I was up in Powell River over the holiday when, passing Willingdon Beach, I came across this group of brave locals on New Year's Day testing their nerve.

I have been remiss in not mentioning that The Ormsby Review has grown up and left home, setting off on an independent path.

The Review is an online book site, publishing reviews of most every book published about British Columbia. (Full disclosure: I am a member of the board.) As well, editor Richard Mackie serves up the odd literary essay, by himself and by other contributors.

The Review began life under the protective wing of Alan Twigg and his BC Bookworld "empire...

The day's news includes the deaths of two British cultural icons.

You might say that Clive James, poet and all-round man of letters, has been dying for a decade. It has been that long since he received a terminal cancer diagnosis and announced it to the world. His lovely 2014 poem "Japanese Maple" contains the final lines:

Filling the double doors to bathe my...

On today's CBC website there is an item about a reunion of survivors of the Athenia, a passenger ship torpedoed by the Germans right at the beginning of World War Two.

Loyal readers may recall that my mother-in-law, Dorothy Dean Brealey, was a passenger on the doomed vessel. She was returning to Canada with her mother after visiting relatives in England.

In 2006 I wrote an...