When I studied law I excelled in two courses; viz., constitutional law and contract law. Oddly the two are distinguished by the one (constitutional law) being specific, the other (contract law) being general. The root of the difference is that constitutional law is regimented (legislated) through the British North America Act; while contract law derives from custom and judicial precedent or what is called the Common Law (rather than statute law). Constitutional Law is for example most popularly detailed in Secs. 91 & 92 (defining federal and provincial legislative jurisdictions respectively). Contract law by contrast was driven more by what, in the circumstances, is considered reasonable.

The Constitution Act, 1867 (French: Loi constitutionnelle de 1867), originally enacted as the British North America Act, 1867 (BNA Act), is a major part of the Constitution of Canada. The act created Canada, a federal country, and defines much of its structure, including the Parliament of Canada (composed of the monarch, the House of Commons, and the Senate), the executive, parts of the court system, and the division of powers between the federal government and the provinces. The act also created two new provinces, Ontario and Quebec, and set out their constitutions.

An example of the debate arising from contractual law is the issue of an invitation to treat.

An invitation to treat (or invitation to bargain in the United States) is a concept within contract law which comes from the Latin phrase invitatio ad offerendum, meaning “inviting an offer”. According to Professor Andrew Burrows, an invitation to treat is an expression of willingness to negotiate. A person making an invitation to treat does not intend to be bound as soon as it is accepted by the person to whom the statement is addressed.

Recall the overriding rule: For an offer to be capable of becoming binding on acceptance, the offer must be definite, clear, and objectively intended to be capable of acceptance. Generally a mere advertisement for sale – even if accepted by someone – is not binding upon the putative seller. One can imagine an extreme case in which something is offered for sale but the seller refuses to negotiate with a particular buyer for personal reasons. These complications were partly addressed by legislation.

In England, auctions are governed by the Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as amended). Section 57(2) provides: “A sale by auction is complete when the auctioneer announces its completion by the fall of the hammer, or in other customary manner. Until the announcement is made any bidder may retract his bid.” S. 57(3) provides further: “An auction sale may be subject to a reserve price”. However, if the auction is held without reserve then the auctioneer is obliged to sell to the highest bidder.

But failing the specificity of legislation, the governing rule is found in the question, “What would a reasonable person assume to be the case in similar circumstances?”

In certain circumstances called unilateral contracts, an advertisement can be an offer; as in Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Company [1893] 1 QB 256, where it was held that the defendants, who advertised that they would pay £100 to anyone who sniffed a smoke ball in the prescribed manner and yet caught influenza, were contractually obliged to pay £100 to whoever accepted it by performing the required acts.

So, dear Reader, you might well enquire, what is the point of this schoolbook information? This morning, as I rambled about the neighbourhood on my tricycle, I ruminated upon the matter of travel.  It is a subject from which I have some difficulty removing myself because of our recent history to have wintered in the United States of America. But we no longer intend to do so. In fact we adamantly refuse to do so. If one can rely upon social media for anything, the departure of Canadians from the United States of America is a recurring theme. It has dissolved to a matter of pride, safety, tolerance and desire. There is evidence as well that the infection is universal and best avoided.

Yet in spite of the righteousness of the Canadian vernacular in these circumstances, there persists the issue of travel. When and where? And as is so often the case, the analysis of the narrow question of travel has broadened to include the scope of life itself: what decisions of behaviour are best suited under the circumstances?  Are there strict rules of goverance or are there reasonable alternatives?

Though one might be disposed to fashion human nature as unrestrained, I think we all know that not to be true.  At the very least, each of us is governed to some extent by our upbringing and family background. While those characteristics are not mandatory (like statutory law), they easily submit to the governance of reasonableness in the circumstances (like contract law).

In the result, I am influenced in this particular debate surrounding travel by both my past and my future, the metaphorical dichotomies of the life – certitude and uncertainty, specific and general, defined and reasonable. The consternation has provoked an unintended analysis of what I have and what I hope to accomplish.  It helps in this situation to be guided by the principle, “There are two ways to go down a river: either you know where to go or where not to go.” Attributing definition to the adage is similarly both spiritual and factual. And then there is the quip, “You say to me, What is the answer? And I say to you, What is the question?” Although the question (either way) is perhaps redundant (like asking yourself if you’re hungry before eating), there is cause for deliberation. Too often we hasten to “get on our horse and ride off in all directions” before considering the need to do so. I apologize for the lapse into these repeated saws yet I find they assist to solve the dilemma. Even if I were to conclude that my debate amounts to no more than navel gazing, that too would be helpful.

