Hertha All Over

Greetings, gentle readers.
Now that I've got a full (and understandably confusing) schedule for my spinal correction surgery, things have gotten a lot more busy.  This is inconvenient, as I dial down one anti-convulsant medication and simultaneously dial in a new medication.  Mix that with a healthy dose of opiates, and you've got a bitches brew that would make Miles Davis blanch.
I would prefer to avoid spending any more time than is necessary on the jackanapes acting as the head of government of the United States.  Poe's Law dictates that anything that I write satirically could rationally be interpreted as factual because the subject matter is already incredible.  That being said, it seems that Reince Priebus has been made to do the fandango.  Surely the thunderbolts and lightning are not only very frightning, but imminent for many of the White House staff.
Now that the iPod nano has been discontinued by Apple, not only are a number of third-world children forced to look for a different sweat-shop in which to work, but my shower companion will cease to have any further relatives or model-descendants.  It is the terminus of a species.  That being said, here is what it played for me during my last shower:

Music Playlist

• Cordelia, by the Tragically Hip.
• Quiz Kid, by Jethro Tull.
• Evangeline, by Matthew Sweet.
• The Saint, by Orbital.
• 40 ft., by Franz Ferdinand.
• Eenie Meany, by Jim Noir.

The easiest conclusion to draw from this song selection is that there are some very positive things waiting to happen.  As I mentioned in a previous entry, though, Burroughs requires a loss of rational analysis, and an appreciation for the subconscious need for the human mind to connect dots and find patterns.
I promise to return the next time that I screw my courage to the mast and wash myself.  Goodnight England and the Colonies.
Cheers,
—mARKUS

Dates and Times

Greetings, gentle readers.
If you are wondering at the delay between my previous entry and the current one, I am currently switching between one anti-convulsant medication prescription and another.  As I start transitioning by taking one fewer pregabalin capsule every three days, I need to wind up my gabapentin dosage by more more capsule every five days.  The net result is that I've been a very dozy boy as the two medications combine in my system to turn my skeletomuscular system into mush.  The other practical upshot is that I haven't had a shower since my last post, and thus was unable to use my iPod's random shuffling playlist to motivate myself to create this post.  It was actually a bit gross, to be honest.  If anyone has a strigil, I would beg use of it to help sluice off some of the dead skin.  But on the plus side of the shower, there was the music.

Music

Here are the serenading songs that accompanied my journey from being covered in sweaty, sticky filth to being a healthy picture of happy hygiene.

• To Love Somebody, written by Barry and Robin Gibb; performed by Lightning Seeds.
• Do You Wanna, by Franz Ferdinand.
• Kwela Man, by Johnny Clegg and Juluka.
• Blister in the Sun, by the Violent Femmes.
• Marooned, by Lightning Seeds.
• Born Too Slow, by Crystal Method.
• Bottom of the Sea, by George Thorogood.

For those of you counting, yes, this is a very long list.  It was a long shower.  I needed it.

Cherchez La Femme

Many people have asked me questions about Donald Trump.  Is he an idiot?  Is he a maniac pretending to be an idiot?  Is he some sort of sociopathic monster with a hidden agenda disguising himself as an idiot?  Or is he just an onanistic fool who can't help being an idiot?
As a quick aside, I'm reminded of AJP Taylor's answer to the question of, what was the immediate cause of the First World War?  He wrote the following about Archduke Franz Ferdinand:

"Franz Ferdinand was a brutal and obstinate man, impatient with opposition, unsuited to a democratic age.  He had one redeeming feature: he loved his wife.  It irked him that she could never share his splendours, could never even sit by his side on any public occasion.  There was one loophole.  The Archduke was a field marshal and Inspector General of the Austro-Hungarian army.  His wife could enjoy the recognition of his rank when he was acting in a military capacity.  Hence he decided, in 1914, to inspect the army in Bosnia."

Donald Trump has an inferiority complex which leads him to compulsively seek to embellish his accomplishments and stroke his own ego at the expense of others.  His broad and ostentatious campaign trail claims about winning, conquering, and making things great, wonderful, and stupendous are all about achieving.  Even his speech to the Boy Scouts of America was filled with tales of his own election win - against all odds, defying pollsters, defeating a crooked opponent, and rising in triumph.  None of that had anything to do with scouting, but he loves to hear people cheering his actions, even if they are three-quarters of a year old.
And that's the point.  He hasn't accomplished anything since becoming President.  His executive orders have been defeated by the Supreme Court, all attempts at Health Care reform have failed in both houses of Congress, and he can't unilaterally pass a bill into law.  It won't be long until people realize that he's just played golf and tweeted away his presidency.  No legacy.  No monuments to his presidential actions.
But the president can do something unilaterally, without the House of Representatives or the Senate.   As commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Trump can issue military policy without needing any democratic validation.  So just as Franz Ferdinand provided Gavrilo Principe with an opportunity to plunge Europe into slaughter because he loved his wife, Donald Trump has alienated the entire LGBTQ community, as well as human rights activists and cowards, by denying transsexuals and transgendered persons the opportunity of military service.
On the one hand, why would you want to reduce the available pool of humanity that you can feed into a ghastly decades-long meat grinder of a conflict in the Middle East?  If people want to be blown up by children orphaned by American bombs, why not let them?  And if they want to shoot those kids instead and return Stateside with PTSD, haunting nightmares, and a government that sees them as an unnecessary drain on resources, why not let them enjoy the psychological horror and homelessness?
On the other hand... erm... actually, there is no logical upside to this action, either politically or militarily.  The only thing this decision does is deflect away from Trump's Russia scandal and total failure to successfully act on any of his campaign promises.  So before we have a chance to stand around and laugh at his impotence, he does the one thing that he can do undemocratically - pick on another minority group.
And I've run out of steam again.  The next time that I hose myself off, I'll try and explain everything that has happened with my medical situation and the surgery that is scheduled for 21 August 2017.
Until then, good night England and the Colonies.
—mARKUS

Friday Night Lights

Greetings, gentle readers.
This may be an important occasion to note that I am posting on consecutive days.  That I have been unconscious during the vast majority of the intervening time could be a factor.  I've got an enormous checklist of emails to be sent, forms to be filled, and cheques to be written, but I am putting aside those onerous responsibilities to blurt out my thoughts on this particular medium.  Nothing quite like the mute shouting nothing to the deaf, one might say.

Music

I doubt that anyone cares, but at some point in history, someone might put these posts on ping-pong balls and pull them out of a bingo machine tumbler to reveal the history of the English-Speaking Peoples, or Why Billy the Bin-Man Ate That Thing Last Thursday.  Any road, here's the shower music list:

• "Tired All The Time" by Big Sugar
• "So Let Me Go Far" by Dodgy
• "Live and Learn" by The Cardigans
• "Novocaine For The Soul" by Eels
• "Kilimanjaro" by Johnny Clegg and Juluka

Films

• "Going in Style" is a wonderful little film.  If you've always liked Alan Arkin as the crusty old bastard in films like "Grosse Pointe Blank" or "So I Married An Axe Murderer" and if you know that he's been around since the late fifties/early sixties, your heart will leap to know that he FINALLY gets to have it away with Ann Margret, who is almost the same age but many multitudes of pulchritude greater.  Sir Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman are ostensibly the lead characters, but Arkin drives the logic of the film.  It's not an all-time classic, but it's fun to watch.  Kenan Thompson is a particular nugget of delight in this silver mine.
• "Predators"  Adrian Brody must have owed some money to someone nasty.  For those of you who have read the "Walking Dead" graphic novels, the device that allows Thomas to be the character that lulls you into complacency before nauseating you out of your socks is employed here to much less effect.  To put this into context, Thomas forced Jeff Han to stop reading the graphic novels altogether.  This film is such a bland ripoff of the original "Predator" film that he wouldn't even notice.  There weren't even any character idiosyncrasies memorable enough to recount. 

