CTV Olympic studios something to behold...Wow: IOC sympathy for the media!

VANCOUVER – Had a tour of the CTV/TSN television setup at the International Broadcast Centre yesterday. Which is harder than it sounds.Anyone from the broadcast side of things can wander into the Main Media Centre, where the ink-stained (web-stained?) wretches from print or Internet media hang out. But for us to get over there requires 24-hour approval, surrendering of our accreditation in exchange for a temporary pass, giving over date of birth and other information, and then requiring an escort into the building and again back out.

Yeah, I know, someone is more likely to go after a glamorous TV type than some schmuck from the Toronto Star (and I say that with the kindest regard for my fellow workers). But it still rankles.

That issue aside, it was still pretty cool to see the setup. The set Brian Williams (and, yes, he IS a really, really good guy) will be using looks out over the Main Media Centre, which is the giant convention centre with the sails on top from the 1984 Expo. Lots of cool-looking wood and tons of glass; it should show wonderfully on the tube. He’s also got a, wait for it, 152-inch High Definition plasma TV next to his desk. That’s only slightly bigger than the one in Dave Perkins’ basement.

TSN’s Andrea Goldstein, who was nice enough to take me on the tour, said it’s the biggest TV in the world and that there are only four of them. CTV has two; the one we’ll see most days and, smartly, a backup just in case it blows a tube. NBC apparently has the other two screens.

There are five studios in all for the consortium, one of which overlooks Stanley Park and might be the best of the bunch. Of course, those are the glamour spots. Behind all of that there were hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of folks toiling on laptops in windowless rooms, including a couple of old buddies of mine at the Globe and Mail. There are seven control rooms and 22 editing suites and some 1,400 workers in all, most of whom seemed to be scurrying about yesterday and seemed quite earnest and buckle-down.

It’s hugely, hugely impressive. The engineering room has something like 10 huge towers with a billion blinking lights and cables threading into other cables threading into other cables and outlets and more blinking lights. It’s an amazing sight. If you can get past security, that is.

SWARMING WITH COPS? I DON’T THINK SO

A British journalist was quoted in the Vancouver Sun today as saying the city looked like a war zone

“With a police officer on every corner and military copters buzzing overhead, Vancouver looks more like postwar Berlin than an Olympic wonderland,” wrote Douglas Haddow in the Guardian.

Balderdash. Not to mention utterly wrong.

I walked to the Main Media Centre Monday - about 10 blocks - and didn’t encounter any security forces until I got within two blocks of the press centre. There are the odd copters overhead, but some of them might be delivering snow to Cypress Mountain for all we know. Or maybe ferrying IOC members to lunch.

AND NOW SOME REFRESHING HONESTY

You still get a lot of diplomatic bafflegab when you ask an IOC member a question. Not our own Dick Pound, of course, but many IOC members would rather jump into a pit of rattlesnakes than give a direct answer to a question.

That’s why it was a little refreshing on Monday to hear IOC president Jacques Rogge talk about his displeasure with the Russians over doping issues with winter athletes. And to see International Ski Federation chief Gian-Franco Kasper tell the publication Around The Rings that the Sea-to-Sky Highway improvements help athletes get to Whistler, but that it’s still a long way from Whistler to Vancouver.

“Of course the travelling time is less now but don’t forget the Olympic traffic. The worst thing is that everybody will have to go up by bus. That does not make it easy, including for spectators.”

Kasper, and this is the TRULY AMAZING PART, said that he feels “sorry particularly for the media.”

“If they (media hordes) live in Richmond, they must first go by bus to the Main Media Centre and up by bus to Whistler, and then the whole thing back. So they spend more than half the day on the bus.”

He also pointed out that weather delays could wreak havoc

“You could go up to Whistler and find out that the event is postponed until the next day, so you back for nothing. You come up the next day, postponed again and down (the hill) again. I can’t imagine how much they will like it.”

They’ll probably dismiss him from the IOC for being soft on the media. Personally, I’d like to see the guy in charge of the IOC’s Press Commission.

