Cold in Canadia

Picture above is courtesy of Brian Swetek over at Time to Talk.org. You'll have to Google it because I'm on a Mac and nothing is the same anymore.

So, I've arrived in Mississauga, popular suburb of Canadia and official home of the strip mall. My friend Simon, who is also here calls them strip malls. I'm not even sure what a strip mall is, but I like the sound of it.

I am travelling with my friend Kate, who stepped in to accompany me at the last minute due to my incredible fear of flying. It wasn't too bad on the first flight. I clutched my little Buddha in my hand and thought of hugs and kisses. I tell myself in these moments that everyone gets as nervous at flying as I do, but I know this isn't actually true. You can tell by the look on people's faces. Some people are just chilling out, reading, doing sudoku - I'm quietly confident that these people are not fixing their gaze and silently screaming, 'We're going too fast, we're going too fast, nothing on earth should be going this fast, my ears are exploding, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!" Or maybe they're just convering it well.

Kate said that I seem to deal with the fear pretty well, and this was probably the calmest I've ever been on a flight, but even so, my most comfort comes from just acclimatizing myself to the fact that I'm about to fall out of the sky/crash into another plane/pass out during a spin-dizzy descent following a bird hitting the pilot's windscreen, which doesn't seem to me the most positive way of dealing with fear. Stil, as Miss Sally says, you gotta make it work for you.

It is damn cold in Canadia. Minus 20. There's snow and everything. On the night we flew in, Howard, Simon, Kate and I end up in a restaurant, Moxie's, drinking pinot griogio and laughing a lot before heading back to the house in Mississauga, where we had a snowball at about one in the morning. We're already friends with the neighbours, as you can imagine.

My friend Glenn tried to convince on the night before we left that temperatures this low would freeze our eyeballs. I laughed this one clean off the football pitch of ideas.

"Do you not think we would hear a bit more about that if it were true, Glenn?" I ask, "Do you not think they'd put something in the tourist guides - 'Please bring goggles on your trip if you are travelling to Toronto in winter, as your eyeballs may freeze in their sockets, causing you considerable pain, certain inconvenience and permanent blindness.'"

"It's true," he insists, displaying that incredible Capricorn trait of ignoring you and contradicting you all at the same time.

"Google it," I command. I no longer believe anything that google can't generate at least fifty thousand hits for.

He draws a blank and is kind enough to mumble something about it being a mistake. Glenn is rarely wrong and I know this hurts him. As one of his closest friends, that's all I need and I kindly let it go.

It is bloody cold here though, and I had forgotten that Canadia, like the USA has not learnt yet to put a door on cubicles in public toilets that actually fills the gap made for it. I wrote about this on the Stateside blog last year, but had forgotten. Why leave an inch wide gap around the toilet door? No one outside wants to see me urinating (I'm assuming, and fervently hoping) and I don't want to watch people queuing while I urinate. It's too unEnglish for words. Except these ones, obviously.

My friend Rodders just chastised me on facebook for leaving without saying goodbye, and I need to apologise to more than just her for this, I have abandoned almost everyone without a goodbye as it was all so last minute. I'm only here for a week, so fear ye not, England. We fly back on Thursday night and arrive on Friday, so I will return in time for a cool Yule.

I know it's sappish, but I don't care. I miss you all, of course I do, but I miss James a lot. I've told him this already via email, but I can't tell him too many times or he'll I think I'm overly emotional crazy (I'm certain he hasn't really noticed this aspect fo my personality yet, so don't mention it if you see him, pretend like I'm secure and well-adjusted and for God's sake don't mention the therapy years). He's travelled loads and for long periods of time and he says he never misses anyone. So if you see him, make out like I'm totally stiff-upper lipping it. He doesn't read the blog, so it can just be our little secret......

The PP Strikes Back?

Things are becoming more surreal at the Loft.

Last night I convinced myself that my neighbour, the Finnish blonde, was dead. When I came back to the house in the early evening I noticed that her doors were wide open. Although this isn't unusual (it must be very safe in Finland), they hadn't changed position from the time I went out earlier in the day.

This worried me, and I vaguely peered through the gloom into her flat. It was very dark and I am slightly ashamed to say that I lost my nerve. I scuttled up to my flat for inspiration.

Fortunately, my friend, the Gentle Giant, Glenn, arrived a short time later and after consuming a couple of stiff gins, I suggested that we venture down there to check out the scene. We stumbled down the stairs nervously. Just as we approached her door, however, the sound of the television blared out and all was well.

I think I had let my imagination get carried away with itself a little. This wasn't helped by the fact that I've heard a couple of gruesome stories of the dead neighbour type recently and my subconscious was probably being influenced by them. The most recent of these stories included the detail that dead people smell like a butcher's shop after a while, and I was convinced in my earlier investigations of the hallway that I could smell fresh meat. Possibly I've been a vegetarian for too long and I'm starting to have bloodlust hallucinations. I'll talk to my shrink. Again.

Weirder than this interior and rather odd dead neighbour paranoia, however, was when I showed Glenn the PP's jazz mag hideout, only to discover that Mayfair has been joined by a copy of Rustler. Does pornography have a tendency to breed pornography, although it may interesting to discuss, I mean this as a literal rather than a philosophical question.

More than this however, we noticed four carrier bags stuffed with what Glenn described as "vintage porn" - that's FOUR carrier bags, dear reader, and I use the term 'stuffed' entirely correctly, although 'crammed' would also suffice. I let Glenn investigate, as he appeared to possess a more discerning eye on the material than I, and he wiped his hand on the leg of his jeans after with a dubious and slightly nervous look.

"Oh God," he said faintly, "It's probably used."

Glenn thinks this one would even have Sherlock himself stumped. Judging by the amount of dirt mags down there, and the fact that Holmes never seemed to get any action after Irene Adler, I'm inclined to agree it would certainly keep the great detective busy for a good few hours.

Any ideas?