Dylan the Westie and I have been invited to the 108th Grey Cup in Hamilton, Ontario on November 12. Prime Minister Justin “Black Face” Trudeau has invited me as his guest along with Dylan the Westie, Bob and Fay to watch the championship Canadian Football League game. We start off with high tea at the regal Imperial Hotel in Hamilton with Justin and Sophie Trudeau and their children. Sophie is distant and unhappy looking. I know I can smell unhappiness. We will visit the dressing room of the Hamilton Tiger Cats and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers who are competing for the Grey Cup. At the beginning of the game Bob and Fay will walk out to centre field and Dylan the Westie and I will sit by Lola Larue as she sings the national anthem of Canada. Then Dylan the Westie and I will take small flags and run around the field. Dylan the Westie will carry the Hamilton Tiger Cats flag and me the Winnipeg Blue Bombers flag. Dylan the Westie carried the gay pride flag once at the Gay Pride Day parade in Toronto years ago and says it will be easy. We will be practicing on Saturday afternoon.
Bob and Dylan the Westie have watched almost every Grey Cup since Dylan the Westie was born 13 years ago. There was always a small family party with potato chips, Cheesies, BBQ wings, fajitas and corn chips and salsa and of course beer.
Bob loves the Hamilton Tiger Cats and is excited but he has struck a deal that the 50/50 draw charitable cut will go to Reggie’s Dogs Foundation.
I will be watched on national television by millions and 25,000 noisy and excited fans most likely in winter conditions. Canada as been suffering with COVID for too long and although I am very nervous it is time for Canada to party like its 1967! Bob has promised that Dylan the Westie and I can split a cheeseburger and a few French Fries. WE DOGS LOVE MEAT! And yes, GO BOMBERS GO!
And it will be Penny in her Oodlecopter flying the pass over instead of the Canadian Snowbirds. GO PENNY GO!
Bob also says to us dogs he has a big secret. It is a BIG SECRET and it involves Joe and Jill Biden! What could it be?
I have travelled the world promoting the Disney film and Bob’s novel “Reggie the Egyptian Rescue Dog”, receiving a Nobel Peace Prize and meeting the Pope and all sorts of politicos. I think Dylan the Westie and I have peed and pooped all over the world. But at times it is a blur and it is very tiring and sometimes stressful. Time for a vacation! Bob and Fay decided during this silly COVID mess to take Dylan the Westie and I on a real vacation. No paparazzi, no television shows or hours long photo shoots. And we are going to Niagara-on-the-Lake to a fancy inn called the Oban Inn and Spa.
It is about 90 minutes away from Toronto on some busy highways but I love a good car ride especially when I have something to look forward to! Off the highway on country roads we had to stop at a drawbridge and watch a huge ship pass through the Welland Canal. A massive ship! Then the bridge lowers and we cross it. I am not at Niagara-on-the-Lake but am so excited already to see that ship! As we pass through some town called St Catherine’s I think it is called, the scenery gets very nice and I feel like I am in the country. Dylan the Westie and I remark how clean smelling the air is even in the winter.
I hear Bob reciting the name of the wineries we pass. Humans like to drink wine and Bob writes about wine as a hobby and he says this and that winery make good or mediocre wine. There are so many wineries here!
We arrive at the Oban Inn and Spa which is a small but really comfy and they have a couple of dog friendly rooms which have a nice backyard and Dylan the Westie and I go for a badly needed pee there when we arrive. It is so peaceful and quiet here and after checking in we go for a walk along the waterfront and meet a Westie called Tucker. It is December and it is cold but Dylan the Westie and I have coats and Fay has given us fancy collars and leashes so we are prancing and bobbing around like kings oblivious to the cold.
We are tired from the trip and our waterfront walk so Bob and Fay decide they will eat in our room and Bob goes to pick up the pizza at some bistro called Bistro Six One and some wine as after all we are in wine country. Bob is tired from the stressful drive so he sits outside and has a cold local beer from Oast called “Farmbrew”. We go outside and sniff and run about. The pizza smells so good! And after our kibble Dylan the Westie and I have a small piece of pizza and is it ever grand!!!! Bob has a glass of Malivoire Farmstead Gamay and Fay a glass of Malivoire Lady Bug Rosé. They really like it and say we are having a special dinner tomorrow night with the master and mistress of PENNY!!!!!
We have a very good sleep but Dylan the Westie barked to go pee at 4 in the morning. He had taken his monthly anti-parasitical medication before we left which makes him tired and very thirsty and what water comes in must go out. I am sleepy but go out with Dylan the Westie to keep him company and since I am out in the backyard have a pee myself! Bonus time as we jump into bed with Fay and Bob and drift off in a happy and warm sleep.
