I have previously made mention within these meanderings of the fact that The Girl and I do not routinely read print newspapers here in Canada – a definite and somewhat unexpected change from our previous practice in the UK. Yes – I still read The Guardian and The Observer online – but sitting up in bed of a Sunday morning with an iPad on one’s lap is just not the same as having the multiple sections of a paper strewn around over the duvet.

However – just the other day The Girl returned from a few days in Vancouver where she had been attending an Engagement (what you and I might call a conference) bearing a copy of The Globe and Mail that she had picked up on the ferry. Now – if we did read a paper here regularly it would probably be The Globe and Mail – of which Wikipedia says thus:

“The Globe and Mail is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada’s most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it falls slightly behind the Toronto Star in overall weekly circulation because the Star publishes a Sunday edition, whereas the Globe does not. The Globe and Mail is regarded by some as Canada’s ‘newspaper of record'”.

Irregardless…

The reason for mentioning this at all might just be discernible from the accompanying image – of the front page of this particular issue. The piece referred to concerns the 2023 Canada’s Most Livable Cities survey – in which good old Victoria came out as the overall number one city.

Yaay Victoria!

If one is to accept that the data is accurate (and can indeed be interpreted in the way the the Globe and Mail survey does) Victoria comes out top in many categories – with the notable exceptions of the cost of housing, (which is uncomfortably high for many folk) and healthcare (where, as I have previously noted, there is a continuing shortage of doctors). There are those who gripe about such studies and one should certainly not overlook the problems that many localities face, but I believe that the great majority of those who live here are aware that they are inhabitants of a beautiful city and that to be so is a considerable blessing.

The Encyclopedia Britannica (online edition) says on the subject of rituals:

“A complete analysis of ritual would also include its relation to art, architecture, and the specific objects used in ritual such as specific forms of ritual dress. All of these components are found in ritual contexts, and all of them are nonverbal in structure and meaning.”

“Huh!” – I hear you exclaim… “Where is he going with this?”

“Patience!” – say I. The encyclopedia continues:

“Most rituals mark off a particular time of the day, month, year, stage in life, or commencement of a new event or vocation. This temporal characteristic of ritual is often called “sacred time .” What must not be forgotten in the study of ritual is a special aspect of ritual that is often described as “sacred space.” Time and place are essential features of ritual action, and both mark a specific orientation or setting for ritual. Time and space, whether a plot of ground or a magnificent temple, are ritually created and become, in turn, the context for other rituals.”

What time of the year is more endowed with ritual than the winter festival season that includes – amongst other celebrations – Christmas? And do we not imbue the occasion with timely rituals both old and newly devised?

“Yes!” and “yes” would be appropriate responses to those questions.

Yes – the run in to Christmas is upon us and we each mark the season in our own particular fashions. For example, The Girl and I know that Christmas is shortly to be upon us when it is time to make a festive run up island to partake of luncheon with The Girl’s mother – and other venerable friends – and to exchange the first gifts of the season. This usually happens at about the same point on the calendar as does the annual charitable event that sees Barney Bentall’s Cariboo Express pull in to the Mary Winspear Centre in Sidney for its annual fundraising concert. I have written about the Cariboo Express repeatedly over the years and I will continue so to do as long as each occasion proves to be the same festival of joy and love to which we have become accustomed… the which it happily continues to be.

Sacred times – sacred spaces!

Here are some boat pictures from our ferry crossing to Mill Bay on our way up island.

I thought the gentle reader might appreciate a few more glimpses of autumnal hues – before everything fades to a wintery grey for the the next three months or so. Fall is glorious, though it is the season of which I am least fond. Winter serves a purpose but unless one likes to get out to play in the snow and ice it is not one that  that some folk – self included – find easy to love. Still – it does eventually give way to the spring and that is a very good thing.

Good grief! Here we are – already well into November. The Halloween decorations are coming down and the over-zealous have already started on Christmas…

Time for some soothing images of autumnal colours – to demonstrate what a beautiful world this is despite what we insist on inflicting upon it:

I promised gentle readers a couple of posts back that I would write something on the subject of Peter Gabriel’s recent concert appearance in Vancouver – a step along the way on the North American leg of his ‘i/o’ tour – the which is in support of his eagerly anticipated but as yet unreleased new album.

