St George slays mythic beast for tail

Happy St. George’s Day. 

Happy what??

For all those Canadians out there, England has its own version of a Saint’s day. Ireland has St. Patrick’s Day, which everyone in North America celebrates. We all wear green. All try our useless Irish accents and be extra friendly to any redheads we know.  Everyone has a grand old day — except the Irish apparently. There’s a big parade in Dublin now, and some places make a half-hearted attempt at a show for the tourists. But if you are already Irish why would you celebrate being Irish on just one day? And in the old days, i.e. a couple of years ago, you couldn’t even celebrate the day because, as it was a saint’s day, all the pubs were closed. And I don’t think I am being xenophobic by pointing out that a party in Ireland without a drink is about as likely as a Frenchman moving after finding out he is living next to a cathouse. OK, that last bit was tad xenophobic (and borrowed), but then it was directed at the French. And it is St. George’s day and if you can’t be xenophobic on your patron saint’s day, when can you be?

So, St. George’s day should be celebrated too. At least by maidens who need saving from dragons. Finding a maiden in Winnipeg might be a tad difficult, but I am sure there are some around. Morden and Winkler probably have a fair share. Dragons little thin on the ground too.

England really doesn’t do much of a celebration these days. Hard to get really pumped about a third century Roman religious figure who slew a fictitious lizard. Still, some get into it, although it is more monarchist league tea morning and a march to the local Anglican church for cucumber sandwiches than green beer, fighting and a piss up.  How a Roman Centurion who got his head lopped off for protesting about persecutions of Christians morphed into the Teutonic knight Siegfried (or is it Roy?) is beyond me. Probably done by the same people that blended the whole crucifixion thing into a day celebrating a German pagan spring goddess whose pet bird scared children so much she changed it into a rabbit that laid colourful eggs that she then gave to said frightened toddlers. Her name was Oster, so they didn’t even really change the name. That’s just laziness.

St. George was adopted by English Crusaders under Richard the Lionhearted. They wanted his protection from the Saracens. Although, given his success in protecting earlier Christians, they may have wished to pick someone at little more competent. But then he did that whole dragon slaying thing, so he looked good on a horse. And got the maiden too. But pick they did and by the time of King Harry (that’s Harry five), April 23 was pretty much a national holiday for all the English.

It is worth noting that St. George is not only the patron saint of England, but also of soldiers, archers, farmers, Boy Scouts, butchers, horse riders, saddlers and of sufferers from leprosy, plague and syphilis. Which, oddly, sums up a large portion of the English populace so perhaps it is apt that St. George is the patron saint. So, I shall down a glass or two of real ale in celebration, wear my England football shirt and cry ‘God for Harry, England and St. George!’ Then fall down drunk in the street, swear like Gordon Ramsey and finally throw up in a policeman’s hat.

Osborne Village

Developers should run to the hills, or at least the small bumps we call hills.

Particularly galling was this weekend’s group protesting the development of a condo complex in the village (The oval building above). Now, I lived in the village for 15 years and love the area. But it changes it grows. And guess what, it’s almost all apartment and condo complexes. It’s why people live there. Urban density and all that. Lots of single people who have tats, eat sushi and hang out at the Toad. But the chief opponent of the condo complex objected to the condo building because “it would remove trees and heritage houses.” OK a couple of older, albeit interesting looking houses will go and that would be a minor shame and a couple of old tree but hey it’s progress.

The interesting thing was the woman did her complaining from her CONDO. Did her condo grow remarkably from the ground fully formed liked Aphrodite emerging from a shell? Perhaps the location of condo was selected because it was a flat, undeveloped, treeless parcel of land perfectly situated and shaped for her ten-storey building? Perhaps her condo is an organic, vegetarian commune masquerading as a condo. Or perhaps, more likely, the developers of her home knocked down houses, cut down trees and dug up the street.

