st. paddy’s day “too english”

I had a story in today’s paper about complaints by a new sovereignist group, the Réseau de Résistance du Québécois, that Montreal’s St. Patrick’s day parade is too English. The RRQ plans to crash take part in the parade even though organizers say the group is not authorized. RRQ members will be distributing leaflets and waving [...]

reinventing the chain

 
It’s a first for me: a follow to a story that has appeared in the Lee Valley Tools newsletter and on the Home Improvement Show with Jon Eakes show on CJAD. But this school project was too cool to pass up. Here’s the top of the story:
Reinventing the wheel
Teen builds fully functional bicycle made entirely of wood – even [...]

art imitating life

I’m three weeks behind on my TV watching so I just caught the Jan. 26 episode of 3600 secondes d’extase, Marc Labrèche’s show on Radio-Canada.
One of the skits involves an anglo pretending to be a francophone who tries to bring a petition to Air Canada to complain about its lack of French language services. It [...]

lost (and found?) in translation

It’s amazing to me that after so many years of co-existing in Quebec, anglos and francos are still involved in a “dialogue de sourds” when it comes to language issues. At least, it’s that way in much of the news coverage and political discourse. Overall in day-to-day life (I think) most people get along quite [...]

franco comme moi

I had a piece in today’s paper about my personal undercover language investigation. I was initially going to write it as a blog item but it turned into a feature for the paper.
Here’s the top of it:
Speaking French in anglo ‘hoods
‘Francophone’ goes on shopping spree
ANDY RIGA, The Gazette
In Quebec’s long, tumultuous history of language squabbles, [...]

a project for the abandoned seville block?

 
(More Allen McInnis/Gazette pictures here.)
In October, I wrote about the old Seville Theatre and the abandoned Ste. Catherine St. West block it sits on. I also posted some comments from readers. 
Well, the theatre is in the news again. I had a story in today’s Gazette about work being done there this week. Since the owner (Claridge Properties Ltd.) isn’t talking, it’s unclear [...]

via rail will get you there… just as soon as it finds its stations

While working on an upcoming travel column tonight, I came upon a strange line on a Via Rail website page that features Google maps.
“Please note that station locations on some Google maps may not be entirely accurate. We are currently verifying the exact locations of all our stations.“
Now, one would think Via knows where its [...]

the properties of snow

After Montreal’s first winter storm, the city claimed 45 centimetres of snow fell, while Environment Canada said 36 cm. I wanted to figure out how and why Environment Canada and the city could come up with snowfall estimates that diverged so widely.
The story that resulted from my research was published in today’s Gazette (see the bottom [...]

ah, that explains it

Last Friday, while working on a story about snow removal after Montreal’s first big storm, I called the opposition Vision Montreal Party to get their take on the city’s progress (or lack thereof). They offered up their snow point person of the day – Mary Deros, councillor for Park Extension.
I was expecting complaints; they are [...]

wasted away again in larrydavidville?

Big news out of Côte St. Luc.
For a price, you can now slap your name on the city’s infrastructure. This reminds me of a recent Curb Your Enthusiasm episode in which Larry David has a wing of an environmental group’s building named after him after he makes a big donation.
1) Larry David is very rich.
2) Côte [...]

revenge of the facebook haters

While working on a story about one of my favourite topics (revenge!; see if you can find it in Saturday’s paper), I stumbled upon a cool new add-on to Facebook. It’s called Enemybook and it lets you list your enemies on Facebook, then tell the world why you hate them.
Enemybook creator Kevin Matulet calls [...]

in defence of the elevated spaghetti junction

A reader emailed to respond to my story in today’s Gazette about the Ville-Marie Expressway.
Hi,
Just finished reading your article on our Ville Marie express-way. It is amazing that we now are “at the half life” of a major highway after only some 30 odd years. It really says something about the design, building, quality [...]

remembering the seville in the 1950s

Can anyone help this reader (reacting to this article I wrote about the Seville Theatre) who frequented the place in the 1950s and is looking for a comprehensive list of acts that played there?

Andy,
great article on the Seville – brought back wonderful memories
i’m 70 and spent the greater part of the early 50’s [...]

spacing montreal on the seville

Chris DeWolf, on the excellent Spacing Montreal blog, mentions my Seville story in this post. An excerpt:
One thing that seems clear from the Gazette story is that the Seville block’s ownership is as much a problem as it is a solution. For years, ownership of the block has been centralized under Claridge, which has done [...]

students revive a block of ste. catherine

Here’s an email (in response to this article I wrote about the Seville Theatre block of Ste. Catherine St. W.) from a reader who works near Concordia’s new downtown buildings
I cannot resist commenting on your piece about the black hole downtown…although my comment is not about that block but about the blocks between St. Mathieu [...]

