by Rodney Eric Griffith | Armour of Rod | |
We were exhausted after walking back to the Bluecrest and slept soundly. When I awoke, I spent some time acquainting myself with our host’s 70+ cable channels, which included, apparently, multiple comedy and sci-fi channels, and of course MuchMusic and its sister channel MuchMoreMusic. I miss having Much at home; it was quite a loss when Cablevision decided they had to castrate it (after briefly becoming a semi-“independent” MuchUSA, it was subsequently turned into Fuse, a channel considerably worse than MTV, and that’s saying something). I always marvel at Canadian television news coverage, which is presented as though their country is a part of the entire world.
Before I got ready for breakfast, I watched some of an episode of SCTV from the second year of the NBC run, when the cast was running out of steam. I had wondered how well SCTV would translate to Caroline since the subject matter was always so specific, but she did laugh out loud at the opening to ‘The Days of the Week’.
Most of the day was spent at Niagara-on-the-Lake, walking up and down Queen Street to places like the Scottish Loft, a shop that carries almost everything an expatriate could want (although the George Formby CD playing while we were there made us both want to kill somebody). The food selection at The Scottish Loft is vast: mushy peas, Twiglets (Marmite-covered crunchy wheat twigs), treacle, biscuits, crisps, soft drinks (I was finally able to taste Dandelion and Burdock and it was great), and of course, chocolates and sweets.
Many of our favourite chocolates are not exclusive to speciality shops, however. They seem to be everywhere in Canada. I think we were originally tipped off because a local candy store, BA Sweetie, carried (at the time) Canadian versions of Aero and Crunchie bars that were identical to the British originals (Cadbury and Nestle have a strong presence in Canada). So Canada has since been the Land of Chocolate for us. Being part of the Commonwealth has its considerable benefits. I’ll never forget the look on Caroline’s face when she first looked at the Canadian currency bearing the Queen’s likeness. (This would be a good place to mention that Canadians were smart enough to replace paper dollars with coins almost twenty years ago. They also have a version of the two pound coin. All of their currency is very attractively designed.)
The local LCBO had Strongbow (in bottles!), and we toured two wineries: Caroline Cellars (which caught my wife’s eye for obvious reasons) and Pillitteri Estates, who run an exceptionally thorough (and generous) tour. More British/Canadian groceries were acquired, and our evening dinner at The Guru was extraordinary. (The hostess was surprised that we were both vegetarian, because apparently they don’t get any Caucasian tourist vegetarians.)
We decided to spend a long weekend in Niagara Falls before Labour Day (so we could finally see one of the fireworks displays, which we missed on two previous visits). We were very happily booked at the Bluecrest Bed and Breakfast near Bender Street, and as an unexpected bonus for booking online we found ourselves entitled to $20 per day at Casino Niagara, which is my favourite line from one of my favourite Calvin & Hobbes strips when Calvin asks his mother “Could I have 20 dollars?”
On our walk to the new Casino (which takes you through Clifton Hill, a/k/a Little Blackpool, an unfortunately gaudy part of town contructed to attract 8 year olds) we spotted a very nice Indian restaurant, The Guru.
The new Casino, unlike the original, actually looks like a real Las Vegas structure, with expensive shops, entertainment (people with existing pop careers like Leann Rimes on top of the usual old-school entertainers like Jackie Mason), and an incredible water fountain. But we didn’t gamble.
An interesting thread at the avengers.tv international forum regarding the upcoming UK reissue of the complete series of The Avengers on DVD includes encouraging hints of improvements in sound, extra materials and (crucial for the earliest episodes) the potential addition of subtitles.
Of course, being American, I compare the existig R1 A&E/Canal DVDs to the broadcast quality of the prints I watched on television in the early 1980s—on that basis they look absolutely brilliant.
An encouraging BBC report on a a 6.4% rise in singles sales comes as a surprise.
Rodney | 9:04:00 PM [permalink]Granada Ventures will soon be issuing a new DVD edition of Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner which will include, apparently, the contents of the 35th Anniversary Companion released by Carlton in 2002 (e.g. the early cut of the first installment, “Arrival”).
Rodney | 8:56:00 AM [permalink]
