A fine addition to any ZOOM meeting:
Goats on a Lancashire farm.
About $8.76 a visit.
Tip: A goat named Lisa specializes in "passive aggressive bleating."
Details at
Sunday, January 31, 2021
Tick ... tick ... tick....
Ontario to get zero shipments of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine amid delivery delay
On Jan. 28, Ontario issued a significant correction to its vaccination data. According to officials, the number of completed vaccinations was inadvertently doubled. Officials said "the number of doses administered to achieve full vaccination" was counted rather than the number of people vaccinated. --CTV News
Due to a difference in data source, the percentage of Canadians vaccinated will appear higher in the world charts below than it does in our detailed Canadian data... This means that individuals in the following dataset are likely being double-counted when they receive their second dose, which could cause an exaggeration in the total percentage of people being vaccinated. --ctvnews.ca
LOST SONGS: Great Big Sea July 2002
Great Big Sea hits Jacksonville, FL in 2002.
The 30-minute set is from the Marquee Theater soundboard.
It went up on YouTube yesterday.
LINK: Alan Doyle interview w/Peter Howell
Friday, January 29, 2021
Surf's up!
What better day to hit Lake Ontario?
BlogTO finds our winter hero:
Robbie Andison, Toronto's TikTok surfer...
Story and pics at
LOST SONGS: Alexander The Swoose ..
Aunt Peg's old 78s included this Kay Kyser tune, still my go-to party piece if I forget the words to The Nightmare Song from Iolanthe.
(When you're lying awake with a dismal headache and repose is taboo'd by anxieties ...)
Thursday, January 28, 2021
Slow roll
If Canada Post delivered less than 1% of your mail, would you you be a happy camper?
Only about a quarter of ONE per cent of Canadians have received a covid vaccine dose.
Ditto for Ontarians.
Of the 411,650 vaccine doses in stock, Ontario has delivered 317,240. Only 96,459 of our 15 million got the required two shots.
That's a slow roll, even before vaccine makers warn they can't deliver previous promises.
At a rate of 1% a month, that would take EIGHT YEARS to vaccinate 30 million. At 2%, four years. At 4%, two years.
I see on cbcnews.ca this morning, a plaintive line:
Every Canadian politician no doubt understands the political and human importance of this country seeming to do well in this multinational competition.
"Seeming to do well?"
Seeming?
Doug Ford wants to plant a firecracker up a Pfizer's boss's ass. Get a second one for Doug.
The feds are having an "emergency debate."
We're going thru the motions.
Of seeming.
How to get snow off the roof
Lots of good ideas here, and only one new one.
The device at 7.50 is called a Snowpeeler.
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Kiss me, I'm vaccinated
- “Those who have gotten the vaccine are using their status as a way to spark conversation with potential matches,” Tinder spokesperson Dana Balch told the Times.
- “Basically, getting the vaccine is the hottest thing you could be doing on a dating app right now,” OK Cupid spokesperson Michael Kaye told the Times.
* * * *
Jab me, hug me, kiss me ... make me do bad things.
FInal clearance!
If you've ever been to the Guinness Records museum in Niagara Falls, TS Messy advises everything ever displayed there is up for auction.
(It closed last fall.)
The biggest, the creepiest, etc.
Hurry! The auction ends Feb. 12.
I have my eye on a very cheesy-looking six-foot-long plastic cheetah, a steal at $325 bid.
Tuesday, January 26, 2021
Alert the troops
10 centimeters of snow, Toronto?
That's smaller than a playing card.
If a guy had 10 cms, there'd be no alert.
Happy Australia Day, rooters!
If you've never known any Australians, you've missed a s--tload of laughs and late nights.
On this, their national day, raise a Coopers Brewery Original Pale Ale.
And now, please stand... and party.
Pizza, pizza, pizza...
Plant-based pepperoni?
Pizza Nova, what have you done?
BlogTO discovers Sohmer's Pizza...
Opens at 3pm Wednesday, sells out in 5 minutes
And if you know of the Bent Anchor, the "beach bar" under the bridge in Combermere, ON...
Bent PIZZA is now open where the Village Market used to be ...
(Wed-Sunday, 3-7pm)
Monday, January 25, 2021
In the last 48 hours...
