Murdoch Mysteries is a Canadian drama television series set in vintage Toronto, Ontario. As the series began the year was 1895. The new seasons have progressed in time to where it is now the early 1900′s with new inventions and technology as they came along.

Murdoch is like a vintage mad scientist in a police officer’s uniform.

However, the show does take some liberties with technology and knowledge available at the time. Although they don’t step over the boundary of using something not invented yet, they do invent things which reflect our modern knowledge more than a police detective could have hoped for at that time. Some history purists may not like this but, I actually think it is part of the fun. Murdoch is like a steampunk/ Victorian age mad scientist in a police officer’s uniform solving crimes with science and logic.

Yannick Bisson stars as William Murdoch, a police detective and amateur scientist.

Wikipedia says Murdoch Mysteries is known as The Artful Detective in the United States. In Canada,Murdoch Mysteries runs on our wonderful CBC. I’m rewatching the series on NetFlix currently so it is getting well distributed, where ever and how ever you like to watch.

The television series is based on the series of novels by Maureen Jennings.

I read the books before they were turned into television. The books stand on their own. If you want a good story, especially a good vintage/ historical Victorian story, then take a look at the books. There are seven in the series but I found them all together as a collection on Amazon. (See the link below). It’s been years since I first read the books and I’m tempted to order the collection and read them all again myself.

What I remember of the character of Officer Murdoch from the books was a very quiet man, self contained, who cared about the people in town. He helped women who were out on the streets. Like people in that time period he did not date and take women home with him waving them off in the morning. There was a woman who lived in the same building and he liked her but didn’t quite date her. She had a son and Murdoch was happy to spend some time with him.

This woman and her son didn’t become his love interest in the television series. Instead he has a woman doctor, Julia Ogden, who helps him with his work and she becomes the woman he loves from near and afar over the series.

From the Books of Maureen Jennings to the movies and then on to become a weekly television series, known as Murdoch Mysteries.

Murdoch Mysteries has become a favourite Canadian TV show. The cast has been interviewed by well known celebrities here in Canada. They have appeared on Canadian Air Farce. The Prime Minister of Canada is a fan of the show and appeared on it himself.

The Arrogant Worms are from Ontario, Canada. Three men who write and perform comedy to their own music, in their own way. Not everyone will like them. They will step on some toes (quite a feat for worms). But, if you let your guard down they will make you laugh too. Don’t forget I did warn you – they step on toes – before you listen/ watch the video posts below.

There is even a song about Ontario sucking, so don’t think it’s just you.

Some Worm History

The Arrogant Worms met in university in 1990. Maybe they were chasing the same bird.

By 1991 they were performing on campus radio in Queens University, Kingston, Ontario.. That same year they appeared on CBC Radio’s Basic Black program. With encouragement from fans their first album was released in 1992, indie style.

Currently there are a dozen albums with Space being the latest of them.

Current members of the group are: Mike McCormick, Chris Patterson and Trevor Strong.

In 2003 the Canadian Arts Presenters Association recognized the Arrogant Worms as Touring Act of the Year.

More recently, the Worms were awarded the Peter Gzowski Award for donating their time and talent to the cause of literacy in Canada.

If you want to support, follow or try to explain your point of view to the Arrogant Worms you can find them online.

• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube: Official Worms
• An Abandoned Blogger Blog: Worm Blog
• A Fan Site: The Worms According to Jeff
• Patreon: Trevor Strong
• The Official Site just known as The Arrogant Worms

When she sang at the Canadian Olympics the US people watching with my Mom in Florida all insisted K.D. Lang was a man. But, K.D. Lang is a woman. She isn’t the typical woman celebrity looking like she just stepped off a glamorous magazine cover.

Get over the way she looks, the way she dresses and the whole beef thing (likely only the Canadians will know about that). The only thing you really need (and will want to) know about K.D. Lang is that she can sing.

She sings like there is no tomorrow and I feel that way when I play her CDs. I wish my machine was one which would just play the same CD over and over until the power finally went out and I could just keep hearing it all in my head anyway. When K.D. Lang sings you feel brought into the music, it becomes sound rather than something comprised of music written by human hands.

Not every song will be that loved but there are enough on this album to keep me happy.

Who is K D Lang?

Born as Kathryn Dawn Lang, November 1961, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Now you see where the K.D. comes from.

K.D. grew up on the Canadian Prairies with two sisters and a brother. She is a human and animal rights activist and both have gotten her in trouble in the past.

