Tag Archives: canadian police

Monday 2nd September 2019 – PHEW!!!

Made it! And I shan’t trouble you with the old joke about the gents’ public lavatory either.

A very eventful 17 or 18 days but we saved the most eventful of the events for this lunchtime.

Right now though, having just arrived in Calgary, I’m off to bed. For one reason about which I will explain anon when I’m in better shape to catch up with things, I’ll tell you all about it.

In the meantime I’m going to pick up from here and deal with the arrears “as and when”.

I’ve had an exciting time, but excitement in all directions too.

And if anyone asks me if the negative issues worth the pain, the answer is that they most certainly were because despite their ultimate negativity, the events leading thereupto were events that I would not have missed for the world. I had the time of my life (time that I never had as a kid) in pleasant, interesting and exciting company and in the morning I shall remember the words of Kris Kristofferson, who wrote
“I’ll give all my tomorrows for a single yesterday”.

Even if it has made me about as welcome as a rattlesnake in a lucky dip on any future Adventure Canada sailings.

Wednesday 5th October 2016 – BRRRR!

When I awoke this morning, bright and early, I went out to grab the cereal and soya milk from the back of Strider. And by heck, I wish I hadn’t!

Winter has definitely arrived, that’s for sure. Just look at this lot outside. It’s just like back home in the Auvergne isn’t it, with the hanging cloud, the cold and the freezing fog that has blanketed the Appalachian Mountains round about here on the edge of Kedgwick.

I had had a bad night last night despite just how comfortable it was in my nice big bed in my nice big room.

I’d crashed out by about 21:00 but I was tossing and turning all over the place and was really uncomfortable. Somehow I was tired and completely fast asleep and somehow I wasn’t, and I’m not sure that you’ll understand what I mean. But anyway, I was wide awake at 01:00, with the radio still playing, so I turned it off and this time I managed a decent sleep, until about 05:00

I’d been on my travels too, with the welcome return of Nerina, who hasn’t set foot in these nocturnal rambles for quite a while. We were at my house, in its usual state of papers all over the floor and we were looking for some papers that really ought to have been there but weren’t and this was all becoming far more complicated than it ought to have been. At he same time, Zero was at the kitchen sink doing the washing-up. She was being her usual cheerful self and we were discussing smoking. She said that she had tried a cigarette once, so I smacked her bottom for her.

When I sat down to breakfast I found that I had forgotten to fetch the spoon so I ended up eating my breakfast cereal with a fork and trying my best not to crash out again. I’m clearly not well at the moment.

Still, I can’t sit around here all day moping about the bad weather. I need to be moving on despite the fog. And this time, I didn’t forget to go and take a photograph of the night’s lodgings just for the record.

I’d been low on fuel too last night and there was an Irving’s next door – one of the reasons why I had stopped here – so I went off and fuelled up. I now have 97 Air miles after that – isn’t that good?

When I was on my way in the other direction 10 or so days ago, I’d stopped at the supermarket in town where I’d discovered baguettes on sale at half-price. I popped back in there on the way past this morning to see how the land lay and, sure enough, baguettes were on sale again. And so with what I had bought yesterday at Matane, that was lunch organised.

On the way through St Quentin the other day I’d noticed that there was a railway station in the town, on the old abandoned Canadian National railway line between Campbelltown and St Leonard.
There were a few railway artefacts on display outside, and so I’d pencilled the station in for a visit on the return trip and so here I am.

The little locomotive had caught my eye and I wondered if it really was a narrow-gauge locomotive that had been rescued from a mineral line somewhere. But in fact it was built in 1985 out of scrap and recycled materials by a couple of Canadian National employees from Campbelltown.

That wasn’t the only thing to catch my eye either. What do you reckon about this?

It’s a platelayers’ trolley but enclosed (a necessity given the severe winters around here) and with a petrol engine rather than a pump-action handle, which is a bit of a cheat. They were used by the track maintenance crews during their duties, which included fire-watching because sparks from the steam locomotives setting the forests alight was a real problem.

So much so that it will come as no surprise for any regular reader of this rubbish to realise that the station building here at St Quentin is not the original one. That, just like any other building here in Canada, caught fire and burnt down.

However, the most exciting exhibit here at the railway station must be this weird machine.

I’m not sure of the proper name by which this machine might be known, and I certainly have never seen one of them before, but I think that it’s magnificent and I definitely want one of these.