Kasper had a few bon mots to toss at newspaper bean counters. Heh, heh.

“Most of the media wanted to live in the Whistler area and then of course because of cost or whatever, the chief editors of newspapers saw much cheaper accommodations, and that is in Richmond. They don’t care if their guys are on a bus or not, so they moved them to Richmond and now they have to travel.”

I will say, and not just to keep my job, that the Star sprung for digs that are almost entirely in Vancouver, plus a couple of very expensive condos in Whistler. One of our rooms is in Richmond, but that was an issue of availability, not cost. The Star has almost always been willing to spend whatever it takes to do the job. And I LOVE where I'm staying in downtown Vancouver. Still laughing over the fact I have a VCR on top of my TV, but the room at the Carmana Plaza on Alberni St. is IMMENSE and has everything I need.

Vancouver gets ready...Lights, Camera, Ac...Hey, where's all the snow?

VANCOUVER - Okay, nobody was expecting a white Olympics on Robson Street. But when it's 10 degrees and Torontonians are walking about in light jackets or even shirt-sleeves, it's hard to feel properly Winter Olympics-ish.

They're hauling helicopter loads of snow in from the interior of British Columbia to make up for the lack of white stuff on Cypress Mountain, where they'll be doing freestyle skiing (aerials, moguls, etc...) and snowboarding. Of course, up in Whistler it's a winter wonderland.

But it's often like this for the Winter Games, so everyone just chill (if you'll pardon the pun). They had a lot of rain in Nagano in 1998 and nobody died from a few delays. At least I don't think so. There wasn't much snow in the hills around Turin until just before the Games, and everything went off great. It never felt like the winter Olympics in town, mind you.

So far, they're doing a pretty good job of dressing things up out here. Yes, Torontonians, there are pansies blooming in the parks and the daffodils are getting ready to sprout and there's damn little white stuff on the spectacular mountains that ring the northside of this Pacific city. But the pin traders are out and the buildings are sheathed in giant posters and the kids are getting excited.

Not to mention the volunteers. Damn, these folks are friendly. The people at the airport for accreditations are awesome. The cops are smiling and saying hi. I stood outside the main media centre on a stunningly beautiful Saturday afternoon and snapped a photo with my Blackberry. A guy I'd never seen before came up behind me and insisted he take my photo with the mountains in the background. We quickly discovered the Blackberry camera sensed the light in the sky behind me and couldn't compensate, making me look like I'd spent a month in a Yonge St. tanning salon. So I had him take a shot of me with the media centre in the background; the centre being the big building on the waterfront with the sails that's left from Vancouver's 1984 Expo.

He took a shot but didn't like it, saying I wasn't smiling. So he took another, which you can see. Yeah, that looks like a smile.

When I got on the bus for the Main Press Centre on Sunday, a woman reporter from the U.S. was asking the bus driver for directions to the Westin Bayshore Hotel. He and I both pointed her in the right direction, and as she got off the bus and started to walk towards the Westin a reporter from New York laughed.

"Boy, you Canadians are nice. In New York we'd just tell to take a cab and figure it out."

Turns out the bus driver, John, was brought in from Toronto and lives down near Jarvis and Bloor. Guess we should send a note to the all Toronto-haters in Western Canada that even downtown T.O. types are pretty damn friendly.
 

OLYMPIC FOOD

The Games haven't started. But the restaurant wars are going full tilt. Over at Yew Restaurant at the Four Seasons, they've got a 1.5 pound (don't ask me how many kilos that is; I think Imperial, not metric) burger with 70 per cent Kobe beef and 30 per cent Alberta prime AAAAA, or something like that. In a word, spectacular. It's got double smoked Canadian tyroler bacon, local cheddar cheese and tomato chili jam (a new experience) and it's something to behold. Kinda the thing you'd expect a guy like David Wells could polish off in one sitting, but not most of us. They say if you eat the whole thing you get a free Olympic Spirit drink at the bar.

 They also have an Olympic-five ring salad, where almost everything is ring-shaped, from the anelli pasta to the squid and olive slices and crispy shallot rings.Delicious.

