WAS THIS REALLY A FAIR FIGHT?

Tony Blair vs Christopher Hitchens, debating religion in Toronto the other day.

Wish I could have been there.  Blair, a newbie Catholic.  Hitchens, an atheist.  Blair, the lap pussy of the invisible sky fairy.... and a number of other entities, all man-made.  Hitchens, the Rottweiler of debate.

Go dog.

THEN AGAIN, IF IT WERE EVER THAT IMPORTANT, I'D HAVE DONE IT ALREADY

I'm composing a bucket list.

I began with ten items.  However, after a weekend of (increasingly unfamiliar) rational reflection, the list has been whittled down to three.

The other seven, it turns out, were seductively veiled death wishes.

For example, I realize now that # 5 -- building a cobra-powered time machine -- might contain certain design flaws.  Ditto # 8: having tea with Kim Jong il and beating his wrinkled ass at chess.

#3 still has possibilities... I mean, it's not inconceivable that I might discover the Holy Grail while on holiday in the Galapagos.

Yeah.  Let's keep that one at the top of the list.

I'M GLAD I NO LONGER HAVE TO...

Keep an up to date resume.
Pretend I'm still in game shape.
Write exams.
Kiss anyone's ass.
Drive a Pontiac.
Worry about performance reviews.
Help people move.
Find a date.
Drive kids places.
Worry about my weight.
Buy brassieres for my mother.
Pretend I'm going to finish this fucking dickwad novel.
Plan for my retirement.
Fake my way through anything, ever again.
Pretend I'm going to live forever.
Give a shit.  About most things, all the time.

Yeah.  There's a weight off.

MAKE IT STOP

Hey, I'm as sentimental as the next guy (unless the next guy is a twat like John Boehner) but I just can't get all worked up and weepy about Prince William and his chosen one getting married.  It's non-news; yet   the airways are flooded with pictures, analyses, interviews, prognostications, well-wishes, Lady Diana comparisons, the couple's plans for reproduction, and yadda yadda yadda.  I mean does anyone really give a rat's ass?  I enjoy watching news and current affairs programs.  But over the past several days I've actually developed carpal tunnel syndrome flipping channels when William and Kate appear on the screen.

Of course, if the Prince had a history of beheading his former girl friends, I might be interested.

Please, sweet Jeebus, enough already.

MONDAY NIGHT QUESTION

Do you ever get the feeling that you'd better work everything in really fast
because the world is about to go tits up...
I mean
with gun-toting fuckers on every street corner --
ugly, bone-brained, illiterate cocksuckers with big guns --
brigades, battalions of hairy-palmed cretins armed to the teeth;
or do you fear that maybe
the old earth is just fed up, ready to heave
one final time and vomit up its insides,
unleashing some long dormant virus that'll rip us apart like microscopic buzz-saws?

Just asking.

LOOKING AT THE DAYS AHEAD

I'm tutoring a few kids this term.  Reading and writing skills, mainly.  The usual.  But I have one boy who has been slipped my way (on the QT, mind; mum's the word; we don't want the suits finding out) for enrichment. He gets to pick my brain... what's left of it.  I get to keep a smart kid from falling into coma.

This week, we're going to discuss paradoxes.  Down the road, we'll touch on things like quantum theory, Einstein, historical puzzles, how to write more effectively, killing a guy with the power of your mind -- well, maybe not that last one.

It makes a change.

And change is just around the corner.  I'm contemplating full retirement.  Maybe by the New Year.  Perhaps when the chess tournaments are finished.  Or by Easter, or May, or by the end of the school year.  This one or next.  But soon.  Very soon.

JOURNAL ENTRY, NOVEMBER 11/2010

I realized a few things at the Remembrance Day assembly today.

1.  Some kids have brothers, uncles, and cousins serving in the Canadian forces.  A few of these men have been deployed to Afghanistan.... Two are still there.... 

2.  .... One of our kids has a distant relationship (in both time, naturally, and genealogy) to Colonel John McCrae....

3.  I'm fucking old.  My grandfather was a soldier in the British Army -- the 77th Regiment of Foot, The Duke of Cambridge's Own.  His war took place in South Africa.  

In 1901....

HEY: Do an old man a favour.  Be kind to each other.

A ROUND ABOUT WAY OF STATING THE BLOODY OBVIOUS

I just finished watching an English video called 'The Riddle'.  As the title might suggest, it was a mystery.  Entertaining enough.  A bit over the top.  Something like its star, Vinnie Jones.  (That's Vinnie on the left, applying the squeeze to The Great Gazza in bygone days.)  These days, if all you had to go on was this old photograph, you'd still be able to pick Vinnie out of a crowd.  Not so much Paul Gascoigne... the squeezzee.  The lad has encountered some turbulence of late.  Well, for the past twenty years or so.  Probably longer.  You'd be hard pressed to pick him out of a police lineup.

To say that Paul Gascoigne remains one of the best footballers of his generation isn't really a stretch.  But that's the trouble.  The remains began appearing long before they should have done.

As I scan the landscape from the seniors' lounge of our unstoppable meat-rendering train, I guess I'm saying that we could all have done more with our gifts.

In my case, it went down hill when I lost the ability to fly... or to make much sense on Sunday nights.

MOLLY, YOUR KING IS STILL IN CHECK

I love teaching kids how to play chess.  I've been doing it for years, either at lunch/recess time or after school.  But it takes patience.  Hell, it might take weeks (each of our two separate club sessions is just 45 minutes/week) to get the neophytes to fully understand how each piece moves and captures and, more importantly, what the actual object of the game is.  Then there's en passant... which was today's lesson.  If, before the Christmas break, I have five kids out of the forty who actually incorporate this move into their game, I will consider the whole enterprise this fall to have been a resounding success.

And don't even talk to me about a club tournament.  It's in the planning stage, of course.  Wish me luck.  (In the event of my death and in lieu of flowers, just be fucking kind to each other, okay?)

And no, Jason.  Pawns still cannot move backwards.