I have no idea what is going on here. Trying to follow the news in a new country is like joining a TV show in its 83rd season. I don't know any of the characters. I bought the Montreal Gazette today. Here's a snippet -
'Former Parti Quebecois leader Jean-Francois Lisee says the party would have done much worse in the election had he not aggressively attacked Quebec solidaire in the last days of the campaign'.
Is Lisee a goodie or a baddie? Are Parti Quebecois Nazis? Centrists? Goddamn hippies?
I'm such a foreigner. I wonder aimlessly around supermarkets, not able to find anything or understand what it is, politely nodding at people and hoping I don't accidentally join a white nationalist pressure group. They don't do squash here, as far as I can tell. Lots of croissants though. Piles and piles of them. Little ones, big ones, salted caramel ones. I'm yet to see anyone buy any.
My twitter following choices mean that I'm still very connected to British news. We're five hours behind so every day I wake up to find fourteen Brexit related shit shows have already happened. There's a lot of 'the rest of the world are laughing at us!' going on. As far as I can tell the rest of the world isn't paying any attention. They're all laughing at Jean-Francois Lisee. Or not. It's difficult to tell. Like I say, I'm a long way from being able to pick up on the nuances.
We have snow now. Yesterday morning, the local park had about fifty of Saturday's snowmen still standing like the terracotta army. It's odd to live in a place where snowmen aren't a novelty but a part of life. It's so cold that I can't imagine they ever really melt. Is there a limit of one snowman per family? Build him in November, take care of him over the winter, and teach your child about death in early April? Or do people just build new snowmen every Saturday so by March the city's largest demographic is overweight white men - which should be pretty good for Jean-Francois Lisee's poll numbers - am I right guys? Am I right? Seriously, I don't have a fucking clue.
I'm writing this as my toddler sleeps. A brief window in my day in which I don't have to supervise what is essentially a tiny drunken half wit stumbling into a coffee table, pointing at things which very clearly aren't a flower and saying 'flower!'. Readers of my last post will be pleased to know I've learnt how to put mittens on a child. The average temperature here is currently below zero so any trip outside is preceded by a twenty minute fight to dress him. Then if you enter a building he is immediately far too warm so you either have to undress him, knowing you'll have to dress him again or turn up your Brexit related podcast and ignore him.
It's a rather beautiful city, covered in snow. Yesterday, trudging through the street with a coffee in my hand an old silver Mercedes pulled up beside me and I felt like I was in a 1980s American Christmas movie. So much of everything here triggers memories of American films and yet everyone has a French accent. How odd. Imagine if everything about Britain was the same except East Anglia spoke French and overstocked their supermarkets with croissants. So Norwich still had Nandos and Wetherspoons and Ladbrookes but everything written inside them was French. Everyone in East Anglia can still speak English but they've just decided, for a laugh, to speak French. It's nuts. It's like some bizarre Jean-Francois Lisee dream.
'Former Parti Quebecois leader Jean-Francois Lisee says the party would have done much worse in the election had he not aggressively attacked Quebec solidaire in the last days of the campaign'.
Is Lisee a goodie or a baddie? Are Parti Quebecois Nazis? Centrists? Goddamn hippies?
I'm such a foreigner. I wonder aimlessly around supermarkets, not able to find anything or understand what it is, politely nodding at people and hoping I don't accidentally join a white nationalist pressure group. They don't do squash here, as far as I can tell. Lots of croissants though. Piles and piles of them. Little ones, big ones, salted caramel ones. I'm yet to see anyone buy any.
My twitter following choices mean that I'm still very connected to British news. We're five hours behind so every day I wake up to find fourteen Brexit related shit shows have already happened. There's a lot of 'the rest of the world are laughing at us!' going on. As far as I can tell the rest of the world isn't paying any attention. They're all laughing at Jean-Francois Lisee. Or not. It's difficult to tell. Like I say, I'm a long way from being able to pick up on the nuances.
We have snow now. Yesterday morning, the local park had about fifty of Saturday's snowmen still standing like the terracotta army. It's odd to live in a place where snowmen aren't a novelty but a part of life. It's so cold that I can't imagine they ever really melt. Is there a limit of one snowman per family? Build him in November, take care of him over the winter, and teach your child about death in early April? Or do people just build new snowmen every Saturday so by March the city's largest demographic is overweight white men - which should be pretty good for Jean-Francois Lisee's poll numbers - am I right guys? Am I right? Seriously, I don't have a fucking clue.
I'm writing this as my toddler sleeps. A brief window in my day in which I don't have to supervise what is essentially a tiny drunken half wit stumbling into a coffee table, pointing at things which very clearly aren't a flower and saying 'flower!'. Readers of my last post will be pleased to know I've learnt how to put mittens on a child. The average temperature here is currently below zero so any trip outside is preceded by a twenty minute fight to dress him. Then if you enter a building he is immediately far too warm so you either have to undress him, knowing you'll have to dress him again or turn up your Brexit related podcast and ignore him.
It's a rather beautiful city, covered in snow. Yesterday, trudging through the street with a coffee in my hand an old silver Mercedes pulled up beside me and I felt like I was in a 1980s American Christmas movie. So much of everything here triggers memories of American films and yet everyone has a French accent. How odd. Imagine if everything about Britain was the same except East Anglia spoke French and overstocked their supermarkets with croissants. So Norwich still had Nandos and Wetherspoons and Ladbrookes but everything written inside them was French. Everyone in East Anglia can still speak English but they've just decided, for a laugh, to speak French. It's nuts. It's like some bizarre Jean-Francois Lisee dream.
‘Turn up your Brexit related podcast and ignore him’ is frighteningly relatable. Interested to hear how things unfold with monsieur lisee
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