But it's the bar where barkeep Justin Taylor puts on a particular Olympic shine. He's come up with a series of cocktails, the bronze, the silver and the gold. Each is named after a Canadian city that has, or is about to, host the Olympic Games. The bronze is named after Montreal and costs $19.76 (get it?). It's got prime Canadian rye and is basically a whiskey sour with a solid shot of creme brulee on top. You have to punch through the creme brulee with an apple slice to get at the drink, and it's amazingly tasty. Twelve of those and they'll be fishing you out of the sewers.

The silver is named for Calgary and costs, wait for it, $19.88. It's a Caesar (the drink was invented in Calgary, they say) with a real spice kick, complete with buffalo jerky-infused vodka, horseradish and chili pepper and it comes in a glass shaped like a giant cowboy boot. Great fun.

The gold drink is for Vancouver and costs $20.10 (all the drinks have ultra-luxe ingredients and take a long time to make; hence the price, Taylor says). It's got Vancouver Island gin (the only gin made in Canada, he says, and I had no idea) along with mashed dill, cucumber, citrus and egg whites, with a smoked salmon garnish. Phew.

Over at the Shangri-La, they're not quite as overt about exploiting the Oly rings. But they do have a series of five drinks with sports/Olympic themes at Jean-Georges lovely Market restaurant; the Oh, Canada, the Victory, the Excellence, the Gold on Ice and After the Celebration, another variation on the Caesar but with an olive wrapped in smoked meat as a garnish.

My personal favourite (I got to try all five and finished one and part of another and managed not to fall asleep on the bus back to the press centre, by the way) was the Oh, Canada, with Canadian maple whiskey, Canadian rum, spiced maple syrup, bitters, lemon and maple smoke, garnished with smoked citrus pearl (I thought it was an orange peel). Not enough "o's" in smooth to describe that one.

They also serve a fabulous butternut squash soup with morel mushrooms and a black truffle fontina cheese pizza that's only $15. Most entrees at dinner are $24 to $26; not bad for a high-end spot in a hotel that gets terrific reviews. There's a lunch menu with an appetizer, main course and dessert for $29.

Top dessert has to the 'Snow-Capped Cypress," their tribute to (and wish for) Cypress Mountain. It's a white chocolate pavlova with Yuzu sorbet and Thai basil syrup (see photo at right). Yum.

I didn't see a particular Olympic theme, but there were several senior International Olympic Committee members out for dinner at Coast the other night on Alberni St. And I can see why.

One of the specialties is the cold seafood selection, where you get an enormous wok-like container filled with crushed ice on a bed of dry ice that spills vapour all over as the wait staff brings it your table. Piled high are large, choice selections of shrimp, oysters, mussels (probably better warm than cold, but that's just me), king crab, local dungeness crab (yum) and east coast lobster.

They make crab cakes that are probably 99 per cent crab, plus the best smoked fish chowder you might ever have the chance to slurp down. A Tahitian vanilla cheesecake lollipop goes down pretty easy after dinner, but the most fun is a jasmine tea-infused hot chocolate in a small waffle cone.

If you're lucky you might get a table upstairs, overlooking the beautiful people at the bar. Most nights, there's a few of them.

THIS AND THAT

A poll I read said 84 per cent of Canadians think the Winter Olympics will finish in the red. What on earth the other 16 per cent of folks were smoking, I'd love to know.

Actually, to be fair, the Games probably will break even or thereabouts. But they base that on operating costs. It doesn't include the Sea-to-Sky Highway or the SkyTrain or the Richmond Oval or changes in Whistler or any of the CAPITAL costs. So it's extremely misleading. Olympic organizers always crow that those projects were needed anyway, but that's only partially true. And they never talk about the security costs, which were originally estimated at something like $175 million.

Not to toot my own horn, but I wrote at the time that that number was a joke. It has since risen, ahem, to $900 million. And what do you have to show for yourself at the end of the day? A lot of rich cops who got overtime, maybe a bit of improved airport security and such and nothing else. They've put security cameras all over downtown, but most folks, and understandably so, want them removed once the Olympics are over. So, yes, technically the Games might break even. But it's extremely misleading.