Rant

I don't hate Jimmy Fallon.  Hate isn't a language in which I have fluency.  He's a chipper little fella that wants to be in the same orbits as the stellar celebrities upon whom he fawns.  My problem is the enthusiasm he injects into his obsequious catering to the egos of his guests.  A typical expostulation might sound like:

Barry Manilow.  He's just the greatest.  He's my jam.  I listen to his music every day.  He's all I dream about at night, and everything that fills my days with hope... blah blah blah, etc., etc.

And yet, 24 hours later, he'll spew forth a bellyful of the same analingual tripe about someone who wouldn't pee in Barry Manilow's mouth if Barry was dying of thirst.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Killer Mike (who wasn't born when Barry Manilow had his last chart hit).  He's my jam.  He's my one, my only, my everything.  If I chose my time of dying, I would listen to Killer Mike, because he's the greatest musical act ever to have occurred in human history.

His sycophantic drivel never seems to slow, unapologetically flinging itself into a mocking self-parody.  Monty Python might imagine himself blurting out something like:

This guy who hits kittens with mallets to make squeaking noises, he's my jam.  He pounds those mallets, man.  Roots!  From Philadelphia!  Can you play "Good King Wensceslas" on a tray of squealing kittens?  I didn't think so!  This man has revolutionized music as we know it.  He's just great.  I've named my firstborn child after him.  I've volunteered my tongue as a boot polish instrument because of my soul-bound worship of his greatness.

In short, I tend to tune the wee chap out after his monologue, because it embarrasses me to see a grown man humiliate himself in such a ritualistic fashion.
In conclusion, it's not all bad, but there are some really crap bits in life.
Until next time, good night England and the Colonies.
—mARKUS

Good News!

Greetings, gentle readers.
Well, it looks as though my insurance company has decided to approve my long-term disability.  That's good.  In addition, my neurosurgeon has agreed to perform surgery on my herniated C7 spinal disc.  That's also good.
I'm going to proactively procrastinate and say that I commit myself to greater detail, but now is not an opportune time.  Quick list of tunes, and I'm off.

Thursday Shower Playlist

• Punch and Judy by the Lightning Seeds
• She's All That by Big Sugar
• Love Fool by The Cardigans
• Enola Gay by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

And that's it.  Good night England and the colonies.
—mARKUS

Punching My Card

Greetings, gentle readers.
I'll have to subscribe to the adage that brevity is the soul of wit tonight, since I'm going to need all the sleep I can get ahead of an appointment with a neurosurgeon tomorrow morning.

Womenfolk

So Canada's next Governor General and BBC Wales' next actor cast to fill the role of the next incarnation of Doctor Who will both be female.  Congratulations to space-faring astronaut Julie Payette, and charming, intelligent actress Josie Whittaker.

Shower Music

Today's playlist went as follows:

• Darts of Pleasure, by Franz Ferdinand
• Dinosaur Act, by Matthew Sweet
• Some Kind of Wonderful (live), by Grand Funk Railroad
• The Sea, by Melanie Chisholm

Draw whatever conclusions you may.  I need to swallow some of my new anticonvulsant medication in advance of my appointment in the morning.
Until next time, good night England and the colonies.
—mARKUS

My MP3 Playlists Are Random, My Drug Tests Are Not

Greetings, gentle readers.
I'm going to try for a big one today, so here's hoping for some endurance.

Would Everyone Please Be Quiet

The old joke goes something like this:  a man asks a woman if she'll have sex with him for a million dollars.  She says yes.  He repeats the offer, but for fifty dollars.  Her response: "No!  Do you think I'm a whore?"  The man replies that she has already said so, he is now haggling.
If you think human rights mean anything, then shut the hell up on social media about Omar Khadr.  Any complaint whatsoever about any facet of the case means that you care nothing for human dignity or rights, much like any admission of cash-for-sex means that you are a whore.

Burning In My Heart

I live at an intersection where passing trains regularly cause motorists to be delayed for 5-15 minutes and back up traffic for blocks.  Temperatures over the next few days are expected to soar into the thirties in terms of degrees centigrade, or near triple digits Fahrenheit.  That means a lot of cranky, sweaty, thirsty people are going to be idling their vehicles all day in front of my house.  A lot has been made of the human ability to turn human misery into financial gain.  Since I'm sidelined, I'm unable to take advantage of this sort of suffering, but I can offer any potential entrepreneurs a prime location for an ice cream or lemonade stand.  For a reasonable percentage of the profits, of course.

To Be An Invalid

Speaking of being sidelined, as I eagerly await the Canada-Honduras Gold Cup showdown tonight, I am also cognizant of my appointment this afternoon at the nearby medical diagnostic laboratory.  Once there, I am expected to provide a urine sample.  Of what medical or pharmacological condition am I suspected?  The answer is none.  In fact, the sample to be analyzed is for the purpose of proving that I am on drugs.  I have been on prescription opioid analgesics for some time now, and  the College of Physicians and Surgeons in this province have a policy that I need to be tested in order to show that I have in fact been ingesting the medication, and not selling it off to nearby addicts.  In short, I need to have demonstrable evidence that I've been baked out of my tree consistently, and not slipping meds to the druggies.  Should be the easiest test I've ever taken.  It still sounds ironic, considering the discrepancy between the expectation of the purpose of a drug test, and the fulfillment of that expectation.

Musical Interlude

As I've already taken a couple of breaks, I'll try and wind this up succinctly.  Here are the tracks that accompanied my last shower session:

• Counterfeit Blues, by Corb Lund
• Savoy Truffle, by The Beatles
• Zingane Zami, by Johnny Clegg and Juluka
• Spunky, by Eels
• Africa, by Toto
• Bullet with Butterfly Wings, performed by Frida Snell; written by Smashing Pumpkins (Billy Corgan)

If one is unable to find any pattern or predictor within this list, one should by now be able to draw some conclusions about me from the aggregated tracks from all of my posts.
That's it for me.  I'll likely be unable to do much until tomorrow, so I'll try and get some more notes down.
Goodnight England and the colonies,
—mARKUS

Watchmen Reference

Greetings, gentle readers.
I think that it was Alan Moore's words that inspired me to start keeping track of the songs randomly selected by my iPad during my showers. His character Adrian Veidt is seen to say the following:

"... seemingly anticipated by Burroughs' cut-up technique. He suggested re-arranging words and images to evade rational analysis, allowing subliminal hints of the hints of the future to leak through...This jigsaw-fragment model of tomorrow aligns itself piece by piece, specific areas necessarily obscured by indeterminacy. However, broad assumptions regarding this postulated future may be drawn. We can imagine its ambience. We can hypothesize its psychology."

Given that hypothesis, here are the stochastic individual points of reference that my MP3 player has given us today.

