BANISHING BOREDOM
Bloggery on music, books, films, travel, wildlife and dark matters.![Riffing on the Buzzcocks and Modern English in Mexico City](http://jimalgie.club/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Steve-Behind-the-Board-1080x675.jpg)
Riffing on the Buzzcocks and Modern English in Mexico City
Jim Algie extols the virtues of breaking free from his maximum security comfort zone for a rocking trip to Mexico City, the biggest megalopolis in the Americas, to see the Buzzcocks and Modern English. . When Rhishja and I were doing our wedding party/honeymoon at...
read more![Another Farewell to Another Fine Friend](http://jimalgie.club/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Melanie-and-Mike.jpg)
Another Farewell to Another Fine Friend
For what would have been Melanie Klimchuk’s 60th birthday this year, which was commemorated by an event in Toronto, I wrote this appreciation of her and our four decades of friendship. In the early 1980s, I was hosting a music-comedy show on the University of...
read more![Time’s Arrow: The Death and Rebirth of Martin Amis](http://jimalgie.club/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Time-Arrow-1080x675.jpg)
Time’s Arrow: The Death and Rebirth of Martin Amis
Upon the passing of the noteworthy author, Martin Amis, Jim Algie recalls his favourite novel by him, Time’s Arrow, which unfolds in reverse and leads back to the Nazi death camps. That period also inspired a more recent novel called “The Zone of...
read more![Bidding Adieu to Gordon Lightfoot, a True Troubadour](http://jimalgie.club/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Lightfoot-Sundown.jpg)
Bidding Adieu to Gordon Lightfoot, a True Troubadour
Jim Algie salutes Gordon Lightfoot, a true Canadian titan, who wrote some of the only good songs on AM radio when I was getting into music. In the early and mid-70s, Gordon Lightfoot was this lighthouse whose vision and voice were so powerful that they illuminated...
read more![Algie Bloodlines: From Italy to Mexico in Five Centuries and Back](http://jimalgie.club/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/bloodlines-1080x675.jpg)
Algie Bloodlines: From Italy to Mexico in Five Centuries and Back
Jim Algie looks back on some of his family history that dates back to Italy, where his distant ancestor worked as a scribe for the Vatican. Words and pics by Jim Algie. Many towns and villages in Mexico are named after Catholic saints. Our patron is Saint Catherine...
read more![Bangkok Prison Visit with a Convicted Killer](http://jimalgie.club/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/klong-prem_small-1080x675.jpg)
Bangkok Prison Visit with a Convicted Killer
To get a glimpse of Thailand’s dark side and its Third World injustice system, no daytrip is more illuminating than a Bangkok prison visit, writes Jim Algie. Opening the back door of a pink taxi, I told the driver in Thai that I wanted to go to Klong Prem Prison. I...
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