Ray Hudson
Ray Hudson
Ray Hudson

Perhaps it was the last blood moon in a series of four, perhaps it was a super humungous solar flare, but the energies were certainly strange at the Globe and Mail which, the Friday before the election, came out with the most bizarre editorial headline:  The Tories deserve another mandate – Stephen Harper doesn’t.  Wow! Here’s how it concluded: “His party deserves to be re-elected. But after Oct. 19, he should quickly resign.” Well, no worries chums, they didn’t (win) but he did (resign)!

Now that the election is over for another four years I can clear my desk of some of the things that have accumulated over the weeks of the campaign.

Let’s have some fun.  I’ve compiled a list of some favourite mixed metaphors, mispronunciations, puns and pearls from innocents (the children).

It was early days in my broadcasting career and I was hosting my morning news program for the Pacific Northwest, from Prince Rupert. An unthinking moment, trying to be clever, got me into hot water.  In closing an interview with the harbour master on the problem of escaped logs (from the booms) being refloated by very high tides and creating a hazard to navigation in the harbour, I said, “It’s time to take the bull by the horns or should I say the log by the knotts.”  That’s not what my program director thought I’d said however, when he reprimanded me for being racy. Unfair? You bet, but I consoled myself with the advice of my three-year old nephew who said to his older brother, after a catastrophe in the hamster cage: “That’s okay, life is hard and then you die!”

Kind of puts everything into a cheery perspective doesn’t it?

Perspective, the necessary medicine for many of the candidates who can sleep in, after such a long campaign where they were ‘burning the midnight oil from both ends!’ For whom another week on the hustings ‘would be the last nail in the straw.’  They stayed true to the cause, following the age-old advice of an American General during WW2, who said, “Don’t burn your bridges before you come to them.”

Let’s turn to some other weighty things of the world, now that a Trudeau is our Prime Minister (alright, he hasn’t been sworn in yet – at time of writing – but will be by next week’s edition). So don’t you look at me in that tone of voice!

Dishevelled:  We have seen disheveled politicians after a long campaign, but have you ever seen a hevelled one? Hevelled, isn’t a real word so one cannot be unhevelled, The term seems to have evolved from French. Chevel is the word for hair (cheval is the word for horse) and after anyone was dis-chevalled (unhorsed, their hair would surely be messed up and they would definitely be dischevelled – I made that up). But seriously folks, it came from deschevele to middle English, dischevely (hair untidy and disorded), evolving to the dischevelled of today. And now you know.

Next week: Have you ever felt disgruntled? Have you ever been (knowingly) gruntled?

Until we meet again around the colloquial campfire consider this:
He couldn’t decide between rapier or saber, still he remained on the fence.
Finally: Don’t judge a spy novel by it’s covert

Be happy – it beats the alternative!