Posts Tagged Canada

4 results.

Je Suis Arrivé

by on November 25, 2013 at 10:00 am
Posted In: Fuck Mondays, Homepage, VAGRANTS

Or for those philistines who are not fluent in French “I have arrived”. At least, that is what I am hoping it says. It is entirely possible that it translates to “I have arriving” or “I am arrive”, I am not altogether sure, my grip on tenses were* tenuous at best.

 

However, the message I am attempting to convey is that I here now, here being Montreal, and I must say I am having an incredible time settling in. The welcome I have received has only been surpassed by the help offered. At every turn I am met with warm people offering their time and assistance. To say I am touched, would be a criminal understatement. Yet I doubt you have came here for sentimentality, there are plenty of sites for that this one is definitely not among them. So I shall stuff the happy feelings into a small hemp sack and allow them to drown in a small, lonely canal.

 

Now that I have arrived, there is something I do wish to talk about, something I never noticed on my first trip but has now become painfully obvious. Crime. Or, to be more exact, the absence of such. I didn’t come to this observation alone. I was instead helped by none other than a local. Whilst I casually ambled along a street, filled with bars, clubs and especially stripper joints, (for any Glaswegian readers think Sauchiehall Street, but instead of kebab shops it’s Seventh Heaven) I was “accosted” by a stranger. Now I add the quotation marks because unlike almost all confrontations on the aforementioned Sauchiehall Street, there was a distinct lack of violence, threats or even swearing. Instead the gentleman offered me chicken. Quite insistently, but still with an air of grace and politeness that would put a British diner party to shame. In fact, upon my refusal I was submerged into a world of guilt for wasting food.

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Needless to say, I found this a rather odd occurrence. The main reason being that I left the conversation completely unperforated, at no point was a glass bottle smashed against my face or as we say in Scotland “bottled.” That’s right, it happens so often we needed a verb for it.

 

I made me realise though, with that small incident being the closest I had to any trouble, that in all the time I have been here I had never seen a single crime. Not one fight, not a single bit of vandalism, not so much as a fag butt (apologies, cigarette butt) dropped careless on the ground. Once I had realised this, a whole manner of new things caught my attention.

 

Queuing: Now it is well known that the Brits love a good queue, we’ll line up for days just to get the chance to, but it’s the montrealers that have taken this practice and turned it into an art form. There was a queue for a bus, possibly 50 or 60 people long, in perfect single file. Furthermore, when the bus arrived, there was not a single push, shove or complaint. Mind. Blown.

 

Politeness: Okay so I think I may have talked about this previously, but I finally realised something else. Not only is everyone polite and friendly, but they are polite and friendly whilst being completely and apologetically sober.

 

Tea: By posting this, the British Home Office will probably revoke my passport before issuing a warrant for my immediate detention without trial under section 60 of the Anti-Terrorism Code, but, Britain has nothing on Canada when it comes to tea. Whilst growing up, what tea meant to me was a lukewarm, brownish drink that had all the flavour and charm of Stephen Harper. Here though, it is a carnival of merriment and joy exploding in a crescendo of colour upon my tongue.

 

Basically Montreal does everything Britain can do, only better. Plus they have maple syrup. Yes I’m still mentioning it, deal with it.

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Panda Porn

by on October 19, 2013 at 9:00 am
Posted In: Blogs, VAGRANTS

As I sit down to write this article it slowly dawned on me that it will be my third posting on the 9to5 website and I have yet to receive a “Cease & Desist” letter, and so in bewilderment I shall begin.

 I mentioned last time that I planned on taking French lessons prior to my trip, going so far as to sit an exam, well you’ll be pleased to know I am currently attending them. It certainly pleased me.   I found myself enthusiastically taking to it, a far cry from my French education in high school.   Skulking into the bad of the class, throwing the odd dictionary across the classroom and generally causing undue stress upon the teaching staff.  That was a barefaced lie, I was one of those exceptionally uncool kids that sucked up to the teachers, I wish I was funny enough to be the class clown.   However for all my brown nosing, it never got me far when it came to French.  I passed, sort of, but by a narrower margin than I’d care to admit.   I wasn’t interested in languages back then, and I’m now ashamed to say that at that time I “didn’t see the point.”   Already, that arrogant attitude of “everyone speaks English anyway” had set in, and I refused to open my mind to alternatives.   I could lament the folly of my youth and the mistakes I made back then, but I’m glad that now I can finally do something to put it right.

