Monthly Archives: February 2008

Feb 27 2008

More About the Dearlove Name

I came across this article online, which supposedly appeared Yorkshire Illustrated magazine in 1952. I’ve edited it a bit as it’s rather long (if you’re really interested, you can find the full article here.)

A couple of things struck me as funny. First, we seem to have a lot of John Thomases in our history. For me, that name immediately makes me think of Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. Second, the final paragraph seems to predict the demise of the professional musician, which in hindsight was a rather poor prediction.

THE DEARLOVES
One of the most remarkable musical families in England today is that of the Dearloves of Yorkshire. For two hundred years every member of it has played some form of instrument and the majority have been professional players. Their name is known in every theatre and in every orchestra in the country. They have been linked with the entertainment world in all its aspects, from cinemas to circuses, and from band waggonettes to broadcasting, and they owe it all to Mark Dearlove, a professor of music, and a maker of violins, who was born about 1771.

Yet if a family story had any proof, and were to be believed, the Dearloves owe it all to William the Conqueror! The story that has been handed down the years, and the one they regard as a joke which they love to tell in their more pontifical moments, is that when King William came over in 1066 he brought with him among his army, a number of trumpeters. One of them, so it is said, was named de Louvre, and from this, say the family, it is not a far cry to Dearlove.

…

The son of the original Mark, is always spoken of as “Mark William”, and it was he who became one of Englands noted violin makers. When the Great Exhibition of 1851 was proposed, he conceived the idea of making a quartet of miniature scale models for display there, comprising a violin, a viola, a cello and a bass fiddle, each with its respective miniature case. They were greatly admired as the work of a craftsman, and shortly afterwards they were taken to Australia by one of Mark Williams sons.

…

His eldest son, also names John Thomas, carried on the family tradition, and for more than thirty years was the musical director of the Harrogate Grand Opera House. He also provided the Harrogate Military Band, of which he was musical director, and which at one time comprised his brothers playing violin, cello, bass, clarinet, flute and cornet, with his wife playing the piano.

…

The eldest son of John Thomas II, likewise a John Thomas, but better known as Jack, is secretary of the Musicians Union, and another Jack, son of William Henry, has his own band and does a considerable amount of broadcasting. They are all proud of the wonderful record held by their parents, and so too is the next generation. They are, however, not concerned with music as a profession, although there is an inherent desire to be associated with it and most of them play as amateurs. They are turning to other vocations realizing that the day of the professional musician is waning.

Feb 25 2008

Reading

I thought I heard something on the radio the other day that among those who read at least one book in the past year, the average number of books read is 20.

I was stunned.  I’ve always thought of myself as pretty well-read, but I’m hard pressed to remember even six books I finished last year (if we include titles like Mother Cat’s Busy Day, then the number increases to something like 534).  Upon reflection, I realized that I read a lot, but it’s largely newspapers, magazines (The Walrus, The New York Times Magazine, US Weekly), and online articles.  Somehow books have taken a backseat to other priorities, and I didn’t even notice it.

So, I decided that I should make some time for reading, and have set a goal of getting through two books a month.  Coincidentally, my friend Kelly-in-Vancouver recently challenged herself to read 50 books this year, which puts my little project to shame.

So far, so good.  I just finished A.J. Jacobs’s The Year of Living Bibically, an entertaining read that I will come back to another time.  I also admit to having read Self Leadership and the One Minute Manager, a fluffy motivational business book that I only read to pad my numbers.

I’m now working on book five – Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything.  Then I think it will be time for some fiction.  Titles in the queue include A Complicated Kindness, Bill Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy, Flashman on the March, and everything by Cormac McCarthy.  If you have any recommendations, pass them along.  No Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, please – I’m interested in sprints, not marathons…

Feb 21 2008

School Rankings

The Fraser Institute recently released its report card on Ontario elementary schools. The rankings are based on the standardized test results in reading, writing and math for Grade 3 and Grade 6 students. The Fraser Institute also factors in things like the gender gap in test scores.

The results for Aidan’s school were not promising:

  • Out of 2,786 schools in the province, Manor Park placed 2,668
  • Out of 166 schools in the city, Manor Park was in the bottom seven
.

