680News - Lisa Brandt

Have you ever wondered what it must be like to be in the royal family? Of course we’d all like a little taste of the wealth, but when you read, as I have, the end-of-year stats on how many public appearances members of the royal family make and how much of their lives are given to “serving” their subjects, it’s quite a big trade-off.

And everyone knows you so there’s little chance of having a normal life although they all claim that it’s what they’re striving for. It’s easy to say, from the outside looking in, but I wonder if it would be better to just acquire a bit of pomposity and revel in the privileges of extreme wealth and elitism! It might be easier than trying to fight against the responsibilities of the crown.

So Prince Harry, the younger of Diana’s boys, has been fighting on the front lines in Afghanistan for 10 weeks and not a peep was said about it because of an agreement with the media to keep it quiet. A couple of outlets that did not have an agreement broke the story yesterday. Now Harry and his regiment have a symbolic target on their backs. Wounding or, God forbid, killing a prince would be a prized “get” for the Islamic terrorists they’re fighting.

Now the British defence department is recalling Harry and he’s due back in England by the end of the weekend. On the one hand, as a young man with military aspirations, you might feel a bit sorry for him that he doesn’t get to do what he wants most to do. On the other hand, his life is not his own and he has to be used to that by now. And I suppose the military has to do everything it can to improve the safety of its troops, in whatever tiny increments that is even possible to do.

The Ministry of Transportation says it’s having trouble keeping up with an onslaught of potholes on the 400 series highways. A spokesman says crews are out patrolling the highways all day and night, around the clock, looking for bumps, lumps and debris. They’re apparently finding more than they bargained for.

Experts say the reason behind the early bumper crop of craters is this winter’s unusual cycle of freeze/thaw/freeze/thaw. The asphalt expands and contracts and cracks and you feel it in your suspension system. Sometimes it can get like negotiating over a corduroy road.

Lots of listeners have been weighing in on where the worst areas are. The 401 in the Guelph area is just terrible. It’s pockmarked and ridged and dodgy. There are spots with terrible potholes that fall outside of the province’s jurisdiction, in city territory, like the Gardiner and stretches along Finch in North York.

The Ministry has a hotline you can call to report a pothole problem on a 400 series highway and they’ll put it on the list. 1-800-268-4686. Don’t be surprised if you get a busy signal!

It’s no wonder journalists routinely end up at the bottom of the list on credibility surveys. Some of them keep doing things like this.

A writer with Maxim Magazine has apparently used what he calls “an educated guess” to review the new Black Crowes album, Warpaint, without even hearing it. The band members are furious at the tepid review and I suspect they would be upset no matter how many stars out of five the reviewer had given the CD. It’s just dishonest! And it’s happening all too often.

Some authors fake their autobiographies and they end up with a return appearance on Oprah. Columnists fake that they have seen things and talked to people that they haven’t seen or talked to and they get book deals. And now a music reviewer “reviews” a CD he has never listened to and, what? He gets a record deal? Becomes Simon Cowell’s assistant? Gets flooded with emails from by rabid Black Crowes fans???

The one saving grace is that the review appears in Maxim, which celebrates many fake things passed off as real, starting with the chests of its models. Perhaps the reviewer can claim he’s just using editorial license in order to stick with a theme!

When I see a snow flurry lately, I feel like a woman I once saw in a commercial for - Canadian Tire I think? - who screamed at the top of her lungs when a leaf fell from a tree! The approach of fall was too much for her to take!

And I’m not even having to shovel this year, living as I do in a condo, feeling like a princess with a staff of serfs and shovellers to do my dirty work.

But I can just picture the overworked homeowner, staring blankly out the front window at the sight of more flurries falling on our city.

Yes it’s winter, yes it’s Canada, yes it’s Toronto but it’s a little more snowy than most of us would like. Unless, of course, snow removal is your business. Then you’re having a good season!

Brian Hill is calling for more accumulation around the middle of next week. I wish you patience and a strong back. Lift with the legs!

Holiday shopping. It raises the ire of some and warms the debit cards of others.

Depending on how old you are you may remember when Sunday shopping was brought into Ontario. You would have thought we were talking about public hangings! The outcry! Some folks felt that the complete decline of the nuclear family was imminent.

Unfortunately, their arguments centered on claims of a lack of desire for shopping on the so-called Family Day, but that turned out to be not the case at all. In fact, if you go out to a store or mall on a Sunday, you can see for yourself that it’s quite the opposite.

Now city council is considering whether to allow wide open shopping every day except Christmas, even outside of designated tourist areas. No more fines for throwing open the tills on Good Friday. Each and every retailer would be allowed to open.

If the city’s economic development committee agrees, the concept will go to a full council vote and could be in place before this Good Friday, next month. Ladies and gentlemen, start your protests or your bank accounts!

Oh no, there’s no conspiracy to prop up gas prices. Not at all! (In case it’s not obvious, this is sarcasm!)

Here we are on the cusp of the first ever February long weekend, now known as Family Day, and what do you know? Prices at the pumps are up about three cents a litre. You will not see many surprised drivers pulling up to fill up today. Long weekend equals price hike for gas. It’s just the way it seems to be and we pretty much expect it.

Liberal MP Dan McTeague is the country’s self-proclaimed gas price critic, but I don’t really know what impact his comments have, beyond him being readily available to rant every time there’s a price increase. Nothing really seems to change.