Actually, ‘unreleased‘ is somewhat misleading. Mr. Gabriel has been releasing tracks from the up-coming album on a monthly basis – coinciding with the full moon – since the start of the year… Should one be a subscriber (as, you will be unsurprised to hear – I am) then one gets all of the tracks in a variety of different edits, plus the full collection upon release. What a brilliant notion!

I first wrote about the excellent Mr G. in these jottings back in 2013 on the occasion of our first experience in London (of two!) of the ‘So‘ album’s twenty fifth anniversary tour. That post contained just the first of many PG references to feature within these ephemera and included the following testimonial:

“I do not believe that I have ever been – or could ever be – a party to a serious relationship with anyone who was not an admirer of the most excellent Mr Peter Gabriel. Those with whom I have shared such accord will undoubtedly testify to my continuing enthusiasm for the man and his works over an extended period.

The Kickass Canada Girl and I – naturally – established early on that we were mutual admirers, the chief difference between us being that whereas I have genuinely lost count of the number of times that I have seen Mr G perform live in the flesh, she had not – to the point at which we met – had that opportunity at all.

So it was – back in the summer of 2007 – that the Girl and I found ourselves huddled close together under the pouring rain in the grounds of a stately home in Norfolk. We had trekked all the way up there to catch one of a small number of dates that Gabriel was playing as a warm-up to that year’s WOMAD festival.”

I still can’t accurately recall all of the times that I have seen the estimable Mr. Gabriel, but I believe that the first time I did so was in 1978 or 1979. I am not aware of having missed a tour since then, several times seeing the great man at both the start and end of world tours.

This year’s show was a wonderful mixture of old and new material – and of art and music. Peter’s songwriting is, if anything, stronger than ever – the lengthy genesis of this new album certainly paying off. His voice has maybe lost a note or two in range but is stronger and more emotive than ever. At the age of 73 he is still in extraordinarily good voice.

For more about these excellent shows (the which have, as expected, been exceedingly well received and have gone down a treat in both Europe and North America) here are reviews from The Guardian and the Vancouver Sun.

By the way – I have given up worrying each time I see Mr.Gabriel that it may be the last. I see no reason why we should not be gathering together well into the next decade and more.

Just a few short months ago – back in August – I waxed lyrical in a post on these very pages on the subject of the delights and pleasures that we anticipated would be associated with the then upcoming 2023 Rugby World Cup.

This gripping competition has now arrived at the sharp end – with the quarter final matches having taken place this weekend just passed and with only the semis and the final to come.

The gentle reader may be wondering – therefore – why there has been a stony silence in these quarters on the subject since that last posting. Have we not been enjoying the splendid matches with which we have been regaled by the French hosts?

Well – yes, we have. There has been much joyous and exciting play at all levels of the competition – and some great games. It is truly wonderful to see the progress that has been made by a number of the Tier 2 sides.

The tournament has, however, been somewhat tarnished by the fact that – because the draw which resulted in the seeding for the competition was made more than three years ago – a number of sides have found themselves at a considerable disadvantage in terms of their current strengths. I have already made mention of the fact that the poor Scots (before the tournament ranked as number 5 in the world) found themselves in a pool which also included the world’s number 1 side – the Irish – and the number 3 side (and current world champions)- the South Africans. Other sides with considerably lower rankings found themselves in relatively easy pools.

I lamented in my previous post that the Scots would need to play out of their skins to get out of the pool stages – the which they duly failed to do.

This might just sound like the gripings of a sore loser, but the lop-sided nature of the draw has had other and greater effects. For example, the current top four sides in the world – the Irish, the All Blacks, the Saffers and the French might have expected to meet each other in a pair of titanic semi-finals, yielding two worthy contenders for the final. The latter will certainly still happen, but those two eagerly anticipated encounters actually took place in the quarter finals (Ireland/All Blacks – France/South Africa) and the two semifinals will as a result also include two sides who – with due respect to the Argentinians and to the English – are not playing at anywhere near the same level.

This is frankly disappointing and – whereas it will not in anyway diminish our enjoyment of the tournament – should not be allowed to happen again.