Boeing 737-8 Max: Air Canada jet shuts down an engine and diverts after mechanical issue
LINK: Guardian story
WestJet Boeing 737 Max flight grounded due to 'potential fault'
LINK: Calgary Herald story
Boeing 737 Max cleared to fly again 'too early'
737 Max: ‘unexplainable electrical anomalies’ and other faults, claims former Boeing manager
LINK: Independent story
LOST SONGS: Pieces Of Dreams
Michel Legrand's title song for the 1970 film.
Pianist is Mike Marineau.
Nope?
So is this hat ...
. A MAGA challenge to the election
. A nix to any return to the Trump era
. A challenge to masks and YIELD signs
. An ironic snarlback to HOPE hats
. A signal to defuse small talk
. An invitation not to ask "What's that about?"
Guess at your own risk.
Talk about mixed messages...
Dog days
Naomi Biden is the new President's grand-daughter, a 26 year-old law student.
Major is a Biden family rescue pet.
Name the last president you've seen on the floor.
Sunday, January 24, 2021
FROST BITE
For 67 years, Baby It's Cold Outside was seen as a cute song, a sappy attempt at a snuggle.
But it's been Me Too'd. Un-happened.
Sorry, Frank Loesser.
Thanks, Cosby.
I double down this morning.
Leon Redbone?
Yes, I know. Bite me.
Big G, Little G
The CoDesign newsletter scorns the new logo for General Motors as the worst branding idea of 2021.
And the year is only 24 days old...
Creative agency McCann Detroit, which lists General Motors as one of its major accounts, will soon lay off an unknown number of employees, Adweek reports.
Laughably, the agency has a bolder all-caps logo than the one it put over on its client.
GM is looking to reduce the amount of bloat the company carries in anticipation of a downturn in global automobile sales, claims gmauthority.com
Guess where it should start?
Friday, January 22, 2021
EVERY DAY A NEW DAY
Only one Toronto Sun column hangs on my wall, near this keyboard.
And curiously, it is not my own.
=============
As the 50th anniversary of The Little Paper That Grew looms and we both approach an iffy twilight, one 2012 column still makes me grin. It connects. It has spunk. It rings old bells.
Is it because Peter Worthington calls the same Toronto Star editor who fired me and tells him to Go Fish?
Is it because the Sun's original rebels concocted a cozy nest for Peter's "free spirits" and "loose cannons?"
Or is it just a solid tale of one kick ass adventure?
A corps of former Sun employees plot on Facebook to celebrate the 50th anniversary.
They can do no better than to memorialize this.
It's Peter Worthington's column of Nov 1, 2012.
Postmedia could delete it from the web with a single click at a bean counter's keyboard.
Might they make it ... un-happen?
That would be wrong.
Worthington column on Sun website
OR read it right here....
=====================
TORONTO SUN MARKS 41 Years
It was 41 years ago on Halloween weekend that the Toronto Telegram went out of business and the Toronto Sun was born – 1,200 people out of a job, 62 got with new ones.
What brings this to mind is an account of the Tely’s demise on the website torontoist.com, by one Jamie Bradburn which is detailed and about as accurate as anything I’ve read about those turbulent times.
When a newspaper dies (killed?) or one is started, it is intensely personal for those involved. Memories fade, change or flourish as years pass, and those involved have both collective and individual recollections.
A lot has been written about the Sun’s early days, some of it confused.
When the Toronto Star agreed to a handsome wage increase for employees, the union at the Tely wanted a matching increase. Publisher John Bassett balked -- couldn’t afford to match the Star. A union meeting at the King Eddy was raucous and adamant that Bassett was bluffing: Vote for a strike, and he’d settle. Dream on.
I and a handful of others were roundly booed when we argued against a strike on grounds that Bassett didn’t bluff – he warned. After the vote to strike, I remember the union’s Freddy Jones -- a good guy -- assuring me that he knew Bassett, and that Bassett would settle. “Not to worry, Peter.”
Bassett promptly announced that the Tely would fold in a month, and he apologized to readers that he couldn’t keep it afloat. Unbeknownst was that he’d already agreed to sell the Tely’s subscription list to the Star for $10 million if the union vote went as he anticipated.
The scramble was on among employees for jobs.
I phoned Dick Doyle, who ran the Globe and Mail, and asked for a job. He wasn’t interested.
Tely(itls) Managing Editor Doug Creighton felt a tabloid would work. He’d been previously involved in trying to persuade Bassett to start one. He put together a team to investigate and to raise money.
Since I’d recently returned from running the Tely bureau in Moscow and was intensely anti-communist, Doug asked me to approach Steve Roman of Denison Mines for $5 million start-up. Roman was even more anti-communist than I, and might agree.