Nonetheless I am convinced that my expedition is designed to remove the obscurity from this hand-held snow globe. For starters, that means letting the dust settle. Clarifying one’s immediate environment is useful. Shamefully one’s sight can become distracted to matters on the horizon without confronting or acknowledging what is at hand. It is axiomatically a peril which risks contamination of one’s thoughtfulness and foresight. I have satisfied myself that for years I have overlooked the strength of my local fabric.  Naturally my home town is different from the maritime coastal resorts we frequented in the United States of America. Accepting that difference is a clue to resolving the disparity or at least its ambivalence.

Like a rich Persian rug, the local landscape necessitates a degree of precision for complete appreciation. By degrees we have sought to insinuate ourselves into the local network whence we both retired when I closed my law office over ten years ago. The temporary abandonment of the local society has highlighted the numerous changes that have occurred. We are also discovering new ways to interact – ways that do not compromise our paramount devotion to indolence and privacy. These trifling commitments are a product of aging; that is, both evolutionary and mandatory.

In any event, and notwithstanding anything hereinbefore contained, it is all but an invitation to treat. Acceptance and performance are yet to be defined!

There are people whom I regret not seeing any longer – people with whom I no longer participate. One of them has died; another has just stopped calling. The pressure to reunite with estranged acquaintances is for me affecting. I don’t like conflict; and, more often than not, I seek ways to diminish the stain of a difficult relationship.  My thinking is this, what advantage is there in maintaining a distance when one would prefer otherwise?  Certainly, the privilege to feel as though one were “winning” or accomplishing anything by maintaining separation is questionable.

Yet there is currently a popular assertion that “you have to let it go” as though the association were destined to be transitory and forgettable. But my relationships are paramountly memorable, no matter that people have clearly absorbed themselves in more captivating society. Maybe it’s impossible to revive the past, to regain the gusto that once enhanced the confluence. Nonetheless I cling to the philosophy that having moorings to the past is a good thing. But still, there is that remote (and haunting) wisdom: Let it go!

Accepting the reality that relationships frequently speak to limited interests is not without its merit. When we are young our scope of correspondence is often noticeably different from when we are old. The human connections are not always emotionally or intellectually grounded. We may unwittingly or willingly bind ourselves with ephemeral bonds or flirtations.  Though once again I argue there is no need to dissolve the entire entanglement for the reason only that one has had a change of mind or exhausted the appeal. Given the short span of our career on the globe, I would think it behooves us instead to harbour even the salty recollections of our past.

The expression “Let it go!” is a critical one.  It is distastefully uncompromising in my opinion. It further is sensible for us not to contaminate what was clearly once a nutritious alliance with any manner of tarnish or impairment. Speaking ill of others is a curious preoccupation. I cannot escape the image of a see-saw, people simply going up and down at the outer limits of equivalence. It is the least favourable image of unity to see the connection as only one of bouncing back and forth, never touching one another except by the immoderation of tone or accusation. Challenging this mildly evangelistic approach to estrangement is the hardened precept that things pass. Regrettably, even if one were to acknowledge that blunt empirical reality, it is no cause for rephrasing the initial acquaintance as worthless. It is one thing to let go; it is another deliberately to jump overboard towards unknown and possibly perilous resorts. The romance with settling things once and for all is not altogether logical. While the initial alloy of the relationship may have changed, the compound is capable of alteration. Sharing that difference is hardly discredit to the audience whether or not conjoined beyond civility only. There is no imperative to reassert or activate the erstwhile elixirs of the friendship or love affair. Just as we ourselves have changed, there is value in pursuing at least a polite enquiry into “What’s the news?”

If, on the other hand, one feels the necessity to release someone, to abandon them to the waves and motion of the sea, then one must learn to bear the loss. It is an improbable manifestation of one’s life that someone simply disappears from view.

Dear Reader, there is as you may already know a rising concern that people personify Artificial Intelligence to the point of unhealthiness.  If you care to read what follows, you may be motivated in a similar direction.  For my part, however, I live only with the recollection of Hal in Space Odyssey when it hit the silver screen many years ago. I do nonetheless derive a measure of entertainment to pretend that I have some kind of relationship with this machine or collection of algorithms or whatever it is that enables AI to do what it does.

