WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2013. GANATSEKWYAGON, ONTARIO, CANADA. Today marks the funeral of the fabled Iron Lady back in the old imperial metropolis across the sea. And according to Matthew Coutts at the Daily Brew :”Canadian Conservative leaders including Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be in attendance when Margaret Thatcher, the woman some consider the mother [...]
This past Sunday night, in between David Starkey’s tidy explanations of the start of the authentic British (as opposed to just English) monarchy, on TV Ontario, and the premiere episode of Vikings on the History Channel, we dipped into the first Canadian Screen Awards on CBC. A half dozen domestic headlines — from the Pacific [...]
Weather forecasters are not always right, of course. But I am prepared to concede that they probably know more about the weather than I do. And so I took it seriously when I heard yesterday morning that “Waking up to a winter wonderland on Christmas Day will be more of a dream than reality for [...]
In the past this website has expressed admiration (and even sympathy) for two Southern California belles of some notoriety, Lindsay Lohan and Paulina Gretzky. See, eg, my colleague L. Frank Bunting on “Why are the puritans still persecuting Lindsay Lohan?” and (only half-repentantly, at best) “Sober second thoughts on the persecution of Lindsay Lohan?” And [...]
A Huffington Post Travel Blog article this past Friday — by Mitch Moxley, a “Freelance writer in Beijing” — seems to be stirring a lot of dust in Vancouver. It’s called “Welcome To Vancouver: ‘No Fun City’.” And it certainly isn’t flattering. Moxley allows that, physically and geographically, “Vancouver is a beautiful city. Gorgeous.” But, [...]
OTTAWA. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2012. Retired senior citizens in desperate need of afternoon naps were well served by the CPAC TV presentation of Question Period, in the just-back-from-summer-vacation Canadian House of Commons yesterday afternoon. The favourite word of New Democrat MPs this season is apparently “reckless,” as in the Harper government’s “reckless cost cutting,” etc, [...]
Ghosts must exist in some sense. That at least is the conclusion I have drawn from the various celebrations of the 35th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley at Graceland Mansion in Memphis, Tennessee, on August 16, 1977 at the age of 42. The biggest celebration was no doubt at Graceland itself, where “75,000 [...]
On this very hot and languorous summer day in the Great Lakes region of North America, the news from the mysterious east has finally drifted in on some erotic sunbeams: “Nazril Irham Freed” ; “Peterpan’s Ariel Is Finally, Sort of, Free” ; “Mixed reactions greet pop star’s parole” ; and “Ariel Will Publish A Memoir [...]
The counterweights editors have just informed me that a piece I did last summer — “Catching up with UK hacking scandal .. Rebekah Brooks (nee Wade/Mrs. Ross Kemp) and Wendi Deng Murdoch!” — has been receiving some striking fresh attention from readers. And the editors have asked me to quickly update the ongoing adventures of [...]
TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA. SUNDAY 20 NOVEMBER 2011. This afternoon will see this city’s 107th annual Santa Claus Parade. From 1905 to 1982 the event was sponsored by the now defunct Eaton’s department store. Then a consortium took over. This year’s sponsors include Coca Cola, Lego, Mattel, McDonalds, Mercedes-Benz, Pfizer, Scotiabank, Shopsy’s, Sony Pictures, Tim Hortons, [...]