The proposed IKEA development is getting the same treatment. Some company wants to build the largest single development in the city’s history, and people are lining up to complain. Meanwhile the 95 percent of us who are quite fine with this development and want our cheap Swedish bookshelves, keep quiet. We remain silent and let these small cadres of negativists get all the press. There are concerns no doubt, chief of which is the city’s lack of a plan for traffic in the area, but that is an issue to address not a cause for knee-jerk objection.  I will ask again. Where is my Fort Garry interpretive centre? Where is the Rock and Roll hall of fame? Where are my boutique hotels? Where is my freakin’ stadium? Come to think of it, the only development Winnipeggers seem to be for is the Museum for Human Rights, with its cost overruns, sloppy accounting and extending deadlines. Interesting. 

It’s bad enough when you don’t know the name of any bands on a tribute album but when you haven’t even heard of the band that the tribute album is for…then you know its all over.

I was looking in a record shop…oh how quaint…I mean a music store…and saw a tribute album to some band named Lower Than Vomit or something. There was a day when I knew the name of every obscure band and cherished albums that most people had never heard of…Spirit of Eden…that Julia Fordham album…Robyn Hitchcock’s Globe of Frogs….The The …Today, I couldn’t name two bands on the charts.

I blame radio. Depending on who you listen to you in our fair berg you either get 24 hours of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, 24 hours of AC/DC and Journey or three stations all owned by the same people playing Rihanna on a loop…because, you know, I haven’t heard that damn Umbrella song enough. Just once it would be really cool to flick on the radio and hear The Jam, an unusual Clash or Costello song, Snoop even, anything but endless bloody bleeding Kashmir. I’m not asking for The Motors or Uriah Heap but how about something remotely interesting.

Meanwhile back in the record shop I reminisce about the record shop on King Street when I was a kid…a grotty place full of grimy snot bags ala High Fidelity…flicking through bins of vinyl records…my first Queen album…Breakfast in America….but after flicking through today’s cd bins I realized I have an itunes account. Oh yeah. Maybe I’m not that old, so bugger nostalgia…now to create that John Wetton compilation…

Hyde Park in Spring

There are a few things that I miss about England. But perhaps the most recurrent longing is the weather. Well, actually it is the beer. But as I am in Winnipeg, it will have to be the weather. And it doesn’t have anything to do with the cold.

Winnipeg does get cold. I mean insane cold. Minus 40 C and all that. Wind chills that will kill you. The flip side of course is hot summers. Plus 35 C. You deal with things. Dress for it as they say.

But what I miss is the fact that in England you get four seasons.

There is a spring. There is a change in the air; an emergence of daffodils; the first red admiral, the gold finch and swallow’s return. There is a tangible relation between solstices and equinoxes (equinii?) and the weather. You can feel upon your face the change, a gradual warming and relation between temperature and length of days. The rebirth, the joy of a warming sun, the bright dash of emerging flowers. Expectation, the winding down of winter sports and the unpacking of summer gear. Buds on trees. The longer days evoke a pagan sense of the rebirth of nature. May poles and Morris dancers. Fertility.

Summer and winter are the most boring of seasons. Cool and raining. Warm and dry. They are what you might expect. But Spring and Autumn are the most interesting.

In the autumn, it is the readying for the winter, the gradual fall of leaves, and the slow dimming of the sun. It is the crisp change in temperature and closing of things in preparation for the cold and dark. It feels like the passing of time, a time to reflect. In England it doesn’t bring the dread or feeling of resignation that six months of winter does in Winnipeg.

The light is more interesting in both spring and autumn. It seems more alive. More detailed.

In Winnipeg you get two seasons. Ball aching cold and then boiling hot. The transition is about a week. Two weeks ago it was still snowing, freezing and I was pumping water away from my house. Today, the sun is baking and it is warm enough to walk around in a rugby shirt. Here you get the boring seasons. Don’t get me wrong, there is something beautiful in the blue sky and white of snow, the breathtaking cold and the wide open space. And Winnipeg’s summer patio and lakeside culture is great for the few months we get it.

But I’d take a spring day in England any day.  In fact, as Robert Browning said…

Oh, to be in England

Now that April’s there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England – now!

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows

Hark! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops – at the bent spray’s edge

That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,

Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew

The buttercups, the little children’s dower, -

Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Robert Browning