Who has the power?

In June 1997, we moved to Montreal. In January 1998, Canada welcomed us with the biggest Ice Storm and power failure for a hundred years. The first ice-storm related riot took place in our living room when our three children insisted on going to school, but all schools were closed.

As it was our first year in Canada, we had rented a small cottage in the Town of Mont Royal, not far from the City Centre of Montreal. It was a quite usual Tuesday morning, January 6th, and the day before our kids had gone back to school after Christmas Holiday. We had hardly started breakfasting, when the lights went out. They didn’t come back for almost two weeks. After some time, we realized that none of the neighbours had any lights either. The TV set didn’t work, the computer was quiet, the heating was off, and the stove didn’t collaborate. Luckily we had a battery powered portable radio that soon would become the most important kitchen utensil. In a couple of days, also the exchange rate of batteries would go through the ceiling. So, in no time we learnt that there was a temporary power failure, but everything would be back in normal by noon. Because of the heavy freezing rain, the schools were closed, and the students were encouraged to hear the next day’s morning news about their possible opening. Well, they heard them the following morning, and the following morning, and several days after that. One of Mr Alice Cooper’s songs hit the top of playing lists that week. Even my working place, McGill University, was closed for a good week; it was the first time in its 177-year-long history. The reason for all this was a scattershot meeting of a cold air front from the North Pole and a warm front from Texas. They summoned in the eastern parts of North America, and apparently had some good time there. Their offspring, freezing rain, became well known to the public.

Eventually, in places in Quebec, the ice deposit was 100mm (4 inches) thick. It covered everything from trees to cars and playhouses, not to mention laundry that was left drying out over night. Those car owners, who tried to remove it by hammering with an axe or a hoe, weren’t too happy about the results.

Especially our eldest was eagerly waiting for going back to school as she had to earn a hatful of credits for becoming accepted to college. She had to do them all in one year as we had come to Canada only the previous summer. Anyway, eventually she got all the required credits, and was accepted to Marianopolis College, a place run by Catholic nuns. There are lots of young people who don’t even think about applying to Marianopolis. They say that the students there work like animals. Later, our two younger animals went there too.

In Canada, it was the first time that our “troika” had to attend classes, study, do their home work, get new friends, and argue about the school’s dress code in English. In Finland there wasn’t, and isn’t, any dress code; in the Finnish schools it is only important that you, for the most part of a day, have clothes on. Generally speaking, especially in winter, people usually do wear clothes in Finland.

Falling trees and ice filled roads hampered the so common evening and night traffic around the blocks. Car horns were frozen or full of snow. Girls, who normally wear miniskirts and plastic boots, had to find rescue in Inuit outfits. Our telephone worked all the time, but there were many whose didn't. Local hotels, which were soon bursting of the high number of people seeking for a shelter, got icy phone calls from those who no more were accepted.

Gradually, our six-member-family got used to the situation. The sixth was a little Lhasa Apso who only knew that a number of people, who didn’t change their clothes, stayed home. We used propane BBQ for preparing food on the balcony. There was still some sense left in our cold brains that we didn't do it indoors. Some did, for the first and the last time simultaneously. We were brave enough to heat the living room with artificial fire logs, and sleep the nights in sleeping bags in front of a fireplace. Keeping spark watch was essential; our dog shared the responsibility. Sleeping time was automatically regulated by the sun.

The sixth or seventh day it started getting colder as outside temperatures went down to about -20C. Draining the radiator pipes of our rented house, and those of our old next-door neighbours, fell on us. Before the storm broke, they had left Montreal for California for visiting a daughter who worked in the production team of a popular sitcom Nanny. I suppose Fran Drescher would have lost even the rest of her voice if she had been in Montreal.

Over these weeks, Canadian Armed Forces conducted house to house searches, first for trying to convince old people to go to shelters, and later for checking that the stubborn ones were OK. Several emergency kitchens were established in schools. In TMR, on a street not far from us, two elderly residents perished from burns caused by the escaped fire of their fireplace. Also there were casualties of hypothermia and carbon monoxide poisoning. According to different sources, the Ice Storm caused an untimely death of 20 - 46 people in Quebec.

Finally it was cold as in a freezer. It took several weeks for all snow and ice to melt; our freezer would do the same in one hour. 

The Ice Storm of 1998 consisted of five small successive storms, which covered a narrow strip from eastern Ontario to southern Quebec and Nova Scotia in Canada, and the bordering areas from northern New York and Maine in the United States. The United States and Canada are situated, respectively, north from Mexico, in North America. January 9th, as the ice deposit had grown thicker, major pylons of the lines that carried all electricity to the Montreal Island, crumbled down. Only one remained in function. Luckily, it was the very line that served power to the freshwater supplying plants of the island. If the water supply sources had been affected, a catastrophe would have been complete.

The weight of the ice collapsed 600 km of high voltage power lines and over 3,000 km of medium and low voltage distribution lines in southern Quebec. Up to 1.4 million inhabitants were without power for up to five weeks. In 2008, ten years after the storm, securing power supply for the water plants hadn’t yet been completed.

Also we had to consider moving somewhere else. Luckily our Dean of the Faculty, who lived in the western part of the island, invited us for staying in his big mansion over the worst. So, we packed the dog and everything in our minivan, and temporarily moved to Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue. Having a warm shower wasn't a bad experience. As it happened, the stay wasn’t going to be long. Soon we’re “back home” where no burst pipes, no food in the fridge, no washed clothes, and lots of snow work were waiting for us. Anyway, we had the power.

