01-27-2006, 05:13 PM
:lol:
Didn't see this posted on here..
Trailer Park Tories? Harper, Ricky cousins
Harper, TPB’s Ricky share a little DNA
By CHRIS LAMBIE and The Canadian Press
Stephen Harper and Robb Wells, better known to Canadians as Ricky on Trailer Park Boys, may be distant cousins. But the Conservative leader isn’t exactly a fan of the television show that features lots of gratuitous gunplay, swearing and marijuana grow ops.
The top Tory’s election team was tickled to discover that Mr. Harper and Mr. Wells share the same great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, George Dobson.
"We had a good laugh," said William Stairs, Mr. Harper’s communications director.
Mr. Stairs doubts Mr. Harper has watched the show.
"He doesn’t have a lot of time and when he does watch TV, it’s either hockey or stuff that he watches with his kids (ages seven and nine)," Mr. Stairs said Friday. "I really don’t think it would be high on the list."
There are similarities between the two, according to one Trailer Park Boys insider.
"They both want to get plastered on power," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Part-time Halifax genealogist Carol Dobson worked out the familial relationship between the actor and the politician.
"They’d probably be fifth or sixth cousins," she said. "It’s not really close, but they share a common ancestry."
Ms. Dobson, who says she is also a cousin of Mr. Harper’s — but distantly removed — became interested in all this when she volunteered at Yorkshire 2000, a major event in Nova Scotia that celebrated the 225th anniversary of the arrival of 2,000 people from Yorkshire, England, between 1772 and ’75.
Asked whether Mr. Harper and Mr. Wells appear to share any attributes, Ms. Dobson laughed.
"You can always tell a Yorkshireman, you just can’t tell him anything," she said.
"The other Yorkshire saying that actually would work very well probably for the Robb Wells character . . . is Yorkshire-born, Yorkshire-bred, thick in the arm, thick in the head."
For those Canadians who don’t watch Showcase’s Trailer Park Boys, Mr. Wells plays the potato chip and pepperoni stick-consuming character living in his car in Nova Scotia’s fictional Sunnyvale trailer park. Profane and overweight, he steals the pepperoni sticks from his father.
He’s also dumb. His friends, Julian and Bubbles, help him out of frequent scrapes.
Mr. Harper, meanwhile, is the serious-minded, policy-wonkish politician who lives at Stornoway, the official mansion of the Opposition leader, but would like to be living soon at 24 Sussex Drive, the prime minister’s official residence.
He is not profane, nor is he dumb, but like his cousin, Mr. Wells, he is slightly overweight and he has just recently, according to reports, begun to listen to his handlers and let them help him. So far he has had no scrapes in this election.
On the show, Ricky drinks rum because that’s the liquor he started stealing from his father at the age of seven or eight.
The distant relationship to Mr. Wells might help win Mr. Harper some political support, Ms. Dobson said.
"You never know," she said. "He’s trying to reach out to people with things like his cut in the GST. . . . A few cents off the GST adds up eventually to a bottle of rum."
Through her research, Ms. Dobson discovered that George Dobson and his wife, Mary Barker, came to Nova Scotia from Yorkshire in 1773. She said Mr. Harper is a descendant of Mary Dobson, who married William Jones.
Mr. Jones was a rebel in the Eddy Rebellion of 1776, in which Acadians joined forces with Jonathan Eddy, a farmer who was originally from Massachusetts, to try to retake Fort Cumberland (now Fort Beausejour) from the British.
George Dobson is buried in the graveyard at Fort Beausejour, near Sackville, N.B., Ms. Dobson said.
Robb Wells, like herself, she adds, is a descendant of Mary’s oldest sister, Margaret, who married William Wells.
"Harper may also be a Wells descendant as he has Chappell blood," she said. "The Wellses and the Chappells did a lot of intermarrying."
Ms. Dobson had a chance to meet Mr. Harper on Thursday when he was campaigning in Halifax. She said that she helped a friend organize a "rope line" for him as he walked into his news conference.
"So when he got to me, I said, ‘Good luck, cousin Stephen,’ " she said.
He went on, but he suddenly turned and said: "Did you say cousin?"
She said: "Yeah." And he said: "Well, how?"
"So I said, Dobson, Goodwin, Chapman, Jones," Ms. Dobson recalled.
( <!-- e --><a href="mailto:clambie@herald.ca">clambie@herald.ca</a><!-- e -->)
http://www.herald.ns.ca/Front/477109.html
Didn't see this posted on here..
