Jeers: to bad ideas. While Prince Harry and Megan Markle may be moving to Canada to find some freedom from the ridiculousness royal disease found in British media, there are troubling signs of a similar disorder here. Last week, there were stories about the couple’s dogs. The CBC then jumped in about whether the couple’s son, Archie, would end up having a Canadian accent, a British accent, or some kind of hybrid. You know what would be really nice? If we could possibly, just possibly let the trio have as normal a life as they can in the circumstances. Oh, and one of the couple’s dogs came from America, the other from Britain. No word yet on what accents they bark with.
Cheers: to interesting ideas. A Winnipeg man was pulled over and ticketed for driving with a 10-centimetre deep cake of snow on the roof of his van. The ticket? A $237.50 whopper for operating a vehicle with an unsecured load. “It applies to anything on the vehicle that isn’t actually part of the vehicle that could potentially fly off and cause a hazard for people behind you,” Winnipeg Police Const. Rob Carver told the CBC. “It’s been used for years regarding things that are attached to vehicles that pose a hazard. My understanding is it serves us to ensure vehicles are safe for various things that are attached to or on them, including the leftover effects of a snowstorm. From a common-sense standpoint it’s part and parcel the same thing.” Start doing that in this province, and the police wouldn’t have time to do anything else. The driver involved told the CBC no one had ever told him he had to clean snow off his vehicle. Sigh.
Cheers: to reacting to solve a problem. The City of St. John’s is getting lots of heat about snowclearing woes this winter. More snow than usual invariably translates into more complaints about the quality of the city’s efforts. But, with Friday’s storm barreling down on us, the city listened and took a good hard look at the extreme congestion and snow buildup in the Georgestown area and found a way to launch at least a partial daytime snow cleanup. It won’t solve everything, but it is an awareness of the issue that’s refreshing.
Cheers: to going with the flow… err, snow. Just in time for Friday’s storm, the Newfoundland Liquor Corp. tweeted out a “Storm Chips Pairing Guide,” with suggestions on which beers and wines go best with which flavours of chips. They don’t explain exactly why they’ve picked a Cherry Sour to go with dill pickle chips, or why Coors Light would be a top choice for jalapeño chips, but we’ll give them an A for effort. However, we still maintain that the best thing to accompany storm chips is … more chips.