On a completely, wholly and also totally unrelated note, I saw on the official Olympic news site for journalists that there will be more athletes taking part in alpine skiing than any other sport at the Winter Olympics. Kinda surprised me, actually. I would've thought maybe snowboard as you don't need, well, Alps or anything like them. But the IOC says there are athletes from 73 National Olympic Committees taking part in alpine skiing, including participants from Ghana, Morocco, Senegal and Pakistan.

Pakistan??? Who knew???

Countdown to the Olympics is on

Olympic memories...and a major one to come - starting tomorrow in Vancouver

ON MY WAY TO VANCOUVER - It's gonna be hard to top Sydney, but I think having the Olympics in my own country might do the trick.

Sydney was the first Olympics I was at on the Star's behalf. I was the assignment editor and also wrote a daily notebook for our web site, a job I've done at the Olympics since. I don't recall my Sydney notes being called a blog. I don't think the word was invented yet, although I could easily be wrong. And the Internet was fairly rudimentary. No Google I can recall. No YouTube. I filed updates along the way, but it wasn't a huge deal.

There was more going to the web in Salt Lake City in 2002, where I was pretty busy keeping up on Skategate, and quite a bit happening web-wise by the time Athens rolled around in 2004. The Star website was quite important by the time Turin came around, and critical in Beijing given the 12-hour (or was it 13?) time difference. That played havoc with our scheduling. We had to do a schedule of what was going on the web, of course, plus what would be in the paper. Because so many events happened in the middle of the night in Toronto, we had to write a schedule that included not only events that would make into the paper but events that had to previewed because they'd happen in the middle of the night the following day, if that makes any sense.

Suffice to say it was horrible from an assignment point of view. I don't think poor Rosie DiManno has stopped shaking her head over the times I'd ask her to write a column reviewing something that our readers had missed 36 hours before or would likely miss two days ahead of when she was writing. Or something like that.

Anyway, here comes Vancouver. And our website will be ENORMOUSLY important. I'll be filing updates all day, every day on all the major events involving Canadians. If we're expected to compete for a medal, I'll be all over it. If we win, I'll file flash stories and maybe some background and a quote, then move on to the next one. If we lose a medal we should've had, that'll be a flash story on our website, too. And if some figure skating judges try to rip us off again, well, that'll be covered, too.

Sydney was an absolute blast. It was a country I'd always dreamed of going to, in a great city, with great people. They put the media up in what was an old insane asylum (yes, I know; a perfect spot. You can say it). But there wasn't room for little old me, so I was headquartered in a hotel way downtown in Kings Cross, the pseudo red light district. It was absolutely fine; no worse than Yonge and Dundas. Had a view of the Harbour Bridge and downtown, which was spectacular, from the top of a hill. The subway was close by, although it took an hour to get the main Olympic Centre west of town and that got kinda old. The hotel was fine, but there was an awesome coffee shop on the ground floor with wonderful cappucino, and I met a guy from down around Chatham, as I recall, who was a Sydney cop. He and and his wife had a small baby and we chatted most mornings. One night they put me up at the media village but in a room that had a bathroom and living room that was shared. I got up to use the washroom in the middle of the night and a woman from Sweden or Norway, maybe, spotted me and screamed that it was a women's only residence. I had to change rooms at 3 a.m. and, boy, wasn't that fun.

My wife was lucky enough to come along for part of the Sydney Games and got to attend a few events. But the one she remembers most, I think, is one she didn't actually go to. She was at the track stadium, as I recall, and was wearing some Canadian gear. She had chatted with the folks around her and they were teasing each other about Aussies and Canucks. The way I remember the story is a guy near her was listening to Daniel Nestor and his partner, Sebastien Lareau, go for the gold medal in tennis against the Woodies, an Australian doubles team. It was match point and the Canucks were about to win one of the few medals we managed to snatch in the Down Under Games. The guy with the radio in his ear took out his headphones and handed them to my wife and said, "Here, you listen; it's your gold medal."