Roman and I had lunch and I blurted out that a morning tabloid needed $5 million to work. Roman wasn’t interested in a morning paper, but said he might be interested in an afternoon paper because he hated the Toronto Star. To him, a morning paper was a hopeless proposition. Anyway $5 million was too much.
Meanwhile Doug and Don Hunt were negotiating with financier Eddie Hyde. Our financial estimates had shrunk to $1 million in start-up costs.
During this time Gordon Donaldson and Don Cameron, both doing documentaries for the CBC, said they could get me hired at the CBC as a reporter. It was an option I toyed with, until Marty Goodman, Ray Timson and Ray Gardner at the Star summoned me for an interview.
Goodman was uneasy that I might not blend with the Star culture, since I was something of a free spirit (or loose cannon) at the Tely. I said I thought those who fought the Star the hardest at the Tely would fight equally hard for the Star if they were hired. He offered a job, and said to think it over and let him know.
In the meantime -- it was now mid-October, 1971 – negotiations went on with Eddie Hyde. Among those in talks were Doug, Hunt, Andy MacFarlane, Eddie Montieth.
At the last meeting, Andy MacFarlane, prospective editor, pulled out and said he’d accepted a job running the journalism school at the University of Western Ontario.
I was shaken. I was very much a MacFarlane person. I announced if Andy was out—so was I. The meeting broke up with the Sun idea dead. Doug had a job offer from Air Canada, Don a syndicate job somewhere, me going to the Star.
I arrived home that Friday night. Yvonne had gone to bed.
“How’d it go?” she asked, when awakened.
“It’s over,” I said. “Andy pulled out, so did I. I guess I’ll go to the Star.”
“You’ll hate the Star,” said Yvonne, with passion. She’d once worked there as a reporter. “They’ll grind you down like they do everyone. Don’t do it. You take Andy’s place.”
“But the deal’s off. Eddie Hyde’s finished. There’s no money to start.”
“Phone Eddie Goodman,” said Yvonne.
Yvonne and I had spent a weekend at the U.S. Open Tennis in New York with the Bassetts and Goodmans. During rain delays, Eddie and I had commiserated about the Tely’s probable demise, and had exchanged views on what a new paper should be like.
I phoned Goodman that night and told him the tale of trying to raise money for a tabloid. Eddie (since deceased) was enthusiastic – a bit misleading because Eddie was enthusiastic about practically everything. “What sort of money do you need?” he asked.
“We’re looking for $1 million,” I said. Gone was the nonsense about $5 million.
“Give me a day,” he said. “I’ll phone you tomorrow.”
Late the next day he called. “Okay,” he shouted. (Goodman was always shouting). “I’ve got it! I’ve got $650,000 pledged, and we’ll soon have $1 million.”
On the Sunday I phone Creighton and Hunt who were at the cottage, and told them I’d called Eddie Goodman who said he’d get the million. I said I’d take over Andy MacFarlane’s role, and that we were back in business.
Doug’s sense of humour kicked in, and he revived the project. We called what was left of the staff we had hoped for. My role was to get the reporters. The only one at the Tely I considered indispensable was the late Bob MacDonald. Bob had an offer from the proposed Montreal Express (now defunct), but opted for the Sun.
I phoned Ray Timson at the Star and told him thanks for the job offer, but I was going to stick to the new paper.
“You’re making a big mistake,” said Timson. “It’ll never work.”
“ Well, it’s worth a try,” I said.
“You’ll regret it, but it’s your life.” He seemed disgusted at such foolishness.
Eddie Goodman never got the $1 million. The Sun started on about $300,000 and never looked back. Memory is uncertain, but we had about a week to prepare for the first edition.
The agonies and ecstasies of the Sun’s early days have been repeatedly documented, but the bottom line is that the Tely’s last edition was a Saturday, and the Sun’s first edition was on Monday, Nov. 1 – no gap in the three-newspaper city.
Unlike the National Post when it started in 1998, the Sun from day one never lost money. The Post, from all accounts, has never made money. I still find it ironic that a bunch of unemployed newspaper people with no business background started the Sun on a shoestring and high hopes, but understood that to succeed the paper had to be profitable. Unlike the Post, which is an excellent paper but more adept at spending money than earning it.
