REVIEW: Midsummer night in the workhouse

By Sarah Murdoch - Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 8:30 AM - 0 Comments

Diana Athill has written six memoirs, notably Stet, about her life as a literary editor with the venerable André Deutsch Ltd., and Somewhere Towards the End, her reflections on growing old.

In 1958, she writes in her introduction to Midsummer Night in the Workhouse, a collection of her fiction, she had a “gleeful surge of energy” that resulted in her first short story, then another, and another. Before the year was out, she had written nine, some of which found their way into magazines and an anthology and 10 years later into a collection, which sunk without a trace—short stories by unknown authors being, she writes, “publishing poison.” Athill, now 94, is no longer an unknown author and we must thank her publishers (Persephone in Britain, Anansi in Canada) for cashing in on the fact that they have a bankable star.

These stories are small gems, confirmation that long before sexting, booty calls, Dan Savage and feminism, young women were preoccupied by men and love and sex. Athill’s women (only two stories are told from the man’s perspective) occasionally drink too much, have affairs and too often find themselves with unsuitable men. A man puts his arm around a girl’s waist and she feels “as though my bones had gone soft” and hopes the next time it will happen with a man to whom she feels an attraction. Another hopes her boyfriend finds her as dull as she finds him, “for otherwise she might feel superior to him and that she balked at” (indeed, several of Athill’s women keep dissident thoughts to themselves to protect men from their evident inferiority). A married woman has a casual fling with a man who loves his wife and, months later, still can’t staunch the heat she feels from the brief encounter.

Athill writes that she is amazed and delighted that this collection has been published. Her legion of admirers will be similarly pleased.

The secret to cooking like a chef

By Jacob Richler - Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 8:30 AM - 11 Comments

Photograph by John Cullen; Getty Images, iStock; Photo illustration by Taylor Shute

Butter has been on my mind of late even more than usual. Which is to say that, in addition to various long-raging but still unresolved, internal debates—like, “Exactly how much is too much to melt in my morning croissant?” and “Are there specific applications wherein the qualities of artisanal Irish butter from County Kerry actually make it superior to a French Échiré?”—I have been recently burdened with a fresh one. Specifically, I want to know how it is that so few otherwise accomplished home cooks have any idea how to properly cook with the stuff.

What got me thinking about this was my most recent cookbook collaboration with chef Mark McEwan—head judge on Top Chef Canada, owner of the top Toronto restaurants North 44, Bymark, One, and Fabbrica, as well as the fine food emporium, McEwan.

For this book—as for our last one, Great Food at Home—I spent many weeks watching his restaurants’ chefs prepare various dishes, carefully transcribing the process as it unfolded. Then I went home, recreated the dishes and pared them down to their essentials in order to write the recipes in a manner we considered best suited to the home cook.

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On the run from radio frequencies

By Alex Ballingall - Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 8:20 AM - 273 Comments

Simon Hayter/Maclean's

As the mother of two young girls, Samantha Boutet does what she believes is necessary to protect her family. That’s why, with the spread of radio frequencies from increasingly common wireless technology, Boutet is a refugee in her own land. The naturopathic doctor and her two daughters are relocating more than 600 km east of their home in Maple Ridge, B.C., to a small cabin in a remote valley in B.C.’s Kootenay mountains.

The decision was spurred by a series of health problems affecting her older daughter, Amelia, which started in Grade 4. For more than a year, Amelia suffered from deep headaches, nagging nausea, inexplicable muscle soreness, tingling extremities, and insomnia, Boutet says. Eventually, after visiting a number of specialists, the family doctor diagnosed Amelia with electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS), a medical condition that involves a range of non-specific symptoms attributed to electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs), much like those described by sufferers of multiple-chemical sensitivity, another environmental illness believed to be caused by low-level exposure to chemicals. “I felt really bad because her body was telling her there was something wrong, and I was telling her there couldn’t be, and I couldn’t understand why she was behaving the way she was,” says Boutet.

