Thursday 11 August 2016

Love Local

It's almost ridiculous, but an ISIS sympathizer in Strathroy has been killed by police in Strathroy, Ontario after detonating "a device".  Where? Well you may ask.

Strathroy is a tiny town near London, Ontario in what I call farm country. The ISIS sympathizer was named Aaron Driver; I would not be surprised to discover men on both sides of his family fought for Canada in the First and Second World Wars. I would also not be surprised to find out that half his ancestors were from Holland, because I associate Strathroy with ollie balls, not freaking ISIS.

Strathroy is a fair distance from my native Toronto, but I had a friend from there in my university days (the maker of the ollie balls) who had come to the Big Smoke to work for IBM. In the 1990s, working for IBM carried the caché of working for Google now, but I digress.

I'm really thinking about living and loving locally, which may sound rich coming from me, an expat who married a Scot and relies greatly on the internet to make and sustain relationships. However, when people are so into the internet that they heed voices that come out of it telling them to kill their actually physically near neighbours, there is definitely a problem.

No doubt journalists in Canada will find out exactly WHY an Anglo-named Canadian from the sticks was attracted to a violent form of Islam. I shall read with interest. I understand that there is a lot of boredom (and therefore drugs) in farm country nowadays, but surely the neighbours think of interesting things to do outdoors in their spare time?

After reading this news, I went to the nearest  proper supermarket which is a mile away and across a river. I took the time to have a proper look at who else was at Tesco before noon. Not surprisingly, they were mostly elderly people and mums with prams. I recognized a cabbie from the local taxi company helping an old wifie with her bags. I tend to be a daydreamer when I walk, but this time I really wanted to focus on who my neighbours were.

On the way back, I popped into the Historical Coffee Shop to have a wee bit of a blether in Polish with the Polish server, who is literally the Pole closest to me, being only metres away from the Historical House. Then I went into the HH to put away the groceries, say hello to my mother, and work on learning a Polish song about the Vistula (Wisła) River.

The song is very sweet, and its proud conclusion is that Poland will last as long as the Wisła flows, and I was delighted that the Polish composers and singers of the song identify so much with something physical, something local, something in the landscape that came before them, something so many Poles live near, as it flows from the mountains to the south to the Baltic Sea in the north. I wish I knew a song about my local river here in Scotland.

5 comments:

  1. A song for your consideration: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/proclaimers/sunshineonleith.html

    Rachel

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  2. But I don't live in Leith, and I never go to Leith!

    I wonder if Leith is sunnier than the rest of Edinburgh? In comparison with Glasgow, Edinburgh is admittedly pretty sunny.

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  3. But I don't live in Leith, and I never go to Leith!

    I wonder if Leith is sunnier than the rest of Edinburgh? In comparison with Glasgow, Edinburgh is admittedly pretty sunny.

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  4. Oh, bummer! Google said that the river in Edinburgh was the Waters of Leith. I didn't realize there was a city named Leith, too. Sorry about that.

    Rachel

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  5. Well, Leith is a distinct neighbourhood in Edinburgh. So it is part of Edinburgh, but also proudly Leith. The Water of Leith does run through Edinburgh, but it is not the river closest to the HH.

    The other problem with the "Sunshine on Leith" song is that it is neither about sunshine or Leith but about singer and love interest--and rather a simple "I love you baby" song too, even less complicated than "500 Miles" (which is almost a Scottish national anthem now). The Polish song I was thinking of has at least three verses about the river itself, and how it fell in love with Kraków.

    Well, that's enough of kicking your suggestion to death. There are Scottish songs about the actual landscape, most notably "Loch Lomond" and "Flower of Scotland"--the latter having the lovely line "your wee bit hill and glen."

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