From the “Yo Ben, welcome to the real world” department, a headline in today’s Star Business section: “Fed Chief Ben Bernanke says stronger regulation would have curbed excess speculation in the U.S. housing market.”
Gosh. You think? No wonder this insightful, perceptive man is Time magazine’s Person of the Year.
The Globe, on the other hand, really knows how to cheer a person up. Just wanted to leap for joy after reading this front page upper: “Costs to soar as aging Canadians face rising tide of dementia.”
A riding tide of dementia, how’s that for a sweet image? In case you can’t quite visualise it, there’s a colour picture of a demented brain.
Okay, here’s something to cheer us ALL up – an article in the weekend Globe on Le Whif, an invention produced, of course, by those crazy French. Actually, I now see, it was developed by an American working in Paris, which makes sense, because it’s something that smells good but you don’t actually taste, like most American food. It’s shaped like a lipstick tube, but inside is the smell of chocolate. You put the tube in your mouth and inhale, tiny, calorie-free particles fall upon your tongue, and voila, you taste chocolate but have eaten nothing. I really like the idea of a constant supply of imaginary chocolate in my purse.
But I like another idea better – taking a dark brown piece of an ancient and cherished foodstuff, placing it in my cakehole, and eating it. Obsolete technology, but so delicious.
I am merry today, forsooth. The gym at the Y has been closed for 2 desperate weeks, and today it re-opened. Despite the bitter cold, I ventured forth to sweat. They’ve painted it a trend-setting grey, there are sexy new transparent curtain dividers between the halves, but in the class was the same motley band of stragglers, and very good it was to see them, too.
One day, I’m sure, we’ll be able to take a spray can and spray on some fitness. Until then, for us old-fashioned types, there’s nothing like popping a large piece of chocolate into the mouth after some hard time in the gym.
4 Responses to “news of the world”
Hi Beth,
We in P.G. are enjoying your blog as usual, especially today, as it is -28 degrees.
I'm commenting on yesterday's blog about Rex Murphy. I'm glad to hear some criticism of this man. I used to enjoy his facility with English but now find it annoying. How could he be so accepting of Stephan Dion for so long and so dismissive of Obama after such a short time?
My theory is that Americans, and Canadians like Rex Murphy, are just plain childish and require immediate gratification. The United States is like one of those obscene cruise ships which can't turn on a dime. We should be happy to finally have someone at the helm who is willing to give thought and consideration to many sides of a problem before coming to a conclusion.
I was happy to hear you have rented your suites and am hoping you didn't have to sell the Balenciaga.
Happy New Year!
Carolyn, good to hear from you, and Happy New Year. I am trying to fix my blog so that it's easier for readers to reply – could you tell me how you manage with such ease, when others, I've heard, have so much difficulty they've given up?
And yes – I despair of these people who blast Obama because he hasn't instantly fixed the most enormous pile of problems, problems on every front of American life … imagine, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, the architects of disaster, have the nerve to criticise Obama! It's nauseating.
The Balenciaga still there. For now. Thanks for caring.
Beth,
The most difficult part of commenting is getting the user name and password right. I have to remember to use the one I set up for this particular job and not the one for my other google account.
After you preview your comment you press the "edit" button to go back to the original and then you should be able to press "publish".
Thanks, Carolyn.
So before, to reply to a post here, you had to have a Google account with a user name and a password. Not sure if that is still the case, as I've tried to open the passageway. If nothing has changed for those of you who have not been successful in posting and still can't, please let me know and I'll try something else.