• Beat on the Brat, performed by U2; written by the Ramones. 
• Boom Like That, by Mark Knopfler. 
• You've Gotta Look Up, by Dodgy. 
• Bullets for Bafazan, by Johnny Clegg and Juluka. 
• Separate Ways, by Journey. 
• Carry Me Carrie, by Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show. 

Any speculations on the picture that can be formed from this abstract set of words and phrases are gratefully accepted. If one were to believe that there is a subliminal truth to be found in these dots, surely the repetition of the letter B would have to be a part of that message. I will take this opportunity to grab some rest and try and generate some text worth reading in the near future.
Until then, goodnight England, and the colonies.
—mARKUS

More of a Weekly than a Daily

Greetings, gentle reader.
As so many late night chat-show hosts are fond of saying, I'd like to "get right into it."  Trevor Noah seemed to have spearheaded the charge of overusing this phrase, but he was enthusiastically reinforced by Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, and Conan O'Brian.  Pretty sure that Jimmy Kimmel and James Corden also bandy the phrase about with reckless abandon, but I don't watch their programs enough to draw any conclusions.
That being said, I would like to try and create entries with more regularity, but just haven't seemed to be able to do so.  In keeping with my "easy topics" lead-offs, here is what blurted out of my iPod during my last shower:

• Don't Try to Lay No Boogie-Woogie on the King of Rock and Roll, by Long John Baldry
• Cop a Plea, by Big Sugar
• Mad World, performed by Gary Jules and Michael Andrews (written by Roland Orzabal)
• Hey Bulldog, by The Beatles

What conclusions can we draw from the music?  Well, there's certainly a fair share of Canadian content, what with Big Sugar being Canadian and Gordie Johnson being a good Medicine Hat boy, and Long John Baldry adopting Canada as his home country after finding little but rejection and despair in the UK.  Nelvana Animation Studios still has much for which to thank dear Long John as the voice of all their sneering evil villains.
In other bits, "Mad World" was at once Roland Orzabal's greatest creation and greatest disappointment, since he was over-ruled by his producers and executives at every creative stage when he originally recorded the song as the lead singer of "Tears for Fears" but heard his true intentions manifested when he heard the arrangement with simply a piano, cello, and single track vocal that Gary Jules created.
Apple recording engineer Geoff Emerick has gone on record saying "Paul's bass line was probably the most inventive of any he'd done since Pepper..." but "Hey Bulldog"  somehow ended up on some sort of list of B-sides and castaways within the vast Beatles catalogue.  For most of my life, I always thought that the Beatles hated the whole Yellow Submarine project because it was carried out rather independently of them, and they had no creative influence.  It wasn't until the release of the "Anthology" videos that I realized that they originally hated the film because they couldn't voice their own characters.  That's reasonable.  Who could do a better impersonation of a person than themselves?  Anyone answering "Rich Little" gets a roundhouse slap to the ear for being a jackanapes.
In cinematic news, anyone interested in watching the quasi-biopic-western "Hickok" should probably save him or herself the time and effort.  History buffs will be irked by the squirmy little liberties taken with documented fact, including some mysterious avoidance of some of the saucier details. Those preoccupied with the written word will find the dialogue predictable and pedantic, and cinephiles will see that this is a bland aping of  1993's "Tombstone" including an obvious nod, when the Hemsworth brother tells a character on a departing train to look for Wyatt.  Bottom line:  watch Tombstone, and leave this one be.
I'm fading, so I'll just say that I'll try and reinforce these positions of new releases with evidence later:

• Revolt - 1.8 out of 5.  Thranduil tries to save humanity in a confused tale of alien invasion.
• Security - 4.1 out of 5.  Antonio Banderas is average in an above average mall-cop shoot-em-up, featuring Sir Ben Kingsley and (spoilers!) a fantastic background character named Vance.
• Churchill - 3.2 out of 5.  Brian Cox does Churchill as though he were Albert Finney doing King Lear in 1983's "The Dresser."  Some historical inaccuracies, but Miranda Richardson is awe-inspiring.

My faculties betray me, but I'll try and get more thoughts cemented into the electromagnetic ether as soon as it becomes practicable.
Until then, good night England and the colonies.
—mARKUS

Canada Day, Part 150

Greetings, gentle readers.
In order to combat my natural inclinations toward sloth and idleness, I set myself a number of topics upon which to expound in such a way as to always have a ready excuse to prattle away.  One such subject was the music that my iPod plays whilst I shower.  I've always suspected that there was something a bit strange about the tracks that appear.  On one occasion, I was driving northbound on Broadmoor Boulevard in Sherwood Park when the wee machine played a track from the Hillsborough Justice concert recorded live at Anfield in 1997.  Ian Broudie of the Lightning Seeds was just introducing Holly Johnson to the stage, and as the music begins to swell behind him, he announces "This is for everyone who's ever walked down Hope Street."  As I heard him say that over the car speakers, I replied aloud, "I've walked down Hope Street.  From cathedral to cathedral.  And I HOPE to get back there again."  I snickered at my own half-witted comment.  At that precise moment, I crested a hill and the billboard sign in front of the Salisbury United Church read,  "There's always hope."  I've been suspicious of the little Apple product ever since, and several similar incidents over time seem to have reinforced my wariness.
Moving on, here is what resonated in my bathroom earlier today:

• A Good Place - The Lightning Seeds
• Graffiti on the Train - Stereophonics
• Boys of Summer - Bree Sharp (Don Henley cover)
• Some Days Are Better Than Others - U2
• Can't Get It Out of My Head - Electric Light Orchestra
• Step On Me - The Cardigans

If these track titles form any sort of narrative, I'd love to hear it.  Surely the human imagination can connect the imaginary dots of these musical notes to form some sort of meaningful constellation.
Tonight, I'm obliged to visit a friend's house to observe some national celebration-type activities.  Before I set off, however, I thought I'd indulge one other of my prescribed avenues of discourse:  a quick voyage through my consciousness and a brief insight into the sorts of associations my conscious and subconscious minds make on a regular basis.  So if you've got your tickets and boarding passes, let's go for a quick trip.

• A friend posted an NRA propaganda video on Facebook.  Thoroughly vile thing, and I'm sure that it's gone viral across the interwebs by now, but that led to —
• Charlton Heston, the NRA spokesbeing renowned for his scenery-chewing overacting skills, who starred in the often overlooked film —
• Gray Lady Down, which was a late seventies disaster movie that basically ripped off "Airplane" but placed the action in a submarine at the bottom of the Atlantic.  The film also featured the ridiculously under-rated actor —
• Stephen McHattie, a fantastic Canadian actor who, for me, was the best part of the film adaptation of the Alan Moore graphic novel "The Watchmen."  If you, gentle reader, have not seen the bonus DVD feature "Under The Hood," you are leading an incomplete and inauthentic existence.  "Watchmen" was directed by Zack Snyder, who also directed Stephen McHattie in —
• "300" another graphic novel adaptation with a very stylish ambience, but a very subversive subtext.  A stark and grim imitation of "300" just happened to be on my television two days ago, and it was awful.  Not just by comparison, but as an object example of creative manifestation.  The piece of visual garbage that functions as a cinematic abortion of the stuff with which Zack Snyder wipes his fundament after venting a particularly abrasive three-coil cornback rattler is —
• "The Bad Batch."  This is where my narrative ends because this film was so amateurishly mediocre that I cannot stomach giving it more attention that a random puddle of dog vomit. If you ferociously masturbate to "300," but need the extra stimulus of "Sucker Punch" to reach a volcanic climax, this is your film.  

