When I was growing up in England, no one celebrated St. Patrick’s Day.  Now it seems that everyone celebrates it, including, apparently, the English.  Here in Montreal, a massive parade has laid seige to downtown for most of the afternoon.  Despite being half Irish by blood, I must admit that I don’t like St. Patrick’s Day!

I’m not sure what there is to celebrate about men and women stomping around yelling, screaming and getting drunk at eleven in the morning.  And I’m not sure what is so special about Ireland.  I can’t think of any other country that has been singled out in such a way.  I’m also not sure how it’s supposed to be flattering to the Irish that they get depicted as a nation of drunks.

St. Patrick’s strikes me as one of the most loutish and fruitless holidays on the whole calendar.  It is the only holiday that has drunkeness as its prime objective rather than a by-product.  Far be it from me to decry drunkenness, but should there be a day devoted to it?  Moreover, should it be acceptable behaviour to be drunk in the middle of the day?

Bah humbug on it!  That’s what I say.

While young people stormed the street outside (and one even threw a snowball at a window) I was inside the printshop trying to get my project, Captain Mylander, into a presentable form.  For reasons unbenownst to me, some of the photos have not printed out correctly.  I changed image quality and tried reprinting, but this did not correct the error.  This is a quandary, given that the very same photos printed just fine on lower-grade paper about a month ago.  Tomorrow, when the good-for-nothing Concordia Graduate Student Association reopens its computer lab, I am going to try printing from there.

Thankfully, most of the images turned out OK.  Overall, I am happy with the project.  I am happy that I finished it.  Lord knows I sacrificed a lot of time that could have been spent on school.