Down the Bog

I use Skype to phone home to my family in the UK and I’ve always been very pleased with it. Not just because of the good service but also the good rates per minute. It’s a very cheap call and means that I can call from my computer to my Mum’s phone and afford to have frequent, lengthy conversations.

It’s actually even cheaper if it’s from one computer to another because it’s free to use in that way but today I tried the conference call facility to have a three way conversation with two of my daughters. Hannah in England and Sarah in Edmonton, Alberta. We were all using our computers so it didn’t cost us anything and we were able to have a very relaxed and enjoyable conversation between the three of us for around two hours. It felt like we were all in the same room and we actually haven’t been for a couple of years or so.

So it was a great way for all three of us to be catching up at the same time and definitely something we’ll do again soon.

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I was reading about duct tape the other day and I had no idea that it used to be called duck tape. Apparently it had this name because it was made from a kind of cotton canvas called “duck” which was waterproof.

I don’t think I’d ever used duct tape before moving to Canada but it’s such a great thing to have on hand for all types of jobs.

Here are a few good uses that duct tape has been put to:

Good for removing warts. The tape irritates the wart and causes the immune system to start up and attack the virus that causes the wart. I’ve no idea if it works and I don’t recommend it from ever having tried it. I haven’t.

A farmer in Maine, USA used it on a cow when it had a large cut. The duct tape held the wound together until healed.

Another farmer used the same technique on a chicken.

Here in Canada, when calves are born in the severe cold their ears can sometimes freeze so the farmers tape their ears to their heads to keep them warm with duct tape.

Astronaut Bill Shepherd and Cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko pieced together scraps of aluminium with they then attached a duct tape top to for use as a table on the international space station.

Now I didn’t just know all this stuff but I read it in “Uncle John’s Unstoppable Bathroom Reader” the sixteenth edition. I love these books because they’re just so entertaining with facts and accounts of real life that are the perfect reading length when one is tied up in the washroom. To be honest with you sometimes I end up spending a little longer than I planned there.

Anyway I’d hate to take credit for the duct tape story but it’s this kind of thing in these books that I find so interesting. I’m not sure that I ever saw the bathroom readers  before moving to Canada but I thoroughly recommend them because they are so absorbing to read as opposed to the paper used within being absorbent!

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So then. Global warming. Being the rather cynical person that I am I find that I have reservations about the whole global warming situation. I can’t base that statement on any science but I just find myself thinking that probably, maybe in a couple of hundred years our great, great, great, great grandchildren will be saying,

“Isn’t it amazing how they used to think that human kind were responsible for global warming?”

“Here we are now and it’s bloody cold!”

But then again maybe we are causing it to happen just as all those clever and well paid scientists, along with all the I-want-to-have-a-high-profile politicians are saying. It’s big business after all but just remember that science gets things wrong a lot before they get it right before they find out they were wrong before they find out they were right. Another university grant please.

Do you know that when I was at school in the first half of the 1970’s that I can remember one teacher saying that scientists were predicting that we were close to entering another ice age.

I’m a cynic I know but whatever the truth of the situation I certainly don’t see the point of wasteful practise and I’m absolutely all for recycling and conserving our planet’s resources. Just because something can be thrown away doesn’t mean that we have to.

Here at home we have all of the cost efficient light bulbs in out light fittings and I feel quite smug about that.

I came across this site this morning. It’s all about offsetting our carbon footprint so that for example if we take a flight we leave a carbon footprint. We’ve used the earth’s resources, we’ve polluted and we need to make things right.

So the the website has some tools and information to help us monitor what kind of footprint we are leaving behind and then gives us the opportunity to make recompense financially and that money is privately put towards some “green” schemes across the planet.

So, a nice idea all-in-all and I’m not about to criticize it. One of the site’s handy features was a tool for seeing what kind of emission output the car we drive is responsible for. We now own a Ford Taurus and I was pleasantly surprised to see that it’s emission level was lower than our previous Dodge Caravan. So we’re heading in the right direction.

The website then makes an assessment as to what payment should be made as compensation for the carbon footprint that our car leaves behind for a year and then it’s time to make a decision about paying up. Depending on our sense of responsibility and conscience of course. Oh, and if we believe which I suppose, in a round about kind-of-way I do.

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This evening I had a glass of white wine. It’s ages since I last indulged but it was rather pleasant and I’ll have to do it again sometime.

So feeling somewhat relaxed I sat down to watch the 2001 movie “Donnie Darko” on DVD. My daughter is a big fan of this movie and has watched it several times so I feared it might be a bit of a teen flick but I decided to give it a go anyway.

