HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2001-09-05, Page 5Bonnie
Gropp
The short of it
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2001. PAGE 5
Other Views
A museum flushed with pride
just oft the top of your head, what would
you finger as the most significant
invention of all time?
Fire?
The wheel?
The laser?
Interplanetary travel?
William Shatner's toupee?
How about the flush toilet? No, I'm serious.
The humble flush toilet may be the butt (sorry)
of a thousand jokes, but it's one of the reasons
we don't have plagues anymore. And it's the
main reason our big cities aren't a lot more
repulsive than they are.
If it wasn't for flush toilets we'd all have
three seriously unwelcome things in our lives:
chamber pots, revolting smells and flies.
Lots and lots of flies.
The flush toilet has been around for a long
time. Royal families in Min were using a
primitive form of flush toilet more than 4,000
years ago.
Then humankind just sort of forgot about
them for about 35 centuries until in 1596, a
godson of Queen Elizabeth made her a gift of
what he called 'a privy in perfection'.
Not exactly. The new toilet merely used
water to transfer the contents of the toilet bowl
For people travelling abroad for the first
time it tomes as something of a shock
when they have to do all their financial
transactions in a strange currency. They are not
sure of prices relative to those back in Canada
and they are confused as to how good an
exchange rate they are getting when they trade
their dollars for the local currency.
For this reason I am going to make a few
suggestions that will reduce your confusion or
stress levels.
When abroad you will frequently see the
Canadian dollar quoted at two different prices
in the local currency. For example, you are in
Switzerland and see the Canadian dollar
quoted at $1.17 and $1.22 in terms of Swiss
francs. Don't worry that you can't read the
heading; you don't need to. What that is telling
you is that, when you trade your dollars for
francs, you will get 1.17 francs for each dollar.
When, at the end of the trip, you want to sell
your francs to buy some dollars, it will take
1.21 francs to get a dollar. The difference
between the two prices is called arbitrage and
that is how the financial institution makes its
money.
Sometimes credit cards can be a pain but in
travelling they can be a bonus. First of all, they
are generally acceptable and thus reduce the
amount of cash you have to carry.
But there is a hidden bonus. If you buy
something in Italy, for example, and pay for it
with a credit card, you-will get a slightly better
exchange rate than you would if you went to
the bank and cashed travellers cheques. Keep
that in mind.
If you know when the cutoff date is each
month for your credit card, you can arrange
your purchases so that the repayment can be
spread out over a longer period of time. The
key thing to remember is that you want to make
your,credit card work for you, not you for it.
Exchange rates for the same currency vary
from place to place. As a general rule try to
avoid changing money in international airports,
at the border or in hotels. In Europe, the larger
railway stations have good exchange rates as
do the local banks.
to a nearby reeking cesspool - but it was an
improvement on the old boghouse.
The godson was clever, but none too bright.
He published a scatological pamphlet about the -
Queen's new biffy. Liz found out about it and
banished him and his new- fangled invention
from the Court.
It wasn't until 1775 that a British
mathematician and watchmaker by the name of
Alexander Cumming came up with a method
to, as he put It: "constantly retain a quantity of
water to cut off all communication of smell
from below."
The modern flush toilet had been born.
Now that I've convinced you of your failure
to appreciate the finer points of the common
john, it's time for you to hie yourself down to
your travel agent, there to book a ticket to
Worcester, Massachusetts. That's where you'll
find The American Sanitary Plumbing
Raymond
Canon
The
International
Scene
Before you set out, get enough foreign cash
to last you for the first day or so. That will give
you a chance to look at the exchange rates
available right after you arrive and you can
then pick the- best one when you go to cash
your travellers cheques.
Don't count on Canadian banks being very
efficient when it comes to providing you with
foreign currency. Outside of the American
dollar and possibly the -British pound, your
branch bank wi,14 have to order the currency for
you and this could take as long as one to two
weeks. It pays to get the two day's supply of
currency I mentioned above about a month
before you are ready to leave.
Banks everywhere may charge a fee to
exchange money that will, in effect, detract
from the posted exchange rate. Make sure you
ask about any fees before, not after you
exchange the money.
I am frequently asked how much cheaper gas
is in the U.S. than in Canada. Nowadays it may
not be any cheaper. Here is an easy formula to
work out the exact price.
Let's say you cross the border and pay $1.75
U.S. per gallon. Divide this by four. (.4475
cents U.S.) Then divide this by the current
Canadian dollar exchange rate (.65 cents
Canadian).
This will give you the price in Canadian
dollars of 67.3 a litre.
Not much of a saving there. It used to be
Final Thought
Education is the best provision for old age.
— Aristotle
Museum - the only museum I know of that is
solely devoted to plumbing.
They've got 'em all at the museum - from
smelly indoor one-holers that dumped waste
right into the basement to a heavenly water
closet bedecked with gold trim and blue
porcelain designs on the bowl plus a hand-
carved oak seat that graced the bottoms of
Victorian gentry back in the I 800s.
So who goes to a plumbing museum?
