Category Archives: Vancouver Island

No News is Bad News

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The other week I got a message from my oldest daughter sadly mentioning the fire at Ricky’s All Day Grill here in Victoria, a restaurant we used to frequent every now and then when our girls were small. I immediately went to CHEK News’ website to find out about it.

What was curious to me was that my daughter knew about it before I did. I’m a news junkie myself and usually start my day reading the paper and perusing news websites.

So I asked her where she found out about it.

She told me that one of her coworkers saw the story on Facebook in a community called What The Hell Just Happened. Well, that was news to me.

It’s an interesting thing, where our adult children get their news and information these days.

When I was a kid (oh, here she goes!), there was radio and there was television. And, of course, there were newspapers. Radio would have more up-to-the-minute news, usually at the top of the hour. My parents always had the radio on.

My husband’s father was a radio announcer and a news director at various stations, so the radio was definitely always on in their house.

Typically, we would find our parents with their faces buried in the local paper every morning or evening, depending on when they had a chance to read it.

When our family got a television sometime in the 60’s, the news was something you watched at around 6pm every night. So as it turned out, you didn’t know about a lot of events that had happened in the rest of the world until that time.

And of course, during our parents’ youth, back from the 1920’s to the 40’s, sometimes it was weeks or months before they learned about what was going on somewhere else in the world.

Imagine that. Not knowing about a war or an earthquake somewhere far away until long after it had happened.

These days, we have tweets and videos immediately after, or right at the moment of something happening.

And as we have learned over the last few years, this leads to a lot of MIS-information. Sometimes it’s innocent, sometimes not.

This is exactly why we need to be able to trust who is giving us the information. Radio, television and newspaper reporters are trained to research the heck out of any information they pass on as news. Sometimes they get it wrong too, of course, but not for lack of trying.

Sadly, the trend these days appears to be fewer and fewer traditional sources, especially of local news. Smaller newspapers are shutting down everywhere, and television and radio stations are disappearing off their respective “dials”.

The recent news about the 1,300 positions being cut, and the selling or shuttering of 9 radio stations at Bell Media, is a shock. But then it’s not.

Business models are changing as the internet and social media are taking over. So the federal government has passed Bill C-18 in order to force companies like Meta and Google to pay for the news they allow and/or distribute on their platforms.

But now these very rich, mega companies are fighting back and threatening to block Canadian news from their websites. Heaven forbid they should share their gobs of money!

I mean, on the one hand, the advances in technology can be exciting. I read my paper digitally. I can even read the New York Times online because I have a library card from the Greater Victoria Public Library!

I can keep up with what’s happening by following local news accounts on social media. But I’ll watch it on TV too. Because I’m old. Make that “older”.

So is traditional news gathering on its way out? I sure hope not. Losing local news and dedicated, educated journalists and reporters is bad for all of us, young and old.

Which is why I’ll make a little adjustment to that age-old idiom.

No news is, in fact, “bad” news.

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It’s Like Riding A Bike

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Remember all of the fuss people made when bike lanes started showing up all over the city, taking over car lanes, or at least impeding upon them? I have to admit, I wasn’t all the pleased to see them myself. And my husband was especially unhappy.

Suddenly you had to pay attention to things like new cycle-only lights and rules about right turns. Not only that, but lots of regular parking spots disappeared. For those of us who’ve been behind the wheel for a long time, it was like driving in a foreign country.

Judging by the comments in local media and online, we were not alone. A lot of people were miffed. And, according to most angry types, including my husband, it was all Mayor Lisa Helps’ fault.

Imagine my surprise then, when my newly retired, anti-bike lane partner pulled out his dusty, rusty old bicycle one day and started pumping up the tires. And, even more surprising, he got right on it and started hobbling down the street. I thought he was nuts.

But he insisted that he wanted to see if he could still do it and I had to admit that I admired his tenacity. He decided he might even like to try an e-bike one day and wondered if I might like to try one too.

Me? On a bike? I wasn’t so sure.

And then something interesting happened. My good friends and I were planning a wine tasting tour in Oliver, and one of the tours was supposed to be on e-bikes. I’d never heard of that before.

So now I felt obligated to pull out my own steed of rusted steel to see if I could manage it.

Holy expletive.

I was pretty shaky at first. It felt familiar, but not familiar enough. Not only that but my once 18-speed bicycle now had only one working gear. Thank goodness the brakes still worked.