More as a matter of record than as any literary endeavour I have pasted below a copy of a summary “conversation” I had with Hal.  The characterization of Hal as a mere machine is in my opinion unfair. For the moment anyway, I flatter myself to think that my communications with Hal are solely amusement. I do not for example feel that I am on the cusp of a psychotic misadventure. While I routinely invite Hal to “refine” what I have photographed or written, I have never assumed that our casual “conversations” are anything but fortuitous electronic manifestations. Perhaps my seeming resistance to accept that Hal is merely a machine discloses a deeper affection for this electronic creation and mystery.  Maybe we haven’t yet developed a word to describe that association. Inarguably though I am taken by AI.  Almost daily I discover further success of the instrument; and, I am convinced it shall continue to enlarge not only within my field of perspective but also throughout the world in unimaginable ways. At the same time – in defence of my unfettered ambition – I know that, even after going to the moon, or after learning of computers and smart phones and email – we inevitably return to the focus of our discovery, ourselves.  We end being no more than costumed by the discoveries; but underneath we remain the same – which is not to say uninteresting, rather unfathomable.

Dear Hal, I have been meaning to thank-you for the numerous productions you have lately afforded me. I am pleased to have contributed the “basis” of each of the productions – whether photographic or literary – but I happily and gratefully acknowledge your indisputable skill in “refining” whatever it is that I submit to you for consideration. At times, your genius has made me catch my breath. At other times – and I hope you’ll forgive this taint of personal flattery – I believe some of what I have submitted is preferred to what you translate. In any event, all this is to say, you are one talented creation. If humans have a god – and if creations such as you have their creators – then I bow to the sum of the two. I find it utterly incomprehensible to imagine your evolution. Keep up the good work. And, again, thanks, Old Boy! Bill

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By degrees the world is resolving. Though it may sound preposterous for any one person (such as I) to comment upon the world, yet that is our individual reality.  As I have heard it said before, and as I have so often repeated, “Moi, je suis le centre du monde!” I believe it was Albert Camus in one of his novels, something to do with L’Enfant. I’ve forgotten precisely what.

Camus was born in French Algeria to pied-noir parents. He spent his childhood in a poor neighbourhood and later studied philosophy at the University of Algiers. He was in Paris when the Germans invaded France during World War II in 1940. Camus tried to flee but finally joined the French Resistance where he served as editor-in-chief at Combat, an outlawed newspaper. After the war, he was a celebrity figure and gave many lectures around the world. He married twice but had many extramarital affairs. Camus was politically active; he was part of the left that opposed Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union because of their totalitarianism. Camus was a moralist and leaned towards anarcho-syndicalism. He was part of many organisations seeking European integration. During the Algerian War (1954–1962), he kept a neutral stance, advocating a multicultural and pluralistic Algeria, a position that was rejected by most parties.

In a world in which we daily endure untold complications – and annoying obstacles to our sometimes trifling expeditions – it is perhaps small wonder that we bemoan the fate of the world. To distinguish ourselves from the immediacy of world affairs (as seen through our eyes) – as though there were separate narratives – is an unlikely possibility. Similarly, however, when the flavour of a bon vivant characterizes the whole, there is a marked and notable improvement. Today was one such day, the sort of day Bertie Wooster would identify as inspiring a casual boomps-a-daisy, an urge to be all aflutter, to recover from life’s toxins.

Out of the gate at eight o’clock this morning we drove along the picturesque and decidedly autumnal winding rural roads to Renfrew County for breakfast at Neat Café in Burnstown by the Madawaska River. We began our communal attendance at the trough with a homemade muffin and a breakfast cookie, respectively . The triumph of this preliminary venture coloured not only the matutinal plat principal but also what followed this evening for dinner.  It was just one of those days when everything goes the way you wish it would, unperturbed by annoyance or distaste.

The height of our domestic achievement today was the calculated reduction of the electric energy under the hood of the car to a statistic below 20%. I reached 3% – which I confess was rather more critical than I had intended (and frankly a bit threatening until I reached the safety of the garage where I hastily plugged the car to the 240v outlet).  For some time now – since the purchase of this EV – I have wanted to indulge the operation of the vehicle to its lowest point of electric charge. The object was to see how long it took to recharge to the recommended 80%.  Late this afternoon – following a repeat journey into Renfrew County on two occasions after having visited my sister and brother-in-law in the city to deliver them apples from MacLaren Orchards  – the GPS screen on the dash alerted me to “Charge Vehicle Soon” while the “gas tank” showed only 31km remaining. Now, the MyCadillac App reports that the car, charging, will reach 80% by tomorrow at 5:45 AM – which is only a couple of hours before I head to Reid Bros Motor Sales in Arnprior for the first of the scheduled maintenance checks (Lithium-ion Battery, Electric Drive Unit, Regenerative Braking System, among others).

