Re: Random stuff - the anything else thread
 

My mum used to say that you should keep your house clean and tidy in case the Queen dropped by for tea. Apparently in the 60s she, the Queen, used to visit the hoi polloi.

Re: Random stuff - the anything else thread
 

That's a bit common, innit?

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One reaches out to one's subjects.

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"It's not as if the Queen's coming to tea" was what I used to say when my mum wanted excessive tidying up done.

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I have my good china saved just in case...

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In a leaded glass cabinet? :nod:

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No. Obviously the wedding crystal is in the (not leaded) glass cabinet. The China is just in a kitchen cupboard. Near the kettle. Just in case. Oh my god. I need help.

Does anyone know where I can get a Harry & Meghan mug? My William and Kate one is getting a bit dishwasher-worn?

Re: Random stuff - the anything else thread
 

William and Kate are so yesterday aren’t they dahling?

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Simples dahling!

https://www.zazzle.ca/harry_and_megh...35029266433738

https://www.fruugo.ca/royal-wedding-...SABEgJB-vD_BwE

https://www.amazon.ca/s/?ie=UTF8&key...l_3f4e7lr3xc_b

Or if you want an official one, they both deliver to Canada https://www.williamedwardshome.co.uk...yAAEgKP2vD_BwE http://www.royalcollectionshop.co.uk...l-wedding.html

:D

Re: Random stuff - the anything else thread
 

Not a mug, but there is a plate which has Meghan marrying Ed Sheeran, not an error the designer has made a deliberate 'mistake' having seen how popular the mistake mug was regarding William and Kate.

Ed Sheeran 'mistaken' for Prince Harry on royal wedding plate - NZ Herald

Re: Random stuff - the anything else thread
 

There was a post on Twitter a few minutes ago announcing that Kate's been admitted to hospital.

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Re: Random stuff - the anything else thread
 

Yes on the Beeb too.

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Even while recuperating the Google queen never fails!:thumbsup:

I can't get an official one, that would have to go in the 'good' cupboard and not be used.:o . No idea why I didn't consider Amazon though. Popped one in my basket, and with free shipping it's not much more expensive than the W&K one I got on a Windsor tourist tat stand. :p

Re: Random stuff - the anything else thread
 

I heard on CBC radio this morning of Vancouver's apology for discrimination against the Chinese.

Included as an example was Chinese Permanent Residents being denied the right to vote. They specifically said PRs. Of course, PRs don't get to vote.

I understand that the apology concerns some time in the past, even back to the 1800s. So was there a time in the past PRs could vote or did they just get it wrong on the radio?

CBC news website talks about Chinese immigrants being denied the vote so presumably that was about Citizens. Or was there no such distinction back then?

Re: Random stuff - the anything else thread
 

When I first arrived in Canada in 1963 landed immigrants had the right to vote. I don't know if it applied to all landed immigrants or just those from the UK or Commonwealth.
I only became a citizen in order to get employment with the Federal Government. I believe that right was taken away sometime in the seventies but I'm not at all sure when, as I was by then a citizen.

Re: Random stuff - the anything else thread
 

It's a Prince, er, boy!

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Not sure why you would think a forum of british ex-pats would be interested in the goings on of a family that exploit the workers and by hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

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:confused:

Did you forget the :sarcasm: ???????????

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Yep..forgot that.

I'm not a big fan of the royal family having a role even ceremonial here in Canada. I find it all very mawkish. When I buy stamps at the post office I usually request 'any stamp but the one with the Queen on it'. I know what a rebel I am.

I get it, they seem like a nice young family..they've had a third child who will likely never be the monarch..but they haven't discovered a cure for cancer or figured out the meaning of life....and babies are born every day.

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Sport is played every day. Apparently some people have more than a passing interest in a bunch of very rich people kicking/hitting stuff. People are interested in inconsequential things.

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Re: Random stuff - the anything else thread
 

I read a headline in the Guardian this afternoon which said that someone who lives in Cambridge and has the unusual name of Duh! Chess had a baby.

I didn't pursue this further. Typical Graun typo I thought.

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It's a baby FFS!

Not like it's been born to a chav.

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I found this interesting and am still digging...

The history of voting in Canada | Canadian Immigrant

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.c...cle/franchise/

Re: Random stuff - the anything else thread
 

Thanks...

So loosely speaking, originally it was land owning males, gradually extending to include others and exclusions within those who ordinarily were otherwise eligible. Like no Catholics.

And each province had the say so, with the right to vote federally only going to those eligible to vote in their province.

