I was recently in The US, as you may already know from reading my last blog post. While visiting Lancaster, Pennsylvania, I took a look around a Borders book store. I wanted to compare their prices to the prices in the Canadian book store I work in, and to get an idea of the titles they carry.

Books in Canada are more expensive than books in The USA. Having said that, books anywhere in the World are more expensive than books in The USA. In Canada, this variation in price is a bigger deal because customers in Canada will often get angry with Canadian stores for charging so much more.

Now, I know I work for a Canadian book store, but I don’t think I’m in a position of unreasonable bias. I don’t think booksellers here are innocent of blame. I believe that the main bookseller in this country has, pretty much, an effective monopoly. Especially in Ontario. This gives them a lot of bargaining power when they deal with publishers which they should be using to it’s fullest extent. I’m not in these meetings, so I can’t say for sure whether they are or aren’t doing this.

There is one main reason why people in Canada complain about the price of their books, and I’m sorry, but it’s retarded. The problem is that the prices are printed on the back of the books in both US currency and separately in Canadian currency. Right next to each other. Well, okay, this isn’t the underlying reason why people complain about the price of the books. The underlying reason is a bit more complicated. My point is that if both of the prices weren’t on the books then it wouldn’t even enter into the customer’s minds to complain about it. In the same way that people don’t complain they can get a Big Mac Meal cheaper in The USA, a cellphone cheaper in Japan or a wedge of Wensleydale cheese cheaper in England. If I walked into a bookstore in Paris and complained that I could get Twilight for a quid less in England, they’d spit at me and accuse me of being an English Pig-Dog. They’d tell me to fuck off back to England and buy it there. Except I wouldn’t entertain complaining about it unless the difference was significant (LIKE CELLPHONE CHARGES IN CANADA BEING CRAZY).

Of course when a customer is stood before you, you have to choose your words carefully (unless you’re Parisian). You give them a watered down, easy to understand version of the truth that they probably don’t believe entirely but don’t usually have the energy to argue with. The watered down version of the truth, which is that the cost of doing business in Canada is higher and many of our books cost more because they are shipped from The USA, has two main advantages. Firstly the customer can’t really scream at you because the reply is reasonable and secondly it’s not long-winded and boring, so they don’t get bored. And it doesn’t hold up the line for half-an-hour like a discussion of macro economics would.

And that’s what it comes down to. Economics. Different countries have different economic models and while the UK and Canada have a lot of similarities, the USA is quite different. Social welfare comes with a hefty price tag, but most people would agree that it is a good thing. Especially “free” health care. Two reasons why you wouldn’t think free health care is a good thing:
1) You’re very rich and can afford all the care you would ever need and don’t want to pay for anyone else.
2) You’ve been told throughout your life that communism is evil and will destroy the planet. (IE you live in The US and have no exposure to the outside world).

So yes, health care comes at a cost. This comes in the form of various taxes. Businesses have to pay taxes, too. Yes!! Really!! These costs are passed onto consumers. I’m not saying that the sole reason that books cost more in Canada is because you get free health care, but it’s a contributing factor and it’s one that should be remembered.

There are many horror stories related to insurance companies not wanting to pay out for someone to have an operation in the USA. The way they try to find technical reasons as to why the insurance is not valid is sickening. I don’t wish harm to any of my customers, but given the choice, I hope that customers would opt to pay a little extra for their book and receive free health care than save a few dollars on a book.

God forbid, if you did come down with an illness and you bought a copy of Twilight in Canada for about 20% more, at least when you are bed ridden and bored it will be much more satisfying to slowly tear out the pages of that awful book.

S

ara and I spent a weekend in Pennsylvania recently, mostly for the purposes of clothes shopping and primarily for Sara to pick up a dress for a wedding later this year. There is no sales tax on clothing (or much else) in Pennsylvania and there are numerous outlet malls in and around the city of Lancaster.

Using Toll roads, the drive is about 8 hours. We decided to take more scenic routes and avoid toll roads, so it took longer. This was the first time that I’d driven through large amounts of New York State, and you can see why the area is known as New England. There are many familiar trees and rolling green fields scattered with dandelions. Excusing the common use of wood panelling on houses and the road signs, I could see the resemblance between here and parts of the western most areas of the West Midlands where I grew up (in particular the rural areas of Herefordshire/Worcestershire/Shropshire areas).