Still about a week after the weather had changed, quite a few blocks in downtown Montreal were closed for pedestrians and cars. Huge slabs of ice kept on falling from roof tops, and the safety personnel of the city and private properties had some hard time in fighting them, ASAP, down to the streets.

In Kurt Vonnegut’s book Timequake, his alter ego Kilgore Trout discussed a single person’s involvement in ongoing developments under times of crises. He said:”In real life, as in Grand Opera, arias only make hopeless situations worse.” Of course, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you may even jeopardise other peoples’ well-being. However, helping neighbours and a general feeling of communal responsibility was a major factor in the relatively low number of casualties during those weeks. The people had the power.

Sledge drivers, halt !!!

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Photographs numbered from top #1 – #6.

Photograph #3 of the freezer had to be taken quite stiff, and was later melted for publishing using Pirjo’s other, because of irrelevant Copyright clauses unnamed, kitchen appliances. Photo #6 would have melted in Q8, but the icy context was able to save it.

Photographs #2, #4 and #5, were borrowed from the Google Photos Collection: Google Photos The original Copyright owned http://www.meteo.mcgill.ca – permission for use applied. 

The Photograph #1, from Wikipedia, published in accordance with the Creative Commons terms http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/.

A hole in the Horizon

The Gaspe is a peninsula along the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River, in Québec, in eastern Canada. Gradually the river widens to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and empties into the Atlantic Ocean. The peninsula is separated from New Brunswick on its southern side by the Chaleur Bay (Baie des Chaleurs) and the Restigouche River. It is located 560 km from Montreal and 340 km from Quebec City by road. If you ever go there, the responsibility is solely yours.

In summer 2005, on a summer vacation from Kuwait, Pirjo and I made a-good-week-long trip to the Gaspe by car. Orienteering in this part of Canada may sometimes be a bit laborious; skirting tractors is a skill that many learn only by bad experience. On the other hand, the traffic in big French-Canadian cities, as in Montreal, has been described horrendous. Pedestrians there are common game. Anyway, I wouldn’t brag too much about driving six years in Montreal. As I quite reasonably had already learnt how to cut up in the Montreal traffic, it was only in Kuwait that I came to know how to speed 120 km/h at 45km/h zone, and how to drive a one-way-street in wrong direction, comfortably. In Gaspe, we had no problems with reckless drivers. 

When we moved to Norway, I had a foreboding of some problems that my driving could face there. But, Tromsø is such a small town that we didn’t need a car. All drivers were really polite and gave way to pedestrians, just as if they all were mothers-in-law. What’s wrong with them?

The original French name Gaspé may come from a Mi’kmaq Indian word gespeg, meaning "land's end", or has been transformed from a Basque word gerizpe, meaning "shelter". The Gaspesian Mi'kmaq (MicMac) are sometimes called “the Indians of the Sea”, and were noted for their fishing skills and distinctive birch bark canoes that were capable of crossing open water. Also, they were known for their fierce and warlike character.

The Gaspe Peninsula is in close proximity to the Atlantic Provinces, and has many maritime features, including rugged shorelines, fine fishing and a laid-back, friendly population. The houses in the country side are often isolated and pretty “laid-back” too. Anyway, this is no Mid-West; these people speak French that the actual inhabitants of France may understand, but still may have some hard time with.

On our way, we also visited Quebec City. In this region of Canada, the French language is almost completely the only possible means of verbal communication. Regarding the native language, in Montreal the French speaking people comprise about 70% of the population. In Quebec City and Gaspe the figure has to be over 100%.

Quebec sovereignty has for a long time been a hot potato, especially in Quebec. The flag of Quebec (Le Fleurdelisé, as in the photo above) was first officially introduced in 1948. Since then, and especially after General Charles de Gaulle’s Vive le Québec libre speech, during Expo67, the debate on the sovereignty of Quebec, and the “threatened” position of the French language, have taken very interesting forms. As an example, l'Office québécois de la langue française, the Office of the French language in Quebec, maintains a group of police force for monitoring that no public text in car doors, offices, shops or other places is, by size, bigger in English than in French. The guys walk the streets with a tape measure on a utility belt. If you violate this rule, you may lose your source of livelihood.

Occasionally, travellers get hungry. Usually we spent the nights in small motels. There was a good chance for me to try to utilize my “peg leg French”. As stated above, the status of the French language in Quebec "is a bit threatened”, and also I had to sit the l'Office québécois de la langue française French examination for being able to see private patients. It took three years of intensive studying, and four attempts, to pass the exam. Greetings and thanks to Véronique Lamontagne, my French coach. Véronique’s father, a colleague of mine, once described my French almost incomprehensible. I agree with his statement.

Minivans are handy if you don’t have a balcony. We figured out that in case we don’t find a room, we could sleep in the back of the vehicle. We removed and left the back seats in Montreal, and so there was a plenty of room for two sleepy “stupidoes”.

A couple of years before, with his friends, our son Miika took the minivan for a somewhat longer ride to Las Vegas, then to Yellowstone, and finally they came home via Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. Above, the guys are cooling down two or six weary feet in a hot spring. They actually did sleep some nights in the van.

As the selection of available motel rooms was excellent, we didn't have to sleep in the van. In general, for some unknown reason, tourists hadn't found the places we happened to visit. Does it tell something about our taste? Some places perhaps over estimated their own services. The name of the room refers to “the 7th Heaven”, which, however, was beoynd our reach. There was no ladder.

