Home, sweet home: dear house stranded at the end of an ice-encrusted road at the raw edges of a village inhabited by crazed French-Canadians; sweet abode positioned on a sharp bend at the end of a short drive obscured by two 12 foot mountains of snow; gentle three-bedroomed metal structure with frozen swimming pool: O how I yearn for thee! But not for the reasons you might think (own bed, lightly-furred pathologist, gin, green vegetables); good Heavens, no. I yearn to be home because I want to get my tiny little monkey hands on my books. And why should I need these books? Why, it is simple! Dear Anna has "tabbed me on a Meem" (as I believe the young people say!!!), and it is really good - but it requires me to turn to p. 123 of the book(s) I am reading and copy out some sentences. Sadly, I am here in Toronto and they are there in the wilds of Quebec (just north of Montreal), so it will have to wait until I am home on Friday, small clay pipe clamped between my teeth and tiny glass of absinthe at my elbow.
But let it not be said that I do not know all the 'marketing ploys', for now I am about to whet your appetite and get you 'literally gagging for it'. The good news is that I always read up to and including ten books at the same time, which means my post (when I write it) will be really long and interesting. The bad news is that at least one of them is about Canadian foreign policy.
To my surprise, I have discovered that not only does Canada have a foreign policy, but that that foreign policy does not contain any strategies involving members of the RCMP* seeing off the enemy atop a flock of armoured beavers. What is more, the book in question (which you may see above) carries the subtitle "What Is Canada For?". I am on page 823, but still there is no clear conclusion other than "Canada exists to be less annoying than America".
In the meantime, my recent post about songs of my childhood has attracted more comments than any other post, ever, but as my loyal readers and new fans continue to comment in a crazed style, I have put a link to it just there on the right so that it may continue indefinitely, or at least until we have a compendium of childhood songs that we may publish for charity.
Pip pip!
NWM
PS. No, but seriously - what is Canada for?
* Or, to give them their full name, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police. ("Mounties" to anyone who has ever seen a picture-book about Canada, or that weird programme that featured a single lone Mountie (on a horse) somewhere in an urban environment in the US, occasionally accompanied by the bloke called Leslie.)
10 comments:
The RCMP invariably make me think of Elmer Fudd ("Shh, be vewy, vewy quiet; I'm hunting wabbits, hehehehehehehehe").
Whaaaat?
WHAAAAT indeed?!!!!!
The policemen in our village spend most of their time:
1. Hiding behind hedges trying to catch people speeding;
2. Hiding behind mounds of discarded snow trying to catch people speeding;
3. Eating vast pieces of cake and cups of endlessly-refilled coffee in the Resto-Pub, centre of local culinary excellence and 34 page laminated menus.
we arent that annoying :o(
Come now, pup. It is a joke! Also, there are not 823 pages in "Intent for a nation", thank god.
Wait - wait, the Canadians are setting the bar that low? Just to be less annoying than America? Come on! I mean, not only did we invent reality TV we rolled in it and then trotted over to your place with our tongues lolling out and expected to be let in to lie around on your furniture. I mean, if the whole meaning of your existence is to get someone to say, "well, hey, yeah but at least they aren't America," then your existence has all the purpose of a wet bowl of cornflakes. I'm sorry but there should definitely be an AND tacked onto that there life goal. Like, less annoying than America AND they couldn't care less that The Police went on a reunion tour or less annoying than America AND a free half gallon of milk with every fill-up.
P.S. Beavers don't flock. They gaggle.
N.B. Canada is there to bottle up all the hot air produced by parts Northern in America. You can see that in the last 20 years or so supply has rather exceeded current capabilities. Damn. I think I need to go give Al Gore a ring and let him know I've solved that little problem that was giving him so much bother a while back...
But corn flakes (wet or not) ARE american, so that simile doesn't work, Megan dear. Also, I believe reality TV was invented in the Netherlands.
See, canadians CAN be annoying too.
(but usually it's because they've just been told by the mechanic that their car needs 2000$ in repairs. Fuckers.)
What is Canada for? What is Canada FOR???
Can't tell you. Have to kill you.
johnnyboy - did they? Did they really? Those devious Dutch. I'll be damned. Well, that's one item crossed off my "atrocities committed generally by my culture that I might one day be called upon to account for personally" list. I don't suppose you can prove that Britney Spears is an unfortunate side effect of unrest in the Balkans? Rather like WWI? (Is that a better analogy? There's the calamity on an international scale thing, the whole disease implication and there's probably something about trenches but I really truly don't want to go there.)
What is this place of which you speak? Canada. What is that?
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