There were lots of other stuff actually inside the station, which was by the way not only a museum but the local tourist information office and the offices of the local Chamber of Commerce.

There was some kind of collection of railway wagons here too and so I went for a browse.

This caboose caught my eye – and not just because it’s a caboose but because of the message that’s on it. It reads “Dessert tout le Canada” which, crudely translated by Yours Truly (and if there’s any “crudely” involved, then in the words of the late, great Bob Doney, “I’m your man”) as “serves all of Canada”.

However, that’s clearly a spelling mistake. It should read “Désert tout le Canada” which means “Abandons all of Canada” – which is certainly true these days.

This is why I have to mess around on buses and rely on Rachel to pick me up in Florenceville when there’s an abandoned Canadian National railway line that passes at the bottom of her garden and an abandoned Canadian National railway station right next door to the tyre depot.

By now the hanging clouds had gone, the sun was out and I was coming out of the Appalachian Mountains. It was a beautiful day now so I headed to St Leonard and the Saint John River to find a place to eat my butties.

I found a nice place to park up for my lunch – the car park for the Rendez-vous des Artistes in St Leonard. It was closed up so I didn’t think that anyone would mine.

What appealed to me about this place was that it had a good view over the river and right by one of the few remaining railway lines in New Brunswick. And I thought that I had heard a locomotive whistle too and so I prepared the camera, but nothing came by while I was here.

That over there across the Saint John River is the town of Van Buren, which is in Maine, USA. I was sitting right by the border crossing on the Canadian side of the river admiring the view and taking advantage of the beautiful weather.

And I wasn’t alone either. They say that there’s one in every village, and the one in St Leonard sought me out for a chat. He was speaking French and what with his accent and a speech impediment that he had, I couldn’t make out one word in every ten that he was uttering.

Nevertheless, we put the world to rights for half an hour and then, in the words of the reporters of the long-gone and long-lamented “News of the Screws”, I “made my excuses and left”.

Back up the hill and I hit the highway southwards, and aren’t I grateful for speed limiters and cruise control? I set the speed to 108kms and settled down for the drive back to Centreville, and it was then that I noticed in my rear-view mirror a County Mountie slowly closing up on me. But with the speed limiter I didn’t have too much to worry about in the normal run of events. He eventually passed me, having a good glance as he went by, but with the cruise control in operation he had no reason to pull me over and he eventually pulled away in front.

I was having visions of David Crosby and his
“It increases my paranoia”
“like looking at my mirror and seeing a police car”
“But I’m not giving in an inch to fear”
“‘cos I promised myself this year”
“I feel like I owe it to someone”
and reckon that it applies to me – I certainly owe it to myself, that’s for sure after all that I’ve been through this year.

I tracked down my mailbox too. And talk about a local postal service – my mailbox is about 7 or 8 kilometres from my plot of land. It’s astonishing. How I’m supposed to go and get my post in the middle of winter is totally beyond me.

But there was some really good news for me. Regular readers of this rubbish might recall that the motor insurance on Strider was cancelled about my head last year when we had the driving licence issues. There was a cheque in my mail box for the refund of the cancelled policy, minus the time on risk value, and this was not far off the total premium of the new policy. The cheque had timed out and so I took it back to the brokers in Florenceville and they wrote out a new one.

Waving that around in my sweaty little mitt, I went to the Scotia Bank and paid it in. I did a few more financial manoeuvres … “PERSONoeuvres” – ed … there, and now I reckon that I could keep on going over in Canada for a good while if necessary.

Back at the tyre depot I met up with everyone, had a coffee and a chat, and then we went back home to Rachel and Darren’s. Rachel made a lovely tea and we had a good chat, and then I crawled off to bed at some really early, ridiculous time.

This six weeks gap between treatments is evidently too much, but I’m not complaining. Despite the health issues that have now caught up properly with me, I would never otherwise have come here and I wouldn’t have missed my trip to Canada for the world.

Tuesday 27th September 2016 – NO PRIZES …

… for guessing where I am and what I’m doing today.

Of course, there’s only one reason why I would ever want to come to Matane, apart from meeting the man whose limericks never would scan, and that is for the traversier – the ferry that sets sail out of there across to the north shore of the St Lawrence, either to Baie Comeau or to Godbout. And whenever I seem to be on board it, it always seems to be going to Godbout.

