A Meandering Mann

A Day on a Tall Ship in the Bay of Islands

On March 8, 2026

Our first view of the ship, ready for us to board.

A highlight of the cruise was our day on a Tall Ship, the R Tucker Thompson. It was a small Tall Ship, 80 ft long.

I do not know its history, but it was refitted with found objects, one of the masts used to be a telegraph pole, and lots of energy and determination. The goal was to be able to be part of a flotilla of boats in the South Pacific trying to prevent the French from detonating nuclear bombs on an atoll, which they did from the 60’s to 1996. Greenpeace was involved and I remember hearing about it on the news. They did not succeed and were only a few kilometers from an explosion when it happened.

Now, the income generated from the cruise ship shore excursions helps to pay for groups of young people to live on board and learn life skills. The life skills are disguised as learning how to sail and live on a tall ship which requires discipline and following orders and eventually giving orders and working as a team. To prove their skills, they run the ship on the last day of their sail.

Getting to the R Tucker Thompson was interesting. First a tender to shore from the cruise boat, then around the bay in a coach to another dock and the ship. We went in a huge semicircle to be able to sail out, past our cruise ship.

It would have been so much easier if we had been able to go from the tender to the tall ship, but goodness knows how many port rules that would have ignored, and health and safety measures broken.

The day was all I hoped it to be, we first sailed to the island that both the Tahitians and Cook arrived on, several hundred years apart.

As someone not familiar with the history of New Zealand I did not realize that the country was only populated by south pacific islanders from about the 1200’s.

On the shore there are story boards, on one side Cook’s actions, and on the other, how the Māori experienced it. The story boards speak for themselves. Sadly, shoot first and ask questions later was Cook’s response.

And

I could not resist a picture of this tree which is growing out of a rock hillside, thriving. I wonder if it predates the first people here.

I remember hearing about cedars that grow on the Niagara escarpment down in the Hamilton area. They were tiny, but many hundreds of years old. They have to grow where their seed fell and make the best of it.

More about Captain Cook

And of course:

And so it continues:

Back to the ship for a lovely lunch, which had followed coffee and scones, jam and cream for breakfast. I was in heaven. We had had to be ready to leave the cruise ship by 7 am so no breakfast for us on board the cruise ship.

I couldn’t get the grin off my face as we prepared to sail, and I helped hoist one sail.

We had an all-woman crew, who worked really well together. The skipper Aihri, would give the order and someone would answer that it was heard and being done. So simple but needs discipline, and I think, respect for the person giving orders. My nephew would appreciate this as someone who sailed on the Stad Amsterdam tall ship for several years (I think it was years, time stretches and compresses in my mind)

View from the wheel

We swam from the ship, me approaching the water in my usual way by the steps, slowly, and others jumping from the rigging and from a rope swing. The ocean was glorious and much fun was had.

The wind picked up a little after noon and we were able to use wind power for a while. Up went the sails, my cousins Cathy, Jim and wife Karen would know their names.

I had helped raise one in the morning, I think we raised them to set the tone for the day because there was no wind to speak of, and it worked, the tone was set.

I even got to take the wheel for a short time, and loved it

We reversed the rigamarole of the morning and queued to get back on board the cruise ship, but the day was worth it.

Anne, yet again, did not see dolphins or whales, which is a dear wish. It was hard for her to hear at breakfast the next day that another shore excursion has seen two kinds of dolphins during their outing.

I enjoyed all the shore excursions, but this was the best.

Deco Dogs

By Maggie

On March 1, 2026

In Posts

Deco dogs on Parade. Free to enter, free to watch and a great favourite of the Art Deco Festival

Anne and I made sure we got ring side seats for the 9 am start. Early so that the dogs are not parading in the heat of the day, and oh what fun.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ABC, were there filming the event for a Dogs with Jobs show. This dog was very interested in participating in the TV show. They were one of the winners, but I reckon anyone who entered was a winner.

