Tuesday laughs

It works for me.  How about you?

 

Goodbye Global TV News

On Saturday night at 6:40 PM four blocks from where we live, there was another gang shooting.  We didn't hear the shots but heard about all the police that were in attendance.  One person was shot and killed.  At 11:00 PM, I put on Global BC News.  No reporting of this event hours before.

I've seen the changes in Global News.  They replay the 6:00 PM news at 11:00 PM!  No new news.  If you've seen the news at 6, you've seen it all for the rest of the day.  

The traffic helicopter is gone.  They pick up clips from Drive BC!  Journalists out on the field are fewer.  I googled it and this is what I found:

In September 2025, they laid off 45-46 employees, primarily in B.C. and Alberta, including 26 journalists. These cuts, part of a "restructuring" due to falling ad revenues and high debt, follow multiple rounds of layoffs in 2023 and 2024, including the closure of some local stations.

We started watching BBC news at 10 PM or 11 PM.  We see what happened overnight in the middle east.  The news from the US is not filtered as it is on Fox, CNN, and MS Now.  We get our US news from this network.  There was a very interesting interview today from some of the Epstein survivors.  They will never appear on US TV.

Good-bye Global, we've enjoyed your news for years.  Hello City TV, CBC or CTV.  We will check them all and see which one we like best.  I'm leaning toward Ian Hanomansing as he's a great news anchor.

Sunday funnies

  

The old days of photography

Selfies. It seems like everywhere you look these days someone is holding their phone up taking a photo of themselves or of the group they’re with. It didn’t used to be like that. It wasn’t a thing to do way back when. Sure, people tried to hold the camera up and guess that the shot was framed properly. It was just a guess. Plus, you had to be carrying a camera with you. That was something you would mainly do if you were on holiday. And you had better be packing extra rolls of film.

It was always a bit of a guessing game, especially if you were sporting a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye. Push the button and hope for the best was all you could do back then. And you couldn’t enjoy the photo right on the spot as you can these days; you had to take the roll to the drug store or camera store and wait for them to develop the film, which in some cases could take a couple of days. And of course, once you got the photos back, you’d discover how many were out of focus, or just a bad shot.

Those were the days when nobody was packing a phone that doubles as a camera! Your phone was attached to the wall of your house. Camera and phone were two different animals. Phone and watch was a thing, but only if your name was Dick Tracy!

But there was one way of getting a selfie, well, sort of a selfie, and that was to get captured walking down the street, usually Granville Street, by a man with a metal box on wheels and a camera mounted on top. A Vancouver legend, Foncie Pulice was his name and he became famous in Vancouver as the man on the street with a camera who took millions of pictures of ordinary people just walking along.

Foncie started out shooting for other companies but decided to start his own business in 1946 and kept snapping shots until his retirement in 1979. Most of his pictures are those taken on the east side of the 700-block of Granville, and that’s where I remember seeing him on my trips downtown.

The photos were usually a full-length shot of you, or you and your friends just walking down the street. He would try to make eye contact to make sure the person wanted to be photographed. He didn’t need to worry about adjusting the focus; when the subject stepped on a certain spot on the sidewalk, Foncie would snap the shot. Some were candid shots, or if you saw he was aiming at you, you could put on your best smile. Either way, Foncie had captured you, being you!

After a full day snapping shots on the street, Foncie and his wife, Anne, would develop the film at home. Then, the next day, he would take the proofs to his store downtown. Anne would handle the store while Foncie went back on the street to shoot more photos. Customers could redeem the coupon he had given them and purchase their photo. How much did he charge? Well, back in the 1940s you could get three photos for 50 cents!

Foncie was snapping photos on the streets of Vancouver for 45 years. He would work long hours, sometimes into the evenings, six days a week. The business of street photography started to die out in the early to mid-70s as more and more people owned their own cameras, and of course these days, with the camera in your phone, it wouldn’t stand a chance of survival.

Foncie retired and hung up his camera on September 27, 1979. He and his wife Anne, moved to the Okanagan. Foncie passed away in 2003 at the age of 88. His wife, Anne, lived to be 97 and passed away in 2011.

He was so much a part of the old days of Vancouver, and a lot has been written about him and his photos. 

Are your affairs in order?

I saw this post online.  I don't know if everything applies to where I live, but I thought it was great advice.  I've been executrix for three people.  The best advice to give people is put someone you trust as a signatory on your bank accounts.  It makes everything so much easier.  

Our affairs are all in order.  It's detailed and easy for anyone to find.   

When my husband's mother passed away, she prepaid her funeral expenses in 1950!  The funeral director was stunned at how much the price increased.  After she was buried, we prepaid our funerals too!  

This information is for those of you who don’t have your affairs in order. Make sure all bank accounts have direct beneficiaries. The beneficiary need only go to the bank with your death certificate and an ID of their own.  

We opted to put a beneficiary on our bank accounts.

**You cannot "TOD" Transfer On Death in British Columbia.  However, you can add someone to your title so when you pass, it is theirs with no taxes.

- TOD = Transfer On Death deed if you own a home. Completing this document and filing it with the court saves your heirs thousands. This document allows you to transfer ownership of your home to your designee. All they need to do is take their ID and your Death Certificate and they will then have the deed signed over. Doing this will avoid the home having to go through probate. 

- Living Will: Allows one to put in writing exactly what you want done in the event you cannot speak for yourself when it comes to healthcare decisions. 

- Durable Power of Attorney: Allows one to designate a person to make legal decisions if one is no longer competent to do so. 

- Power of Attorney for Healthcare: This document allows one to designate someone to make healthcare decisions for their person. 