And much to my surprise, we have a brand-new ferry. The Camille Marcoux has finally been laid up in the city of Quebec after almost 43 years of service, looking for a new owner.

What we have now is the F A Gauthier and when I say that she is a new ferry, she really is too because, unlike most “new” ferries that have made their appearance in Canadian waters these last few years, she’s not a second-hand boat but brand spanking new, built in 2014.

I was up quite early at the motel – at 06:00 on the dot and at 06:15 I was on my way out ready to put myself in the queue for loading.

And they won’t forget me in a hurry at that motel either. With the kind of presents that I an capable of leaving behind me, I managed to block the toilet and I had to ask for the maintenance crew. That’ll larn ’em.

Now, I have talked in the past … "and at great length too" – ed … about the folly of using steel culverts for streams underneath new road workings and we’ve seen plenty of examples of how they have rotted away and the road has collapsed.

I’ve often said that despite the costs of transport, the use of concrete culverts would save them a lot of money and inconvenience in the long run.

And clearly they have been reading my notes these days because there were several lorry-loads of concrete culverts parked up in the queue to board the boat. If they really are for replacing some of the rotten steel culverts underneath the highway, that can only be good news for the future.

They weren’t the only exciting things waiting to board the ferry either. This is a railway wagon, presumably for the transport of ore.

There are several lengths of isolated railway line on the north shore of the St Lawrence River and in the past we’ve seen the ones at Baie Comeau, Sept-Iles, Port Cartier and Havre St Pierre. I imagine that this is on its way out to one of those lines – although there are rail ferries over to Baie Comeau and to Sept Iles.

It’s been a good while since we’ve had a Ship of the Day and so I didn’t miss out on the opportunity to photograph this Canada Steamship Lines bulk carrier that was heading upstream, with the village of Godbout in the background.

Unfortunately I couldn’t read her name from here even with magnifying the photo, and without knowing to which port it was heading, I wasn’t able to track it down on one of the ship tracking sites that I know. She will have to remain anonymous.

Over there is the village of Godbout. That’s the destination of the ferry and where we will all spill out.

You’ve probably read what I have written about the north shore of the St Lawrence and for me, it’s one of the most beautiful places on earth. I desperately wanted to come here while I still could and I am lucky to have been able to make it while my health is still holding out. It’s important to me.

We were heaved out of the F A Gauthier after a crossing of 2 hours and 15 minutes, which cost (for the benefit of UK Channel-hoppers) a mere $45:00 for Strider and me. That gave me an opportunity to drive around to the side of the ship and take a photo of it.

And in cse you are wondering just who F A Gauthier might have been when he was at home (if he ever was), he was a Quebecois who once stood on the toe of an Anglophone tourist.

And for that heroic act of Francophone defiance, the Quebec authorities will ensure that his name will live on for ever (given how often they replace the ferries around here).

It took me ages to find the place where I had booked to stay. It’s called one name on the internet but there’s another name over the door and that was what confused me.

My arrival was expected but it was quite early – 09:30 in fact – and so the previous tenants were still having breakfast. My room wasn’t ready either and so there was no point in hanging around. I decided to head off to Baie Comeau to do some shopping and to fuel up.

I had a rather depressing incident at Franquelin. Franquelin is a small village in a cove along the coast between Godbout and Baie Comeau, and to reach there, there’s a stunningly steep descent into the village, and right at the bottom is a 50kph speed limit. It’s impossible to slow down to the speed limit by the time you reach the sign.

Just after the speed limit sign is an alley. And in there was a Quebec County Mountie with a radar gun.

Of course he took off after me, but much to my astonishment he overtook me and continued to drive onwards. That took me completely by surprise, I can tell you. I couldn’t be this lucky, could I?

In Baie Comeau, my friendly neighbourhood petrol pump attendant wasn’t on duty at the Ultramar which was a disappointment, and then I went over to Tim Horton’s for a coffee. I hadn’t had one since on the boat.

Once I’d organised that, I went to the IGA and did a little shopping. And then I headed back towards Godbout, stopping on the way to eat my butty.

Here on Highway 138 – the Route des Baleines – there were several roadworks and it too hours to negotiate them. I could have sat, made my butties and eaten them in the time that it took me to negotiate them.

And that vehicle heading towards us from down at the bottom of the hill is a new Ford Transit. We encountered quite a few of them last year as they are also sold in North America, replacing the old Ford F-250.