Isn't that a nice story?

I grew weary of "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi." It seemed vaguely menacing when shouted out by barrel-chested young men with shaved heads, I gotta say. But I loved the Aussies, and I loved the beer and the food and Bondi beach and Dunk Island and the wineries of the Yarra Valley. And I was in tears when we visited the Ocean Road and I stood in the sun and watched the waves pound against the Twelve Apostles rock formations.

Salt Lake was, sorry, kinda boring. But they had a barbeque outside the media centre where you could get ribs, and the light beer was actually quite good. Athens was awesome as I snagged several of the reporters some accomodations a mere 50 metres from the main press centre. The guys who got those rooms still give me high fives for that one. The Athens people also had a Heineken bar on the roof, where we'd go every night and down a couple cold ones in the warm, Athens air. And there was a half-decent place across the road for outdoor dining; good squid and Greek salad (go figure). Even a halfway okay sushi place. I got to spend a day on the island of Hydra when it was all done; great spot for a day trip if you ever are in Athens and want to see one of the Greek islands but are short on time.

Turin wasn't bad. But it was warm-ish and dry and never quite felt like the Winter Games. Vancouver might have the same issue, I don't know. But at least on a good day you can see the mountains, and there's always the ocean views even if it's drizzly. Turin had terrible media breakfasts, I gotta say. Whole, homogenized milk was the only option for cereal so I had to add water to make it edible. And they had the same two cereal options every day; corn flakes and cocoa puffs. I swear to God; Cocoa Puffs. They also had a toaster that took about three minutes, and I'm not kidding, to make a piece of toast. I actually got in a fight with a guy who I thought was taking my piece of toast. Not proud of that but it's true. The breakfast was awful, but the cappuccino was, naturally, awesome and they had a great salad bar and risotto and great pizza and pasta. And I got to see Clara Hughes and Cindy Klassen win medals in speedskating; the first time I'd seen one of our athletes win a medal in person. Wonderful memory.

Beijing was great cuz it was, well, Beijing. I got to see the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and the Great Wall, where Randy Starkman bought a silly hat and Dave Perkins took a ride down a hill on a toboggan-like contraption and had a huge grin on his face all the way to the bottom. Fun stuff. I also got to see Michael Phelps win his record eighth medal and to see the opening (see photo at right) AND closing ceremonies and got to watch Usain Bolt win his magical 100 meter race. Talk about nailing the quad. That will be hard to top, as Vancouver's events are pretty spread out and it's unlikely I'll get out of the media centre enough to see anything live.

But just being there makes me the envy of all my friends, and it'll be a thrill to watch on TV and be out on the street soaking up the atmosphere. And maybe I'll get out to see part of a hockey game or another speed skating race.

Lots of great memories from the past five Olympics, for sure. And a boatload still to come.

I'll be writing a daily blog from out there, starting next Monday the 8th. So look for that. I'll try to throw in the odd travel news from around the world but more than likely it'll be all British Columbia and all Olympics all the time.

And I'll try to keep up with Twitter, where you can find me under the username jbyers11.

TRAVEL ALERTS WIDGET

Just in case you missed it, we here in Star Travel are thrilled to have travelalerts.ca as part of our website. There's a large "widget" on the right side of our home page, naturally www.thestar.com/travel, where you can find the travelalerts symbol and find help in booking flights, hotels and cars all over the world. You also can find great deals at www.travelalerts.ca, so be sure to check out both the widget and the travelalerts web site. And I'll try to keep giving you deals of the day when I'm not providing the rundown on Canada's Winter Olympic athletes.

Cheers,

Jim

Still pissed about scanners...Anyone for a "single-single" at Tim Hortons?

I thought I'd dealt with all the angry folks who hated my recent column in the Star (LINK) about scanners. I've apologized to a few folks for the "shut up" part of the headline, as it's not usually my style. But it got people's attention, and I haven't changed my mind about how folks who keep sending me emails and calling me a fascist and such are completely off-base.

