Delinquent Readers Sing the NRBC Blues: Sunday, February 9th

My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. -Thomas Paine, philosopher and writer (1737-1809)

A living language is like a man suffering incessantly from small haemorrhages, and what it needs above all else is constant transactions of new blood from other tongues. The day the gates go up, that day it begins to die. -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956) 

I will be there too. Unfortunate that not everyone will be there. Cheers  Moe

Abstraction?  I wish!              Hi Georgia!

You need to start focusing on Picasso's feathers and you'll soon be having shows at The National Gallery! Headlines: "Local Goils the Toast of the Town: one sister a ballet star in Hong Kong, the other the doyenne of Ottawa art circles!" Can I come to opening reception? Nothing but BC wines and wild salmon I trust! Cheers, Patrizzio! 

 Hi Peter and Lynnie
 
Just wanted to send you the areas we discussed visiting:

The Southern Tip and Golden Triangle and Rajasthan. Possible cities are Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai, Puducherry. We could fly into Delhi and do Golden triangle first or into Mumbai and do the south first. Could go up as far as Goa depending on how we divide time. There is the possibility of houseboat time and a few days on the beach if you want.There is also the river cruise but looks fairly expensive. I will look at that more closely.

Hope you two are well. We're been watching some of the Olympic coverage.
Trying to decide what sport we should take up for 2018. Hugs, Corinne 

Flying into the Mumbai International Airport, above Annawadi.

trips in Kerala are just one night, and they seem to be included on most
tour itineraries so must be good. Some time on the beach and perhaps Goa
would be fine. I hadn't thought about Mumbai, but it would probably be
interesting too. I think we are pretty much in agreement in general. I
think it may be best to do the northern part first, as there is a late
monsoon in the south that extends into November, and the north could get cool in December.
 

 Of the tour company websites you forwarded, I wasn't sure what to think
about LuxeIndia. Gurudongma might be OK. One I was looking at is
indianpanorama.in, but without a personal reference it's hard to know.
Which are you thinking of contacting?

Maybe to save a bit of money we could rent a rickshaw and Gunga Pat could transport us around the cities. I'm spending a bit too much time on Olympic coverage, but what the heck, it's cold outside. Un abrazo, Peter 
 

Corinne, Another tour group, forwarded by my sister Mary on the recommendation of a friend of hers, is in2india.com. They do south India only, specializing in custom tours for groups of 6 to 8. They might be a consideration if Wayne and Michele are along for that part of the trip. Peter 

Where is the event.  Wayne

Left The Islay Inn about 1:45 pm and made for UBC again. Thought that Seawall might be fairly crowded as it was a lovely day. Once past campus it occurred to me that I'd not been to Iona since before we left for Europe last July. Felt it was a good time to make the trek as Marine would be without truck traffic and there was hardly any wind to speak of. 

In order to add a little extra distance I didn't cross Fraser on the Arthur Laing but dipsy-doodled to the Cambie SkyTrain Bridge. Once in Richmond I took a slight detour to head east on River Drive past the new development, Parc Riviera A Riverfront Community. Last time I was here the road was packed gravel but is now paved so pleased about this as makes it easier when returning from Steveston, via #6 Road. From the look of things, some of the units are occupied but there is still plenty of construction in progress as it is a massive complex. Once over the Airport Connector Bridge and onto Airport Road one passes another enormous development of some sort. Not sure what it will be, (Business park/hotel, perhaps, as site is close to the Canada Line's Templeton Station.) but sand loading for purposes of soil compaction, I gather, was in progress last year and now looks like construction is about to begin as large piles of building materials dot parts of the huge site. And then, further along Ferguson Road one passes the huge 700,000-square-foot Canada Post Pacific Processing Centre. I understand that this massive project is slated for completion sometime this year but it looks as if parts of it, at least, are up and running. 

Not sure how all this development will affect our rides out to Iona once traffic increases. For now, however, a most pleasant ride and so I was soon at Iona Beach Regional Park and noticed the impressive metal sculptures atop each of the wooden gateposts at the entrance to the parking lot:  a heron on one, an eagle, returning to its nest with a salmon, both spectacular and indicative of the bird life one finds here. (When I searched for pictures of these works I found a number of photographs and upon further investigation discovered that they were taken by Terry Carr, a retired VPL Librarian and Library School classmate of mine! It seems he belongs to Delta Nature Casual Birders, "a group of people who like watching birds, mostly around Boundary Bay and within the Fraser Delta." Apparently, anyone with a similar interest is welcome to join DNCB.) 

Just seeing these two wonderful pieces of public art made me more than happy to have decided to have ridden here and the fact that I had to buck a fairly steady head wind on return leg seemed like a fair price to pay. Back over CSTB I made my way up and down Cambie, dipsy-doodling at 10th to take Yukon to cross Broadway and then 5th to Manitoba to cross W 2nd to hit Olympic Village and then home. Great, great ride and as day was far warmer than it has been over last few weeks, my extremities weren't frozen. Stats for today's ride:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/443236391#.Uvh90Ujwu9o.email

Did a bit of vacuuming to tidy place for NRBC later that evening and then had a quick shower. Once dressed I made a salad to take next door. Clara had invited us for dinner and we sat down to perfectly done pork loin, incredibly tasty turnip puff and a wonderful new dish, layered potatoe/parsnip concoction. All more than scrumptious beyond belief! 

Thanking Clarisse I went back to our place to get ready for NRBC. First to arrive was Whirlygig, followed closely by Moe and Vittorio. Giani was last to arive as he had to work, selling apples, at Granville Island. We had quite a spirited, (No pun intended, Dear Reader! discussion about Blood, quaffing numerous malts, all the while. Before Jon arrived we even managed to draft a set of rules outlining fines to be levied for not attending meetings, not reading book in question, and the like. Rowdy bunch and after we had finished talking about Hill's work we then tackled cinema. Sarge came upstairs about this time and he joined in the telling of lies! Loads of fun and had to send everyone on their way just before 11:00 pm! 

The Book of Negroes is a 2007 award-winning novel from Canadian writer Lawrence Hill. In the United States, Australia and New Zealand, the novel was published under the title Someone Knows My Name.
 
"I used The Book of Negroes as the title for my novel, in Canada, because it derives from a historical document of the same name kept by British naval officers at the tail end of the American Revolutionary War. It documents the 3,000 blacks who had served the King in the war and were fleeing Manhattan for Canada in 1783. Unless you were in The Book of Negroes, you couldn't escape to Canada. My character, an African woman named Aminata Diallo whose story is based on this history, has to get into the book before she gets out. In my country, few people have complained to me about the title, and nobody continues to do so after I explain its historical origins. I think it's partly because the word 'Negro' resonates differently in Canada. If you use it in Toronto or Montreal, you are probably just indicating publicly that you are out of touch with how people speak these days. But if you use it in Brooklyn or Boston, you are asking to have your nose broken. When I began touring with the novel in some of the major US cities, literary African-Americans kept approaching me and telling me it was a good thing indeed that the title had changed, because they would never have touched the book with its Canadian title."