The End
Now Playing: Mark snoring upstairs, Rupert meowing for food
Topic: Stephen Says
And thus ends the blog. Apologies for it going out with a whimper but hey, we've been busy.

So we're in Toronto now and are in the process of getting ourselves sorted out. Still don't have cell phones but that should get sorted today. If you want to keep in touch and haven't already, please join Facebook and make E&I your friends. Or e-mail us.

Toodleoo!

toodleoo!
Now Playing: Low - Drums & Guns
Topic: Stephen Says
Our internet gets cut off at some point today and I'm not too sure how much acess the 'net we'll have over the next 10 days. Elisabeth was planning on doing a wrap up (And still may) so this'll probably be the 2nd or 3rd to last entry here ever. If any of you need to get in touch with us, please use our mobile numbers posted on the front page.

Toodleoo!

...And we're away again
Topic: Stephen Says
Doing Brighton, Cantebury and in-between. Will be back Tuesdayish. We've been recouperating from our last trip and my apologies for the lack of anything interesting or insightful.

Away for a few days
Topic: Stephen Says
We're off to Cornwall for a few days. E's being contemporary and is bringing her lap top so we may blog the trip. Or we may not. Who knows?

All that needs to be said on Falwell's death:
Now Playing: Isis - In the Absence of Truth (Ironically enough...)
Topic: Stephen Says


The only thing to add wound be that I would have loved to have seen the look on ol' Jerry's face when he woke up in hell...

Just a quickie
Topic: Stephen Says
Because there's not too much to say - Elisabeth finished work on Friday and spent the day pissed, and we went out to our favorite Italian resaurant to celebrate and she smashed a wine glass.

At some point on Friday, Elisabeth claims that I was talking about my secret chocolate stash which is news to me, but she promptly scoured the flat looking for it. Now I have some explaining to do.

Oh, and we're planning a few days in Cornwall.
Happy Mother's Day and all that.
Ciao!

Oops
Topic: Stephen Says
I was going to blog for the sake of blogging but have only just looked at the blog and seen that Elisabeth blogged a few days ago and I hadn't bothered to check. If only real life was like a book, with our blog reaching an exciting crescendo instead of petering out as we go on with other things. Ah well, we've still got 4 weeks here - anything can happen.

Bits & bobs:

-As Elisabeth mentioned, I engaged in a camping trip last weekend. A relatively surreal thing since the camp site was in a field with no privacy between the locations where people pitched their tents. An appropriate metaphor for the British psyche: No real privacy yet everyone going about like they were invisible & alone, doing their best to ignore everyone else around them being irritating and not understanding why they're so stressed out and miserable.

-Again, as mentioned below, we're off to see Robert Lindsay (Our current favoirite tragi-comic actor in the Whole Wide World) in John Osborne's The Entertainer at the Old Vic. It's my first West End play so I'm prepared to be generally irritated by the fartsy crowd. It's the kind of affair that I'm actually going to bother shaving for.

-Last night I bore witness to the kind of event that I will miss when I'm back in Canada: Some dude biking excrutatingly slowly along on the sidewalk, not bothering anyone when a rent-a-cop turns around and starts shouting at him to get off his bike. The dude just turns around & looks at rent-a-cop and continues to amble along, totally ignoring the whole situation while rent-a-cop just stands there, shouting at him until he's out of ear shot. The word 'impotant' comes to mind.

-I'll have some culture shock to deal with when I'm in the T-dot (Does anyone still use that term in anyway other than in an ironic one? Or is ironic use of it even passe?). I was watching a documentary the other day, lamenting how stupid the American accents on the interviewees made them sound, when I realized they were all Canadian (Granted, they were from the Yukon). I was also flummoxed by the constant casual use of the word 'eh?' They were bandying it around the way a Brit uses the word 'cunt.'

A personal best:
Now Playing: Cult of Luna - The Beyond
Topic: Stephen Says
We have 2 of our books in the front display of our local Oxfam (The Woman's Health Bible & Michael Palin's Diaries for those who care).

Yet more comment on the Virginia school shootings
Topic: Stephen Says
A part of me is loath to wade into the morass of commentary on this subject, for the most part due to the fact that the BBC is reporting that the shooting is being most widely dealt with via millions of blogs, so I’m committing the self-same act that I’m criticizing.

I’m also loath to wade into this subject because the point that 30 people murdered in a mass killing such as this is considered a ‘good day in Baghdad’ is being made over and over again on blogs as well; the implicit message being: Western lives are more important than non-Western lives.

(The secondary message being that global coverage of what is, essentially, a local news story serves as a means to bury more relevant news that doesn’t have such sensational aspects.)

But seeing as it’s the lead story in America, Canada, Great Britain and, I’m sure numerous other countries, it bears comment because once again, the root cause of the shooting will not be explored, giving way to sensational testimonies and simplistic tales of survival (The Triumph of Good over Evil) and the ultimate vilification (Most certainly deserved) of the perpetrator. I’m certain that someone in Hollywood is already drafting next-seasons moving of the week, considering Ryan Gosling as the lead.

So since the blame game is already starting, I’d like to throw my hat into the arena and blame Michael Moore. After all, he made a movie about school shootings that the killer probably saw (Or was at least aware of) and this probably planted the idea in his head. Sure, this is wild, sensational speculation, but so is most of what I’ve heard and read this morning.

bla bla bla
Topic: Stephen Says
Need proof that we brought far too much with us to England? I was packing up my trusty Canadian winter boots today (That I've never needed to wear) and found a lightbulb stuffed into one. Which would mean that today was the first time that I've actually touched the boots wince we moved to Woking, oh, 3 years ago.