the usual suspects and the seville

Here’s an email from a reader with a complaint about “usual suspects” being quoted in my article about the Seville Theatre…
Dear Andy:
I enjoyed very much your article on the Seville block. I am writing to you because underneath the articles surface I felt a questioning of the urban development framework the Gazette uses, that perhaps [...]

missed opportunities at the seville

Here’s an email from a reader (in response to my article about the Seville Theatre) who has some background on what happened to the Seville in the 1980s and early 1990s…
Andy
Thank you for a great article.
I was a founding member of what became Rocky Horror in Montreal, way back when, and actually moved downtown to [...]

ste. catherine st. w.’s ghost block

I have a story in today’s Gazette about the crumbling Seville Theatre and the ghost block it sits on. Here’s the top of the article:
The outer limits of downtown
Andy Riga, The Gazette
The strip of Ste. Catherine St. W. was once alive with nightlife, full of Montrealers heading for Canadiens games at the Forum, movies [...]

roadside quebec: invasion of the muffler men

I came across an entertaining site while doing research for a travel column about road trips.
The site’s called Roadside America and it describes itself as a ”guide to uniquely odd tourist attractions.”
There are 14 Quebec listings, including four about a giant Coke man (see picture above). Two say he’s in Iberville, Quebec; the others spotted him [...]

travel column – hotel, sweet hotel

Finding good deals on hotel rooms was the topic of my Web Explorer column in the Travel section of Saturday’s Gazette. Click here for the story.
Hotel, sweet hotel
Finding a room at a reasonable price requires legwork in days of high occupancy
Andy Riga, The Gazette
While looking for a hotel for a coming trip to Toronto, I [...]

travel gadget of the month: the 20Q

From my Travel column in Saturday’s Gazette: 
Travel Gadget of the Month: An orb the size of a pool ball, Q20 is a fun electronic 20-questions game that uses artificial intelligence to “read your mind.”
Think of something (a horse, air, a rock) and answer the first of 20 questions – Is it an animal, vegetable, mineral or [...]

going out on raccoon patrol

I had fun tagging along with a wildlife-control technician last week. The story about urban raccoons is in today’s Gazette. The top of it is below. Read the whole thing here. A sidebar on rabies in Vermont is here.
Things get tricky when raccoons invade
Wily scavengers want your garbage and a place in your house, but [...]

restless children on board

If you have young children, your dream summer vacation probably isn’t very complicated. You want to have fun, relax and keep the kids amused, all without breaking the bank. Check out some suggestions and tips, from a feature I wrote for Saturday’s Travel section in The Gazette.

facebook is dead

Facebook is officially not cool anymore – I am now part of the phenomenon.
I finally succumbed to the temptation and signed up yesterday. Not to be cool but to use it as a research tool for a profile I was working on of a victim of the Virginia Tech shooting rampage – Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, a [...]

travel column – “voluntourism”: a chance to do more than look

My Web Explorer column for March focused on “voluntourism.” Here it is:
Here’s a chance to do more than look
Voluntourism gets travellers into the community where they can help people improve their lives
Andy Riga, The Gazette
Published: Saturday, March 31, 2007
You want to feel good when you’re on vacation. If helping others makes you feel good, why not [...]

travel gadgets of the month – sheets and blankets

Here are Web Explorer’s Gadgets of the Month for March:
They’re not electronic but they are practical and come in a handy packages – sheets and blankets for long-distance air travellers keen on comfort.
Planecomfort includes a 125 cm-by-150 cm (50-inch-by-60-inch) fleece blanket, pillowcase and pillow. The nylon carrying case doubles as a fleece-topped pillowcase for an [...]

quebec election 2007: (another) blog

Just to confuse things, I’ve started a new blog about the 2007 Quebec election on The Gazette’s website.  Click here to visit.

forget the snow – dig through quebec election poll numbers

I spent yesterday digging through numbers from the election campaign’s biggest poll yet – 3,101 Quebecers were surveyed by Léger Marketing between Saturday and Wednesday night, for The Gazette, the Journal de Montréal and TVA.
The bottom line: Mario Dumont is surging, André Boisclair is tanking and Jean Charest has plateaued. If the election had been held earlier [...]

campaign buses named; “reeferendum” called

The E-File, my Quebec election notebook started in today’s Gazette. Have an interesting tidbit or comment? Send them to me at ariga@thegazette.canwest.com.
A couple of items from today’s E-File:
Reporters are mulling campaign bus monikers. PQ: Brokeback Express. Liberal: Federal Express/JC Resurrection Tour. ADQ: Hérouxville Express.
* * *
Hugô St-Onge is convinced he has the [...]

travel column – keeping up on travel deals

In The Gazette’s Travel section today, I took a closer look at Travelalerts.ca, a Montreal site that alerts Internet users to travel deals.
With so many choices, how do you get the best deal?
Andy Riga, The Gazette
Published: Saturday, February 24, 2007
So many travel websites, so many alleged travel deals. How can a traveller stay on top [...]