That's it from me for now.  Happy birthday Canada, and may populist despots worldwide tremble at the strength of our diversity and spirit of community.
Good night England, and the colonies.
—mARKUS

The Weekend Draws Nigh

Greetings Gentle Readers.
Days seem to flow into one another in some ceaseless susurration of train crossing signals, emergency vehicle sirens, and diesel engine rumblings.  Life is lived in six hour blocks - from one dose of medication to the next.  Haven't slept for more than four continuous hours in weeks, with a couple of exceptions, and those had very poor consequences.
Going to try and meet my own expectations and try and bang out something at least once a day, so here are the songs in chronological order that played while I managed to shower myself:

• If You Leave - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
• Bang and Blame - R.E.M.
• Ask the Lonely - Journey
• Isiimela - Ladysmith Black Mambazo
• How Many Roads - Big Sugar

If anyone can stitch together some kind of coherent meaning from this Rorschach blot of randomness, I'm open to theories.  Of course, I also don't know how to translate "Isiimela."  I'm assuming that it's Zulu, but it might also be Xhosa.  Speaking neither language fluently, I cannot say.

Headed to bed now, but I will mention that the world is a poorer place without Dave Semenko, legend among hockey-playing tough guys.  As a child that identified closely with Chris Makepeace's character in "My Bodyguard," Dave Semenko represented the Adam Baldwin solution to bullying.  As Wayne Gretzky was etching his legacy into the edifices of sports history, Semenko was his grim-faced shield-bearer.  Not flashy, stylish, ambitious, loud, or extroverted, he was the quiet presence that played deterrent so that others could shine.  It is always sad when one buries a protector.
That's as much as I can do tonight.
Good night England and the colonies.
—mARKUS

172.0.0.1 Bound

Greetings gentle readers.
Have been told that I am a complete invalid now that my spine has packed it in, and am basically a house-bound valetudinarian.  Despite the enormous dosages of medication, I'm going to try and keep the cerebral neurons firing by pecking out a few words a day.  My theory is that there is always a synchronicity to events and a narrative that can be enforced on any randomized data.  I've picked five topics about which I can type every day.  If I'm cogent enough, perhaps I'll hit all five.  If I'm unlucky, I'll miss the whole day.  So, on a good day, one may expect to read:

1. Musical Playlist - If I can make it through a shower, and still be conscious afterwards, I'll try to remember what songs were playing on my random bathroom music generator.  They may be important.  Who knows?  I remember walking out of the shower a few weeks ago as the song "Manchester" by the Beautiful South was playing, and a message had popped up on my Facebook feed on my bedroom computer monitor about a bomb at an Ariana Grande concert.  Coincidence?  Who knows.  Worth looking at the kind of tunes a person needs in order to be truly hygienic.
2. Stream of Consciousness - there's a great bit in Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" where Dupin is able to determine a person's entire train of thoughts based upon sensory input.  I'll try and map as many of these trips as I can and see if anyone can derive a logic from the sequence.
3. Rant - This needs no explanation.  As someone who cannot ambulate or properly care for himself, I obviously have a lot of barely-suppressed frustration, anger, rage, and bile that require venting all over some poor unsuspecting person, thing, or concept.  I've already got Jimmy Fallon in my sights.
4. In Memoriam - Everyone knows that 2016 was an awful year for celebrities, particularly those of the post-baby boomer generation.  Prince, David Bowie, William Peter Blatty, Gene Wilder, Alan Thicke, Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, George Michael, Alan Rickman, Mohammed Ali, Florence Henderson, William Christopher, and many others succumbed to death's icy embrace.  Have to say that Abe Vigoda surprised me, though.  Anyway, if I notice anyone of note has shuffled off this mortal coil, I'll try to make some sort of flippant or irreverent remark.
5. Films - When I run out of books to read, or find myself trapped in a bizarre position in my couch, I watch films.  Most of them are on specialty cable channels with low budgets, so they tend to have a couple of things in common - they have been released in the past couple of decades; and those that released them are now either bankrupt, shrieking interminably in horror, drooling on themselves next to an alleyway dumpster, or all of the above.  "Extortion," a film that somehow managed to snare Danny Glover into its cast is just such a cinematic abomination.  If I can find the time or the energy to describe them, I will.

Right.  That's me done.  Until my next post, goodnight England and the Colonies.
—mARKUS

The Provincial Capital that Rhymes with the Most Rude Things

Greetings, gentle readers.
So here I am in Regina, after what was supposed to be a ridiculously rushed transfer from plane to plane, but instead has turned into what looks to be an impromptu four-hour layover.  I expect that the tourism statistics for Regina will balloon after tonight, since the airport is packed with stranded travellers.  WestJet has been gracious enough to give us a $15.00 meal voucher while we wait, but I reckon that I'll wait until the panic rush of the Brioche Dorée subsides until I grab a croissant or two.
To recap:  I was asked to buy last-minute emergency tickets to fly to Las Vegas for my cousin's wedding, an event of which I was previously aware, but not actually invited to attend until work and travel considerations became awfully nasty.  I then went to the Edmonton International Airport at noon with a virtual boarding pass (a scan code on my iPhone) and jumped on the cheapest turboprop smoking that would get me to a connection that would result in me arriving in Las Vegas, Nevada.  I didn't know that modern airlines still used turboprops.  It makes sense, if you consider the short hops between Canadian cities, but I still couldn't shake the sounds of Arlo Guthrie's "City of New Orleans" and the soaring triumphal chorus at the end of "Cry Freedom" as Donald Woods and his family fly out of Lesotho amidst a crawling scroll of names of those who died whilst detained without trial by the Afrikaaner Apartheid government.
But I digress.
First of all, the Edmonton International Airport has set all of its pinball games to the most sensitive tilt settings I've ever seen.  Airports are the last refuge of the arcade, and Edmonton has been let down mightily.  That being said, I still managed to get a replay and a match on the Iron Man game, so if you're really quick, there are two free credits that I've abandoned.
But the departure lounge wasn't all about pinball, oh no.  It was also about hanging out with people who worked at Fort McKay and the Firebag sites and were headed home for the holidays.  That is, until I heard a shriek behind me.  I turned to see a wild-eyed man pointing at me, shouting that "Louis CK told me!"  In typical fashion, I blinked impassively at him.  He grabbed my shoulder and looked over it at my iPhone (the one with the boarding passes), crying "I've seen it!  I've seen it!"  A staff member materialized at his side, saying that she could get him a cold glass of water.
"I have cancer!" he shrieked, then crouched, clutching a chair.  "How do I know?  I INVENTED it!"
He then spun around, dodging the staff member, and ran out onto the concourse crying "REBECCA!"
He ran off away from my gate, and I thought I saw him sitting on a couch, being comforted by some security and border guards.  But if the experience taught me anything, it's that this is bound to be no ordinary trip or vacation.  Strange and exotic things are bound to befall.  Right now, they're befalling in the frozen wastes of Saskatchewan, where the weather isn't too objectionable, but apparently airplanes elsewhere cannot find their way here.  I haven't even made it to the land of Fear and Loathing, and already things are disintegrating.
Oh well, at least if things aren't boring, I might find more things about which I could post.  Man may search for meaning, but I'm just looking for some decent topics to provide copy.
So 2016 is almost over.  The bloodbath of celebrities and cultural icons may be about to draw to a close.  Abe Vigoda's obituary is no longer inaccurate.  Requiescat in Pace, Gene Wilder.  Your long heartache for Gilda is over. Princess Leia and her mother Debbie will never be forgotten.  Bowie, Prince, and George Michael changed the world's soundscape forever.  The universe is a more desolate place, and we can only hope for future generations to continue the tradition of genius and innovation.
Bring on 2017 and the Era of Trump.  May the Berners continue the hard slog to redefine American politics in such a way that it is not a global slapstick routine.
That's all from me in Saskatchewan.
Good night England and the colonies.
—mARKUS

