HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2000-06-28, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28, 2000. PAGE 5.
Other Views
Enough to drive you to drink
There's a wonderful old James Thurber
cartoon that shows a slightly goofy
looking gent holding a glass of wine by
the base (as only winegeeks do) and enthusing
“It's a naive, domestic burgundy without any
breeding, but I think you'll be amused by it’s
presumption."
That's a near-perfect sendup of what I call
winebabble: that smarmy, pseudo
sophisticated bafflegab that you too
often hear from the grape-stained lips of
winelovers.
I have no problem with wine descriptions
that actually say something. If someone tells
me. a wine tastes peppery or fruity, that gives
me a sense of what they mean. I have no
trouble imagining the taste of an 'oaken' port
or a 'woody' cabernet.
But what the hell is a wine that displays
'angular resonance’? Or 'virginal overtones’?
Or a 'charming presence’?
It gets worse.
I have heard wines described as 'boof'. Or
'bootless'.
Don't ask me.
I read one winetasters notes on a hapless
Rioja. He wrote: “amusingpeptides. Hints of
the Crimea."
And in a Napa Valley wine store, there’s a
chi chi little 'connoisseur’s guide' sitting on a
Customs, immigration! Take care!
I’m sure we have all had stories that we tell
about one or more times when we went
through customs and something out of the
ordinary happened. Most of the time we expect
to be passed right through without delay
although there are those times when we
experience anything but.
With terrorists and other types of criminals
floating from country to country, the job of the
immigration and customs officials becomes
that much harder.
First of all, I think we sometimes confuse the
two and say customs when we mean
immigration. Customs is concerned only with
the importation of various physical goods
which may or may not be permitted.
Immigration, on the other hand, deals with
whether you are allowed to come into the
country.
Normally the immigration people get at you
first, followed by the customs officials.
In Europe you will note that sometimes it is
the police who check your passport.
All these officials may or may not have a
sense of humour but my first piece of advice to
you is not to test your theories as to this
humour. They are all business when you and
your belongings arrive at a border and you
should be too. Give straight answers to any
questions and let them decide how long to
carry on the conversation. You are more likely
to get through without the above mentioned
delay.
Sometimes, for no apparent reason, you are
asked to pull aside and have your car checked.
The other day I was over in Port Huron for just
under an hour and, on the way back, I was
asked the usual questions about what I had
bought etc.
In spite of the fact that I had bought nothing
etc., I was still asked to pull into the customs
section and have one of the officials check my
car. Perhaps they were just doing one of their
spot checks: J don’t know but I did know that
they would find nothing and so 1 waited
patiently while they went through my car with
shelf of sauvignon blancs that reads “From the
first sniff, one is impressed by the precise,
deep but never bombastic aromas in which
green apple and crenshaw melon scents and by
a creamy, vanillin accent of oak, and it is
wonderfully balanced on the palate with ripe
richness set off by firming acids and
brightness.”
Talk like that’s enough to drive a person to
drink.
Wine talk doesn’t have to be boring or
pretentious. Someone once had the wit to
describe a new Zinfandel as a 'De Gaulle'
wine.
Which is to say, ‘tall, with an earthy nose,
but slightly dead'.
The Canadian possibilities are intriguing.
We could have a Marty McSorley Merlot
('surreptitious.... sneaks up, blindsides you
and leaves you for dead’).
A Chretien Champagne ('renders you
speechless in both official languages’).
Raymond
Canon
The
International
Scene
the expected results. In a couple of minutes I
was on my way.
If you are in Europe, you may be surprised to
cross a border and find that there is neither
customs nor immigration checks. In fact, you
hardly have to slow down. This is due to what
is called the Schlengen agreement, ■ which
means that some of the Western European
countries have decided to eliminate all the
usual formalities of crossing a border.
The first time I ran into this was when I went
from Austria to Germany on the Autobahn
north from Innsbruck to Munich. It seemed
strange to see all the buildings closed right
down but it was nice not to lose any time in
crossing a border.
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the editor are a forum for public opinion and comment. The views expressed do not
necessarily reflect those of this publication.
THE EDITOR,
To the person driving on Dinsley Street on
Monday, June 19 in the afternoon - the animal
you hit was a family pet and the child who
owned that pet was there watching when it
happened. You could have had the decency to
stop to see what you had run over.
I know when animals run out in front of cars
you sometimes can’t help it, and accidents do
happen, but a kind word to the child might
have been the proper thing to do.
Just to let you know the cat did suffer for
quite a while and I had to make a hard decision
to put him down. To you, it might have been
just another animal, but to my kids it was part
A BC Chateauneuf de NDP (‘Bat, tasteless,
soon to be discontinued').
A Sheila Copps Catawba ('sharp, with a
bitter aftertaste...) - oh, but we've already got
Newfie Screech.
