Staying Put

What's the point of a blog with no posts?

Well... plenty is going on. I got my interim work permit, I got a folding bike, and all sorts of other things.

Folding bike: awesome. It's the same as one I had in the UK, a Dahon Speed D7. Nippy, compact, generally wonderful.

Work permit: also awesome except it does not allow me to leave and come back to Canada. Hmm. Well, whatever - hopefully I'll be a Permanent Resident before 2013!! And it stops me flying anywhere - I'm perfectly happy about that.

We've decided to stay put in our little flat for another year. It's small, but cheap, and "enough" - we can't reduce to anything smaller, but a bit more room would be nice. So I'm bumping along at minimum in terms of physical space - we have no garden, one bedroom, living room which is mostly office, and a kitchen. That's all!

I'm getting more used to Ottawa. Where we are - Hintonburg/Mechanicsville, a couple of km from Parliament, is actually pretty nice. I'm beginning to think I could be happy living in a house (with a garden!) here long term. We have everything we need close by.

Work is currently uninspiring, but I'm going freelance/contract in a week so that will hopefully give me more time to be outside, and so on. It's currently still *very* busy despite the fact it was supposed to ease off come the start.. middle.. end of October. But at least the time goes quickly!

I'm still fascinated by what's happening in the EU and Eurozone. And by what may or may not happen in Canada. But it seems quite far away now. I'm warm, cozy, and generally content - of drained by work and so not particularly sociable.

Come the 21st of December (shortest day), Ottawa will still get 8 hours and 43 minutes of daylight.

London (UK) will get 7 hours and 50 minutes.

Edinburgh (UK) will get 6 hours and 57 minutes.

And Reykjavik (Iceland) will get only 4 hours and 7 minutes!

Rant on tax

About two weeks ago I received a cheque for £x in the post - a tax refund from HM Revenue and Customs. Hurrah!

Today I got a letter telling me I'd underpaid by £2x, and that is ignoring the £x refund I just got. So if it's right I owe £3x. Plus they want roughly £x at the same time (end of Jan 2012) in advance for this current tax year, ending April 2012.

I mean... what?

I can understand the refund - it's specifically on my "Pay as you Earn" income, and I did overpay because I didn't work a full year.. and my monthly tax was as if I did.

But the new letter makes no sense. It's on my "self assessment" tax return but it completely ignores the fact most of my income is PAYE (ie, I'm already paying it in advance!), and my personal allowance.

I know. I just need to call them in the morning. But getting this kind of thing in the post is so stressful. I'm far from stupid but "oh yes, you owe us a whole month's salary, thanks" is... ugh.

And.. I know the amount of money we have influences what things cost. But losing 1/3 of every pay cheque.. man. Then 20% VAT on top (well, 13% here in Canada.. but then there's the 2% exchange fee and the GBP isn't doing so well lately...).

Ach well. I'm warm, clothed, fed, etc.

End rant. Time for bed!

The Cost of Pensions

I am in trouble with some of my public sector employed friends after suggesting rather angrily that the current talk of massive strikes in the UK because of pension plan changes proposed by the government are unwise.

I think my exact words included "ignorant" and "selfish" and so might have caused some upset..

But marching blindly on, I've been thinking about this for a little bit, and want to put down my underlying reasons and philosophy on this.

1. Everyone who has worked gets state pension. If you have worked enough years (paying National Insurance), you'll get £140-ish per week, from (for my generation) the age of 68. I hear a lot about poverty. I understand that people who have little can become trapped easily in a place where they cannot afford to get out of. However, I feel that I could live on £140 a week. Not well, not luxuriously, but I could live.

2. Systems should be fair. I understand why the Police, for example, retire early. There is no reason to think someone aged 55 would not find other employment when leaving the forces, however. If people in the private sector either have to make provision for their own retirement or be poor, there is no reason the public sector shouldn't mostly play by the same rules - or vice versa.

3. If I stick £100 a month away for the next 35 years I'll get a pension of roughly £3500 a year. That's a guesstimate. Add that to the £7000 state pension and, well, I'm doing alright!