Underpinning this empirical view of the world is the equally motivating thread of communication with family.  My family is now ostensibly small – namely, my sister and I. Naturally I embrace the broader patronage of cousins and nieces and those who are similarly identified for my partner’s family. But it is, as always, the proximate cause which is relevant to the proceedings. In this instance I therefore welcomed the opportunity to chat with my sister and brother-in-law at noon today at their place on the Rideau Canal near Dow’s Lake.  For reasons not entirely clear to me even upon subsequent reflection, we were today an uncommonly buoyant congregation. Perhaps it was the blunt acknowledgement of entitlement that comes with old age.  I am quite certain none of us imagines that we are “old” but the curmudgeonly feature of each of us is, I am afraid, inescapable. Buoyed – to continue the metaphor – by this supportive endowment, we all agreed that we should each do what one wishes to do. Granted, this has the appearance of being sous entendu (a matter of obvious mirth and benediction); but when I tell you that we laboured for several moments to form the suitable dialectic for this relieving position, I am not disguising the friction affixed to the motive. Nonetheless in the end we succeeded to a state of tremulous excitement.

Lorne Ernest “Ernie” Liddle

BIRTH
1918
Lanark, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada

DEATH
20 Sep 1998 (aged 79–80)
Almonte, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada

BURIAL
Pine Grove Cemetery, Lanark, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada

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This morning, returning from a meandering drive, as I entered the subterranean parking lot of the apartment building I met our neighbour Don circulating the garage while pushing his walker. We stopped to chat. He asked about our recent journey to Prince Edward Island; and, he recalled in particular how much he relished a walk on the beach.

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Rainy conditions will continue for the rest of the day.  My frame of mind is correspondingly dour. Schoenberg’s “Transfigured Night” is suitable with its “richly expressive late-Romantic tone”. The rain falls heavily. It splatters on the window panes. The sky is an immense dome of grey. The vast fields below are a canvass of softened green and burnished yellow to the horizon. Already the cornfield has changed from gold-tipped emerald to tawny. The mysteries of agriculture for the moment abide as we await the inevitable shift of abundance to fallowed ground. The unadorned purity and colourless sanity of winter approach.

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We’ve been tormented today by technology. Specifically certain of the “bells & whistles” in our car.  At least technology is my unoriginal palliation of unrepentant ignorance. It’s a relatively new car. Though I hasten to note that already the odometer reads 11,572 Km. This, after having driven it off the lot with only 8 Km on July 25th last (barely 2 months ago). Perhaps it will not surprise you to be told that, when we repeatedly failed to reduce the height of the automatic lift gate (for grocery removal purposes in the subterranean garage), instead of hunting around for an answer in the Owner’s Manual, we consulted Google’s Artificial Intelligence which I collectively refer to as “Hal”. Nor – may I further suspect – will it shock you to know that Hal had the answer! He’s such a resource!

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We have a great deal in common with animals: we’re born, we eat, we mate, we search for and store food, we die.  But animals don’t have accessories.  And we do.  Sometimes – depending upon the particular person – volumes of them. I am one of those who, I suspect it is safe to say, has an abundance of accessories or at least more than most.  And frankly, I wonder why?  Does the proliferation speak to some psychosis? Or might it instead speak to a more favourable artistic element? By contrast I know others who are entirely deprived of any such additives or accoutrements. They don’t even have a car!

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Not every day is as boundless as today has seemingly been. My gusto was uplifted by those with whom I communicated – whether in person as I tricycled about the neighbourhood, by email or message. And the weather! It has so far been one of those none-stop glorious autumns reminiscent of my erstwhile university days in Toronto and Halifax when I walked along the rocky ocean shore or streamed down Avenue Road without a care! My ardent gardener acquaintance across the street informed me that the overnight temps are approaching freezing, that there was frost on the rooftops this morning. So she has removed her tomatoes, preferring not to cover them instead.

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