A lot of effort was put in by the humans, here is a bathing beauty together with their change room.

And

Some even had their own motor car. This is Sherlock Holmes on The Case of the Missing Sausages

The judges had a difficult job to do, and some people really played up to them.

And to the camera

This was a pair entered in the dressed alike category. I was impressed by the sewing undertaken for this event and for Fashion on the Foreshore.

Some dogs did tricks

Others got loved up by the crowd

And others were obedient because they were fed treats

One really didn’t want to walk, but competed anyway.

The husband had two dogs, and the wife two more.

There were paper boys and their dogs and

Flying dogs.

The whole family gets in on the act.

Of course there was a lion

Who jumped through a loop.

So many dogs, here is a parade of them:

One of the look alike pairs, but this time she looks like her dog. Only one dog peed during the show, and surprisingly the other dogs did not stop and sniff. Such good behaviour

Another human looking like her dog. Everyone made such an effort and put their heart and creativity into it.

And last but not least, there was a poodle. Gandalf the Grey.

Some of the human costumes for this show were obviously a labour of love or a great vintage find. Sadly most of my pictures from the Fashion on the Foreshore competition did not enlarge very well, I was too far away, but here are some:

Above is one of the winner, wearing an original by xxxx from Paris. Should have written it down. I think she may have bought it in her youth and she was one of the winners

Original Shiaparelli cape

And Anne in her finery for an evening of fine dining.

The Opera House, Sydney of Course

By Maggie

On February 23, 2026

In Posts

The Opera House has featured in many of the our Sydney days. On our first day Anne and I walked up to Circular Quay from our hotel, via the park where the Anzac Memorial is, past the Mint Headquarters and the State Library of New South Wales which we later visited and saw three great exhibits. The Australian Dream, about an architect who designed the dream house on a quarter acre lot. We met a couple on the cruise that owned one. The Curious World of Pamela Allen, a children’s writer and illustrator much beloved by Australian children, and the third about a magazine equivalent to Life Magazine called PIX. All of them were excellent.

The Opera House dominates the whole quay. It draws your eye, and photographing it is irresistible. We saw it again as we sailed away on our cruise, as well as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, another eye-catching sight.

Sail Away

The incoming boat is under the top of the glass balcony, very close to our ship. It creates a very strange visual.

Smaller and smaller. Sadly we did not sail under the Sydney Harbour Bridge as I had hoped, going under it is going inland.

Yes, those are people at the very top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Apparently they have to be attached as climbers are, but that still wouldn’t make me do it.

Anne arranged a tour of the Opera House for our return to Sydney. It was part of my birthday present. Some history. The Chief Conductor, Eugene Goossens, of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra pressed for a dedicated building for the performing arts. I am not sure why it became the Sydney Opera House instead of the Sydney Symphony House. Eugene Goossens eventually gained the support of the New South Wales premier Joseph Cahill to create a dedicated performance space for orchestra, ballet and opera. An international competition was held in 1955 which received 233 designs. Number 218 was picked. The architect was a young Danish man called Jorn Utzen. I am amazed that although his design was picked they really didn’t know how it was going to be actualized until 1961. Finally it was resolved.

All shapes were taken from the same sphere so that angles were consistent.

And from Joseph Cahill

The names are not completely forgotten, but the Opera House is now A World Heritage Site for Arts. A great effort was made to use Australian materials, and much of the inside is Australian wood. However Jorn Utzen used French glass for the windows, it was shipped in huge pieces and cut on site. All of the tiles, 1,056,006 of them, were made in Sweden, and they are so well made that less than 3% have been replaced all these years later. Utzen thought that just white would have too much glare so there is a pattern of white and cream. To be honest until I was close to the building I had not realized it was tiles instead of a solid roof

He used concepts that were way ahead of his time, one particularly interesting one is that he did not want eavestroughs, or gutters as they say in the U.K, and Anne pointed out, Australia, to spoil the line of the roof. The water flows off and is funnelled through the walkways into a collection system. Centennial College, where I taught, used this concept for their sidewalks, they are porous and allow the water to be collected for flushing toilets, known as grey water. It was one of the reasons that they were awarded a Gold (I think it was gold) LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental design) standard for its new campus this century.