Gaspesian motels take security issues seriously. So, we didn’t have any problems in that department. En route, even the traffic was really easy although numerous steep hills distracted Pirjo’s peace of mind. First up, and then down we went; Pirjo closed her eyes in the downhills. Obviously, I kept on driving almost the whole trip.

Gaspesian hospitality and services exceeded all our expectations. Also, afterhours' entertainment was covered by the motel keepers. Food in various, most often small, restaurants was tasty. Fish understandably was the main item, but it didn’t bother us. If we two are so fishy also by nature, I don’t know. Perhaps someone could tell. And then breakfasts, including only porridge and a slice of salt fish, were simply magnificent. We adopted this concept for domestic use.

Located offshore of the peninsula's eastern tip, Parc national de l'Île-Bonaventure-et-du-Rocher-Percé is perhaps the best known tourist attraction in the Gaspe region. A 470 metre long rocky island, in front of a lively village of Percé, has surprisingly been named Percé Rock (in French: rocher Percé, "pierced rock"). The French name comes from a natural arc, or hole, in the cliff that actually has become some kind of natural icon of Quebec. Those who understand Finnish know that there is a loanword in the Finnish language that in French accurately depicts an anatomical structure that you yourself don’t easily see. The very icon of Quebec.

An “inunnguaq”, or an "imitation of a person", built by some by-driver right next to a road in Gaspe. These figures are often, a bit inaccurately, called “inuksuk” that actually means "something that acts for a function of a person". “Inuksuks”, built by Inuit people, have no human resemblance, but are just heaps of stone used by mariners for orienteering. Officials often dismantle “inunnguaqs”, built by non-Inuit folks, as the figures could misdirect tourists e.g. to seeking hiking trails. I made one small. Those who followed Vancouver Winter Olympics have seen one of these as the symbol of the games.

  

So, it was the most eastern part of Quebec. Being extremely rural, but also a tourist attraction, it is no surprise that almost all the people we talked with were from somewhere else. I tried to speak French to an elderly couple from France; they thought I’m local. Well, now you have an idea how Gaspesian French would sound.

Spending time between other moments

People of our age have an increasing amount of spare time. Finding feasible activities for spending all this coasting may sometimes be difficult. Spare time hobbies that according to an age-old rock-group involve blood, shit, or feathers do not necessarily suit for all of us. So, we have to find some other things that invigorate aging joints, soles, or hormones. Don’t get me wrong, I’m now referring to something that as a side product also provides us or others with something productive. Most of us have probably developed ways to fill those not-so-much-work-related periods, and the “If you have nothing to do, don’t do it here” signs are not for us. In the following, I’ll portray the measures I have tried to take for getting out of your way.

As a school boy, hunting and fishing were the natural means for a young man’s recreation in the semi rural, smallish town where I spent my first nineteen years. I fished mostly with my father and hunted with friends of the same age. Anyway, the both forms of outing sank into oblivion when the capital of Finland, Helsinki, invited with its diversions, which in this case means dentistry and girls. Every two weeks, a kind of semi hobby was to visit home with a bagful of laundry and an empty wallet. Weekend trains, at that time, were full of home going students, and it was possible to practice Helsinki related "diversions" there too. Not that I would have been any luckier.

Already, at the beginning of the seventeen years that I lived in southern Finland, I was infected with squash. Tennis was in my program already before, but slimmer rackets easily lured me away from tennis to the astonishing world of squash. Running, not jogging, came into picture as a side hobby and extra exercise. But then, the first of May in 1986, was a day that made major alterations to my every day life. That afternoon, the first time in my life, I took a golf club into my hands. It was the beginning of a frustrating journey in sand traps, water hazards, bushes, or entirely out. Before that, I had only sliced ham and cheese, at best homemade sausages.

A fairway shot in an enormous bunker, “Q8”. Behind a “brown” you can see sheep and goats, intensively following our game. By the way, do you know, what is the most annoying golf club in a lady’s bag? Well, it is a “bitching wedge”. This wasn’t relevant, was it?

Old sports gear may follow you like lice on your sleeve. Today, I rather have a sandwich than grab a sand wedge. When we were about to move from Kuwait to Norway, I purchased two fishing rods, two reels, and a bagful of lures, dreaming about upcoming fishing trips in the fjords and at the rivers of northern Norway. Now we live in UK, and still I haven’t opened the tapes I tied the rods together with in Kuwait.

In 1985, we moved to an old house in a small town not far from Helsinki. It was originally built after WWII, and sorely needed major renovation. However, there was a wonderful garden for chipping practices. Our nearby neighbour got once almost killed when a stray golf ball broke off the blade of his lawnmower, and the blade split a leg of his trousers. The blade missed his femoral artery, but I didn’t miss a short discussion with him. It took almost two years to finish the renovation, but then in 1989 we, of course, were already moving on, back to the middle parts of Finland. Author Kurt Vonnegut could have said:”So it goes”.

Renovating an old house is a totally awful experience that hardly can be described as a hobby. Anyway, I tried to do as much as possible myself, and stingy as I am, I did. When the work was approaching to its end, I swore I’d never in my whole life interfere in anything like it. The work had required far too much effort, abstinence from other pursuits, and my father-in-law’s back. Some years later, I found myself renovating an 80-year-old house in Montreal, Canada. I suppose, Mr Vonnegut could have commented this turn of mind too.