I had my first lesson, now I am no stranger to making a fool of myself in public, it could even be said that I get some odd satisfaction out of the whole ordeal.   A trait I found remarkably useful whilst starting out in stand up comedy.   However, in this small enclave of students, perhaps no more than fifteen, I found myself terrified.   The teacher has asked me to introduce and talk about myself in French.   Standing up I suddenly realise that my throat has dried to a desert and my tongue lodged itself firmly in my oesophagus.   After making a noise that can only be described as a painful gag, I opted to start with my name.   The main reason being I had forgotten how to say anything else.   After that though, it all fell into place.   All I had to do was overcome that initial fear, realising that everyone sitting around the table was in the same position.   We were here to learn, and sometimes mistakes would be part of that.   The class flew by after that, vocabulary came back to me, grammar rules were reinforced and I left with a confidence and enthusiasm I had never before experienced from learning.

Foolishly I flaunted my new found vocabulary to Sophie, to prove it I asked to write an article about pandas, in the style of a “first-grader.”   That was what Sophie asked for, this was what she got.

Je m’appelle Garçon du l’Eccossais et je voudrais parler de panda.   Pourquoi?   Parcel que le panda c’est super!

Ils ont découvertes par l’Ouest en un mille, huit cent, soixante neuf par un missionaire français.   Ils es grande et poilu et mignon mais va manger votre visage.

De temps an temps ils regarder pornographie mais ils sont tree critiques, et l’industrie du film pour adultes n’a pas suffi!

Dans Eccosse il y a plus de pandas que le politiciens conservatives.   Additionellement, a un mille dollars américains par année, le pandas c’est moins cher.

IMG_20131012_121440In my defence I have no idea what age a first-grader is supposed to be, so I don’t know just how wildly inappropriate that was.

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Un Oeuf is Enough

by on September 23, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Fuck Mondays, VAGRANTS

As the few poor souls that subjected themselves to my last article may know, I became slightly enamoured by Montréal from my short visit.   Indeed “slightly enamoured” could be a vast understatement.   To that end, the notion that I might one day move there, and perhaps so much as live amongst Montréalers, has lodged itself firmly in the forefront of my brain.   Frankly it is as if I am being enticed by a pied piper leaving a trail of maple based confectionaries.   I believe I made my feelings on maple syrup abundantly clear in not only the aforementioned article but also in every public outing I have made since.  Therefore I think it is probably for the best if we just skip past that particular issue.

Now, I have never been one to prepare, despite having spent nearly a decade of my childhood in the scouts.   A perfect example of this lack of forethought being when I moved into my first flat, armed with nothing more than a change of underwear and a four-piece matching cutlery set.   I have of course now learned from these past errors, two weeks of washing the same set of clothes in a basin little larger than a generous coffee cup will do that, and the less said about how I dried myself the better.   This time, I am determined to do things, well if not “right” then at least better.

Starting with French.   If I am going to move somewhere, it is probably advisable that I can fluently speak and understand the local language.   Avoiding at all costs that ancient British custom of expecting everyone to speak Queen’s English and where they don’t just shouting louder.   Possibly throwing in the occasional complaint about “losing the empire.”   But, to return to my story, before I fall too far into lazy, racial stereotypes, I signed myself up for French “Refresher” lessons.   A generous term I thought, given that until I visited Montréal the main extent of my experience was awkwardly hanging around French service stations saying “Paris, s’il vous plait” to any truck driver that didn’t look too likely to harvest my organs.   Whilst that is experience, it is probably not what one would call valuable.

Hitching a lift ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Canada From a Scotchman

by on July 15, 2013 at 10:00 am
Posted In: Fuck Mondays, VAGRANTS

Okay before I start the article proper, there are one or two things I have to clear up.

  1. Maple syrup.   That shit is like liquid gold, seriously. I take back every last joke I made about maple syrup being catnip to Canadians.   It was childish and immature of me, I see the error of my ways and I apologise profusely for that now.   I mean yeah, you put it on anything but holy shit after tasting it, who in their right mind wouldn’t.   All we need now are cars that run on it and right there is the solution to all of man’s problems.
  2. Hockey.   I saw none of it during my whole time in Quebec.   Not cool Canada, not cool.   The closest I came was a visit to “Tim Horton’s.”   Apparently he was some kind of hockey player before discovering his true calling as a purveyor of breakfast goods.
  3. The whole “Aboot” thing.   South Park lied to me, and I feel cheated.