However, as is usually the case, there was trouble. The government fell and the new premier did not like how much time the building was taking and the cost overruns. Are any public buildings built to budget? The premier put the squeeze on Utzen by cutting off his funding to pay the suppliers and labourers, which caused him to resign, which is what the premier wanted. Interestingly enough the building was funded by public lottery, in New South Wales only. The guides’ comment was that Australians cannot resist a bet. It was finished by Peter Hall and others. Only this century has Utzen received recognition for the amazing building he designed.

One area of the building was supposed to be a large square elevator to move sets up to q performance floor but the plan changed, and it is the only square performance space in the building and it can be used in various configurations. When we were there this musical was on:

Deco is everywhere. This is the square theatre:

Even the chairs in the Opera House are unusual:

Apparently because of the high ceilings the music rises and falls slowly which is difficult for the musicians to hear themselves, but the wood acts as sound baffles, so it is not a dead loss.

The rest of my birthday present (for that day) was a comedy performance by lesbian Mel Buttle, in the Playhouse theatre. Several times during her performance she said “and here I am, doing stand up comedy in the Opera House”. I think she was impressed. She riffed on her marriage, she wanted a simple one, her friends did not, Her kids, who are of course a lot of work, and she was glad she was away for a day and night, it was hilarious.

Coming back into Sydney at the end of the cruise and early in the morning I did not think I would be awake, but I was, and it was glorious.

Above is coming around Bennelong Point to dock. What an inspired location for the opera house, jutting out into the harbour. Of course the land was originally occupied by Indigenous Australians, and that is now acknowledged at the beginning of performances. They did it much better than we usually do in Canada.

It also has a seal, Benny, who has made the opera house his afternoon sunning spot.

They have fenced off the area around him so he is just photographed, not fed.

There are more pictures, which I cannot resist putting in. It is hard to see the whole building and it looks different depending on where you are standing.

Anne, and then me. We never did get very good at selfies

So that is it for the Opera House. Til next time.

Art Deco Festival, Napier, NZ. February 18 – 21 2026. Part 1

By Maggie

On February 20, 2026

In Posts

It has been a busy two days in this Art Deco town, beginning with a walking tour, The Inside Story Walking Tour. Two down, two to go. Most of the inside photographs come from that tour

This and the next two pictures are from the inside of a Gentleman’s club. The first thing they built was a billiards room. It was one of the buildings that survived the earthquake and subsequent fire.

And among other things they added two card rooms. Women were finally admitted in 2022, probably because they needed new members, and now in 2026 there is a woman president. Funny how exclusively male clubs can still exist. I can’t help feeling they are a patriarchal dinosaur, but also know that it is a male hideout where decisions are made that affect all of us.

The inside pictures here and following are from businesses that have restored their properties for modern use but maintained the Art Deco interior. They have done a great job.

The above shots are from a bank, and it was my birthday. I enjoyed the Internet Banking sign against the Art Deco backdrop.

The guide told us about different variations of Art Deco style, Prairie (in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright), Spanish Mission, and I know there was more but I can’t remember at the moment. I will have to read up on them, how they developed and intersected. I also really enjoy Arts and Crafts, which is associated with Frank Lloyd Wright among others.

The entrance to the bank above

Our guide directing us to look up when we went into the store. This what we saw.

It has survived through many uses of this retail space.

The old Art Deco Centre

The new Art Deco Trust Centre, the restored Women’s Rest.

We need a break between images!