Our home at Sunnyside 10, Pointe-Claire of Greater Montreal, kept me busy for a summer and the following winter. However, the project was nothing compared to the one in Finland. No ghosts followed with the building when we purchased it. Perhaps, our bargaining was so good that the previous owners wanted to keep them and take them to their new place.

In Montreal, as newcomers to a foreign country, we still needed a sauna. It took a summer vacation to build one. About six years later, when we sold the house, the sauna was an important factor in persuading potential buyers. Now, ten years later, there is no need for a sauna; Kuwait itself was one big sauna, and here in England the saunas are for gay people. Quoting Seinfeld: “Not that there is anything wrong in that!”

Writing these causeries is a practical hobby. Studying the grammar and style of the English language is so confusing that hours pass without noticing. Dry English humour may still be beyond my reach, but I suppose the first apraxic steps have been taken. “Puns” have over time become my favourites. According to the Free Dictionary, a “pun” is “a play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words”. An example:”Show me a grand piano falling into a mine shaft, and I’ll show you a flat minor.” Another pun:”Bugs have very diverse religious views because they all are in sects.” If a pun is based on the pronunciation of words, in its written form a pun may seem odd, but when saying it loud it suddenly starts making sense:” I wanted a car, but I couldn't a Ford one.” If you like them, here you'll find more puns .

Fingers poised over the keyboard of my laptop, waiting for an entertaining enunciation to come up in a Channel 4 sitcom The Big Bang Theory. The cork underlay, looming behind the laptop, is usually tucked between my knee and the computer as the computer gets too hot during vigorous bantering sessions.

At some later point, I had to downgrade running to jogging. However, as my presence gradually absorbed more than necessary amounts of solid energy, even jogging became rather unpleasant. The awareness of all additional elements splashing to and fro provided me with poor balance and self respect. After realizing it, Nordic walking - now we’re coming to the point - and especially stationary bike riding gradually became my everyday favourite. This may sound very stupid after all outdoors activities, but it was so practical, so practical. Playing golf probably was a sort of interlude although I can’t completely factor it out yet.

Literally bloody jogging footwear, as a result of scrutinizing the quality of jogging grounds surface too intensively, utilizing quite an unsuitable part of the legs, the knees. This again was a result of poor balance and self respect.

So, over the past year I have dropped some 1.5 – 2.5 stones off my weight (ca.10 – 15 kg). Not bad, although it also means that all trousers have enough room for a fat cat between my belly and the belt. I hope that the loss of this fast sitting lipid hasn’t weakened my structural integrity. Luckily, I’ve been able to use my 10 – 20 year old clothes that again fit perfectly. Then, what does it take to do all this? It only takes a routine of 40 – 60 minutes on the bike, daily: Perhaps by starting with shorter programs, but by gradually increasing the time of exercise and the spinning resistance. A TV set before your eyes is a marvellous idea. Heartbeat is much more educative if you watch it on a bike. And then, letting the evening and other beers rest in peace in the fridge helps a lot. It is a so called RIP action.

The top surface of my sweat infested stationary bike. Its plastic casing is permanently stained as my sweating often exceeds all likely measures. In another causerie I have depicted all the gauges of this very bike. It definitely is a grand toy.

Altogether, hobbies invigorate everyday life, but may sometimes become even serious enough to generate an independent trade. For me, squash, golf, riding stationary bike, renovation of homes, and writing, have been hobbies suggested by the phase of life. On the other hand, I have to confess that I feel a fraction of envy for those who are able to earn their living by turning their hobby to a job; in my case by sitting on a sofa. Already now, my sofa has taken the shape of my derrière.

Moulin Rouge, the centre of its surroundings

In October 2009, Moulin Rouge, the most famous cabaret in the world celebrated its 120^th birthday. The cabaret was built in 1889 by a man named Joseph Oller, and it is located in the  Pigalle region on rue de Clichy in the 18^th arrondissement of Paris. Its red windmill shaped tower stands out as a kind of symbol of the original activities in the building and the surroundings.

In its early years, locally operating courtesans introduced a seductive dance called Can-Can. The Can-Can dance revue evolved into a sort of entertainment of its own, and in part led to the introduction of cabaret culture all over Europe. Nowadays, the Moulin Rouge still has much of the old charm left although the courtesan front (no pun intended) has been taken over by newer “institutions” on the Pigalle side streets. Between tidy little family hotels, you can’t avoid stumbling on brightly illuminated front room windows where generous females eagerly exhibit their assets and lay them at your disposal if you so wish. Many of the workers are from more or less undeveloped African countries. It is quite obvious that people come here to taste some exotic cuisine as a refreshment to their permanent diet.

In 2005 Pirjo and I made a couple of days visit to Paris. As we are so stingy, I booked a room in a small hotel on Rue Pierre Fontaine, only a few steps from Place Pigalle. The room was a bit dusty, so we slept a window ajar although it was November. As far as I remember, the room was only some 35 euros per night, including a continental breakfast. For us two this was more than enough; the room was only for sleeping.

In the 19^th century, Can-Can stretching caused arrhythmias on the left and right, and the performers were more or less local residents. Nowadays, selecting dancers for the show is a rigorous process. The successful ones are real professionals in the field. No, you got it wrong; they are real professionals in dance, not “professionals”.

