Day 621: I Do Some Surveys At The Airport

I have been doing some surveys at airports recently using my eyes, a pencil, and the back of an old Ladbrooke's Pools coupon.

The results are summarised in handy chart form below. They are revealing - yet not that surprising. I know you will like them.

(If you have tiny eyes, click on them to make them bigger; if that does not work I simply do not know what to suggest, other than a magnifying glass and a large-print book from the Reader's Digest.)

Day 614: I Am Alive, Dear Readers!!!

"Are you DEAD?", demands one reader in querulous tones. Dave wonders if I am happy.

MonkeyMother writes from France, one ankle strapped, suggesting that I write a 'post' asking what to do with the matching 3ft high urns in our new 'apartment'. I check with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police: preserving midgets in formaldehyde is not legal in Canada! That puts paid to MonkeyMother's dastardly scheme (for the time being, at least).

Meanwhile, the snow continues to fall; someone dies, and I do not find out until a week and half later; my best friend grows great with child; I cannot get back to England for my god-daughter's birthday; I cannot go to the Royal Bank of Scotland on Fleet Street and set them on fire. (Instead, I must write endless emails that are ignored, or leave messages that are lost, never to be returned.)

Every week I mount an aeroplane flown by the best of all the airlines. I leave Montreal on a Porter aeroplane (do not get excited; they only fly between aeroports in Canada, using less fuel as they fly than an SUV over the same distance, with the added benefit of jaunty caps and ham sandwiches), and fly to Toronto. There, I stay a "boo-teek hotel" for two or sometimes three nights, interrupting my consumption of the minibar only to bellow in fury at the words "... sample our delicious fare", written upon the room service menu.

During the day I attend meetings that I do not understand and agree to things I do not want to do. The other people seem to enjoy it and think it is a good way to spend the day. I am not so sure, but as they give me money every two weeks I think it is probably best if I keep my opinions to myself.

At the weekends I fret about work I have not done or work I should be doing. The pathologist looks at me from underneath his curled forelock and makes scrambled eggs; I pluck hairs from my face in the light of the magnifying mirror; my brother comes to visit, whereupon we slide; my friend Charly comes, whereupon we listen to gypsy music and drink pints of ale. They go and I am sad, but there is not much to be done about it: it was them or the pathologist, and he had curlier hair.

But yes, I am happy, since you ask. I would rather not be working, but what can you do. One must keep oneself in absinthe and pipes, and it will all work out in the end; and at the first whiff of melancholy, I simply press "play" on the following film and all is right in the world:

Day 602: I Hope The Fungus-Bearing Intruders Keep Away From My Canine

Day 597: I Correspond With A Colleague In New York

It is snowing hard in Quebec, and I am recovering from an illness which mainly involved (and still does) feeling drunk and coughing up hard yellow clumps. I have been travelling about the place: to New York, to Toronto, to Montreal and back again; my brother, RunningMonkey, is visiting; the pathologist is snowblowing; all is right in the world.

And emails are sent as I work from home, developing 'advertising strategies' for providers of products that all Canadians definitely need. I write to H, who is in our New York office. "What are you doing?", says the subject line of my email. "Whatever it is, stop it now", says the body.

He replies the next day. "Watching Weng Weng!". He provides a link. Here it is:




I love you, my Weng Weng.

If you do not like Weng Weng, you may wish to learn the Theremin.



With enough application, you may become as accomplished as this lady!



Bonne chance, mes amis.

Day 587: I Am Very Much Looking Forward To Going Home

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.)