To Vancouver for the weekend – to see Peter Gabriel at the Rogers Arena. More on that in the next post – but first, some images of what Douglas Coupland quite understandably calls the ‘City of Glass’. Vancouver has that ‘big city’ feel – much more imposing than quaint little old Victoria.

Visitors always want to know why Victoria is the provincial capital of British Columbia and not Vancouver. Not much to be said there – except that it is what it is. Personally – eager as I am to absorb the big city vibes for a while, I am always much happier when we get back to the island.

But then – I do come from island people…

Yes – ’tis that time of year again at which to celebrate The Girl’s birthday…

Hooray and hoorah!

Happy Birthday to The Girl!

It now being (suddenly) autumn here on the west coast of Canada, the weather has given up any pretense of being remotely summery. Today is gray and rainy and no day for going out or doing anything much at all.

Fortunately we already did step out – a couple of nights back – to The Courtney Room at the Magnolia Hotel in Victoria for a very splendid dinner – complete with a quite lovely bottle of St Aubin.

Yum!

The festivities will extend into next weekend when – as I have made mention of previously elsewhere – we head to Vancouver to see Peter Gabriel (and to do other celebratory things!)

What jolly japes!

Happy Birthday!

As trailed in this recent post the autumn (or fall) season that has suddenly announced itself here in BC (to the great relief of fire-fighters and gardeners alike) gets underway for The Girl and I in a haze of cultural events. I thought I would just briefly report back on a few of them…

Having enjoyed one of the season-closing concerts at Butchart Gardens which featured soul/blues stalwart Miss Emily (”An angelic voice with just a hint of sultry devilishness. This gal is a rocket ready to take-off!” – The Tragically Hip) we were more than ready to be splendidly entertained by the wonderful Bonnie Raitt at the Royal Theatre here in Victoria at the start of September. The Girl introduced me to Bonnie back in the UK in around 2007 – at the New Theatre in Oxford as I recall – and I rapidly became a fan. Ms. Raitt is 73! Sorry – I shouldn’t have mentioned that, but if I look half as good, perform with a quarter of the energy and have but a fraction of her vocal talents and guitar chops when I reach that age… I too would probably still be earning standing ovations from 1500 seat theatres some fifty years into my career.

Kudos!

I reported back in May this year the manner in which The Belfry theatre’s closing show for the 2022/2023 season – “Old Stock – A Refugee Love Story” – had gone a long way to restoring our faith in Canadian theatre. I described the production thus: “It is witty but sensitive, riotously risque but touching, beautifully performed by musicians and actor/musicians alike and splendidly directed and staged.”

We have just been to see the opening production of the new 2023/2024 season (the which I will not name to protect the innocent!). I fear that our faith in the theatre is now right back somewhere adjacent to where it was before. This was an odd production which seemed to us not really to know what it was trying to accomplish. It certainly tried hard in so doing; way too hard, some might say. I was unimpressed by the writing (advertised as funny… not funny!) – the direction or the performances. To be fair, the material did not give any of those involved much of a chance. On the journey home The Girl and I found ourselves trying to recall as many as possible of the productions by which we had been impressed in a decade of theatre-going in London before we headed to Canada. It was a goodly list!

Now – something that was funny – a riotous evening in the company of the very excellent Dara O’Briain – also at the Royal Theatre. Dara – for those who have never had the huge pleasure of watching him at work (examples easily found on YouTube should you care to look… you lucky people!) – is perhaps our favourite comedian. He has the great advantage (for a comedian) of being massively intelligent and extremely quick on his feet. He is also, of course, Irish – which gives him a huge advantage.

It makes me very happy when it proves possible to see musicians, comedians and (very occasionally) actors that we know and love from over the water – here on the far west coast of Canada. It makes me even more happy that we get to see Peter Gabriel in Vancouver in about a week and a half’s time.

Can’t wait!

“How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”

Dr. Seuss

It is high time that I finished posting photos from our recent travels to a variety of locations around British Columbia (not all of which we had originally planned to visit!). Let’s see if I can wrap things up in this one post!

We spent a night in Nanaimo – largely so that we could have lunch with The Girl’s mother and a dear friend of ours from Duncan. Whilst there we also indulged in some retail therapy and I took the opportunity afforded by being on the 14th floor of the Coast Bastion hotel to take some pictures of a favourite subject of mine – float planes!