The Sun started with no union (we all felt victims of union misjudgment), but we had profit sharing. We adopted an irreverent but cheerful tone, were editorially skeptical of the policies and ideology of Pierre Trudeau, were hostile to the subversive menace of the Soviet Union and communism, and were committed to tell readers about our mistakes and foibles. We gave columnists free rein to comment on the publisher’s martinis, the general managers propensity to say “No,” the editors conviction that communism was wicked.
Since 1971 the Sun has had five owners – each one implementing changes, but each one determined to keep the flavor of how we started.
On a personal level, I think everyone at the Sun likes one another, we have few bullies in middle management (unique in the media), and it is a pleasant place to work – even if there’s often a shortage of staff and no back-up.
We sometime grumble – but that’s what journalists are best at.
--Peter Worthington, Toronto Sun Nov. 1 2012.
===================
It's delightful that Worthington's (itls) instruction to set Tely in italics appears in both web and print versions of his column. Whoops.
How many typewriters, IBM Selectrics, Radio Shack TRS-80s and cranky, bankrupt word processing systems foiled writers over nearly 50 years? Not enough to stop us.
Too much fun.
Lead photo credit: Jack Boland/CP
Thursday, January 21, 2021
MAX flackery
Boeing's troubled 737 MAX is back in Canadian skies.
The public relations assault has begun.
Both Air Canada and WestJet fly the MAX.
Everything's okey dokey.
Totally hunky dory.
Give your balls a tug.
My thought process:
1. Am I going anywhere? No.
2. Do I want to be an early passenger? No.
3. Have I forgiven Air Canada for Stan Rogers' death?
Give me a moment.
It's only been 38 years...
Stan Rogers (November 29, 1949 – June 2, 1983) was a Canadian folk musician and songwriter. ... Rogers died in a fire aboard Air Canada Flight 797 on the ground at the Greater Cincinnati Airport at the age of 33.
Stan would have been 72 now.
His ashes were scattered into the Atlantic ocean off the north-eastern shore of Nova Scotia, Canada.
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
Sharpie sale
Make Toronto 22F and sunny!
Fix any weather map with your Presidential-style Big Black Sharpie!
Move cold fronts! Re-route hurricanes! Sign Official Decrees and give them to your spouse!
Newly arrived at our warehouse. Not sold in stores. 15% discount for orders of 10,000 or more.
As seen on TV!
"We need a bit of crazy..."
Amazon sold me almost every insider book written about Trump's Confederacy of Cretins.
I swore "no more" at Mary, the nasty niece.
But I am prepared to buy Just One More Book.
Axios.com is serializing star reporter Jonathan Swan's insights into the final hours of Trump's freak show.
It's obviously gonna be a book.
Swan's up to his third installment of Trump's crazed end, with clear evidence of why I will break my boycott.
Trump on his lady lawyer: "She's crazy. We need a bit of crazy... "
LINK: Jonathan Swan, Excerpt 3 Axios
And to start at the first of five parts, Swan also has a new podcast, How it Happened.
It's at ...
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
MAGA-nificent Art at CUT-RATE cult prices!
FINAL CLEARANCE SALE!
PRICES SLASHED!
EVERY PAINTING MUST GO!
FINE ART AT FIRE SALE PRICES!
ACT NOW! 
MAGA-LICIOUS DISCOUNTS!
BUY ONE, GET ONE FREE OFFER
FOR QAnon MEMBERS!
"HIS BURDEN"
NAME YOUR OWN PRICE!
DEPLORABLE DISCOUNTS!
OVERSTOCKED WAREHOUSE!
COLLECTABLES!
CORRECTABLES!
DELECTABLES!
CASH ONLY
BACK UP THE TRUCK!
--2021, PageSixFineArt Warehouse Ltd.
Monday, January 18, 2021
He got his
Ontario has delivered 73% of the 277,050 co-vid vaccine shots it has in stock.
Quebec, Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan have all delivered a higher percentage--up to 97%.
The fake commute
Cabin fever writ large: Many are actively working to re-create the feeling of a commute, with new routines to put mental separation between at home and at work.
--Wall Street Journal
1. Stage daily walk to nowhere
2. Take dog to bus or trolley stop, then go home
3. Circle block or building the amount of time it takes to get to work
4. Try to stomp image of Doug Ford into snow
Sunday, January 17, 2021
Butter tart booze
Timmy's short-lived poutine donut was a bad idea.
But butter tart moonshine is a good one.
Drool.
Top Shelf Distiller's tribute to the proud Canuck yummy puck debuted two months ago.
At 25% alcohol, I can zombie away the rest of pandemic in a butter tart buzz.
Wake me when it's over...
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