Svetla’s friend’s seaside camping neighbours in Bulgaria called me “Hugh” secretly because they couldn’t pronounce my name and I apparently reminded them of Hugh Grant. Well recent news has got me convinced that they should have been calling me “Grant” in keeping with the likeness but also by reflecting this summer’s spat of excellent news.

I’m back in Montreal now and yesterday I checked the PO Box for Cinema Politica and found what has ominously lain there twice before: a large white and cream envelope from the Canada Council for the Arts, news writ large of our bid for a grant for the Cinema Politica project. As the previous two times the news contained the word “regret” in the first sentence and was therefore not the news I had wished for, I felt my heart palpitate and held my breath while I scanned the envelope looking for clues in it’s near incandescent body. And what was that! I caught a glimmer of the word “pleased” – the affirmative clue to “regret’s” negative!! I feverishly opened the envelope to read the news: “We are pleased to inform you that your application to the Media Arts Project Grants – Dissemination Projects…was successful.” Yes! Retribution! Finally, Cinema Politica has been recognized by funding authorities (and arts peers) as worthy of the holy grail of arts funding in Canada! Yes!!! So as you can see, this news combined with the SSHRC news a couple of weeks back has me thinking the neighbours might not have been too misdirected in connecting me with the grant aspect of Hugh Grant.

And so turns a new chapter in our lives: with the end of summer and beginning of the glorious burning Quebec Autumn, comes a new leaf, a beginning in a long series of beginnings. Stress will be lowered, health will be lifted, intellects will be injected and our projects will be infected with the renewal spirit. It’s going to be a good year (I follow the academic calendar, so my year is September to August). Woopee!