Globalisation is, unfortunately, even catching up with White Van-Man.

So now I’m installed in my comfy digs, and here’s the view out of my bedroom window – a little canted over to one side as the ferry is directly oppoite which willcome in handy when I’m rushing for the boat.

I have a small double room with a very comfortable bed, and I share a bathroom. I also have use of the kitchen, which is quite useful, because apart from a very ephemeral canteen, there is absolutely nothing whatever in the way of facilities in the village.

And that suits me fine. It’s what I’ve come here to find. I made myself baked potatoes, beans and hot dogs instead.

And we’ve talked about globalisation just now, and how it’s catching up with us. You may or may not believe what I am going to tell you now, and if you don’t believe it I don’t blame you because I didn’t believe it at first.

However truth is far more strange than fiction, and so it is with no qualms at all that I tell you that my co-habitee in the second guest room here is the notaire from Pontaumur, just 30kms away from where I live in France.

You couldn’t make that up either.

Saturday 19th September 2015 – SOMEONE IS ON A POWER TRIP …

… and, just for a change, I’m not talking about the farces of Law and Order either.
What we have here is a “suspicious package” in the middle of the festival, and everywhere is cordoned off by the police.

But what we do have is two of the Festival volunteers, pushing (and I DO mean pushing) people out of the way, yelling at everyone, and generally being on a major control freak exercise. I asked them what was going on and they told me that it’s “a police incident”. And so when I asked what kind of “incident” I was told that it was nothing to do with me.

And when I asked them how come, as festival employees, they were dealing with a “police incident”, they walked away. And so when I asked them if I could ask another question, one of them replied “yes, I DO mind. I’m not answering”, and carried on walking away.

And so I went 20 yards further on to a police officer, who made a full and complete statement without any inhibitions, even telling me that “no-one is taking it very seriously but we have to check it out just the same”.

But this kind of behaviour by festival employees, assaulting members of the public (because pushing someone is an assault of course and had it been me on the receiving end of it then the matter would not have rested there), being aggressive and abandoning their festival duties in order to go on a major power trip is something that is inevitably going to have repercussions as far as the festival is concerned.

And not only that, on the main street I counted at least two other “acts” that included backing tapes. Whatever is the festival coming to, that it is abandoning the principles under which it was founded?

If you are a solo performer and need more than just a guitar, then this is exactly how you do it.

This is a guy from Montreal called Steve Hill and he’s playing guitar and singing. And not only that, if you have a closer look at the photo you’ll see that he has a bass drum, another drum, a hi-hat, a tambourine and a set of cymbals, that he plays by hitting them with some kind of extension fastened to his guitar.

He had another guitar too, and that had a maracca attached to the end as well so he could shake his maraccas during the performance.

I was amazed to see that he didn’t have a mouth-truss and a gob-iron, which was what I would have expected to see in a solo performer, and I did have a little muse to myself that had he had a really good plate of baked beans for lunch he could have played the trumpet too.

But I’m a big fan of one-man shows and I have appeared in several, but these were usually named after the size of the audience.

But joking apart, I do have to say that I really enjoyed his performance. He was certainly a very competent performer and he had quite a good voice too.

This is what being a solo performer is all about. Using backing tapes and the like is selling the public, and the festival, short.

Talking of mouth trusses and gob-irons, this is what I mean.

This is a guy called Oland Monteith and he comes from up the road in Nackawic, and he is an excellent representation of what the festival is all about – the old man sitting on the porch with the guitar and mouth organ singing the blues – in this case the Folsom Prison Blues.

You might – or might not – have realised this, but this is the FIRST real old-man blues act that we have seen at the festival. And by the time that the festival had finished, this was the only one that I had encountered.

What a let-down from the days when I first came to the festival and we had raft after raft of old men singing the blues. Of course, I’ve not had the blues for years – ever since I started on the Prozac of course.

As for other unusual acts, how about this one?

This is the North Mississippi Allstars and if you look very carefully at the stage and the musicians, you will notice that they have one singer-guitarist and two drummers.

And that’s your lot.

You might think that the sound that they would be able to create would be rather limited, but nothing could be further from the truth.

They managed to put in a “complete” performance that certainly sounded as if there was nothing missing from the show, and it all went down rather well. Much better than I had expected.