If you walk the Clichy Street by the Moulin Rouge, there is a chance you don’t even notice the relatively modest entrance to the cabaret. The actual red mill is of course there, above the roof, but you don’t see it unless you cross the street for a better view. Most movie theatres have larger door embrasures and foyers than the Moulin Rouge cabaret. Before the door, there are showcases for numerous pictures of the show, but knowing the reputation of this place, you could expect some more glitz. Thirty meters from the entrance, in direction of the Blanche metro station, they sell sausages and burgers in a small takeaway outlet. When the wind is favourable, the smell of dripping easily creeps to the cabaret entrance. Just try to find some glitter from that setting.

The Moulin Rouge building was destroyed in a fire in 1915, but rebuilt and reopened in 1921. In 1962 it underwent major renovation, but the girls on the side streets kept on working incessantly over all these difficult times. During the WWII, the “institutions” of the highest quality were reserved solely for the officers of the German military. After liberation, Pigalle was renamed "Pig Alley" by Allied soldiers. The girls mostly cleared the war with honours, and will most likely continue working after the Moulin Rouge is dead and gone, living only in history books. That’s the nature of their profession. Studies from 2003 estimated that about 15,000 – 20,000 women work as prostitutes in France. In 2010, the number of full-time male and female prostitutes was estimated at 20,000 – 30,000. It is an evolving business.

Prostitutes and clients used to converse at Palais Royal already around year 1800. The picture is from the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France

Right behind the Moulin Rouge is a 130 metres high hill called Montmartre (in French: butte Montmartre), which also gives its name to the surrounding district of the right bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit, and it also is a nightclub district. The order of Jesuit priests was allegedly founded in the priestly grounds of Montmartre. Regarding all recent sexually related scandals within the Catholic Church, I just wonder if the relatively bad reputation of the Jesuit brotherhood had its seeds planted in the local “institutions” (again, no pun intended). Many artists have had studios or worked around the community of Montmartre; Salvador Dalí, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh have very likely been familiar with available services. And I’m not talking about the Catholic Church.

The basilica of Sacré Cœur is looming behind a narrow street up the Montmartre hill.

Today’s Montmartre Hill has numerous outdoor storefronts that provide you with almost anything edible from flamboyant fish to flamed flans. Small cafes and restaurants serve patrons of whom many don’t have a real kitchen or proper cooking facilities in the apartment. Except for tourists, people living in these quarters seem to be quite young. Many look like students or otherwise distracted. For all the years, many an apartment building seems to be in an interesting condition. Damp, draught, bad heating, French neighbours and foreign tourists in one package. That’s a combination capable of scaring any not-too-much-insane over fifty-year-old from living in these quarters. I’m sure, even my somewhat healthy nose and bones would have caught pain and disease on a long term stay. The window that we left ajar over the nights in the hotel didn’t cause any problems. Although dusty, the hotel was warm and the nights were pretty quiet. In spite of late November, in some countries a precious time for Advent parties (i.e. wet, late, boisterous, and problematic in terms of partner selection, rejection or assent, in the latter case entrance, abandonment, and finally at least moral hangover), the neighbourhood wasn’t too loud either. I’m sure, nocturnal police car sirens’ wail irritates a devoted sleeper more in Alaska than in Pigalle. Or then, the streets are so narrow that all policing has to be done by foot. 

If you are intending to make a night club tour in these quarters, you have to be very careful, or have a friend who knows martial arts. There it is so easy to get into big trouble. According to stories, you may not be able get much help from the police if you get robbed or mugged. Joining a group of football fans or a motorbike gang would be a great idea. Their own travel agencies organize interesting and intelligent group tours to various cities. On these tours you don’t have to kill time. All the extra time Pirjo and I had to kill was at airports. We did all the adventurous outing strictly daytime, and we didn’t have any problems with too close international contacts.

Pirjo understandably has turned her back to the Arc of Triumph. The arrangement of this view reminded her about what is generally going on in the red light district.

The Champs-Elysees Boulevard and the Arc are at a walking distance from the Pigalle, but you have to be a good walker. Pirjo and I rarely used the metro, never a taxi. By walking, absorbing the details of street life in the Pigalle area where we had a hotel room, and elsewhere, is so much more down-to-earth. What I just said really is a cliché, but we lowed it.

We also made a visit to the Louvre for checking Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and an age-old Etruscan sculpture of a husband and wife, who still don’t seem to get tired of resting on their stony bed. On the opposite wall, facing Mona Lisa, there is a huge painting The Wedding at Cana, by Paolo Veronese. The wedding is by actual size the biggest painting in the whole Louvre. As the Mona Lisa is quite small, perhaps at some kind of spiritual level these two paintings do balance each other. For getting back to the hotel, we decided to take a metro. Most likely we were so devastated by the size of the Louvre and the adjacent attractions that walking didn’t sound like a good idea. If not before, at the latest in the metro we came back to the face of earth (this is a figurative, not a literal expression). Travelling line 2 metro in Paris, at a rush hour, was an elbowing, loud, clattering and smelly experience. Well, we were tired and wanted to ASAP get back for verifying if the girls already were back to work. They were.

The Pictures “French CanCan” and Palais Royal published in accordance with the CreativeCommons terms http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. Pics of the Sacré Cœur, Montmarte and Arc published in accordance with Pirjo’s Copyright clause: “Yes, go on”.

