Category: General

I first met Gail Scott in the early 1970s when I was press secretary to Robert Stanfield so dealt with her and all members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. After graduating from Carleton she had spent a year in Paris studying and teaching. As a result when she returned to her birthplace of Ottawa she was fully bilingual. The two dozen Press Gallery reporters from Quebec publications were all bilingual but hardly any of the English-language members of the Press Gallery spoke French. Scott’s other strong points were her manner and reporting skills – first for CBC Radio then CTV....

My son-in-law recently emailed me an interesting missive involving the library in Hamilton, Ont. where he and my daughter live. What he sent was an article published earlier this month in the Hamilton Spectator listing the top ten most popular holds in the Hamilton Public Library system. The most popular hold was an unlimited pass to the Niagara Peninsula Authority NaturePlus. So popular was this pass that the 19 available passes had 582 holds, meaning that anyone who is registered as one of those holds will likely wait months before her/his turn arrives. A similar number of holds cluttered demand...

Some of my favourite songs are about dreams. As it happens, they all come from my youth in the previous century. Here’s my short list of top dream songs: Sweet Dreams by Patsy Cline, Dream Baby by Roy Orbison and Sweet Dreams Are Made of This by The Eurythmics. While all three have dreams described as “sweet” in their titles or opening lines, how sweet are those dreams when you actually listen closely to the lyrics. It’s surprising – not very sweet at all. Patsy Cline’s song about a sometime lover has heartbroken lyrics such as, “You don’t love me,...

Remember those foolish things you did as a kid, sometimes pretending that everything worked well, even when it didn’t? For example, the Wards lived around the corner from me on Parkholm Ave. They had two boys, my friend Jackie and his older brother. The older brother was way more savvy at 12 than Jackie and I were at 8, so it was the 12-year-old who decided to rig up some way of talking to his friend, Denny Sullivan, one street further over. The telephone had been invented, of course, but parents were unhappy when young fry tied up the phone...

When Sir John Craig Eaton died at 46 in 1922, none of his sons was ready to take over Eaton’s, the company his father, Timothy, had founded in 1869. Cousin R. Y. Eaton stepped in until the designated son, John David Eaton, was old enough. I wrote a book, The Eatons, in 1998 so I thought about all this history and more when I read in my morning paper today about fresh plans for the former Eaton’s College Street, first opened in 1930. Lady Eaton, wife of Sir John, and their second son, John David, officiated at those ceremonies. Behind...

Some books are better unread. Some books are better unwritten. Source Code: My Beginnings by Bill Gates is just such a book. You wouldn’t be at all drawn to this book unless you knew the success he had launching Microsoft. Or maybe you’re attracted to the photo of a seven-year-old with a front tooth missing which is what’s on the cover. It wasn’t the photo that drew me, it was the Gates name and the fact that it was billed as an autobiography. Biographies and autobiographies are my favourite genre and my shelves are lined with others including the likes...

I know I’ve previously written about Artificial Intelligence, but, bear with me, my stomach is once more roiling about this nonsense that keeps intruding into our lives. In my morning paper, the Report on Business, was a story announcing that bank CEOs say that AI is already in use in their institutions. According to the article banks are using AI to boost staff productivity, cut costs, combat financial crime and improve customer service. Wow! Isn’t it odd that the CEOs would cite those things, given how poorly the banks appear to be performing in all those areas. “We don’t talk...

Whatever happened to chivalry? My concern is readily visible on almost any street in the country. Rather than see couples walk together, side-by-side, many men are two or three steps ahead of their wife, as if they don’t know her or wish they didn’t. Or perhaps this out-fronter thinks he will look like some snappy male specimen who is single and therefore ready to join with whatever new woman will have him in her life. In his mind the choice grows greater and greater as time passes, such a hunk of humanity is he. You see a similar sort of...

Those of you who are of a certain age – and I’m sure you know who you are – likely have the same problem I do. Out of nowhere, a tune from the distant past will pop into your head. But, for the life of you, you can’t remember anywhere near all of the words. This happened to me recently with Yakety Yak. You likely know the opening lines: “Take out the papers and the trash, or you don’t get no spending cash. If you don’t scrub that kitchen floor, you ain’t gonna rock and roll no more.” And the...

The Blue Jays went into the three-game series against the Colorado Rockies this week with by far the better season. The Jays had won twice as many games this year as the poor, beleaguered Rockies. The Jays proceeded to win all three games and set new records. Sound great doesn’t it? Well, it wasn’t. I won’t be watching the Jays for a while, such is my disgust. This was not the same fine Jays team that recently swept four games from the New York Yankees. That was some of the best baseball I’ve ever seen and secured a three-game lead...

The number 19 bus runs north-south on Bay Street in Toronto between Davenport Road in the north and Union Station in the south. I’ve taken that bus regularly since moving downtown in 2018. There’s always been just a handful of passengers. But this week, as I rode northbound from King Street, people kept clambering on. By the time we reached my stop near Bloor, the vehicle was so packed that I almost couldn’t get out. I also talked to my daughter who last week drove over the border to the U.S. at Niagara. Going into the U.S., there was no...

One of the best reads in the always thoughtful London Review of Books is the Letters page. In it, readers correct mistakes from previous issues, add information they felt was missing, and generally show off their wit and wisdom. In a recent issue, dated June 26, appears an unusual letter, even for the LRB. Written by one Benjamin Letzler, of Modling, Austria, the author – for reasons best known to himself – quotes numerous renowned writers who have castigated Britain. In particular, Letzler mentions a two-column list of which he is aware, a list that apparently fills the better part...

First off, unless you’re referring to artificial ice for hockey, anything that’s called artificial can never be as good as the real thing. I dislike Artificial Intelligence. There, I’ve declared my views on AI right up front. After all, AI is attempting to stand in for human thinking. Why does anyone thoughtful want to have anything to do with something that purports to do that? As a writer, I never use AI. If I did, it would be like a house painter giving over his job to the first person who walks by. I’m told the more you use AI,...

The older I get, the more I remember the past with clarity. By the time I went to kindergarten, I could read on my own. My father had nightly read to me and listened while I read from a range of books including those by Thornton W. Burgess. I can vividly remember pronouncing “gnaw” in The Adventures of Danny Meadow Mouse with a hard “g” as if it had two syllables – g-naw – and being corrected. As a result of his fine tutelage I became an early and avid reader at the Carnegie Library in Guelph. The children’s books...

As a writer, I love language. When I think back to my university days, I shake my head at the many and varied forms of the English language with which I struggled to become familiar. First, there was Old English, which was closer to Norse than anything recognizable today. A typical pair of words in Old English looked something like this, “Pæs oferéode,” meaning “That was overcome.” Old English was used until the Norman conquest of England in 1066. Those invaders carried out an inventory called the Domesday Book of all the captured buildings. Included was the church in Earsham,...