4. Defined benefits vs defined contributions. Basically, knowing or not knowing how much you're going to get out at the end. I'm not sure how this will currently work but my understanding is that money in risky investments (stocks & shares) should be moved into safer ones as retirement approaches - so, a percentage converted every year, 5-10 years before retirement.

5. It is easy to be wealthy when you retire, if you just put money away, each month. Set up an ISA, a direct debit, and leave it alone. Start now, the sooner the better. I did it when I was 22 or so, but it fell by the wayside when I bought a house, then went travelling, moved to Canada... Don't let it. Find a way to fund your monthly retirement fund no matter where you are and what you're doing.

6. Having (or having the expectation of) something and then having it taken away is hard. But for people 15-25+ years from retirement there is plenty of time to compensate.

7. Striking is likely to annoy more people than do good. Enough private sector people, with worse pension schemes by far, are being squeezed so that they will have little sympathy with their public sector counterparts.

8. Life isn't fair.

9. If public sector workers are going through pension reform they should be given the option of self-directing all of their pension investments, rather than it being part of the large pot - that's only fair.

Living in a box

My living arrangements here in the UK are simple. I'm living in a box.

Going by self-length measurements, it measures about 18' by 16'. There is a cut out for the bathroom, probably reducing the size of the box by 4' by 6'. The bathroom extends past the edge of the box in one dimension, so it's probably 6' square in total.

In this 300 square foot area (including the bathroom), I have:

A double bed
A single bed
A small kitchen with sink, tabletop oven/two-hob cooker, half-height fridge freezer, and assorted cooking equipment
A wardrobe
A small circular table
An armchair and sofa (2 person)
A chest of drawers with small flatscreen TV
A desk and chair, from whence I am typing this
A toilet, sink and shower in the bathroom.

That's it. Oh, no - I also have my borrowed bicycle, and one of my wife's hairclips - all I have left to remember her by (sniff).

This feels *spacious*. I am content.

Travelling

So I'm back "home" - in the UK, at least. Home seems a concept more than anything real.

After spending two weeks with my mum in France I'm staying in a guesthouse close to work.

It's refreshing in a way - and it just made me realise how much stuff I *don't* need.

I have with me one suitcase and one backpack. Tbe former contained clothes, a suit, shoes, shirts for work, and a toilet bag; the backpack, my laptop, and my PSP. What else does one need?

Well. The guesthouse provides a cooker, cutlery, and so on. I'm borrowing a bike from a friend, and - seeing as my main reason for being here is work - work is providing me with any equipment I need.

What am I missing? Well, apart from my wife, who left for "home" today... not much. A better desk and chair; my desktop PC and monitor (which are significantly faster than this laptop). Books? Sure, but I've pretty much read the books I still own after the move-purge sessions that went on when leaving the UK.

In fact, I think I'll be having another purge when I get back.

It's not like I have *loads* of stuff (though my wife would disagree...), but that that I don't use regularly is a cost and not a benefit. And the fact I don't miss it at all is telling.

Stars

The stars howled in the void. We don't think of stars howling - but what do we know?

How often have you yearned to be hugged? Don't you think the stars feel the same way? Only a few million years ago they were close to their family, when the universe was young - but then they were hurled away, destined to go further and further from their brothers and sisters.

Only the gravitational death of a black hole brings them together again - but who wants to be that close.

Financial crisis - poor vs rich

If the economy is going well, my understanding is that the rich do pretty well, and the poor can get jobs and survive ok; the middle earners get pay rises, maybe move up a car class, or something.

If the economy "tanks" as they call it, what happens?

Pretty sad when you think about it:

Poor people lose jobs, have to cut back on everything;

middle earners have to tighten their belts, but are ok if they keep their jobs;

rich people get to buy up stuff on the cheap - houses, businesses, whatever.

A recession is actually good for those with money - they can pick and choose their employees, their assets, and generally bargain hunt. Everyone else is in trouble and cutting back.

Doesn't seem very fair. In times of crisis perhaps the rich could be persuaded to give back some of the money they made off the backs of the poor and average earners, to keep those people in jobs and keep the economy moving...

