The longest spring

The past couple of weeks have taken on the slower pace of a holiday, like Christmastime, or the summer -- with rather less joy and enjoyment.

It seems like an age since Sophie Grégoire Trudeau returned from the UK with her own case of COVID-19. As Justin Trudeau joined her in self-isolation (in a different part of the house, it should be hastily added), it seemed to plunge Canada into the reality of the threat, and for the past fourteen days, the noose has tightened.

Today, I went to the grocery store for the first time in a couple of days, and noted the prevalence of face-masks and the shoppers carefully avoiding each other in a fashion that simply wasn't the norm a short time ago -- which seems like an eternity. We're Canadian, so we smile apologetically.

Except when we don't.

Eternal Leap

February. The shortest month that still manages to be too long. And this year it's a day longer. The media is all about "leap birthdays" and how someone who was born on February 29th, say, in 1968, is only ten today -- ha-ha.

So, in 2016, will Davy Jones only have been dead one year?

Everyone seems to be playing "Daydream Believer" today, and arguing whether the Monkees were real musicians. Well, they could play their own instruments (eventually), and Mike Nesmith wrote some damn fine songs, including one of my favourite Monkees ditties, "The Girl That I Knew Somewhere". Davy Jones certainly was an appealing singer in those long-ago days before Auto-Tune, and actually got the idea for being a pop star when he was The Artful Dodger in the Broadway cast of Oliver. The cast appeared on the Ed Sullivan show the same night the Beatles turned up.

I came across this gem amongst the online mourning, a collaboration with the illustrator and songwriter Sandra Boyton, whose greeting cards have always been among those I'm least embarrassed to send: