Recent Posts

• December 31, 2022

  2022 in the Mirror

  First, let’s do a monthly overview of what I can remember happening in 2022. It was a long year.

• September 23, 2022

  One Month

  So it’s been a month. My lovely colleagues gave me a Toronto CityPass on my way out the door, so we spent the first week doing stuff. Up the CN Tower, into the Royal Ontario Museum (mostly the dinosaur section), around the Science Centre, through the Aquarium (some good sharks). Since then, it’s mostly been work and admin. The wallet that I don’t carry around is filling up; my PR card arrived after nearly six months, I have a health insurance card, a library card, and if I’m lucky tomorrow I will have a (piece of paper indicating that I will soon be in possession of) a driver’s license. This of course means that I then have to drive, which still makes me nervous. Cars are loud and fast, and I keep having dreams where I roll one down a hill, or a child is driving and she rolls one down a hill. I haven’t driven since pre-COVID, and while I was doing it that was mostly fine even if it did occasionally spike the heart rate. At least we’re in the suburban dead zone where there’s a whole maze of streets to trundle around and get used to things, where I won’t see another vehicle or human being. Just gaudy houses, lots and lots of flowers, and house numbers written out in words.

• August 19, 2022

  I Live in Canada Now

  Good evening, as of yesterday, I now live in Canada. I have designs on writing a large series along the lines of “The UK, A Retrospective 2011-2022” for the benefit of absolutely nobody other than myself. But for now, I live in Canada.

• March 13, 2022

  The Journey to the West

  The day before my birthday - that is, the day before yesterday - I finished the complete translation of The Journey to the West, having got it as a birthday present the previous year. One of the four great works of classical Chinese literature, and the second of the four I’ve read, after Dream of the Red Chamber (the other two are the Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, for the future).

• January 14, 2022

  Hearts

  What’s going on with everyone’s hearts? I’m mostly seeing this in the context of football, but is that just the most high profile?