K.D. Lang sings with famous people: Anne Murray, Tony Bennett, Jane Siberry, Roy Orbison, Leonard Cohen and Elton John. She has won Juno and Grammy awards. She has a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame. She performed at the closing ceremony of the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta. More recently, she performed live at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.

If you are truly a Canadian science fiction fan/ geek you must know Starlost.

If you have never heard of Starlost you need to catch up on it! Starlost was a Canadian science fiction TV series created by Harlan Ellison and broadcast in 1973 on CTV in Canada. Ben Bova was the science advisor.

It was quirky and people will say it was not very good but I would say it had personality and was loads of fun to watch. But, I like science fiction when it’s not very good. (I do draw the line at down right awful though).

The Starlost was 16 episodes (1973 – 1974)

• Keir Dullea as Devon
• Gay Rowan as Rachel
• Robin Ward as Garth

One Day you Discover your Planet is Actually One Community on the Spaceship, Ark

The Starlost is about Devon, Rachel and Garth who grow up in a backwards pioneer sort of community, Cypress Corners . Rachel, Devon and Garth are in a romantic triangle. Rachel wants Devon but is told to marry Garth. So they run away, Garth following. This is when the bottom drops out of their world.

Garth, Rachel and Devon are on a spaceship, the Ark, which is on a collision course with a Class G solar star. Cypress Corners has just been one domed community in a giant spaceship. They find this out when they discover a computer set up to provide assistance and answer questions should any of the Ark inhabitants wander outside of their community domes and discover they aren’t on a planet at all.

The TV series becomes the three of them working together, in spite of their differences, to try to keep the Ark and all it’s inhabitants from destruction. They meet other cultures who have been isolated in their own domes (biospheres) and evolved in unique ways. They also find out more about the Ark itself and those who built and ran it. However, they discover the crew of the bridge are dead when they find skeletal remains in spacesuits.

The most memorable part of the show for me was the computer man. Sometimes he was just a disembodied voice and other times he was the face on the screen when they interacted with the ship’s computer. The actor who played the computer and voice was William Osler. He was very distinctive and a bit intimidating (even scary) when I watched the show long ago.

Quirky, old science fiction TV series and movies are a treasure to be shared.

I read Beautiful Joe as a kid. I can still remember having the book with me for a sneak read at night. I’d go into the bathroom and sit on the side of the tub cause I could stretch my legs out there. Beautiful Joe was one of the books I most remember from my childhood. Much later I found out the story was from right here in Ontario and the story was not fictional.

Beautiful Joe was a Real Dog

Beautiful Joe was a real dog, a puppy in 1890, from the town of Meaford, in Ontario, Canada. The dog was a mongrel (or a mutt as we call them) and owned by a milkman who beat and starved the dog nearly to death.

The young dog was rescued by Walter Moore, a local miller. His daughter, Louise Moore, kept the dog and gave it a much different life and named him Beautiful Joe because of how less than beautiful he looked. The dog’s ears and tail had been cut off at some point. The dog grew old and eventually died still living with the family in Meaford.

Joe became famous and never knew a thing about it.

Margaret Marshall Saunders (1861 – 1947) met the dog while visiting her brother and his fiancée, Louise Moore, in 1892. The story inspired her to write a novel from the dog’s point of view.

However, she changed the location of the story to Maine (in the US) in order to enter a literary contest sponsored by the American Humane Education Society. She also changed names in the story and she wrote the story under the name Marshall Saunders because she thought a woman writer would not be taken seriously. She did win the contest and the book was first published in 1893.

Beautiful Joe was the first Canadian book to sell over a million copies. By the 1930′s the book had sold over 7 million copies around the world. Beautiful Joe has appeared in several editions, been translated into ten different languages.

The sequel, Beautiful Joe’s Paradise, was published by Marshall Saunders in 1902.The book contributed to worldwide awareness of animal cruelty. The Beautiful Joe Heritage Society was started in 1994 and continues to run . You can find the Beautiful Joe Park and monument if you visit the town of Meaford.

Canadians don’t have their own language. But we do have our own way of speaking, our own Canadianisms. (As if that were a word).

National Flag of Canada Day – Major Events and Celebrations – History and Celebrations.

Canadian Food Blog Awards : Eat Local London.