Barcodes reveal expiry date and else

In 1949 Bernard Silver and Norman J.Woodland filed a patent application for the grandfather of the modern barcode, “Classifying Apparatus and Method”, in which they described a linear printing pattern that could be used for tracking objects. However, it wasn’t until early 80’s when utilizing it became common, first in the US army. Nowadays, tracking of movements of e.g. cars, airline luggage, post, and nuclear waste, as well as recognition of patients often happens using a barcode. In a grocery store, the price, expiry date, and other information about products are stored in it.

Barcodes tagged on the containers of some stimulating substances. The product on the left may cause so called purchased fatigue, and the one in the middle may in part augment impotence. Fatigue and impotence are not barcode related.

This sample of fish and toes does not fulfil the barcode regulations of the European Union. How would you read the expiry date of these products?

Verifying the validity of the Zebras’ barcode has to be done daily. Dust easily makes it non-scannable. These zebras pay careful attention to the cleanliness of the barcode stripes.

Tracking the organization of species in biology is a surprising application of barcode use. Bees can be marked with tiny barcodes to track their mating habits. But why to mark them with an artificial barcode, as the nature has already made them wear a striped behind. For millions of years the nature has equipped insects, fish, dry land animals etc. with nature’s own barcode. Someone has been rather farsighted. What is actually the information, saved in these codes, may be difficult to read or scan, however, there always is room for an educated guess. 

Small fish often expire in the digestive canal of bigger colleagues. If a fish is doomed to end up on a plate, the expiry date of course will have a completely new meaning. Traditionally, before the worldwide introduction of barcodes, expiry for human consumption was determined by the looks of the gills and the smell of the product. Fishmongers can of course even nowadays provide suggestive estimations that most often refer to an extremely recent fishing act. However, the expiry time starts running the very moment when the fish comes out of water.

In ice fishing, when a fish is lifted up through a hole in ice, usually nothing barcode related happens. At least, nothing similar takes place as in a grocery store when you take the goods to a cash desk. In his clever book Cat’s cradle the great author Kurt Vonnegut introduces the so called ice-nine, invented by an imaginary developer of atom bomb Dr Felix Hoenikker. Ice-nine takes an unnatural crystal configuration when freezing, and is supposed to prevent marines from sinking into mud as it makes all water containing substances crystallize by contact. Perhaps Dr Hoenikker could also have invented a sort of ice that records the beginning of the last phase of expiry when the fish are lifted through a hole in ice. If this Hoenikker-ice left a cookie or something in a fish (do we need a chip in a fish?), a consumer would be at ease when purchasing it. By using a portable barcode scanner, the time of getting the fish out of water would be easy to check at the counter of a fishmonger or a market freezer. The term "fish and chips" would have a completely new meaning.

Sometimes there is no intention to use higher than room temperatures for preparing fish for food. Drying and salting cod is one alternative, although laborious. Cod, which has been preserved by drying after salting is called clipfish. Cod, which has been dried without the addition of salt is called stockfish. Salt cod is traditionally dried by the wind and the sun, hanging on wooden scaffolding or lying on clean cliffs or rocks near the seaside. After this handling the expiry date of the product is more or less obscure. However, dried cod fillets are extremely easy to mark with a non-removable barcode tag. These tags are of importance at so called cod tasting dinners at expensive clubs. There generously paid cod tasting professionals or enthusiasts taste pieces of cod, and almost with no exception are able to tell the region of a sea where the fish was taken up, the wood species of the scaffolding, and the location where the fillet was dried. Finally the data, scanned from the barcode tag, is reflected on the wall for verifying the correctness of the cod taster’s statement.

Of big animals, zebras have perhaps the best known barcodes in their skin. I just wonder if the hides in stores need to have a commercial barcode added, or has the nature equipped zebra hides with enough information for commercial purposes. If the nature had been clever enough, zebra skins would also have data about the date of birth, gender, and the previous generation etc. for scientists to study.

There is no way to avoid considering the applications of this method to humans. Anyway, monitoring working or sleeping time, and the stay in numerous other places, could be done with no visible barcode tag. Neither, a boarding pass, entrance ticket, nor a passport would be necessary. But how could we make everyone wear a coded something? A striped suit or solely pants, or a striped pyjama, would certainly work for recording the arrival and departure to and from almost anyplace. Though, identifying a person wouldn’t be idiot proof; well, perhaps “idiot” proof it would be. Anyway, on voluntary basis, there would probably also be other feasible uses for the trouser/pyjama coding. One occurs to me with no effort. Visiting posh restaurants may occasionally require following a certain dress code; this was the case at least twenty, thirty years ago. If you went to a bar for a drink, dressing up wasn’t as strict. That’s a bar’s dress code, or bar code. If there was a code scanner at the door to a bar or restaurant, your striped trousers could be used for determining your eligibility to enter. Your trousers would in that case have a bar code barcode. The Bar, lawyers and judges, have their own Bar code. When popping in a restaurant, they would have a triple barcode, a Bar code bar code barcode, but I’m not going to look into that. The triple code would already be too complicated for a discussion. It would set the bar too high.

In a George Lucas movie Hitman, agency members have a personal barcode tattooed in the neck. Of course, if we went that far, the expected life time with all other pertaining data could be recorded already at birth in a baby’s skin; whatever use the suggested expiry date would later have, I don’t know, but again I’m only a dentist. Barcode tattooing in the skin would easily bring alongside some new terminology. I can imagine an airport officer resolutely stating: “Sir, would you please step aside, we suspect your neck is a forgery”.

