries on exploring.

*j*

Time lapse: where's the poutine?

2006-04-15T23:30:00.000-04:00

Snapshot: There's the poutine :-)

2006-04-15T23:25:00.000-04:00

My my my, was it good...

*j*

Rumours of my departure are greatly exagerated

2006-04-14T15:39:00.000-04:00

A pleasant surprise was experienced at the 'guichet' today, when the pay off from several weeks of penny pinching was felt with a significantly healthier looking bank balance. This will give me a budget for my forth coming trip of about C$30 a day. Not much at all, but considering that I've already paid for all the travel, and that with only one exception, my accomodation is now sorted from coast to coast, that's not too bad at all. This time next week I will be on board the first train of fifteen, heading south towards Schenectady, NY, where the second will pick me up a few hours later.

So, for those of you were surprised to see me or hear me answer the telephone this week, and who are still confused, I'm not leaving until next Friday.

During my commute this week, I've been reading a dog-eared paperback book I found in a second hand bookstore in Plattsburg a few weeks ago. It's an old edition of Sticks & Stones: A Study of American Architecture and Civilization by Lewis Mumford, first published in 1924. This edition was revised by the author in the fifties. From time to time, certain extracts jump from the page and hit me between the eyes, for what was written more than eighty years ago by a naïve young architecture critic about North American architecture remains true and valid today.

One of the fundamental problems I have with the modern vernacular in North American planning and architecture is the fatal grid system. It's left it's mark on three quarters of this continent, from downtown Chicago to prairie Alberta: 90 degree angles as far as the eye can see, and a system designed to apportion land before it had been developed or farmed. Nothing quite sums up the difference between the European and American city than the simple difference you'll see on two maps... North American cities were planned with engineers and developers, each holding a straight edge and with a keen eye for a fast, direct, impressive straight line. The rush to settle and develop the land from east coast to west coast was not held up by architecture: this fundamental approach to designing field boundaries, villages and towns could be laid down as fast as the horses could get you there.

Mumford explains:

If the older cities of the sea-board were limited in their attempts to become metropolises by the fact that their downtown sections were originally laid out for villages, the villages of the middle west labored under just the opposite handicap; they had frequently acquired the framework of a metropolis before they had passed out of the physical state of a village. The gridiron plan was a sort of hand-me-down which the juvenile city was supposed to grow into and fill. That a city had any other purpose than to attract trade, to increase land values, and to grow is something that, if it uneasily entered the mind of an occasional Whitman, never exercised any hold upon the minds of the majority of the countrymen. For them, the place where the great city stands is the place of stretched wharves, and markets, and ships bringing goods from the ends of the earth; that, and nothing else.

*j*

Interpret this as you will...

2006-04-13T20:30:00.000-04:00

For absent friends. We are thinking of you every moment.

This afternoon I left work as usual just before five o'clock. Leaving the office, swiping out and descending the grim service stairs to the street takes about three minutes. Walking to the intersection of Jean-Talon and Galeries D'Anjou takes another thirty seconds. Therefore, I don't usually make the bus the passes my stop at one minute past five. Sometimes, if there is heavy traffic and the lights have changed to red before everyone has boarded, I can get on board. Others, I see it pulling away just as I leave the building.

The more that I think about it, this sight is not particularly new to me. I've pretty much always lived or worked close, but never right next to bus stops. In every case there has been the possibility of leaving my home or place of work to just see a bus stopping or pulling away. In both cases, there's no point running - you just won't make it. You just have to walk towards it calmly knowing it's already gone.

This approach doesn't usually let me down, especially since it allows a smug sense of self rightous satisfaction when people run past me to catch a bus metro train and miss it. If it were a trans-Atlantic flight or a VIA Rail train that only runs three times a week, then I'd understand. But it's not. And there'll be another one in a few minutes.

Today, however, when I saw the bus (still waiting for the lights to turn) I decided to break my normal composure and run for it. A lady was waiting at the intersection to cross Jean Talon. She saw me approaching, and realised fairly quickly it was the bus I was running for (there not being much else worth running towards in the area where I work). So she turned and did something very kind. She walked over the bus, and knocked on the side window that is in front of the front set of doors to get the driver's attention. And when she pointed to my heaving sweating figure, the driver opened his doors for me. As I flew past the woman, we exchanged smiles, I expressed a breathless 'merci'. She smiled a smile that was probably wider than mine, and replied 'Bienvenue'. I hopped on board, and we pulled away before the doors were even closed.

Following a phone call that had punched me hard in the chest earlier that afternoon, I was already buzzing with troubled thoughts about the importance of the smallest impulses and decisions in our lives. They can bring so much happiness, and they can bring even more sadness. We make these decisions every second or every day, never capable of comprehending the consequences. And then, one time in a million, the consequences are worse than our most secret nightmares.

Now is the time for forgeting the regretable decisions, and celebrating the joyous, exciting and brilliant choices. Without them, there would be no life to celebrate.

*j*

Please Mr. Mountie, let my girlfriend in...

2006-04-11T11:14:00.000-04:00

I first came to Canada in 2002, for some exploration of the prairies and one heck of a stag night / hen night / Ukranian wedding / party / hangover in rural Alberta. Without much choice in terms of travel options, I flew very expensively with American Airlines from Manchester to Calgary, via Chicago. After the long trans-Atlantic flight in a cramped centre-section seat, my very first view of North America was had by craning my neck round and looking across three other passengers, and out of a small window in the aeroplane's fuselage. We approached O'Hare International Airport exactly in line with the city's grid of streets, and as we descended towards the airport, I watched block after block of parallel suburban streets flash past beneath us, each stretching away to an indiscernable point of infiniti, hidden by the smog that hugged the ground in the August heat.

In less than two weeks, I will be returning to Chicago with enough time to actually see the city, only this time without the benefit of a few thousand feet to appreciate the masterplanning of the metropolis... will it be as enthralling to me as it was then, when I didn't even have time to leave the airport?

The second flight was on a smaller regional jet. I sat next to a very large (by my standard) American business man. After take off, he ordered a whiskey from the stewardess. But before he had placed it on the flimsy fold down table, he was asleep. He slept soundly, not touching his drink, all the way to Calgary (a flight of three and a half hours). I was still bemused to see anyone ask for a whiskey with that much ice. I watched it slowly melt and dillute, until we began our descent into Calgary and he woke up. He knocked back the whiskey, smiled at me and continued to block my view for the most scenic part of the flight, as we banked over mile upon mile of suburban streets, drawn like listless doodles on the vast prairie fields that were being appropriated by the rapidly expanding city.

At Montréal Trudeau airport the customs officers are dressed smartly but soberly, seemingly in uniforms designed to match the new arrivals terminal. But at Calgary Airport, when I came forward with my passport and a mental list of reasons why I should be allowed to enter the country on holiday, I was faced with a mountie. A genuine Canadian mountie, wearing a red blazer and a hat. It wasn't the most practical of uniforms, but it certainly stunned everyone was arriving for the first time, and probably confirmed many suspicions of the more cynical Americans amongst the passengers.

Despite the usual questions, I was allowed in (fools), A firm grip on the nation's security was delivered with sympathy and a friendly smile.

And a cowboy hat.

So, Mr. Mountie, whichever one of you is on duty at Halifax International Airport on the afternoon of Sunday 14 May, please look kindly upon my girlfriend. If you let me in, you shouldn't even have to take a second glance at her :)

*j*

Chaque lundi...

2006-04-10T21:39:00.000-04:00

...Mélisse and I can be found at the same table in the Quincallerie on Rachel. It's time for our weekly language exchange; French one week and English the next. On Uli's recommendation, we started out in a certain St. Denis tea lounge, but let's just say that Mélisse and I prefer a more alcohol-oriented environment. It makes the conversation flow a little more easily when we've both had a long day. And this trendy place does nicely. The barmaid who works on Monday evenings even recognises us, and after just a couple of weeks knows what our drinks are without prompting (rousse for me, blonde for Mélisse).

We talk about our jobs, our travels, our futures (apparently I shouldn't go to Strasbourg, although Mélisse hasn't actually been herself) and the lives around us. We've both been here a few months now, and we've both adapted our Montréal dreams to cope with the Montréal reality. And we're happy. We've not been beaten. I'm speaking more French, and Mélisse is speaking more English. We have just enough to get by and to enjoy ourselves... things are good. I felt my spirits lift here this evening. Not every nagging question has an answer, but since I've got this far without too many problems, I reckon things will be ok.

*j*

Snapshot: me

2006-04-09T16:39:00.000-04:00

BM recently complained that there weren't any good photos of me on this blog. The best she could find was this one... *shudder*. I hope this one compensates for it...

*j*

Oh Beth...

2006-04-08T00:54:00.000-04:00

You might remember, a little while back, when I waxed lyrical about Belle and Sebastian prior to their recent concert in Montréal. B+S have been with me through thick and thin for the last ten years, so as a fan of their music I reserve the right to be forgiving if I don't entirely agree with the new direction of their music.

