Richard Flynn :: no comment

I am in the process of writing an article on language in Canada (I might not really have written anything before I get back to England, so don’t hold your breath, lovers of the maple leaf and linguaphiles¹). In the course of my Wikipedia research, I came across the following statement from the present Canadian Commissioner of the Official Languages:

[I]n the same way that race is at the core of what it means to be American and at the core of an American experience and class is at the core of British experience, I think that language is at the core of Canadian experience.

—Official Languages Commissioner, Graham Fraser, quoted in the Hill Times, 31st August 2009

Can we really define these three countries that simply? This troubles me. I know that

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I think this is pretty cool. Below you should be able to see a photo I took of a panoramic painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This is John Vanderlyn’s (1775–1852) ‘Panoramic View of the Palace and Gardens of Versailles’ (1818–19). It is a 360º painting which fills a room. You should be able to click and drag left and right on the photo below to move round and round in circles to see the whole painting.

This photo is a stitch of ten separate frames; you’ll note that I didn’t photograph the floor or the ceiling, which is why they are just black holes in the panorama. You need QuickTime in order to be able to view it, I’m afraid, and it probably won’t work in Internet Explorer.¹ I will be publishing lots of photos from the Met

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Before I got on the first train of my trans-Canadian railway odyssey at Vancouver, a man at the station gave me a map of the route, which was published by the Canadian National (CN) Railway c. 1967. Glancing at it on and off, I was able to discern a couple of categories of place-names shown on the map: those which sounded funny, because of either the words or the sounds used; and those which are strongly reminiscent of one ‘old country’ or the other. Here are some of those which caught my eye

Funny Words and Sounds

• Antigodish, NS
• Barrie, ON
• Bartibog, NB
• Chilliwack, BC
• Cranberry Portage, MB
• Flin Flon, MB
• Forget, QC (presumably really pronounced ‘forjé’)
• Hope, BC
• Knob Lake, NL
• L’Épiphanie, QC
• Medicine Hat, AB
• Moose Jaw, SK
• Nipissing, ON
• Sexsmith,

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As I learnt whenever it was we first came across the word and concept of francophonie in French classes at Gilling, they speak French in Canada. In France, meanwhile, they make fun of the French-Canadians for their accent and curious turns of expression. How exciting for me, therefore, to arrive in Quebec (the city), the capital of Quebec (the province) and be thrown into an almost-entirely francophone society. I have been amused and surprised by some of the the French I have heard so far, and what follows are a few brief observations based on my own experiences—they shouldn’t necessarily be taken to be indicative of the way everyone speaks French in Canada.

First, that hilarious pronunciation, of which the French make so much fun. At Mass on Sunday the girl

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I suspect that some people are poking through teeny-tiny photos and thus getting something far from the best experience. So, a few tips to increase your photo-viewing pleasure:

1. When looking at a photo, click on it. The photo will then open as big as your screen will allow. Squint no longer. Or squint less, at least. If you click on the enlarged photo again, it will disappear and leave you back where you started.
2. When you’ve blown up a photo like this you can then select alternative sizes from the list along the top: the biggest size available is called X3 (as in ‘XXXL’). If you choose that, you will be able to use the horizontal and vertical scrollbars in your browser to pan around the image.
3. You can also use the left and right arrows on your keyboard to

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Come on, America, it’s time to grow up and end your love-affair with the baseball cap. Face it, you look ridiculous. It’s fine if you want to cover your head outside or protect your eyes from the sun, but keeping it on inside? Pshaw. On my flight from Anchorage to Seattle I was surrounded by men in baseball caps, every one of them evidently covering his head in an effort to disguise its paltry cerebral content. They had all failed.

The event which really made me consider this situation was when I was dining in Fairbanks in an upstairs restaurant. A fellow diner across the room sat there, nonchalantly chewing the cud with his cap wedged on his head. I suppose you think that I shouldn’t have let it bothered me, but it did. I’m sorry to say, I judged that

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Sitting on the train from San Diego back to Los Angeles—leaves 8.20 p.m., arrives 11.20 p.m.—I overheard a girl in the seat behind me on the phone. I reckoned that she was about my age:

No, I’m on my way to L.A. I’ll be back in Santa Cruz on Monday: I have to go back to work. Well, I’m going to be picked up by Jenna, Jonno, and Kelsey. We’re going to meet up with Jasmine in L.A. then we’re going to drive to New Mexico tonight. Well, I guess Jenna’s car doesn’t have air-conditioning, ¹ and we don’t want to drive across the desert during the day without air conditioning. Well, y’know, we have to cross Arizona. The journey will be about twelve hours, and we’re leaving at 11, maybe 12, so we’re going to have to travel during some daylight.

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There’s no two ways about it. It was hot in Texas. In both Austin and San Antonio daily temperatures while I was there were on average at least 100ºF. In Austin the humidity seemed to bounce all over the scale—although I couldn’t quite work out why—which made for some very uncomfortable moments. I had to slap on a hat, slop on some sunscreen, and do my best. The only problem with the sunscreen was that it was a fancy factor-30 gel which I’d got in Soul Pattinson in Sydney before I’d left. This gel is packed with ethanol, and so subsequently when I cover up for the sun I also smell like I’ve been so drunk that I’ve spilt whisky all over myself. Fortunately the smell does pass relatively quickly, but the stinging sensation remains for rather longer.

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I stepped off the Qantas plane from Sydney in Los Angeles last week to notice that there were a far larger number of staff waiting to greet the plane than I was used to seeing for the equivalent plane in London or Sydney: people with wheelchairs, name-placards, official-looking clipboards, cleaning equipment, etc. Knowing that none of them was waiting for me, I carried walking down the jetway. When I got to the terminal proper, it was to be greeted by a sign on the wall saying:

WARNING: this building contains substances known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.

Well, that’s certainly one idea of a friendly welcome. Apparently, in fact, this is a sign which is used so often throughout the state that it has

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