And finally, let’s imagine that in future barcode scanning will be implemented in all fields of human life and existence. If we take Charles Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection absolutely seriously, all of us will eventually look like zebras.

About smoking

My balcony, bench and instant coffee jar.

Since my first grandchild was born, and I quit consuming alcoholic beverages, smoking small cigars (cigarillos) remained my only vice with any connection to purchased stimulants.

Since the late 1960’s, attitudes towards smoking, in general, have changed quite extensively. As a 15-year old schoolboy, I acquired the first experiments with tobacco products after purchasing a cheap pipe, which I hid from my parents in a tool compartment of my motor bicycle. I used to drive into a nearby forest, and almost cough my lungs out into numerous heather bushes that are so common in the middle parts of Finland. I suppose smoking pipe at that age was meant to make me look more mature. Well, as my favourite scientific author Kilgore Trout, quoted by another favourite of mine Kurt Vonnegut, so clearly could have stated: “The maturing influence of heather bushes is a commonly known phenomenon”.

In summer 1972, the year when the so called Interrail tickets were introduced, I made a one month train excursion to Central Europe with a good friend of mine. At that time, we both had a long blond hair down to our shoulders, jeans and wooden footwear called clogs. Because I was about seven inches taller than my friend, we acquired pipes that emphasized our differing body structures. He got a huge pipe with a large bowl that almost covered his face, and I found a small one hardly the size of my little finger. After all the testing, over the previous three years I have already so explicitly described, I still wasn’t that heavily addicted to smoking. Nowadays, if you light a pipe in a railroad carriage, you will soon find yourself smoking at a police station. However, at that time it was quite common and so, perhaps somewhere in the south of France, we once again lit our smelling personal things on a train. An elderly gentleman, who travelled in the same six person compartment with us, had of course taken a note of our appearances and had made his own conclusions. He must have thought we were smoking some dope, especially my little thing definitely looked very suspicious. He asked if he could also taste our stuff and exposed a pipe he’d been hiding in a pocket. Well, Finnish schoolboys weren’t familiar with anything extreme, and so I sincerely offered my tobacco purse at his disposal. For some weird reason, after smelling the content, he anyway rejected my friendly gesture, and conjured from somewhere a small plastic bag of his own. I suppose he had brought his own heather leaves for train entertainment.

Some years later, again I found myself smoking pipe in a student residence that I occupied with the elder brother of my Interrail mate, a pipe smoking student. We had a small table in front of an old TV, and on the table there was a drinking glass for all the bitter saliva that pipe smokers so generously produce. Gradually our glass was filled with yellowish gray substance that, as the Christmas was approaching, reminded us about eggnog. We even tried to entertain out guests with some homemade eggnog by just dribbling a tad of vodka into it. Anyway, as far as I remember, no one was dumb enough to taste.

Ten years later, when I already had a dental practice with two other young dentists, smoking in a working environment was still quite common. Only a few years later it became a criminal offence to light a cigarillo even in the smallest closet, if a cleaning lady had access to it. However, in the early 80’s, a couple of times a day, I used to have a cup of coffee and a small cigar in our dental lab with a dentist colleague, who by the way is about six inches taller than I am – quite a difference between my Interrail pal and him. At that time, disposable gloves were only gradually becoming mandatory in patient work, and much of the stuff was performed bare handed. Today my hair goes stiff if I just think about it. Smoking of course is a stinky process, and tobacco smell grabs your fingers like old fish. For saving my patients from bad smelling fingers, I used to hold my little cigar on a usual metal fork that I had confiscated from the kitchen and splayed two pegs to capture a cigar. At some point I used to do this also at home, although smoking at home wasn’t as entertaining as at work. Years later, after rotating our old tableware to my parents’ summerhouse, my mother sometimes mentioned a weird way some of our cutlery was mutilated.

Traditionally, big cigars producers have a field day when a child is born, and thick, fat, and mostly useless cigars go for distribution. The thicker the cigar is, I would say, more likely the celebration refers to a male kind of genital construction of the newcomer. So, I don’t know if my small cigarillos would have had any say is that game. Two of my own children are girls and the one in the middle is boy. I just wonder if actually at the time when the one in the middle was conceived, I had a period of either not smoking at all, or alternatively smoking bigger cigars. If I only remembered this, perhaps it would be possible to conclude if small cigars contribute to a better virility of female producing sperm, or did my possible abstinence from smoking actually promote the one in the middle. I hope this again is not a matter of size.

In today’s world where CCTV is following your every or every second move, telephone hacking by press or police is strictly regulated, and political parties which never before had even a slightest chance, are taking over, it has become almost a capital crime to smoke indoors. In some Nordic countries they are even discussing to prohibit smoking on private balconies. Well, of course it all makes lots of sense alone for environmental, national economy, and health reasons. On the other hand, I still get some wild, forbidden fruit kind of satisfaction, or excitement when I open the door to our balcony, which still is my private smoking zone. Wrapped in my old fluffy bathrobe I take an icy seat next to the wall letting my eyes fall on the setting sun of wintery Manchester, UK. In a freezing wind I’ll light my cigarillo holding a hot mug of instant coffee in my other hand. Of course there is an old instant coffee glass jar, now half full of cigar butts, waiting for me, and I have to open it with stiff fingers for not leaving ash marks on the balcony floor. The wind makes my cigar burn fast, and in about two and a half minutes I’ll be back inside brushing snow from my still relatively blond hair. Nowadays I don’t even consider going back to smoking pipe. Two glass jars on the balcony floor would be far too much.

