Dramatic scenes watching TV this evening. At about 7pm the screen suddenly went blank and a high pitched (and VERY annoying) beeping sound started up. Suddenly this image appeared


I tried changing channel. No good!


I thought - this is it! Ming the Merciless is about to address all humanity! Dr Evil is about to demand a ransom of $1,000,000 or he will blast us all with "lasers".

In fact the answer was closer to home. A voice announced that a tornado had touched down in Alberta and issued instructions as to how to best avoid it or stay safe. The voice also mentioned that Calgary was not at risk (phew!). Dramatic stuff.

This weekend I have mostly been spending my time at the Calgary Folk Music Festival. One of the first things Ashley told me when I got to Calgary was that I really ought to go and this proved great advice. The whole festival was terrific, with wonderful weather, delicious lemonade and really great easy-going atmosphere. It seemed to me that coming a few weeks after the redneck tomfoolery of Stampede it was a chance for alternative/progressive Calgary to emerge and enjoy Mongolian throat singers and a vegan corn-dog and enjoy it they did. The music was very diverse too; their take on folk seeming to be anything that wasn't chart friendly pop.

The venue was Princes Island Park in the middle of town where of course I ran into the Aryan Guard last weekend. It was a very different scene this weekend - probably the stuff of their nightmares! Being on an island, however close to shore, also gives the event a bit of a special atmosphere as you have to cross a bridge to get there. I didn't know many of the acts in the line-up but that I thought would just improve the chances of serendipitous discovery and so it proved. Here's my highlights

Here's my highlights.

Most Funky
Despite being a folk festival there was some competition for this coveted award. Early contenders were the superb New Orleans Social Club, featuring Ivan Neville of the Neville Brothers and an impossibly cool pianist called Henry Butler. However the title must go to "the dynamic soul funk" (as my new t-shirt says) of Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. They were one of the few acts I had heard of, courtesy of my friends at the houseofhotsauce. I was eager to hear them and they didn't disappoint. Super-tight, super-charged, funky raw soul. Outstanding.

Most Fun
I can't deny that since coming to Cowtown my interest in old-timey music has grown in leaps and bounds. First it was the magnificent Highwater Jug Band a few weeks back and then at the folk fest I could really take my fill of old-timey bluegrass fun. The best of the bunch were a group of guys from Toronto called the Foggy Hogtown Boys. They played with real brio and in a nice old-timey touch they all clustered round the one microphone stepping forward to sing or play a solo.

Most Gay
Rufus Wainwright. In lederhosen. Singing Judy Garland.

I love Rufus's voice and some of his songs. But I have to say many of them are a bit boring. I did rather wish his sister Martha was playing instead. However all is forgiven when he sits down at the piano and plays Hallelujah which is pure spine tingling, tear jerking magic. And then on the final evening I was lucky enough to catch Sarah Slean from Toronto who sounds just like Martha Wainwright playing the piano instead of the guitar.

Most unusual cross-cultural mashup
At the folk fest they have a main stage in the evening and 6 smaller stages during the day spread out around the park. Unlike every festival I have been to in the UK where everything is in the middle of a field there are actual trees around the stages and you could find very welcome shade (so long as you got there early!). Each of the smaller stages has a mixture of individual concerts and "workshops" where 3 or 4 bands play a few tunes each and are encouraged to jam a little. I went to one remarkable workshop featuring England's one and only Chumbawumba, a Canadian band called Nathan and all the way from Tuva, Mongolia: Chirgilchin (the aforementioned throat singers). In one song by Nathan the two rather lovely ladies singing and playing guitar and banjo were suddenly joined by the throat singers in the background. It was an extraordinary moment and the two singers were really moved I think.

Most Awesome
I had immediately marked the Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir as a band I wanted to see on the strength of their name alone. When I read their blurb in the programme I realised I had seen them jamming at a party I went to shortly after coming to Calgary. I thought they were pretty good then but their full on concert show was incredible. I don't know how to describe their sound other than Tom Waits backed by a freight train that's sold its soul to the devil. Righteous.