Meteorological Phenomena

Greetings, gentle readers.
Making the transition from Keflavik to Edmonton is a bit like walking off the set of "Interstellar" and onto the set of "The Day After Tomorrow," a film which has been getting more attention as the worldwide climate change crisis worsens.
In short, Edmonton is cold.  Has been for the past week.  But there's something weird about this cold weather.  As a survivor of numerous –40°C winter days, I can attest that they can be a bit troublesome.  The thing about prairie winters is that they are generally very dry with low humidity in the air.  Any moisture in the air condenses and freezes out as snow or ice, and leaves you with just plain cold air, bereft of most of its water vapour.
Ever wonder why people are comfortable in +5°C weather, to the extent that Steve Martin comments in "Roxanne" that people "...ski topless while smoking dope" while the same temperature of water is used to torment people in the ice water bucket challenge?  Basically, water can absorb heat better than air.  The more water, the more it sucks warmth from your body.  Here's why people in Edmonton are unhappy:

Two things stand out here.  One is that the humidity is 83%.  That's ludicrous, particularly in a landlocked part of the country.  That's a lot of water vapour absorbing heat from things.  How does that much water stay in the air without freezing out?  The barometric pressure is 104.7 kPa.  Normal air pressure at sea level is 101.3 kPa. Basically, much like in the Jake Gyllenhal film I mentioned earlier, there is a dense, cold column of air descending from the upper reaches of the atmosphere, pushing down on the air below, lowering the dew point (or frost point) so that the moisture can't condense out.

TL;DR

We're in a pressure cooker that freezes instead of heats.

Well, that's it for now.  Back again soon.  Thanks to anyone supporting me by reading this inane drivel.
Good night England and the colonies.
Cheers,
—mARKUS

Hot-Tubbin'

Greetings Gentle Readers.
And so the two week excursion which was supposed to ameliorate long-standing tensions and resolve internal conflicts with a longer term goal of restoring mental and physical health comes to a close.  At time of writing, I am three and a quarter hours away from landing at Edmonton International Airport, at which point I can begin grousing about the awful civil planning that used public transport to snarl traffic across the city, and yet cannot connect the airport to the city centre.

What have we learnt?

First of all, thanks to my father, I did some investigation and discovered that "learnt" is the past tense of the verb "learn" in the same way that the past tense of the verb "burn" is "burnt."  If one adds an "-ed" suffix to the root verb, you create an adjective.  Someone who has lots of fancy book-learning, or is wise in the ways of academia is said to be "learned."  By the same token, an arsonist may say that the house is burned to the ground, but she was also the one who burnt it.

No, Seriously

OK.  Here's something that is immediate and relevant to my thoughts - hot springs.  Icelanders call them thermal pools, geoactive baths, or just pools.  In the course of trying to fix my spine, I have spent days using these wonders of Iceland to relax my vertebrae and apparently exfoliate several layers of skin.  Here are some of the things I've learnt.

Modesty is Kinda Quaint

I remember teaching high-school girls phys-ed at Francis Xavier High School.  I didn't ask for the assignment, and I certainly didn't enjoy it.  During one class when the class was supposed to be learning the backstroke, I was told rather firmly by one student that she was too scared to put her head underwater, and therefore couldn't participate in the class.  She clung tenaciously to a ladder at the shallow end of the pool and asked if she could practice treading water instead.  I'm passive-aggressive and avoid confrontations now, but back then, I was a pushover.  That, and I was worried about what would happen to the water in the pool if it was suddenly exposed to the pancake makeup and the many different types of hair care products that went into coiffuring the architecturally elaborate structure atop her cranium.  I'm sure that Environment Canada would have fed me to David Suzuki if I'd let that wee narcissist dunk her head into any shared water source.
That being said, I forgot my towel when going to the thermal pools near downtown Reykjavik.  All swimmers must be dry before approaching the locker areas, so I had to stand buck nekkid and blow dry myself with the wall-mounted automatic hair dryers.  Apparently, I'm not the first person to do so, since no one else cared.  Since then, I've tried to observe the different standards of privacy and modesty.  For example, in Reyksjanesbær, there are no private showering stalls.  There are precious few in the capital city, but if you want to maintain your privacy, it stops when the locals don't feel like indulging the quaint behavioural anomalies of tourists.
People who sheepishly try to hide themselves behind towels, t-shirts, boxes of breakfast cereal, etc. will often find themselves the objects of scorn and derision from the roving gangs of flabby, overweight grandparents who have no idea what you think you're hiding that they've never seen before.

Beware the Water Slides

The thermal spas that I patronized had water slides, and they had a couple of things in common.
When you climbed to the top, people outside of the spa compound could see your half-naked body shivering in the frost and mist.
The water flow is never sufficient to get you all the way down the slide without some sort of propulsion from your arms and legs.  Unless you fling yourself down the chute with reckless abandon.
The water slide pools are always kept separately from the other pools.  Why?  They're chlorinated.
I have yet to parse this last bit out.  Everything else, from the steam rooms to the saunas to the pools themselves, smells of rotten eggs.  It's like one big scene out of a Margaret Lawrence novel.  Luckily, the water only has low dilutions of sulfurous acid (H₂SO₃), not sulfuric acid (H₂SO₄) and therefore will shut down your sense of smell faster than it will dissolve you like a Yellowstone hiker. Maybe the geothermically activated groundwater will gum up the water slides.  Maybe kids are more likely to void themselves on thrilling descents.

It's a Matter of Degrees

Icelanders are very conscientious about maintaining the precise temperature of each of the thermal pools at every given location.  As near as I can tell, the thermal pool precedes any urban development.  People find a hot spring, and then build a town or city around it, not the reverse.  Once they've found the "geysir,"  they carefully control and regulate it.  Personally, I had never given much thought to the variance in bath water temperature, but in such a highly-regulated environment, it's difficult not to notice.  For example, stewing in 42°C for an hour makes you some kind of super hero, but no-one bats an eye if you spend three consecutive hours in the 38°C pool.  Invariably, there is a 2°C tub for those that would like to do an ice bucket challenge for no good reason whatsoever.
That's about it for now.  It's been a long day's worth of travel, involving landing in an aircraft earlier in time than when we left.  Didn't even need a TARDIS.  Until next time,
Goodnight England and the Colonies,
—mARKUS

Last Fling in the Pool

Greetings, gentle readers.
Well, this is it.  One more sleep, and I'm off to fly to Iceland, and then back to my old life in Canada.  Went to the viewing floor of the Radio City Tower in St. John's Market - the second tallest building in Liverpool - and looked down on all of my favourite places and things.  As we looked upon the panorama of the cityscape and I silently prayed that the Irish Sea would churn in the aftershocks of a Katla explosion, I was hit by memories of the wonderful, but little known wonders of the city.

