From William Denton I followed a link to this recording of a Royal Academy talk by David Cannadine on Churchill and art.

In the introduction to the talk, Christopher Le Brun, President of the Royal Academy, mentions Lord Leighton:

And I immediately thought of my predecessor, Lord Leighton; that’s a slightly sad story, because he is the possessor of the shortest hereditary peerage in history: he was raised to the peerage on the 25th of January, I think 1896, and he died the very next day, so there’s not much material there, but there’s certainly plenty of material when it comes to Churchill. 

Being a lapsed student, and a dilettante with regard to the arts, I’d never heard of Frederic Lord Leighton, but I was prompted to learn more.

Perhaps Le Brun was being sarcastic when he said “there’s not much material there,” as the more I learn about Lord Leighton, the more I am fascinated. While I will leave you to pursue your own curiosity in this regard, this catalogue from an exhibition of his works, held the year after he died, is a good place to start. My favourite part of the catalogue, what with me being me, is this note from the introduction:

You might also start with this 1996 article from The Independent that makes a compelling case for Lord Leighton having had an unrecognized son.

(And also, if some kind student of the British peerage would care to shed light, I’d love to understand more about what being “raised to the peerage” means, why Layton was a Lord in the first place, and why Leighton isn’t known as Baron Leighton today).

In the late 1980s Canasta scene in Peterborough, Ontario of which I was an active member, it was tradition to believe that it was required to say “partner, may I please go out,” when ready to do so. The definitive The Complete Canasta suggests a slightly less formal “Shall I go out?”, so I’m not sure from where we derived the wordier version, but it persevered.

We certainly played more than our fair share of Canasta during the summer of 1987, and it remains the primary waypoint by which I mark that heady season.

I thought of “partner, may I please go out?” when I spotted this sign posted on the wall of the Queen Charlotte Armoury while attending its New Year’s Levee:

I appreciate the formality of the requirement to shout “FIRE, FIRE, FIRE!”, and also the seemingly strange suggestion–perhaps because this is a military installation where people have skills–that in step three  one should “proceed to fight the fire” (standard civilian signage practice is, I believe, something more akin to “retire to a safe distance and allow professionals to put out the fire”).

Following on from my late-2018 prototype, I’ve taken the book of “perforated notes” forward to the next level.

Yesterday afternoon I set and printed some covers (Perforated Notes in Tourist Gothic 36 pt., using the alternate capital N, and the credit in Gill Sans 18 pt.) on 4” x 4¼” brown card stock, and cut, folded, and perforated white 20 lb. paper to the same size.

This morning I bound the first copy, punching four holes through the covers and signatures, and then binding them with green cord using a Japanese style stab-binding:

Here’s what the finished notebook looks like:

Copy number one goes to Katherine Burnett, who expressed interest in having one all her own.

At the end of October I purchased a lovely Baron Fig hardbound dot grid notebook and, eager to take both it and some new fountain pen ink out for a ride, I put it beside my bed and set out to write a brief summary of the day every night before I went to sleep.

I’ve succeeded in doing so every night since then; I generally fill a page or two with banal notes about what I had for breakfast and lunch, my main work activity, a note or two about Catherine and Oliver, and I always finish up with noting my bedtime and the outside temperature.

I’ve modified my daily routine a little to write the heading for the current day when I get up, which presents me then with a blank page to represent the unending promise of the day ahead.

The other resolution-like activity I’ve been engaged in since the fall is making my bed every morning.

Although I came up with this on my own, my reasons mirror those of that great guru of routine, Tim Ferris, who mentions this in a video about morning routines:

Number one: making your bed. I know this sounds odd. It was first recommended to me by an Indian monk; he convinced me of the merits. Because you are accomplishing one thing at the beginning of the day, no matter what happens with unforeseen variables for the rest of the day, you will return to a made bed at the end of the day, and as a bookmark, beginning and end, it sets you up psychologically to be more productive, and also to feel better even if things go sideways later.

Although I don’t worship at the altar of productivity as Ferris does–and I certainly don’t have it in me to adopt other aspects of his morning routine, of the “do 3,000 yoga sprints while yelling out Tony Robbins’ aphorisms for life” ilk–making my bed every morning has done exactly as he describes, and it’s now an inviolable part of my daily routine.

January 1, 2019 saw Prince Edward Island receive a 20 cm dumping of snow and, later in the day, an increase in the wind; as a result, many of the scheduled New Year’s Levees were cancelled, especially later ones.

The irony, for me, was that I was kept so busy updating the levee schedule web page in the morning that I didn’t manage to make it out to the Lieutenant Governor’s, to City Hall, or to any of the other earlier levees that did go ahead (this was, in part, because I was at home and not in the office, and so I was editing the website with my phone, which is never a quick proposition).

Oliver being both a creature of routine and as fine a student of the levee as me, insisted that the day not be left entirely a bust, so we donned our coats and scarves and hats and gloves, suited up Ethan the Dog, and trudged through the snow to the Haviland Club and to the PEI Regiment, both of which were satisfyingly bustling.

Keen observers will be able to identify more than one person in this photo I took from the balcony looking down (look for an outcropping of Green Party adherents, and at least one Pendergast and one Leo Cheverie).

The Prince Edward Island Regiment Band was as crack as it’s ever been (did you know that “musician” is a recognized trade in the Canadian military? I didn’t), the conviviality was strong, and the museum–always opened for the levee–was as interesting as ever.

Happy New Year!

St. Paul’s Anglican Church commemorated the beginning of its 250th year by ringing its bells 250 times at midnight tonight.

My friend Elmine made a new video every day in December and posted each to her YouTube channel.

Spurred on by her disciplined example, and with the helpful guidance of Making Books, I’ve been trying to make at least one book a day. This has been proving very helpful in teaching me the pitfalls of folding and cutting and sewing. Here are some early examples, each imperfect in its own special way:

I’ve made four stab-bound notebooks since starting this run, and here’s what I’ve learned so far:

• Punching the holes with the awl is a really important step to get right: if the holes don’t go all the way through, or if they’re crooked, everything that happens next is harder.
• It really does help if I run the needle and thread through beeswax before sewing: friction is reduced greatly. I need to be sure not to apply too much beeswax, though, as it can get ground into the cover if I’m not careful.
• Tangled thread is the enemy, and can run things quickly off the rails. The best response is to take a breath, reverse engineer the tangle, and proceed.
• Nothing makes a stab binding look worse than ending up with threads wrapped around each other: see the third hole from the right in the green example above; conversely, neat and ordered stitches, pulled taut, produce a pleasant result (the middle example is my best yet).
• Actually, nothing makes a stab binding look worse than stabbing myself with the very sharp bookbinding needle and bleeding all over the book and my tools (example omitted from photo).

I’ve seen some examples online of a hybrid coptic-stab binding technique that has the visual pleasures of the later with the functional pleasures of the former; that’s what I’m off to next.

An interesting post from Jarek Piórkowski about the open data available for Presto card users about their transit usage (Presto is the contactless transit fare scheme used in the greater Toronto area and in Ottawa).

(I tried accessing my own Presto usage from trips to Burlington I made in 2017 and 2018, but the Presto verification process went sideways for me at some point after my initial registration and I’ve never been able to resolve this).

We came out to our friends Ila, Sosi, Paul and Lori’s Belfast compound for the afternoon. The main event was an failed attempt to light the burn pile; a disappointing conflagration, but a nice photo of the setting sun.

If you can overlook that it’s on a site called “The Art of Manliness,” this guide to threading a needle got me threading needles 100% of the time (up from approximately 0% of the time previously).