Well – they are something that we just don’t see in the south east of England!

From Nanaimo we drove up the east coast of Vancouver island to Courtney/Comox, adjacent towns in the Comox valley that I had somehow contrived not yet to visit. We really liked the feeling of Courtney – the which has a sort of artsy vibe somewhat akin to Salt Spring island (should one be in BC) or St. Ives (should one be in the southwest of England.

In spite of its charms I somehow I managed not to take pictures of Courtney (not sure where my brain went!) but I did take the camera on an excursion to nearby Mount Washington – ski and outdoor resort.

No snow at this time of year, of course, though no shortage of wildfire smoke.

This little chap is a jay known as a Whiskey Jack – the which is Canada’s national bird (who knew? – certainly not this recent Canadian)…

These apparently fearless little birds are not named with reference to the Irish grain-based alcoholic beverage, but from the Cree word ‘Wisakedjak‘. This makes the cheeky little fellow the only Canadian bird commonly known by a traditional indigenous name.

Here he is – ready for his close up:

Here he is – gone!…

“You don’t take a photograph. You ask quietly to borrow it.”

Unknown

The cabin by the lake in the North Thompson to which I made reference in my last post (which body of water I will refrain from identifying any more closely) is one of my favourite places in the world (as much as I know of it anyway) to take photographs. The constantly changing light means that from one minute to the next the subjects of my eager snapping metamorphose into ever more sensational phantasms.

For evidence of this supposition – see below. I strongly recommend clicking on the images to gain the full effect.

“In Canada, anything that’s not in the city is referred to as a cottage. Or a log cabin”.

Dolores O’Riordan

As detailed in my last post – having fled the wildfires in the Okanagan The Girl and I took refuge in her cousin’s cabin in the North Thompson. There was still plenty of smoke from the McDougall Creek fire just a few miles away on the other side of the mountain, but the lake and its surrounds were mercifully calm.

Naturally I had the camera with me…

These guys weren’t going to let a little smoke interfere with their wakeboarding.

We went out driving one day around Clearwater and Birch Island – this being the area from which The Girl hails. We worked our way back down the logging roads through Little Fort and Chu Chua and met this unexpected fellow traveler. Hard to tell who was more surprised…

As trailed in my recent post The Girl and I have been (and are still at time of writing!) traveling within British Columbia. This trip had several purposes – to attend an engagement organised by The Girl’s First Nation – to (re)visit friends and family – to explore parts of BC that I, at least, have not yet seen – and to compensate in some small measure for our disastrous venture abroad earlier in the summer…

In this latter regard I am reminded of Lloyd Bridges’ running gag as Steve McCroskey in the classic 80s film comedy – ‘Airplane’. As things veer from bad to worse McCroskey repeats the mantra:

”Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up smoking/drinking/amphetamines…” etc, etc

Well – it looks like this has been the wrong year for us to go out traveling!

Now – it is clearly in poor taste to make jokes at a time that other folk have been suffering terrible loses (though mercifully not in terms of life and limb) but that is fundamentally the way that we Brits cope with such things.

A week and a half ago we headed for Kelowna in the Okanagan for The Girl’s three day engagement. Those readers who do not live in Canada may not have been following recent events in BC too closely, but that Thursday was the night that the big wildfire north of Kelowna swept down over the mountain and devoured the first of the several hundred properties in West Kelowna that have since been burned to the ground.

The image at the top of this post was taken from our hotel room shortly after we arrived. By the next morning very little could be seen at all.

The engagement was cancelled late that first evening and we were advised to retreat from Kelowna the next morning so that hotel rooms could be made available for those who had been forced to evacuate their homes. We made an early dash for Kamloops whilst the roads were yet open.

Following the engagement we had planned a few nights further south in the Okanagan – at Peachland – but by the Sunday evening travel orders had been issued to prevent tourists from driving to various critical areas of the province, the which was necessary so that the emergency vehicles would not be hampered in their operations and also so that further souls would not be put at risk, adding to the heavy burden already upon those services.

We were extremely fortunate, then, in that The Girl’s cousin – who lives in Kamloops but who has a lakeside cabin in the North Thompson which has previously been featured in these ramblings – invited us to spend a few days in that smoky but relatively safe part of the province.