As incredibly tempting as it is to spend an entire column knocking Americans, I will try to keep much of it under control. The border was yet another experience, though. Not as bad as previous times, but having crossed the border by car into New York State numerous times I still believe the attitudes of the immigration control officers are generally poor and heavy handed. I don’t expect them to offer to take me out for a drink, but I also don’t appreciate being spoken to like an idiot (even if I was one) like I was this time, or having surly individuals slamming around the place because they’re so superior now they’ve been given a badge and a gun.

Sara and I talked about the attitudes of Americans and we tend to agree that the problem with American society basically comes from the top. Some of the most despicable people end up in charge and they treat the people below them like dirt. It filters down from the very top and works it’s way down through anyone with any authority. It’s no surprise that when someone gets a bit of authority after they’ve been kicked around for a while, they then start kicking out themselves. That’s how bullying works.

Another observation about America is that it’s a lot further from it’s British roots than Canada is. You hear British accents on Canadian tv and radio on a regular basis. For some reason British accents are nearly always used in commercials for cleaning products here. Winston Churchill’s statue stands proudly near City Hall (although he had a length of bird shit on his head last time I saw him). You get to see the Union Jack from time to time in Toronto. It’s in the Ontario flag, too. Of course the US Flag is red, white and blue like another flag that came before it, but there is an extreme desire to believe in freedom and independence in the USA so I’m sure America not only invented the flag from scratch, they probably invented the colours it uses too.

In Canada I am asked about my accent fairly regularly. Particularly when I’m working. I can have a day at work where up to four people will ask me where abouts in Britain I’m from. In America, I didn’t get this once. I’m undecided whether it’s because being British is to be un-American and therefore not a good thing or whether it’s simply because people are generally less chatty, less friendly than them folks up in the great white north.

People working in the service industry are treated quite harshly in the USA. In the UK, the usual phrasing when you are asking for something is to say “Can I have a mug of coffee, please?". In Canada the phrasing tends to be along the lines of “Can I get a coffee, please?". From what I heard in the US, it tends to be “I’ll take a coffee". It seemed to be fairly normal for people to just reach across and tap a waitress on the shoulder rather than just say “Excuse me". The usual suggestion is that not all Americans are arrogant and impolite, and of course that is true. However every observation that I have written about here was truly witnessed and took place in the course of just two days.

Going back to the border crossing for a moment, the usual procedure involves driving up to several lines of traffic queueing at barricades like toll-booths. At this point, travel documents (IE passports) are shown. As a non-Canadian/non-US citizen I am then made to park the car and sit in a waiting room with usually about a dozen other people of varied ethnicity. I then get called to a window where I am questioned about my plans. I have to give an address. I usually have to outline the nature of the relationship I have with Sara. I have to give my fingerprints and they take a photograph of me. They then place a card in my passport which I’m meant to surrender when I leave else it “might cause delays upon re-entry” (except nobody ever takes it). I’m then relieved of about $6.

When returning to Canada I am asked what goods I have purchased (for tax purposes), whether I have alcohol, tobacco or firearms and that’s generally it. On this occasion I was asked if I’ve been to Mexico due to the flu-outbreak. But, yeah. They then let me in. It is, however, the USA that believes above anywhere else on the planet in “freedom".

Anyway, far too much ranting.

Pennsylvania is a very pretty state. The weather wasn’t too kind to us as we arrived. There was a tourist information centre (or “center") near the border with a sign saying something like “I’m in Pennsylvania” out the back overlooking a very picturesque valley. Unfortunately is was misty from the rain and I didn’t want to kill my camera. That was the story of the first day, really. It was a nice drive with a fair bit of wildlife. Sara saw a bear by the side of the road, but I managed to miss it. We ate our first American meal when we pulled into an Arby’s (fast-food burger). We forgot how LARGE US sizes are and nearly died as a carton of “medium” fries stuck to our hearts and lungs.

