A couple of ships collided on the Welland Canal last weekend - the waterway that bypasses Niagara Falls, not far from here. The video is definitely not something you see every day.

This is crazy. This just happened less than 2 hours ago. Two cargo ships collided in the #WellandCanal. @Welland @WellandTribune. Video courtesy of Jeremy Barton. pic.twitter.com/l1oXNldnYm

— Nathan Howes (@HowesNathan) July 11, 2020

I wonder what Gordon Lightfoot would have said. Hmm.

The legend lives on From Ontarians on down Of the shipping canal they call "Welland"

There’s room, they all cry For two ships to pass by If the captains are paying attention

When a load of black coal Met a ship that was full Of some windmill parts for Minnesota

And the beeper it beeped As the other ship creeped Closer, not changing course one iota

Bystanders, it’s known Filmed the scene with their phones As they shouted out, “She’s gonna hit ‘er”

The collision, it showed Now they’ve got to upload it to Instagram, Facebook and Twitter

Sing along if you like! Here’s a karaoke backing track!

update

People seemed to like this poetry when I tweeted it, even though I’m not going to win too many awards for trying to rhyme “welland” and “attention”. I thought I was pretty hot stuff. I got a dozen likes between facebook and twitter.

And then my son tweeted a video he’d made, something to do with Super Smash Bros, and I totally don’t understand it but his has, so far, 1,983 retweets and 8,295 likes, which I think is more than I’ve got in total in 13 years of using Twitter.

I don’t understand it. But I’m a proud dad.

https://t.co/qUVGMo2M6i https://t.co/VGvnMXsCdM

— Peachfuzz (@PeachfuzzSmash) July 13, 2020

It’s not like I’ve been busy travelling or anything. Hmm.

This isn’t much of a post but I have a new desktop and want to make sure all my connections are working. Expect more soon if this works

tl;dr There is a problem with the National Anthem as presented by Canadian Heritage, and also theNational Anthem Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. N-2, and Something Should Be Done. (Business should be taken care of.)

I was looking for a nice patriotic video of O Canada for an app I had in mind, and happened to come across the Canadian Heritage Ministry’s National Anthem site.

One of the links on that page lets you download the Sheet Music. Go ahead. Take a look. I’ll wait.

Notice anything strange? Here’s a list.

1. It is typeset really badly, almost as if it was prepared by someone who is not aware that there actually are music typesetting programs that know how the rules of typesetting. For starters, the treble clef here is a space too high.

2. It’s in F. I am obsessed with the key signature of O Canada. It is traditionally played and sung in E♭, and there are recordings on this web site where you can hear the Toronto Symphony Orchestra perform it - in E♭. Take a listen! Just don’t try to play along using the sheet music above.

3. The bar lines are missing at the end of each staff. That’s sloppy.

an actual issue

4. There’s a wrong note in bar 5!

That C♮ should obviously be a B♮. My other complaints might be nitpicking but this one is inexcuseable. You can’t publish obviously wrong notes. My friend Guy pointed out that the C and D here should really be B♭ and C too. Come on.

customs

And there’s another odd statement on that site.

Timing and etiquette for anthem use

There is no specific rule as to when it is appropriate to sing the national anthem at an event. It is up to the organizers to determine if “O Canada” will be sung at the beginning or at the end of a ceremony. If two anthems are to be played at the beginning of an event, “O Canada” should be played first followed by the other one.

Wait, what? Every sporting event I’ve ever been to that features two anthems plays O Canada second, not first. The home country’s anthem is the second one. Have we all been doing it wrong?

what does the law say?

Let’s consult the National Anthem Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. N-2.

It says

The words and music of the song “O Canada”, as set out in the schedule, are designated as the national anthem of Canada.

Here is the schedule. Take a look. The sheet music in that schedule, as far as I can tell, is legally the official National Anthem of Canada, as passed by Parliament in 1985.

A BUG IN THE NATIONAL ANTHEM

Wait, what’s this in bar 10? I’ll remind you this is the official music as passed into law in 1985.

The B♭ above the word “The” has a dot, ABOVE it. Dots above a note signify that the note is to be played stacatto. Dots BESIDE a note indicate it should be 50% longer.

The dot was no doubt supposed to go beside the note, but as passed into law, it’s above the note.

As a result, this bar is short one sixteenth note. It is not a complete bar of 4/4.

Canada's National Anthem Act specifies an anthem with 27 bars of 4/4 and one bar of 15/16.

The late Neal Peart would have no trouble with that time signature but the average Canadian would. You’ve been singing and playing it wrong your whole life, or at least since the National Anthem Act was passed in 1985.

What Should Be Done.

• Parliament should amend the National Anthem Act to correct the error in bar 10.
• Canadian Heritage should fix the extremely sloppy typesetting and obvious wrong notes in the Sheet Music pdf file on their web site.
• Both versions should be transposed down a tone into E♭ to match the most common way the tune is played (and so that I can claim that E♭ truly is the National Key Signature.)