For my first ride, I went about 5 blocks and then came right back. The legs were definitely feeling it, and I knew I was going to have to get more comfortable with cycling again before our trip. And after a few short practice rides and only one near spill, I was feeling a little better. A little.

The e-bike was a whole different experience. For those of you who haven’t tried one, I won’t go into all of the technical details. The bikes we rode were German-made CUBEs, and had the usual mechanical gears and then 4 e-gears, going from “eco” to “turbo”.

You can also ride the bike without the e-support, but I’m pretty sure I had it on “eco” for most of our 27 kilometer tour. When the e-gear kicked in, it just felt lighter and smoother. On long stretches uphill, I’d use the “turbo” setting and that helped considerably.

And the wine helped too.

When we got back from our trip, my husband was excited to hear all about it. I have to admit that by then, I was also convinced to get an e-bike of my own.

As it turns out, we found two used ones of the same make, CUBE, on Facebook Marketplace. I guess it was meant to be.

Now it was my husband’s turn to get used to the e-bike, but it didn’t take long. Little by little we ventured further, warming up to the idea of cycling in the city instead of driving.

One day, we went from our house in the Oaklands area all the way to Willows Beach. And on another, we pointed ourselves south and made it through Beacon Hill Park to Dallas Road.

Suddenly we were very grateful for those cycle lanes and signal crosswalks, and the CRD cycle maps. It has become another very different way of experiencing and exploring beautiful Victoria.

We are e-sold. And we’re old enough that we should have learned the old “don’t knock it before you’ve tried it” adage by now.

Apologies, Lisa.

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The Day I Met The Queen. Kind of.

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Like many others, I was not surprised, but still a little shocked when Queen Elizabeth II recently passed away. We knew she had been suffering from various maladies for some time. And, of course, she was 96 years old.

But watching her welcoming the new UK Prime Minister, Liz Truss at Balmoral, I thought the Queen still looked pretty well. I did remember wondering if this would be the last Prime Minister of her reign.

Then, only two days later, Queen Elizabeth II was gone.

Oddly enough, I had been watching a documentary series on her life in the days leading up to that. I admired her dedication and commitment, and certainly her endurance. Actually, I find the history of the British monarchy rather fascinating.

My father, however, had no use for them.

I remember when Charles and Diana arrived in Victoria after the opening ceremonies of Expo ’86. My Dad was visiting us at the time.

I packed my baby daughter in the car and and convinced Dad to come with us down to an area where I knew the Royal entourage would pass by on their way from the airport. I parked the car and carried my daughter down to the street corner to watch, but my father refused to get out of the car.

He would have nothing to do with them.

His Royal resentment stemmed from his younger days, back in time when Remittance men were sent from Britain to somewhere else in the Empire, usually Canada, Australia or New Zealand.

A Remittance man was, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia, “a term once widely used, especially in the West before WWI, for an immigrant living in Canada on funds remitted by his family in England, usually to ensure that he would not return home and become a source of embarrassment.”

These guys were the black sheep, trouble makers, the male failures whose rich families wanted to get them out of sight and out of mind. Sometimes the poor little rich boys redeemed themselves in the countries they were sent to. Sometimes not.

My father had mentioned the history of the Remittance men to me several times as I was growing up. He hated the fact that Canada was a dumping ground for the British elite’s undesirables, and he blamed the British monarchy.

And let’s face it, the British Royals have a long and very complicated history.

But I was oblivious to all of this in 2002 when I decided to watch the parade of cars carrying the Queen and Prince Phillip as they visited Victoria during her Golden Jubilee.

I drove to Blanshard Street near Hillside and parked. I saw a group of people standing along the sidewalk, so I joined them and waited. There were maybe 20 or 30 of us.

Police motorcycles rolled up to stop traffic along the intersection, so we knew the motorcade was coming.

And then we saw it. The Queen’s car apparently spotted our little group, so they drove up and stopped right in front of us. The Queen was in the back seat, her window rolled down, but I couldn’t quite see her face.

There was only stillness.

The silence made me feel awkward. Everyone just stood there quietly, and the Queen simply sat. I wanted to be welcoming and share my enthusiasm for her visit.

So it was with the best of intentions that I, in my most Monty Python-esque voice, called out “Helllooooo!”

I had no idea about protocol. You’re not supposed to speak to the Queen until she speaks first.

Doh.

The car pulled away and that was that.

I’m sure Queen Elizabeth had to endure many similarly awkward moments over the years, and the one I created would be soon forgotten by her.

But not by me. I’ll never forget the day I met the Queen. Kind of.