Louis Hay was one of the very active architects responsible for the rebuilding of Napier after the 1931 earthquake that destroyed most of the town. He liked flat frontages, not balconies being supported from below, so the balconies in this hotel are behind the facade.

This is another of his buildings. It has changed from tobacco to alcohol. It is a gin distillery and we went to an art opening The Bees Knees by Jane Gibbons. Art and gin were both good.

Just a random, unoccupied shop door, waiting for a new future.

And the entrance close up

And decor

It is getting late and tomorrow is a Workman’s breakfast at 8.15 am. We are being taken to breakfast on a vintage steam traction engine around the seafront and on to Ahuriri.

Last picture. A perfectly framed alleyway. Any mistakes, such as the interior snot being connected to the exterior in this post are mine.

Dangerously Modern

By Maggie

On February 14, 2026

In Posts

Way back at the end of January, on my second day in Sydney, Anne and I walked to the Art Gallery of New South Wales to see the exhibit Dangerously Modern. We knew it was about Australian and New Zealand women artists living in Europe from 1890 to 1940. After a hot walk, we were delighted to be inside a cool building, but not prepared for the scope and depth of the exhibition, 220 pieces of art, all by women from that era. Many words can describe our reaction, inspired, intrigued, educated, delighted, and overwhelmed. But can’t quite capture the feeling.

This post has been on my mind since seeing the exhibit. I was not very far into it when I realized that I wanted to create a post. I had no idea these women existed, lived in Paris, London, the French countryside, the English countryside, Ireland, following their own creative dreams, learning from each other, experimenting with new art forms, cubism for example, and of course co-existing with all the other creative artists that are so famous from that time, writing for instance. Virginia Woolf, Earnest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the bookshop, Shakespeare & Co. So I started taking pictures, and that is what this post is, the exhibit through my eyes. And no, it is not all 220 of them, but a lot. (Still can’t believe that we can take pictures of the art.). Maybe it is for me, so that I can see it whenever I want to.

This piece was very small and intriguing, painted on ivory.

Some artists stayed in Europe for the rest of their lives, others returned to Australia or New Zealand and continued their careers, changing the art culture at home.

Is this how artists of the era do their sketches, paint them in the back of the box? Seems a sensible idea.

I love the way that two of the women are looking directly at you, one happy, one glum, while grabbing fabric. I can put myself in that picture, in a French market, or a sale where speed is of the essence in getting the choicest item. I didn’t photograph the next picture, but wanted the information about Iso Rae’s connection to other artists and her community in Etaples

I can feel the damp and cold bleakness in this picture in my bones.

Sadly this copy does not do the original justice. Standing in front of it I could feel the difficulty of working on a boat in a wind that made the Thames choppy, and how cold and miserable that would have been.

We took a break after about an hour and a half to give our brains a rest, they were full of art. We had a lovely lunch in the restaurant, but don’t ask me what, I have had so many lovely lunches since.

We have become quite familiar with the modern Circular Quay. The cruise ship began from there, and there is a fleet of commuter ferries that always seems to have at least three boats coming and going at once, and completely un-phased by the cruise ship sailing away, dodging this way and that around it.

I didn’t take a photo of Van Gogh’s room.

I really enjoyed the background information throughout the exhibit. It really added depth and understanding of the women and their art and lives.

She is painting the next picture.

The above refers to picture above. Oh, what English, but as you can imagine, keeping everything in order while I was there, then when I uploaded them to laptop, editing them and putting them into the WordPress app ready to put them here was quite a challenge, and time consuming. But I think worth it. It must have taken at least a couple of years to research the artists, assemble their work and then present them in an understandable way. And as far as I know an original, dare I say, unique exhibit.

Refugees. A horrendous human effect of man-made conflict. How can we not support their efforts to find settled lives? They did not ask for their misery

This room was much more interesting than Van Gogh’s.

Loved this one, stood for ages looking at the very humanness of it, but don’t seem to have recorded the artist. It was getting late in the show.