During the B+S gig at the Metropolis, here in Montréal back in February, the band let slip their lack of confidence in the said 'new direction' with a revealing bit of musical programming. After a belting opening number ('The State That I Am In') that got everyone's head bopping and feet tapping, they slipped into the dangerous new-song-old-song pattern. They tried to keep the long term fans happy by propping up less successful new material with the classics. And it worked. Sort of. We didn't mind, but we knew what they were up to, and we'll be watching with interest to see what the next album sounds like.

Tonight, however, there was no propping up going on. Ryan, Jonathan and I headed down to Club Soda on Saint Laurent for a stunning little night out, with my long term musical love, Beth Orton. If B+S have been with me for a good ten years, then Beth's not far behind with a personal connection stretching back to 1999 or 2000, when our open Saturday morning English class allowed students to bring in a piece of music to start the day. I owe a great debt to a man named Duncan who shares my surname: he brought us 'Blood Red River' - a dark little track that is often overlooked from the album 'Central Reservation'. I was hooked, and have been with Beth ever since. In fact, tonight's gig marked a stepping stone - she is the only musician I've been to see live twice. The last time was a one night gig at the Electric Ballroom in Camden in (?) 2002 or 2003, when I was towing along behind a now ex-girlfriend. That was a great night, and tonight more than matched the impression of the first.

When we arrived, I was astonished by the perfect dimensions and atmosphere of the club - Willy Mason was just getting going with the support show (with a talented young violinist whose name I did not catch - please leave a comment if you were there and know her name). The decor was cosy (everything in deep red, even the strings of lights slung loosely from the upper mouth of the stage to the back wall... and the music was top notch. I didn't expect such a powerful warm up act ... I would gladly pay the same again just to see Willy Mason. His alt-country tunes set a good context - where do we place Beth Orton's music, now that her sound has evolved from vulnerable wavering heartbreak to confident bluesy punch. I don't care if that last sentence doesn't make sense... it's late, I'm tired and I'm trying hard to get down the emotions I felt tonight before they evaporate in the cold early hours. Beth belongs in the alt-country category, but coming from England (and from the east of England like me) her American influences are more than just vernacular... they're something that has been applied over an already gutsy folk tradition....

During the concert, however, I often started thinking of another young lady far away... and my arm started to rise up in front of me, as if to describe the embrace I could imagine as we both faced the stage, each pair of eyes fixated on the only musician on stage wearing white (neat trick to enrapture an audience, don't you think). The songs of love and heartbreak that Beth Orton sings hit you slowly, but when they get you they make your limbs tremble and they make your feet undermine your balance.

I need to sleep.

*j*

Edited on 10 April to clarify that in the last pargraph, I am refering to my love for BM, not Beth Orton... sorry, just drunk typing, not a revelation of betrayal, I promise :)

I don't want to, but now I can...

2006-04-05T13:29:00.000-04:00

My laptop ownership cycle generally lasts about years. It's not down to poor build quality or a propensity to drop them on concrete surfaces after twenty-four months of ownership, but a conscious decision. It seems to me that two years is a reasonable period of time in which to buy an Apple laptop new, use it and sell it on for about 60% or more of it's original value. And each time I use the proceeds from the sale of the last one, and top it up with more recent savings to get a slightly better model. Maybe not financially sensible, but it allows me to progress up the Apple line of computers at a steady pace.

And there's big news released today from Apple Computer about Boot Camp, a small piece of software that will be integrated into the next version of the Apple system (codenamed 'Leopard', previewing this August). And what it does is remarkably simple but earth shakingly important: new Intel-based Macs can be smoothly and effeciently partitioned to run both Macintosh and Microsoft Windows (yep, including Vista, whenever they iron out the bugs and release the damn thing) on the same hard drive. Now when you press the sexy silky smooth power button on your new Mac, you get a typically-crystal clear Mac start up screen, offering you two buttons to click on: Windows or Mac.

There have been Windows emulators for the Mac before, but they've been slow, unreliable and very inefficient. This is ground-up support for Windows on the Mac. In fact, it's not even Windows 'on' the Mac, it's Windows alongside the Mac, but on just one machine.

This changes everything, especially for architects... as I commented on TUAW's blog today:

Architects generally start business with one or two Macs (they just do... it seems to be a cultural thing!) and as their business grows, so does the number of Macs. But as design projects get bigger and more complex, and the input of engineering based consultants gets more important, compatibility of design files with more folk from a more technical background is increasingly important.

No matter how much better the Mac environment and system is, many business users are forced to switch to PCs to be able to be 100% compatible with the specialist software used by other team members or consultants. In architecture, the line has always been drawn with AutoCAD, a hideously outmoded but popular drafting program that has morphed from an piece of engineering software to a piece of architectural design software. It's the preferred weapon of choice for most engineers and architectural consultants. But trendy ol' chunky-spectacle-and-black-roll-neck-sweater-wearing architects have always been left out in the cold. No Mac version means us Saab drivers have to box up the iMac and get a grey Windoze box under the desk.

Not any more. I am already perusing the Apple online store, and thinking about what I'll spend my money on next, when my current Powerbook will be due to move on. By then, the launch bugs of Boot Camp, Mac OS Leopard and the MacBookPro line will be just distant memories, and I won't have to switch machines to crunch those drawings.

*j*

Smiling until it hurt...

2006-04-02T19:08:00.000-04:00

This week Laura went looking for restaurant reviews on the internet. She was looking for somewhere on the Plateau for Ulli's farewell meal. After living in the du Buillon apartment since last autumn, it was time for a suitable send off as she moved her mattress, books and immense collection of tea down Mont Royal to our apartment. Laura found a slightly pretentiously written but informative review relating to the Plateau's best little French restaurant, Le P'tit Plateau...

In a quiet but very central location (one block from the intersection of Mont-Royal and St. Denis) is this delightful restaurant. The atmosphere is perfect - a small room with open kitchen and honest decoration. Service very amenable, especially as we arrived after the start of the second sittings (at 1830 and 2030... go for the second so you aren't rushed to clear your table). Don't forget to bring your own wine. Entrées excellent: duck pâté perfect and grilled goats cheese to die for. Main courses - duck for me and salmon for my partner (from that day's menu of just six: a sure sign of a confident kitchen) were spot on. Maybe too fussy - lots of different but utterly agreeable flavours in the vegetables and intense sauces, but that's good solid French cuisine for you and it was a dream. For desert, the crème brulée is a simple delight, followed by good firm espressos. Bill for two, three courses (plus salad to start) came to $125 including service. Very worth while, perfect romantic night out for young, middle aged or older lovers.

And then she noted that the review was contributed by a Yahoo Travel user called 'jamesbrownontheroad'. Hmmm. Who could that be? Last January, Beatrice and I spent a three figure sum in the aforementioned establishment for an frighteningly perfect meal for two... the most wondrous grilled goat's cheese, an arrangement of vegetables and duck that almost made my legs melt and the finest crême brulée I have ever teasted. Laura was wise to follow my recommendation, and she, Mélisse and Ulli went out on Saturday for the second sitting at Le P'tit Plateau. I met up with them afterwards for a few beverages in le Boudoir, on Mont Royal Est.

And did they enjoy it? I shall just say that Laura was complaining of 'face cramp' from the smile she had been unable to shift from her face during the meal. Ulli was still rubbing her stomach and groaning with satisfaction the next morning at breakfast. And I think Mélisse had, for a brief moment, forgotten how far away from France she really was.

We drank, talked, danced briefly and then christened Ulli's new room with a half hearted pyjama party. Half hearted because no-one was wearing pyjamas, and Ulli feel asleep as soon as she lay down on her new bed. The sky was turning blue again as I went to bed, pausing only when I realised that, for once, it was a reasonable hour to call my girlfriend. Yep, the drunken phone calls have started again, although at least now there's no risk of me waking her up...

*j*

Now we are three...

2006-04-01T17:00:00.000-05:00

With Spring comes more change to the apartment. As some of the plants begin to take brief sojourns in the mild spring sunshine outside on the balcony, Ryan and I have been cleaning and moving furniture around to make room for a new lodger. In the game of apartment-musical-chairs, Ulli is now living here once more. The move more than halves her rent, and means that our recently arrived friend Mélisse will not be thrown out onto the street when Anna returns to the du Buillon apartment. Confused? Don't worry, it makes sense to us.

On Friday evening I got off the métro a few stops early at Beaudry station (which might one day be re-named Beaudry-Village, it seems) and walked from the bustling strip of St. Catherine up onto the plateau. I skipped three stations and a frenzied rush hour change of trains at Berri-UQAM in exchange for a refreshing thirty minute walk through some of Montréal's prettiest neighbourhoods. I've done this on two evenings now, and plan to do it much more to maintain a healthy balance between commuting by métro, bus and foot. The early warm weather has banished Montréal's sizeable community of winter coats the dusty cupboards for the next six months, and in the gay village, everyone was out, about, and seeming much more beautiful than when wrapped up in winter gear. For Montréal's unattached population of beautiful young men, cruising on the streets of Montréal involves much less guessing of what might be under all those layers.