But, as I've thought many times before - where does it say life is fair?

Average

Here's the difference in temperature averages between where I grew up (Southend on Sea, Essex, UK) and here (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada):

Lowest low average: Southend = 4 degrees C in February; Ottawa = -14 degrees C in January

Highest high average: Southend = 21 degrees C in August; Ottawa = 26 degrees C in July.

Southend difference: 17 degrees C. Ottawa: 40 degrees C.

Crikey.

Info from here and here (with pretty graphs).

Work - wages

Pretty interesting stats on CBC today - here.

The poor-rich gap is widening. The trickle-down effect is clearly not trickling enough down.

I wonder what an equitable society might look like - without leading to the grinding poverty of communism.

Wages capped at 5x minimum wage? After all, an hour of work is an hour of work. Forget the training and expense that goes into doing the job - though allowances could be made for those. Say university tuition costs - loan repayments could be taken from the employer rather than the employee, directly, and then fed into a fund so that future generations wouldn't have to take on the debt at all.

From that arises the question - how would you get people to do the boring pointless jobs? And what incentive would there be to work hard, to get "ahead"? Depends if you think people get ahead tend to do it on the backs of the hard work of others I suppose!

We might not have so excellent football teams - or go back to the *national* teams being the best, with local talent leading to the rise or fall of any club, rather than international owners paying millions. Would that be a bad thing?

One thing that is clear to me is that, to some extent, the very rich just lock up money that would otherwise cause huge inflation. Say all the money in the country (UK, Canada, doesn't matter) was distributed equally - each person got an equal portion.

What would happen to the price of milk? Bread?

Those prices would rise because everyone would have more currency. In a short enough time, some people would become very rich, and most would stay poor.

Perhaps we need to zap! public and private debt, impose very high death duties and gift taxes, and cap all wages to something "reasonable" (which could easily be done by tax - 95% tax on all income above $60,000, say).

I don't know. I need to read up on why communism failed (just corruption? Surely a fair price for bread is, er, fair!). But I know that getting money simply through having money is just crazy - and unjust.

Perhaps some yearly redistribution of wealth - based on relatives, averages, percentages rather than numbers. The richest 50% will have their income reduced while the poorest 50% will have theirs increased. Not to promote laziness through state hand outs - there would need to be a counter for that.

Society is a funny construct

Just look at all the stuff we spend our time doing.

Over the last few hundred years, we've become less and less involved with producing real things. From making thread by hand to a spinning jenny to vast machines - first powered by water, then by electricity - and likewise from doing this manufacturing in every home, to outside the town, to certain regions within a country... to the other side of the world entirely.

Think about that. Each time we've been able to do more, it's become "more expensive". It's completely backward logic.

The same is true with food - from a person farming on their own, then with horses or oxen, to mechanised tractors capable of doing more work in an hour than a man could in a day, a week, a year.

It's true - the relative cost of food has come down. In the West, our expenditure on food is something like 10% of our income, rather than 30%.

But what, then, do we do? Unemployment is high because the machines have taken the work (this is a cry from down the ages - there were protests and violent opposition to the industrial revolution), and some suggest we work for the machines rather than them working for us.

There is so much "supporting" work now - providing a service for someone, several steps removed from a real thing. Or the "real thing" of the work being done taking a back seat to the administration - for example, this story relates that the Canadian Cancer Society spends just 22% of the money is raises on research into cancer.

Making 78% spent on marketing, administration, IT, etc, etc.

I could envisage a much more sensible society, where the Important Things in life are taken care of first (Food, Water, Housing, Heating; Education; Healthcare; Environmental Preservation) - after that, go for broke.

But surely, every last child should be fed, warm, and healthy before we go on holiday, or buy that 60" TV?

(I'm not suggesting I'm a saint that donates all my money to food banks; I feel strongly that the government should be able to provide these things to all, perhaps in exchange for labour or something. I also know that such programmes have historically led to abuse and misuse of funds).

I guess the issue is that we're a funny, ingenious, self-absorbed, clever bunch, and this seems to be a way that works - most people are safe, fed, educated. Over time we in the West can only hope that those parts, at least, of what we currently enjoy can spread to all.