This offer we most gratefully accepted. Pictures and further excursion meanderings to follow…

“RUGBY: No Time-Outs, No Blockers, No Pads = Best Game On Earth!”

When The Girl and I moved to Vancouver Island eight years ago and purchased our lovely home on the Saanich peninsula, one of the first things we did in our new abode was to watch the key matches in the 2015 Rugby World Cup – the which was taking place at that time back in the old country.

Now – as is often the way with such sporting events, the Rugby World Cup takes place every four years; the next tournament was thus held in 2019 – in Japan.

Now, this all means – you’ve got it! – 2023 is also a Rugby World Cup year! This year’s eagerly awaited event kicks off in September and is being hosted by the French. I will doubtless be posting more on the subject as the competition approaches.

What is happening at this point, however, is that the national sides that made it through the qualification rounds to the finals are currently engaged in warm-up matches and we are all watching keenly, looking for clues as to form and potential. This is rendered considerably more tricky by the sides taking the opportunity to experiment with squads and tactics, making it difficult to gauge exactly how each team is progressing.

The Scots (in whom, as you doubtless know, I have an interest) have now played two warm-up matches, the first against Italy (a slightly unconvincing but nonetheless welcome victory) followed by the first of two games against France, who are one of the favourites to lift the trophy in a couple of month’s time.

This match was at Murrayfield and – as expected – the French fielded what was essentially a second string side. Given the overall strength of their squad, however, such matters are somewhat immaterial – as was rapidly demonstrated by the powerful French side storming out to a 21 – 3 lead at half time.

The Scots – having clearly been on the end of some strong words during the break – came back at the start of the second half with a try of their own, but were shortly thereafter reduced to fourteen men following the sending off of prop, Zander Fagerson, for a dangerous clear-out that resulted in a head impact.

There would have been a time when the Scots would have folded, but this cohort are made of sterner stuff. in spite of being a man down they took the game to the French, scored two further good tries, before the nerveless Finn Russell slotted the penalty that won the Scots the game.

Though this was all most exciting and great to see, the Scots really are going to be up against it as things progress. Not only do they have a return warmup fixture this coming weekend in St. Etienne against the French first VI, but once the tournament proper starts in a few weeks time the Scots will have a serious battle to make it out of the group stages, facing – as the draw has most cruelly handed them – both South Africa and Ireland – who, along with France and the All Blacks, make up the top four seeds.

Ouch!

Still, we Scots are expecting – and hoping for – great things!

Robbie Robertson

1943 – 2023

RIP

It has been a sad year for those who are involved with… or who have an interest in… or who are passionate about… the business of music. Yet another of our creative giants has succumbed to age and/or illness. Canadians, naturally, need little encouragement to celebrate one of their own greats; in this case the inimitable Robbie Robertson, who sadly passed away yesterday at the age of 80.

We were, last night, at this year’s penultimate Music in the Park in Brentwood Bay and the evening’s act – local cover band, ‘Shaky Ground’ – were moved to knock out a slightly chaotic (and definitely un-rehearsed!) rendition of ‘The Weight‘ as a tribute. It seemed  apposite in its sincerity (much as did the version of “Imagine” unexpectedly rendered by Freddie Mercury and Brian May of Queen at Wembley Arena in London all those years ago the night after John Lennon was shot in New York).

I posted to this blog back in 2016 a piece entitled “The Boy(s) in the Band“ – having attended an audience with Robertson at the Farquhar Auditorium at the University of Victoria on the occasion of the publication of the first volume of his autobiography – ‘Testimony‘. If you should not be Canadian – and perhaps thus less likely to know the detail of Robertson’s background – that piece might offer a useful starting point. I also strongly recommend Daniel Roher’s excellent documentary – “Once Were Brothers” – which can be found on one or more of the usual streaming services.

In another of my earlier posts – from even longer ago, back in 2013 – I made reference to Robbie’s wonderful album – “Music for the Native Americans“, the which draws on his First Nations heritage. This I also strongly recommend.

Rest in peace.

Good grief! ‘Tis well into August already. Where is this year going and how come the months have been slipping away so dashed rapidly?