Maybe it’s apathy setting in, but it really doesn’t seem to matter if prices go up or down. A long weekend arrives and we just ride along with the changing numbers, because we need to travel and we’re held hostage by whatever it is they want to charge. And I don’t know about you, but I hear so many predictions about where prices are going that I can’t even remember what they were! I can’t imagine how confusing it is when you miss a prediction or two!

Meanwhile, if driving somewhere is in your plans this weekend, I’m guessing that – like me — you’ll suck it up and fill up at whatever price is on the pump.

There are some things that work their way into your heart and psyche and never quite go away. A Beagle is like that. Frankly, a dog is like that, but I know my heart was once taken over by a Beagle and any Beagle I see reminds me of her.

Beagles have been entered in the presitigious Westminster Dog Show in New York City for about 100 years but that breed has never won. Until now!

Uno is the sweetest little hound you ever saw. He’s almost three years old, 15 inches high and a perfect wee Beagle specimen. Now, he’s numero Uno, named Best In Show for 2008. He celebrated his win by chewing on the microphones of reporters who were going after comments from his crew. Today, Uno is doing the talk show rounds and lunching at Sardis. Fitting for a world champ!

For some reason, a Poodle tends to usually take the crown. Probably because you can fancy up a Poodle coat and they look very regal and pompous when they’re lead around! So it’s nice to see a sweet little pea like Uno show them all up. He was the underdog, if you don’t mind the pun!

Those of us who soften like warm Brie at the sight of a sweet little dog like Uno have taken some ribbing from the non-dog-lovers among us here but we believe we are in the majority. And even if we aren’t, what’s the harm in being just a little dog focused once in a while? The whole canine world had its eyes on Westminster this week. And a soulful pair of little black Beagle eyes returned the gaze!

Today we say farewell to a valued member of the 680 morning show team. But Tom Young, our technical producer, is staying in the family by going to work with the Blue Jays broadcasts on the Fan 590. It’s a tremendous opportunity for him. First stop: Dunedin, for training camp.

Tom is the guy who makes virtually all of the sound you hear in the morning show happen. That’s everything from the guy at the top of the hour who says “THIS IS 680 NEWS!” to the reporters to music to … you name it. If you could stop and just listen for sound bits, you’d appreciate how much he has to do.

Just to give you an indication of a fraction of what it takes to do the job successfully, some of those “sounds” are put on air via wee buttons that are very close to each other on a very small box. In other words, it would be very easy to strike the wrong one. Tom rarely ever made a mistake.

Tom has also been the one who keeps us in line! Hard to imagine (she says sarcastically!) but Paul and I are sometimes given to little fits of giggles and off-topic conversations. Tom has had to be rather forceful with us sometimes to catch our attention! He’s persistent, patient, organized, and immensely tolerant! All qualities that will work well for him in his new life, with all of the traveling he will be doing with the Jays.

Tom, you’ve been witness to our highs and lows and dark humour and everything in between and you’ve lived to tell the tale!

Good luck in your dream job. You’ll be missed!

So how do you spend a snow day?

Some people can work from home and of those people, I am envious! But, seriously, those of us in media really do need to get out and experience the conditions before we can truly decide how to report on them.

Others have to take a day because their kids are suddenly home for the day and somebody has to look after them. Last minute contingency plans aren’t always possible especially when people are having trouble getting around.

When I was a kid growing up in rural Smithville, if the buses didn’t run, we got a ride in to school. Some parent, if not my own, would call around and make the offer to drive as many kids as possible into town. So we only cheered if the school itself was shut for the day. My Mom was no fool! She didn’t want two preteens kicking around the house all day if it could be helped and my Dad always had winter-ready trucks for his business, so there was rarely an opportunity to get a true snow day. I only really remember a few days off during the blizzard of 1977, but that was a very special storm.

Like you, I’m sure, I wish many people whose cars aren’t equipped for the weather and whose skills aren’t up to the job, would simply stay off the road instead of thinking themselves invincible and putting us all at further risk. But that’s just not going to happen!

If you’ve been given the right to drive you’ve been given the right to drive when you really shouldn’t, I suppose. I learned to pilot a motor vehicle, including parallel parking, in an extended crew cab pick-up and I took Young Drivers training - both developments I believe serve me well to this day. But I’m not perfect! I just believe I see a lot of felow drivers who are less perfect than me. And I’m sure they see drivers who are worse than them, and so on and so on until someone sees another vehicle actually in a ditch!

Once again, I offer you some examples of the minutae we deal with every day in our effort to be accurate on 680 News.

Here are a few of the things we discussed this morning.

Was the Superbowl actually “amazing?” That’s how it was described by one of our news affiliates and we bandied that about. All agreed it was a very good game, perhaps one of the best, but not all were on board with “amazing.” When you break it down logically - not always easy to do with a sports spectacle - either the Patriots were going to complete a perfect season or they were not. So it was actually almost predictable, not amazing, that the Giants would log an upset. It had to go one way or the other!

Another affiliate filed a report on the Spice Girls’ performance in the city last night, claiming the Girls “rocked” the ACC.

Rocked? Really? Would anyone who knows anything about popular music call the Spice Girls a rock band? We didn’t think so either. There’s no doubting the Spice Girls phenomenon is wild and crazy but it’s not rock! We couldn’t very well say the group “popped” the ACC so we see why someone would go with “rocked.” But we changed it anyway.

Sometimes news people are loose with the language and it’s the kind of thing that drives us a little bit crazy! Words are the tools we are given and we do our best to choose them carefully.