Drax, I Demand You Grant Me Access... to the LIBRARY

The Liverpool Central Library is near St. John's Gardens, and is flanked on all sides by colossal tributes to classical architecture.  Vast Doric columns and bas-relief lintels and marble blocks are sprayed around this district like cat urine in an old lady's basement.  In fact, what used to be the main entrance is just such an imposing edifice.  However, it's no longer used, and the "new" entrance is a little side door with a walkway leading to it that is composed of black flagstones with white and red engraved letters that spell the names of films, books, plays, and musical albums.  I immediately spotted a puzzle, and thus I was ensnared.  My deciphering led me to the phrase "CYCLOPS THE WOOD."  Of course I had to talk to librarians about it.
The first thing that strikes you upon entering the library is that the central hall is arranged like Sir Francis Bacon's Panopticon, but canted at about a 35° angle to the vertical, and capped after the fifth floor with a teardrop-shaped skylight.  Looking up at the skylight gives you a view something like this:

The two librarians were stunned that I'd seen the puzzle at all, saying that it had been a competition for students when this part of the library opened four years ago.  They also said that if I'd figured out that much, finding the answer should be a piece of cake.
Most of the rooms filled with collections or rare books are named after benefactors, donors, or other sources of endowments.  Except one.  Its floors are made from blonde oak, and all of the wall panelling and cabinetry is done in dark oak, and was hence called The Oak Room.  It's the home to one of the rarest and most valuable books in existence:  the Audubon Society's "Birds of America."  Julie is studiously avoiding it in the following picture.

Obviously, this is the paperback edition in the display case. 
A quick glance around the Oak Room told me two things - it is not organized at all.  Not by subject, author, publisher, chronology.  Even when they get a publication in multiple volumes, the numbering sequences are often wrong.

The other thing that leapt out at me was this rather unique cover.

George Maw wrote a rather bland book about the plant genus crocus, and his imaginative cover designer decided to make a three-dimensional representation of the human eye, with a crocus in place where the iris of the eye should be, making a third rate horticultural textbook into a beautiful work of art.  In any event, I found the cyclops in the wood, although I was hoping for something creepier, like Doctor Who's assertion that all paper comes from trees, and therefore all libraries are forests of the dead.
On the way back down, there's a poem written by Liverpudlian-born Afro-Caribbean activist and poet Levi Tefari that is extraordinarily difficult to read at ground level, but is far easier to read from the first or second floors:

A Night at the (World) Museum

Found right next door to the library, the Museum has a ground floor and five floors of exhibits above it.  After two days of visiting, I still haven't seen all of them.  It really is an information overload.  Each floor really merits a full week's investigation, and I find myself guilty of skimming.  The enormous display of indigenous arts, crafts, textiles, weapons, and other artifacts was entirely overwhelming.
In terms of the anthropology aspect, the exhibit that really raised my eyebrows was the Tibetan exhibit.  Filled with robes, prayer bowls and bells, and all manner of pottery, textiles and precious jewelry, the artifacts themselves are gorgeous to behold.  What caught my eye was the quotation from the Dalai Lama that accompanied the display.  In it, he mentions that many of the items that have been collected in the museum were gifts from Tibetans to serving British diplomatic and military officers, and comments that he is proud to see that these beautiful, hand-crafted articles are demonstrable proof of the friendship and sympathy that the two countries share.
This is a very loaded statement. In mentioning his people and his country, is he asserting Tibet's independence from China?  Is he implying that Britain do the same, diplomatically?  Is this basically a very quiet and polite refutation of China's definition of Tibet as the Autonomous Region of Xizhang?  It sounds very soft and cuddly, but there are barbs beneath the surface of such a placid museum dedication.
Other than quasi-seditious niceties, there is much to suggest that humanity is more of a family that we have ever realized before.  Compare the totem poles of the Haida Indians of the British Colombian coast with those of the Yoruba people of West Africa.  Then compare their textile patterns.  There are things going on in our collective species subconscious than we may have ever suspected.  Except for the Javanese people of Oceania - they've got their own thing going on.

Considering that the Scarab is a member of Order Coleoptera, I think that we can safely assume that Bastet is a Beatles fan.
And it looks like I'm out of time.  Need to pack and make my final arrangements to catch the train to Manchester in the morning so that I can hop the flight to Reykjavik in the early afternoon.  So until next time, goodnight England and the colonies.
Cheers,
—mARKUS

Midweek Musings

Greetings gentle readers.
As I wandered around this morning, wondering why Katla hasn't blown her top yet, I started considering the relationships people have with the stones beneath them.  In Canada, we don't really care all that much - we care more about the soil, or the oil in the tarsands than we do about bedrock.  The stuff beneath our feet are just potential natural resources, or foundations for building things to move natural resources.  In Nashville, the solid granite bedrock that heaves out of the ground makes for perfect acoustic spaces for sound studios.  In Iceland, the rock is almost organic.  It occasionally turns liquid and flows to the sea in rivers of lava.  It heats the water for drinking and bathing. (note that the translation of Katla is 'kettle")  It melts the glaciers and sculpts canyons and creeks.  It's like a helpful, yet volatile friend.  We've all got one.
Liverpool is a bit odd, though.  The rock here is hard, thousands of years post-glacier, and usually a blonde colour, fading to grey as you move closer to the granite towards the south and Wales.
In 1207, the rock was a necessity.  In order to gain all the political and economic rights of a city under King John, the place needed a castle and a monastery.  A bunch of merchants and fishermen really didn't have the wherewithal, so the King's Charter gave them enough of a kick start that they started quarrying and building.  That meant more people.  In 1709, Thomas Steers designed the world's first commercial wet dock.  It took six years to build.  That meant more builders, more quarries, more rock, more bricks, more mortar, more people.  That many laborourers living in the city for that amount of time created something that would become useful later - a lot of pubs.
When the wet dock opened, it offered something no other dock in the world could - they could offload a ship's cargo and have it stored or carted in 36 hours.  The fastest docks in the world at that time could manage in about 10-12 days.  The economy exploded overnight.  To prevent literal explosions, fires were not permitted on ships docked in the wet dock.  That meant that sailors wanting a hot meal had to go ashore.  They were also accustomed to spending their money over a two week period in port.  Now that they had a day and a half, binge spending became the order of the day.  Pub owners became fantastically wealthy, and there were a lot of them to go around.
Liverpool Castle was torn down so that they could use its bricks and stones to make the wet dock, and then later to create a flood barrier to stop high tide from flowing too high up the river estuary.  They screwed that part of the project up, but they still needed a lot of stones to do it.  The fame and efficiency of the wet dock spread so quickly that the corporation of the City of Liverpool immediately commissioned more docks - the Queen's Dock, the King's Dock, the Prince's Dock, etc., etc.
Quarrying has always been a big deal in Liverpool.  The granite quarry just down the street from where I'm staying is just a huge artificial pit that it has become Liverpool's largest graveyard.  I have a photo album of the quarry pit/cemetery beneath the Anglican Cathedral that it helped erect here:  https://www.facebook.com/jdsilentio/media_set?set=a.200425130579.257431.521620579&type=3
John Lennon's skiffle band that performed at the now-historic Woolton Village Fête in 1957 was called the Quarrymen.  As the traditional quarries began to run into problems like watershed and cartesian springs in the 19th century, the \corporation of the city began to think bigger.  They began tunnelling and blasting right into the hills around the city, levelling the ground for even-grade train tracks and underground warehousing from the docks.  An underground rail system to move goods from the docks to cavernous warehouses nestled deep beneath the city was eventually abandoned, but not before some of these underground spaces and access tunnels had already begun.
The Cavern Club was a residual side-effect of this attempt to make the rock and stone around the city give way for more transportation and storage, and in so doing, yield more building material to construct greater projects around the surface of the city.  The Mersey Tunnel of the late '20s and early '30s was yet another excavation project that created building material for more docks and cathedrals while creating a link between the Wirral side of the Mersey and the Liverpool side.
In short, Liverpudlians consider rock to be an impediment that can be transformed into structural components, quite wildly different from the Icelandic attitude of quietly accepting all of the things that their underfoot landscape offers.  This might go some way toward the pugnacious attitude that occasionally surfaces here in the North West of England.  We saw it in the Teddy Boys fad of the '50s, the Casual trend of the 70's, and the political upheavals under Thatcher in the 80's.
I reckon that's all I've got in me for tonight, but I'll be back again before you can shake a stick.
Oh, and as for the footy - Liverpool defeated Leeds United 2-0 in a match that was very similar to the Sunderland match.  Same score, similar times of the goals, but Leeds were a bit more "up-for-it."  Just read the Sunderland report and include the fact that Ben Woodburn has now become the youngest player in Liverpool history to score a professional goal, and you're set.
Until later, goodnight England and the colonies.
Cheers,
—mARKUS

