A message from Spain...

We met Jesuias when Jim was presenting a paper at a conference in Almeria, Spain, in November, 2010. He is a professor of English at the University of Almeria. We stayed in Granada at the Alhambra Palace Hotel which is about a 5 minute walk to the Alhambra...fabulous place to stay. (Bill and Hilary Clinton thought so as well). Jesuias  showed us all around the region and and also gave us a tour of the Alhambra which was a good thing since I got a little claustrophobic at one point and really needed to get out into the air. It's a bit of a maze in there and I don't think we would have got out quickly on our own.

We knew things weren't so good in Spain and hope they improve.  Jim is really looking forward to being involved with his students!

Jim and Jesuias

Hola Jaime, 

Thanks for the update! Sorry for such a long silence from my side. I have been really busy with red tape and being adapted to the new "normality" of this dystopian pandemic. We have been giving lectures and conferences and classes online all the time. The situation is getting worse here in spite of the hot summer weather. There are not so many dead, but there are lots of people infected with the virus as more people are being tested.  We think this horrible virus is going to stay with us for years, I personally think that we will not be able to overcome it in less than 5 years. We have to survive and go through it. But our lives have changed and things are not the same, regarding the Huxley Symposium, I think that if everything is better for next spring, maybe I could register and try to attend and offer some contribution. We shall see. 

With concern to your work on The Road to Wigan Pier, I congratulate you, it is one of the most convincing and brilliant Orwell's memoirs. 

Thank you for telling me about the audios and videos on MSOffice, I will try to take advantage of them even today. I haved checked your two documents, they are awesome! Thanks a lot. Yes, you can keep sending me more of your analysis and short lectures for students as I can use them for my next online classes the following course 2020-21, as most classes will be online again. Obviously, if you do not mind, I would like them to be in touch with you and to do so, I could ask you to give them some email to stay in touch with you in case some of them want to ask you some questions. I hope that due to these "online classes" in all Spanish Universities there will be more chances of collaboration with teachers and colleagues from different countries. We have a very ambitious "Aula Virtual" that works very well and it comes out with a very good "blackboard" with online videoconferences.

 I am thinking of certain possibilities, such as, for example, including you to give us one of our lectures for the Master Degree in English Studies we have. I am teaching a subject titled "English as an Intercultural Vehicle: Literature and Society", and I devote three sessions to the following: Aldous Huxley, George Orwell and Ray Bradbury. You could offer the session devoted to either Huxley or Orwell. Such Videoconference is about 2 hours and students participate and ask you some questions and finally there is a debate with the whole group on some topics we have previously arranged. 

As you are about 10 hours behind us, you could record your videoconference on our platform beforehand and then I would be conducting the session. Well, this is just an idea. We will start these videoconferences in the first week of November. 

Let's stay in touch and see what we can develop. 

Give my regards to Janice and a hug for both of you with my very best wishes, 

Jesuias, un abrazo

Nota Bene: Si quieres, podemos hablar mediante una videoconferencia directa cualquier día de septiembre (Skype, zoom, etc.).

Looks like Fern had a great tomato harvest...

And I'm sure she will be making her wonderful tomato chutney.

Hi Janice
A few tomatoes to spare.  And it doesn’t count was has been eaten, given away and still on the vine. 
Wish you were here.
Love,
Fern

School coming soon but probably not the snow just yet...

From FB:
Remember walking to school in the winter when we were kids? Our parents never drove us - ever.

Well, of course now it's mainly because of safety. And even more concerns about safety once school begins.  Tough times for everybody.

A day out....

We took the car in for its usual servicing yesterday to the Hyundai Dealership in North Van. It was so great to drive over the Lion's Gate Bridge...probably my favourite view of Vancouver.  Wow....the ocean and the mountains and the beauty of the bridge.  As per usual, we had them drive us to Lonsdale Quai and had lunch at the Cheshire Cheese. So wonderful to sit outside and the halibut and chips were even better than I remember.

