#my beloved provincial backwater

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Listening to Pax Britannica and for the first time realising that Nova Scotia means New Scotland 🤦🏻

I forget this is not something 99.9% of people in, like, literally grade 1 as a fun bit of trivia about where you live lol.

But yes! The tourism board leans into it and possibly the easiest course I took in high school was a 'Gaelic Studies' local history credit. There's an attempt to revive Scots Gaelic out on Cape Breton that's, like, non-zero amounts of credible, too.

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Oh hey that's where I live!

And y'know I'd never really thought about it, but yes? The whole old fort's basically run as a historical reenactment/museum thing (mostly for tourists and schoolkids). IIRC the people doing the firing are in 18th century uniforms too. I was always given the impression it was a tradition starting back when it was an actual fort and the guns were there in case the French invaded, but I actually have zero idea whether that's true).

...to be clear they fire a blank. No actual canonballs are involved.

Lmao according to this episode's Safety Third, people in Halifax NS fire an actual cannon every day at noon!? And it's pointed at a bank building!? Why. I don't think I've ever seen an actual functional cannon in a city. Even all the cannons at West Point's trophy garden seemed to be non-functional. And honestly I would have expected more unsafe use of historical artillery from the Americans. This seems very dangerous. And also loud. I guess you can't go past commonwealth British Empire weebs for insane behaviour.

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Spent a good half an hour today building a lovely fantasy of Harry and Meghan. SCENE ONE: Charles reading headlines like this one and looking up, his face ashen. A grey-suited courtier bows and says "Your Majesty, I'm afraid it's unavoidable. We need Meghan. Whatever it takes, we need Meghan back."

SCENE TWO: Evening, a private dinner in one of the palaces. Harry is in a tux, Meghan looks devastating in a dress I will indulge myself in shopping for later. She's definitely wearing over-the-elbow gloves and some glittery bauble of Diana's pinned up in her hair. (Maybe the butterflies? mmm they might be too small, I want a moderate degree of flash here.) William and Catherine are also in black tie but theirs is boring. William's hands are tightly clenched; his face is nearly purple and there's a vein throbbing at his temple.

"We're so glad you're here," Catherine says, and grins determinedly, showing many gritted teeth. "All this unpleasantness has been simply horrible, let's try to forget it. But how was your flight?"

Harry glowers. He's a bit flushed and rumpled and looks as if he'd very much like to throw a punch at his brother, but he's being civilized for Meghan's sake. On his arm she looks like an angel, and she smiles serenely. Cruel, snobbish and bigoted as they've proven themselves to be, the feckless pair standing before her inspires sympathy. This situation is quite painful for them: after all, she's very used to winning, and they're not at all accustomed to losing. Especially not to someone like her.

Poor provincial backwater despots, desperately clinging to their shabby stolen goods. They have no idea how to exist in the modern world, or how to even begin building a truly media-savvy team. She'll have to help them. For her beloved's sake, and for the sake of the countries she adopted when she married him. She knows very well that much of Britain, and indeed the Commonwealth, still adores her as their princess: and she has no intention of failing them. When Meghan visits these countries her reception will be much different.

"You know," she says, "I think one of the mistakes I made when I first joined this family was relying on my Hollywood experiences. But in the process of making something as big as a blockbuster movie, or even a long-running series like the one I worked on--tons of people are involved! The issues can become very personal, and it's not uncommon for there to be heated clashes around, whether it's salary negotiations, scheduling, script issues, I mean whatever, right?"

Catherine nods three times in quick succession, her toothy grin still fixed. The brothers continue to seethe. Meghan sails on blithely: to all appearances she is utterly at ease. She waves a hand to illustrate as she speaks. Her husky voice is charmingly intimate, her tone friendly and casual. "But once it's resolved, you've gotta be able to put it behind you. Because these relationships, they go beyond any one project, right? If you're dealing with a studio it might be your whole career, your life." Her gaze is steady. "So you learn to put things behind you when you need to work with someone again. And so, that part of my Hollywood experience, I want you to know that I'm still bringing it."

She nods in mirror of Catherine, but more slowly, and just once. Then Meghan tilts her head, and her smile turns mischievous. "But I have lots more fun showbiz stories I can tell you. Over dinner maybe, shall we?"

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Fascinated by whatever internal politiking happened that the pride parade here didn't have a float for cops (even though there was one for fire and another for EMS), but did have both a bunch of sailors in dress uniform and the full military marching band in kilts and shit.

