Happy birthday Liz, and so long...

6/20/2006

Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor celebrated her 80th birthday on the weekend—and the old gal still looks and acts like a million bucks, or rather 500 million bucks, to be slightly more accurate.

Queen Elizabeth actually turned 80 back in April, but when you are queen you can throw a party anytime you like and no one will complain.

Throughout her more than 50 years on the British throne, Elizabeth has been monarch of 32 nations. Today roughly 128 million people live in the 16 countries of which she is head of state, and she is the world’s second-longest-serving head of state after King Bhumibol of Thailand.

In the United Kingdom, her official title is Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. In the interest of space, I will refer to Her Majesty from here on simply as Liz.

I have nothing personally against Liz. She has done rather well over the years, considering she was born into incredible wealth, married her second cousin at age 21, and became the world’s most powerful Queen at the tender age of 26.

She likes dogs, horses and gin, is rarely ill, and seems to do a fair job of overseeing her kingdom and all its realms. Her fellow Brits love and respect her and she has rarely, if ever, been an embarrassment to herself, her family, and her country.

The most widely traveled head of state in history, she also seems to like Canada, and has visited our shores more than 20 times, more than any other.

Even though I like Liz, her influence over us is little more than ceremonial. She has become an institution unto herself, a glittering white billboard for the antiquated, wasteful and unnecessary notion of divine right, privilege and the monarchy.

For this reason, I would like to see her face removed from our money.

And that even goes for the 1960s portraits when she was young and vivacious and fond of dresses that accentuated her nice rack, of jewels, that is.

I was hoping she might retire sometime soon, and take her smiling face off our coins and bills, but that doesn’t seem likely. From the looks of things, she is going to outlive me. Liz, however, can’t live forever, and it is my hope that when the next monarch is crowned, we issue bank notes and coins with the heads of great Canadians on them.

Canada stands on its own two feet in this world, and there are plenty of Canadians—Frederick Banting, John Candy, Emily Carr, Tommy Douglas, Terry Fox, Wayne Gretzky, John Molson, Laura Secord, or even Pierre Trudeau—more deserving of the back of a loonie than Charles and his big ears.

Those who can’t play, drink

6/13/2006

Every four years the world goes a little crazy.

It has nothing to do with the alignment of the planets, the coming in and going out of the tides, or whether someone threw a dead skunk in the town well. It has to do with soccer, pure and simple.

The World Cup, the most significant competition in world football, began last Friday, and while it may not mean a whole lot on our western shores, it remains the world's most representative team sport event. After three years of qualifying, cheering, and crying, the month-long final tournament has come down to the world’s top 32 soccer superpowers.

There really is nothing like the World Cup.

It inspires fierce national pride like no other event, save the Olympics. Soccer is the world’s number one sport, played and watched by more people in more locations than any other game.It can be enjoyed on sand or in snow, in the rain or indoors. It can be played with equal skill by the tall or the small, and all it requires is a ball.

Over the seventeen tournaments held since 1930, only seven nations have ever won the World Cup. Brazil is the reigning champion, as well as the most successful World Cup team, having won the tournament a total of five times, while Germany and Italy are at Brazil’s heels with three titles each.

So, what if you happen to be from one of those countries who have never won the big one? What if the mystery and allure of soccer escapes you? What if you will never be what is known as an athlete?

Well, here’s a shocker: "Men who are not confident in their sporting abilities may try and make up for this by drinking excessively."So says Richard de Visser, whose new study looked into the masculine behaviours of young men in London, and how it all affects their health. The University of Sussex researcher conducted in-depth interviews with 31 men age 18-21, concluding they commonly use one type of masculine behavior to compensate for their inability to perform another.

With the World Cup tournament now in full swing, and his nation's young men expected to down a few extra pints during the televised action from Germany, de Visser thinks understanding the findings could improve health education.

I’m no scientist, but I would think any research limited to 31 men aged 18-21 might require a slightly larger study group. Mr. de Visser probably found the men huddled in the same pub, watching the game on the telly, as he stole a quick break from another marathon session of sheep cloning.

If Mr. de Visser thinks young men are going to trade in their lager and ale for cleats and balls, he had better think again. It just isn’t going to happen, not during the World Cup, not during the Stanley Cup, and not while any of us have an empty cup.

You’ll only end up wearing it

6/6/2006

Whoever said you can never go home again was dead right—when it comes to a Cherry Blossom.

When I was a skinny, freckle-faced boy, summer meant the chance to cash in a winter’s worth of pop bottles. It was the next best thing to an allowance, which, I was told, was something good little boys got when they cleared the dinner table or kept their room clean. At least I had pop bottles.

Back then, pop bottles were made of glass, and they were worth money, which kept them out of landfills, leaving more space at the dump for dirty diapers, potato peels, and broken television sets.

Any pop bottle money I collected I was allowed to spend on candy, and one of my favourites was the Cherry Blossom, a massive 45 gram chocolate covered cherry, packed with sulphites, corn syrup and invert sugar; just what every growing boy needs.

As far as chocolate bars go, it was too awkward to eat all in one bite, and you had to find a way to attack it without getting covered in cherry syrup.

Scientists studied the Cherry Blossom for years, and every test result proved it was impossible to eat one without winding up a sticky, grinning mess.

Whenever I arrived home with a Cherry Blossom, my Dad would send up a warning of “you’ll only end up wearing it”, and each time I was determined to finally get the better of the old man, the scientists, and that unholy candy. Each time I failed.

Last week, I bought my first Cherry Blossom after a layoff of about 25 years or more. I was amazed at how nothing had changed; not the packaging, the size, the sugar content, nor the candy itself. It was as if time has stood still in the land of chocolate.

If the product hadn’t changed in 25 years, surely I had, and I was convinced I could finally get the better of that sticky, sweet gob of goo. Wrong again. Look up the word fool in the dictionary, and you’ll find a picture of me holding a Cherry Blossom.

I started in on the thing by nibbling some of the chocolate off the top, then a little more, then more.

The people of Pompeii had more warning when Vesuvius erupted than I had when the top flew off that monstrosity. As if packed under pressure by some grinning, mean-spirited Hershey factory worker, the syrup flooded out like molten lava.

Once the pressure was released, the sides of the chocolate cup crumbled instantly. In a flash, I had the pink syrup, which is strangely like hydraulic fluid and only slightly less toxic, oozing down my hands, chin, and the front of my shirt. The main flow headed straight for my elbows, and any attempts to stop its advance only made it worse.

In the end, I had learned three things: the Cherry Blossom has not changed because it is the perfect creation of an evil genius, you’ll only end up wearing it, and you can never go home again.