Polar bear swim 2011

It was a balmy 12 C with intermittent rain in Hamilton today-- perfect swimming weather--and so your intrepid correspondent sallies forth!

(That is not fat. What looks to the casual observer like a beer gut is actually layer upon layer of thermal padding and floatation modules - safety first! That's my story and I'm sticking to it)

Going,

going,

gone!

In the immortal words of George Castanza: "There was shrinkage"

In all honesty, while it was chilly and the water bracing, it was not, as Tom Waits describes it "colder than a gut-shot bitch wolf dog with nine sucking pups pulling a number-four trap up a hill in the dead of winter in the middle of a snowstorm with a mouth full of porcupine quills" but it was definitely in banker's smile/witch's tit/welldigger's ass territory once you got wet, though not as cold as the year in the early 90s I did it in Picton harbour through a hole in the ice in a January snowstorm.


Apologies to my wife, son and daughter who, when I said "let's go to the polar bear swim this morning," we honestly-to-god expecting this:



My daughter, who is seven, was quite concerned when I said I was going to take part in the polar bear swim on New Year's Day because she thought I might get eaten by bears.
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Happy 2011

It was a low key New Year's around the Woodshed. We have some nice take-out sushi and watched the Tribute to Paul McCartney at the White House with my parents while sipping champagne. I thought this bit was the highlight of the show:



I've written about McCartney's skills as showman before. (Even if Blogger has swallowed up the first five years of this blog, the Internet is forever). As much as he was the cute and commercial face of the Beatles, you have to hand it to Sir Paul. He has written more than 200 songs that have spent a combined total of 32 years in the charts. He's been playing this one for about 45 years and he never phones it in,



I'm off to throw myself into Hamilton Bay this afternoon. My daughter is very excited about the prospect of her father going swimming with real polar bears. My wife, at least at first, also thought we were going down to the harbour to watch actual bears swim. Just wait until I take the two of them snipe hunting next summer.

Watch the full episode. See more In Performance at The White House.

Watch the full episode. See more In Performance at The White House.

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Feel-good stories of the holidays

Via the always terrific Mock, Paper, Scissors we read of a health clinic in California that took the high road to helping the poor this Christmas. Christmas in that neck of the woods just got a lot merrier.

Hurrah for Pierre Karl Peladeau! Kinda reminds me of the last time Saddam Hussien was elected president of Iraq with 103 per cent of the vote

In other news, I'm sure you will be as shocked as I was to learn that the feds are looking into criminal charges against failed Senate candidate and attention whore Christine O'Donnell for using some of the more than $7 million in campaign funds she raised for personal spending, such as $20,000 she spent to pay rent on her Delaware town house. How long before she complains the whole thing is a witch hunt?


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