As regular followers will know, the year has not – thus far – exactly gone to plan. I am about to tempt the fates by looking at some of the things that are in the calendar for the next few months, in the firm expectation that our ill-fortune is now behind us and that I will have only positive things to report.

Fingers… etc, etc… firmly crossed!

Disregarding completely the year’s previous disappointments we are once again leaving the island later this month. We will not – however – be venturing abroad, but traveling instead to the interior of British Columbia.

We have been aware for some time that we have perhaps been neglecting family and friends who do not live on the island. For a period COVID gave us good reason (or perhaps excuse) for this omission, but as we have now apparently joined with much of the rest of the world in deciding that the pandemic is over (or at the very least not worth bothering about) we figure that it is time to get some skin back in the game.

The trigger for this excursion has been an ‘engagement’ in Kelowna (in the Okanagan) organised by The Girl’s First Nation. Using those three days as a core we have planned a trip to Kelowna, Peachland and Kamloops on the mainland, followed by a visit further north on the island to Courteney – a place to which I, at least, have yet to go. We are looking forward to the trip and I will be posting updates, images etc as we progress.

There is a fair bit of music in our immediate future as well. There are still several weeks to go in the Brentwood Bay Music in the Park season and we are also in the coming week going to be attending one of the Butchart Gardens concerts.

Come September we will be seeing Bonnie Raitt at the Royal Theatre here in Victoria – and at the start of October we are going to Vancouver for a few days to see… wait for it… Peter Gabriel! You might recall that The Girl and I saw him the year after we moved to Canada – in Edmonton – on the Rock, Paper, Scissors tour that he did with Sting. I really thought that this time he had retired from the road, but here he is – back again and with a new album about to drop as well. Being a subscriber to Gabriel’s Real World studio I have been in receipt of pre-release tracks from the album at each new moon (it’s a Peter Gabriel thing!) and I can report that it is going to be a good one.

We also get to see one of our favourite comedians – Dara O’Briain – in September here in Victoria, so there is much to which to look forward.

We can’t wait…!

Sinead O’Connor

1966 – 2023

RIP

There is something particularly touching about the considerable flood of obituaries, epitaphs and opinion pieces that have followed the news of the extremely sad passing of Sinead O’Connor. There is also a touch of irony in the fact that – for much of her career – she gave the strong impression that she would be only too happy should the spotlight not be upon her. She was clearly most uncomfortable with the whole fame and recognition side of the business, professing not unreasonably that she was a protest singer rather a ‘pop star’ (whatever that may be taken to be).

In pondering the obvious strength of feeling concerning this most talented Irish singer one should perhaps look a little beyond her huge gift and wonder why it was that we are so attracted to someone who so clearly struggled with elements of her life. Could it be that – fascinated as many are at the whole ‘celebrity’ aspect of the ‘business of show’ – even more of us are drawn to those who struggle with the messiness of their own existences. Mayhap they – in some way – speak to and for us all in their obvious distress?

I need say no more. The press and the InterWebNet are full of the loving eulogies of those who really knew her.

Like many other ‘average Joes’ I came to Sinead’s work through the sublime “No-one Compares 2 U” and the excellent album “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got”. If my memory can be relied upon (!) I saw her perform just once – when she was briefly a part of Peter Gabriel’s “Secret World” tour back in 1992 (or thereabouts). I am very glad that I did so.

Rest in peace.

“Contrariwise . . . if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.”

Lewis Carroll

We are – it should be self-evident – now truly into the depths (or heights, according to your preferences) of summer.

Further – should you not have been aware of the fact – 2023 is an El Nino year. This regular but unwanted visitor – when added to the already serious effects of climate change – results in the sort of world-wide craziness that we have not encountered in my lifetime. Climate records are being broken daily – whether that be in terms of the world-wide wildfire season or of the equally world-wide highest recorded temperatures. These over-heated events seem to alternate with with vicious storms which cause flash flooding.

On the west coast of Canada it has been dry and sunny, but we have been blessed thus far in avoiding such unpleasant phenomena as ‘heat domes’ and ‘atmospheric rivers’. The wildfire smoke too is – for now at least – blowing in the other direction. I gather that it is raining in parts of the UK, though the southern European nations are currently broiling.