EMFs are invisible radioactive frequencies emitted from radio towers, WiFi routers, cellphones, wireless laptops, TV remotes—even the new smart meters that measure water and electricity use and beam information to the utilities. These non-ionizing radioactive waves travel through the air at much lower frequencies than ionizing radiation (which includes X-rays and gamma rays) and are widely considered harmless. And due to the proliferation of technology that releases them, others like Amelia, now 11, feel as if their health is being compromised. They can either live with their pain, or flee to backcountry refuges. “It’s not that I’m just worried,” Boutet says. “My older daughter will be deathly sick, so we have to leave.”

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Bestsellers – Week of October 10th, 2011

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Top-selling fiction and non-fiction titles

Fiction

Non-fiction

LAST WEEK (WEEKS ON LIST)

Don’t miss this golf tourney! (If you like paved roads)

By Colby Cosh - Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 7:33 AM - 2 Comments

The CBC has done some good work on northern Alberta politics today, unearthing, among other things, a $500 payment from the Town of St. Paul to a golf tournament in support of the constituency association of cabinet minister Ray Danyluk.

…the town provided documents to CBC News that show council publicly voted to attend the tournament and directed a $500 cheque to [Ron] Boisvert, who managed the tournament’s finances.

“It’s been going on forever,” Andersen said of the town’s paid participation in the annual PC golf tournament fundraiser. “We’ve been doing it since before we had this administration.”

Danyluk also said he had no knowledge of St. Paul using public money for his fundraiser.

“It’s not acceptable,” he said. “It’s against the [Elections] Act.”

Only one of these answers is the right one, and it’s the one from the former minister of municipal affairs. I guess the minister also had no idea his Cormorant Classic (cheques payable to the Lac la Biche-St. Paul PC Constituency, please) may have been partly underwritten by the Town of Smoky Lake in 2009 [PDF]:

Or by the County of St. Paul, not to be confused with the town of that name, in 2007 [PDF]:

Or, apparently, by the County of Athabasca the same year [PDF]; it’s hard to see, at any rate, why a county Administrator would have to “register” golfers unless an entry fee or travel costs were being covered at municipal expense. Google up “ray danyluk golf tournament” and you’ll see that he seems to have notified virtually every county in the province of the date and location of the various Cormorant Classics. And if a few of them unwisely sent barbecue equipment in reply, could that be Danyluk’s fault?

Still, one is relieved to note that stormin’, reformin’, clean-up-the-frat-house Premier Alison Redford has moved minister Danyluk to a portfolio where he could not possibly exercise any undue influence on rural life in Alberta: namely, transport.

Alberta: stepping backward into the present

By Colby Cosh - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 9:20 PM - 38 Comments

1. Alberta elects its first female premier. 2. The news is greeted with a cry of “Congrats on joining the 20th century, ya yokels!” 3. The new premier, who had been one of seven women in the Alberta cabinet, promptly ejects five of the other six and adds only one, while carefully looking after powerful senior males who opposed her campaign with tooth and claw. 4. Response from out East? “Look at all these young, fresh faces!” 5. FACEPALM

Venting pressure, assigning blame

By Martin Patriquin - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 6:37 PM - 4 Comments

Tony Tomassi, not exactly as illustrated

I have a piece about Jean Charest’s various flip-flops on key decisions over his eight-year tenure as Premier of this lovely place coming out in dead tree form tomorrow. Charest seems to have a knack for reversing himself once he’s inflicted the maximum amount of political damage on himself and the Liberal Party. The most recent, of course, is Charest’s musing that he’s open to an inquiry into the province’s construction industry. (He’s been saying no, nuh-uh, forget it, no chance, next question to the idea for the last two years.)

To paraphrase Rick James, serendipity is a helluva drug, and damned if Charest’s pertinent musings on an inquiry weren’t followed up by a truly astonishing score by the province’s Unité permenante anticorruption (UPAC): none other than former cabinet minister Tony Tomassi. The cops charged Tomassi, Charest’s erstwhile families minister, with two counts of fraud and one count of breach of trust.