Liverpool, Continued

Greetings Gentle Readers.
Liverpool is, in its totality such an assault upon the senses that I shall endeavour to blast out as much as I can before I reach the limits of my physical capacity.  Please try to bear with me as I leapfrog from topic to topic.
Iceland Again
It suddenly occurred to me that all of the doors in public and commercial buildings open automatically. This has the effects of making you feel welcomed, ushering you in from the cold and damp, and giving you the creepy sensation that you're in some Scandinavian episode of "The Prisoner."
The Football
Having attended the match last weekend, I'll throw my analysis into the hat, so for those of you without any interest in the tactical nuances of the game, you should probably just skip down to the next topic header.
Sunderland, managed by much-maligned former Manchester United and Everton manager David Moyes, had arrived at Anfield with the full intent of stifling Liverpool FC's attacking prowess.  his plan was to attack on the break as soon as his team acquired possession of the ball, at which point his speedy wingers would launch themselves down the sidelines, and his target striker would surge through the middle, supported by a number 10.  If his team lost possession of the ball, those two wingers would drop back to protect the gap between the full-backs and centre-backs.
Since Sunderland rarely had any possession of the ball, that meant that Sunderland spent some 70% of the game playing a 6-3-1 formation, and basically kicked anything that moved toward their net.  That was mostly the ball, as Liverpool passes and dribbles were punted into touch at every opportunity, but also included the smaller members of the attacking home team, like Phillipe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino.
It was a cynical defensive tactical formation, hoping for a fluke turnover to launch a surprise counter-attack against a superior outfit, but it ultimately could not pay off.  Moyes had hope for over an hour, though, as his burly man-marking defenders scythed down one diminutive Brazilian attacker after another without censure.
Two things changed the match.
The first was Jürgen Klopp.  Sensing that his team was getting frustrated of running into blind alleys and defensive walls, and angry that the referee wasn't making very many sympathetic calls, particularly in the case of Coutinho, who was stretchered off in considerable discomfort, Klopp called in reinforcements in the person of the twelfth man.  Spinning to face the Man Stand (where I was sitting) he hopped about manically, frantically waved his arms, and shrieked in a manner only an irate German can.  We responded instantly with a huge chorus of "The Fields of Anfield Road." In so doing, we shamed the Kop, who in turn had to launch their own song, or forever be dishonoured as having lost the traditional place of song-originating wall of sound that they had been holding covetously since 1965.  Songs rang around the ground, and the players took heart before redoubling their efforts.
The second was the addition of Divock Origi, who replaced one of the injured South American wizards.  The big Belgian battering ram baffled the Sunderland back line by hitting a shot parallel to the touchline across goal with such venomous spin that when it grazed the ground, it shifted direction and swerved around the hapless keeper to nestle into the far bottom corner of the net.
TL;DR
David Moyes and Sunderland played like craven eunuchs but couldn't compete against superior skill and support.
I helped Liverpool defeat Tottenham in May, 2009, but on this day it was Jürgen Klopp who provided the off-field spark to carry the match.
Full English Brekkie
So we sat down on Sunday for a big and expensive breakfast at the Philharmonic.  The food was good, but nothing ridiculously palate-seducing.  As usual, there was toast, bacon, baked beans, eggs, hash browns, blood pudding, sausage, and tomato.  Nothing extraordinary.  what did strike me was the Sunday menu.  It was topped by bizarre heading title of "The Most Lavish Toilets in Europe."  This claim is most assuredly true, as anyone who has been there can attest.

What's odd is to make that claim before describing the food that you are going to serve.  It's a bit like a cross-country skier discussing the vomitus that will happen at the finish line, rather than the gold medal.
Contrast
The Philharmonic is on Hope Street.  At the downhill terminus of Hope Street is the Anglican Cathedral, which has a weird, neon-illuminated commercialism about it.  At the top of the hill, amidst the University District, is the Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King.  Looking a bit like Tolkien's tower of Barad-Dûr, sans the Lidless Eye, the austere and spiky building cuts a unique silhouette against the city skyline.  This is not a building of lavish toilets.

Liverpool is a working-class town that has known hardship and privation throughout its 800 year history.  As a port city, it was hit hard by waves of the Black Death in the 15th and 16th centuries, claiming as much as 25% of the population at a swipe. In the middle of the 19th century, over 350,000 Irish are estimated to have debarked on Liverpool's docks while fleeing the great famine, creating chronic cholera outbreaks and starvation.
In J.D. Salinger's twin novellas "Franny and Zooey," Franny has a profound crisis of faith and has a nervous breakdown.  Zooey solves the problem by pretending to be one of his older brothers and doing as he would do.  In his analysis, Franny cannot reconcile the god she wants to worship with the god of scripture.  In short, she wants Christ to behave like St. Francis of Assisi, and that is inconsistent with the Christian faith.
Everyone reads revelatory scripture with a certain filter.  Some people key in on certain themes, like visual artistic depiction regulation in the Qu'ran or the haddith.  Some focus on money in the New Testament, or slavery in the Old Testament, but everyone tends to key on what they see as the most relevant or immediate to themselves and their community.