So when it all changed and became a citizen thing, people who until then had the right vote must have lost it. I wonder if there was a protest?

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8-10 people hit by a van on yonge :(

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I'm with Novo on this one.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43864933 Does anyone actually say 'thrice'...wouldn't 'triple' be more applicable

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Didn't realize Canada had so much racism in it's history, the links show more then I realized, I knew there was some, but not to this extent and length of time.

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We passed the time on a drive to Whitby today discussing possible names. We thought a nice council estate name might be good, maybe Wayne or Jason? O r maybe Prince so he could be Prince Prince.

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That's surprising given the amount of time you've been around Vancouver. There were even riots reminiscent of the pogroms in Europe where their dwellings and businesses were burned. Our relationship with the Chinese was strictly self serving; getting the maximum out of them and then treating them like dirt. In 1974 some friends cleaned out a barn north of Regina that had been a dormitory for Chinese labourers building the CPR tracks in about 1910. When screening out the straw they found an octagonal brass opium pipe and a black diamond ring.

Re: Random stuff - the anything else thread
 

I have not done much reading/studying of Canadian history, and Canadian history was not taught in my So. California schools so I have very limited knowledge of the history of Canada and BC.

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That is not unusual.

You'd think that soldiers machine-gunning people in Quebec City at Easter in 1918 would be in the history books. It ain't. You have to dig bloody hard to find any sort of reference to it. My wife and son had never heard of it. My neighbour, who is an amateur historian, had never heard of it.

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History taught in US schools is not world history...it is US history. They are not interested about what has happended in the rest of the world.

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Not just history either.
My wife, who I always considered intelligent and well educated, would often surprise me at things she'd not heard of or thought she knew as one thing but was something else. Stepdaughter is very similar too.

Yet both were "experts" on medical conditions (my wife fancied herself as a doctor and criminologist :nod:) and SD seems to know every animal in the universe. :blink:

Re: Random stuff - the anything else thread
 

I had a conversation with a highly educated guy in France years ago. I mentioned the names of some battles the English had won against France. He'd never heard of them. He told me the names of some battles the French had won. Guess what? I'd never heard of them.

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There's a certain logic to that. What of more 'neutral' things though?

I hated history at school - all Tudors and Stuarts, Chippendale furniture and somebody or other's fireplaces. :lol:

But I remember learning stuff like the Boston Tea Party too which the Canadian family never knew. I just asked my MIL if she'd heard of it and she thought it was ice hockey related.:blink:

Re: Random stuff - the anything else thread
 

Ahem. Canada keeps people on reservations, that's barely short of apartheid. Until the 1950s mental health experiments with wires were conducted on people of a specific ethnicity.

Note that I'm not expressing an opinion on the history or comparing Canada to anywhere else but it's a bit of a stretch not to notice that the native people live in sheds. Around here construction paper is even called "indian siding".

Maybe racism towards the Chinese is a bit less obvious.

Re: Random stuff - the anything else thread
 

That's on the verge of unbelievable, could she just have forgotten? Not knowing the Boston Tea Party is like never having heard about Paul Revere's Ride. While we didn't go into American history in anywhere near the depth they do in the US (Civil War battles for instance), the events leading up to the Revolutionary War were certainly covered.

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The First Nations lands are part of their treaty entitlement; the real similarity to apartheid was when after the Riel Rebellion in 1885 people required a pass (issued at the discretion of the Indian Agent) in order to leave their reserve for any reason. That system was in effect for over 60 years and closely mirrors the pass system in South Africa then. The assumption that someone is inferior because they are different is always going to run just beneath the surface in some people, and all we can do is call them out and try to discuss it. A native lady I know said "That bus driver is so racist, every time I see him I give him a great big hug!" She does it because she knows it makes him freak but I think it's fantastic. :lol:
Bias against the Chinese is probably divided between those who resent them because they are different and those who are jealous of their economic success or who rationalise their hatred by citing unethical trade practices or their domination of local markets. I have a friend in Vancouver who has been telling me what's wrong with the Chinese since 1983 but he still lives there and I still get links from him that I just file, unopened. It's probably been 4 or 5 years since I've gone through Chinatown but I'd like to go next time I'm in town and see if I can still pick out some of the historical landmarks like the thinnest building, Chiang Kai Shek's hideout, and the alleys where the Green Door and Orange Door restaurants were back in the 70's when I started going there. Back then Run Run Shaw had 2 theatres in downtown Vancouver and I went to a couple of kung-fu pictures just for the heck of it even though I couldn't understand the dialogue.