But in the interests of fairness, I'm happy to let a few of them vent in this space. Mind you, because I'm the writer I get to add my own two cents worth, so there.

"I guess your (sic) another useless journalist telling the general public to do what were (sic) told instead of doing the job journalists use (sic) to do, give the public as much info as possible and not be cheerleaders," one fellow a little weak on English grammar wrote. He also said the U.S. State department has "come out and said they allow these potential terrorists to fly so they can watch them closer in the States and find  more terrorists by letting them do this."

In a similar vein, another person wrote to tell me I should know that Sept. 11 was an inside job. That sort of thing, I'm sorry, is absurd.I know there are a lot of conspiracy types out there, but, honestly, what are you people putting in your coffee?

I quite liked the letter from someone who said I must the type who just can't wait to get in line and do as I'm told. "I would bet $50 you used to be a school hall monitor." I wasn't. But it's a good line.

Another person wrote that increased security measures "are nothing more than a duck that's been born and bread (sic) to scare limp-wristed, chicken-neck yuppies into herding their children through naked body scanners." I resent that quite a bit: I don't have a chicken neck.

GETTING "HYPHY" AT TIM HORTONS

This is great. I got a hilarious press release from a New York City-based public relations firm that seeks to inform folks what to expect if they go to Vancouver for the Olympics next week, and isn't that a strange thought (next week, I mean).

There was the usual stuff about needing proof of citizenship and how there are a billion types of taxes in Canada. No problem there. There's also some stuff that kinda resembles some version of the truth, such as how it's a very active and healthy city and people should "be sure to wear your favourite yoga gear and you'll easily fit in with the locals." Probably true in West Van and Kitsilano. Not so much on East Hastings.

Anyway, the best part was under "colloquialisms," where I learned that washrooms for Canadians means restroom, that "Shred some POW" is to go snowboarding and that "hyphy" means wild/crazy. They also said "caj" is what Canadians would say for "cool." Um, maybe "caz" or "cas" for casual, but I wouldn't equate that with "cool."

My son lives in Vancouver and skis in Whistler and tells me "shred some pow" makes sense, of course, as short for "shred some powder," but says he's never heard anyone use the phrase. Nor has he heard the word "hyphy," which I can't even begin to figure out.

But I can definitely say that this one is completely new and caused howls of derisive laughter (to paraphrase Monty Python); apparently when going to Tim Hortons a person who wants a medium coffee with milk and sugar asks for a "single single." Double-double, sure. Triple-triple? Not unheard of. A repair guy at my house recently asked for four and four, which I kindly obliged despite nearly running out of my week's supply of sugar. But single single? I don't think so.

 

 

 

 

Asia takes over from North America...Vancouver hotels booked? Try Seattle...

I remember when Beijing won the right to stage the 2008 Summer Olympics, defeating Toronto (like, who hasn't done that, right?) and a few other cities. I came back from the International Olympic Committee meeting where the decision was made and told my accountant/financial adviser friend (he keeps track of all my pop and wine bottles) to keep an eye on China.

I knew they would go all out for the Olympics, as witnessed by the Birds Nest stadium shown in this nighttime photo I snapped the night of the closing ceremony, and sure enough the country has climbed rapidly up the world's financial ladder. Now comes word that demand for intra-Asia flights last year outstripped demand for flights within North America, and if that's not a sign of Asian kick-sand-in-your-face dominance I don't now what is.

The International Air Transport Association said there 647 million air travellersin the Intra-Asia market last year, according to today's Globe and Mail. That surpasses the 638 million in suddenly silver-medal North America.

"It is only the very beginning of the potential for this region," said/warned IATA director general Giovanni Bisignani.

2010 OLYMPIC HOUSING

I wrote last week about how Norwegian Cruise LInes was offering special rates of $275 U.S. per room per night for a cruise ship that was supposed to be docked in North Vancouver for the Olympics, which start a week from Friday if you can believe it. Now there's word that sales aren't what they had expected and costs are (surprise!) higher than expected, so the whole thing is up in the air.