I guess my concerns over taking the movie seriously was that it featured an overgrown bunny rabbit but I don’t think I’m giving anything away by saying this was the freakiest most ugliest bunny rabbit I’ve ever seen. In fact the word “bunny” doesn’t deserve to be attached to the word “rabbit”.

The movie itself? Well, I didn’t think that I’d completely understood it so afterwards I resorted to looking it up on Wikipedia. Having read about it I realised that I more or less had understood it by watching the movie and it was just a time travel story really.

I think people understand it to be that much more but I’m not sure about that. People read much too much into movies. I saw one comment that claimed that the character of Donnie Darko actually represented Jesus. So there you go. I certainly didn’t pick up on that one but I think on balance that the movie was aimed at a younger audience.

Despite it’s apparent cult following I’m not sure I’ll be watching it for a second time. Maybe I will the next time I have a glass of wine. I’m an occasional drinker so it wouldn’t take too many glasses for me to start seeing my own, oversized rabbit!

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I got one of those bogus and yet amusing emails yesterday advising me that my Paypal account had been compromised and that I would be unable to access it until I followed the link in the email and entered my personal account details.

I’ve copied the main content here.

“We have noticed several attempts of fraud. Seems like somebody tried to access your account. You are able to log into your account but all your payments are suspended untill you will update your personal information. PayPal works day and night to help keep your identity safe. That’s why it has come to our attention that your PayPal account information needs to be updated as part of our continuing commitment to protect your account and to reduce the instance of fraud on our website. If you could take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and update your personal records you will not run into any future problems with the online service”

Just reading through it leaves me with the impression that it’s completely bogus. Expressions like “seems like someone tried to access your account” makes me smile seeing as it’s trying to portray an official communication from Paypal with such poor writing.

I don’t know if it originates from overseas where the writers native tongue isn’t english or whether it’s someone who is not very good at writing but they could at least make an effort to write properly. On the other hand it’s much more amusing this way.

I’m being flippant but of course it’s worth emphasising that no financial institution or company will write to it’s customers asking them to follow a link and give their personal details or password. It will never happen unless it’s an attempt at fraud.

I like to feel that I can see these attempts a mile off but newcomers to the web (and there are still lots of them) quite possibly won’t and need to realise the importance of ignoring such nonsense.

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I just thought I’d offer a reminder that our webcam can be viewed on this blog. It’s situated in our kitchen so we call it, unsurprisingly, our kitchencam.

It enables our family and friends to keep tabs on us and see what we’re cooking for dinner. Sometimes I turn the camera to face into our living room so that webcam viewers can see whats on television. That way you’ll be able to keep up with the Canadian television schedules.

So, okay you won’t be able to do that but it’s still worth checking out. See you on the webcam or rather you’ll see us!

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The twentieth of September saw the three year anniversary of our arrival in Canada where we took on our Permanent Resident status. I really don’t know where the time has gone because it only seems like yesterday. But on the other hand so much seems to have happened since then that those three years seem to have been like a lifetime.

And I’ve yet to go back to Britain for a visit.

We’ve done a few things since we’ve been here. We bought a house here in Ontario which eighteen months later we sold when we tried an abortive move to Edmonton, Alberta. It was just too expensive for us and so we moved back and bought another house in our old town with a greater appreciation for what we now had.

It also meant that we’ve driven from Montreal to Edmonton and back again.Some two thousand miles or more each way and that’s not something every Canadian can say they’ve done!

My eldest daughter, Hannah chose to move back to the UK after being here for the first ten months and Sarah, my second daughter chose to stay in Edmonton with her boyfriend Bill because they felt good things were there for them. Our daughter Abby was born last November and it was earlier this year when our three year old son, Jake was identified as being autistic although he continues to delight us every day.

So we’re now in the position to ask the Canadian government if they’d be okay about us becoming Canadian citizens. Our residency status allows us to live here indefinitely as long as we spend two out of every five years on Canadian soil but we’d really like to become citizens as we see our long-term future here and even if we were to move back to England citizenship would allow us the option of moving back to Canada again. Who ever knows where their future will take them?

So making the application is the next thing to do although I note that it’s going to cost $200 per person in Canadian citizenship application fees from the information I’ve read so I’d better get saving.

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Those outside the UK probably won’t be aware of two guys there known as Ant and Dec. They are primarily a TV act that front up various shows, one notable one being Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeway

This show somehow escaped my attention when I was still living in the UK but I caught a glimpse of it recently and it just reminded me of how much I miss british television. I know that there’s a lot of US shows scheduled but I miss the good old BBC and ITV along with all that’s great about the TV there. It’s difficult to put into words but there’s a homliness about it, a personality that is so lacking here in Canada.

