Contemporary-styled housing gaining in popularity in London

The style is squared contemporary, or so I've been told. In London, more and more builders are embracing this modernist style. Some homes come closer to the ideal than others. This home is a fine example as far as the front is concerned.

Often the interior detailing of these homes, such as this one, will not include crown mouldings, and the fixtures, such as lever-style door handles, proclaim modern while taking great pains to avoid anything that suggests nostalgia.

Berries important winter food source

The red holly berries look like plastic with their bright red colour that travels right down the stems.

The pretty, red berries, so common in suburbia, are an important food source for wild birds in the winter.

The berries may be a fine food but they seem to be an even better laxative by the look of the nearby window sill.

When you think of London, think of eggs.

I'm sure you have heard the controversy surrounding the eating of eggs. The media love this story. Journalists contact a doctor at SPARC (Stroke Prevention & Atherosclerosis Research Centre) in London, Ontario, and then, forgive me, egg them on until the researcher gives the journalist a good quote. Why call SPARC? It was this research centre in London that did a lot of the early research confirming eating eggs has a downside: cholesterol.

But the story is not as black and white as usually reported. It's nuanced. If you are young and healthy, eating an egg or two isn't going to harm you. If you've read that only about 20% of your blood cholesterol can be traced to diet, you heard correctly.

The problem crops up when we are not healthy and often not young. We no longer handle cholesterol well and our arteries are beginning to harden. Anything that decreases the amount of cholesterol circulating in our blood is clearly good. Since just two large eggs can contain from 400-500mg of cholesterol, clearly eliminating something from our diet that can contribute such a big hit of dietary cholesterol is most likely a good move.

Unfortunately, this story is often reported as an either/or story. It's not. But the reporting often riles people up and that's too bad. Our intake of dietery cholesterol is a topic worth discussing and more research is necessary.

I'm a patient at SPARC. At the beginning of each year, I have the plaque in my neck mapped using ultra-sound. Since removing eggs from my diet and making a number of other changes to my diet, my measurable plaque has actually decreased. Are the changes to my diet responsible? There's no way to know. You see, I am also on a couple of cholesterol lowering drugs. SPARC believes the improvements may well be the result of all the measures working together.

And so tonight I made pasta alla carbonara with Egg Beaters. Egg Beaters are pasteurized eggs minus the yolks. I miss the flavour of the yolks; I don't miss the 750mg of cholesterol that this dish once contained.

Recalling our old London-made buses

Someone has posted an FB page called If You Grew Up In London, Ontario, You Will Remember When... This bus photo was posted today. I find it extra interesting as the bus shown was possibly build right here in London. London had a deep, rich, strong economy in those now distant days.

The lawn dragon

 

This lawn dragon always presents himself, or is it herself, in just the right way for the season. With Valentine's Day just around the corner, I see hearts in this dragon's future.

The law of induced demand

Londoners get around by car. Oh, there's a bus service and there was a discussion for a Light Rapid Transit system. The LRT idea never took flight. Very early on it was replaced with the promise of an almost as good, but a some what less expensive, Bus Rapid Transit system.

On the drawing board, the BRT system was going to serve the entire city. But before a penny was spent, two big segments of the BRT system were scrapped. Then funding became a question.

What I don't understand is why, when a heavily traveled street like Southdale Rd. W., shown, is upgraded, some thing is not done to widen the roadway with the goal of providing for even a crude BRT system. But the road is widen for cars and cars fill the new, wide road. It is the law of induced demand.

Building roads alone does not solve traffic congestion problems in the long term. Build it, widen it, add more lanes and drivers will be attracted to the new open roadway. The result? Traffic will increase. The British government did a study showing that increasing traffic capacity coaxes people to drive more – a lot more. Fully half of any driving-time savings resulting from the opening of a new roadway is quickly lost. The oh-so-costly benefits will all be negated within a decade.

The story in the footprints

The footprints in the freshly fallen snow once said Canadian footwear of high quality construction made by a small, successful Canadian company.

The company was Kaufman Rubber Co. of Kitchener, the Southwestern Ontario city an hour east of London.

And the boots were Sorels. They were big, clunky, warm and oh-so-protective. My favourite winter boots remain my Sorels purchased two decades ago. A tag, still visible inside, reads Made in Canada. Those original Sorels would last almost forever.

And that was one of the problems. The damn boots would last and last. Two decades ago the Kaufman company closed.

But that's not the end of the story. The name and trademark were picked up by the American company Columbia Sportswear. The line was expanded and in 2017 the Sorel brand had a net income of $228.8 million.

Needing a pair of less well-worn boots, something suitable for more than digging out the drive and trudging about the local ski hill, I bought some new Sorels last fall. The boots are big, bulky, well-made and good to -40 degrees. And oh, these boots have a tag inside too. It reads Made in Veitnam.