My solution for Brexit - do it.

On Canadian news last night, and this is true, the funny bit at the end was them laughing at Brexit. This is the rest of our lives now. People keep saying - they just need to get on with it and sort this mess out. This will never be sorted out. The next fifty years will be perpetual chaos, so much so that the news will just change it's name to 'the chaos', so we'll say to each things like 'did you see the chaos last night?' and 'switch on the chaos darling' and 'we apologise for the delay to the chaos, it will air at the conclusion of the snooker'.

No one will ever change their mind. Remainers will never be persuaded that Brexit will do anything but make our lives worse and if and when it does we'll all just walk around with the same "why oh why why oh why aren't you as smart as me and my homeopath?" look we were born with. Brexiters will forever blame the failure of Brexit (and it will fail. Everyone, deep down, knows that now) on meddling, non believing, podcast having remainers. Brexit will always be for them, like Communism for the Marxists, or long ball football for Sam Allardyce, a failure of implementation rather than ideology.

Cancelling Brexit via a second referendum will not reset the country. Everything won't just go back to the way it was. X Factor will still have gone shit, Bake Off will still be on Channel Four and everyone will still be really angry. Angrier in fact. Just because those who voted Brexit were mistaken it doesn't mean they will ever believe that to be the case and for as long as that is true it's chaos, endless chaos.

Unless - and sorry for not mentioning this sooner - I have a solution... Catastrophic no deal Brexit. And I mean catastrophic. I mean Kent is a car park, planes can't land here, my dad can't get his medicines Brexit. I mean all the shops are selling is tinned all day breakfast Brexit. I mean zumba class is cancelled because there's tanks on the streets Brexit.

I don't, by the way, mean that I think we should deliberately make no deal Brexit catastrophic. I mean that a no deal Brexit which is by its very nature unavoidably catastrophic might be the only thing that makes some folk sit down over a powdered egg and ponder 'Hmmm. Have I dropped a bit of bollock here?'

The new mantra from the Brexit bunch is no deal, no problem. "We've got not nothing to be afraid of!". It has become perfectly clear that for most Brexiters there is absolutely nothing that anyone can say that will persuade them otherwise. I speak as an authority on this because I've seen their memes. Let's put it to the test.

For my plan to work, and this is absolutely essential, Boris Johnson has to be prime minister. So every night when he leaves Ten Downing Street to go for a jog in that stupid fucking hat of his and he's asked why 10% of NHS staff have taken the electorate's advice and gone back to their own countries we can hear him give us the full "I think it was... in the words of Emperor Hirohito... ask not what your country can do... or words to that effect... felix culpa I say unto thee! Felix culpa!" ramble. The face of the leave campaign has to be the face of the ultimate disaster it caused. In Johnson we have an ego so large he'd actually relish fulfilling his role.

Then and only then might the country be able to unite behind something - that we fucked up.

To believe in my alternate future you need to make two giant leaps of faith. You need to believe that, after three months of watching us sit in a vat of boiling water, the EU will take pity and annul the divorce. Wishful thinking perhaps but they won't be consequence free and I like to think the phenomenal success of Adele's second album still leaves us with some good will on the international stage. And you need to believe that in an era in which no one has ever conceded defeat in an internet argument, in which every single citizen (and I include myself and my eighteen month old son in this) is a dogmatic cunt, that when faced with a horrific and palpable consequence people are capable of changing their minds.

A risky strategy I admit and I take the point that it's a bit fucking cheeky of me to wait until I'm living in Canada to make the case. But the alternative is clear - we are going to be talking about Brexit for the rest of our lives.

Je Ne Comprends Pas

The lady who looks after my child can't speak English and I can't speak French. Every afternoon we have a conversation about how his day has gone in which we both just speak our own languages at each other and try to guess what the other is getting at. For all I know she's saying "Please, I don't know who this boy is. Please stop bringing him here. This is the wrong nursery. Today I slipped arsenic in his food out of pure frustration" and I'm just nodding "Yes, he's a little tired but I think he's getting used to it. Ok, see you tomorrow!".