I'm shocked to see pictures of streets I know in Oxford underwater. But what I find really surprising about all this flooding is just how many people seem to have canoes!

Thanks very much to everyone for your messages of support regarding Sunday's events. It turns out you weren't the only people discussing the issue. It seems the folk (or do I mean volk?) on the Stormfront White Nationalist Community have found my blog and have been having a bit of chat about it online.

I'm not sure everyone quite got the point but most of them certainly did. One bloke called me a "nonce" and wanted me to go back to Britain (or possibly stay here - I couldn't quite work out the geographical implications of his argument) and another guy said

Just goes to show that maybe Walter Sobchak had a point:

After another great hike on Saturday I had a pretty simple plan for today:

AM - Lay in bed listening to Test Match Special

PM - Lay in a park finishing Harry Potter

The first part went pretty well. Had it gone exactly to plan then India would have been all out for 101 with Tendulkar making 100. As it was I got my other wish: that Monty would do for him again.

The unexpected turn of events occurred when I headed down to Princes Island Park, which is on island in the Bow River in the middle of Calgary. I'm sorry to tell my British reader that the weather here is absolutely fantastic so a day in the park seemed like a good idea.

As I got to the bridge beside the park I saw a bloke standing there handing out leaflets. He had a shaven head, jeans, boots and a black t-shirt on. I couldn't help but notice as I rode past that the t-shirt had the legend "WAFFEN SS". His arms were heavily tattooed but most prominent was the large swastika on the back of his hand. Slightly disturbed I crossed the bridge and found a place to sit and read.

However it didn't feel right, I wanted to do something about the guy with the leaflets. What would Chuck Norris do I thought? Roundhouse kicked them into next year - obviously. However the roundhouse kick is not really my thing so I had another thought. I thought I would stand up for free speech. I packed up my stuff and went back over the bridge to read what he was handing out.

Like Milton Friedman and the free market, I'm a fundamentalist for free speech. I actively want fascists and hatemongers to speak up, in public. I want to know who they are and I want other people to see who and what they are and to know they are out there. You can't ban ideas and imagine that they have gone away. And you can't just hope they go away either, people need to stand up for what they believe in.

I picked up a leaflet. The young man turned out to be from an organisation called Aryan Guard. The leaflet was entitled "Wake up Calgary" and the subject was a recent multiple stabbing incident that had been in the news last week. According to the leaflet the police were looking for "black men"! I asked the guy what this was all about. I couldn't really make out much of his response but when he started going on about "third world immigration bringing third world crime" I had to stop him. I told him I didn't care for his t-shirt very much. I told him my father had been a conscientious objector in WW2 but had come to join the army because he felt that fighting fascists and defending his country was too important not to be part of. I said I thought his shirt was in bad taste but I believed in his right to wear it and hand out his leaflets. Just like I had a right to protest. I don't think he expected what I did next.

"Ladies and Gentlemen!" I shouted "Please take a leaflet from the fascists"

"Fascist literature available here -get it while it's hot"

"Don't forget to pick up your race hate as you pass by the fascists"

"Lets celebrate free speech in Canada with some of this fascist nonsense"

After about five minutes I saw him on the phone and it seemed he was calling for re-enforcements. Sure enough another tattooed guy with a wad of leaflets soon came down the path. I greeted him warmly. He didn't seem amused. He asked me to stop as they didn't want any trouble. I assured him that trouble was the LAST thing I wanted too, I just wanted to support their right to free speech. He didn't really know what to say to that.

So I carried on...

"Please take a leaflet -they've tried awfully hard"

"It's not easy being a skin-head in this sun - do please help out the fascists"

I tried some personal appeals:

- to the guy with a hot dog in each hand: "Ah Frankfurters - fine German sausage! Give him a leaflet!"

- to the girl with the tiny chihuahua on a lead: "Madam that dog cannot possibly protect you from the imminent racial apocalypse: please take a leaflet and get informed"

I wouldn't say I had drawn a crowd but there were certainly some people sitting down in the shade and watching the scene with a certain bemusement. This line got the biggest laugh (thanks Morrissey)

"They wear black on the outside" I said as one black t-shirted volunteer crossed the square to buy a drink "Coz black is how they feel on the inside... ironic isn't it??"