I do feel that pushing a far higher proportion of people into spending at least a few years of their life growing food would be beneficial. As an alternative to university, perhaps - small scale agriculture, animal husbandry (which is a funny term if ever I saw one!), and the like.

I just don't understand the point of working in an office, except as a means to earn money to pay for the things that would be much better earned by growing/making them onesself.

The frustration, of course, is the cost of land. We are slaves (yes, I do mean that seriously - we have a choice but so very very few people are aware there are options other than to get a desk job, these days) to our mortgages, loans, credit cards; and mostly to our habits.

Me included. Move to the country, write books, grow food. Easy. Except I'm doing a desk job, saving up to buy a piece of land and figuring out how on earth I'll support myself if I really *do* stop with the office job.

It's a conundrum. And I don't want help in the form of a business loan, a commitment to something I cannot control.

Freedom... elusive, but very desirable. My freedom - different from your freedom, no doubt.

Could I make a country based on my ideals? Say - yes, UK/France/Canada, your system works - for you. I want to take this piece of land and live a different way - no hospitals, no taxes, no mandatory insurance. Just some books, a wood stove, some chickens...

I feel that a country should support its population. That we should live happy lives enabled by that country, rather than despite it.

Norm

Every eccentric needs a norm from which to deviate.

Perhaps Greece won't pass the new austerity measures in their parliament? Or perhaps Greek people will begin to pay their taxes.

What should be the norm - and who should be allowed to deviate?

I was pretty interested by the coverage of the LGB Pride event in Toronto this last week - where the mayor (who is fairly blunt, conservative and not a "friend" of the Gay community) was booed for not having the "courage" to show up.

So.. er, the gay community doesn't want to tolerate people who don't think the community is the best thing since sliced bread?

Live and let live.. norms, eccentrics, gays, straights, whatever. Who cares - we're all individuals anyway!

Greece, Euro

It's a funny thing, having feet on two continents. I read the BBC news most days, as well as a quick look on the CBC.

This whole thing with Greece.. it's a question of fairness, isn't it? Who has caused Greece to go so catastrophically under water - and why, rather like a drunk being forcefed whisky, are the Major European Powers trying to get Greece to take on more and more debt?

Self interest, obviously. And that's sad. It seems to me that Germany and France's governments are trying really hard to make sure their banks, that lent irresponsibly and caused Greece's problems (in part - the Greeks are of course partially to blame as well, but the banks should have measured the risk more carefully), are protected.

The banks are commercial entities. They are companies. Structures, legal entities - not people. The people running the banks were greedy/sheep and eventually turned out to be lemmings... except that their respective governments don't want them to actually die.

Perhaps, rather than foist further unrepayable debts onto the Greek people, the sovereign governments should buy the current debts from their own banks and write them off (in exchange for a stake in the banks in question).

Effect: Greek debt is smaller and more plausible - and so recovery more likely. The banks in question are less exposed to dodgy debt. The governments have more leverage with their banks.

Everyone wants to get their money back but the problem is that money didn't exist in the first place.

Slutwalks

There is something infuriating about slutwalks - protests against rape, apparently. Or protests against the perception of rape.

Rape is bad. Rape is illegal. Rapists should be put in prison. People who cannot control their sexual urges have problems (perhaps they should go to a prostitute.. oh, except that's illegal too.).

But the thing is that these walks.. they seem to be about responsibility. If I wear revealing clothing, that's not my responsibility - my desire to wear revealing clothing is paramount.

People seem to forget in our civility, our bland society, that life is *ALL* *ABOUT* *SEX*.

Sex is - literally - why we are here. Its a huge driver.

Guess what - marketing departments know it. Guess what - most adverts, most magazines have pictures of sexy (as in, people would want to have sex with) women.

And so - the misfits of our society. People who can't get sex. People who are surrounded by people in their office job who are sexy, pictures on the TV that are sexy, pictures on the internet that are *very* sexy.

It just drives them crazy. Is it their fault that marketing agencies use sex to sell cars/watches/alcohol/music/pretty much anything? Is it - really - their fault that they don't fit into a society of whatever it is our society is of?