The star of the show. Anne and I have spent time trying to pin down the affect. Unapologetic. Saucy. Attitude. Self-confident. Defying convention. Would love to hear what she says to you.

This is the same artist who painted her husband dead on the battlefield

Getting into cubism

Such a clever way of showing who went where, but hard to follow when complete.

Some of the artist. Well and truly tired by this time, so not complete.

The end! Almost. Don’t know where this one fits.

Not in any particular order. Auckland

By Maggie

On February 12, 2026

In Posts

Embarkation in Sydney with Anne, my high school friend

Anne and I were at sea. From February 1 to 12th, and the cruise ship kindly provided us with digital detox, being unwilling to pay the exhorbitant fees to be connected to the internet. We did have shore time, i.e we could squeeze in some connectivity addiction but not long enough to write a blog.

Auckland was our third stop on our cruise around the North Island of New Zealand, and although we had not booked a shore excursion, we found a hop on, hop off bus. I suggested we go to the end of the tour and work our way back. Slight problem with that thinking, it is a circular tour! But none-the- less enjoyable. We alighted at Bastion Point, where you can see amazing views, although where can’t you in Auckland?

View of Auckland, sea and sky, returning from from Bastion Point

There is sea on both sides of the city and the architecture is interesting and varied. It makes Toronto look sad to my mind.

In the 70’s an Auckland mayor, name forgettable, decided to sell what is know as Bastion Point for an upscale residential development. However, the land is sacred ancestral land to the Māori, and they set up an encampment which remained in place for over a year, but did not succeed at the time. Due to persistence, however, in the 80’s it became Takaparawhau, owned by Ngati Whatua Orakei and co-managed with Tamaki Makaurau. Wish I knew completely what that means, probably different tribes working together.

However, at the top of the hill is a monument which is quite elaborate and dominates the area. It did feel a bit like tit for tat to us.

Rosemary hedge. Always a pleasure to see rosemary growing so profusely, it is a tender perennial in Ontario and winter survival is always a happy surprise and never ever a hedge.

I enjoyed the tour of the city, we saw popular residential and shopping areas such as Parnell, and Newmarket. At only about 1.5 million it seems like a very liveable city, and the sailors among you may be tempted by the fact that there are more boat owners per capita in NZ, and I think specifically Auckland than anywhere is else in the world.

The above success, at Bastion Point, in reclaimed sacred land reminds me of similar encampments and confrontations in Canada, some with and some without success. One that did not immediately succeed in Auckland was a prime area for development. The Māori residents were moved to government housing and their homes burned. Only the cemetery survived. Now however the area is a park for the enjoyment of all, very much in line with Maori beliefs.

New Zealand has three official languages, Māori, English and New Zealand sign language. Māori appears first, and then English. It is enjoying a strong revival and is taught in school to all children. Their respect for the land and their cultural wisdom are becoming part of everyday life here from what I am hearing and seeing. Kio ora is said as a welcome, by all people, it is the equivalent to hello, but it translates to a wish for them to have life and health, and can also mean goodbye. I still cannot pronounce Aotearoa, but would like to. It is the Maori name for New Zealand, and means long white cloud, which we could clearly see from the ship.

My hesitation in using another’s language is getting the accent right, which is silly, because most like people to try anyway as a sign of respect.

Our big ship, Carnival Splendor, their spelling, not mine or Annes’ who it particularly annoyed.

My first towel art occurred on this cruise

I went on the yellow slide. And Cathy, I could not persuade Anne to do it.

Oh dear, three in one week!

By Maggie

On January 26, 2026

In Posts

Pretty fancy address for Canada House in London

I managed to get to Pearson airport and fly out before the biggest snowfall Toronto has experienced in recorded history. My friend Sue very ably and safely drove me to the airport, through big patches of ice and whiteouts, and a couple of stupid drivers. And I am vey happy to say that Sue made it home safely.

