GDP Archives • Ted Barris

Some friends and I got together this week. We were abiding by the no-more-than-10-in-a-bubble rule. Actually, there were only about five of us, and we weren’t even in the same neighbourhood. We’d gathered – as so many of us do these days – for a Zoom chat. After we’d caught up on all the latest, somebody sighed and wondered when we might all gather at a favourite watering hole again. There was a pause.

“Geez, I wish things were back to normal,” one friend said.

There was general agreement that sitting face-to-face, having the chance to give hugs to family and good friends, or enjoy a cool one on a patio together really would be great to have back. Later, however, I concluded there’s a great deal about the old normal I’d rather not return to. (more…)

In 1951 film *A Christmas Carol*, Scrooge (Alastair Sim) ridicules Cratchit (Mervyn Johns) about expecting both a day off *and* full-day’s pay.

In the canon of English literature, it’s not the zenith of composition. It doesn’t resonate like a Shakespearean soliloquy, or crackle like Jane Austen dialogue, or whisk you away like a magical J.K. Rowling passage. But, for my money, the exchange between Scrooge and Bob Cratchit, in A Christmas Carol, says everything about our times.

“You’ll want all day tomorrow, I suppose?” whines Scrooge, anticipating his clerk’s desire to have Christmas Day off.

“If quite convenient, sir,” pleads Cratchit.

“It’s not convenient and not fair,” snorts Scrooge, “You don’t think me ill-used, when I pay a day’s wages for no work.” (more…)