Yes - they should be able to control themselves. Yes - they should certainly respect everyone, even those dressed in sexy clothing. And they have absolutely no right to force themselves, in any way, on anyone.

But.

"No buts!"

No, no buts to that.

But - "slut walk"? The whole thing is about selfishness. *I* have the right to do what I like. I have the right to shove what I think I want to do in anyone's face.

Sorry, since when? Since when have we humans had no responsibility to other humans?

I have the right to keep slaves. I have the right to dress in as little as I want. I have the right to reposess your house. I have the right to...

No. We'd be so much better off if people had sympathy marches, opened dialogues and had discussions.

But "slut walk" gets better headlines.

There should be equality not just of the sexes, but of all humans. But not just equality of your *rights* - equality of *respect* and *responsibility* also.

At the end of it, what is the purpose of looking good? To make you feel better about yourself? Well - dress up, wearing as little as you like, and take a photo and remember. There aren't that many mirrors in dark nightclubs anyway - so the wearing of clothes is clearly to alter other people's perception of you.

What is the point of that? Isn't a club where people go to meet, find partners and - ultimately - produce offspring? That's the fundamental drive behind it.

Women - and men - should have an unrevoccable right to not be raped. Absolutely. Perhaps with that right goes a responsibility to our fellow humans, as well. Or perhaps selfishness dictates that it's "all about me".

Neither a Borrower nor a Lender Be

Ah Shakespeare.

Ah banks.

I know government is often the worst at, directly, overseeing things.

But the fact that these huge monolithic companies both have products and goals of the same stuff leads to an implicit falseness - conflict of interest.

What do banks want to do? Make money.

What do they sell? Money.

How do they make money? By taking payment for services, or borrowing wholesale and lending retail.

But they create money too (watch "Money as Debt" on Youtube). They create money from nothing, and in exchange for a risk of loss of money that doesn't truly exist, take much more of your money back than they lend.

It's more complicated than that, of course - there is inflation to be taken into account.

I have a few bank accounts - two with co-operatives and one with a building society. These guys are decent - not motivated to profit for profit's sake. But in order to deal at all, they have to deal with the big boys.

I was incredibly annoyed to find that on a SWIFT payment (transferring money from one country to another), rather than using the interbank rate, an intermediary bank (in this case HSBC, which has holdings in many countries) was used. And guess what - despite paying £25 to get the money moved, I'm also stung for a rate about 3% off the interbank rate.

Get this - it cost HSBC nothing. No money moved, or very little - they will have funds in both originating and destination country, and some balance will exist between the two countries.

The text on my bank's website is rather misleading - it talks about the interbank rate, which is what I would assume would be used. But no, it's HSBC's special rate, designed to skim money for doing pretty much nothing.

Byebye, my money. Gone to.. yes, some banker's bonus.

It just makes me so sad - ok, I'm not going to starve for the lack of the £50 they skimmed (it would have been cheaper to just take the money out of the ATM, which is what I *have* been doing - foolishly I assumed this would be better for a larger sum).

But crikey some - lots of - people earn less than $1/day. So that's 3 months of wages HSBC just, er, took.

So.. socialism seems appealing to me. Take the customer, "consumer", side of banks and make the price the public pays for money have some bearing on the cost. Not just let the banks pay 1% interest on some crap locked-in savings account... Bugger "the market", trickle-down is a joke. Money is what drives the capitalist economy forward, and it's clear that the current custodians are too conservative, stupid, self interested and greedy to do the economy much good.

Grumble grumble. Well, here's hoping the new Conservative majority government here in Canada wrecks things, and the £ sterling makes a fighting comeback!

Hmm.. except, I want to get a job - or find some means of supporting myself - here in Canada in the next few months.

How else will I be able to afford a Ford Mustang?! And car insurance here in Ontario - reputedly 60% higher than in British Columbia, and more like 4x what I paid for an admittedly smaller car in the UK.

Still. At least the weather's better eh? What's that? Rain, clouds, or cloudy rain for the next two weeks?