There is no snow where I am, and today was very mild. Fingerless gloves and no hat. We went into London to go to the Radical Harmony: Helene Kroller-Muller’s Neo-Impressionists exhibit at the National Gallery, think Pointillism and Seurat

Helene Kroller-Muller was a serious collector of Neo-Impressionists, and her second love was Van Gogh, this exhibit was her collection. I still find it strange that I can take picture of the pictures! It feels odd, and of course the pictures taken by most people will be seen by hardly anyone, but it feels like a transgression. But here are some that I really enjoyed.

At first I could not relate to this painting, but as I learned more about it the more impressed I became. The sunlight on the water is luminous, and I can really relate to the bushes on the shore and their deepening shadows. It definitely looses something in reproduction sadly.

It was interesting to read about the style, and how other artists adopted it, and added their own “takes”, but also interesting that many found it to be too time consuming, and started to add their own elements. There was sharing of pictures by artists and discussions of the technique. It also seems to have been adopted by committed anarchist and communist artists who sought better conditions for workers, but also by women who were active not only in the arts, music and intellectual pursuits, but also advocating for women’s rights, such as clothing that was less restrictive. Sounds small, but imagine finally being able to run away from a dangerous situation.

After the exhibit we walked along the edge Trafalgar Square.

And on to Canada House, which I had never been inside before. We went through security and had a brief look at an exhibit in the entry way. Then on to Zedel.

I first saw Zedel on the day I walked in the anti-brexit march back in 2019. Suzy suggested it as a place for something to eat, but it was packed, but it kind of blew me away. It is an Art Deco restaurant, completely under ground. I had to go back, and today was the day.

Jane is holding up the menu for me, and John is finishing Celeraic soup with creme freshe. Of course it was written in French, but remembering the spelling is beyond me.

The place is amazing.

As we were eating Jane was musing about the location of the restaurant. She was pretty sure it was the site of The Regent Palace Hotel. She remembered staying there with our parents and M0m’s brother Murray and his wife and children. They had connecting rooms, a concept that has always captured my imagination. And she was pretty sure that Mom had worked there when she arrived in England, and probably until she had her first child in 1950.

Zedel’s entrance is the red sign on the right. If you look up the Regent Palace Hotel it is the same building.

It really is a small world. Can siblings or Robinson cousins add any further information?

I can’t believe I am doing this

By Maggie

On January 21, 2026

In Posts

But I am going to do it before I change my mind. Sadly it is not the whole article as I do not have a paid subscription to Breaking the New but it is still very very powerful, and think I can watch the whole speech from the link in the article. So here goes:

Subscribe here for more A Speech for the History Books.And for the here and now.

A memorable discourse on America’s place in the world, by the leader of a US neighbor and former friend.