And with all of the above, just WHY do you need backing tapes? And just WHY are you allowed to get away with it at the festival?

And so this morning I was up quite nice and early and had plenty of time to have breakfast and do the paperwork from yesterday without any interruptions.

But I did have an interruption while I was driving into town. However, this was something of a quite welcome interruption. You may remember that I’d sent a note backstage to Ross Neilsen during his performance yesterday, And this was him, ringing me back.

We had quite a lengthy chat, and the result of this is that he will indeed do something for Radio Anglais and that can only be good news. If what he sends me is as powerful as what he performed yesterday then our listeners really will enjoy themselves.

That’s not all either. At a Charity Shop, Strawberry Moose made a few new friends – a couple of girls aged about 8 or 9 were very keen to make his acquaintance while I was having a long chat with their mother.

And so to the music.

We’ve already seen a couple of acts, right out of running order. The first band that we actually encountered, in strict running order, was Greensky Bluegrass. They come from that well-known haunt of legendary bluegrass music … errr … Minnesota.

Bluegrass is a long way from being my favourite style of music as you all very well know, but good music is good music, no matter what it is and where it comes from.

But this bluegrass music was so astonishingly good that I doubt if I’ve ever in all my life had a better time at this kind of concert

We media-types are only allowed to be there for the first three numbers but I was there for probably three quarters of an hour because one of their numbers seemed to go on for ever.

Not that I minded, of course. I could have stayed there all night and listened to them, if I hadn’t had so many other things to be dealing with.

There were five musicians on stage – and no drummer, which they didn’t need anyway because the guy on the upright bass was a stunning performer who kept perfect time.

They aren’t really suitable for a performance on Radio Anglais unfortunately, but I’ll be checking them out when I return home to see what else they can come up with.

On my way to my next venue I passed by the Barracks Tent. There was no performance scheduled for there, but there was certainly something going on.

One of the benefits of my media pass is to be able to enter venues when they are officially closed, and so I went in to investigate, and found myself face-to-face with Yukon Blonde doing a sound check.

Yukon blonde’s bassist, as well as being a left-hooker, comes from the UK, which was evident when he shouted across the stage “there’s something the ma”er with your speaker” – not a trace of a ‘t’ between two vowels. I hope that he doesn’t sing like this.

But that apart, they were quite a good group too.

I doubted very much that I would be around for their act, seeing as it was timed for 23:00, long after my bed-time, and so I stayed around for the entire sound check.

And it wasn’t a wasted experience either because, as I said, they put out quite a good performance even if it was only a simple sound-check. A shame that their set wasn’t timed for earlier.

Down at the Mojo Tent, Raoul and the Big Time were due to come on stage and so I needed to get a move on if I wanted to catch the act.

This looked like something out of the 1950s, what with the shiny grey suit and pork-pie hat, and this was indeed what we got. Appearances were certainly not deceptive in this case.

Despite the presence of the mouth organ, this was another very good, competent performance.

It seems that Raoul, whoever he is, is something of a well-known performer on the music stage although I have to admit to never having heard him before. And to be honest, it wasn’t my cup of tea and so I wandered off elsewhere.

“Elsewhere” turned out to be tea. There was quite a big gap between the next performances and so I went off to find some food.

We’re overwhelmed by food stalls this year and vegan food is quite popular. Tonight I had 6 hot-vegetable samosas, for $7:00 – and they were totally delicious – and very filling too. I’m doing well for food at the festival and, to my surprise, it’s not as expensive as it might have been.

My wanderings took me back at the Mojo Tent (we’ve seen the photos of Steve Hill in the Blues Tent earlier) where Amy Helm and the Handsome Strangers was the next act.

Now let’s forget the music for a moment – let’s talk about Amy Helm, because she was well-worth talking about. She’s someone else of whom I hadn’t heard before, and so I went off to make enquiries.

It turns out that she’s the daughter of Levon Helm who for many years was a member of the band “The Hawks”, which later became “The Band” and backed Bob Dylan during his “rock” phases and went on to have successes of their own.

This was another act that wasn’t really up my street as far as the music went, but there was no doubting the quality of the music, and no doubting the quality of the performance either, because Amy Helm really knew how to put on a show.

She was an entertainer from start to finish and not only that, she clearly had the air of thoroughly enjoying herself on stage.

At the Barracks Tent, I went to see a band called Rah Rah, who come from Saskatchewan apparently.

