Canada Fitness Award Program

On By Rick McIn books, health & fitness, humour1 Comment

The Canada Fitness Award Program was subjected to Canadian school kids from 1970 to 1992.

I remember the annual challenge fondly, being something of a jock.

50 yard run, the 300 yard run, flexed arm hangs, the shuttle run, speed situps, and the standing long jump.

I can’t recall getting the highest Excellence rating — but always got Gold, the second highest.

Worst was the … PARTICIPATION ribbon. 😀

Unsurprisingly, it was finally cancelled due to being “discouraging to those who needed the most encouragement“. And sometimes resulted in “destructive eating and exercise practices” by the least fit.

I’m always leery of awards programs for kids. At many Gymnastics Clubs I tried to discontinue the annual “awards” night.

These memories came back after listening to Canada’s greatest comedian talking about how traumatized he was by the annual humiliation. Rick Mercer couldn’t do the flex arm hang.

As an adult Rick become surprisingly fit, trying many different sports for his TV shows.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

It was related to another government program called ParticipACTION. We blamed the Swedes. 😀

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

ParticipACTION included a TV show, started 1988, with interracial couple Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod. Every Canadian of my age remembers BodyBreak.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Long Way Home by Louise Penny

On By Rick McIn uncategorizedLeave a comment

Recovering from injuries in the village of Three Pines, Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Homicide with the Sûreté du Québec, has found a peace he’d only imagined possible. 

Until his friend Clara seeks him out, when her artist husband fails to come home.

Together with his former second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, a group of the regulars goes on the road to solve the mystery of the disappearance.

There’s far less action than usual. More philosophy.

Though different than the usual Gamache fare, I still enjoyed the book.

Visiting Cádiz, Spain

On By Rick McIn food, travelLeave a comment

Of the places in Andalusia I visited November 2022, Cádiz is the least popular tourist destination.

I was still pleased to have seen it.

Cádiz is a rocky, long, narrow peninsula, popular with sailors and fishermen for thousands of years. In fact, that Italian (Columbus) set sail from here on his second voyage to “India”. He was financed by the Spanish Crown.

By far my highlight was the Castle of San Sebastián, the fortress in the sea. That connecting levee was built 1860.

At dusk I’d take my wine to enjoy sunset.

There are good beaches, deserted in November.

Cádiz Cathedral was decorated for Christmas

Clearly they don’t have the budget of the BIG European cities.

The central food market is a highlight for sure. I’ve never seen so many varieties of fish and seafood. PHOTOS.

Most days I simply wandered the old town. Snapping photos non-stop. Here are a few samples.

I love the look of the simple fishing boats at low tide.

I got lucky having one day of overcast. Rare here. But it makes for more interesting skies.

I would recommend you visit Cádiz.

P.S.

The longest bridge in Spain is here. La Pepa, opened 2015. But I didn’t cross it nor could I even get close enough for a good photo. This pic is from Wikipedia.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Seafood Market, Cádiz, Spain

On By Rick McIn food, travel1 Comment

The Central Market of Cádiz is memorable to say the least.

Over 100 food stands in an ancient stone marketplace.

Surrounding the Market are different stalls where you can sample the best of Cádiz’s traditional cuisine.

Street urchins.

I wasn’t all that adventurous, opting only for the very popular street paella.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie

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Dumb Witness is Christie’s 1937 book.

It is the last book to feature the character of Hastings until the final Poirot novel, 1975’s Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case, which he also narrates. …

In the New York Times, this novel was not considered Mrs Christie’s best, but “she has produced a much-better-than-average thriller nevertheless”…

I’d agree.

It’s standard Christie. But not quite as neatly solved as most of her other books.

In this one, a wealthy spinster dies — before Poirot could get there.

Despite having no paying client, the Belgian sleuth suspects the death by natural causes is actually murder. And stays to solve the crime anyway.

Visiting Córdoba, Spain

On By Rick McIn travelLeave a comment

There’s no beach.

But tourists still like to wander the narrow cobblestone streets of Córdoba, Andalusia.