Mark Carney, prime minister of Canada, acknowledging a rare-for-Davos sustained standing ovation, at the end of his brief (17 minutes) but exquisitely composed address to the 1,800-person crowd of world financial and political leaders yesterday. He explained American values, and lamented the effects of their permanent loss, far more eloquently than the person who ranted, complained, bragged, and lied on that same stage this morning. And who left the stage to no applause except from his own staffers. (Photo Harun Ozalp/Anadolu via Getty Images)It’s impossible to judge the long-term effect of oratory, in the short term. Many presentations that loom large in history were almost ignored at the time. Here’s just one example of many: At Harvard’s commencement ceremony in 1947, then-Secretary of State George Marshall spent 12 minutes outlining why it was in America’s interest to help Europe recover from the devastation of World War II. Even though this would mean Americans pouring more tax money into the continent where so many of them had already sacrificed. Even though it would include helping Germany, so recently the Allies’ bitter foe. At the time, the speech barely drew any coverage. But eventually it was recognized as the debut of what became the Marshall Plan, which in turn was the basis for Marshall himself receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.¹None of us can know for sure whether yesterday’s brief address at Davos, by Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney, will similarly be remembered as marking a turning point in understanding world power, and of America’s role. But there’s a chance it will be. And in any case, to keep it above the slurry of the latest outrage news, it’s worth noticing the craft, the composition, and the content of these 17 minutes on stage. I’ll call this out with line-by-line annotations on the text, below. But the main accomplishments of the speech were these:It made several important ideas “real,” by naming them. That is one of the most powerful things any piece of writing can do. Through the speech, Carney threaded the idea that world relations were at a rupture, not a “transition.” He never dignified Donald Trump by specifying him as the source of this rupture. But he didn’t need to. At each stage of the speech he gave other concepts memorable names, as I’ll note below.The conceptual originality of the speech was the power of the less powerful. The “great powers” had given up any pretense of self-restraint. By that Carney meant, and didn’t need to spell out, Russia, China, and the United States, It was now up to everyone else, including “middle powers” like Canada, to fend for themselves, and for their values. With many adjustments for scale, Carney was paralleling the message that democracy in the United States now depends less on its once-reliable institutions than on the millions of individuals who are now standing up, wherever and however they can. The speech was remarkably tight and coherent, in imagery and argument. The standard convention-address by a world leader has several groaning transitions, along the lines of, “Turning now to world affairs….” Carney’s started with a theme—the world has changed, forever—and returned to that at the end.It pulled off a trick harder than it sounds: Touching on complex themes, without sounding pedantic or “mansplaining.” Carney was talking about how an era of rules-based globalization had brought both benefits and problems, but that overall the benefits had been greater. He lightly alluded to the items on each side of the ledger—and of the new ledger to come, confident that his audience would follow.The speech had a very low quotient of what speechwriters call “BOMFOG.” That stands for “Brotherhood of Man, Fatherhood of God”; it is based on 1960s-era tropes from Nelson Rockefeller; and it means write-it-in-your-sleep boilerplate. Only once or twice did Carney stray into this or other “speechwriterly” territory.By contrast, the speech referred several times to honesty—and exemplified it, through Carney’s un-sentimental view of Canada’s place in the world, and the options available to it and other countries like it.The speech also referred to a kind of modesty, in recognizing the limits of what nations or networks could do. Carney’s delivery reflected that—natural and almost conversational-sounding, brisk rather than full of dramatic pauses. Making hard things look easy is the measure of skill in many realms. Carney’s speech was carefully written enough to sound spontaneous.I understand, from sources “in a position to know,” that the ideas in the speech are ones Carney has been discussing with his allied counterparts, but that the composition was mainly his own. On the one hand, that is what staffers are always supposed to say about the boss. On the other hand, Carney delivered these phrases as if they all came naturally, rather than showing up by surprise on the prompter.Sentence by sentence, it had a number of graceful touches. I’ll mention some of them below.And it was short.ShareIn that spirit, let’s move to the annotated text. I’m using the for-release version from Davos, where you can also see a video of Carney delivering the speech. I’m leaving the spelling in original (ie, non-US) form. Defence vs defense, rigour vs rigor, etc. I’ll highlight words and phrases in bold, and add comments in itals and brackets, [like this]. Here we go:Address by Canadian Prime Minister, World Economic Forum, Davos, January 20, 2026.I’m going to start in French, and then I’ll switch back to English.[Davos note: The following is translated from French]It is both a pleasure, and a duty, to be with you tonight in this pivotal moment that Canada and the world going through.Today I will talk about a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, [starting right out by naming three developments that will run through the speech: That the old order has been ruptured; that many have lived in a ‘pleasant fiction’; and that it was time to face harsh reality] where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.On the other hand, I would like to tell you that the other countries, especially intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. [Introduction of the other main theme: What the rest of us can do, when the mighty have lost all restraint.] They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states.The power of the less powerful starts with honesty. [A line delivered in French that summarizes the speech as a whole.][Davos note: Carney returns to speaking in English]It seems that every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must. [These kinds of speech-writerly ‘antithesis’ touches can be overdone. I thought this one worked, in part because it was delivered in a natural-sounding way, as opposed to “See what I did here!”] And this aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable, as the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself.And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety. [Addressed to the business leaders in the room; to the European leaders who have tried to cozy up to Trump; to the world in general.]Well, it won’t. [Power in concision. The confidence of knowing he need not spell this out.]So, what are our options?In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel, later president, wrote an essay called The Power of the Powerless, and in it, he asked a simple question: how did the communist system sustain itself? [When building up to ‘How could this happen?’ points, the easiest and most familiar allusion is to 1930s Germany. Carney has instead a much fresher story, from a generation later, from ‘modern’ Europe, and about countries whose post-Communist revival is the backdrop for many of the personal and business stories represented at Davos.]And his answer began with a greengrocer…