Friday the 13th is set to be sunny, though!

A tonne

How much "value added" is there? Say, to something like wheat.

This website gives a price today for organic wheat at $10.50 (US) per bushel, which is roughly 27kg of wheat. Which is about $390 per tonne.

A few days ago Kara bought 1kg of organic flour for $4.50 (CAD)

Just imagine if the farmer got $4.50 per kg - that's $4,500 per tonne. Or, about 10-11 times as much as they are getting wholesale.

What happened to the wheat Kara bought? Well, it was milled, obviously; it was while flour so it had the bran and germ removed.

The other thing is, that same website lists the non-organic price of wheat - about $3/bushel cheaper. $3 for 27kg of flour.

Why is organic bread 50% more expensive than conventional bread? Certainly not because of the price of the wheat - which is the organic bit!

Someone is making a tonne here. And it's not the farmer - organic or otherwise.

This is probably not enough evidence to prove that "organic is a (financial) con" - there are scales of economy, but really... nobody has integrity, they are all just out to maximise profit, and "organic" seems to mean "middle class, well-enough off, can afford it" - it's just a lifestyle brand. It shouldn't be - it should be something everyone can choose to buy not based on (much) price difference.

Don't get me wrong - market gardening *is* expensive because of the labour cost, because labour is expensive here in Canada, in the UK (unless you get freebie interns, at roughly the cost of 1/3 a paid worker on minimum wage).

But the larger companies that have organic running along conventional.. ugh. Premium product, premium profit.

Did I mention I want to grow my own? ;)

Walden

A quote from Henry David Thoreau's "Walden" (available for download as an audiobook at LibriVox or in many text versions at Project Gutenburg):

"Hardly a man takes a half-hour's nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, "What's the news?" as if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels. Some give directions to be waked every half-hour, doubtless for no other purpose; and then, to pay for it, they tell what they have dreamed. After a night's sleep the news is as indispensable as the breakfast. "Pray tell me anything new that has happened to a man anywhere on this globe"—and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River; never dreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth cave of this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye himself.

For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it. To speak critically, I never received more than one or two letters in my life—I wrote this some years ago—that were worth the postage. The penny-post is, commonly, an institution through which you seriously offer a man that penny for his thoughts which is so often safely offered in jest. And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter—we never need read of another. One is enough."

Today.. I'm reading too much news, and find I don't have much of anything useful to occupy my mind.

Seeking Farmland

This is energising. While I was on Juniper Farm last year, 3 people who were doing a huge bike tour came and stayed a night or two, not long after I first arrived.

After much cycling, and some soul searching, it seems like two of them at least have found just what they need (see link).

It's energising because of the possibilities I see forming for me/us.

All I "need" is a couple of acres of ideally flattish land and I can, assuming I put in the hard work and have some financial sense, earn a modest living growing vegetables.

That's what I want! Sure, I can take sideline work that'll pay much better, and I probably will do, but to at least work outside 3-4 days a week, for a good part of the year.. heaven!

We are considering our options (I more than Kara, she's happy just being - I envy her!!). There are a couple of plots of land not *too* far from civilisation, er, Ottawa and Kara's family - $20 - 40k for 10-15 acres, which in truth would be plenty.

Or, there is a family friend's 90+ acre plot near Perth.

The other promising option is an Ecovillage in the forming near Lanark, which has much that a bare plot of land does not - an impressive woodworking shop not least. It does not, however, have much in the way of flat land... but we'll see.

Exciting possibilities for the future! And, clearly, possible - not just a pipe dream! Hurrah!

Adding Value

Sometimes I think of myself as a recluse, an isolationalist.

But I tend to realise that isn't it. It's more that I object to.. production chains where many of the people in the chain take a cut of the price - thus increasing the end cost - without adding value.

I don't want to pay for the advertising industry, but if I were to buy, say, a toothbrush, I'd be supporting it.

I had the opportunity to watch TV over the weekend while I was dogsitting. On one channel, the same "Cialis" advert played 2 or 3 times every advert break (ie, every 10 minutes), all day long. The channel was about home improvement and DIY. The fact that a medication is allowed to be advertised that heavily as something that makes people take more notice of you is... shocking. If you need it, your doctor should prescribe it. It should not be a recreational choice.

