A Bitter Cold Day In Kabul.

KABUL - Not much to do at the moment but hunker down with a cup of tea, get acclimatized, and let the day go by slowly. Out to the old haunts tonight.

Here's a Globe and Mail review for your entertainment:

The Island of Canada

Reviewed by Terry Glavin

The Globe and Mail:

This could have been a whole book about pirates.

For much of the 17th and 18th centuries, Canada's Atlantic coast was seething with all sorts of seaborne blackguards, and indeed, The Island of Canada started out as a book about their exploits.

There is for, instance, the astonishing story of the warlord Peter Easton, master of 1,500 men and an entire navy of pirate ships that he commanded from his fortified redoubt at Harbour Grace, Newfoundland. Easton once set out in his flagship, the Happy Adventure, at the head of a fleet of 10 heavily armoured vessels and captured El Morro Castle in Puerto Rico. . .