Interesting that the dealership is using Uber now rather than taxis. I guess this has quite an impact on North Shore Taxi. Uber was pretty quick. The driver picked us up in 3 minutes after the call was made. We were hanging around for quite a while sometimes waiting for the taxi.

We were hoping to take in the Polygon Gallery but they were closed because they were installing their next exhibit.  Great to walk around outside and also through the shops. Most things are open. Jim bought a couple of belts and I got some peanut brittle....yum, yum.

Looking forward to taking the Seabus again one of these days.

Black Lives Matter

We've been enjoying watching baseball and were looking forward to the game this afternoon but tuned in to learn that all major league hockey, baseball, and basketball games were postposed. I totally support what they are doing and really hope it is just the beginning of major league sports' players using  their influence to do something about racism.

Good on them all for this beginning but it is only the beginning. Big things need to happen now and I believe major league players can make a big difference.

It's Jackie Robinson Day tomorrow. It will be interesting to see how they celebrate that. It's pretty perfect timing. I collected Dodger cards and I remember my father telling me that Jackie Robinson was the first black player in the major leagues and was barred from playing for many years because he was black. I remember being very confused by that.

They couldn't take topless swimming and sunbathing away in France!

Well, you never know what the EU for rules might come up with next. It's such a tradition and just seems so normal in France. I loved it but I would now be off to the side on the rocks with the old ladies now. In Bandol, the older women had a little group to the side of the main beach on the rocks so they weren't in complete view. I found that quite charming at the time that they were still going topless.  

France's interior minister ensured that no one will be stripped of the right to sunbathe topless.

It comes following an "incident" on the beach of Sainte-Marie la Mer, south-west France, where three women got asked by police to cover up after complaints by an "uncomfortable" family with children on August 20.

Interior minister Gérald Darmanin said that the local administration was in error, stressing that "freedom is a precious commodity."

The decision by the local authorities caused an uproar in France and on social media, prompting the national spokesperson for the Gendarmerie to clarify the situation.
France's interior minister ensured that no one will be stripped of the right to sunbathe topless.

It comes following an "incident" on the beach of Sainte-Marie la Mer, south-west France, where three women got asked by police to cover up after complaints by an "uncomfortable" family with children on August 20.

Interior minister Gérald Darmanin said that the local administration was in error, stressing that "freedom is a precious commodity."

The decision by the local authorities caused an uproar in France and on social media, prompting the national spokesperson for the Gendarmerie to clarify the situation.

"You will always see me in uniform", said ironically female lieutenant colonel Maddy Scheurer, "but the practice of tanning topless is well authorised on the beach of Sainte-Marie la Mer".

The Pyrénées-Orientales Gendarmerie said that the officers were just trying to calm the situation but acknowledged their blunder.

I thought this was pretty funny...thanks for sending, Linda!

For all those who have driven in the UK and France....

This actually happened to 

an Englishman in France who was totally drunk.

A French policeman stops 

the Englishman's car and asks if he has been 

drinking.

With great difficulty, 

the Englishman admits that he has been drinking all day, that his 

daughter got married that morning, and that he drank champagne and a few 

bottles of wine at the reception, and many single malts scotches 

thereafter.

Quite upset, the 

policeman proceeds to alcohol-test (breath test) the Englishman and 

verifies that he is indeed totally sloshed.

He asks the Englishman if 

he knows why, under French Law, he is going to be 

arrested.

The Englishman answers 

with a bit of humour,

"No sir, I do not! But 

while we're asking questions, do you realize that this is a British car 

and that my wife is driving . . . . . on the other 

side?"

Blue Jays won yesterday!

Wow...they took 2 out of 4 from Tampa Bay Rays who are a great team. They usually don't play very well against them.  And all without Bo Bichette. Let's hope he'll be back before long. The Jays have just been playing amazing baseball...really fun to watch!

Richard and I loved Dr. Seuss

It's fun to read to your child when you love the books as much as they do. Neat idea for a mask.