In the morning Bob figures out the coffee machine and makes some coffee for Fay and grabs a tea and pastry a few minutes from the Oban and we are off to Niagara Falls! I have seen the Falls on a BBC documentary but seeing them up close is both terrifying and exhilarating! The roar. The mist. The power. I will not forget this wonder ever! Then we go to the Botanical Gardens for short walk and stop at various scenic lookouts and see the power of the river. And that floral clock must be a sight in the summer!
We return to the Oban Bob telling us there is going to be a SHORT RECEPTION at the Oban restaurant with local dignitaries wanting to meet me, Bob, Fay and Dylan the Westie. Bob had insisted all the wines being served are Malivoire wines because as he said, “They make damn good wine!” Fay loves the Moira Chardonnay and Bob says the Analog Gamay is amazing. Thank goodness there are some children there and we get lots of pets. And Bob slips us a bit of delicious crab cakes. Who is the chef at this place? He knows his food for sure.
We have an hour before dinner with the mistress and master of Penny so Bob and Fay catch up with their phones and e-mail. You humans spend too much time looking at your phones! I have seen it all over the world. More than a dozen times I have seen couples at restaurants not talking to each other and instead looking at their phones? Bob and Fay never do that.
The restaurant has been closed to the public just for our special dinner with Penny and her “parents” and they arrive. Dylan the Westie, Penny and I are allowed to stay at the restaurant and it is so exciting to see Penny. We talk all dinner long. Penny is very excited about her new Oodlecopter especially with its missile launcher capable of firing Iranian X 600 mini rockets. She shows us her new headphones she will be wearing in her Oodlecopter.
Penny happily shows us her new Oodlecopter headset!
The food arrives and there are crab cakes, shrimp and scallops, chicken with mushroom and truffle risotto and confit of duck. All three dogs get a small piece of duck. We dogs LOVE MEAT! And boy it is really fantastic!
After dinner Bob and Fay watch the CBC news and incessant stories of more unrelenting COVID crap.
It has been a long day and I feel like I am on my first real vacation! Good food, interesting people and a nice quiet sleep without planes flying overhead. Bob and Fay we should be going to Greece for our next vacation. Bob says it will help with his next book “Mutantism on the March” some of which is set on the Greek island of Samos.
Yet another great sleep waking up at 09:00 and we headed down for a buffet breakfast. Seems in Portugal breakfast is always included in the room rate. We take our breakfast in a side room but unlike the Pousada in Viano do Castelo we don’t eat outside on a terrace. The dining area seems gloomy lacking the light as the Pousada Santa Luzia had. Even the service was better there than here.
Packed up and on the road to Coimbra at 11:30. A mysterious 17 Euro charge for a call to Porto that we never made. After that was cleared up on a small scenic road then onto the A1 towards Lisboa. So many small villages on the way. Portugal is a very densely populated area. Very few wide open sparsely populated areas here in the North. Once you get on the beautiful new toll road there is almost no traffic. Clear sailing with one stop at a rest area for a desperately requested WC break. Not having a map of Coimbra it wasn’t easy to find our Relais & Chateau Quinta Lagrima. A narrow gate with a road lined by oleander trees in purple bloom. An old aristocratic palace with grand steps leading up to the reception area. Old wood throughout with wonderful plaster ceilings.
We have rooms in the new section. What an enchanted place. While Alex and Andrew had a swim in the pool Fotini and I scouted out a place for dinner. Picked up a bottle of wine and two Sumols for the junior crowd.
The restaurant we selected for dinner was a 10-minute walk. We were the only customers until the time we left. The outdoor terrace had a few gas cannisters rather unsightly. A real family run restaurant. There was also a large inflated Donald Duck looking at us. Dinner was excellent. I had the salt cod (Bachalau a la casa). Andrew had the shrimp rice and the girls a mixed grill. Fotini and I had a bottle of Casal Garcia a vinho verde. Dinner for 4 was $60. I think my cod with a tomato green pepper sauce was the best. The mixed grill consisted of pork and various sausages. Stopped at a café on the walk home and I had a cold beer while the girls an excellent coffee. Walked home and down the lane with oleanders and off to bed.
In Canada in terms of American Cabernet Sauvignon we are hostage to California Cabernet Sauvignons. I am sure Texas produces some notable Cabernet Sauvignons but timid buyers for our state liquor monopoly the Liquor Control Board of Ontario would rather sell their mother than look to Texas or 48 other states for American wine. My my. Let’s not spook our customers. Chambourcin from Pennsylvania? Cabernet Franc from Virginia? Merlot from Long Island?
Thank goodness for Washington State Cabernet Sauvignon but even then it is barely flowing in like a severe BPH manifestation.