I did try some more serious exhortations to passers by

"Please take a leaflet and remember that fascists are on our streets"

Not long after I started a middle aged couple with 3 children came over. They told me they were from Hanover and they really admired what I was doing. A couple of girls who were rehearsing a play in the park also came over, they even wanted a photo!



I must have carried on for about 45 minutes. Then the police showed up. A couple of officers talked to the leafleteers and one guy came to speak to me. He was quite cool and said how they had received some complaints about the folks handing out leaflets and were taking them away to examine them for hate-crimes or something. He told me he had arrested one of the guys in the past and all of them had been moved on from another location in the city. I told him what I had been doing and he seemed quite sympathetic but his main concern was to maintain order and not raise tension. I told him I was happy to cease and desist now that they were here. Part of me wanted to protest that the fascists weren't being allowed their right to free speech but I kind of bottled that bit. Anyway - they had had their chance, I'd had my chance and the police had come and were doing what they were supposed to do: investigate a complaint.

Finally I went back to the park and finished the book. It was fantastic!

I'm not afraid to admit that I'm a Harry Potter fan. I'm not a queue-up-at-midnight kind of a fan, or call-the-helpline-the-series-is-over fan, but I am a fan. I like the books, I like the characters and I like the fandom. As I sat reading the first chapter on the train today, I thought that right now there are millions of other folks all around the world doing exactly the same thing and I like being part of that. I love the fact that this lady from Edinburgh sat down to write a book in a cafe and since then books haven't been the same.

When I got home I sat down to read properly: cup of tea, comfy chair, toast.

Oh. My. God.

I've read the first 100 pages or so and I cannot remember ever being so on-the-edge-of-my-seat thrilled whilst reading. I was almost shaking with excitement, my arms right now are aching I think from gripping the book so hard! Something about the writing, something about the story and, I think, a lot about the event of reading the last instalment and seeing where it all goes is giddying.

I know it's a children's book. People can carp, tut-tut and lament the infantilisation of our culture. But I'm too busy having fun to hear them.

postscript:
Part of the intensity of my reaction to the start of the book may be because the opening page contains some lines by William Penn, the lines I read at my father's funeral. Unfortunately she has omitted the wonderful opening: "They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it, Death cannot kill what never dies". Part of what has drawn me to the books I know is the fact that Harry is a boy who misses his mum and dad. I know how he feels.

Some items of news you may have missed:

Cream pie protests 'thoroughly unacceptable,' Calgary mayor says
A chance for me to use my favourite French word this Bastille weekend - "Allez les entarteurs!"

Mechanical bull knocks Calgary man unconscious
A sad story but the reporter actually uses the phrase "mechanical bovine" which made me smile

On Saturday I did my first really serious hike this summer with the good people of the Calgary Outdoor Club. Our destination was Helen Lake and then Cirque Peak, a hike that is regularly listed as one of the premier day hikes in the Rockies.

Whoever writes the guidebooks certainly has a point. This one had it all: an actual summit to attain, panoramic views of glaciers and turquoise lakes, alpine meadows dotted with wild flowers, sunshine, marmots and to cap it all: bears! More of the bears later....

The hike itself was probably about as long and as steep as I'd want to do, especially on such a hot day. The final scramble was quite hard going but at least the day proved the value of having hiking poles which up till now I suspected were a gadget freak's affectation. They certainly helped on the way up through the scree and going down they made things much much easier. All the effort was certainly worth it as the view from the summit (9,819') was spectacular.


More photos here. So anyway - the bears! I was so excited to finally see a Grizzly. Not just one but a family actually: mother and two cubs. It managed to be exciting and not terrifying as they were about half a mile away! Near enough to see that they were brown shapes moving around the hillside but not near enough for a decent photo (or lamentable goring incident). Which has given me a useful backcountry rule of thumb: "If you can see bears in this photo, you are too close!"

Well the Calgary Stampede finally kicked off on Friday and the town is awash with big hats, big boots and even bigger belt buckles. My instinctive British reserve means that I refuse to join in...