I zig-zagged through the side streets between Ontario, Maisonneuve and Sherbrooke, and then walked along the edge of Parc la Fontaine towards avenue du Mont Royal. The months of litter, grit and detritus concealed by layers of (now melted) snow and ice remain, and while it is fairly scummy, I don't mind a bit of urban grime. When I came home I found the apartment in a state of frenzied cleaning: furniture had been displaced, the windows were all open and the cats were perched on stable vantage points wondering what the hell was going on.

Today our apartment's (human) population has grown to three. The back room beside the kitchen has been converted from single purpose television room into Ulli's nest. The existing futon now has her new mattress on it (you should have seen us getting that one off the 97 bus) and her table has been re-assembled by the window. The television has moved to the studio, but I suspect we will soon be moving it to a dark corner. The shelves above the kitchen sink are heaving with exotic teas (how does she expect to drink them all before she leaves us on 28 June...? *snf* so soon...)

When the time came for a short break, we unfolded the balcony chairs and moved onto the flat roof. Eleven months ago, when I came to this apartment for the first time, Ryan, Kenton and I had sat out here in the same situation: a beautifully warm sunny spring evening, with a bottle of beer each and an amazing few of the blue sky turning pink. The smell from the roof top ventilation shafts (from the restaurant below us) brought back sensory memories of last May, and the sounds of people in the streets and ruelles below washed back from the past. Spring has begun, and many changes are a foot. It's good to have three of us here.

Spring fever...

2006-03-29T21:37:00.000-05:00

At lunch time today, I went for a walk along rue Jean-Talon to browse in a couple of the pile-em-high grocery stores. One was Wal-Mart, the other was one belonging to the budget chain of the company I work for. Ours was bright, modern, clean and well stocked with fresh produce in the 'Marché' half of the store. It was, however, largely empty. Wal-Mart, by comparison, was depressingly crowded to the roof. Not just with shoppers, but with merchandise (bathroom tissue, nappies, tyres... you name it) piled in the aisles.

Outside in the parking lots, the very last of Montréal's snow is finally melting (we are predicted 16C tomorrow) under the warm rays of a sun shining in clean blue skies. In front of this Sears Décor you can see the sad impression the snow gives. As the snow is ploughed throughout the winter, it picks up the grit spread to provide grip in icy weather (not to mention litter and the odd shopping trolley). These massive banks of snow (sometimes three or four metres tall... see this post for more) are now receding and reducing, but the grit and litter and shopping carts remain. What was once a shining white mountain has reduced to a dirty grey mass. Winter has passed too quickly this year, and it has left some ugly reminders.

Since it's spring, things are changing. I put it down in some part to this magical week, during which Europe has advanced to summer time, but in which North America will remain without daylight saving for until next weekend. Everything is buzzing... Ryan and I have both independently started cleaning and bustling around the apartment in a frenzied state, desirous of some kind of change. Some of the plants we have come closest to killing off (despite love, attention and water) are now on the balcony benefitting from sun and fresh air. The cats are celebrating the warmer weather by molting hair at an incredible rate, and we remain amazed that there is anything left of Cucu (who molts all year round) considering the amount of hair she is leaving on anything that touches or strokes her. And we hear that across the Atlantic, French society is beginning to grind to a halt and fall apart. Simmering sentiments of angst have found an outlet in the streets, which is surely a more enjoyable and social thing to do now that the days are getting longer.

Most weeknights at 2300hr, I listen to the Prémiere Chaîne of Société Radio-Canada broadcast the news from Radio France Internationale in Paris. For an organisation so renowed for it's journalism and news reporting, no-one in the SRC seemed to have noticed that due to stike action, the RFI programme from Paris was replaced tonight with a pre-programmed selection of music. I am left without my nightly news from Europe, and without the personal amusement of hearing the RFI announcer remind me that Paris is now seven hours ahead of us. As I lie here in my bed typing this post before I turn the light off, a distant friend in Paris will soon be getting up to go to work (assuming the architects haven't gone on strike that is...)

*j*

From somewhere to somewhere, via nowhere

2006-03-27T09:26:00.000-05:00

"SOUTHBOUND... SOUTHBOUND..." The grey-haired conductor heaves his voice across the platform, just in case the six passengers joining train 68 might have mistaken this train for the only other passenger service to pass through Plattsburgh, New York today; the northbound 71 back to Montréal, which will arrive in a few hours time. I watch as the little yellow steps are taken away from the edge of the track, and the train manager calls "Train 68: Highball" through his radio. At the other end of the five carraige train, a rumbling whine picks up, and the shabby but still sleek silver train disappears around a corner and out of view. A handful of college students disperse, returning to warmer student accomodation after saying farewell to weekending friends from New York City.

I climb up a grassy embankment and find myself on an empty street, residential on one side and with a view across the railway track to the Plattsburgh Water Pollution Control Plant on the other. Not owning a car, and prefering more esoteric days out from Montréal, I've found myself here, in upstate New York, on a day trip to the USA. For a British kid who grew up in awe of the idea of trans-Atlantic flights to New York and Florida, I can still get a kick out of the proximity of the USA to my new home in Montréal. In search of middle America, I've come here.

Small town America defines the USA, and the USA defines small town America. There are clean, broad, well maintained streets. There's a recently closed movie theatre with the old projector leaning against the wall in the darkened and partly demolished foyer. There are few pedestrians on a Sunday stroll. Yellow traffic signals hang over intersections. Useful street signs advise you to 'Yield to the Blind' and photocopied placards in shop windows encourage denizens to 'Stop Hate'. All British people have some sort of love affair with the USA, even if they resent the very idea of itself that this nation currently projects. My love affair is declared and fulfilled here, on quiet Sunday afternoons in the places trans-Atlantic tourists have no reason to visit.

I find a crowded looking second hand bookstore that could distract me for hours. I desperately try to find one paperback so that I can get out without spending too much time. A old copy of Lewis Mumford's 'Sticks and Stones - a history of American Architecture and Culture' grabs my eye, and I buy it with the other essential souvenirs of esoteric day-trip: the ugliest postcard I can find (the University of Plattsburgh's concrete campus) and a copy of yesterday's local paper, the 'Press-Republican'. To complete the picture, the weekly edition of the 'Prairie Home Companion' is on the radio.

A cluster of early twentieth century walk-up buildings channel the wind in between the streets, very rarely whipping up any litter (because there is none). The two large churches in the town centre are empty after their morning services, and the doors are firmly closed. Few shops and restaurants are open. The one diner that looked set to satisfy my desire for some good old mom-and-pop cuisine (probably with free refills of weak black coffee) looked promising, but it closes at lunchtime on Sundays.

The schedule of Amtrak's Adirondack service (daily between Montréal and New York, one way fares to New York US$60 adult, US$51 student; Montréal to Plattsburgh US$16 and US$13.60) gives Montréal based visitors to Plattsburgh two hours and fifteen minutes between trains; with a bit less on Sundays. However, forced to run on privately owned tracks that give priority to freight trains, Amtrak are not renowned for their time-keeping. Don't be surprised if you turn up at an Amtrak station for a scheduled departure and find it empty. Regular passengers know to call a 1-800 number and speak with Julie, Amtrak's automated agent, to get accurate train running information before even showing up. I find a payphone without difficulty, but Julie does seem to have problems with my accent...

"And you want to know the train status for which station?"
"Plattsburgh, New York"
"I think you said Fort Edward, New York. Is that correct?"

Despite some personal misgivings, I'm drawn to the only remaining option for lunch: Geoffrey's British Pub on the corner of Broad and Peru Streets. A clear six out of ten is awarded for effort, but such mis-interpreted items on the menu as 'Toad-in-a-hole' ('a type of British sausage roll made with filo pastry') only emphasise the sense of removal.

"So, can I get you something to eat?"
"Yes, I'll have the Ploughman's Lunch, please..."
"Pardon me?"
"The Ploughman's Lunch."
"I'm really sorry, what did you say?"

We huddle over the menu, and I find the item.

"OHHHH.... the PloughMAN's Lunch. And would you like something to drink?"
"A pint of Old Speckled Hen, please."
"Pardon me?"
"That one there..."

I don't rush back to the station. Sure enough the station attendant has a laminated sign in the window of the waiting room advising that the train is expected sometime after 3.00pm (thirty minutes late). After another verbal contretemps with Julie, I eventually extract the information that the train should pull in at 3.07pm.

With a few minutes to spare, I walk down to the docks, and meander through a yard of yachts and small boats that are wintering out of the icy water on their trailers. The sky is grey, and Lake Champlain is greyer, but in the distance across the water the mountains of Vermont seem to bring shades of blue to this monochrome scene. I turn on my heels, and walk back through the crisp air, gulls cawing above my head, to sit outside the station and wait for my train. For such an unreliable service, Julie's prediction was frighteningly accurate. I climbed up into the warm carraige, found a vast squishy coach class seat, and watched the landscape of upstate New York slip by, becoming Québec at some indiscernable point between the USA and Canadian customs points. As we waited for everyone to be checked, the sun came out.

*j*

Spring approaches...

2006-03-26T01:00:00.000-05:00

...and it's warm enough (just) to dry clothes outside.

*j*

Launch of the Space Shuttle Caffeine

2006-03-25T14:07:00.000-05:00

When someone comes to visit, we feel obliged to do a number of Montréal specific activities. A pichet and a poutine; a walk through the Mont-Royal Park etc. Today is Gem's last full day in the city, so while Ryan went off to spend seven hours 'helping the deaf', Gem and I took the métro to Jean-Talon Market. I've not been since before Christmas, finding the reduced size of the market a little depressing and crowded inside the temporary winter walls. I've also become a regular at a number of fresh food stores on avenue du Mont Royal instead, finding equal quality and prices right on my doorstep.

But I was happy to show this Montréal landmark this morning, because we needed to get something that's a little harder to find on Mont Royal. Between Jean-Talon métro and the market is a crowded little shop that is piled high with cheap electrical goods. No famous brand-names here, just cheap and cheerful important Chinese household electricals that may or may not have fallen off the back of a truck during some part of their round the world journey to Montréal. This week, during a particularly vigorous session of dish washing, I managed to break the glass jug of Charlotte's coffee maker. Various enquiries this week have made me realise the cost of a replacement jug is about equal to the cost of a new coffee maker. Much to my chagrin, I am now a participant in this horrid throw-it-away consumer culture (although I will hold on to the functioning coffee maker in case we see a jug that's affordable).

In a moment of tough decisions that reminded me of my car buying dilemma (see God Bless All Who Sail In Her for the result of my Skoda versus Saab decision), I was forced to choose between a) white-and-frumpy or b) shiny-and-sexy (in as much as a coffee maker can be either frumpy or sexy, that is).

So here she is. And bloody hell, is that one intimidating coffee maker. The summary of features on the box pretty much explains the amount of excitement we're going to be having every morning from now on.

Special Cleaning Cycle - makes cleaning your coffeemaker quick and easy

On/Off Indicator Light - Lets you know when your coffeemaker is "on" and "off"

2-Hour Auto Shut Off - Keeps your coffee hot for two hours then automatically shuts off

Brew Strength Selector - Adjust the brewing time to create a more full flavoured coffee

Adjustable Temperature Warmer Plate Control - Lets you keep coffee at the temperature you like after brewing

Audible Ready Signal - Beeps when your coffee is ready

etc etc etc etc etc

*j*

Excelling in the workplace...

2006-03-24T11:21:00.000-05:00

Hey... look at this... with some help from A.L, my new best when it comes to unnecessarilly long and complex Excel formulas:

=SI(MAX(R4;T4;V4;X4;Z4;AB4;AD4;AF4)-MIN(R4;T4;V4;X4;Z4;AB4;AD4;AF4)=0;"";
(MAX(R4;T4;V4;X4;Z4;AB4;AD4;AF4)-MIN(R4;T4;V4;X4;Z4;AB4;AD4;AF4))/
(MIN(R4;T4;V4;X4;Z4;AB4;AD4;AF44)))

Now we're sucking diesel... ;)

*j*

Snapshot: Thursday at Quincailerie

2006-03-23T23:30:00.002-05:00

Ryan and Ulli at the Quincailerie Bar, rue Rachel Est, Thursday evening (photo by Mélisse).

Not everything changes...

2006-03-23T13:16:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday night, we came home from our French class to find someone had let themselves into our apartment, and was zizzing in the spare bed. Which was a good thing, because for a while I didn't think our darling Gem would be able to decipher my unnecessarily complex directions or find the cunningly hidden key to get her into the apartment. But I underestimated her energy, cunning, and sense of direction that got her from the airport to our place via two buses, a métro train and a bit of old fashioned walking. She was a little zonked by the flight (two hours longer than she was apparently expecting... maybe Stephen Harper is pulling Montréal closer to Alberta?) so we chatted for a little while and let her sleep off the time zones.

The flexibility of being an agency temp allows me to take unpaid days off here and there, so that's just what I did on Wednesday. To fuel her for a day of Montréaling, we had breakfast at the Mont Royal Binerie (see He was not wrong... for my last visit) and set out to ascend to the top of the Mont Royal mountain. Despite some adverse weather conditions (clear blue sky, warm temperature but solid ice under a centimetre of snow on the mountain's normally traversable paths) we made it to the top, and crunched our way along deserted paths through the bare trees until we reached the pavilion that overlooks the downtown district. Only a troupe of recent mothers pushing three wheeled prams on their post-natal exercise circuit disturbed the peace.

We returned to the plateau by bus, and walked the length of Boulevard Saint Laurent. We meandered (as much as one can meander on a dead-straight street), stopping to divert down pretty side streets, to peer into shop windows and to inhale the salty smell of smoked beef piled up in the window of Schwartz's Deli. Chinatown was reached sooner than I expected, and we paused to take some tea and to check for prizes under the rim of our paper cups in a cheap and cheerful coffee shop (no luck... neither a Toyota Rav-4 nor a Broil King barbeque was found). In the old town we saw firemen, tourists and a film set being prepared on the ice in one of the inlets of the port. By the time we had turned west again, and found ourselves near Central Station, our legs had had enough.

So we went to the pub, which is not easy at 14h30, because unlike in Britain not many hostelries seem to be open here in the early afternoon. And we talked, talked and talked. I had forgotten just how much there has been in the back of my mind about our first year in Sheffield (almost five years have passed since we three first met), about what's happened to our mutual friends, and what will happen to all of us now we have largely left the sheltered world of academia.

And over two pints of Rousse, five bottles of Boréale Dorée, two bottles of Fin-du-Monde, a pichet of Rousse and big plate of poutine (shared with Ryan who by now had finished work), three pints of something else, a pichet of Rickard's that tasted foul, three cosmopolitains, a game of pool and (to finish off) three glasses of Bailey's-look-a-like, we properly caught up where we had left off.

Pity the one member of the household who had to get up at 6h30 this morning to go to work on his synergies...

*j*

Before or after the crash?

2006-03-22T15:06:00.000-05:00

Just in case you thought I was turning into a Saab nut who wouldn't consider driving anything else, I saw this post over on UKSaabs and remembered that it's not just Saabs that look after you in accident. Believe it or not, this 740 saloon has been in rather messy crash, and rolled rather violently two times, ending up in a field. The driver lost control during an (admittedly quite light) snowstorm last weekend. The owner, who repairs cars for a living, explains...

One of our customers owns an MGF which has recently been into the main dealers (whose initials are the same as Air Conditioning Laughing ) for a new head gasket. A fairly common problem with these. Sadly, that is all they did, and did not have the head skimmed, so the new gasket has blown. Fed up with clowns, he brought it to us to have it done properly. We lent him the Ovlov whilst the MG is fixed.

In the light snow we had on Wednesday night, he lost it on a bend and rolled it twice, ending up on its wheels. There is not a straight panel left, and the police said if he had been in his MG he would be dead. As it was, he opened the door and walked away unscathed.

Note also, if you will, note one window has broken, and that not one part of the car's structure has buckled. Impressive, huh?

*j*

The Simpsons and Canada...

2006-03-20T13:18:00.000-05:00

You may snigger... but it matters a great deal to all Canadians when a character in The Simpsons makes a reference to, or a joke about the true land of the free.

For example: season 6 episode 19 "The PTA Disbands", during which Marge takes up a teaching position at Springfield Elementary...

Homer: [expansive] So, how was everybody's day at school?
Bart: Horrifying!
Lisa: Pointless!
Marge: Exhausting. It took the children forty minutes to locate Canada on the map.
Homer: Marge, anyone can miss Canada, all tucked away down there.

Punch the blog...

2006-03-19T14:31:00.000-05:00

It's not been a good week it seems, over at Blogger HQ, where various bits of hardware have been playing up. It seems that the software that powers this online journal of my life (and many thousands of other amateur and pro bloggers) has also been working only sporadically. Today, I've had many problems uploading photos and text to share with you on this blog or my new pet project. Earlier this week, all the letters with accents (acute, grave, umlaut etc) on my blog have disappeared and been replaced with gobble-di-gook. I don't know exactly why this has happened, but I am looking into it, and will try and sort that out... it may mean manually editing every one of my 125 posts and replacing each accented letter with an old fashioned HTML code.

And for those of you still using Internet Explorer, I've given up on ever being able to understand exactly why text on the page disappears and appears when you scroll: broadly accepted geek-wisdom seems to suggest that if you're suffering, you should ditch IE for a more modern browser such as Firefox or Safari. The code of this page is compliant with all standards, it's just a known bug with IE, which is a programme Microsoft don't really support or develop any more.