It's a bit more of a commute than getting downtown from North Van, but the folks in charge of Marriott hotels in Seattle are trying to lure Games goers south of the border with a $104 per night "road to gold Olympic package" at a dozen of their Seattle properties. The deal is valid through Feb. 29 and includes accomodation (well, that makes sense), breakfast and a $25 gas voucher, which you'll need unless you plan to take the bus to Vancouver. Given road restrictions and all, the bus might make more sense.

There also are said to be rooms available in the far-flung suburbs of Vancouver, so don't despair if you don't have a place to sleep.I'll have a pullout sofa in my room downtown, or so I'm told. Wonder what I could get for it?

JIM'S DEALS OF THE DAY

$358 - Toronto to Santa Lucia, Cuba, 1 week all-inclusive vacation (early-bird sale)
http://www.travelalerts.ca/ccount12/click.php?id=2340

 

US$479 - Up to 75% off - 7 night 4.5* Bermuda Cruise from New York (US$669 w/tax)
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Up to 40% off - Book soon and save on sun vacations with Travelocity.ca
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STARWOOD DEALS TORONTO

Olympics not in your budget? Guests who book before Feb. 10 can get up to to 50 per cent off a stay at Starwood Hotels in Toronto. Rooms are as low as $89 per night and rooms are available at such spots at the Westin Harbour Castle, the Sheraton Centre Toronto (nice, new lobby by the way), The Sheraton Toronto Airport and Conference Centre and Le Meridien King Edward. Call 1-866-716-8101 and ask for rate code TOLTO.

MORE NAKED SCANNER NEWS

I mentioned a week or so ago that I found some of those "naked scanners" at Pearson here in Toronto. I read today that they're coming on stream now in the U.K.

A report on TravelMole today says the scanners "were introduced in London Heathrow and Manchester on Monday as a reaction to attempts by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up a plane on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit over Christmas. Birmingham will be next in line for the scanners and a roll-out to other UK airports will follow. Passengers who refuse to be scanned will not be allowed to fly.

The scanning has come under fire from opponents who say it is an erosion of privacy but Transport Secretary of State Lord Adonis told the House of Commons this week that the move is still under public consultation and there would be an interim code of practice which meant no pictures could be retained, the scanner could not see the scanned person and passengers could ask for same sex scanners."

Taking a short breather today...Jim's deals of the day

Getting ready for the Olympics in Vancouver/Whistler, so not much chance to update the blog today.

I was lucky enough to coordinate the Star's coverage at the Sydney Olympics back in 2000, and managed not to screw things up. So I got invited back for Salt Lake 2002, Athens 2004, Turin 2006 and Beijing in 2008. Which is good practice for the mother of all Games, the 2010 Winter Olympics on home wet (I'd say home ice but I'll be stationed in Vancouver).

Which is a long way of saying that I've only got a short item on offer and my deals of the day. But I'll get back at it later this week, and I'll be blogging from the left coast starting next Monday as we get ready for the big event.

WORK AND PLAY IN AUSTRALIA

Here's an interesting item for young folks - a working/holiday visa for Australia. Aussie tourism folks hope to convince Canadian university and college students to check out the land Down Under after spring graduation.

The Australian working holiday visa allows Canucks aged 18 to 30 to work and live in Australia for up to 1w months. They can pursue any job opprotunity they want (the Aussies mentioned bartending, working on a ranch in the outback or becoming a scuba diver instructor, but apparently you also could work in any number of other capacities) and also study for up to four months. Maybe sip a beer or three along the way, as well.

The visa also allows folks to enter and leave the country as they please, meaning you could take side trips to New Zealand or Vietnam or China or any other place on that side of the globe, your parent's credit card limits permitting, of course.

For information, go to www.australia.com/workandholiday.

JIM'S DEALS OF THE DAY

Save an extra 20% - Winter promo code with Fly Porter (last day to book!)
http://www.travelalerts.ca/ccount12/click.php?id=2330

 

WestJet Seat sale (ends soon)- Cheap flights to Canada, US, Mexico, and the Caribbean
http://www.travelalerts.ca/ccount12/click.php?id=2331