• Clarify the rule about playing two national anthems before an event. Surely O Canada should go second.

• Parliament should consider an amendment that says the last two notes go up an octave, especially after a Team Canada victory.

while we're at it

• Designate Taking Care of Business as the National Rock and Roll Anthem of Canada.

A mileage run is this ridiculous idea that you buy a plane ticket near the end of the year and fly somewhere for no good reason, all so you can move up to the airline’s next level in their frequent flyer program. At this time of year, the skies are full of frequent flyers making pointless cross country trips just to preserve their exalted airline status.

If you think it’s silly, I won’t argue.

I’ve been pretty close to Air Canada Super Elite a few times - which requires you to have flown 100,000 miles or 95 segments in the previous year.

That’s a lot.

But it seems to be worth it if you fly frequently - it’s a level where Air Canada seems willing to help you if there’s a problem. Super Elites get to use Air Canada’s concierge service, which gives you a supersecret phone number you can call for problems, and sometimes the concierge will meet you at the airport and sort out a problem on the spot. I have occasionally had some travel snafu where I’ve missed or almost missed a connection, and the Concierge will often be standing right there with your new boarding pass, or even better, they’ll open some secret doors and hustle you through the airport via a mysterious shortcut if you’re tight on time.

My favourite Super Elite perk is that if you manage to use some of your upgrade points to move up to business class - and every Air Canada traveller gets upgrade points, it’s just easier for Super Elites to turn them into actual upgrades - the flight attendant takes the biz class dinner orders in descending order of airline status. And everybody up there knows it. Whoever is the top-ranked flyer on this flight gets their first choice of chicken or fish. You can easily get caught up in looking around and thinking, hey, I’m number 3 out of 12, that’s not bad, but who are those other two people? What’s their story?

I have done a lot of travel for work over the past 30 years and have a little extra bonus status - I’m an Air Canada Million Miler. That bumps you ahead of the normal Super Elites when they take the dinner order. So that’s nice. Air Canada even sends you a model airplane with your name on it when you hit that level. They have other perks at two million and three million miles. I don’t think I’ll make it up there before retiring.

(And you probably think a million miles is a lot, but my just-retired second level manager finished his career with seven million miles on American.)

It’s hard to explain but once you’ve experienced Super Elite service, you’d really like to stay up there. I’m sorry. I like it. I travel a ton for work, and this makes it a little more bearable.

Everything about air travel is pretty miserable, and I wish they’d treat every passenger with respect (and a bigger seat) but at the moment that’s not how it works.

So anyway. Here are some dumb pointless mileage runs I’ve done. (Maps are from one of my favourite web sites, the Great Circle Mapper)

2011

In 2011 I was at 90 segments mid December and started scrambling to find the cheapest possible 5 segment itinerary on Air Canada or one of its partners (which at the time included USAir.) Wound up doing this out of Buffalo. A quick trip to Salisbury, Maryland for lunch, and right back.

On the first segment from Buffalo to Philly, I took a stab at the sudoku puzzle in the inflight magazine, but messed it up and wrote a note of apology to the next passenger.

On the fifth flight from La Guardia back to Buffalo, I thought I’d take another shot at the same puzzle, and opened up the inflight magazine to try again, only to see a messed up puzzle and this note of apology.

2016

In 2016 I was in the same boat. 5 segments short. A quick hop from London to Montreal and back. Much to the amusement of my family in London. Explain to us again why you are going to Montreal?

2017

Both of those were completely pointless itineraries where I never left the airport. But sometimes you can make an actual trip out of it.

In 2017 I was a few hundred miles short, and Cathy and I made a quick hop down to Dallas for some actual sightseeing - including visiting the fascinating Texas School Book Depository museum. And this is one time that the concierge service really paid off.

Our connection coming home through Montreal was delayed, and I was worried we’d miss the flight to Toronto but much to my delight, the Air Canada Concierge was standing at the gate as we got off the plane. “Mr. and Mrs. Hayman? Come with me.”

He managed to open a few doors that probably should have stayed closed, and hustled us past Canada Border Services and to the connecting flight.

this is stupid

If you think this is wasteful of time, fuel and money, you are probably right. You have to actually take the flight, you can’t just buy the ticket and not show up….

Airlines are moving towards a model where they care more about how much money you spent than how many miles or segments you flew, but we aren’t there yet. For now, it’s still based on flights. (and in Air Canada’s case, there’s also a minimum spend at each level.)

Sometimes, through some mysterious formula, the airline might let you “buy up” to a certain status if you’re close. I know people who’ve been offered lower Elite tiers. But the formula is a mystery, and although I might gladly take them up on the offer, they’ve never extended it to me.

So my big idea is that if you are close enough to consider a mileage run, the airline ought to let you donate that money to pay for a flight for someone that needs one. But so far Air Canada hasn’t taken me up on that idea.

I promise society that I will keep lobbying for Air Canada to revise this and eliminate the need to take these wasteful flights. If frequent travellers could donate to someone in need, that would surely be a win-win.

surely you're not doing this again this year

Um…