In Liverpool, Christ the King is sublime because he is seen as the embodiment of divine suffering and endurance.  The twelve stations of the cross in the Met Cathedral are a catalogue of misery and suffering, and the Catholics of Liverpool love and worship him because he shares their experiences and torments without succumbing to surrender or despair.
To see such extremes and contrasts on a single street in Liverpool only goes to show the intense diversity that underlies a great togetherness that has formed a cultural fabric as resilient as any in human history.
Until next time, stay safe and happy.
Good night England and the Colonies,
–mARKUS

Greetings, gentle readers.
As I've previously mentioned, I'm a bit behind on the events of the past week, but now that the vast majority of the madness, confusion, and outright confrontation is concluded, I'm going to try and go full bore at the things I've noticed.
Hot Springs and Hotties
I have a completely skewed view of Icelandic people after my last night out in Reykjavik.  I have no idea what the occasion was, but the live music café/restaurant at which we dined near the old docks had a bizarre demographic.  Prior to 2200h, the placed was filled with about 30 unreasonably and ridiculously attractive supermodels, attended by six rather feminine-looking young men.  I do not exaggerate.  These women paraded out for cigarette breaks on staggered intervals of about half an hour throughout the night, making it basically a constantly cycling catwalk of jaw-dropping pulchritude in heels and evening gowns.  After 2200h, they all evaporated into the night with their concierges like some sort of squadron of Cinderellas, and were promptly replaced by a pack of elderly men who looked like slightly better-kept versions of Walter Matthau.
I have no idea what sort of social occasion that was, but if anyone ever asks why I'm a bit hard on Liverpool women, it's because my whole spectrum has been recast.
Also, floating in a hot springs pool with strategically placed flotation devices can do wonders when trying to stretch and relax a compressed spine with a pinched nerve, although when your ears are submerged, some of the noises can be particularly alarming.
Liverpool Basics
Here are some of the first things that an objective observer might notice when arriving in Liverpool and wandering around the place.
Wild Parties
The whole place is a playground.  I don't mean end-of-term students on ridiculously irresponsible binges, or gangs of yobbos urinating on dumpsters.  I mean actual carnivals, fairgrounds, midways, the lot.  The kids are having a blast, and the adults are lapping it up.  The Mersey Ferries Building is surrounded by huge fair-style rides, with centrifuges, and all other manner of slinging, catapulting, and twirling devices illuminated by a myriad of pastel colours.  Throughout the city, mini-alpine villages have been constructed with bratwurst, mulled wine, and hot chocolate kiosks serving tiny heated chateaus.
People are Beautiful
I don't want you to take my word for it.  I've never seen a happier, more optimistic, forward-looking culture.  Here's what the local newspaper had for a headline:
"Science City Can Lead UK - Mayor Urges public to back Knowledge Quarter vision."
The article describes a £1 billion program to create a science research area of the city between the hospital district and the university district, creating 10,000 highly-skilled jobs.  Of course, the story carries over onto page two, where the reader is led to the next story:  "Big interest in new Chinatown."  Here we find the Hong Kong and Shanghai investors are looking at dumping £200 million into developing Europe's largest Chinatown into a cornerstone of the fastest-growing UK economy outside of greater London.  With 50% of financing secured and a commitment to the Chinese art form of zhezhi, and a motif of an awakening dragon fuelling the theme, excitement is high.
At this point, we look at the recto page opposite page two, and it features the gentle comedic themes of a local cartoonist who, while not side-splittingly funny, writes gently amusing, almost soothing cartoons. An example punchline of a cartoon featuring a dark age Scandinavian couple is "Ye gads, woman!  I'm a Viking!  I'm supposed to leave rings on the table!"
Not convinced?  It goes on.
"Crowds roll up to celebrate good mental health."  Liverpool's first ever Mental Health Festival occupied 30 venues with feel-good activities such as the community roller-skating event "Skate - Don't Hate."
The optimism and cheeriness is relentless.
"Rewards for staying active just got a lot more lucrative."
"Flourishing city named best British tourism destination."
"Take the stress out of raising kids" - from a column called "HAPPY ON THE INSIDE."
Other articles detail women's breakfast/yoga programs for Saturday mornings ("Rise and Shine") and parallel columns - one each for the two main football teams in the city.  Each exclusively focuses on the positives of that team with only glancing and respectful nods to the other.
Finally, I offer this cartoon strip.

I challenge anyone to find a greater wellspring of positivity within a community of three quarter of a million people.  The pool of life, indeed.  I should really include a video of the New Zealand All-Blacks performing a haka for Jürgen Klopp at Melwood after explaining that the Maori term for Liverpool translates directly to "Spring of Life."  Ah, look for it on YouTube.  My back is yearning for some more hot spring attention.
And with that, I bid you good night, England and the colonies.
Cheers,
—mARKUS

Iceland
I'm going to try and post some copy as regularly as possible, since I'm already behind.  Good training for journalism.  I've already leaned to give Blackie the lead, so the rest is just learning the routine.
My first inclination when attempting to describe Iceland would be to start with the architecture.  In smaller communities like Keflavik, the housing design seems to be based on various types of shoe boxes with sloped rooves.  This may sound boring and pedestrian, but there's a terribly good reason.  The interiors are beautifully well appointed with hardwood walls, doors, and cabinetry, as well as geothermically energized underfloor heating.  The reason these small communities are able to afford these rather luxurious and energy-efficient residences is because the component elements are manufactured in abundance and then applied to each new house.  It is the very idea of the economy of scale.  Everyone builds their house based on the available assembly pieces, rather like Ikea.  If everything is cookie-cutter, the rest is just assembly.
An architectural element that the small rural communities share with the larger, urban communities such as Reykjavik is that of light.  Living north of the sixtieth parallel, sunlight is at a premium throughout the year.  Floor to ceiling windows are commonplace, even in urban highrises.  The rural houses that look like shipping containers usually have an entire wall dedicated to insulated glass.
Why focus on architecture?  I suppose that if architecture is art in which you live, then this art form tells us everything we need to know about contemporary Icelandic culture.
The people of Iceland are practical and very much dedicated to common sense, but are always open and willing to let more light into their lives.
In short, a lovely place with wonderful people and extremely expensive puffin-based dishes.
Until my next opportunity, goodnight England and the colonies.
—mARKUS

Return to Merseyside

Greetings, gentle readers.
And so it came to pass that in those days of much confusion and despair, wherein artists and visionaries fell by the score and frustrated despair tore down the halls of government offices, replacing them with street-fighting beer halls, there was a small band of adventurers that decided to take a time-out.
The following blogs are just the observations of one of these adventurers, desperately trying to stave off the forces of cynicism and apathy.  
Prologue
I was on FaceBook in the summer of 2016.  Dutarte had been elected in the Philippines, Erdogan in Turkey, and Brexit seemed to start an authoritarian political storm that would sweep through Hungary, Romania, Macedonia, and Moldova.  Bernie Sanders had suspended his campaign.  Like many others, I was forced to consider the hypothetical of voting for Hillary Clinton just to prevent Donald J. Trump from occupying the Oval Office.  Times were bad.
But there was still Facebook.  A minor notification reminded me that IcelandAir had made the Edmonton International Airport a major hub of operations, and offered not only direct flights to Keflavik, but free stopovers when connecting to European destinations.  In the anti-corporate tumult of all of the news items broadcast by the Ring of Fire network, the Young Turks, and Redacted Tonight, I realized that one company had made an effort to cooperate and nurture a relationship with my community.  I clicked on one of their sponsored ads and went to their page.
I sent a message explaining why I would like to extend my patronage toward them and offered some preferences and constraints.  They promptly sent me back a full suggested itinerary.  I was so impressed that I bought three tickets and told my friends later that we were going on a trip.
We were to fly to Iceland, stay two days, then take off again for Manchester.  From thence, we were to shuffle directly off to Liverpool by rail. Eleven days on Merseyside would be followed by a train ride to Manchester, and then back to Keflavik for a day.  From there we would be dumped back at our point of origin.
So that's the background.  The blog posts that follow are just my experiences and observations of the people and places that we encountered along the way.  I hope that some of them may provide some sort of insight into the human condition and some of the things that make us part of a greater global village and not a tribe amongst warring tribes.
Part One should be along shortly, but until then,
Goodnight England and the colonies.
—mARKUS