Tags: apple

Walking by cars on a sunny evening.

I used to walk from “A” to “B” in downtown Toronto to feel good about myself. Clocking 10,000 steps on my FitBit; finding delightful new alleyways and shortcuts; neither spending money nor polluting the world; all these gave my steps an extra lift.

That’s all changed now, and for the better.

This summer Toronto’s traffic congestion will be something the city itself perpetually strives for and fails to be: world-class. Indeed, it’s already on the podium. Last year Toronto ranked 7th among the worst cities in the world for traffic congestion, just below New York and Bogota.

This happened because City Hall and Queen’s Park banded together (a rare thing) and green-lighted the annual pothole repair work, lane widening, lane narrowing, and bike-lane building that turns every summer into a driver’s nightmare.

AND they decided to dig up Queen Street West and East at the same time.  

AND do major repairs to the Gardiner (through to 2027). 

AND build the Ontario Line, a major new subway that runs through gobs of blocks of downtown. 

Read on…

“A Canadian citizen is a British subject.”

I’ve read this for decades on my passport, feeling even today that we enjoy special privileges in far-off lands. But it’s a testament to how fast things change now that one week the Queen dies, and the next, the King is having to shore up membership in the Commonwealth. Maybe Charles will be a different kind of King. As The Guardian notes, “Prince Charles is eccentric, impassioned, impatient, indiscreet — which, while manageable faults in a prince, are difficult ones in a king.”

Here is this week’s Omnium-Gatherum…

A Slap in the Face

My wife says don’t plant anything in Ontario until the May 24th weekend. But the impulse to declare winter over (spring officially started last week) lies deep within us. Why else would we worship cherry blossom season when the blossoms are covered in ice?  At least they tell the truth on Fogo Island: “Pack Ice Season follows winter, bringing multi-year sparkling ice floes to surround our shores.” Meanwhile, here in Toronto, it’s still a Hobson’s Choice: the parka or the chilly walk.

But these should warm you up:

An iPhone for the Arts

Last year, the tech giants made almost a trillion dollars in revenues. Put a different way: a thousand billion. It’s little wonder that governments starved

Saturday Multi-Slacking

Is the whole point of weekdays the weekend? Certainly it is in summer, and most certainly this summer because last summer was cancelled without notice.

RamsayWrites

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