Hope you like the bacon, photographed a few weeks ago as I finished off a film I had started in New York. I didn't have any bacon, or eggs, or pancakes, or tomatoes this morning, since Ryan's been doing a course all weekend and I can't justify a weekend fry without someone else in the apartment to share the grease.

Gem arrives on Tuesday... looking forward to seeing Montreal through the eyes of a first time visitor once more. That's how we should see the world all the time, don't you think?

*j*

Got my photos back...

2006-03-18T13:00:00.000-05:00

That'll be me then...

*j*

From Mornington Crescent to Lucien L'Allier

2006-03-16T14:10:00.001-05:00

A lazy walk home yesterday on my mid-week night off (no French lesson, language exchange or social commitments to be concerned with). Just time to do my homework, make a few trans-Atlantic phone calls (to the same person... we just got cut off a few times mid-sentence) and to brush even more hair off Cucu. I've had the luxury of an extra day off this week, because all my colleagues escaped the office for two days for a financial planning meeting. Without them to drip feed me work, I was surplus to requirements and was able to a pleasant lie-in the morning after Ulli's rather fluid wine and cheese party... lucky, really, because I don't think Ulli and co. appreciate just how difficult it is for us office workers to attend such trendy weekday soirées.

A bit of browsing around Wikipedia and some flicking through Stromvold's seminal work (I found a rare paperback copy in Westmount last weekend) has lead me to the discovery of a Montréal version of the famous game called Mornington Crescent. It's hard to discern when the game emigrated and integrated into Québecois society, but it seems to have been around for quite some time. Despite some suggestions to the contrary, the game uses Lucien L'Allier as the target, and if played correctly employs a fearsomely complex local adaptation of the rules. I shan't bore you with the details, but needless to say there are no doubles, no shuffles, no nid, and highway forty can be used as a counter-play. Additionally a double bind applies to all AMT suburban rail stations.

You may not be familiar with the Montréal version, but if in doubt you can refer to the map above (click to enlarge). Perhaps I could get the ball rolling with:

Acadie

Please leave your next move (and a clear description of the technique employed) by clicking on the comments link below, and don't be tempted to drop yourself in spoon straight away with Radisson, because that would be most unfortunate.

*j*

5215km, 358 days...

2006-03-15T11:28:00.000-05:00

Yesterday (Tuesday March 14, 2006) marked an important landmark. I have passed the halfway point. I've been in Montréal for almost six months, and by a count of the days yesterday was the exact mid-point of my 358 day stay. I celebrated modestly by doing some laundry, finishing my French homework, making a salad for lunch and buying some flour.

Time flies, eh? :-)

*j*

...onthehardshoulder

2006-03-15T08:36:00.000-05:00

Apologies for the 36 hours or so during which 'ontheroad' went offline. The Blogger engine ate up and spat out my template, and I'm now in the process of rebuilding it.

*j*

Nice to come home to you...

2006-03-14T11:43:00.000-05:00

After a very good wine and cheese birthday party at Ulli's (ratio of bottles of wine to people about 1 : 1, ratio of fine cheeses to people about 1.5 : 1) Ryan and I walked back down a misty avenue du Mont Royal in the fresh night time air. We came back to the apartment with our metaphorical tails between our legs: Ben Z, Caca, Cucu and Toast were most interested to hear our excuses as to where we had been. I tried to explain the fine goat's cheese, the emmental, the brie, the salad, the cross-eyed dead teddy bear hanging beneath near perfectly balanced helium balloons, the seven bottles of wine, the rubbery yoga mat, the bits of my body that had been used to demonstrate yogic massage techniques and the really annoying way in which the conversation would grind to a halt when everyone took out a digital camera to photograph everyone else taking photos with digital cameras. The four of them listened, but I don't think they took it in. I was forgiven, and after drinking a pint or two of water (hehehe, red wine can't stop me...) I turned the last lights off in the apartment and retreated to my bedroom.

This was the sight that was waiting for me. Three ladies, all patiently waiting for me to finish my nocturnal routines and to re-create the rolling landscape I form every night under my sheets. The bedside light went off, and peaceful purring lulled me to sleep.

Happy birthday Ulli... same time, (different place) next year?

*j*

Damned Canadian winter...

2006-03-11T12:41:00.000-05:00

Opening the door...

2006-03-11T12:31:00.000-05:00

This morning I did my usual cours de samedi matin along avenue du Mont Royal, buying veal sausages for Sunday night, chese for Ulli's wine and cheese themed birthday celebrations on Monday, and assorted cheap fruit and veg for me for the rest of the week. The weather has turned remarkably fine. Temperatures rose towards the end of this week, and Thursday and Friday were tarnished by (shock horror) rain. But today the sky is largely clear, and after a few minutes carrying my heavy shopping bag back to the apartment, I was sweating from the warmth.

When I got home I had a bite to eat, treated myself to some English language radio, and tackled last night's washing up (the only downside from Ryan's funky-fusion-curry-stir-fry last night. For the first time in weeks, I opened wide the door to the balcony and let the sounds of the Plateau flood in. Even from our sheltered and private balcony I could hear the sounds of the city. Church bells in the distance, police sirens, traffic passing on Boyer, someone clearing his throat while walking down the ruelle behind our apartment. As I soaked, soaped and scrubbed the pans, memories flooded back from my first visit to this apartment back in May 2005. That time I arrived alone, and found the apartment empty but for the cats. Charlotte was out at work, but in the warmth of the spring air had left the door to the balcony wide open. The cats came in and out, sniffing the new arrival, and invited me out to sit on the sunny balcony.

There's a chance of snow again later next week, but I think we're through the worst.

*j*

Don't finish the sentence thread...

2006-03-09T16:02:00.000-05:00

Click on the comments link and continue the sentence below without finishing it. Each subsequent comment must continue where the previous one left off and must not finish the sentence!

In early March the skies over Milton Keynes seem to shimmer with the late winter exodus of...

Vernacularchitecture...

2006-03-08T10:49:00.000-05:00

I woke up this morning with a sharp pin-prick pain above my lip. There is no mark, but it feels as if I've been electrocuted or clawed by a cat in my sleep. Both explainations are possible considering the terrifying unearthed Canadian electric sockets above my pillow and the three cats who sleep with me... perhaps Toast came to nuzzle me in my sleep, put her tail too close to the socket, zapped me and then clawed my face as she recoiled? Hmmm...

Last night Ryan and I embarked on our respective French grammar and conversation classes at the YMCA. We came home to an amazon.ca parcel that had finally been delivered, with two books bought for me by a nameless but utterly gorgeous ladyfriend. One is the sixth edition of USA By Rail by John Pitt, and the other is Plain Modern: The Architecture of Brian MacKay-Lyons by Malcolm Quantrill. The latter is a very well written and beautifully illustrated profile of the sole Canadian architect I can admit to having an 'architectural crush' on. I hope to see some of his modest but striking buildings when I visit Nova Scotia in May, although since most are remote houses and private dwellings, I suspect that may not be easy. In many ways these houses symbolise much of what I aspire to: modern interpretations of vernacular building traditions that interact, respond to and compliment the landscape and climate of their surroundings. They may look very 'different' or out of context when you see a photograph, but I'm beginning to understand much more about the importance of Mackay-Lyons' design approach rather than the final aesthetic impression.

In the preface of the book, Quantrill draws comparions between the Nova Scotian landscape and the coastal scernery of the remote East Anglian corner of England - my home and an increasingly vital personal point of reference. I cannot imagine Mackay-Lyons buildings in Norfolk, but I can imagine a similar design approach being applied to the design of projects in East Anglia. What seems so devastatingly clear to me now, is that I like these buildings because they are so free of 'architecture'. They are not post-modern, techtonic or naturalist: they are what they are, free from an imposed architectural theory. They certainly originate from very strong ideas, but these ideas start with the landscape and the context, not from within the profession of architecture.

Does that make sense? I don't know if it does... it's hard to write with any clarity what I feel. I just know that I feel it very strongly. I actually had to force myself to put the book down last night because there was a danger I'd stay up all night until I'd finished it. I'll return to this post and edit it as I find out how to express myself better.

*j*

It's easy to get lost in a map...

2006-03-07T16:41:00.000-05:00

During my lunch break today, I crossed Jean-Talon and went for a browse around Les Halles D'Anjou, which is a reasonably sympathetic small shopping mall, mainly occupied by food stores and places to eat for the many people who work in the adjacent office buildings. I skipped a Tim Hortons 'Combo Lunch' and got lost amongst the aisles of books in the big Archambault store at the other end of the mall. It is what I would have hoped for in a Montréal bookstore in that the shelves carry a mix of English and French books. It's easy to slip from one bookcase to the next and flit between languages.

I wasn't after books though, the time had come for some serious distraction material. Maps. Not even the Argos catalogue can offer as much entertainment for me. I love to get lost, create itineraries and imagine places I've never been to. I wanted to buy maps to accompany me on the rail trip I'm taking. So after some umm-ing and aah-ing, I chose a big fold out map of the USA, one of Canada (with railway lines marked - woohoo!) and for a bit of specific interest another smaller scale one of Manitoba.