What about a Chateau Ste. Michelle Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon? 11% Syrah in this.
Aroma: Think blueberries and blueberry pie. Generous overlay of cassis and blackberry zipped up in coconut.
Palate: More of that blueberry and blackberry. Ok with me so bring it on! Short and smooth finish. Jammy every once in awhile is fine.
Personality: Don’t compare me to Cali Cab Sav. Comparisons are odious in the wine world. Respect the terror of terroir and not a state!
In a small Indian village Kiran, a 13-year-old, is savagely beaten and raped by three young men and then threatened with death if she tells anyone about the rape. Kiran tells her father Ranjit of the gang rape and he notifies the police. The lads are arrested and jailed. Given the prevalence of rape in India where it is estimated 90% of rapes are unreported and a woman is raped every twenty minutes Kiran is not alone. Kiran’s position is that she would fight to the death for justice and her father Ranjit pursues the case in the criminal courts with dogged determination.
The villagers wish to bury the matter in the customary way of having the rapist marry the victim “as after all” she is already soiled and no one will ever want her. And it is the women “that asks for it”. The boys just “made a mistake”. Ranjit and Kiran are upsetting the harmony of the village and its traditional ways. The family is ostracized for advocating for Kiran, taking the case to the police and pursuing the case in court. Ranjit’s life is threatened by the perpetrators’ families because he won’t “compromise”.
The result is that the misogynist tigers are “killed” and sentenced to a groundbreaking 25 years in prison rather sensational news in India. Since the decision women reporting rape in the administrative region where Kiran resides has doubled.
The rampaging Indian rapists have taken a blow but nonetheless gang rapes and sexual assaults in India of a particularly vicious nature continue. A question of “Sleeping Tiger Hidden Dragon”?
I am left thinking the documentary has not addressed a crucial question as to why many Indian men are so brutal. Where is the requisite need to beat and rape women as young as thirteen. After contemplating the film the answer may be because they can “get away with it”.
Some of the attitudes of the villagers stubbornly remain in contemporary Canadian society today but those relics hopefully are receding to the point we can soon hope the misogynist tiger is finally severely wounded at least here in Canada. The end of misogyny is unfortunately but a dream and the tiger continues to prowl.
“To Kill a Tiger” is nominated as the Best Documentary Feature Film in the 96th Academy Awards.
On our higher end retail shelves for quality wine Chile and Argentina are duking it out for the moderately priced wine championship. Chile is undercutting Argentina pricewise and possibly quality wise. Writers from jamessuckling.com seeming to be playing both sides and with their inflated ratings rest assured they receive lots of print in our Vintages Release catalogue. The magic of 91 plus ratings to sell wine to the masses! I am sure there are many, perhaps too many, wineries saying, “Long live Jamessuckling.com.”
We try a Rebel Pinot Noir from Patagonia. Catchy label. Great eye bait but quality?
Aroma: Unmistakably Pinot Noir despite its muscularity. Raspberry, strawberry and red cherry with the faintest bit of blackberry.
Palate: More delicate than its bouquet portends. Unfortunately, the delicacy has more to do with the lack of fruit than a particular winemaking style. Struggling raspberry and strawberry sink this wine.
Personality: The “Thin Man”.
Food Match: Black bean meatloaf…..aaargh!!!
Cellarbility: Would be a waste of space to cellar.
Many humans are kind and compassionate towards dogs but unfortunately there are many cruel and nasty ones that hurt, abuse, kill, ignore or try to intimidate us. Why are these humans so evil? We surrendered to your care thousands of years ago to protect, hunt and serve you. We are compassion dogs, police and army dogs, narcotic and bomb sniffers, healing dogs. service dogs, animal herders and guide dogs for the blind. But pardon me so many of you humans are ASSHOLES. We have a social contract with you humans. In return for our services to you we want and DESERVE respect, love, decency and care. But some of you are worse than the animals you think are below you. You beat us. You eat us. You abuse us. You kill us. You ignore us. You chain us. You starve us. What is wrong with you? I can only hope when your time is done on earth when you go to The Land Beyond that Allah, Jesus or Buddha or whatever God you believe in will treat you as you deserve to be treated. Some of you humans are so low you make me sick and angry. Most of you give us the respect we deserve. Thank you and may you be blessed.
You humans are frequently idiotic killing each other in the names of Allah or Christ. Terrorist bombings in the name of Allah. Who perverted Allah’s name to justify such atrocities? Who sanctions drone attacks and chlorine bombings of hospitals and innocent civilians in Syria? You humans say it’s a dog-eat-dog world but believe you me dogs would not do to each other what you humans do to each other. It is bad enough what you do to us dogs but what you do to each other makes me sick. I often put my paws over my eyes when I watch the BBC news with Fay because you humans were given the earth to prosper and co-exist with other species in but instead you are destroying it and yourselves. Dare I say it but could it be if dogs ruled the world it would be a better place. No not a “Planet of the Dogs” a la Charlton Heston but a caring and compassionate world.