Much Moorish and Roman architecture to admire. Córdoba has more World Heritage Sites than anywhere in the world, with four.

The centre of ancient Roman cities became the walled medina.

Interesting doorways and gates everywhere.

Of course there is no shortage of Catholic Churches.

And in this ideal climate, there are many parks. The Moors liked the smell of orange blossoms, so those trees are everywhere.

Tourists tend to spend most of their time in the old town. But I did end up walking some of the modern city, as well.

Me? I hung out mostly along the Guadalquivir river. There are many unsigned and unvisited historical buildings.

Best of all was the Roman Bridge at dusk.

I’ll remember Cordoba for the rest of my life.

Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba, Spain

On By Rick McIn travel1 Comment

The main reason for a tourist to travel to Córdoba is to see the massive Mosque-Cathedral.

Locally, it’s called the Mezquita.

Under the Moors, Córdoba became the most important city in Europe, a centre of education and learning.

The feeling inside for me is mostly Islamic. Yet all around Christian elements were installed and built starting 1523 after the Moors were expelled.

It’s a nice balance. Did I mention it’s HUGE.

856 columns. And Christians had many more removed.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Fox Creek by William Kent Krueger

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Fox Creek is the 2022 book in the Cork O’Connor series set in Minnesota.

I’ve read them all — and now have to wait at least a year for the next to arrive.

My favourite character is Henry Meloux, the Ojibwe healer who is well over 100-years-old.

Each book, we fear might be his last.

Fox Creek follows Henry non-stop for the first half of the book — so is excellent.

The second half tries to wind-up the mystery. And is less good.

Too convoluted. Too many characters.

Krueger:

“It’s really Henry’s book, although he is not the one speaking,” Krueger said in a recent interview.

… The last contemporary novel in 2019 left Henry in a precarious situation. Both he and Stephen had envisioned his death. I had to think about what I would do with that.”

Krueger said this book needed to focus on Henry, but he had never told a story from Henry’s perspective. To do that, Krueger uses other characters to unfold the mystery and describe their connections to Henry. …

19 books into Cork series, and author says he’s still growing

meh 🤔 – Contemporary Art

On By Rick McIn Art and beautyLeave a comment

I visited the Museu Coleção Berardo in Lisbon, one of the best collections of modern and contemporary art in the world.

As my brother said, anything that he could recreate given the materials, is NOT ART.

For example, Voice of Fire by Barnett Newman.

It’s 2 cans of paint, 2 rollers, canvas, and less than an hour.

Not art.

Here’s the instillation at the Berardo that appealed to me most.

It’s called Nespresso.

There are a couple of artists with potential, however.

Picasso
Warhol

Picasso was a great artist

On By Rick McIn Art and beauty1 Comment

Looking at some of his later work, you might guess Pablo Picasso was a over-rated bum. Drunk. Or mentally ill.

Fact is, he was a childhood prodigy. Brilliant from the start at age-13.

Here’s Science and Charity, oil on canvas, 1897. Picasso was age-15.

His abstract work came much later.

“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”

He’s best known for co-founding the Cubist movement.

He shocked the artistic world with Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, five nude female prostitutes in a brothel on Carrer d’Avinyó, a street in Barcelona.

The shocking part was the angular and disjointed body shapes. The slightly menacing aspect.

This was new.

His best work, for me, is his anti-war painting exhibited in the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid.

Guernica (1937).

Picasso opened his morning newspaper on April 27th to find images of the destruction of Guernica. It had been bombed by the Nazis at the request of Francisco Franco.

All that said. Much of Picasso’s hundreds of pieces of sculpture, ceramics, drawings and paintings hold no appeal for me. He worked fast. Had fun. Loved to be contrary. And many of those experiments didn’t work.

I saw many of those failed experiments in the Picasso museum in his hometown Málaga, Spain.

Here’s one that did work. Bull’s Head.

One day, in a pile of objects all jumbled up together, I found an old bicycle seat right next to a rusty set of handlebars. In a flash, they joined together in my head. The idea of the Bull’s Head came to me before I had a chance to think. All I did was weld them together… 

Don’t be fooled. This man was one of the great artists.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.