There are many interesting things to consider when it comes to the timing of the indictment, as well of the subject. Let’s have a look:

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CUPE suspends strike at Air Canada

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 5:45 PM - 6 Comments

The union representing Air Canada’s flight attendants have cancelled the strike that was planned for Thursday in light of the federal government’s decision to refer the dispute to the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB). “[Labour Minister Lisa Raitt] has effectively rendered the strike illegal, so that there will be no right to strike (or lock-out),” the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents 6,800 flight attendants said. “Our strike is suspended indefinitely. Therefore, the union advises you that you cannot strike.” Though CUPE had initially said it would go ahead with the strike despite the federal government’s interference, under rules laid out in Canada’s Labour Code, job actions must be suspended when a matter is sent for review by the CIRB.

The Globe and Mail

The truth about vitamin D

By Julia Belluz - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 5:30 PM - 35 Comments

Shattered Infinity/Flickr

The Statement: “If your skin is super pale, you’re already well aware of your must-have items: sunscreen with a high SPF, and a hat (for shade). But a new study suggests you might also need some vitamin D supplements.” Huffington Post, 10/04/2011

The claim about vitamin D making the rounds right now is that pale people should top up on the supplement du jour because they may not get enough from the sun. Doctors already prescribe it for various reasons, from preventing falls among the elderly to easing chronic pain and boosting levels of the vitamin—produced in the skin after sunlight exposure—in anyone living in a cloudy climate.

Testing of vitamin D levels is now widespread, as is the idea that everyone needs more of the stuff. At last count, the Nutrition Business Journal reported that sales of vitamin D in the U.S. made the leap from $40 million in 2001 to $425 million in 2009. But is this notion that vitamin D should be a fixture in most medicine cabinets justified? Continue…

George Edgar Ronald Hewitt

By Kate Lunau - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 5:20 PM - 2 Comments

Illustration by Team Macho

George Edgar Ronald Hewitt was born on Dec. 4, 1950, to George and Rose Hewitt in Winnipeg, Man. George worked for Trans-Canada Air Lines (TCA), Air Canada’s predecessor, upholstering the insides of airplanes. Rose stayed home with their kids: George, Linda, Sharon, Wayne and June. George was always fascinated by planes. “My brother and I used to build model aircraft, fly them, break them and rebuild them,” Wayne says. George and his youngest sister, June, would play “pilot and stewardess,” Rose says. The Hewitts would go on trips to Florida or Mexico, and “even as a baby, I was on a flight somewhere,” says Wayne.

When George was about 13, he joined the Air Cadets, and at 16, won a scholarship to get his private pilot’s licence. After that, “he’d grab me and say, ‘Let’s go flying,’ and off we’d go,” Wayne says. In a rented Cessna, the brothers would fly around the city, “up the river and back.” In high school, George joined the reserves and got his jet licence, too. When Winnipeg hosted the Pan American Games in 1967, George—who was a member of his Air Cadet squadron’s honour guard—proudly raised the flag for Canadian swimmer Elaine Tanner, who won two gold and three silver medals.

George had set his sights on becoming a pilot. After high school, he went to Red River College in Winnipeg to take a business administration course, and “as soon as he finished that, Air Canada hired him,” Wayne says. “He was very, very excited—and I was excited, because he left his Opel GT [sports car] in the driveway.” George moved to Montreal, where he he met and married his first wife, Barbara; they had two children. As a commercial pilot, he started out flying domestically, but quickly advanced, and was soon flying overseas, too. “He had friends all over the world from flying,” Wayne says, and loved travelling to Australia or the Far East. George, who had an adventurous and competitive streak, also took up sailing, and participated in several regattas.