Bungled high school marks....

Well, I'm glad they are going to make an attempt to compensate students and I hope they have checks and balances in place so this doesn't happen again. This was obviously a pretty big mix up but there have been mistakes before that probably weren't detected and made a big negative difference to students.

When I was teaching I got a call from a Grade 12 student in the summer after the exam results were out. Now, office staff never gives out the phone numbers of teachers but this student had received a 35% grade on the English 12 final exam and then added to my grade it resulted in a Fail which meant she wouldn't graduate. I was so glad she was able to call me. Her whole life could have changed if she didn't graduate. I assured her there must be a mistake because I estimated she would get 70-75% on the exam and I was pretty good at estimating what students would get since it was mainly a test of literacy rather than "facts". I told her not to worry but I'm sure she did.

I did confirm that she put in punctuation and capitals. She was a creative type who liked to write in all small letters and not put in punctuation. She left appropriate spaces for commas, periods, etc. Her handwriting was like a work of art and she felt punctuation messed it up. I was ok with it but I did make it clear that the teachers marking the final exams wouldn't be impressed or amused.

I got in touch with the Ministry of Education and told them to check it out immediately given the circumstances. I was surprised they did get back later that day with the information that there was a mistake and her grade was 74%. They had neglected to add the subjective part to the objective part.

"The B.C. Ministry of Education says it will apologize to and compensate students who were financially harmed by botched provincial exam scores revealed in July 2019.

The error resulted in panic for many students in the graduating class of 2019 who were counting on the grades for crucial post-secondary admissions that summer.

The move comes following an investigation by the B.C. Ombudsperson, whose office released its report on the matter on Thursday.

According to the report, the ministry posted about 18,000 incorrect exam scores, about half of which were too high and half of which too low."

Quite something....a 14 yr. old girl wrote it.

As Cohen says..."there is a crack in everything...that's how the light gets in".

"Being broken is what makes us human. We all have our reasons. Sometimes we’re fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we’re shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing."

-- Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy (Amazon, Bookshop)

---

Between the pages ...interesting hobby but not pandemic friendly.

(CNN)Many weekends, high school teacher Emma Smreker can be found searching for treasure. Not at the bottom of the sea -- but at the bottom of bookshelves.
In her search, she hopes to unearth forgotten mementoes left between the pages of used paperbacks at her local book store or thrift shop. She often finds old plane tickets, business cards or receipts hastily used as bookmarks -- small clues that tell a story about the book's previous owner.
But occasionally she strikes gold and finds a poem written between pages, a long-lost photo from a previous reader or a love letter meant for a stranger.
"Through the reselling or donating or borrowing of books, you're connected to another person in another way, especially if we leave notes in margins or a sticky note on a certain page or even a bookmark or a dog-eared page, which, god forbid," said Smreker, who teaches high school French in Oklahoma City.
"It almost takes the solitary out of books because you've connected to this person who had the book before you, as well as their impressions and who they were when they had that book."

Rest of the article here:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/16/us/teacher-searches-for-forgotten-mementoes-used-books-trnd/index.html

Paris a red zone again...

Well, we're not doing very well here either.

From My Part-Time Paris Life:

Oh boy, oh boy, fun times in France! Over 2000 new cases daily (100K+ active cases)—numbers not seen since April—with most new cases in people 25-35. And Paris is a red zone again.

Mon dieu, Lisa! Say it isn’t so.

It’s so. Social distancing is not as enforced as it once was, even on café terraces, sadly (and you’re lucky if your server is wearing their mask properly). Large groups gather at the péniches on the Seine (which Mme Mayor decided to keep open, though she herself tested positive without symptoms). And of course, with borders open, travelers from the UK and Spain—two countries where the virus is not under control—are coming here for their holidays.

Mandatory Masks in France

What to do, what to do? Well, if you’re the French government, you roll out an ordinance that masks must be worn at all times, even outside. But becauseyou’re the French government, you’ll roll that out slowly, in a very complicated manner.

