I am amused

I discuss the perfect French Canadian night out

Regular readers will by now be aware that I left London (England, UK, The World, The Universe), to move to Montreal, which is in Canada. (If you do not know much about Canada, let me enlighten you: is very big - almost as big as the moon. Also, it has two official languages, which means that often, things are written in two languages where really one would do.)

Montreal (where I live) is in Quebec, which is three-and-a-half times bigger than France, and (like France), full of people who talk French the whole time - for the very simple reason that it is their language, and therefore their preferred method of exchanging information with one another.

I live with one of these French-Canadians. In many ways, he is indistinguishable from any other Canadian, except his name is French, he speaks French (when he is not at home), and he is able to eat cheese that is not cheddar or Monterey Jack without having a breakdown.

Often, in the evenings - which are cold and long, as we live in Canada - we insult each others' countries. We are doing quite well: the mere mention of a toast rack leaves him rigid with glee, whilst I have yet to understand why the canned anchovies are kept in the refrigerated fish section of the supermarket. Tooth mugs and fruit salad; dust and syrup: the list goes on and on, and our evenings fly by, each one melding into the next.

Recently, whilst walking along a highway looking for a spectacle, we reached new levels of understanding whilst describing to each other the ideal night out in our respective countries.

Normal French Canadian evening's entertainment, according to me

"First of all you go to a bar and watch the Habs for a bit and drink a Labatt or something. Then you get in your car and drive round and round until you find a spectacle with either horses and clowns, or acrobats and clowns on tiny unicycles. What they will have in common is an opera lady going 'woo woo woo' and some electric guitar, and/or costumes featuring at least 5 colours and weird hairdos. Either way, both will be embarrassing and there will be a lot of expressive skipping going on that will make me feel sick.

After you've done that you will go to a restaurant in a shopping mall and have a Festival of Crevettes or Brochettes, with some poutine. Then you will go home and get the chocolate fondue on, and you will sit on front of the TV with your Céline Dion autobiography on your lap and watch a 3 hour biopic of Maman Dion and you love it and you cry the whole way through it. Then the next morning you go out and have an omelette that has fruit salad on the plate and you pour maple syrup all over it."




The perfect evening for an English person, according to a French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist who cuts his own hair

"First of all you go home and you have boiled sausage and cabbage for dinner. Then, when it starts raining, you go out for a walk and then you come back and your clothes are all damp, but you don't care and you sit in your damp clothes in your armchair and read a mouldy poetry book that has dust flying off it from the breeze that is coming through the badly-ventilated window you are sitting next to.

Then, to make the evening really perfect, you'll have a 'lovely cup of tea' and when you take the first sip you'll say, "ooh that's LOVELY", or "oh, there's nothing like a nice cup of tea", like it's the first time you've ever tried it and you're really surprised. Then you will go to bed but it will be so cold in your bedroom, even in summer, that you will see your breath coming out. Then in the morning you will drink more tea and be surprised that it's nice, and you will make toast that you will put in a toast rack so it's good and cold, and then you'll put Marmite on it and think it's the most delicious thing you've ever eaten."

I see nothing wrong with this at all.

I want a hamster

Here is a photograph of the pathologist's cousin and his hamster. (Please note the co-ordinating expressions of boy and rodent.)



There was another long post, but the computer ate it. I may re-write it, but first: to New York, where I shall be driven through thunderstorms to attend a wedding.

Pip pip!

I am terrific

I receive a note from one Michael Moran, an excellent gentleman, sometime co-resident of Brixton and longtime supporter of this web-blog. "I have written about you in my Saturday Times column about the Web & such", he writes mysteriously. "I don't suppose they deliver The Times out there in North West Passage Land but your mum might like it".

He is right. My Mum, better known to readers as MonkeyMother, does like it. "Mummy is so proud", she writes, swallowing all her principles (as a long-time subscriber to The Socialist Worker) to go to the corner shop, buy The Times and scan in the thing that Michael Moran has written.

I receive it in Canada, attached to an email. (I have said it before and I will say it again - the internets is miraculous and I admire it very much.) And I must be frank: I feel about Michael Moran's piece much as he does about this web-blog: it is terrific, and so intelligently written! My portrait - hand-rendered by none other than Mr Dave Shelton - is there in full colour, my small clay pipe, Hula-Hoops and absinthe clear for all to see. Not for the first time, I observe what an excellent looking monkey I am, and re-adjust my fez.























Regular readers will I am sure be celebrating the recognition of my genius (long known to them) all across the world. New readers may be interested to read a little more about the Brixton Hill incident, a matter that concluded a few days later with a lifting of a modesty panel.

Now all I need is a book deal and then I can be properly non-working forever!*


* Writers: do not try and tell me that writing things down for (for e.g.) newspapers and/or novels is 'work', especially when you consider what I have to do all day, e.g. sit in conference calls, read management books and listen to other people.

I am alive!

But I have been distracted:

1. Buying and moving into new flat;
2. See (1);
3. Work;
4. Misc.

I will be back soon, including a rationale on why the word 'twinkle' should be banned.