That's a big failure on my part - never having learnt another language. A lot of other folk seem to be able to do it. All foreign footballers for example. My grandad has a thing he says whenever football is mentioned - 'Do you know what I call football? Twenty two idiots kicking an intelligent football'. This is followed by a smile which suggests he thinks this will one day end up in a book of quotations alongside Winston Churchill and Mae West. For you to call footballers thick I don't think it's necessary for you to call a lifeless Nike sphere smart. I'm not sure it helps your argument. Secondly, most of the people on that pitch can converse in three languages. What my son's childminder and I could desperately do with is Paul Pogba stood beside us translating to be honest.

My girlfriend can't speak French either but she can say one phrase very well - 'je ne comprends pas'. It's a handy phrase to know but saying it in a perfect French accent must make her sound insane. Imagine if, no matter what you said to someone they just replied 'I don't understand' in exactly the same accent as you. Perhaps it makes her sound like this great philosopher.

"Cash or card?"

"I don't understand"

"So true. So true. None of us really understands this thing we call money"

"Still or sparkling?"

"I don't understand"

"You're so right. While most of the world is in poverty, we sit here pontificating on how much gas we'd like in our water? You've convinced me to volunteer in Haiti. Would you like to join me?"

"I don't understand"

"So true. So true".

I love to think that I'll pick up some French while I'm here in Montreal. Apparently my other grandfather, who was Polish, knew eight languages. Imagine what one could do with those skills. You could play in pretty much any league in Europe. But what did he do? Escape a gulag, make is way across Siberia and fight the Nazis. What a waste.

I think my mother had high hopes that I'd be good at languages. I was unfortunate in that me getting an uninspiring French teacher at school coincided with me developing into a lazy arsehole. It's never too late to learn a language though right? What I need is to put myself into a situation in which I have no choice but to do so. Something like, I don't know, relying on the words of uni-lingual French speaker to find out about my only child's development. That's just not enough for me though. Perhaps I should start playing football in the Belgian second division.

Ooh look! A penguin!

When I dropped the boy off at nursery today he screamed. It was as if I had just shot his wife and children. 'NO! NO! PLEASE, GOD, NOOOOOOOOO!'. The journey in had been been a struggle. Not for him but for me. The streets of Montreal are covered with fresh snow today so I decided to take the bus. Unfortunately, everyone else had the same idea and the bus was full. So I found myself in the middle of an urban snow storm with a decision to make. Do I wait in the hope that an emptier bus eventually turns up, do I plough head first into the mile long journey to day care or do I take the baby home until April? Being a hero, I chose to walk.

Have you ever pushed a buggy through a mile of snow? It's like trying to push a shopping trolley across a beach. I felt like I'd accidentally signed myself up for the World's Strongest Man. I wasn't the only one doing it either. All around there were parents pushing and pulling their kids across the tundra. The Montreal school run should be an event at the Winter Olympics. 

It's astonishing really that anyone decided to put a city here. My suspicion is they built it in the summer, were shocked to discover how bad the winter was but stuck with it out of stubbornness. "It's too late to move the city now - we've just built a bowling alley".

Another theory is that it's the fault of Americans. In comparison to Americans, Canadians are an understated people. Perhaps when the first settlers came over to North America, one of them found a quiet corner and said "Those guys over there are loud. Does anyone fancy going up north with me?" and a country was born.

The boy seemed to have no problems with the journey. He was like a rowing cox. Zero effort but happily along for the ride. "Ooh look! A penguin!". It was when we arrived that things kicked off. Today is his third day at nursery here and he's clocked on that he's being abandoned. I like to think of it more as 'providing him with a stimulating environment which will aid his development'. That's not to say there isn't an enormous amount of guilt associated with leaving your child in the care of strangers. And why? It's not as if I'm leaving him so I can continue my important research into tropical diseases. I'm doing it so that I can write vacuous blog posts such as this.

"Father. I've been talking to my therapist. I think a lot of my problems stem from you abandoning me when I was a toddler."

"I'm sorry. I had work to do."

"No you didn't. Mum did but you just wrote directionless blog posts. I've read them"

"Did you not think the Winter Olympics bit was kind of funny?"

"You're right Dad. It was hilarious. I forgive you. I think you were right to deprive me of a full and loving childhood so that you could write your blog".

Glad that's resolved. Four hours until I have to pick him up now. Pub?