The  rest here...worth a read:

https://myparttimeparislife.com/2020/08/18/life-after-lockdown-masked-with-a-vengeance/

You might be Canadian....

When Richard worked in San Francisco, he and other Canadians subscribed to a service that sent a package with only things you can get in Canada like Cheezies. My parents had friends who moved to the US and they always requested my parents bring them some Cottage roll...impossible to get in the US. And we were amazed that in Palm Springs it was impossible to get perogies. Funny to think of the freezer space perogies get locally...not sure about the rest of Canada.

Ah....swimming again

We had a wonderful swim yesterday evening. It's so great to be in the water. Amazing number of people at Spanish Banks especially at the further end where we don't swim. We really lucked into a parking space exactly where we like to be.

We enjoyed the sunset sitting outside...even a bit of a breeze blowing. A bit of lightening over Vancouver Island...hope it didn't cause any forest fires.

Big thunder and lightening storm pretty close by...well, maybe not so close as I'm not hearing the thunder now at 9:30pm Sunday. The sun is down so will do some storm watching. Big flashes and fork lightening.

This from Global News:

Lightning show on Vancouver Island lights up the sky

There were many lightning strikes across Vancouver Island overnight. This video was shot at Lantzville Beach, looking north to Parksville.

From The Good Life France....yes, one day we'll get back to normal.

- South of France....my photo.  Janine had posted a great photo of sunflowers but it wouldn't upload.

Bon weekend from roasty toasty France...

Bonjour,  I hope that you and yours are well. It’s another long newsletter this week so feel free to click the “View entire message” link at the bottom of this email to read it all!  The last couple of weeks I’ve been travelling round France after an absence of almost 5 months. It feels a lot longer than that – like another lifetime. And a lot has changed in that time, though some things remain reassuringly normal. I’ve been to Paris and the Vendée, Les Gets in the Haute Savoie (via Geneva) and Angers in the Loire Valley. I went everywhere by train, wearing a mask, obsessively using hand gel and washing my hands more times than Lady Macbeth. On the metro in Paris, every other seat is marked with a big red X to remind passengers to socially distance. Actually the metro wasn’t crowded, a lot more people are walking and cycling in the city. The mainline trains weren’t packed either, and if people were allotted seats close together, they took it on themselves to move to less populated carriages. I went to the utterly amazing Puy du Fou theme park in the Vendée where we had to wear our masks everywhere, from walkways to shows. It was worth it. Puy du Fou is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, and I’ll be telling you more about it soon, including the fact that I stayed in a hotel on site that’s a replica of Versailles! In Angers I wandered ancient cobbled streets and visited the stunning castle. In Les Gets I fell in love with the fresh mountain air, the spectacular scenery and the new Alta Lumina show – an enchanted forest of light and music. Masks are really a way of life now in France and French people are, perhaps surprisingly knowing how rebellious they can be, very compliant. I think we have all reached the stage where we just want this to be over and accept we must do what we’re told and hope, pray, dream of the day when things are more normal. How we will thank our lucky stars when that day comes. And talking of normal. Paris. Yes, masks must be worn, people socially distance, there is a constant whiff of sanitised hand gel in the air. But when you sit at a terraced café, mask off, watching the world go by, you know that the good times are still there, albeit slightly hidden. That one day they will come back... That was what I was thinking as I sat at a café opposite the Gare du Nord in Paris, waiting for my train home to Etaples-Le-Touquet. Sweet thoughts, smiling away to myself. Over comes the waiter, very Parisian, cool as a cucumber on a roasty toasty hot day, talking ten to the dozen, a muffled spiel through his mask, eyes darting about over the tables making sure no one left without paying, seeing if anyone wanted anything. Professional, curt in the way that only waiters in Paris can be without being rude, speedy and ruthlessly efficient. Some things never change.  Wishing you and yours well, bisous from my little pigsty office in rural northern France, Janine Editor

Future Library Project

On a lone tree in the Nordmarka forest just north of Oslo, there's a sign that reads "Framtidsbiblioteket - Future Library." 

