Yes, but she would have had to wait a few months rather than getting it replaced two days after the diagnosis, which in the eyes of many Americans invalidates our entire health care system. 'Wait? What do you mean, you have to wait? Can't you see what a failure your system is?'

'Canadians are actually incredibly passive-aggressive. Hence the myriad inflections which which they say "sorry."'

Agree, especially about It's A Wonderful Life. It's so tempting (especially for those who only know it by reputation as a beloved Christmas film, or who have only seen snippets) to dismiss the film, and Stewart's performance, as treacly, but he brilliantly conveys George's increasing desperation at failing to get out…

Yes, I'm really looking forward to this (she said, with true English understatement).

The BBC are doing a 'Witness for the Prosecution' remake, starring Toby Jones in the Charles Laughton role and Kim Cattrall in the Marlene Dietrich role. It's from the same team that brought us the recent excellent adaptation of 'And Then There Were None', so I have high hopes.

I'm old enough to remember when having an organ (no jokes, please) in the living-room or family-room was a real middle-class status symbol.

So did John Cleese (The Strange Case of the End of Civilisation as We Know it), which is pretty bad. As is The Hound of the Baskervilles starring an A-list of British comedians, like Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Kenneth Williams, Terry-Thomas, and Spike Milligan. Williams called it 'the Baskerville fiasco' in his diaries…

Much, much smaller than Prince and about 450km south. We have to worry more about bear and deer than moose, but we did get hit with the pine beetle.

Both. I get 'precious' about the layout because I see too many papers where there are tombstones (headlines for separate stories abutting each other); columns that dogleg around pictures and ads, making it difficult to figure out where the text continues; stories (and not even very long ones) that start on page 1,…

I'm the editor/sole reporter for a small weekly newspaper in the interior of B.C. (it's the second oldest continuously published paper in the province, established in 1895). I turn out a 12 - 16 page paper each week, covering mostly local news in the four or five small communities we serve. Mostly small-town feel-good…

Whenever my travels take me past Lake Okanagan (which isn't too often, even though I only live a couple of hours' drive away), I look for Ogopogo. No luck so far.

Okay, this is going to sound unbearably pretentious (though stick around for a couple of funny stories), but Vivaldi's 'Et in Terra Pax Hominibus' from his Gloria in excelsis Deo RV 589 is one such piece for me. I can't hear it without thinking of the closing scenes of the movie Runaway Train, where a very slow and…

This has nothing to do with Cousin Joseph, but I was talking with my son recently about artists whose artwork is inextricably linked with the authors whose written works they illustrated. And the first three examples that came to mind were John Tenniel / Lewis Carroll (mostly the Alice stories); Sidney Paget / Arthur…

Or a lovely voice like Donald Trump. The man has a voice that would make the angels weep.

Always wear - what?

Walk a mile in my sandals?

Nihil sub sole novum.

Freaky Friday (book and movies) was based on the 1882 novel Vice Versa by F. Anstey (pen name of Thomas Anstey Guthrie), where the protagonists are a father and son who switch roles. Anstey subtitled the novel 'A Lesson to Fathers', so the basic theme - walk a mile in your parent's/child's shoes to better appreciate…

I like what you did there.

For sure.