The following day was mostly spent shopping. Prices on clothes were really low, but shopping for clothes isn’t something that excites me to the point of actually being able to write anything about it. As a bookstore employee I found it interesting to browse around a Borders bookstore. Canadian books are very expensive in comparison to books in the USA. This is something I’m going to write about another time because the reaction some Canadians have to this makes me want to go on a murder-spree. Anyway, we ate too much on a couple more occasions today and in the evening we went to a race track to watch some races. I think we probably lost more than we won, but not much. I have this annoying habit of picking an outsider and writing it down but not betting on it and refusing to tell anyone who it is. I then grin stupidly when it wins. As soon as I place an actual bet, it loses. I did this with three or four horses during the night and had we actually bet (and won) we would have left laughing with a case full of green notes. I even correctly guessed the first 3 horses in one race.

Our flying visit to Pennsylvania came to an end the next day. We had to leave fairly early as it is a long drive and we wanted to go back via the city of Eerie in New York State. It turned into a very long drive when we got a call from our hotel saying I’d forgotten my laptop. We were an hour and a half into the drive, so we basically lost 3 hours of driving time.

Eerie was cold. I dipped my feet into it and it made my bone-marrow scream in pain. It’s big as well. Just like all the great lakes. To my experience of living on a tiny island, these lakes may as well be the sea. The drive became even more frustrating because a bunch of Tamil “protesters” had blocked one of the main highways in Toronto. I don’t want to write more about that because I don’t want to give them the attention they’re looking for. The situation they are protesting is complicated and it’s hard to know the truth of what is going on. I did see video showing the Tamil protesters assaulting police officers, though.

Here’s a few pics of Eerie.

Went to the movies a week or so ago and watched movie called One Week starring Joshua Jackson. It’s very Canadian, and many of the early scenes are filmed around Toronto. It’s a movie worth watching out for, if it makes it over in the UK. If not, you can probably download it from your favourite illegal source.

Trailer from youtube is here:

If you are viewing this post via a syndicated website such as Facebook, you will need to visit http://www.anythingbutthepoutine.com to see the video.

Sara had one final day teaching at school. Once she was done we took a drive to Norwich. Since I am so painfully sad, I was pleased to be able to tick Norwich off my list of cities in the UK that I’ve visted. I was then slightly disappointed to realise that I’d only visited 23 of the 50 cities in England. This is the kind of thing that matters to me. By the way, Sara and I had a discussion about what actually constitutes “visiting” a city. For example, I’ve driven through Sheffield. We agreed skirting around it on the motorway and driving past it through The Peak District doesn’t count as visiting. I think Nottingham was my most tenuous city to have “visited". I’ve driven around it twice and I presented a radio show on University Radio Nottingham. Every other city was less tenuous than that, up as far as Worcester where I used to go nearly every day.

ANYWAY. Norwich was officially not tenuous according to the point scoring system that Sara and I devised. We were excellent at looking like tourists. I supposed I technically was a tourist, having been living out of the UK for a year now and having never been to Norfolk. Norwich is a nice city. It suffers from the same homogenisation as many British city/town centres, but it seems to be able to carry it’s own character.

We weren’t able to get to Norwich until late, and sadly the castle and cathedral were at opposite ends of town. We opted to visit the cathedral, without realising there were two of them. We first came to St John The Baptist Cathedral. As far as Cathedrals go, it was… well, it was a cathedral. Quite a large one. I’m not really impressed that much by them, however we began making our way back to the city centre and we stumbled upon signs pointing to another cathedral. Norwich Cathedral, as it turned out to be, is quite beautiful. I’m not a religious person and I’m not really into religious buildings (despite having visited more than my fair share). This was one of the most beautiful I’ve seen. Again, I’m not an expert on architecture by even the furthest stretch of the imagination and I’m too lazy to bring up Wikipedia or Google to find out what work has been done on the cathedral, but it seems to just feel a lot older and better preserved than many cathedrals. It’s very gothic inside and we were fortunate enough to have disturbed a musical practice, so the pipe organ was blaring ominously away.

This is St John The Baptist Cathedral. Sadly I didn’t get any of Norwich Cathedral as it was dark by the time we got there.

We decided that Norwich would be a good place to go to get ourselves a famous British-Indian curry. Maybe we just chose a bad Indian Restaurant, but the food wasn’t great. It was very oily and there wasn’t much actual curry to dip one’s naan into.