In the year 2114, the wood from 1,000 spruce saplings growing here will be turned into paper and used to print an anthology of 100 unpublished books -- which no one is allowed to read until then. 

This forest-to-be is part of the Future Library project, started four years ago by Scottish artist Katie Paterson, who wanted to create an original library of 100 manuscripts from established authors, to be printed 100 years in the future. 

"I was on a train doodling and drawing tree rings and I just made a very fast connection between the rings and chapters in a book, and the idea of trees becoming books in the future and growing over time," she said in a phone interview.

Margaret Atwood's Future Library book is titled 'Scribbler moon,' and she believes that readers in 2114 may require a 'paleo-anthropologist' to decode some of it, because of how language will have evolved over the course of a century.

"And so I imagined this forest, that embodied time and the authors' words, growing over a century. And each author's voice became like a chapter inside the growing rings of the trees. That was many years ago, but I never thought that it was actually going to happen." Read more here:

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/future-library-oslo-katie-paterson/index.html

I enjoyed this article in The Tyee...

Miss Woodend's Guide to Coronavirus Etiquette

The pandemic confounded the rules on how we relate to one another. A lesson on the new modern manners is in order.

When one thinks of good manners, images of place settings might appear — knives and salad forks placed just so. Or maybe the holding of doors, doffing one’s trilby to passing ladies. Most people know the basics, please and thank you and can you pass the salt, but etiquette can seem kind of fusty and old-fashioned.

ANNOUNCEMENTS, EVENTS & MORE FROM TYEE AND SELECT PARTNERS

• This Fall, An Invitation To Fight Loneliness In Your Community 
  In September, people all over BC are meeting to talk about what’s on their minds. You should join them.

Until now, that is.

We’ve entered a new age of thoroughly modern manners, courtesy of COVID-19. Some issues aren’t huge departures from previous ways, but others are decidedly different and take some getting used to.

With this rapid shift in social customs comes a degree of confusion and uncertainty. That’s normal. Things aren’t codified yet, and the landscape is still fluid. Sometimes you don’t realize how much things have changed until you are in mid-gaffe.

Read the rest here:
https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2020/08/11/Dorothy-Woodend-Guide-Coronavirus-Etiquette/

What would we do without reading and libraries...

Sad news things are spiking again in my favourite city in the world...

Wearing a face mask in busy outdoor parts of Paris is mandatory from Monday morning as the country records a flare-up in COVID-19 cases.

Multiple streets, markets, as well as river banks and the famous hill of Montmartre are affected by the new decree.

The Paris town hall said in a statement that the measure was introduced because "the virus is again circulating more actively" in the Ile-de-France region with "nearly 400 people testing positive for COVID-19 every day."

"The rate of positive tests now stands at 2.4% in Ile-de-France against 1.6% on the national average," it also said, adding that "the incidence is particularly high in 20-30 year olds."

A walk on Jericho Beach yesterday....

The tide is definitely much higher here than Spanish Banks. We'll soon try to swim here even without a complete high tide. It seems to be much more like Bikini Beach in the West End.

Come fly with me....

You've got to give them credit for trying to do something. We're all going to get pretty itchy for travel.

Come fly with me You know you’re starting to feel the travel itch when a plane flight to nowhere sounds like fun. That’s exactly what EVA Air, one of the biggest carriers in Taiwan, has offered passengers, and they’re actually all about it. EVA hosted a special journey today (Happy Father’s Day, Taiwan!) aboard its popular, oh-so-fashionable Hello Kitty jet. Passengers were able to enjoy all of the glamor of boarding the aircraft at the Taipei Taoyuan Airport, and then took a three-hour flight around the skies before returning back to whence they’d come. Passengers got to enjoy a Michelin-starred in-flight meal. This is pretty cute: The flight number was BR5288, because when spoken, "5288" sounds like "I love dad" in Chinese. And we bet dad loves that pastel Hello Kitty plane.

