The South Bayview Bulldog

This is the Emma Bridgewater Biscuit Barrel finished in her unique Robin Red Breast design. You might call it a Robin Cookie Tin. Right now, Homefront has a selection of new Emma tin containers (round cake, coffee, sugar and tea containers) with the Biscuit Barrel being the most notable. It’s available in three styles: Robin, Polka Dots and Pink Hearts. $42 at Homefront, 371 Eglinton Ave. W and 1579 Bayview in South Bayview.

They started out Thursday evening here at 471 Millwood knocking the top off the bungalow. By Saturday morning, this is how it looked. Word is that this home is due for a new second storey. This project will be easy to keep track of for those who use the corner at Donegall and Millwood. Can’t miss it.

This is the new genre of rental units coming on the market in Vancouver — just 270 square feet of space for something like $750 a month. As you can see, the bed is of the so-called “Murphy” type which folds into the wall. This unit has a shower but no tub. The promoters call it “seriously chic.”

The history of our national flag is rich and interesting. We all know the Maple Leaf Flag, our official national banner since 1965. We’ve had four other national flags since Confederation (1867) and three of them are here. Upper right is the Canadian Red Ensign bearing the royal arms of Canada. This served as our defacto flag (or unofficial flag) from 1922 to 1957. A similar flag (not shown) in which the three maple leaves on the royal arms are red not green served as the defacto flag from 1957 to 1965. Lower left, an interesting and little-remembered variation on the red ensign used from 1868 (one year after Confederation) which carries the royal arms of the four original provinces. We should make you guess but they were Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario. PEI joined in 1873. The west was just un-populated territories. The 1868 flag was our defacto flag until 1922 and the islanders just had to suck up their absence from the coats of arms. This leaves only the Union Flag (lower right) which was the official not defacto flag of Canada since Confederation. The de facto versus official is a reminder of our colonial status in earlier days. The British understood they had to give Canada an identity of some sort. The defacto flags were flown everywhere and were the flags under which Canadians went to war in 1914 and 1939. There is an excellent exposition of Canada’s flags on Wikipedia.