The Manitoba map cost the same as the national maps ($4.95 + tx) and the change of scale didn't really make up for the fact that it's a much emptier map. But it does feature the railway line I'll be riding along in early May, crawling from Winnipeg in the far south of the province to Churchill on the Hudson Bay. And for hundreds of km either side of the railway line is nothing. The occasional river is marked, but there are no roads or settlements. Much of the journey is through comletely uninhabited terriotory, accessible only by train.

I am more excited than ever...

*j*

Proof...

2006-03-05T10:00:00.000-05:00

Scenes from subterranea and suburbia...

2006-03-04T17:22:00.000-05:00

My day off, and it was time to escape the city. Always intrigued by the exotic sounding names at the end of métro, bus and railway lines, I decided to head out of town this afternoon to the scenic-sounding town of Deux-Montagnes. Montréal's VIA and AMT Central Station is located on the south side of downtown. It became a station around the turn of the last century, and has had bits added here, there, above and below ever since. It's now completely enclosed and seemingly subterranean at platform level. Most trains leave towards the south, some to the USA, some south-west to the capital and Toronto, others north to Québec and Nova Scotia. Just a few, however, go in completely the opposite direction, north-west... directly under the city and the 'montagne' of Mont Royal. For five kilometres, two electrified train tracks climb a slight incline towards the north side of the island, passing under the steep hill of Mont Royal through the Mont-Royal Tunnel.

This tunnel was planned to become line 3 of the Montréal Métro, but the difficulties of running one line with steel tracks unlike the rest of the city's rubber tyred métro trains, and the local politics of the city's municipalities prevented it from happening. The rest of the city métro lines are numbered as if it had been completed... 1 (green), 2 (orange), 4 (yellow) and 5 (blue) After about six or seven minutes underground, we emerged dazzled by the sunlight and the bright snow. We passed through mile after mile of white suburb. They were more grey, to be honest, but snow can improve the look of most dreary suburbs for a few months.

I don't really have the attention to detail or patience to be a proper trainspotter, but I'm pretty content riding trains to new places and just looking out of the window. I think I'm probably a genetic window-seat-hog... I've noticed that whenever I travel by train or plane, I end up with a crocked neck from peering out too much. We island hopped from Montréal onto the Isle-Bigras, Laval and finally the Couronne Nord. Deux-Montagnes was not quite what I had hoped it to be. Lifeless suburb after lifeless suburb. Identikit houses for people with no imagination. Perhaps you know what it's like to return to a car park and not remember where you left your car. I suspect there are people who step off the train at Deux-Montagnes at the end of a work day, and wonder where they left their house.

I followed a cleared path through a bare forest, and walked for half an hour. None of the housing developments seemed to consider each other. Each patch of two hundred executive houses faced in on itself, and to the roads that wound in between the little box-dwellings. But between the developments were tree lined belts. I crossed the occasional road, and plodded through hardened snow, occasionally passing people walking dogs or dragging children. The sky was blue, the smooth frozen crust of undisturbed snow was sparkling and the temperature was above zero. I just walked and walked, much prefering this walk in suburbia to a walk in the park.

I knew I'd have to turn around after about forty minutes if I was to make the next return train. Just as the path began to break up into smaller ones that headed to less promising destinations, I came upon an intersection. There was a strip mall, traffic lights and people in cars bemused to see a me crossing the road. And there was a Tim Horton's. A strawberry danish was acquired, and stowed away in a pocket for an on-board post-walk reward. I stepped out of the standardised coffee shop, crossed the standardised intersection, and returned through the standardised suburbs to board my sleek silver chariot.

*j*

Ohmigod, they killed Saab...

2006-03-03T08:42:00.000-05:00

So it seems this isn't the only blog where my opinions can be taken seriously. A comment of mine has been published on the GM Fast Lane blog, where bucolic General Motors vice-president Bob 'Maximum' Lutz likes to drone on about what a wonderful company he runs and what wonderful cars they produce. Surprising they should allow my viewpoint, since I'm not exactly the biggest fan of General Motors. After buying up the last truly different auto maker in Europe, GM couldn't help talking the hind legs off any donkey that would listen about how they were going to nuture and develop the 'Saab DNA'. Method? They took GM models (see photo for the American-market-only Chevy based 9-7X truck) grafted on a Saab grille and moved the ignition switch to beside the gear stick. Nice of them to allow for some counter-cultural thinking on their blog though... Shame Bob doesn't quite get the two-way conversation thing of blogging. Here's the perma-link

RIP Saab :'(

A genuinely different, innovative and counter-cultural auto maker has been lost. I was an optimist to begin with. I even shrugged off that SUV you chucked out for the US market. But now I know for sure. Saab was swallowed into a behemoth that creates the same cars with different badges. Nice concept, Bob. But with a bit of aesthetic switches it could have been a concept of any of your 'brands'. A concept isn't going to save Saab. A commitment to allowing a Swedish subsiduary of GM to design and produce vehicles of their own just might. The accountants won't like it, but the folks aren't going to buy 'em if they know they're just badge engineered Opels/Chevrolets/etc.

The twentieth century was the era of the product: more innovation, more availability and more variety. Now we live in the post-globalization era of the brand. Q. How do you devalue a brand? By refering to it as a brand and not a product. People buy products, not brands. Brand association is a worthless measure... I associate with my car because I'll be driving it for ten years.

The day Saab died was the day it stopping being a car company and started being a brand. We don't want marketing and branding, we want cars that offer choice and variety. And by choice and variety I mean different cars produced by different people in different countries. Changing the colour of the grille and renaming it the 2007 model is not enough to arouse interest.

I drive a 1993 Saab 900. Arguably the beginning of the end; a Saab based on an Opel platform. I only bought it second hand (for about GBP£600) because I couldn't afford an older 'real' Saab. Yes, it's practically a Vectra, and yes, it wasn't 100% Trollhatten. But I look at that car parked next to other 1993 vehicles and just cry... it's the last cry of a dying company. It doesn't just look different, it is different. You can't compare it to any other contemporary cars because no-one sold a sporty, compact luxury fastback.

Less than twenty years ago there was a group of people who designed cars not because they thought people would like them, but because they believed that what they were making was better than anything else. Putting the ignition by the gearstick wasn't a way of telling people the car was a Saab... it was a way of saving someone from being knee-capped in a heavy front on collision, and a way of deadlocking the transmission when the car was parked.

Is there better proof that bigger isn't better? Size will be GM's downfall. Buying up auto companies doesn't increase revenue, it decreases it. Shaving economies left right and centre by sharing parts and development reduces variety and therefore desirability. Last year you re-launched Chevrolet in the UK. Except everyone here knows they're new models of older Daewoo products. Chevrolaewoos.

Conclusion of this rant? Downsize. Spin off (and maybe sell) the companies that aren't working for you. Go into any bar in Sweden and you'll find another twenty people ready to tell you how to build a Saab.

I'll drive my Saab until the day it falls apart. And when it does, I'll buy a car, not a GM 'brand'.

*j*

I'd like a window please...

2006-03-02T09:36:00.000-05:00

In various online circles, people who don't get out enough are getting all excited about the new version of Microsoft Windows, which is launching soon. I say the 'new version', but in fact I meant to write 'six versions', or twelve if you include the fact that each will be available for different 32 or 64 bit kernels. I don't know what a Kernel is, let alone why I should have to choose between six different versions of the same (surely it's the same?) operating system. Astonishingly, Microsoft has designed one version (or rather un-designed a better version into an inferior one) for 'developing markets'. So if you live in what Microsoft determines to be a 'developing market' (read 'third world country') rest assured that they'd rather help you 'develop' your society before you can play with windows media player.

Of course this simplified version of Windows Vista will be much cheaper than the standard versions sold in countries that have already finished 'developing'. And I'm sure it'll run sweetly on the MIT $100 computer. The pressure is being put on governments of 'developing' nations to invest millions of dollars in purchasing these machines. Great idea. No, really. $100 so that we can start Skyping people in the famine belts of Africa. Here's what Oxfam America say they could do with $100... decide for yourself which is more important.

$100 Provides a young student living in poverty in Mali with the vocational training and financial support necessary to start her own weaving business.

Wednesday: the day things stopped working

2006-03-01T23:07:00.000-05:00

In no particular order, here is a list of things that stopped working or broke today. My computer's power supply, my mouse, the door handle to Ryan's room, the door handle to the cupboard in the kitchen, my nice pen, my February transit pass (although that was to be expected...), the computer in the conference room before our presentation, one of the lights in the metro train I took home, the strip light above my desk, the bottom of the box I carried home some product samples in, a small section of the stitching in my hat and my ability to digest my own sandwiches. Not a good day.

*j*

Wanton vandalism...