Much of the rest of the trip involved driving around visiting family and friends. On Saturday we took a slow drive up from Kings Lynn to Manchester. The journey saw us take the A1(M) North and scoot around Sheffield and through the beautiful Peak District. We dropped of Sara’s friend Joanna so that she could head off to Liverpool to sense The Beatles atmosphere while we visited a friend of mine who was celebrating his 10 Year Wedding Anniversary. It was good to catch up with some of the guys from teamfishcake.co.uk

On (Mothering) Sunday we headed back South and visited my Mum and Brother. We then spent various time re-visiting her and my Dad in Birmingham. We went out for Indian food, which was really good this time - we were glad we tried again after Norwich. i ended up spending far too much money on clothes in Birmingham (and again at Heathrow). We also went out for a meal with my brother on one of the nights to a pub somewhere between Stourport and Worcester.

All-in-all, the trip flew by particularly quickly. I’m wondering whose turn it is to come to Toronto, so I get to play the tour guide.

During my second day in England, Sara was once again teaching in Kings Lynn. Since there was an outside possibility that Sara and I would be living in Kings Lynn if things in her class went particularly well, I thought it might be wise to drop into the town centre and take a look around.

Well… meh. Maybe I was just in a bad mood, but Kings Lynn was phenomenal in it’s averageness. It has a few streets lined with shops with the usual names which could have been picked up from any one of many other towns around the UK and plonked down here. There’s a harbour, which is quite scruffy, and there is a tourist information office which was closed.

Kings Lynn seems to be a fairly conservative/middle class area, but unlike Holt which I wrote about last time, residents of Kings Lynn don’t really have any reason to be quite so parochial. A case in point is that Kings Lynn is called Kings Lynn, but many locals (and you see evidence of this online) in a particularly chuckle worthy bout of pretentiousness like referring to it as Lynn Regis because it means the same thing in Latin.

I have two points to make about that. The first one is that, beyond academic use and scientific naming, Latin hasn’t been spoken in England for quite a while now. The second point is that ‘Bum Nugget’ and ‘Arse Biscuit’ also mean the same thing.

I took some photos of Bum Regis, and to be fair, there are some scenic enough areas. The pictures are on another camera and I can’t be bothered to upload them. Instead, here’s a brief transcript of a conversation I had on Twitter where I was bothered by a Kings Bum Nugget resident. He must have approached this conversation and found my original post by sitting at his computer and specifically searching for people talking about his lovely town.

@stuhall: I wasn’t really all that impressed by Kings Lynn, to be honest.
@otherperson: @stuhall Kings Lynn wasn’t all that impressed by you either. Maybe you got off on the wrong foot.

At which point I called him a name.

Sara and I on the beach at Hunstanton

Later that evening we drove to the coast to get something to eat in Hunstanton. Hunstanton has a population of less than 5000 people who are living in the 1970s. It’s a fairly typical UK seaside town which is still living off the glories of the 1950s-1970s when Brits would flock to the beach for their annual holiday. This has it’s own particular charm, but when it’s still early in the year in chilly mid-March, you can’t help but wonder who (besides Sara and I) would come here.

We had a stroll along the slightly muddy beach and watched birds. Hunstanton is one of, if not the only, East coast ‘resort’ where you can see the sun set over the sea, since you’re actually looking in a Northerly direction across The Wash. The flip side of the coin is that The Wash doesn’t illicit scenes of golden beaches and sand dunes.

In defence of Hunstanton, we didn’t get much time to look around. We were there to eat. We ate fish and chips in a pub and perhaps in retrospect we should have gone for the more greasy chip shop variety like you’re meant to at the beach and we could have fed the fat birds.

I have a day job, so I’ll continue this… sometime.
To be continued.

A week ago I was back in England visiting my family and meeting up with my wife Sara, who was on an exchange-type programme. Sara actually arrived there a couple of weeks before me and had been spending her time in Kings Lynn, Norfolk teaching kids at one of the schools in the town. When I arrived there Sara hadn’t quite finished her tour of duty, so I hung around Norfolk while she taught and I visited a couple of places.

War memorial outside the grounds of Sandringham Palace

On the first evening I took Sara and her friend who was also teaching in Kings Lynn to the nearby Sandringham Palace. Well, just outside it, anyway. It was closed for the season. Like a trio of tourist-losers, we were hoping that perhaps we could catch a glimpse of the palace from outside the grounds, but it was not to be. The best I came away with was a picture of the not-so-scary looking gargoyles on the iron fences and the memory of Sara’s friend almost getting run over by a coach travelling too fast as it approached to park in roughly the position she was initially stood.