It's reckless and irresponsible - in order to pay for that level of advertising then a serious proportion of men should have the problem that that medication "fixes" - but, if that high a proportion of middle aged men has that issue, then surely it's a lifestyle issue (too much TV, doughnuts, etc...) rather than a purely "medical" one.

There was also one advert suggesting taking the pill would allow a woman a trip to Paris and a house. But I digress.

In fact this is all a digression from the main point. The supply chain should be one only long enough that each link adds *real* value to the end product. Oh, I know, it's not quite that simple, but take one example.

In an Organic food shop in Ottawa there is a booth with alternative medications (frustrating in itself that herbal quick fixes and all sorts of other junk are available, and prominently pushed, in shops that "should be" selling good quality, reasonably priced, pesticide free and genetically natural foods. This has a much higher margin, though, than organic potatoes, no doubt..), and I saw and tried on a pair of "pinhole glasses".

Pretty cool - I'd not heard of them. But $35-40 for what looked like cheap plastic frames with a piece of plastic mesh instead of a normal lens seemed excessive.

I found exactly the same item on eBay for about $2, posted from Hong Kong.

That's a 1800% or so markup. Just for being out, at a display in a real shop, not just on the internet.

So I'm not isolationist - I just really really object to being overcharged.

I know, that's one sided. If someone is willing to pay £5000 per day for another person to sit in their hallway and say "Fish! Fish! FishyfishyFISH!" all day long, who am I to stop them? But that is a direct value - the buyer values that service, there is no chain.

It's like paying tax that goes to support Trident, or the nuclear industry in general, or... Except that is, at least supposedly, democracy, and we're all in that together. Supposedly.

Canadian Election

...stinks.

Really stinks.

It seems pretty clear that the Conservatives have engineered this election in order to get a shot at a majority government.

They have spent millions this year on "attack ads" against the Liberal leader. Apparently, since Jan 31st, the Liberals have had 150 ads on tv; the NDP about 1000; and the Tories 6,200.

The attack ads are fear-based. In fact it looks like the whole Conservative campaign will be fear based. Sadly it seems like Canadians are into it - some dislike the dirtiness, but for most, stability is key. Better the devil you know (even if that devil is leading the country into a mess in a couple of years - huge deficit with a very complacent attitude).

I don't know how anyone could vote for a party that twists the truth so much. What ever happened to politicians being fine, clean, upstanding members of the community?

"Hate Ignatieff - because he's been a professor at Harvard" (broader world view is a negative these days?), or the like. Ugh.

Stinks.

Politics

I think most would agree that, in order to be a politician, you need to be able to put the best face on things, make yourself look good no matter what; have a hunger for power; be able to speak confidently about things you might not really know that much about, and at short notice.

It's a horrible sounding job - being the fall guy, the front. If you have any personal beliefs you have to bury those in order to be in step with your party - moreso the higher you rise.

And then we wonder why we have horrible people doing the job. People who will say blue one day, green the next just to stay in the job.

Well, it's the system that puts those conditions on politicians. The lies, half truths and evasions must become so embedded that a clear sense of right and wrong often gets lost.

How can we be surprised that MPs have trouble seeing that their expenses claims are outrageous when millions are wasted by their departments...

I'm really beginning to see that, if we really want politics and politicians to change, we need to rethink how they get into power and under what circumstances they can stay in power.

If the system that employs them recognises openness, and removes the necessity for an opposition thats role is solely to undermine the ruling party, we could do so much better, I think.

Drop parties - give individuals the right to always vote how they feel they *should*, rather than how their party tells them to.

And, of course, think more about "people" than "corporations".

Little bit of this, little bit of that

Snowstorm!! It's pretty much been snowing all day. I've just been down and shovelled some of the snow in the back yard - as we are 1/4 of the house, 3 or so cars have to fit down there. It's lovely and fluffy and white, so much of it. It's heaped up to one downstairs window and along the dividing fence.

