This is not news. Instead, it’s a personal story, one of the few posted here in the last decade. I hope you enjoy at least a slight smile.

A collection of words that caught my attention. Some are serious; some are bemusing; all are worthy of consideration.

This is a video of an interview conducted in England with a consultant who worked for British Columbia when the Campbell government was awarding information technology contracts. His work was much admired by BC Liberals because it fit their style of conducting public business.

All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten. …simple instructions for a good life, all worth remembering.

“America in the 1950s made the rich pay their fair share; it gave workers the power to bargain for decent wages and benefits; yet contrary to right-wing propaganda then and now, it […]

and this:

In moments of honesty, we older folks will admit the cars of our youth are better in memory than they were in reality. I knew a man who lovingly restored an early […]

From December 2011, when I first noticed the British star:  I may be late but 2011 was the year I discovered brilliant young English singer-songwriter Adele Laurie Blue Adkins. Salon.com calls her […]

I enjoy Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe, a BBC Two satirical program now in a third series. BBC TV is not readily available in North America without use of a proxy server but […]

I had planned today to relate a story from a few years back, about what might have been rockets passing just beneath the helicopter I rode on a harrowing flight into Victoria’s […]

//storify.com/Norm_Farrell/walken-the-plank/embed?border=false//storify.com/Norm_Farrell/walken-the-plank.js?border=false[View the story “Sleepwalken the plank” on Storify]

Vancouver firm promises to build home in Third World for every local condo sold, The Province, Feb 2014 “Two Vancouver businessmen have started a real-estate gifting program with the lofty aspiration of […]

Christy Clark announced today that British Columbia is terminating coal exports and ending negotiations to provide free land, power, natural gas feedstock, shipping facilities and other capital and operating supports demanded by […]

Mother Jones asks, Is Your Team’s Owner a Major League Asshole? Tim Murphy, Ian Gordon, Tasneem Raja, and Sarah Zhang provide information to help us judge. Here are a few examples: Houston […]

I’m a regular online listener to BBC News Quiz, a panel show created by John Lloyd 36 years ago. It has been hosted by Danish/British author and presenter Sandi Toksvig since 2006. […]

I’s bin livin my life wrong for three score and more years. I shoulda listened to that fire and brimstone Baptist preacher when I was a kid in East Vancouver. Instead Bobby […]

From the forum at Urban Diner, a Vancouver-based online magazine for food and restaurant lovers around British Columbia. By Publisher Paul Kamon: “We enter a little coffeehouse with a friend of mine […]