Guarding the entrance to Sandringham against pesky out-of-season tourists

Stood outside the gates to the palace. Moments before this picture was taken, Joanna was stood here and a coach careened onto the gravel area at frightening-miles-per-hour.

The sun breaking through the trees as twilight approaches.

Since Sara was still teaching, the next day I visited a small town called Holt. Apparently there are several places called Holt in England (and one in Wales), but in the interests of not spending several thousand pounds on petrol, I went to the nearest one. Holt in Norfolk has a population of around 3,500 and is a typical middle-England pleasant retirement kinda town with ridiculous house prices. It’s a market town with many crafty and antiquarian stores and it’s fair share of tea rooms. There is a church (St. Andrews) and it’s basically all very jolly and picturesque. I took a brief stroll around, but it was quite chilly. I dove into a tea room and had the mandatory tea and scone (not as nice as in Devon, but not bad either). Basically it was all rather pleasant and that’s about it.

Courtyard with various stores

Everyone drives cars like this in Holt.

Graveyard inside the grounds of St Andrews church.

That evening Sara and I went out to a Chinese buffet, which was pretty cool. It was buffet-a-la-carte. You chose a couple of items at a time from the menu and the food was brought over to you. We ate far too much good but bad food (good tasting, bad for your health) and crashed back at our hotel.

Still to come: Stu spends too much money in Birmingham and Stu makes diplomatic error - offends residents of Kings Lynn via Twitter.

To be continued in the next awfully exciting update at Anything But The Poutine dot com

A lot of people reading this will already be aware that I’m currently back in the UK on a visit/vacation/holiday type thing, although it’s possible that someone has randomly stumbled upon this page after mashing their keyboard like a room full of infinite monkeys.

My flight was pretty decent, which makes a change. Between Sara and I, we have had some pretty unfortunate luck when it comes to travelling to and from The UK. I’m running at about a 50% success rate when it comes to choosing a flight that has no major delay. I’ve had mundane delays: The cabin lights wouldn’t turn off and we couldn’t take off for about 20 minutes (British Airways). I’ve had frustrating, needless delays: 19 hour delay because a baggage handler broke the cargo door and it wouldn’t close (Zoom Airlines). And Sara has had a particularly terrifying delay (terrifying for me) where I switched on the news to see that a plane had crashed at Pearson airport shortly before Sara was due to land. Through the fire and smoke it took a few second to confirm that it wasn’t Sara’s Air Canada flight, but was that infamous Air France flight that had skidded off the end of the runway. That night, Sara was diverted to Ottawa where she spent several hours on the tarmac sat on the plane while the airport authorities bused up staff from Toronto to handle the immigration desks. She then had to take a 4 hour bus ride back down to Toronto.

So yes, a twenty minute delay waiting for our gate to open up was really nothing, and the pilot needn’t have apologised three times.

I arrived at Heathrow in one (tired) piece and met my Dad who drove us back to his house near Birmingham. I spent the night there and have since driven down to Kings Lynn, where Sara is currently teaching at a High-School populated by mildly rude children. While she’s been at school I’ve visited Holt and Kings Lynn town centre. With Sara I’ve also visited Hunstanton and tonight we’re going to Norwich.

A few of the things I’ve missed whilst out of England are food based. Namely Chinese food and Indian food. That’s not to say that you can’t get Chinese and Indian food in Toronto, one of the most ethnically diverse cities in “The West". But it’s not quite the same. It’s almost as if the Chinese came over to Britain and announced that they were bring food from their culture with them and The British, with their conservative and slightly anti-foreign attitudes said, “Bugger this foreign food stuff, it’s all… oh… actually, that’s quite good. Better add a bit of curry to it and fuck off with your chopsticks.”

There’s something a bit unique about anglo-chinese chinese food, that I can’t quite place. The same goes for Indian food. I’m sure there are good Indian food places in Toronto (there’s a couple on Queen Street), it’s just that there are a lot of bad and very-average ones.

Since arriving back in the UK, I have had the pleasure of, as the English so delicately put it, “eating Chinese” in a place near our hotel. TonightSara, her friend Joanna, and I will be going into Norwich and we intend to “have an Indian". To me, these terms that I have quoted, sound like a kind of ethnic sexual diversification.

