New Issues -
🇨🇦 Canada Post -
31 January 2025 - Black History Month, Commemoration of Marie Joseph Angélique - 1 self-adhesive stamp issued in booklets of 6. Designed by Alexis Eke and Nathalie Cusson of Scooter Design and lithographed by Lowe Martin. Rating:- **.
🇶🇦 Qatar Post -
29 January 2025 - Katara Cultural Village, Arabian horses in Qatari culture - 2 stamps. Lithographed. Rating:- ****.
🇱🇹 While wokeness is breaking out all over in the Canada Post 2025 new issue programme, the Lithuanian purveyor of philately-related products - the infamous Stamperija - has released a pair of sheetlets depicting possibly the most unwoke British comedian of modern times - too unwoke, one suspects, to be commemorated on a Royal Mail stamp in the foreseeable future - Benny Hill, on the centenary of his birth. Fashions and culture change quickly in the West in these present times and while Hill was considered a comedy genius in the 1980s, his heyday, his type of humour is now considered to be far beyond the pale and much of it offensive at the very best. It may be argued, I suppose, that if a comedian is not offending someone or the other, then he/she is not doing their job especially in this present era when so many people are actively in search of something to be offended by. Perhaps, after another four years of Trump, the pendulum may swing in the other direction. For what it’s worth, Stamperija has printed the name of Sierra Leone on these products -
🇸🇱 Products inscribed ‘Sierra Leone’ -
12 February 2024 - Birth centenary of the late Benny Hill, British television comedian - 2 sheetlets, each containing 9 different stamps. These products were released as part of an issue of 44 sheetlets and/or miniature sheets publicised on 30 January 2025. Rating:- 0.
It's disappointing that this blog has decided to call Canada's program a 'guilt-trip' and that 'woke ness has broken out' and hasn't actually taken the time to explore the reason for it. Canada, like many other British Commonwealth countries, are recognising the wrongs of past governments.
ReplyDeleteIf you were taken away from your family, because your parents were from an 'inferior race'; or were mistreated because you weren't part of the ruling class; or weren't recognised as citizens of your own country would you not want these wrongs recognised?
You are of course allowed to have your own views, but perhaps a bit of time to research the facts would be a good idea.
Thank you for your comments. It’s disappointing that you do not give me the credit for having researched and having a fair bit of knowledge about the things I write about. This is forlorn stamp programme and few postal authorities have ever come up with such a programme which wilfully washes a nation’s dirty linen in such a way. In that respect the current issues of Canada, some of which reflect the behaviour of the French in the 18th century on territory which was to eventually become part of Canada (almost 300 years ago - the Marie Joseph Angélique item for instance) and have nothing to do with a modern prosperous nation striving in a competitive world, are actually of historic interest reflecting the present need of influential people in the West with their own agendas, to take up causes dating back centuries for which no-one now living is guilty (yes, I appreciate some of the terrible abuses in Canada are more modern). Stamps tell the story of a nation and reflect its culture and its mood. It seems to me, and I’m not a Canadian so you may tell me to mind my own business, that Canada needs to get over this state of depression and guilt and pick itself up and work out how to deal with Trump and the other challenges it faces. Meanwhile, now that Trudeau is gone, hopefully Canada will find again some pride in itself and reflect it in the subjects it features on its stamps.
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