They were a five-piece band featuring a guitarist-vocalist, a bassist, a violinist, a drummer and a keyboard player who doubled on guitar too, and they produced quite a powerful act that I enjoyed very much.

The sound mix was all wrong however and I couldn’t hear half of the instruments, although that’s not surprising for us in the media pit at the front of the stage.

I was disappointed not to be able to hear the violin though, and I shall have to go around for a fiddle with the violinist later.

Final act that I caught was back at the Mojo Tent where Waylon Thibodeaux took to the stage.

He’s a ‘cajun from down Louisiana way, and he and his back-up band played just like it too. It didn’t bother me too much because this kind of music is the kind that you can listen to anywhere on any occasion

And if it’s played in the right kind of spirit with performers who enjoy what they are doing and are able to communicate with the audience, it’s usually a rip-roaring night.

And so this was what we got – a thoroughly enjoyable evening with a good bunch of performers and a lively crowd.

But I didn’t hang around too long. It’s my last night and I want to have an early night as I’m back on the road tomorrow. But today, I had a pile of interesting chats, including one with a cameraman from CBC and another with a young guy at the Rah Rah concert, to name but two.

It makes the time pass so much quicker and make things so much more interesting.

But I’m disappointed to see that the traditional “old-man blues” is no longer popular at the festival. For me, that’s what blues is all about and to legislate it out of the festival is a very sad thing as far as I am concerned.

And by the way …

… the photos that I’ve posted for tonight’s acts at the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival are only a small sample of the hundreds that I took during the evening. If you want to see any more of those that I took, you’ll need to contact me. Leave a comment and I’ll be in touch.

-2

Friday 16th September 2011 – IT POURED DOWN …

… all through the night and we had high winds too, but I slept right through it – didn’t feel a thing.

It’s overcast and cloudy but they reckon that it might clear so with a light heart and a spring in my step, I set off for Fredericton.

First stop was the big Atlantic superstore on the edge of the city, and this caught my eye. Vehicle number plates go up to 999 here in New Brunswick, which is just as well.

They also go up to 999 in the UK so it’s also just as well that this combination of letters would never be issued over there, because 999 wouldn’t be anything like enough.

Another thing that they would never dare sell in the UK would be a kiddie’s push-chair with a coffee cup holder like this one here.

It wouldn’t be a coffee cup that you would find in the cup holder, and it wouldn’t be an ice-cream holder that you would find in there either. In fact, it’s quite surprising the things that you find on sale here in North America that would never be sold in the UK – or maybe it isn’t.

That building over there has “Justice” written on it, so it’s probably quite appropriate that it’s hidden behind a pile of trees.

It also has two dates on it. The first one is 1878 and the second one is 1930, and so maybe the first one is the date that Justice began in Fredericton and the second date is the date that Justice ceased. I dunno.

But I will really have to stop being so cynical.

These are the old British Army barracks here in Queen Street. The British Army were here from 1784 to 1869, and was chefly known as the home of the 104th New Brunswick Regiment.

They were famous for a forced march of 700 miles in just 52 days to Kingston, Ontario through the snows of winter in 1813 during the war with the USA

This building that we have here is the old Fredericton City Hall. Built in 1876, it’s the oldest Municipal building in the Maritimes that is still in administrative use, and has been a Canadian National Historic Site since 23rd November 1984.

It’s quite rare in that it was built with a market hall underneath and which survived until as recently as 1951. Nowadays, the Tourist information department is housed there

By now the weather had brightened up a little and the festival was under way.

On stage at the Officers Square was a local band, the George Street Blues Project. Too many musicians on stage for me, unfortunately. They can lose the harmonica player for a start as I’m not a very big fan of those. Every blues band believes that a harmonica is essential, yet very few harmonica players can play one properly.

The guy at the front had an enormous amount of stage present and knew how to move a crowd, and they rocked along with numbers such as Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle” and the Smokey Robinson hit “Get Ready”.

For an encore, they played the Kix Brooks number “Sacred Ground”, and that was that. I quite enjoyed that set.

Next up was an act called Christine Crowell, but the saxophones, trumpets and sheet music looked onimous and so I made my excuses and left. I had business elsewhere.

First step was to find the Canadian Government department dealing with commercial visas for people setting up businesses in Canada. After much searching and enlistment of the Fredericton City Hall, we eventually discovered that I need to speak to the Population Growth Secretariat (but why them I have no idea).

