Looking down on Vancouver

Canadians are very mellow people, but they all love rubbishy hip-hop from two decades ago, which is why they named one of the mountains overlooking the North Shore after Cypress Hill.  People said they were insane in the brain to do so, but there was nothing stopping them.

This morning we got up early. Well, early in some time zone, I suppose - we wandered out of the apartment at 11, and drove up to Lynn Valley in a bright yellow Mazda with a sports kit and a child seat in the back, the perfect combination of laidback mentalism and responsibility. The car, that is, not Lynn Valley, which is a lovely wooded area which has another terrifying suspension bridge on it. Oh. I suppose that is also a combination of laidback mentalism (narrow wobbly bridge) and responsibility (the thing hasn't fallen down yet).

We strolled through the woods, taking some fine pictures of the woods and the cold and the water, and the signs admonishing us not to climb over the fence and fall to our certain doom, then drove back into Vancouver, dropped off the baby and then drove out to Cypress.

This was an epic journey, much like those undertaken by the settlers who headed across the icy wastes of North America in the last two centuries. Not that I'm dismissing their travails, but they never had to put up with being stuck in a line of traffic for the Lions Gate bridge for thirty minutes while nothing seemed to move. Once we were past this epic impediment to our journey, we drove up the mountain as quick as we could, past the droves of Canadians seeking to get back into the centre of town, and to the look out point, where we snapped away at the setting sun until my hands were frozen and my battery went flat, before driving back down the hill again.

On our way back into town, we tried to think of notable Canadian musicians that come from Vancouver. I'm of the opinion that the place is not such a horrendous dive full of the scum of humanity that it would inspire musicians to innovate: compare to Camden, or most anywhere in South London (Bowie, the Stones, the Lager Brothers). Perhaps everyone in Vancouver is just too nice to produce significant music. They have got Michael Buble, of course. And when you think about it, Canada has given many wonderful things to the world of music. Celine Dion, Bryan Adams, Alannis Morissette.

Well, one out of three isn't bad.

What a diplomat to your musical tastes I am - I'll leave it up to you to decide for yourselves if a bloke who did it all for you, a Swiss bint who bellows a lot about Titanic, or some loon who 'went down on you in a theater' is the true spirit of Canada.

And then my fiancee will stab me with a steak knife for constantly ignoring her suggestions of Shania Twain.

Cor, this musical criticism sure is tough.