I think it would be wise if wine tasters
developed a sense of humour before the rest of
the world dies laughing at their preposterous
solemnity.
They might also want to invest in a decent
translation service The following appeared on
the label of a shipment of Allozo Crianza, a red
wine made in Tomelloso, Spain and (at last
report) sold in select liquor stores across
Canada:
“Sensorial tasting. Allonzo Crianza has a
deep, obscure, red and cherry colour, with a
good cloak, clean and brilliant with reflexes of
medium evolution that show tiles. It has
aromas of breeding, prevailing new
wood over an elegant and perfumed bottom of
spices, and matured black fruits well
united and with balsamic memories. It is
vivid on the tongue, with a great
acidity very well integrated, a solid, full, silky,
and greasy way, and a tasty and
well-structured final. It is large and
retronasal.”
Sounds suspiciously like a winetaster who
forgot to spit and rinse.
On the other hand, the first time I went into
the Czech Republic, I found getting out harder
than getting in. I went in by train; they asked a
couple of questions and that was all. On the
way out a few months later, this time by car, it
took much longer to get out of the country than
it did to get into Austria. The Austrians, I
surmised, worked on the assumption that, if the
Czechs felt it was safe to let a person out, it
was certainly okay to let him or her into
Austria.
When I asked my Czech friends about this
afterwards, they replied that some of the
procedures developed during the cold war
were so ingrained, they had not yet got around
to doing away with them.
I can vouch for that, having gone into
Czechoslovakia at the height of the cold war.
Finally, it never does any harm to take your
passport with you, even if only driving to the
United States. I was asked for it once at Detroit
when I was going to a wedding in Ann Arbour.
To make matters more interesting, I even had
to declare the value of the wedding gift. At
least they didn’t ask to see my invitation!
of the family.
A big thank you Ella Ives who picked up the
cat and watched over it.
Tracy Cook.
I---------- i
Final Thought
Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can.
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can.
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can.
As long as ever you can.
- John Wesley's Rule
Bonnie
The short of it
Celebrate Canada!
Canada Day 28 years ago was, you might
say, my first labour day. After making
my July 1 holiday a bit intense to say
the least, my infant son made a grand debut in
the early morning hours of July 2. Thus the
celebration of our country’s birthday as
intended has in the years since, been diminshed
by this personally portentous event.
However, in the new millenium, a milestone
which has come with no small degree of
introspection and retrospection, it is perhaps
appropriate that two recent occurrences this
past week caused me to revisit the national
event for the year 2000.
More accurately, they brought to mind the
blessings of being Canadian. Amidst high gas
prices, government cuts, health care, education
and environmental concerns, we often take for
granted what is good about this country. When
we look at the alternatives, we should proudly
proclaim Oh Canada as our home and native
land.
Last week I attended two theatre
productions. Each was titled for its main
character, both of whom were girls, both
named Anne. Both were precocious, bright
youngsters, whom we see altered by time and
circumstance.
And there the similarities end. The first
production was Stratford Avon Theatre's
mounting of The Diary of Anne Frank. They
did a superb job of creating what life would be
like under the shadow not just of war, but of the
loss of democratic rights. The ethnic cleansing
of Jews in Europe during the second world
war, despite our knowing, despite its
replication in other countries even today,
occupies a comer of the mind wherein we store
the surreal. We are aware, but cur
understanding of sucn heinous deeds lies far
away from our realities. Certainly, bigotry and
hatred exist in orr world but they truly cannot
compare.
Thus sitting in the theatre, thinking about
being forced indoors, your way of life ripped
from you, in constant fear of discovery, was a
reality check.
Then at Blyth Festival was Anne, based on
the popular Green Gables character of
Canadian lore. Though an orphan, Anne is
adopted by a loving family. Her passage into
adolescence was one of brightness while the
former, bom into a close-knit, caring family
came of age in the cramped, dark, drafty attic,
she and seven others called home for 25
months, day and night.
While the non-fictional Anne saw sunshine
only through windows and was forced to
remain as quiet as a mouse during the day,
Canada’s Anne grew up in a place of such lush
beauty its very image brings springtime to your
cheeks. There were no bombs or sirens, but
rather room to run, fresh air and sunshine to
breathe and soak in. Her world was one of
simplicity, her unbedeviled existence, carefree
innocence and open spirit synonymous with
the land on which she thrived.
It's interesting how easily we take the
pleasure of living in this country for granted. It
is, from coast to coast, everything that nature
could offer. For the majority life is good, easy,
unfettered by worries of conflict, disease,
abject poverty. And even for those not among
this number there is usually hope
opportunities for growth and better ways.
To consider all of this, what we have, this
Saturday we should proudly celebrate Canada.