Kings Tower is where I’m supposed to be, and it has a shopping centre in it. Yes, a shopping centre, not a shopping mall. There’s hope for these Canadians yet.

Eventually I cut through swathes of red tape and blagged myself an interview with them. Her first question was, surprisingly enough, “how would your project help the growth of New Brunswick’s population?”
Never one to hold back when the occasion presents it self (as I have done so often in the past to my cost) I replied “if I told you that you would probably have me arrested”.
She tried again “we are trying to encourage the growth of young families here”
“Well”, I replied, “just because I look over the hill doesn’t mean that I am, and I still have considerable expectations along that line. If a suitable young woman were to present herself, I shall certainly try my best to increase the population of New Brunswick”.

And so she had another go. “You need to show some kind of proof of ability to invest $75,000 in your project”
“Well, I can put on the table proof of about $300,000 in cash” I replied. “Would that do?” Yes, I’ve just sold my apartment in Brussels, haven’t I, and I still have the cheque, which I haven’t deposited yet.

I picked up her pencil and notepad from the floor and handed it back to her, and I have to come back for my visa interview next Friday.

I popped round to the Festival Offices and had a chat with one of the girls there. And during this chat, the subject of “Radio Anglais
” came up. She asked about it, and so I told her, and then she asked me why I hadn’t applied for a Media Pass. Apparently I’m entitled to one, being the representative of a Media outlet.

So armed with my Media Pass, I went back to the festival.

I was however sidetracked, as you might expect, by an old and interesting vehicle.

This is a Chevrolet Corvette, from 1978 if the number plate is anything to go by, but it is certainly one of the later “3rd-Generation” Corvettes, judging by the rear lights. But it’s a little bit scruffy with a few scratches on the paintwork.

In the Barracks Square tent was a guitarist called Mike Biggar. He comes from Rothesay which apparently is a suburb of Saint John.

He played a number that went something like “You Come To Me Like Sunset On The Water” or some such, that I don’t recall having heard before but it really was superb. I wish that I knew what it was.

On stage at the Officers Square was a band from London – that’s the UK, not Ontario – called 24 Pesos. They had won some kind of competition, the prize of which was to come over here and play at the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival.

It was a sort of modern blues, not really my scene, but there was no disputing the quality of the band. Their music really was good.

I went back to the Barracks Square after that, and discovered a band called Lonesome Line on stage. They come from Edmundston up in Madawaska and so we had an interesting little chat in French.

I wasn’t convinced by the wisdom of having an acoustic double-bass in an act like this. It doesn’t work when you are backing a lead guitar solo as you have so far to travel and so you can’t react quickly enough. And you will have noticed that it’s the drummer doing the backing vocals.

A pause in the proceedings enabled me to have a good look around the Barracks Square. We’ve seen the Barracks earlier, and this is the rear of the premises. It’s a grassy lawn in the quadrangle that will produce an interesting situation for the spectators if we have heavy rain.

The ground floor of the barracks here is transformed into little boutiques occupied by craft artists and the like but there’s not very much of interest to me.

Apparently there had been some kind of competition between the bands that were playing in the Barracks Square, and the winners were Lonesome Line, those who we saw just now.

And I was outraged by that. Lonesome Line were indeed quite good but there was no doubt in my mind that Mike Biggar was 10 times better and should have won this competition by a country mile. Still, I’ve often found myself in a minority of one at this Festival, so no reason to suppose that today will be any different.

There were quite a few buskers here and there around the town, including this couple playing down underneath the footbridge at the back of the library.

As the police car turned down there and pulled up close to them, I prepared the camera ready to record an “interaction” between the farces of Law and Order and the musicians. After all, I’m from the UK

And sure enough, the window came down, the hand went out of the car and then, much to my surprise, the fingers came out and started tapping on the door in time to the music.

Like I say, I’m from the UK. I was half expecting to see an arrest on “public order” issues, a knee in the groin and a truncheon across the back of the neck.

And that reminds me – that’s the third policeman that I’ve seen since the festival started. Just imagine that in the UK. Three policemen in a couple of days at a do like this. There would be thousands.

That is, if the event were to take place at all. The British Health and Safety Inspectorate would have a field day with what I have seen here this last couple of days and the event would be closed down in minutes.