Okay so that last one is more Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s fault but still I hold you, as a nation, 33% responsible for that or individually 0.00000096%.   And yes I did work that out.

However, to return to the task at hand, I visited Canada for the first time recently.   It was amazing.   Or it was after I managed to get through immigration.   That wasn’t because the custom officials have been taking lessons from paranoid Americans, no, all the issues my entirely my fault.   Generally I think we can all agree when asked questions from a border guard, responses that include “I don’t know really, just thought I’d bum about for a bit” are not a good idea.   But yes, after quite a long conversation convincing a series of officials that I wasn’t in fact an asshole I was able to leave and discover what I loved.   The country, the people and the incredibly low prices of everything.   I mean I could buy a coffee for $3 and it was delicious, okay delicious might be a stretch but still, I’d pay at least double that in Scotland and I’d be wondering just how long they had left the milk unrefrigerated.   Actually I can’t really judge people for that right now, my own fridge has broke and I’m now hanging my groceries out of my bedroom window.   You would be amazed at what one can do with a basket and duct tape.   Well not really, it’s just a basket duct taped to a wall.   It impressed me though.   I have low expectations in life.

Visit Scotland: We offer an exciting breakfast choice

A difference I wish to highlight between our two countries is breakfast.   First off, in Scotland breakfast will be a bowl of porridge (or “oatmeal” I believe it is affectionately referred to there) and maybe if you are feeling particularly decadent that morning you may add a pinch of salt to.   Just a pinch though.   Any more would just cause unbearable feelings of guilt and shame.   You cool cats on the other hand have baked goods of happiness, possibly with that maple syrup we mentioned earlier.   It’s incredible.   I quite frankly don’t understand how anyone could be grumpy or upset in the mornings.   This was merely the start of my day, and already my signature scowl and jaded world view was fading away.   Purged from my system through a foodstuff that wasn’t purely nutritional but also enjoyable to eat.   There had to be a catch, no restaurant is this genuinely pleasant to customers.   There was one in my home city but it shut down rather quickly after it was discovered to be a money laundering operation.   Shame really, they had a great tiramisu they called “The Godfather.”

Anyway, the catch.   It is not that I’m naturally untrusting; sour, dour faced and misanthropic, but not untrusting.  It’s a minor source of pride I have.   Nevertheless, there had to be something, taken outside and beaten with sticks in homage to Finnish saunas or perhaps plunged into a frozen sea like the May Day celebrations in the North East of Scotland.    Taking the final bite of my meal, savouring its almighty flavour as this was my first foray into maple syrup, I prepared myself for the inevitable onslaught.

There wasn’t one.   To say I was disappointed would be a slight exaggeration, all the same I felt there had to be some balance.   Perhaps we’d all have to sacrifice a goat in thanks to the restaurateurs.   Extreme, maybe but in my defence this was my first day, I was still trying to get a handle on the currency exchange rate.

 

Now, given the proportion of this article given over to disseminating breakfast, one could mistakenly believe that was all I experienced.   Whilst normally I’d be quite happy with that, a full stomach tends to make me quite an amenable fellow, I was blessed to discover more.

One of the first things my gluttonous form noticed was the bilingual nature of Montreal, in not only speech but also a great deal of the signs.   We have something similar in Scotland with road and railway signs offered both in English and in Gaelic.   Of course this is only in Glasgow and Edinburgh, two Scottish cities notable for never having spoken Gaelic.   The few places that still speak Gaelic in Scotland tend to be the small islands that time forgot.   The Isle of Lewis for example, with a population of almost 20,000 but only two surnames.

However, to veer away from offending the few islanders with internet access and possible libel, The Old Port in Montreal was shown to me.   Beforehand I was asked if I even wanted to see old buildings, given their prevalence back home.   While that is true, we do have many, the vast majority of Glasgow was built in the 18th and 19th century with some buildings dating back to as far as the 13th century, a lot of these buildings are still in use as residences and consequently have aged worse than Mickey Rourke.

I made that joke, at Mickey Rourke’s expense not because it’s particularly funny, it’s a cheap shot, but purely because of the relative anonymity of the internet.   A place where I can strut my feigned bravado in absolute safety from any real consequences.   Or in other words, be an asshole.   It’s an attitude I’m familiar with, accustomed to even and it is an attitude that seemed completely absent in my whole time in your thoroughly awesome country.

So thank you guys, I had an experience of a lifetime.

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