2006-02-28T09:53:00.000-05:00

Official statement: I can only say that I am shocked, appalled and disappointed with the purile, immature and depraved activities of certain anonymous friends of mine, who take pleasure in destroying the purity of freshly fallen snow. Residents of this street must have been quite confused as well... because that doesn't look anything like a certain famous soul singer...

*j*

He was not wrong...

2006-02-26T15:14:00.000-05:00

Five or ten minutes after we had placed our order, the proprietor of the Mont Royal Binerie brought Ulli and me our heaving plates of breakfast, and then returned a few minutes later with two small side dishes. These he had filled with beans from a dish kept piping hot behind the counter. He put them down and slipped from French into English (perhaps to make absolutely sure we appreciated the gravity of his words) to say "And here are the best beans in the world." He was not wrong.

Last night was Montréal's annual Nuit Blanche, during which art galleries, cinemas, and public events were open all night long. Ulli, Mélisse, Laura and I caught a few exhibitions early on before retiring to the plateau for a birthday party with friends. In a fit of purile and immature selfishness, I made a good attempt at polishing off a case of twelve beers all on my own. I regret to confess that this was possibly brought about by a sensation of anguish at having paid for the entire case, and then not wanting to share them. So, my apologies are due to everyone who was at the party last night for my selfishness, and to my liver for the stupidity.

Ulli rang me at about midday to invite me to breakfast. I had been woken much much much earlier by the cats, who were perhaps meewing loudly because of the strange post-boozing parps that were disturbing the Sunday morning peace from under my duvet. Or perhaps they were just having difficulty beathing. Initially I turned down Ulli's invitation, although this foolishness only presided for about three minutes.

It is a sad truth that alcohol will not, despite many claimes to the contrary, take the pain away. It will simply defer it to the next morning. Once it's returned, the only way to deal with it is to have a big breakfast. So I rang back and said I'd be there in fifteen minutes.

The Mont Royal Binerie is on avenue du Mont Royal Est, just west of St. Denis. It is not a presuming little café: just an honest functional diner with a long counter and a few small tables at the back. Like all good diners, there was a cup of hot coffee in front of me before I'd even had a chance to look at the menu. Ulli arrived and we ordered a number two from the breakfast menu. Mélisse showed up a little later, having had a similar pair of phone calls with Ulli just after me. After initially turning down the idea of breakfast, it took only a few minutes for her to change her mind as well. The vast quantities of salt, sugar, saturated fats and caffeine were soon coarsing through our veins. It was a very good feeling.

*j*

You can barely see the mend...

2006-02-25T15:22:00.000-05:00

I remember now why I have always bought laptops instead of desktop computers. It's Saturday afternoon, and I'm lying on my bed with Caca and Toast purring beside me. It pains me to suggest that I have favourites, but this week Toast has been the light of my life and the warmth in my bed. She usually comes up to nuzzle, snif and lick my face just before I turn the lights out at night, and then curls up in the folds of the duvet beside me, close enough for me to tickle and stroke her tummy until I fall asleep.

Last night Ryan and Jonathan made tacos, and they were very good (the tacos that is, although Ryan and Johnathan were well behaved in case you were afraid they might have been turning into scoundrels). We talked about this and that, including getting shoes and jackets repaired. I mentioned having to leave my winter coat in at a little seamstress and dry cleaning place on Mont Royal. The flap of the left hand pocket had torn along the seam... it wasn't a vital repair but it was exposing the nice downy insides of my coat, and would get worse every time I thrust my hands in my pockets. As you can imagine, one thrust ones hands into ones pockets a lot in Montréal in the winter.

Ryan reminded me of an interesting observation. In this consumerist throw-away society, the cost of most goods and products has now fallen (and the prevalence of designed-obsalesence has at the same time risen) to the point that some people will buy a $50 pair of shoes, and then just throw them away when part of them tears or falls apart. But as Ryan put it "I only paid $50 for them, so I can pay $15 for a repair and I'm still paying less than I might have done on a more expensive pair..." Why don't more people think like that, instead of just tossing aside something that was badly made to begin with?

My jacket has, incidentally, been repaired superbly, and it cost me $13. Money well spent.

*j*

James & Ulli at Café Utopik

2006-02-25T01:00:00.000-05:00

Posing for Mélisse with camomile tea and wine we found on the table...

It's not cold, but I am...

2006-02-24T23:55:00.000-05:00

On our stereo tonight was a string of albums by Belle and Sebastian. Why? Because after work today I managed to buy two of the last four tickets for their show in Montréal on Sunday night, neatly side stepping the eee-jit on craigslist who said they'd sold out and that he would sell his to the highest bidder (I believed him and bid over $50 ... thankfully the venue still had 'em at $36 hehehe...)

I first heard Belle and Sebastian's music towards the end of 1996, when I arrived at Winchester College. The Art School, where I am inclined to believe I spent most of my happiest moments at the school, was fitted with a rather basic sound system - namely a hi-fi with a very long cable between the two speakers. If I recall correctly (although it could be the other way round) the left speaker was in the wing of the building with the printing workshop and the right speaker was across the bridge in the other wing, in the painting studio. Tracks recorded in stereo were a problem, since depending on which half of the building you were in, you would only get half the lyrics or music.

Through this selective filter, I managed to listen to a badly copied cassette tape of Belle and Sebastian's second album If You're Feeling Sinister. The size of the cassette collection in the art school was limited, so I heard it a lot, and like virtually every other GCSE and A-level art student at Winchester College, I formed a very strong emotional tie with B+S. The band's history includes this opening paragraph:

"Belle and Sebastian were formed in an all-night café in Glasgow, January 1996. Stuart Murdoch (singer/songwriter) and Stuart David (bass guitar) met on a government-training scheme and recorded some demos, which were picked up by a Jeepster scout who was taking part in the Stow College Music Business Course. The course, run by ex-Associate Alan Rankine, produces and releases one record every year on the college label Electric Honey Records, usually a single. However in the case of Belle and Sebastian they had enough songs to record a whole album, and so the elusive Tigermilk was born. Recorded in three days and one thousand copies released on vinyl only, it now changes hands for up to £400 per copy."

So I've listened to B+S for almost ten years. Through thick and thin, their music has stuck with me, and many tracks carry many memories that were not included in the original packaging. Thinking about it, I don't think I have such a connection with any other artist or group, not even the delicious Beth Orton (who, incidentally, we're seeing here in April). So Sunday will be a fun night, and a toast will be made with an overpriced plastic cup of warm beer to Arthur Morgan. If you know who he is, you'll understand why.

*j*

I laughed so hard...

2006-02-22T15:32:00.000-05:00

... that Toast clawed my legs as she ran away in fright. The better thirty second version is here.

*j*

Arse...

2006-02-22T09:32:00.000-05:00

I'm not quite sure of the origin of this photo, so apologies to the photographer I've knowingly ripped off. This is the Montréal - Delson railway bridge over the St. Laurent after last Friday's storm. Yep. There was a lot of head scratching about how to fix that one. Five of the last cars of a mixed freight train were blown over by strong winds. Each one is carrying two shipping containers, one stacked on the other.

*j*

The Montréal Métro: what those codes mean...

2006-02-22T09:05:00.000-05:00

If an emergency occurs on the London Underground, you can expect to hear a coded public announcement - "Mr. Ellison please contact customer service" or something or the kind. In Montréal's Métro, the codes are numeric, and can be decoded if you really want to know why you're being evacuated... The first numbers indicate the location of the event, the second numbers indicate the nature of the incident. I think that this morning I had a 158-04, which sent me running to get a bus instead.

Code 61 : Surtemps pour les changeurs mais en urgence
131 ou 132 Les surintendant des stations ligne 1 ou ligne 2
131 ou 132 suivi d'un autre chiffre autre que le 6 : Le gérant de station portant ce code d'appel personnel.

Un chiffre suivi du 6 : Le nettoyeur de la station concerné (ex: 132-6 = le nettoyeur de la station Lionel-Groulx)

430 - 440 - 432 et 442 = Les 4 contremaîtres responsables de l'entretien sanitaire.

Code 900 suivi d'un chiffre de 01 à 013 et du nom de la station indique aux employés la nature de la panne. Ces codes sont des codes d'urgences demandant aux employés de porter assistance s'ils sont dans la station concernée.

Ex: Code 900-02 station 140 indique une intrusion en tunnel par un usager à la station McGill

01 Interventions policières
02 Intrusion en tunnel
03 Alerte à la bombe
04 Tentative de mort violente
05 Incendie
06 Panne d'électricité
07 Infiltration de matières dangereuses
08 Inondation
09 Dynamitage
010 Dommages structuraux
011 Collision et/ou déraillement
012 État de panique de la clientèle
013 Assistance médicale

Ces codes servent également à décongestionner les lignes téléphoniques utilisées pour le code 99 puisque le code donne toute l'information requise pour informer la clientèle. Ces codes indiquent également que le Centre de communication est en état d'urgence et que les appels non-urgents doivent être reportés après l'incident... C'est pas le temps de les appeler pour les informer qu'un client a vomi à tel endroit, ça peut attendre !