And that’s why I named this post “I’m a stranger here myself". It’s the name of one of my favourite Bill Bryson books. Bill Bryson was born in The USA and moved to England. He spent several years in The UK, but he then went back to The USA for a while. He wrote a series of columns for a UK newspaper about how he felt awkward and out of place being back “home". I kinda feel the same way.

A lot of things feel quite strange to me. On my second day, still in Birmingham, I really couldn’t believe the strength of the accent. There were big black Lenny Henry type men with thick Brummie accents which made me feel acutely aware of my own, not accent, but dialect. I find it difficult to ask for directions to “the toilet", because toilet is a slightly crude word to use in North America… but asking for the washroom in The UK is at best a little bit pompous and at worst baffling. Maybe it’s not so bad when you have a North American accent like my wife. People will realise that… well… you’re North American. But with a British accent, you sound like a twat.

The price of gas, as I can’t prevent myself from calling it, is astro-fucking-nomical. I can’t get over the fact that I’ve spent £85 on fuel in less than a week, just travelling from Birmingham to Kins Lynn and around the area. Over $150! That would see you to North Bay and back 4 or 5 times. Cost of petrol in UK is about 90p ($1.60) per litre. In Toronto it’s about 46p (86c) per litre. Arggh!

I’m in a position where I am no longer entirely sure what the hell is going on when I walk into a cafe. Am I paying for the things I order first? Do I eat it first? Are they staring at me because they’re expecting me to pay? “I’ll bring it over to you". Oh, okay then. She’s on the phone. IS SHE CALLING THE POLICE? What about in a pub when you order food? JUST TAKE MY MONEY AND LEAVE ME ALONE. I am, it has to be said, so RELIEVED that I no longer have to keep a “beer tab” that I’m thinking of becoming a raving alcoholic. I can go to a bar without a cloud of neurosis hanging over me the entire time I drink. How much will it cost now? Can I afford another drink? How the fuck much does each beer cost anyway, because I’ll be damned if I know whether what I’m drinking is “Domestic, Import or Premium"? Will my friends pay for their drinks, or will they forget and walk out leaving me to pay for them? How much tip is 15% on-top of three beers? JUST TAKE MY MONEY AND LEAVE ME ALONE.

People in England seem to be a lot more friendly than I remember them being. I haven’t seen many chavs, yet. Nor have I had anyone mutter “for fucks sake” when they walk past me in a crowd, because they consider that perhaps I may have been in their way for a moment longer than is strictly necessary in British society. Maybe chavs haven’t been invented in Norfolk yet. It’s very 70s here - especially Hunstanton. Or maybe my memories are mostly based on living in Kidderminster, which I could wholeheartedly believe harbours an above average chav populus.

Maybe it’s because I have spent a great many more hours travelling on the 34/34C Eglinton Ave East Toronto Transit Commission Bus during rush hour, where you get to meet not just the World’s most insane people, but also the World’s rudest most selfish people. Generalisation alert, but why is it nearly always the newer immigrants from alternate cultures (you can interpret that as you wish) who utterly fail to move down the bus to allow people to get on? I can forgive them for not having common sense, but when there are signs everywhere saying “Please move back” and the driver plays a looped recording saying “For passenger convenience, please move back", then I fail to find it in me to forgive them for common courtesy.

Anyway, back on track… It’s quite hard to put into words here, at least in any kind of amusing fashion, how life in England seems to have moved on without me in a lot of ways. In other ways and forms, it seems to have almost been put on pause until I came back. Maybe it’s more of a case that it’s me that’s moved on.

I’d seen this ages and forgotten about it… thanks to my big gay pal Tony for pointing it out to me:

This is almost exactly what it’s like working at my bookstore… except the customers are seniors (as they call pensioners here).

If you’re viewing this on facebook instead of anythingbutthepoutine.com then you’ll need to click the link below to see the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbKBrUO8z8Q

Bit of a lazy post because I’ve been a little busy writing my teamfishcake article to post here.. Plug: http://www.teamfishcake.co.uk/articles/Immigration_Antipathy

Here’s the soundtrack of what I’m listening to lately, here in Canada. I’m not sure how familiar people in The UK will be with some of these Canadian records/bands. Not sure if they get much airplay. I know the radio over there plays mostly garbage pussy music unless you live in a city where you can get Kerrang or a similar station of if you have a digital radio.