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Careful what you wish for, Prof. Mendes

By Colby Cosh - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 4:42 PM - 25 Comments

Rebecca W/Flickr

Political newspaper iPolitics.ca accidentally unearths a breaking story, as liberal law professor Errol Mendes uses its electronic pages to praise the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. In Citizens United SCOTUS ruled that campaign-finance law must treat corporations, unions, and other groups as though they have the same speech rights as the individual people of which they are made up. The American left cannot mention this heinous act of pro-corporate radicalism without ejecting a fount of furious spittle; the “repeal” of corporate personhood is, for example, the first and foremost demand of the Occupy Wall Street protesters and their allies elsewhere. President Obama memorably denounced Citizens United from the podium, staring the nine justices right in the eyes, in his 2010 State of the Union address. But Mendes apparently thinks corporate speech is an “important form of political expression” and that it may be protected by our Charter. Damn, Canada really is moving rightward! Continue…

Toppmentum

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 4:28 PM - 4 Comments

To Ed Broadbent, Roy Romanow, Joy MacPhail, Shirley Douglas and a half dozen New Democrat MPs, Brian Topp adds the support of the United Steelworkers.

“Under Stephen Harper working families are falling further and further behind,” said Neumann. “That’s why we need a federal leader who has what it takes to beat Stephen Harper and to govern well with strong New Democrat values. That leader is Brian Topp.  And the United Steelworkers is proud to strongly endorse Brian to become the next leader of the NDP.”

Thomas Mulcair appears set to announce his candidacy tomorrow morning in Montreal. Paul Dewar has a town hall event in Winnipeg tomorrow with Manitoba MLA Kevin Chief.

No time for debate

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 3:54 PM - 9 Comments

While the Liberals complain that the budget implementation act received just four days of House debate at second reading—15 seconds per page, the Liberals figure—two former government House leaders defend the practice of “time allocation.”

“If the opposition is entitled to filibuster, then the government is entitled to un-filibuster,” Boudria said. The second-longest serving House leader in Canadian history, Boudria said the government needs to be able to speed up a bill if the opposition has slowed it down.

His counterpart — who was often the target of the measures Boudria used under Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien — said parliamentary rules that allow the government to end debate are necessary. “Although we railed against their usage at times by Mr. Chrétien and Don Boudria, we recognized even then that in our system of government, if you’re going to actually get something done, you have to be able to use them,” Hill said.

In addition to being a critic of omnibus legislation, the young Stephen Harper was also not particularly a fan of the use of time allocation and closure.

Postal workers to challenge back-to-work legislation

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 3:09 PM - 8 Comments

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers says it will launch a legal challenge to the federal government’s decision to use back-to-work legislation to end the recent labour dispute at Canada Post. According to CUPW, the legislation violated Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the right to belong to a union and to collective bargaining. The case will notably focus on the federal government’s imposition of a 1.57 per cent wage increase, which was lower than the corporation’s offer of 1.9 per cent.

Calgary Herald

‘Hackerazzi’ probe nets man who allegedly stole Scarlett Johansson nudes

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 2:38 PM - 0 Comments

The FBI arrested a Florida man Wednesday who they believe hacked into actress Scarlett Johansson’s phone and leaked nude photos of her onto the Internet. The investigation that led to the arrest, dubbed “Operation Hackerazzi,” dates back more than a year. Police believe a number of Hollywood stars were targeted by the man. No other victims have been named.

L.A Times

Hate speech case goes before the Supreme Court

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 2:30 PM - 5 Comments

A landmark hate speech case is being debated in the Supreme Court of Canada on Wednesday, pitting an anti-gay pamphleteer from Saskatchewan against defenders of Canada’s restrictions on speech that is considered hateful. Bill Whatcott was convicted of promoting hatred by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal in 2005 and ordered to pay $17,500 to the complainants after he distributed flyers calling gays sodomites and child molesters. But the ruling was overturned by the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal in 2010, where Whatcott argued his stance was against homosexuality, not gay people. Whatcott’s lawyer will argue that the Supreme Court should strike down the hate speech provisions included in Saskatchewan’s human rights legislation.

CBC News

Learn from our mistakes

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 2:30 PM - 7 Comments

While the Conservatives have spent the last three years lamenting for the possibility of “opportunistic,” “unnecessary,” “unwanted,” “costly,” “needless” elections that could imperil the national economy and hurt the unemployed, the Finance Minister volunteered yesterday that, in hindsight, the Prime Minister probably wouldn’t have plunged the country into an election in the fall of 2008.