It is somewhat difficult, therefore, not to feel guilty when one is seated in comfort, with one’s supper, surrounded by good and friendly folk, listening to the Brentwood Bay Music in the Park of a summer evening. The crew of Victoria luminaries pictured above are last week’s offering – the long running local Steely Dan tribute act – the ‘Pretzel Logic Orchestra’. Their number includes excellent musicians who turn out for various different ensembles and they are all seasoned pros.

Don – The guitarist in the centre of the attached image – can more frequently be found running the sound at Pioneer Park, for other visiting acts. I had a quick word with him after the show this week to congratulate him on his lead guitar work – and in particular on the note perfect rendering of the Larry Carlton guitar solo from ‘Kid Charlemagne‘ (perhaps my favourite ever guitar solo).

In return he told me about the time that he met Larry Carlton!…

Dude!

“…or my watch has stopped”.

Groucho Marx

Back in the day – whenever that was – I would hazard a guess that more folk wore wristwatches than did not. I certainly did and as someone who spent a life in a timetable-centred environment (education in my case) these handy devices were/are a godsend. When being late is not an option knowing the time is becomes essential.

I was at school myself back in the days of the cheap mechanical watch (and expensive ones too, of course, though not for the likes of me) and it will come as no surprise that my first watch was just such – by Timex as I recall. The quartz motion did not really make an appearance on wrists until the mid to late 1970s, followed a while later by the first digital watches. The big change  – which resulted in a dramatic reduction of watch wearing – came rather later, in the early 2000s. The ubiquity of mobile devices – whence most young folk now glean their consciousness of the passing of the hours (if they do at all!) – has rendered the humble wristwatch obsolete as far as most are concerned.

Not – naturally – to me. I am uncomfortable if I don’t have a watch on my wrist and I find myself looking down at said appendage rather more than I am usually aware of. Also – I am an old-fashioned kind of a guy and hold no truck with such new-fangled things as quartz or digital watches. I do make an exception for the automatic winding mechanism which evolved during the early part of the last century, but that’s as far as I go.

As it happens, I don’t really care for sports watches either  – so my chosen timepiece tends to be an everyday or dress watch, analogue in every sense – though it can make use of my motion to wind itself.

This watch will be familiar to those who know me – the very lovely Omega Seamaster that The Girl bought me the year we got married. She would have liked to have found me a watch fashioned during the year of my birth, but that proved too difficult – and 1966 was a good year in may ways for us Brits so it does have a good resonance.

The post linked herewith does chronicle, however, the problem with the routine wearing of such a lovely timepiece. The Seamaster runs splendidly – until it doesn’t… and when it stops it does so expensively. In part that is due to the difficulty of finding a watch repairer who can service and fix vintage watches and the availability of any parts required. If you reread that post you will see that the watch was repaired in 2021. Sadly it stopped again last year and awaits further attention.

Whenever the Seamaster is ‘hors de combat’ I have reverted to the first ‘real’ watch that I purchased (back in the early 1980s) – the Big Crown Oris pilot’s watch. Unlike the Seamaster these watches are not really collectors items, but they were well made and this one has given me forty years of really good and reliable service…

…until recently!

To be fair – the Oris has not stopped. If I leave it sitting on the dining room table it will happily run accurately and well. If I put it on my wrist – however – it will pause randomly during the day for variable periods. I suspect the automatic mechanism needs some attention, but these watches are harder than the Omega to find a willing repairer who will take a look.

Of course – an unreliable timepiece is no good at all if your day is ruled by deadlines. As a result I have found myself obliged to purchase a new watch – the first such since the early 80s.

…and here it is. This is a Seiko Presage ‘Zen Garden’. Not everybody’s choice, but a good solid automatic analogue watch with a better than average movement. My requirements were that it looks pretty and gives me another forty years of reliable service – the which should certainly see me out!

“Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats”

Voltaire

26th & 27th May

Though we did not get back to the hotel until after 1:00am in the early hours of the morning of 26th May, The Girl was awake again at 4:30am and calling BA on the phone. Following a lengthy exchange she was able to get our Johannesburg flight switched to the following day, 27^th May. We rebooked our connecting flights in Africa accordingly.