Rock music is appreciated a lot more in North America, and particularly Canada. Canada has a law where a certain percentage of radio airplay has to be by Canadian artists. Although this has minor drawbacks (for example, in a “British Hour", the final song of the hour was introduced as a Canadian band that sounds British) it does give Canadian artists a head start. And there are plenty of decent alternative acts.

Oh, another downside is that on the “Adult Contemporary” stations, you hear Bryan Adams, Celine Dion and Shania Twain all day. But only morons listen to them.

Anyway:

Three Days Grace: Never Too Late

Billy Talent: Turn Your Back
(can’t find a recorded video version)

Matthew Good Band: Hello Time Bomb

Metric: Help I’m Alive
(More of an Indie record by I like it anyway. No video)

It occurred to me that I’ve been to North Bay several times and I’ve never really written about it. I tend to be crushingly slow to realise the bleeding obvious. BUT! behold! Nearly six years after my first visit to North Bay, here is a post about the place.

The reason that North Bay is even vaguely relevant is because my wife, Sara, attends university in the city, which leads to me visiting said location. She started classes at Nipissing University, North Bay in 2003. We’d actually met up in Toronto when I first landed, but Sara had to head up to North Bay soon after we arrived. I drove up there a few days later.

North Bay sounds beautific. It sounds like a place somewhere hot with golden sands and surfboards and muscles and tits-a-plenty. It sounds like it belongs in Australia. North Bay, as glorious as the name sounds, isn’t quite like that. It’s a “pleasant little place". Gateway to The North, they say.

North Bay has been able to thrive in part thanks to it’s transportation connections. A couple of highways pass near North Bay. There is also an important rail connection and an airport. The population is 54,000. (About the same population as Kidderminster, England). Many of the jobs are in the public sector.

North Bay has a nice board walk by Lake Nipissing, some nice nature trials near Nipissing University, a cinema and errr… The city is located on The Canadian Shield, which gives it a rugged appearance on the outskirts of the city amongst the hills and the roads that cut through them.

A Ship moored on Lake Nipissing


Lake Nipissing


Me stood infront of Lake Nipissing

The downtown area features a high street with stores along it, a few of which are independent stores. There’s a half decent second hand book store. There’s a few bars selling beer, each bar with it’s own particular reputation amongst locals. If you’re looking for a cougar, North Bay is probably not the least appealing place in Ontario.

North Bay is, at least locally, famous for it’s Shadflys (known as Mayflys in most of the rest of the world). They descend upon North Bay en masse for a few days every year. They’ve gone now, but I remember seeing some wedding pictures I’d found on google. Evidently the wedding was planned at just the wrong time, because the Bride’s car were covered in the things.

A small lake behind Nipissing University


Chipmunk in a tree behind Nipissing University on one of the nature trails. They’re funny little animals… very cautious and easily scared, but they’re so inquisitive they can’t help but stick their head out of their hiding spot to watch what you’re doing.


Campus Trails Map. Beware the Rigour Mortis trail.

There have been a couple of times I’ve visited North Bay while Sara is in classes, so with time to kill I’ve walked the trails behind the University. There are meant to be moose, wolves and bears on the prowl but I was sure to go during the middle of day the less likely I am to be eaten. There are some pretty walks with a meandering river and small waterfalls.

When it comes to winter time, though, I’m not sure how you’d quite get by. It gets damn cold, and once the wind starts blowing… If you like winter sports so much that you don’t mind doing them all the time then you’re laughing. Ice fishing is popular and so is riding around and around and around on snowmobiles.

I’ve been to North Bay once during winter. The cinema becomes particularly popular (even more). When I was there, Lake Nipissing was frozen over and was covered in several feet of snow. Especially where it had been blown into drifts. “Out on the ice” (as they say), it was even colder. It actually hurts your bones. My skull ached after removing my hood for a few minutes. I wore a scarf around my mouth which I was breathing through in order to keep my mouth, neck and ears warm. The condensation of my breath froze on my scarf. Sara went without a scarf directly around her mouth, which caused her breath to blow back into her face. It froze in her hair making it turn white. Her eyelashes also froze from her watering eyes.

Sara with frozen-ness


Me with baren-ness


This would be me losing my footing and sinking into the snow. Note the reeds, which only grow in water. Thus proving the recent existence of a lake.

My next visit to North Bay is probably in April. It will be warmer.