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Idk the exact reason- some s9rt of toxicity in the soil? But very funny to me that the city tore down the derelict/obsolete old high school here and then decided the best use for the land was 'urban prairie'

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New homeless shelter opened like, on time and at the announced capacity. I'm kind of in shock.

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Lost power in the middle of cooking breakfast and am once again left contemplating how incredibly on-its-face idiotic a system 'private utility monopoly with a legally guaranteed rate of profit' is.

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hi I like your blog. I have a question that may be too personal so no hard feelings if you don't answer but could you talk a little bit about more about what you like/don't like about Halifax? im considering Dalhousie for grad school but have never been! and would like to have as much information about where I might spend the next 2 years of my life. thank you!

Oh sure! Though like, it depends on where you're coming from? Everything here is very relative. And also I'm absolutely certain I will forget numemrous vital things, do ask followup questions.

Most important thing is that the housing market is horrifying - the city's population started booming during COVID and the zoning and construction is only really starting to catch up now. Especially within walking distance of Dal getting a place to live at anything approaching affordable is going to be vicious. (This has unsurprisingly coincided with a large uptick in homelessness. Unremarkable to walk by a tent in a corner of some public park now).

Relatedly, the bus system is like - okay I'm not sure it's notably bad for a mid-sized-ish north american city, but it's damn sure not any better. You can get by bussing around on the peninsula, anywhere beyond 20 minute drives turn into 40-60 minute rides.

You will not have a family doctor, figure out the nearest walk-in clinic you can use for anything non-emergency.

The city's economy runs on some combination of students, tourists, sailors and soldiers. There are as many bars as you might expect (had the most per capita in the country for a while, don't know if we still do). Some of them are actually very good!

Relatedly, weed and liquor are both only legally sold by the crown corporation monopoly and a few weird specialty places.

None of them are massive, but there is a very nice amount of parkland and green space scattered throughout the city. The public (botanical) gardens are really beautiful in the spring-summer, and most are well-maintained (they just renovated and expanded the outdoor pool on the city Commons last year, even).

The waterfront has been thoroughly gentrified for the cruise ships over the course of my lifetime, but it's all still open to the public and grabbing one of the armchairs or hammocks to read in during the summer is lovely.

Provincially the government is the most thoroughly domesticated/red tory party in the country (they fairly literally ran to the left of the liberals). Full of corrupt backslapping, constantly getting into pissing matches with the municipal government, will probably govern for the next decade.

For reasons that I assume are downstream of all the students and having the closest thing to a regional theater scene east of Quebec, the whole city is IME very queer-friendly. For reasons I absolutely not understand, pride is in August here.

The public library system is basically the only part of the municipal government I think anyone involved should be unequivocally proud of, but it is great.

I don't really know the crime stats offhand but like, I left my apartment door unlocked probably 7 times in 10 through all of undergrad and it never bit me in the ass?

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I feel like I missed exactly when the changeover happened, but at some point the faux-British pub restaurants around here started serving (deeply mediocre) vindaloo and butter chicken along with the steak&kidney pie and bangers&mash.

Feel like you can (and people probably have) write many, many sociology papers on this.

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bunch of local businesses do a novelty burger week promotion so! This obscenity will be minimum three meals, but IS delicious.

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Hipstery artifical doughnut place a few blocks from my apartment is ALSO participating in novelty burger week. I was dragged there for lunch.

I can feel my arteries clogging. Worth it.

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Is it just an unlucky coincidence around here or is it some iron law of municipal politics that any group called 'friends of [neighborhood]' will be the most noxious and malevolent people you ever meet?

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Shoutout to my provincial government for being bullied into actually doing something, I guess. Unit number is comically small but 'build public housing' was entirely out of the overton window like three months ago so y'know. Progress.

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Incredibly grating that the local press is reporting the increase in average property taxes as an increase in rates and giving all the free airtime they want to like property owner associations rabble rousing about it, when literally more than 100% of the increase is just because property values have shot up some ungodly percent over the last year.

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Nothing to lower your opinion of those you share a city with like reading the reporting on a community meeting about a new homeless shelter.

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The other fun thing about Nova Scotian history in school was funnily enough probably grade 3 french starting with a unit on the Acadians. I'm pretty sure one of the answers to the first french quiz I ever took was Le Grand Dereangement. Made the people who talk about how their educations refusing to ever mention the bad things their governments did always seem weird to me.