This is a test

By Maggie

On January 20, 2026

In Posts

Tucker, ready for bed, asking permission to jump up

My blogs are few and far between these days, so this is a test to see if I still know how to create one. Because……… I am going on an extended trip that includes London for a few days, Sydney Australia and New Zealand, then back to the UK for a week. And I hope I have something interesting to say while I am away, from time to time.

Tucker in the morning, just waking up. A few seconds before this was taken his paws were crossed. Darn my slow speed.

Tucker will be in Elizabeth’s safe and capable hands, and I am not get him back upon my return. Last time I was away she was very reluctant to hand him back,

The trip came about because I was talking to a high school friend who lives in Melbourne, Australia, and I mentioned the Art Deco Festival held in Napier, NZ. https://www.artdecofestival.co.nz/. Something that I had wanted to attend since friends Kate and Jim discovered it. Just before they went into Covid shutdown. Never a dull moment with those two. They did eventually make it home, but not a bad place to be all in all.

A couple of years ago I had a big Art Deco tease when my cousin Cathy and I visited Miami Beach.

I am pretty sure I wrote a blog about it. Here are some photos.

Napier was destroyed by an earthquake in 1931 and rebuilt in the current architectural style, Art Deco.

So we are heading there as part of the trip. We have booked events, croquet, cocktail and afternoon tea for example, but there is a lot of people watching to do, and free events. Vintage cars, dogs and owners decked out in Deco, bandshell concerts.

And Anne and I have our Flapper costumes ready.

I will send this out and then check my own inbox a day or so later to ensure that all systems are still in place. I hope you still want to read my blogs, but you can always easily unsubscribe, on the other hand I always like to hear from you when one goes out.

Til soon I hope.

All change at Newbury

By Maggie

On May 22, 2024

In Posts

Lots of birdlife on the canal. Wendy caught a heron in mid flight, and swans come round wherever we tie up. Obviously narrowboats represent food to them, and they can get quite pushy. Jim was nipped on the arm walking by the open window by an indignant swan.

**Chasing male Mallards, who were probably trying to distract the swan from going after the female and her chicks.**

**Taking a breather while the lock is emptying**

**Cousin John at the tiller.** **He joined us on day 4, Thursday.**

So many great photographs of the countryside and sky taken by the crew:

**Elli’s amazing photograph of the Bruce Tunnel**

Five years ago when I travelled this canal, this house, an old lock keepers house, was derelict. Now it a cosy canal side home.

When we got to Newbury it was all change. Our first visitors had to leave and our second ones arrived. And we had to turn back. There were RED BOARDS up for eastbound on the Kennet section of the lock. A month of rain and storms had caused the river section to be too high and there was damage to locks. As well, a tree had fallen across the canal and needed specialty equipment to remove it. We did not have the time to wait. We had pushed each day to try and achieve our goal of getting as far as Windsor on the Thames, and now we are in tick-over, the lowest speed of the boat, 2 miles per hour, and taking in the countryside as we meander back to Bradford on Avon.