One of the most testing times in my career in public service was the recession that began in the Fall of 2008. In fact, we were in the midst of an election when it hit with full force. Had we been aware of the crisis on the horizon, the Prime Minister would have been unlikely to call the election. Nevertheless, that was the situation. So I found myself campaigning for re-election in Whitby-Oshawa while juggling an increasing number of phone calls with the G7 finance ministers as we all became more aware of the breadth of the worldwide economic crisis.

It was during that campaign, of course, that Mr. Harper offered his assessment that if there was going to be a recession it would’ve happened by then.

Tories win majority in Newfoundland and Labrador

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 2:08 PM - 0 Comments

Progressive Conservatives in Newfoundland and Labrador won a third straight majority government in province’s elections on Tuesday, handing Kathy Dunderdale her first major victory since becoming party leader. Dunderdale becomes the first female premier to be elected by the province’s voters. Her PCs took 37 ridings to the Liberals’ six and the NDP’s five. Going into the race, the PCs held 43 of the legislature’s 48 seats; two cabinet ministers were among those who lost their ridings on Tuesday.

The Chronicle-Herald

Strike still looming over Air Canada

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 2:00 PM - 0 Comments

Air Canada flight attendants are “in a legal strike position,” its union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees said in a statement released Wednesday which contradicted the federal government’s position. Labour Minister Lisa Raitt had previously said Ottawa would block a strike by referring the labour dispute to the Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB), arguing a strike would disrupt the Canadian economy. The referral caught labour relations experts by surprise, since the CIRB’s mandate is limited to ruling on the legality of strikes and lock-outs, and there’s no reason to believe a strike by flight attendants would be illegal. Air Canada has said a possible strike won’t effect its operations on Thursday.

Reuters

Olivia’s new home and MPs’ weight-loss pool

By Mitchel Raphael - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 1:00 PM - 7 Comments

Photograph by Mitchel Raphael

The biggest loser

For the last few months, 10 MPs have been part of a weight-loss pool. Each contributed $50; the big weigh-in is Oct. 18. Ontario Conservative MP Larry Miller says he has been trying to walk more and avoiding the green shuttle buses that constantly go from building to building on the Hill. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, who is also part of the pool, has lost significant weight recently. But the person in the lead, who has shed almost 60 lb. so far, is Saskatchewan Tory MP Randy Hoback. He says he has reduced his intake of food to one-sixth of what he used to eat. He has also given up alcohol until 2012. He says his blood pressure has gone down to the point that he no longer needs medication to deal with it. If he wins the $500, Hoback plans to take the other MPs out for dinner. Miller notes another weight-loss challenge will start after Oct. 18 and that so far 15 MPs are interested.

Olivia and Stornoway

NDP MP Olivia Chow has moved into a new apartment. She and her late husband, Jack Layton, slept in Stornoway only a few nights after he became leader of the official Opposition. She has now gone back to the building where she and Layton lived before the last election. It’s conveniently located a minute from her Ottawa office. Chow said last week she would give her Stornoway key to interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel, but Turmel says she has no plans to move into Stornoway. It’s partly because she is in her position only temporarily but also because she is the MP for Hull-Aylmer, which is just across the Ottawa River. She says the NDP will still hold functions and meetings at Stornoway.

Hey, that’s my bill

The Conservatives have been introducing lots of legislation that they did not get passed while they were a minority government. NDP MP Pat Martin says the NDP will be bringing back some of their own bills that have been around before. He hopes that one will be to ban asbestos. Martin says that, realistically, he does not see the Conservatives supporting that legislation, even though when he attacks them on subsidizing the industry, “you see them look at their feet.” A bill to label chrysotile asbestos as hazardous, the designation that was attempted under the Rotterdam Convention but blocked by the Canadian government, has a chance of passing, says Martin. He says he knows some Conservatives who will support him. Former Conservative cabinet minister Chuck Strahl, who has lung cancer linked to asbestos exposure, has publicly supported the warning, which would allow countries to decline imports of the chemical if they feel it cannot be handled safely.