Nominations are now being taken for the Best Canadian Food Blogs. How exciting! This is a great way for us to share our favorite Canadian food blogs and find new addicting blogs to peruse through the winter. You can vote here http://www.beerandbuttertarts.com/cfba/nominations/nomination-form/

It got me thinking about my own favorite post on this blog and it would have to be the Cookbooks, My Friends and Treasures post I wrote back in November of 2009. You can find it here – http://www.eatlocallondon.com/2009/11/cookbooks-my-friends-and-treasures.html (wink, wink – nudge nudge)

I have some favorite food blogs (which I am going to nominate in different categories) that I would like to share here with you. They are in no particular order:

http://thelocavore.ca/

http://ontariolocavore.wordpress.com/

http://southwesternontariofoodie.blogspot.com/

http://onehundredmilemel.blogspot.com/

http://seasonalontariofood.blogspot.com/

http://ethicalgourmet.blogspot.com/

All nominated blogs must:

be based in Canada

have at least 75% food and/or drink content

use a blog-based interface

be regularly updated and current, with at least one post per month in the past 12 months

Here are the categories:

People’s Choice – Best Canadian Food Blog

Who is Canada’s best food blogger? What blog stands out with great writing, fantastic photos and interesting topics? The winner of this category will be chosen through a public vote.

Best Writing

This category is for blogs that demonstrate consistently outstanding writing. In both the short list and final judging we will be looking for a unique and insightful writing voice, attention to detail, fact checking, and journalistic integrity. We’re also all grammar fiends, so spelling, grammar and punctuation will count as well.

Best Photography

Not specifically for photography blogs, in this category we’re looking for the Canadian food and drink blog with the nicest photos. Do they complement the writing, are they well lit, attractively styled and professionally edited?

Best New Blog (Under 12 months)

The category is open only to blogs that have been created in 2010. They must have a minimum of 1 post per month from the time of creation to November.

Best Restaurant Review Blog

For bloggers who concentrate on restaurant reviews. We’re looking for professional quality photos, well-worded menu item descriptions, and overall assessments that fall within standard professional guidelines for restaurant critics (trying a number of dishes, giving new restaurants a grace period, supporting opinions).

Best Recipe Blog

This category is for the folks who primarily post recipes, but – take note – we’re mostly looking for original recipes or interesting tweaks to published recipes. Simply copying recipes from cookbooks or other blogs is probably not going to make the cut. Bonus points for having a story to go with it, or a critique of a published recipe, not a just a copy of the recipe and pictures of what you ate for dinner.

Best Baking and Dessert Blog

Cake, pie, candy, fudge. Lots of bloggers love the sweet stuff. Here we’ll be looking for original recipes, great writing and lovely photos of beautiful sweet treats.

Best Professional Blog

This category is for anyone involved in the food industry on a professional basis. We’re looking for blogs from chefs, restaurants and food businesses, as well as blogs from food organizations and personal or professional blogs from professional (eg. paid) food writers.

Best Beer Blog

Canada has a huge number of beer bloggers, so they definitely get their own category. Knowledgeable and informative writing is what we’ll be looking for here.

Best Wine/Spirits Blog

As with the beer blog category, we want to see nominations here for bloggers who demonstrate knowledge of the subject and can pass that on to readers in an interesting and informative way.

Best Individual Post

Any Canadian food blog, any category. We want to know about the one post from 2010 that made you laugh, cry or jump for joy. The one piece of writing that inspired you, or that made you run out to try that new restaurant, search out that unique ingredient, or just think about things from a different perspective.

Best Niche (Single Subject) Blog

Some people love their poutine, chicken wings, sushi or dim sum. This category is for blogs that feature one specific type of food or technique. We want to hear about bloggers that not only love their subject but are able to write about it, photograph it and inspire others to love it too.

Best Healthy Living Blog

Vegan, vegetarian, macro-biotic, flexatarian, or just environmentally-friendly, this category will feature blogs that write about nutrition and healthy foods. Note – we will not consider dieting blogs (eg. weigh-ins and calorie counts) in this category.

Best Family-Oriented Blog

What to feed the kids for dinner? This is the place to nominate food blogs that focus on innovative solutions to feeding families.

Best Regional Blog

Blogs that focus on the food and drink of one specific city or region. (For example, TasteTO – although as these awards are being run by the owners of TasteTO, we have taken our own websites out of contention for these awards.)

Best Group Blog

This is for any Canadian food blog with 2 or more regular contributors.

Best Seasonal/Local Blog

With so many bloggers focusing on seasonal, local and sustainable produce and what to do with it, we felt they deserved their own category. We’re looking for bloggers that write about everything from field to table and in between, from farming and gardening to canning and preserving.

Vote now at http://www.beerandbuttertarts.com/cfba/nominations/nomination-form/