Temperature here: -10 to -15 degrees C.
Temp. at "home" in L.B.: max 9 to min 7 degrees C. Not minus. Plus.

Aaah.

I've been reading "Living the Good Life" by Helen and Scott Nearing, a very.. strict? austere? disciplined?.. couple who moved from New York to Vermont during the Great Depression. They bought a farm, built houses of stone, and generally did the whole homesteading thing - they grew about 80% of their own food, in a climate with perhaps 3 frost-free months.

Pretty inspiring. It's made me look for land, earnestly and urgently, again. It's a tough call - land can be cheap here, with a hundred acres of bush in northwest Quebec for $25,000; a hundred acres of farmland 1.5 - 2 hours from Ottawa for $60,000, or something like 6 acres for $60,000 within 30 - 45 minutes of Ottawa.

I don't need to live close to Ottawa, but.. my wife does. Or, I think I might not need to, and she thinks she probably will.

The Nearings had no such split loyalties (or, if they did, they didn't talk about them in the book). They were hardcore to the extreme - earning what money they absolutely had to have (for taxes, petrol, etc) making maple syrup, and bartering for the rest.

I want to be hardcore. I want to do it and make it work. The year ahead, during which I will work as a web guy, will provide us with some capital with which to purchase some land - but, oh my, I want to get my hands in the earth - hear the bees.

Well, not much bare earth, nor many bees, around at the moment - I should be hibernating!

Little packets of joy!

Ah, our seed order came in! Sitting here watching the squirrels run around the neighbour's snowy roof it seems like a long time 'til spring, but it'll come fast enough I'm sure!

We got:

Oregon Sugar Pod Snow peas
Arugula (Rocket)
Turnips (beautiful when smaller than a golf ball, straight out of the ground and cleaned on a trouser leg - succulent and juicy!)
Spinach
Peppers (Canadians call them Sweet Peppers as opposed to Chili Peppers)
Salad Bowl lettuce

Plus some tomato seeds I saved from last year, and some Good King Henry and Sunflowers.

Mmmmmmmmmm!

Let's just hope I can grow them! We have a nice roof outside our bedroom window, so I'm hoping (once the new windows go in next month - touch wood 0 we can put a container or two up there).

Turnips will probably go out the front of the house, though I'm not sure there's enough light. Alternatively at my sister-in-law's... But that'd be odd, not being able to keep tabs on what was happening.

Tricky. I asked the City about allotments but there are neither public- nor private-owned ones near us, sadly.

Dear HP

Dear HP,

I am a long time user of your printers. I generally like them.

What I don't like is bloated drivers and stupidly shortsighted configuration options.

My printer is able to print and scan. It can do this over USB or wirelessly.

In order to change from one wireless network to another, instead of plugging in a USB cable and somewhere in the printer's properties click "wireless->connect to new wireless network-> enter details and SAVE" I had to

-uninstall the bloated driver
-reboot PC
-download new version of driver (67.5Mb for - you guessed it - the basic version of the driver)
-install driver
-connect printer via USB to set the wireless settings
-disable my firewall so the computer can talk to the printer?! What now?

Now, on any other computer I can just detect the printer and use the driver that is already installed. But to reconfigure the printer itself I need to do all this?

Why?

Stupid, pointless, time-wasting rubbish.

I had a Deskjet 920c I should have shipped from the UK to Canada. I swear these printers get flimsier and flimsier.

New place

The last few days have been hectic. We've now moved in to our own little apartment (bedroom, kitchen, living room/office and tiny toilet/shower room). I'm looking at the things I sent over from the UK, unpacked - those treasured few posessions I thought it worth sending.

A few I'm wondering about (A-level Chemistry textbook) but mostly they are "special things" that I love (books, consoles and games, two small tables) or things we need (knives, saucepans).

I love it here. It's small, but cozy - 1/4 of an "old" house in Ottawa. We're sleeping on the floor til we get a bed, and need a sofa and so on... but it's our own, private space. Warm, full of things that are familliar to me - though we're going to purge some stuff I guess.

I'm happy and content. Some filing and organising to do, but that's all fun.

Finally - I feel at home!