The NDP also plan to bring back their bill that seeks to add “gender identity” and “gender expression” to the Canadian Human Rights Act and Criminal Code. Former NDP MP Bill Siksay, who did not run this past election, introduced the bill in the last session. It passed the House and then died in the Senate when the election was called. The bill was reintroduced by the NDP’s LGBT critic Randall Garrison. The newly elected Garrison is a bit miffed because he had to change the bill slightly due to the fact that Liberal MP Hedy Fry reintroduced Siksay’s exact same bill and MPs can’t submit the same bill at the same time. Garrison’s bill is slated to advance first, though.

Who is behind Turmel?

The seats behind party leaders are often filled strategically to send out messages of diversity and representation for the TV cameras. Ever since Parliament resumed, the rows of double seats behind interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel have been filled all the way to the back with women and gay men. This includes MPs Megan Leslie, Dany Morin and Philip Toone, who quipped, “Well, women and gay men make up almost half our caucus.”

A hypothetical legislature

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 12:59 PM - 8 Comments

Last month there was some speculation that once this year’s round of elections was complete, Conservatives (of various partisan affiliations) might occupy more than half of all federal and provincial seats in the country.

Because of regional differences—especially in Quebec—this math is pretty subjective, but here’s one attempt to tally the standings with only Saskatchewan left to vote. Continue…

In Sichuan, it’s all better now

By Richard Warnica - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 12:15 PM - 0 Comments

Jiang Hongjing/Xinhua/Redux

In the centre of the page on A8 of the New York Times on Friday, Sept. 30, nine giant pandas sat in a field of almost impossible green. Some slouched in that fat-baby way pandas have. Others chewed grass. Together, they offered an image of bucolic perfection. The picture was in the centre of a full-page ad paid for by the People’s Government of Sichuan, the Chinese province devastated by a powerful earthquake in 2008. Alongside images of pristine houses, smiling children and new roads, the bears presented an unequivocal message: everything here is awesome now.

The earthquake was a disaster in many ways, including, for the government, public relations. Dozens of schoolhouses collapsed in the quake, which killed about 90,000 people. Questions about shoddy construction, tied to corruption or incompetence, dog officials to this day. The ad was clearly an attempt to show the other side. Captions to the photos boast of 12 million people resettled, 3,000 schools rebuilt and over 3,000 babies born since the disaster occurred.

No one can deny the Chinese have spent billions on rebuilding in Sichuan. But as recent high-speed rail disasters have shown, money isn’t everything in China. Graft and a rush to get the work done have plagued large projects in that country for years. Slick advertising is one thing—buildings that can withstand a significant shake are another. For the people of Sichuan, only the latter will count in the long run.

Don’t do something

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 12:07 PM - 17 Comments

Stephen Gordon questions those calling for the government to take action on jobs.

My reading of the data of which I’m aware suggests that current rates of job creation are consistent with those observed during the last expansion, and have been so for a year or so. Calls for the government to “do something” are misplaced; the labour market has been functioning normally for quite some time now.

On noisy hospitals and ‘alarm fatigue’

By Kate Lunau - Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 11:40 AM - 1 Comment

Colin O'Connor/Maclean's

Several patient deaths in the U.S. have been attributed to “alarm fatigue,” after overworked medical staff failed to respond to an alarm in time. Acoustics expert , provost of McMaster University and a mechanical engineer by training, Ilene Busch-Vishniac spoke to Maclean’s from Washington, where she was preparing to attend a conference addressing the topic.

Q: What is alarm fatigue?

A: Alarms are meant to alert you, and if they’re constantly going off [the idea is that] you could become somewhat blasé. Many of my peers suspect that medical staff are tuning them out, but I’ve seen no evidence of that in the literature. What is certainly true is that there are so many alarms going off, it is not physically possible for medical staff to respond to all of them as quickly as we would like. Alarms will occasionally go unanswered, but that could simply be because noise in the hospital is so loud you literally couldn’t hear the alarm—or it could be that at the moment the alarm was going off, there were 70 others going off.

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