- Last Will and Testament: Designates to whom personal belongings will go too.

- Funeral Planning Declaration: States one’s wishes as far as disposition of the body and the service/s. 

- If the above documents are completed, you can AVOID probate. If all the above is not done, you have to open an estate account at the bank. All money that doesn’t have direct beneficiaries goes into this account. You have to have your executor to open the estate account. The executor also has to publicize your death in the newspaper or post publication at the courthouse, to allow anyone to make a claim on your property. - It’s a complete nuisance. 

- Make a list of all banks and account numbers, all investment institutions with account numbers, lists of credit cards, utility accounts, etc. Leave clear instructions as to how and when these things are paid. Make sure heirs knows where life insurance policies are located. 

- Make 100% sure SOMEONE knows your Apple ID, bank ID account logins and passwords!

- Make sure you have titles for all automobiles, campers, motorcycles etc

- MOST IMPORTANTLY!- Talk with those closest to you and make all your wishes KNOWN. Talk to those whom you’ve designated, as well as those close to you whom you did not designate. - Do this to explain why your decisions were made and to avoid any lingering questions or hurt feelings. 

Hope this lights a spark to encourage all your friends and family to take care of these things and to make it easier for those we all leave behind. There is no template for these documents. these are quite simply, written documents, in your own words, and an exercise in just instructing your wishes to be carried out in detail in plain English. 

The above list at least helps you start an important conversation with your loved ones.

If any of my legal friends finds something wrong, please let me know.  My legal knowledge is from Judge Judy!

Ken Kirkby 1940 - 2023

When we lived in Richmond in the early 1970's, Ken Kirkby was our neighbour.  His wife was lovely and I remember when she gave birth to her son.  After her son was born, Ken left and they divorced.  He painted in his living room.  His art was incredible.  He was a quiet man.  

The home was sold and his wife said he moved up north. He was also a fly fisherman and Cec met him a few years after he moved on Peterhope Lake.  They were both flyfishing!  I've followed his artwork since we knew him.  I was sorry to hear he passed away.  I thought you would be interested in this Canadian artist!

Ken Kirkby entered the world on September 1, 1940, in the middle of an air raid over London during the Second World War. He later joked that this explosive arrival foreshadowed the intensity and determination he would bring to his art.

After the war, his family moved to Parede, Portugal, a seaside village where the Atlantic crashed against craggy cliffs. It was here that Kirkby’s artistic instincts took hold. He began drawing obsessively, absorbing the textures of the sea, the light, and the stories of the people around him. At just 16, he held his first exhibition in Lisbon—an immediate sellout that hinted at the career to come.

By the late 1950s, Portugal was tightening under dictatorship. On his 18th birthday, Kirkby made a bold decision: he brought his family to Canada, a country he had dreamed about thanks to stories from a whaler mentor who spoke of icebergs, Inuit hunters, and the northern lights. He arrived in Vancouver on September 2, 1958, ready to reinvent his life.

What followed was extraordinary.  For five years, Kirkby walked, paddled, and sledded across the Arctic—from Coppermine to Baffin Island.  He lived with Inuit communities, absorbing their stories, humour, and resilience.  He encountered inuksuit—stone figures that had guided Inuit travellers for thousands of years—and became fascinated by their quiet authority.

These years changed him forever.  He witnessed firsthand the challenges faced by Inuit communities and made a promise to an Inuk grandmother: he would find a way to raise awareness in the South about the struggles of the North.

Kirkby’s early Canadian success came in the late 1960s with paintings of Western landscapes.  But his heart belonged to the Arctic, and he began painting inuksuit—long before the symbol became widely recognized in Canadian culture.  At first, galleries weren’t interested.  But Kirkby persisted, convinced that these stone figures could speak to Canadians about the land and the people who shaped it.

His life’s most ambitious project was Isumataq, a monumental Arctic landscape measuring 12 feet high and 152 feet long.  The title means “an object in the presence of which wisdom might reveal itself.” It took decades to complete and stands as one of the largest oil paintings in Canadian history.

Eventually, Kirkby settled on Vancouver Island, fulfilling a dream sparked by early fishing trips along Nile Creek. He painted daily—often for long hours—and became known not only as a painter but as a storyteller, environmental advocate, and master fly fisherman.

He married fellow artist Nana Cook in 2017.  They both wore chest waders and exchanged their vows standing in the waters of Tunkwa Lake.  She was also a fly fisher and  together they created a shared artistic life on the coast, producing books and exhibitions that celebrated the landscapes they loved.  

Ken Kirkby continued painting with remarkable energy well into his eighties. He passed away peacefully on June 20, 2023, at his home on Vancouver Island, surrounded by family. He was 82.

https://ken-kirkby.com/

Happy 100th Fay

 

Back in the 1980's I worked with Laurie.  We've been friends ever since.  Laurie's mom was a single mother and at 55 she had terminal cancer.  Her best friend Fay was a nurse.  Fay quit her job to look after Laurie's mom.  Her mom asked Laurie to always look after Fay.  She is a lovely single lady with no family in Canada.  Laurie has always looked after Fay.  She started to get dementia a few years ago and now is living in Dr. Al Hogg Pavilion which is part of Peace Arch Hospital.

Laurie came to visit my brother-in-law while I was visiting and I went over to see Fay at her birthday party.  Phil was playing his guitar and singing to the crowd,  He had a great voice and sang songs all the people in the facility would remember.  Fay sang along with some and actually conducted him with a chocolate bar.

It was a lovely afternoon for a lovely lady!  Happy 100th Fay.

She received greetings from the Governor General and King Charles and Queen Camilla.  Laurie had them framed and they are putting them up in her room!