Trailer Park Tories? Harper, Ricky cousins
Harper, TPB’s Ricky share a little DNA
By CHRIS LAMBIE and The Canadian Press
Stephen Harper and Robb Wells, better known to Canadians as Ricky on Trailer Park Boys, may be distant cousins. But the Conservative leader isn’t exactly a fan of the television show that features lots of gratuitous gunplay, swearing and marijuana grow ops.
The top Tory’s election team was tickled to discover that Mr. Harper and Mr. Wells share the same great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, George Dobson.
"We had a good laugh," said William Stairs, Mr. Harper’s communications director.
Mr. Stairs doubts Mr. Harper has watched the show.
"He doesn’t have a lot of time and when he does watch TV, it’s either hockey or stuff that he watches with his kids (ages seven and nine)," Mr. Stairs said Friday. "I really don’t think it would be high on the list."
There are similarities between the two, according to one Trailer Park Boys insider.
"They both want to get plastered on power," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Part-time Halifax genealogist Carol Dobson worked out the familial relationship between the actor and the politician.
"They’d probably be fifth or sixth cousins," she said. "It’s not really close, but they share a common ancestry."
Ms. Dobson, who says she is also a cousin of Mr. Harper’s — but distantly removed — became interested in all this when she volunteered at Yorkshire 2000, a major event in Nova Scotia that celebrated the 225th anniversary of the arrival of 2,000 people from Yorkshire, England, between 1772 and ’75.
Asked whether Mr. Harper and Mr. Wells appear to share any attributes, Ms. Dobson laughed.
"You can always tell a Yorkshireman, you just can’t tell him anything," she said.
"The other Yorkshire saying that actually would work very well probably for the Robb Wells character . . . is Yorkshire-born, Yorkshire-bred, thick in the arm, thick in the head."
For those Canadians who don’t watch Showcase’s Trailer Park Boys, Mr. Wells plays the potato chip and pepperoni stick-consuming character living in his car in Nova Scotia’s fictional Sunnyvale trailer park. Profane and overweight, he steals the pepperoni sticks from his father.
He’s also dumb. His friends, Julian and Bubbles, help him out of frequent scrapes.
Mr. Harper, meanwhile, is the serious-minded, policy-wonkish politician who lives at Stornoway, the official mansion of the Opposition leader, but would like to be living soon at 24 Sussex Drive, the prime minister’s official residence.
He is not profane, nor is he dumb, but like his cousin, Mr. Wells, he is slightly overweight and he has just recently, according to reports, begun to listen to his handlers and let them help him. So far he has had no scrapes in this election.
On the show, Ricky drinks rum because that’s the liquor he started stealing from his father at the age of seven or eight.
The distant relationship to Mr. Wells might help win Mr. Harper some political support, Ms. Dobson said.
"You never know," she said. "He’s trying to reach out to people with things like his cut in the GST. . . . A few cents off the GST adds up eventually to a bottle of rum."
Through her research, Ms. Dobson discovered that George Dobson and his wife, Mary Barker, came to Nova Scotia from Yorkshire in 1773. She said Mr. Harper is a descendant of Mary Dobson, who married William Jones.
Mr. Jones was a rebel in the Eddy Rebellion of 1776, in which Acadians joined forces with Jonathan Eddy, a farmer who was originally from Massachusetts, to try to retake Fort Cumberland (now Fort Beausejour) from the British.
George Dobson is buried in the graveyard at Fort Beausejour, near Sackville, N.B., Ms. Dobson said.
Robb Wells, like herself, she adds, is a descendant of Mary’s oldest sister, Margaret, who married William Wells.
"Harper may also be a Wells descendant as he has Chappell blood," she said. "The Wellses and the Chappells did a lot of intermarrying."
Ms. Dobson had a chance to meet Mr. Harper on Thursday when he was campaigning in Halifax. She said that she helped a friend organize a "rope line" for him as he walked into his news conference.
"So when he got to me, I said, ‘Good luck, cousin Stephen,’ " she said.
He went on, but he suddenly turned and said: "Did you say cousin?"
She said: "Yeah." And he said: "Well, how?"
"So I said, Dobson, Goodwin, Chapman, Jones," Ms. Dobson recalled.
( <!-- e --><a href="mailto:clambie@herald.ca">clambie@herald.ca</a><!-- e -->)
http://www.herald.ns.ca/Front/477109.html