I hope that the Health and Safety Inspecorate is never imported into Canada

I encountered a couple more buskers around the corner. On the steps of the Irving Building in Queen Street. These are called something like “Fraser and the Offspring” or some such name – it was very hard to hear.

I’ve seen many an impromptu band like this and indeed I’ve played bass and sang in quite a few, and these weren’t all that bad at all. I quite enjoyed listening to them and so did the little crowd that had gathered around them.

From here I went off to watch Taj Mahal in concert. No photography allowed at the Playhouse Theatre, but not to worry – I’ll catch up with them again in a public venue.

Thursday 30th September 2010 – 2nd DAY IN CANADA …

… and I’ve had my first run-in with the farces of Law and Order.

Here I was, taking a photo of the Ambassador Bridge – the big bridge that goes over between Windsor and Detroit in the USA, and a copper pulled up. He told me to stop taking photos of the bridge
“Why?” I asked
“Because the Department of Home Security doesn’t like it” he replied
“But isn’t the Department of Home Security an organisation from the USA?”
“Yes it is” he replied
“Right” I said. “Tell the Department of Home Security to f$@µ off!” and I carried on taking photos.

Yes, the United States of America getting the Canadian Police to do American police work on Canadian soil – that’s a weird situation isn’t it? Whose country is it anyway?

But then as someone once said to me, when you are living next door to a well-known paranoiac who is armed to the teeth and has no intention of obeying the law, then you’d be a little wary too.

But I’ve been in Canada less than 24 hours and all my illusions about the country have been shattered.

I set off this morning quite early and drove down to the shores of Lake Erie, which was swathed in fog and mist.

First thing that I encountered was an abandoned railway line. Apparently the Beeching Cuts in the UK were nothing compared to what happened to the Canadian rail network in the 1980s and a huge proportion of Canada’s rail network was lost.

Admittedly much of it was unnecessary duplication, with three railway companies building transcontinental railway lines within 20 miles of each other, but an awful lot of it wasn’t.

My road down to Lake Erie took me to the little harbour of Port Glasgow. This is a huge pleasure marina with all kinds of leisure activities going on.

There were several people around here and I had a couple of quite interesting chats – a fine way to pass the time. And the weather was now quickly improving – the sun was out and the heat had burnt away the fog.

This brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “Dutch barn”, doesn’t it?

Just as in France, there has been a wave of Dutch farmers coming over to Canada. Land in the Netherlands is difficult to find and is frightfully expensive. Many young farmers have crossed the Atlantic in the search for a place of their own.

And this place is up for sale, with an estate agent named Verbrugghe – just as in France, the Dutch have started to capture the Estate Agency market.

The whole of the shore of Lake Erie are covered in wind turbines, and I must have had to dodge about three or four lorries coming down these narrow roads carrying assorted bits.

But there’s also a small oilfield here. I counted about 20 small pumps and I’m sure that there must have been others that I didn’t see. I’ll have to look into this oilfield and see what’s going on.

And old cars too – there are plenty of those around here in southern Ontario.

A casual observer might not find a Mark II Ford Cortina to be the most exciting of the cars that I could have depicted as an example, even if it is a 1600GT, but I have a very strong affinity with British Fords, going back to my childhood. And when I had my taxis, I had nothing but Ford Cortinas, but the later Mark III and IV versions.

I was intrigued by this photo. I wonder what this “Do Not Push” on the back of this lorry is all about.

It does make me wonder what it is that Canadians have for breakfast, if people are worried about them being able to push lorries around. But whatever it is, I’d like to have a plate of it. It could come in handy with what I need to do back home.

In Windsor I found a cheap motel, parked up Casey and went for a walk along the riverfront where there is an impressive view of Detroit, ships passing by, and fishermen trying to find something worth catching.

The weather had turned out nice in the end.

So while I was waiting for Katherine to finish her classes (I’d arrived a little early) I wandered off to take a photo of the Ambassador Bridge and for my confrontation with the farces of Law and Order.

-3

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality

Tag Archives: canadian police

Monday 2nd September 2019 – PHEW!!!

Wednesday 5th October 2016 – BRRRR!

Tuesday 27th September 2016 – NO PRIZES …

Saturday 19th September 2015 – SOMEONE IS ON A POWER TRIP …

Friday 16th September 2011 – IT POURED DOWN …

Thursday 30th September 2010 – 2nd DAY IN CANADA …

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