All these amazing ways folks find ways to do things...

Now, I wasn't terribly impressed with what the Salzburg Festival did but I love the way the Times-Colonist is doing their big annual book sale. This sale raises important funds for school libraries.

They had a drop off at Ogden Point and Russell Books bought the books...brilliant!

Why it’s different this year: For the pandemic edition, volunteers will be working in bubbles to limit contact. They will be wearing protective gear such as masks and gloves.

Where and when: a one-day drop-off, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Breakwater District at Ogden Point, off Dallas Road.

Rest of article:
https://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/times-colonist-book-drive-today-bring-donations-to-ogden-point-9-a-m-to-3-p-m-1.24183264

Salzburg Festival goes ahead...

I know it is their 100th Anniversary and it is such an incredible tradition but The Guardian does question whether it is a reckless folly in this article. I guess time will tell but all these people coming from all over the world doesn't seem like a very good idea in these times. I don't think Dr. Bonnie would approve. I really hope for the best for them and that a lot of innocent people won't be hurt as a result. Yes, sportsmen are playing but to empty stands.

From The Guardian:

"At the performances of Richard Strauss’s opera Elektra in Salzburg this week, the scene in the auditorium was almost as alarming as the murderous psychodrama playing out on stage.

Even with a specially reduced seating capacity, the visual effect produced by 1,000 masked audience members looking on at the city’s music venue Felsenreitschule was an uneasy one, in a world where distancing has become the norm.

Still, there was an air of excitement and gratitude among those in attendance, aware that they were some of the few people to be watching live music anywhere in the world. The massed ranks of the Vienna Philharmonic were packed into the pit, and the striking production by the Polish director Krzysztof Warlikowski involved video projections, a swimming pool on stage and much non-distanced anguish.

The production is the centrepiece of Salzburg’s month-long summer festival sof music and theatre, one of the few major cultural events to go ahead this summer. Events in Salzburg are being seen as a trial balloon for theatres and opera houses across the world, desperate – for both artistic and financial reasons – to find a way to operate in the age of Covid.

But is holding a festival during a pandemic a powerful artistic response to adversity, or reckless folly?

“If sportsmen can play and if planes can fly then there should be a safe way for us to get back on stage,” said Tanja Ariane Baumgartner, the German mezzo-soprano who sang Clytemnestra in Elektra."

Article in Euronews:
https://www.euronews.com/2020/08/02/salzburg-festival-opens-for-its-100th-edition-despite-coronavirus-pandemic

Les Bouquinistes of Paris

Well, Paris continues out of lockdown and seems to be doing ok at the moment. The first things we do in Paris are going to Notre Dame and the "bouquinistes"...these winderful book stalls on the Seine. We had decided not to return to Europe and do another trans -Atlantic flight and yet, there is something about not being able to do it with this pandemic that almost makes me feel I just might do it one of these days if it's possible. We're all certainly building up our travel account.  As Linda says,  she hopes she'll be able to drain it...:)

Back to school...

Teachers always give a shudder when the first "Back to School" ads appear. Every year they seemed to get earlier. I'm glad I'm not going back to school this year. It's going to be tough on everyone...students, teachers, and parents. I do think it's important for kids to have some kind of normalcy like school but there are certainly risks for everyone. I wish everyone well in meeting this challenge.

Everyone will be looking forward to when going to school is "normal" again.  I saw a fellow being interviewed in Florida about the Tropical Storm Isaias and he commented that it was almost a good thing since it gave some normalcy compared to the pandemic. They are used to tropical storms and hurricanes.

There is one "back to school" day I'll never forget. Richard was a toddler and I had a .38 assignment at a new school. This worked out to three mornings a week.  The tradition at this school was to have a staff meeting at 7am, then have all the students have full classes, have department meetings, then another staff meeting which lasted until 6:30pm.  Now, that was a long day for a .38 salary.