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star publisher’s prattle
“I can assure you that a lot of thought, debate and consultation has gone into this new look.”
After an 11-day lead-up of unparalleled in-print wanking, you’d think Toronto Star publisher John Honderich could come up with a sexier sell on his paper’s somewhat new look, launched Tuesday. We’re surprised that the focus-group-frenzied company chose the Star’s worst writer — the boss — to write the front-page intro. And it’s strange that as the Star chases its dramatically aging readership into the sunset, it has increased the paper’s type size yet managed to make it less readable.
earth to austin
Austin Clarke reads from his Giller Prize-winning novel, The Polished Hoe, Tuesday (November 19) at the Toronto Reference Library. Take it from us, hearing Clarke read from a prepared text, not ad lib, is definitely the way to go. Did anybody else notice that his Sun Ra-esque Giller acceptance speech made no sense?
rudy touts tome
Former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani was winding down a disgraced career as Big Apple big cheese deep in personal and political scandal when the planes hit. Now, the ex-mayor is flogging a book called Leadership. He’ll be at the Eaton Centre Indigo Books at 3 pm today (Thursday, November 14) signing copies. If you see him, ask him for us one more time, where the hell did you put the homeless Rudy?
hokey huron needs help
The annual touring Huron Carole fundraiser for food banks is having trouble filling the seats for this year’s November 22 gig at the Royal York. And that’s despite the fact that it’s a great cause and has plenty of corporate sponsors. An old-school country lineup might make sense out west, but it’s killing sales in T.O. — a sad thought when the number of child food bank users in Canada has surpassed, per capita, the nasty ole USA. Skip the show and donate directly instead to Toronto’s Daily Bread Food Bank by calling 416-203-0050 or www.givegroceries.com.
Free-spending free-market freaks
So nice of the radical conservatives who run Ontario to give us some of our money back to say sorry for screwing up Hydro through half-assed deregulation. Despite a history of failures, the Tories rushed into an ill-considered plan to pamper their pals. And Ernie — since you’re asking — how about some miracle funding for transit, schools, health care and the other failures of Common Sense thinking?