The results aren’t really a surprise. Manor Park has consistently been in the bottom 10% of the rankings for several years. In fact, if you look at the overall rankings, there’s very little movement up and down the list. Schools at the top of the list do well year after year, and schools at the bottom tend to linger there. You don’t see schools rocketing from the bottom to the top in one year as the result of some revolutionary new teaching method – it’s all baby steps.

I recognize that the very concept of ranking schools and standardized tests is controversial. The rankings do not indicate whether students are happy, or parents’ overall level of satisfaction. There are also a number of social, economic, and cultural factors that come into play. I mean, is it really that surprising that schools at the top of the list are in the most desirable (and richest) neighbourhoods in the city?

I try not to place too much importance on the rankings. After all, when my parents were getting ready to send me off to kindergarten in 1977, they certainly weren’t thinking about whether Centennial Public School had a good reputation for academics. Without all of this scrutiny, our schools still turned out a pretty good group of kids.

At this point, I’m not going to worry that Aidan’s school appears to have some long-standing issues. He’s learning a lot, he seems happy, and the after school program is great. It is a reminder, though, that within the city there are significant differences between the haves and have-nots, and it’s troubling that some kids face a difficult path right from the start.

Feb 18 2008

Happy Family Day!

Happy Family Day, everyone (or happy Louis Riel Day and happy Presidents Day for my Manitoba and U.S. readers respectively). I hope you all enjoyed the extra time to spend with your loved ones and bask in their unconditional love.

Wait, what’s that? You didn’t get Family Day off? Me neither. I guess we’re part of the 40% of people in this province who didn’t benefit from Mr. McGuinty’s great election idea.

When the idea of a February stat holiday first came up, I was all for it. It can be a long stretch from Christmas to Easter, so a three-day weekend sounded like a good idea. If they want to call it Family Day and spin it as a gift to hard-working families, fine. It wasn’t until recently, though, that I began to hear rumours that maybe I wouldn’t get the day off after all because I am a federal employee.

Let me state unequivocally that I bear no ill will against my employer for this. I am incredibly fortunate to work for such a generous crown corporation, and I would never say anything negative about the terms of my employment in such a public manner and risk jeopardizing my salary and lucrative pension plan.

No, I think it’s clear that the provincial government just didn’t think this whole thing through very well. It’s one of those things that probably sounded like a good idea at the back of the campaign bus, but by the time the bureaucrats with the sharp pencils got around to drafting the actual legislation, it was too late to admit that maybe they shouldn’t have mentioned it, sorry for the inconvenience, carry on, as you were…

I ended up taking the day off anyway in lieu of another stat holiday.  I get St. Jean Baptiste Day off, and while it’s fun to frolic in the Gatineaus every June 24th, it didn’t seem fair to leave B at home outnumbered. That’s not a holiday – that’s a sentence.

Having experienced the first Family Day, I have a suggestion for the Premier. Parents Day. Don’t get me wrong, families are great, and I’m not saying that we should be spending less time with our children. I just think that most parents, if given the option, would love to have a day when the children are at school or daycare and Moms and Dads could have the house to themselves for eight hours. Now that would be a holiday.

Feb 16 2008

Best Laid Plans

For several months, I had been planning a kind of Grand Romantic Gesture to celebrate B’s birthday. Our five-day escape from home (and the kids) was supposed to include:

•    Lunch at Curry Village in Kingston on Thursday

•    The Toronto Symphony concert with Yannick Nezet-Seguin and Yundi Li on Thursday night, followed by dinner

•    Lounging around until late-morning on 320-thread count sheets in a luxury downtown Toronto hotel

•    Dinner with friends in Toronto on Friday night

•    Reunion with friends in Thornbury on the weekend, with lots of laughter, wine, and outdoor pursuits

Instead, here’s what actually happened:

•    My Mom called on Thursday morning to say she was sick and couldn’t look after the boys. Bye bye Curry Village and TSO.

•    Went out for dinner with the family on Thursday night. Moments after the main course arrived, Aidan threw up. Rest of the meal was a blur.

•    Woke up Friday feeling really crappy myself. Threw up several times and spent most of the next 24 hours in bed with cramps and a bad headache. Bye bye reunion with friends in Thorbury.

So, our romantic long weekend has been a near total disaster. Maybe I was too ambitious – perhaps I should have started with something smaller, like an overnight at the Motel 6 in Cornwall and breakfast at Denny’s. At least if that hadn’t panned out, I wouldn’t be experiencing the same sense of frustration and loss.