In England I felt like I could sit down for an evening of TV and share the experience with the announcer that would keep me informed as to what was going to be on next. It felt like a cosy arrangement. There’d be a lot of rubbish on of course but also some gems, some shows that were very british and made me feel a part of things.

Ant and Decs Saturday Night Takeway reminded me of a show from the nineties called Noel’s House Party. The whacky format is similar and I just can’t imagine anything like that over here. Not in a million years did it occur to me before I moved that I’d miss all this stuff but I do.

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Not long after we arrived in Canada, Jake’s Aunty Carly and Uncle Paul bought for him an interesting toy. I’m not sure what it’s called but it has either an Elmo or Sesame Street kind of theme to it. You can see that I know what I’m talking about can’t you?

It’s definitely featuring Elmo because as the device is spun around I can hear his voice amidst all kinds of other “whoops” and “Yoo-hooing”. So anyway as I say the toy can be spun around and makes a lot of noise and it now amuses our nine-month old daughter Abby.

But there was a time when we had to take the batteries out because the noise was a little to randomly generated for my liking. We’d be in bed at 2am and be woken up by Elmo without anyone being anywhere near the toy. What was going on? A pattern developed where we just couldn’t count on this thing keeping silent so for a while we left it at the furthest point from the bedrooms just to stop it from disturbing us. Finally, after it got too much I did what I should have done to start with and got a srewdriver out and took out the batteries. I’ll admit to experiencing a bit of paranioia at that point and wondered if we’d still be woken by this apparent Elmo-possessed toy. But it fell silent. We’d put it to sleep.

But now it entertains our baby daughter. We got it out of a box and put new batteries in and she loves it. It was well behaved to start with and we were still able to sleep at night but now it’s beginning to find it’s way again. At 6am yesterday without any prompting from anyone Elmo started to whoop and whoop again thoughout the day. It’s been silent today but I’m wary of it and I’m ready with my screwdriver.

Aunty Carly and Uncle Paul just had a baby of their own and I’m thinking about finding a new home for Elmo and co.

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It’s been quite a week in the world of Formula One racing with the McLaren team being thrown out of the championship whilst leading it. In Formula One there are two competitions running side by side. First the constructors championship which the teams are trying to win and then the drivers championship which each individual driver hopes to win at the cost of everyone else including his (or her?) own team mate.

So McLaren were found guilty of spying on the Ferrari team because it’s claimed a now former member of Ferrari, Nigel Stepney sent a large amount of technical information to Mike Coughlan in the McLaren team and it’s been proved (apparently) that McLaren have attempted to use this data to assist their own progress throughout the 2007 season.

I suspect that what McLaren are really guilty of is having been caught doing something quite naughty. Am I being cynical or just realistic when I say that I think that all politicians lie, that newspapers report how they’d like the news to be rather than the actual facts and that every team in the Formula One pit lane would welcome confidential information from any other team if it was offered to them secretly on a plate? Perhaps I’m wrong to think this.

Still, McLaren were caught and they are paying the price except they aren’t actually. It’s true that they’ve been hit with a large fine and are no longer in the constructors championship but their two drivers are still in the drivers championship driving around in McLaren cars with all those lovely adverts on the car from sponsors for a world wide fan base to see on television. One of their drivers is likely to be crowned champion in a few weeks time and to all intents and purposes McLaren will have won. Yet it’s been proved (again apparently) that the team tried to use the Ferarri data to gain an unfair advantage so the cars being used are tainted. How can they continue to take part even if the drivers, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton aren’t being held responsible for their team’s bad behaviour? The cars are still part of a banned team.

So, I just don’t get it but I do really. The drivers championship has been a close run affair this year and Formula One needed it. I’m still attracted to the sport but little overtaking action takes place where it really matters at the front and it’s more of a colourful spectacle than rip roaring racing. There are only two points that separate the two leading drivers who just happen to be the McLaren drivers, Alonso and Hamilton and those in charge just knew that there was no way that they could tamper with that.

So we’re now watching a tainted championship that doesn’t mean too much. I tried to watch the Belgium Grand Prix yesterday but my heart wasn’t in it because Formula One is yet another example of how the fans end up being treated badly by those who run professional sport. The fans who make the whole the thing possible. The paying-too-much public who let grown-up people get to kick a fooball, skate on ice with a hockey stick, drive very fast cars or whatever and get paid handsomely for it.

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