At around 10:00am I took a taxi back to Terminal 5 to try to locate our luggage. There were long queues of unhappy passengers outside the baggage office but they were not answering any queries. The BA management staff in the terminal would only say that we must log our missing baggage online and await a response. There was a heavy security presence in the terminal which was a good thing as the arrivals hall was teeming with unhappy travelers. Whilst I was there one hysterical young lady threw herself at one of the BA managers – apparently (though perhaps unsurprisingly) aiming to do him some harm. Shortly thereafter the security presence was reinforced by police officers. I beat a retreat.

During the afternoon we tried to log our missing bags online but the system was not working properly and would not record the details. We spent several more hours on the phone to BA and the missing luggage was finally appropriately recorded.

On waking on the morning of the 27^th May we found that we had been sent email notifications overnight to the effect that our safari bags had been flown to Johannesburg on 26^th May, but were by that time enroute back to the UK – though on different flights. A rapid calculation of flight times made it very clear that we could not be reunited with our bags in time to check in for that evening’s flight.

As detailed in my initial Africa posting, our trip was to have been a safari, staying in remote lodges (without wifi, Internet or cellular access) and traveling between them in small planes. We had purchased bags specifically sized to the requirements of these internal flights (maximum (W) 10” x (H) 12” x (L) 24”) and all of our clothing and other accoutrements had been chosen to be as small/light as possible.

We were supposed to have flown to Johannesburg, switched within a few hours to a local airline for the short hop to Maun, where we would have been met off the plane and transferred immediately to a small aircraft to be flown to the first safari lodge. There was no feasible way that we could have replaced our missing luggage whilst on the journey and without these items there was no possibility of completing the trip as planned. We had by this point rebooked our African internal flights twice – with no hope of a refund – and it felt as though we were just spending more and more money with no guarantee of being able to reach any of our destinations.

With immense reluctance we decided that we had no choice but to abandon our trip of a lifetime and to head back to Canada.

Much of the 27^th May was taken up with a series of phone calls to BA, trying to change our booking to get us back to Victoria by any route. The BA agents told us that it was not possible to do this without paying extra charges and that we would have to find a further $1,500 CAD each to get home via Vancouver. This was adding insult upon injury for something that was never our fault.  We were not – at any point in the whole sorry saga – offered by BA the alternative of abandoning our trip and going home.

Again it seemed as though we had no choice but to pay up, which we reluctantly did on the afternoon of the 27th May. Further anxiety was induced when BA initially charged the wrong amount to my credit card, which – when they subsequently corrected it – resulted in my card being blocked until I had made another international call to my credit card company to resolve the issue.

We flew back to Victoria via Vancouver on 30^th May, after the Bank Holiday on the 29^th and, to our surprise (having received no notification), found my wife’s missing safari bag on the baggage carousel at Vancouver. It was another four days before I finally received notification that my bag was also enroute to Victoria and I had to go to the airport myself on the 4^th June to collect it.

The whole experience was enormously stressful for us both. We did everything we could to join our safari and to continue the trip, but British Airways thwarted us at every step. We are well aware that BA has form in such matters and that this not by any means being the first such IT related incident. Little – if anything – seems to have been learned about how to resolve such self-inflicted issues.

With the exception of the small number of staff who did their best to support anxious and confused passengers, British Airway’s handling of the whole sorry saga was in the main obstructive, unhelpful and dismissive.Their only response (when questioned) was to state that all must be resolved online – which is richly ironic given that their IT systems were in meltdown. When we resorted to the inevitably extremely lengthy phone calls (during which we were almost driven insane by the endlessly repeated ‘hold music’) we found ourselves speaking to agents who were clearly a very long way away on different sides of the planet and who were equipped with a limited script outwith which they could not venture. Anything further meant an agonising wait for a call-back (which might or might not materialise) to inform us of the outcome of some other unknowable procedure that had been suggested by a faceless BA ‘supervisor’.

If I give the impression that we are angry about the whole fiasco – then that is because we are! We are still trying to recover whatever we can of the considerable outlay that we had made on this supposed trip of a lifetime, but as you might expect – BA (and others) do not make it easy so to do.

Well – I think… I hope!… that that is quite enough about this particular subject.

Moving on!…