Il existe plusieurs autres codes mais ce sont pour la plupart des appels s'adressant à des employés spécifiques (matricule de l'employé ou encore no de la section concernée). Voici la liste des codes des stations...

118 - Angrignon
120 - Monk
122 - Jolicoeur
124 - Verdun
126 - De L'Église
128 - Lasalle
130 - Charlevoix
132 - Lionel-Groulx
134 - Atwater
136 - Guy-Concordia
138 - Peel
140 - McGill
142 - Place-des-Arts
144 - Saint-Laurent
146 - Berri/UQAM
148 - Beaudry
150 - Papineau
152 - Frontenac
154 - Préfontaine
156 - Joliette
158 - Pie-IX
160 - Viau
162 - L'Assomption
164 - Cadillac
166 - Langelier
168 - Radisson
170 - Honoré-Beaugrand
222 - Côte-Vertu
224 - Du Collège
228 - De La Savane
230 - Namur
232 - Plamondon
234 - Côte Ste.Catherine
236 - Snowdon
238 - Villa-Maria
242 - Vendôme
244 - Place Saint-Henri
248 - Georges-Vanier
250 - Lucien L'Allier
252 - Bonaventure
254 - Square-Victoria
256 - Place d'Armes
258 - Champs-de-Mars
262 - Sherbrooke
264 - Mont-Royal
266 - Laurier
268 - Rosemont
270 - Beaubien
272 - Jean-Talon
274 - Jarry
276 - Crémazie
278 - Sauvé
280 - Henri-Bourassa
452 - Jean-Drapeau
454 - Longueuil
534 - Côte-des-Neiges
536 - Université de Montréal
538 - Édouard-Montpetit
540 - Outremont
542 - Acadie
544 - Parc
546 - De Castelnau
552 - Fabre
554 - D'Iberville
556 - Saint-Michel

Source: metrodemontreal.com

Scenes from a suburb...

2006-02-21T09:25:00.000-05:00

At lunch time on Monday I took my usual walk to clear my head of Microsoft Excel and to try and generate some hunger before eating (the office takes its lunch at midday, which I find much too early). It was not cold, but the wind was cutting and hurt me in the usual places: it's my teeth and gums that feel it first; then the skin on my cheeks begins to tingle as if it's being rubbed with sandpaper. Say what you like about the North American love of the car: it's no-one's fault but our own that these auto-orientated places exist.

A few blocks south of our office on Boulv. Galeries d'Anjou (I can't believe the actually named the street after the mall) are some new condominiums (apartment blocks - see the photo) which seem to be selling well. I'm tempted to drop by the show apartment later this week, because I just can't see anything desirable about them. They have underground parking, which appeals to some people, and they're new, which probably appeals to the same group of people... but they're in the middle of nowhere. There's a dep a few blocks south, but it's too windswept to walk there. There's a McDonalds drive-through (sorry 'drivethru') opposite, but that would, by definition, necessitate a car... which reminds me, I have a voucher for a free McFlurry in my wallet. I wouldn't normally, but I suppose I should take advantage of it. Since I'm not actually spending any money there, it's ok. Maybe today...

Before I go, here's highway forty. It runs behind our offices. I commute from the plateau by métro and bus, but there are several people who I work with who use this autoroute to commute from the same district. On the face of it, it's a cold, grey, depressing motorway. But, it is Montréal's segment of the Trans-Canada Highway. If there was a car (filled with fuel) in the basement, and maybe with some cash stuffed in the glovebox, and a fresh travel mug of coffee in the cup holder... I could drive onto the ramp and down onto the right hand lane...... and just drive.

All the way to Vancouver. 4850km. Assuming 90km/h, that's about 54 hours before breaks are considered. If someone can sort me out with a car, then maybe I'll see you in Vancouver on Friday for a drink?

*j*

"Darling, why is that man photographing snow?"

2006-02-20T18:11:00.000-05:00

"Because he's English, and to him it's a novelty to see so much snow, piled up in the corner of a suburban shopping mall car park by snow ploughs after successive winter storms. He also finds strange beauty in the thousands of shades of grey and white caused by months of grime and dirt that have polluted this apparently purest of natural substances. By photographing it, he is asserting his presence and cementing a memory, and will probably brag about the amount of snow that Montréal receives to his friends back home in Europe by posting the image on his blog. He'll then take advantage of the fact that we drove through the shot just as he took the photograph to a) provide scale to the photograph and b) to create an imagined conversation between the two of us."

"Darling, I hate it when you pretend to know everything..."

An underground vacuum...

2006-02-19T13:23:00.000-05:00

It's warmer than yesterday, which is a good thing, because I don't like it when my nostrils freeze. I've been making chicken stock on and off this weekend, so the apartment has another nice weekend smell permeating the rooms and promising much. But I wrapped up warm and quit my metropolitan sanctuary to head down town. I had to collect some tickets for the Canadian portion of my upcoming North American Rail Pass adventure from Central Station, which wasn't much hassle. The ticket agent was envious of the bargain I'd snapped up with the low season rail pass. The parts of the trip in Canada alone would cost $1,852 if I had paid cash.

The Montréal En Lumière / Montréal Highlights Festival has started, and I think that part of this week long event (it's hard to tell because there are so many damn festivals in this city) is the intriguingly titled 'Montréal Underground Walkway Celebration'. It began this morning with a 5km mini-marathon and walking tour. The route (you can see a map here) winds through Montréal's Cité Souterraine (Underground City), and walking from Central Station to a photography store in the Eaton Centre I wanted to visit, I found myself following the route, albeit in the 'wrong' direction. There were families (children all with painted faces... are painted faces compulsory on 'fun' days out?), couples and eager tourists. Of course as I got closer to the start I met more of the slow walkers, many of whom seem to have exhausted their supply of 'ooo this is fun'. And I think that's just the problem. In a guidebook, the idea of an 'underground city' sounds pretty neat. Blade-Runner-esque images of a deteriorating society forced underground by urban warfare, perhaps.

But in reality, it's just a vast shopping mall. Actually, it's about a half dozen shopping malls that have all burrowed tunnels under streets to each other, but it could be just one. Perhaps with a few more multi million dollar property takeovers, it will be. The idea is fantastic. But the reality is just depressing. The one thing that sets much of Montréal apart from every other city in North America is that it doesn't feel commercialised or North American. So it's a bit of a disappointment to find this subterranean labyrinth to be the same collection of franchised and chain stores and food concessions. It's not cool. It's tragic. This spider like creature has pushed it's commercial tentacles under dozens of streets and buildings, sucking people into an air conditioned environment where there's nothing to do but spend money.

Grrrr...

But let's not finish this blog entry on a low note. jamesbrownontheroad has hit a century; this is the one hundredth post. Thanks for reading and for coming back so often. I love you guys :-)

*j*

Don't run after a moving bus...

2006-02-18T15:14:00.000-05:00

...you know it's just not worth it.

"The Evening News starts NOW..."

2006-02-18T14:59:00.000-05:00

Ever since moving here I've watched the French language television news substantially more often than the English broadcasts. That's because a) they're another very useful way to understand and speak more French on a daily basis, and b) they're much much better than the programmes on the English networks. This week, however, I've been tempted back to the darkside, to channel 46 where'll you find these two anchors presenting the provincial news. The fella is Raymond Filion (that's Raye-monde Fill-eee-on) and next to him is Jamie Orchard. I'd love to show you a photo of Aphrodite Sallas, but I think I'll just leave you with the mental image her name projects.

Global have just re-zigged their logo, ident music, on-screen style and news graphics. It certainly looks more zingy and dynamic, but I'm not a big fan of being told that "The Evening News starts NOW..." at the beginning of the six o'clock news. Partly because I think I might have guessed that's what was happening (what with all the zingy music and flashing colours) and also because it's not true... it started thirty seconds earlier when M. Filion started reading the headlines. These things do matter... I suspect I'm just a TV hussy though, and I'll just stick with Global until another network re-designs their on screen look and sound.

And in other news this week: I have forked out $300 to return to the YMCA School of Languages in two weeks time to take up level 5 of the French Grammar and Conversation course. It's also being complimented by a weekly English-French language exchange with Mélisse in the trendy tea bars of rue St. Denis. Suddenly my weeks are looking much more busy again.

*j*

Golf in the café car

2006-02-14T14:39:00.000-05:00

Hidden away in a dark corner of the VIA Rail Canada website is this bizzare publicity photo, which shows you just how much fun coach class passengers can have in the café car of the trans-continental Canadian. Wow. On board golf. Does it get much better.

*j*

Do photos get more flattering?

2006-02-13T08:30:00.000-05:00

It's always a surprise to find Molson Canadian lager on sale in Montréal. So I celebrated by digging out my 'I am' t-shirt to match the occasion. Proud Québecers, do not fret, a case of Boréal Rousse was bought at the same time to neutralise the damage...

*j*