Montreal bagels

Montreal is very proud of its bagels. From the moment you step off the plane it's all "I guess you're here for our world famous bagels" and "oh, here come the bagel tourists" and "there's more to us than bagels you know!". Before coming to Montreal I had never once heard of a Montreal bagel. Before reading this paragraph, had you? Being here you'd think they were the fucking pyramids or something.

I think everywhere has one thing for which they have an overinflated sense of its value to the outside world. In Britain it's our sense of humour. Yes, it has some foreign fans but to hear the Brits talk about it you'd think we were the only culture in the world to have ever made a joke.

Nope, before arriving here I thought 'French', I thought 'cold' and I thought 'comedy festival'. Bagels didn't come into it.

I picked up the Montreal Gazette the other day and, as per fucking usual, they were banging on about bagels. Apparently, the ovens used to cook them are causing pollution. 'Could the world famous Montreal bagel be under threat?' they asked. Could it be time for you to have a word with yourselves about your priorities?

Along with the article, came a little piece, presumably from one of their full time bagel correspondents, on the history of the bagel. I assume this was aimed at outsiders like me because my sense is that the 'History of the Bagel' plays a large part in the school curriculum here. Apparently bagels started out as a gift one would give to expectant mothers and were designed to be used as teething rings. That is going to go mouldy well before it'll be of any use isn't it? Take it from me, all expectant mothers want are Deliveroo coupons.

As it happens, I now live just a minute's walk from Montreal's most famous bagel bakery so I've eaten rather a few. In fact walking back from a bar on Saturday night, I left the minus ten tundra for a moment, popped inside to purchase half a dozen and found myself munching on a fresh from the oven bagel for the final few steps home. When I first arrived I didn't like Montreal bagels. I found them hard, thin and odd tasting. Now, in much the same way that watching roughly forty episodes of The Wiggles in the last two weeks has turned me into a fan, I'm starting to like them. I like to think that this signifies the start of my very gradual assimilation into the culture.

I still have a long way to go. This morning I had to tell someone my address. I told her my street name - Saint Urbain.

"Sorry?" she said.

"Saint Urbain"

*quizzical look*

Bear in mind this conversation to place ON Saint Urbain.

"Saint Urbain - U. R. B. A. I. N"

"Oh, Saint Hubert..."

"No! Saint Urbain! Urrrrbaaaaaain!"

She then said my street name back to me with, as far as I was concerned, EXACTLY the same pronunciation I had given her...

"Oh, Saint Urbain!"

Genteman Detective

I shovelled snow for the first time this morning. A shovel full of snow is lighter than it looks. It's just cold rain really. Perhaps that'll be my most profound take away from my year in Canada. Snow? It's just cold rain really innit?

This is the longest I've ever been away from Britain - about ten weeks so far. I'm still utterly immersed in British culture. I watch Sky News. I watch Premier League football. I follow British social media. I know that while the UK waits for Brexit to kick off again you've all gone mental about a vegan sausage roll. No one else who inhabits the frozen tundra I'm supposed to now call home knows that but I do.

On Monday my son starts day care and I am a free man. Free to do what? Perhaps I could become a gentleman detective. Roam the streets, solving murders. My hook? I don't speak the language. Just like the blind's heightened other senses allow them to see things others can't see, my inability to speak French will enable me find clues the lazy Quebec police cannot. I'll have a fractious relationship with the Police Chief. "You're a bastard, but you get the job done" he'll say, but I won't understand him because he'll say it in French. Instead I'll notice that his hand is swollen and end up getting the son of a bitch sent down for killing his wife but I won't know that I have because the verdict will be read out in French.

I just spent forty five minutes trudging through snow looking for a Nelson's Column my dad told me was in Montreal. That sounds like something a man who misses London would do doesn't it? I found it and it's shorter than the UK version. That's the thing about North America - bigger portions, smaller Nelson's Columns. Now I'm writing this on a cold laptop in the cafe of an IMAX. When you stop for a coffee in the foyer of an IMAX cinema it's clear you haven't really got to know the city's best spots just yet.

And what an opportunity sits in front of me! The time and the space to truly experience a foreign town - to dig deep into its crevices and describe it to the world/roughly 100 regular blog readers. Or I could just solve crimes.