How distinctly I remember…
every yuk lie
Under the Volcano — and Anatolian Skies
A once-precocious teenager studying Under the Volcano in CanLit found himself only a few years later posted within the shadow of Malcolm Lowry’s Popocatepetl and Ixtazihuati, the great volcanoes of Mexico. Years later, and in the near vicinity of what one Australian…
The Great Escape
This is a story about courage, imagination, determination, and audacity, but above all about how the magic of love can overcome the most formidable obstacles.
An Unhealthy Place to Work?
Readers of bout de papier, particularly those now regarding a snow-swept landscape from a cubicle in Fort Pearson, may not be surprised to learn that a distinguished Canadian diplomat once declined a very senior appointment in the Department of External Affairs on…
Jacques Simard
Éloge funèbre présenté par Raymond Chrétien à l’église St-Viateur d’Outremont, le 18 octobre 2008.
James Joachim McCardle
Jim McCardle was one of the generation of officers whose lives and careers spanned many of the momentous years of the 20th century.
Guantanamo’s Child; Dark Days
We are now seven years on from the world-changing events of September 11, 2001, and the consequential “war on terror” launched by President George W. Bush and his coterie of over-reaching, hubristic associates. His Administration has shambled to the end of its…
Pakistan’s Jingle Trucks
f you travel the precipitous mountain roads of Afghanistan or northwestern Pakistan, sooner rather than later you’ll find yourself stuck behind a huge old Bedford truck, overloaded with sugar, cows or refugees, creeping uphill at five kilometres/hour and belching thick black diesel…
Peter and the Persians
From 540 to 565, Peter the Patrician (what a name for a diplomat!) was Constantinople’s Magister Officorum (Master of Offices). The Magister was a sort of “Minister of Everything.” His responsibilities included: the Imperial Guard; the Agentes in Rebus (a cross between…
