Randy | August 5, 2016
In his comment on Troy Zwicker’s The Sidearm of “Swank Syd” Lawford, published here a few days back, reader Simon Tanner kindly wrote, in part: May I recommend a book called “The Last Englishman”, an autobiography of Lieut-Col.Alfred Daniel Wintle M.C. (lst the Royal Dragoons). c.1968 Copies will be few and far between and most […]
Randy | August 3, 2016
As a Canadian bystander witnessing the bizarre train wreck that’s slowly and painfully morphed into what is now supposed to be the really serious part of the 2016 US Presidential Election, I’m reminded of a few things. The first is an article I posted here on 20 January 2013 that highlighted one published to The […]
Troy | August 1, 2016
Introduction by LFM: I first met Troy Zwicker when I joined what was then called the Bridgewater Fencing Club, now the South Shore Duellists, in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, back in the last century. I came to know him as among the most aggressive épée fencers I’ve ever crossed steel with, and it was at that […]
Randy | July 25, 2016
My Mother always admonished me to put on clean underwear every morning because you never know when you’ll encounter a kind offer for sex. Or in case you get in an accident of some other sort. Anyway, that was a long time ago so the actual reason is vague, but the message was conveyed with […]
Randy | April 6, 2016
I write about cannibalism now and then, most commonly revisiting the quaint and rustic social custom in my October annual Dark Sentiments series. As you read what follows, I would remind you that thanks to good old fashioned fairy tales, the subject has already entered the curriculum as taught in our house. SFM #1 went […]
Randy | April 1, 2016
This poem is born of actual events, and is offered with apologies to those hopefuls among the distaff who may have fallen for it in the past, and feel ill done by at its clear exclusivity to the sensibilities of your male counterparts. Please know, you are not forgotten. Apologies too to Groucho Marx whose […]
Randy | March 20, 2016
My Esteemed Friend Peter Thompson turns sixty years old today and shows no signs of improving the mood of his enemies by requiring that they attend his wake in the spirit of, “If you give the people what they want, they’ll come.” The poem that follows speaks from some inside knowledge on my part that […]
Randy | February 15, 2016
The Jian Ghomeshi sexual assault trial awaits its verdict, scheduled for 24 March 2016, and the world of polarized politics driven and abetted by social media can’t understand why all this due process crap should even be allowed to stand in the way of a well deserved lynching. This morning over coffee, I read a […]
Randy | February 14, 2016
“The rash assertion that ‘God made man in His own image’ is ticking like a time bomb at the foundations of many faiths, and as the hierarchy of the universe is disclosed to us, we may have to recognize this chilling truth: if there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they cannot be […]
Randy | December 23, 2015
Cultural anthropologist Margaret Visser was for many years a regular on an assortment of radio programmes produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). She has authored six books on a variety of subjects ranging from the traditions of dinner to the expression of gratitude, linking the origins of the world we know to that of […]