Author: Robert McBryde - page 2

She’s dreaming of a Weetabix Christmas

She’s dreaming of a Weetabix Christmas My wife Anne cannot live without Weetabix. This is a serious addiction. On Christmas morning, she will devour a delicious bowl of Weetabix as always. She has wolfed down Weetabix in many countries and on several continents and can provide a detailed, granular analysis of Weetabix variants world wide…

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Thailand: Kitsch at Christmas…Revisited

Thailand: Kitsch at Christmas…Revisited Last year, we spent the Christmas season in Thailand, mainly in Bangkok. Our younger son lives in Thailand, a world chock full of all things tacky, of corniness, of kitsch. Tongue -in-cheek, he suggests that I move to Thailand where my broken foot would never impede shopping, since little red cars..

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Alternatives to Ottawa Public Transit (Part Two): Bring back hitchhiking

Alternatives to Ottawa Public Transit (Part Two): Bring back hitchhiking Given the abysmal service offered by OC Transpo, hereafter known as Octopus Transit, and the 19% hike in the cost of a monthly pass for seniors (albeit down from the 120% increase originally floated by the Octopi commission), it is high time to seek alternatives..

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Indians by Arthur Kopit: A controversial play in 1980

Indians: A controversial play in 1980 As my exit from the theatre of life is imminent, I remember so fondly the many student actors with whom I had the privilege to work over a 35-year teaching career at Champlain St. Lawrence College in Quebec City. The first play that I directed at St. Lawrence took..

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Rascal scooter to the rescue: an alternative to Ottawa public transit (part one)

Rascal scooter to the rescue: an alternative to Ottawa public transit (part one) When I was a child my mom always called me “little rascal,” normally in Ukrainian, the language that her Polish family adopted when they came to Canada just before World War One. “Malenʹkyy dyyavol” she would yelp when I misbehaved…literally “little devil.”..

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Random Thoughts on “Black Friday”

Random Thoughts on “Black Friday” My wife Anne is a latecomer to North American culture. Growing up in Communist Czechoslovakia, she learned at a very early age to tune out the constant drumbeat of mendacious propaganda. This impermeable filter has served her well in the Ameri-Canadian commercial sphere where orgies of greed punctuate a perpetual..

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Speech to the Ottawa Transit Commission at City Hall November 25,2024

Speech to the Ottawa Transit Commission at City Hall November 25,2024 Here are a few excerpts from my speech to the Ottawa Transit Commission at City Hall yesterday. Anne and I were protesting the proposed 120% hike for a monthly seniors’ bus pass slated for 2025. The entire five-minute speech is on YouTube at 3:09:25..

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Noisy neighbours

Noisy neighbours “Good fences make good neighbours” – Robert Frost “Hell is other people” – Jean-Paul Sartre We had been living in Paradise…until the new neighbours moved in. Before coming to France in the fall of 2021, we had never resided in a dwelling without at least one adjoining wall. And we paid the price..

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Good morning! Muffins anyone?

Good morning! Muffins anyone? Muffins are an integral part of the overall flavour of our lives…Even the very word “muffins” and the muffin scene in The Importance of Being Earnest are worth repeating over and over again. Jack: How you can sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t..

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Our self-cleaning public washroom nightmare becomes a reality in Nîmes

Our self-cleaning public washroom nightmare becomes a reality in Nîmes I just learned that our new home town of Ottawa, Ontario, is implementing a worthy project to provide public washrooms throughout the city core, including at least two self-cleaning facilities. 2025 City of Ottawa budget includes $1 million for two public washrooms in Centretown |..

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