On Sunday I went to the Exhibition grounds where the Stampede proper takes place with my friend Colleen. Turns out the Stampede is more than just an excuse for day time drinking and free pancakes: it's part rodeo, part agricultural show, part fun fair all with the irresistible aroma of deep-friend foodstuffs in the background. Yum!

I really really enjoyed the whole thing but the aggie stuff was the best. I saw the most extraordinary horse going through it's paces in one tent. Standing a mere 19 hands high (vide-printer moment: NINETEEN!) it was the most magnificent animal I have ever seen in my life. He was beautifully groomed and just radiated immense physical power but with a mild and gentle demeanour. Continuing the horsey theme we went into the Saddledome and caught the middle of the the team cattle penning. This was a brilliant event a bit like One Man and a his Dog, only with three people on horseback, a herd of cattle and no dogs. You get the point. I was in absolute awe at the skill of the riders and their ability to change direction while riding into a herd of cattle at full speed. The idea is that they had to separate 3 numbered cows from a herd of 30 and drive them into the pen at the far end while keeping the rest of the herd at a distance. Watching it reminded me of one my favourite passages in the Subtle Knife where Will is watching Iorek repair the broken blade and the narration describes the pleasure you get from watching something done well. I don't know a thing about riding a horse but I could tell those folks were fantastic. And now I want to learn. Will you buy me a pony?

The main attraction however was the Chuckwagon racing. These races recreate the pioneer spirit by racing a wagon and a team of four horses around the track. As well as the wagon each team has 4 outriders whose job it is to break camp by chucking the tent poles and stove (racing tent poles, racing stove bien sur) into the back of the wagon before jumping onto their horses and trying to catch up with their wagon. Apparently the wagon can't finish too far ahead of the outriders or there is some kind of penalty - to be honest I'm fuzzy on the rules. All I know is that the start is absolute mayhem as the teams have to do a figure 8 round some barrels before heading out around the track. Whoever gets to the first corner first seems to win so it's a bit like Formula 1 in that respect (except interesting).


Once the Chuckwagon racing was over it was time for the evening show. This was an extraordinary spectacle with a cast that could open a small Olympic Games: dancers, singers, aerial acrobats, a Las Vegas ventriloquist and a motorbike stunt team! I was a little apprehensive beforehand especially as the cast largely seemed to comprise smiley-faced stage-school types from "The Young Canadians" who I feared were the flesh-and-blood equivalent of Hooray For Everything from the Simpsons (
a group of "clean-cut youngsters" who sing songs about "the dancingest hemisphere, the Western Hemisphere."). In fact they weren't too far off that but the whole thing was done with such energy and brio that I was powerless to resist and now just I'm worried that there may be a world shortage of brio while the Stampede is on. I mean have you seen Gordon Brown recently?

What I really don't understand was why at the end of the magnificent fireworks that rounded off this crazy over-the-top show I had tears gently rolling down my cheeks. It wasn't the show itself but really what it represented. The theme was "The Spirit of 1912", when the Stampede began. The message was basically "Yay wild west, Yay Calgary and Yay Canada" (so yes - Hooray for Everything) but I think what I found so moving was that people could actually take time to unabashedly celebrate their region, their city or their country like that. Nobody was saying it was the best, they were just saying they liked it. For a middle-class white boy from the Thames valley it's hard to put into words just how inconceivable something like that would be at home. Case in point - the celebrations to mark 1000 years of Oxfordshire that I went to earlier this year. The fire festival was brilliant and though designed by the French it was a British kind of event - "marking" or "recognising" the milestone in an abstract way rather than trying to celebrate it head on. And quite right too - that's who we are and that's how we do things: the thought of a big song-and-dance spectacular themed "Yay Oxfordshire" makes my skin crawl. That's why I'm still to be convinced about a new national day at home- is it really us? Maybe it wasn't but now it is... or could be.. I don't know.

Anyhow I think the sheer novelty of this celebration of place plus the ability I inherited from my dad to blub at the drop of a hat probably explains it all. And the fireworks were great!

Worth celebrating in the great outdoors