Of course, I could devise a long list of what makes me sad and angry but I am too sad and angry to continue.
This COVID plague has been a blessing for us dogs! You must stay with us all day. No dog walkers and hours of loneliness. If matters ever return to “normal” many of us will not know what it is like to be left alone for so long!
Of course, dogs do not get COVID! Perhaps we are not so inferior as many of you think. Perhaps it will soon be “Planet of the Dogs”? All the humans have been felled by the plague. Didn’t Moses and God do a number on ancient Egypt! Perhaps God is doing a plague number on humans?
Tomorrow Dylan the Westie and I are going to Niagara-On-the-Lake for three nights. This will be our second overnight trip there for us. I love Niagara Falls and especially when Bob holds me and Dylan the Westie over the rails looking at the Falls and we get that spray al over our snouts! I love the walk along the river leading up to the Horseshoe Falls but we will need our coats as it is winter.
We are eagerly anticipating this adventure. I love Niagara Falls and Bob and Fay may pick up some pizza at Two Sisters winery restaurant called Kitchen 76 and we will get some delicious chunks. I mean what dog wouldn’t love a piece of their truffle pizza.
“We were so robbed by the man that stands there, as all we common dogs are by those Superior beings-taxed by him without mercy, obliged to work for him without pay, obliged to grind our corn at his mill, obliged to feed scores of his tame birds on our wretched crops, and forbidden for our lives to keep a single tame bird of our own, pillaged and plundered to that degree when we chanced to have a bit of meat, we ate it in fear, with the door barred and windows shuttered, that his people should not see it and take it from us-I say we were robbed, and hunted, and were made so poor that our father told us it was a dreadful thing to bring a child into the world, and what we should most pray for, was, that our women might be barren and our miserable race die out.”
We are doing our best to manage the jet lag. It seems to be working well as we had a good sleep until 09:00. We had our breakfast on the terrace overlooking the basilica and the town. Unfortunately, there are wildfires in the distance and water bombers are continually landing on the ocean and filling up with water. The breakfasts here are amazing with an incredible fruit salad, eggs, bacon, cheese and freshly baked whole grain loaves. And with our view below the breakfasts are the more enjoyable. We made a mess on the tablecloth. We packed up and headed southeast in our “fat assed” Renault. A two-lane road winding through groves of trees almost like a green tunnel. There are no large patches of open space but village after village. After this 50 km drive we ended up in our pousada Santa Marinha up in the hills overlooking Guimares. It was a former monastery converted into a luxury hotel. The beds are in on a lower level with a step up to a sitting area with chairs and a table with large wooden planked floors. Large widows look out at the garden and the mountain above. Off the reception area are the cloisters with taped monk chants which you can contemplate while watching water in a most elaborate fountain. The fifth floor resembles a museum with hugged arched ceilings. The sitting room is spectacular and there is a terrace with fountain. After checking in off to the Duke of Bragança Palace in town which is a nobleman’s palace. One of the rooms has an exhibit of all the gifts received by the prime ministers of Portugal. One gift from Canada was a huge Inuit soapstone carving. Returned home for a swim in an immaculately clean swimming pool.
Dinner for all was a rather dry duck. Not on their game tonight.
Perhaps wishful thinking with this miserably cold and damp weather made me think of this as a Rasta Man wine. But returning to reality I realize the wine has been incorrectly described! It has nothing to do with Jamaica as it is French. There is no Rasta Man in sight as the wine is a Rasteau and there are no Rasteau Men in France. Boy that was complicated! Simile is a difficult poetic device.
70% Grenache. 20% Syrah. 10% Mourvèdre.
Aroma: A creamy assemblage of blackberry, black cherry, milk chocolate and a tad of coconut.
Palate: Youthful exuberance jumps out. Sharp and tight almost as it is trying to grab your attention. Wet cement, ripe black cherry with a tannic rage that attacks the tongue but dies instantly leaving a long finish with pepper and tar.
Personality: A wine with swagger and confidence….hopefully not too much.
Food Match: Lake Erie Perch Gumbo with Asparagus.
Cellarbility: Drink by 2027-year end. Expect big things starting at the end of 2024.
Price: $20.95 CDN (Ontario).
RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 91/100. Michael Godel 90.
(Château Courançonne 2021Rasteau Côtes du Rhône Villages, 750 mL, 14.5%).
Comments from the Peanut Gallery: Consider this as a baby Châteauneuf-du-Pape which is but 24 miles away.
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