 Balcony in winter

Autumn in human colours

Sporadic colours of autumn here and there.

I suppose it is autumn now. Even here in North-West England, the trees are turning yellow or non-specific brown. You can’t say that the colours would be anything compared to those in the Nordic countries or Canada, vice versa. Here the colours of autumn are more or less sporadic, not at all omnipresent.

It occurred to me that colours stand for lots of things also for us humans. They signify overall appearance, moods, impressions, concepts, indicators of health, and race etc. In the following, I’ll try to define as many points of view as possible from a human perspective. As a helping tool I’ll use the Munsell Color System, introduced by Albert Munsell in 1921.

First a couple of clarifying words about this system. Munsell defines three factors for each shade of colour: hue, value and chroma. Hue is the actual name of a colour that we use in everyday language, like red or blue. Value describes the lightness of a shade, or how much black or white is involved. Finally, chroma indicates the intensity, or how strong or weak the hue is. The more gray there is, the weaker the colour is. OK, now we know enough about the terminology and we can go into real business.

Regarding an individual’s appearance, in the past, a red hued face used to indicate good health, outdoors life, and wealth. Nowadays, more or less, a red face means that the previous evening has been long, or is still continuing until peak chroma. Of course, especially outdoors exercising can still today produce a reddish facial hue, but on the other hand overly red cheeks may suggest diabetes. Blushing may reveal various states of mind, but also depict growing red rage. A friend of mine, a construction engineer, advised me to continue bargaining over the price of a condominium until the vendor starts turning first red and then purple. Purple was supposed to be the phase when I should stop or even pull back a tad, not before. I suppose, the vendor’s intentions were closely related to the value of the sales object, however, that had nothing to do with the value of the paint on the walls. In general, there seems to be much red tape in housing trade, and some get caught red-handed. What a coincidence in terminology.

Still less than 100 years ago, believe or not, red was the colour of boys and soldiers, and blue was explicitly for girls. Actually, up to the 15th century, also the boys were called girls, "knave girls", and the girls were called "gay girls" (sic!). The word "boy" was for servants. At some point pink took over a great deal of girls’ affairs, which perhaps was the beginning of the downfall of the boyish red colour. For this reason, to me pink is the colour of female spies; just remember Mata Hari and Agent 99. Interestingly, pink doesn't show in the spectrum at all, it is an extra spectral colour. A clear sign of its spying nature. The British Royal Guard still wear bright, high chroma red jackets where blood doesn’t show clearly. However, in modern warfare in the bushes, a red jacket would more likely make an excellent target. Nevertheless, nose bleeding may always catch anyone standing in front of the Buckingham Palace.

Pirjo didin't get nose bleed.

Feeling blue means that you are not in the very best mood. There of course is a chance that you have a heart condition and you’re in need of extra oxygen, or then you’re just cold. Having these both at the same time could produce a really deep blue chroma. If you are blue in the meaning of sad, perhaps rather nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, would help. Tickling could also be applied until your hue turns into red.

If someone is called green, it may suggest s/he is fresh, young, or inexperienced, or then simply green of envy. The last expression, I believe, is more old auntish than young youngish. Young individuals tend to change facial hue in direction of pink or the whole spectrum of blushing shades, when realizing: "The new girlfriend of my ex-boyfriend has more skilfully faded (= higher in value, lower in chroma) jeans than I have." The values at that age are so multiform and unclear for us older. Again, those values have nothing to do with the value of the colour of the jeans.

Brown is the hue of the traditional British country tweed and human faeces. Also green can be found in the both of them. In the latter, greenish hue may indicate some kind of bowel infection. If there is a suspicion that contaminated tweed clothing is the source of infection, samples of them both should be taken to a laboratory. Brownish tanning, as a result of sunbathing, is considered good looking and posh by those who are not afraid of melanomas. The higher the chroma, the more expensive the holiday was. But then, victims of drowning tend to gain pretty much the same hue and chroma as those having spent the longest time under the most expensive sun. The first lose their life, the latter lose their money; in terms of hue/chroma the results are anyway equal.

Yellow is a hue which also, under favourable conditions, is within reach on holidays. Either the subject developing this skin colour has consumed contaminated food, or alternatively continued home country related alcohol drinking in overdoses. In the both cases it is the liver that has got into the line of fire; it could be depicted "friendly fire". Yellow press would cheerfully inform the public if this happened to one of our numerous celebrities. Again, colour terminology works admirably well in some combinations. If the result is just dull gray, the reasons may lie anywhere. The hue of nose could provide some hints as a red hue might point in the direction of so called purchased fatigue. Anyway, the overall chroma would be very low.

Excessive use of orange, as well as yellow, in clothing is often connected to madness or disturbed state of mind. Hysterical carrot eaters have a good chance of transferring this hue to the skin too. If you represent both groups, what a fashionable autumnal combination you may have developed. Already in October, trends in this direction are visible all over. The nature in England turns crazy yellow and orange, and in the north vegetation also reaches a stage of red rage. On the other hand, it is understandable as the winters up there are so much colder than here. We humans are not alone.

Now we have come to the end of this colourful adventure. Anyway, regarding colours, our perceptions are finally up to the differing wavelengths of light, bouncing back from the observed nose, face, surface, or whatever. It is time to wave you good night; switch the lights off in the kitchen.