Author: Alan

Sea to Sea Radio Nerdity

Some women wake to breakfast in bed, some to at least the words “Happy Valentine’s Day”. Herself hears “hey – I think I just heard California on am radio”. Try saying that with a bit of a nasally voice. Romance. Mr. Love.

So at 6 am this morning there I am, listening to 1070 am and Moncton CBC and Stan Carew is coming in fairly strong over the god awful “good time oldies” format of Sarnia when I hear in the background at time check for a little after three in the morning and the station letters K??. Three letter stations are cool to a radio nred because they are old, and for a Maritime kid “K” stations, generally west of the Mississippi, are especially cool. So I hear the lead item on sports that the Sabres scored seven times to beat the Kings, the temperature is 44 degrees and then there is an ad for placing ads on the station giving a 323 area code number to call. Bingo – KNX Los Angeles. Neato (and, again, use a bit of the nasal).

California is a difficult am radio pickup from eastern North America as the signal has to get over the Rockies. So another state for the life list and my east-west reception goes from the US pacific coast to that East German station I taped giving an ID on 1044 back in high school.

Three Day Weekend

Throught a fluke of collective bargaining, history and the need to find something good about February, the City has a holiday Monday this weekend. Not a bad thing at all. I will report Tuesday whether it is recommended for all the nation. There were a couple of Danes on the CBC Ottawa news last night saying how the minimum 6 weeks annual holiday made people more productive and more sane. Are Danes otherwise? Should we take the word of Danes? I have no idea.

Separated at Birth 2.0

Jacksonian...I've got my own adjective! Kerronian??? Whats up with that? Dunno

I just noticed this today. Left is President Andrew Jackson on the new $20 bill who was US president from 1829 to 1837. Middle and right is John Kerry, the nominee for Democratic presidential candidate in 2004. The Kerry photo could better show his long face.

Later: I added the one now on the right later.

Cool Scots Traditions

In all the yappitry about marriage and “tradition” recently, in the back of my mind I had that the tradition in Scotland was incredibly free until very recent times. I found a good reference to the principles today:

A `regular’ marriage was one for which the banns had been proclaimed and which was then celebrated by a minister in the parish church. An `irregular’ marriage, under Scottish law, could be of three kinds: per verba de praesenti (a mutual agreement to marry at that moment), per verba de futuro subsequente copula (a promise to marry in the future followed by sexual intercourse), and `habit and repute’ (cohabiting in such a way as to imply that mutual consent to a marriage had been given). It was only the forms of constituting it that were irregular. The marriage itself was in every way as binding as a regular marriage, and with the same restrictions: both parties must be free to marry, they could not be within the forbidden degrees of kinship and they had to be over the age limit (twelve for women and fourteen for men). Neither witnesses nor parental consent were necessary.

All very none of yer friggin’ business. The church, professionals and, indeed, the state are quite the johnny-come-latelies to the issue of marriage as well as most community ceremonies such as funerals. So why someone suggests we need to move back to Christian traditions, those are some of mine – I quite like the principle of “a promise to marry in the future followed by sexual intercourse”.

Gdansk

 

Roaming through .jpg files just now I came across this beer label from 1991 in Poland where semi-attentive readers are aware I lived. Buying beer in Eastern Euope then was hit and miss. Local families, in our district of new suburbs, ran shops out of their bottom floors and the beers for sale were those Pan Sklepu would go and get. Supply lines were a bit erratic as a result. So happy were the days when Pivo Gdanskie would show up as opposed to some rot from Slupsk which used cloves instead of hops – but only on some weeks when their hops supply didn’t come through. Nothing as refreshing as the surprise of a bubbly mouthful of cloves.