I have another conversation with the French Canadian veterinary research pathologist

Cheap chocolate

Me: I feel sick. I just ate 5 Caramel Hershey's Kisses.
JM: Why?
Me: They were in my drawer.
JM: Throw them down the toilet.
Me: Why?
JM: If you put them in the bin, you'll take them out again. And eat them.

I have various conversations with the French-Canadian veterinary pathologist with whom I live

Hibernation

Me: Where do chickens go in the winter?
JM: Where do you think they go?
Me: Do they ... hibernate?
JM: Yes. They make burrows in the snow.
Me: Is that true?
JM: No.

Tidying up

JM: I did a test on you by leaving that bit of paper on the floor for a week. I even moved it a bit now and then to see if you would notice it if it was in a different place.
Me: You did a test on me for about a week?
JM: Yes. You didn't pick it up.

I cannot put on gloves and hold bags at the same time so JM holds bag for a bit

Me: What would I do without you?
JM: You would probably be dead.

Sadly, he is probably right.

I am looking for an album

It is called 24 Years of Hunger by Eg and Alice. I used to have it, now I do not. Do you have it? Do you know where I can get it? (Amazon = $8000000; not on iTunes).

Internets, can you help me?

I attempt to buy a draught excluder

"I have never been as cold as I was in England", say Canadians, despite the fact that they live in temperatures of up to -20 80% of the year. This is because Canadians understand for e.g. insulation, central heating etc, for the simple reason that they have to, otherwise they would die.

In London, I lived for over one year with a large hole in my kitchen window. The bedroom window never really shut properly and I have at least two friends who do not have central heating at all. When the French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist with whom I live and I visit our friends in Blighty, he packs triple-thickness thermals and resigns himself to night after night of dust and draughts, damp, and thin layers of ice on the inside of the window.

But what is this? My otherwise excellently-appointed flat in Montreal is what I call "Old For Canada", i.e. nearly 100 years old. On the whole it is quite warm, fuelled mainly by the anger that our neighbours' yakking dogs generate in our hearts, but there is a draft that comes in from under the balcony doors and that draft is mighty cold. (There is a difference between a draft that comes in from -20 and a draft that comes in from -2, oh yes indeed.)

"We need one of those things", says the increasingly mystifying French-Canadian veterinary research pathologist. "Things?", I say, peering over a first edition of Down with Skool and sipping from a glass of sweet sherry; "what THINGS?". "One of the things that keeps the air out", says the pathologist, who is French-Canadian and 99.99% bilingual. "Long, looks like a dog."

He means a draught excluder!! But I am cynical about his statement that they "look like a dog". Surely they come in other animals? But apparently not. A cursory glance at the results that come up for "draught excluder" offer me a world of canine choice, whether or not the draught excluder is in the form of an actual dog. (The tartan one, you may be interested to know, comes from Mulberry and costs, yes, £115.)























































































But this is not helping me, for I am still draught-excluder-less. Does anyone have any excluder-tips? I would like something effective, attractive, and not featuring the face of Sting. Dogs are OK, but not frightening tapestry Jack Russells that look like Satan, nothing 'cute', and not bloody £115 of Mulberry.  These are rather sweet, looking, as they do, as if they were handmade by an old lady, but they are cats - and cats make me angry.

Yours in the wind,

NWM

I look at my keywords

Because I am a "web wizard", I use things like Google Analytics quite a lot. I only understand about half of it (for e.g. I do not know want to know what 'funnel visualisation' is), but I can see what search terms and keywords drive new but soon-to-be-adoring fans to this web-blog, and sometimes it can be quite interesting.

Throwing a cursory glance at the numbers earlier this evening revealed something of which I am particularly proud: cast your eyes over this baby, and feast them upon No. 4.