Hundreds and hundreds - and not just
plumbers either. College engineering classes
come through to study how their predecessors
handled the problems Of waste disposal. Artists
come and set up their sketchpads to try and
capture the beauty of the delicate, hand-forged
tubs and toiletS of yesteryear. They know better
than most that you just don't see that kind of
craftsmanship in plumbing anymore.
Speaking of which, what's the next big leap
for flush toilets?
I don't want to start a panic, but I have heard
of an engineer in Ottawa who's trying to get a
patent for his latest invention.
It's a briefcase that turns into a portable
toilet.
Suddenly that guy sitting next to me on the
bus using his cell phone doesn't seem so bad.
worth driving over there just to till up hut not
any more.
Our dollar has not been doing well in terms
of the U.S. dollar but the opposite is true when
it comes to European currencies. At 74 cents
for a German mark, Germany is a bargain right
now as are other countries. At one time I used
to pay as much as 95 cents for a German mark.
At 25 koruna to a Canadian dollar, you will
find the Czech Republic downright cheap. I got
a hotel room there for the equivalent of $25.
If you buy travellers cheques, don't forget to
write down a list of the serial numbers and keep
it separate from the cheques themselves. Thus,
if the cheques are lost or stolen, you have the
exact numbers when you go to get a refund.
In a short article I can't list all the things to
do and not to do and I am sure that some
readers have good suggestions of their own,
based on their experiences. However, with
what I have outlined, you will have a cheaper
and a more pleasant trip.
Bon voyage.
Letter
THE EDITOR,
I'd like to take this opportunity to clarify and
correct a report that appeared in your paper
recently regarding truck parking in residential
areas in the Ward of Brussels.
In fact, the discussion at the Huron East
council table on this matter centered on citizen
complaints registered in the Ward of Seaforth,
not Brussels. If my memory serves me
correctly, the reference to Brussels indicated
there were a number of trucks in Brussels, but
that very few complaints had ever been
registered. Trucks_were part and parcel of the
community.
As I'm sure the residents are aware, there is
no truck parking bylaw in Brussels and at this
point, I don't believe your representatives
foresee a need to recommend one.
I hope this clarifies the issue for di,: residents
in our Ward of Brussels.
.Lin Steiner, Mayor
Huron East.
Life doesn't depend on it
0h, we are spoiled, but the damage has
been done. You may not miss what
you've never had, but you sure as heck
would start whining if someone took away one
of your modern conveniences.
It was a recent summer Saturday. A truck
packed tighter than Liz Taylor's jewellery box.
sat under the shade of a big-leafed maple tree.
engine running, the driver waiting for the
caravan to begin. After some organizational
confusion three others load into a car and in
moments all are off.
It was moving day for our daughter, back to
the big city and her new apartment. She and I
had picked it out, but Dad was leading the way
on this trip.
All was well, until we hit the work of some
demented engineer, that ludicrous Hwy 7/8
exit on the Conestoga Parkway in Kitchener,
and its accompanying snarl. I segued smoothly
and with plenty of time over to the right. But
our trucking buddy spent a little longer and
before we knew it he was lost to us in the
netherworld of traffic congestion.
Realizing that he had absolutely no idea
where he was going other than Toronto, which
really doesn't pinpoint things, very precisely, I
was admittedly a bit concerned. As. usual, the
I'm Mom and I must find the solution wheels
began spinning for an answer.
"This is -why he should have a cell phone.
too, " I said as no resolution presented itself.
To this my son added his thought, one not
helpful in the least, but I assume he figured
worth noting. "Gee. I wonder how we ever got
along without those things."
I would have asked him if the same sarcasm
was appropriate with regard to his DVD. but
we had by this time caught up- with our
wayward warrior, who somehow was in front
of us. Which in essence meant I suppose. that
we were acmally the ones who were lost.
Anyway, while my son's jab was not
appreciated in the moment. it did get me
thinking. We have taken to so much of the
new technology as if we never lived a day
without them — and I'm not sure we're better
for it.
When I look at the elnails crossing my desk-
each and every day, I think back longingly to
the times of inconvenience which thwarted
some senders from inundating the world with
junk. Mass e-mailing brings to our office.
copious press releases which are in no way
related to our area or interesting to our readers.
Yet, it must all be dealt with. Whereas once
upon a tittle, we lived a tidy existence -of
actually coming into work in the morning.
sitting down and beginning the task before us.
now we customarily sift through reams of
papers to separate the nonsense from the news
sense, before- the actual work begins.
From home, to travel to our social life we are
surrounded by technology. Chain letters and
not-particularly-funny jokes swell our in-
boxes. Ringing cell phones 'interrupt our
dining and even threaten our lives as rude and/
or foolish folk cannot seem to recognize a
time and a place for everything._.
And computers follow us everywhere—
planes, hotel rooms — so there's no time for
rest.
Yet, stuck on the side of the road. you find a
cell phone pretty handy. Travelling at night.
there is security in knowing you can make that
connection. And the internet has linked us as
nothing else could. But, moderation is alik a\ s
best. Embrace technology, just not like life
depends on it. After all. it never did before.
How to manage your money abroad