Eat, drink, and be wary
Food critics are struggling to protect their anonymity from an onslaught of cunning restaurateurs trying to unmask and tempt them.
By Nicole Clark As my manager strides toward me, I sense urgency in his step. It is just before dinner service and I am standing in front of a large computer, matching diners’ reservations to their preferred tables for the evening. When he reaches the host stand, he tells me to look into the reservation of […]
Hot but bothered
Canadians are as kinky as anybody. So why is sex coverage here so damned boring?
By Kate Hefford “This is a good brand,” says sex blogger Erika Szabo, motioning toward a pair of $50 underwear. They’re silky smooth, dusty blue boxer briefs with an exaggerated bulge. We glance over electrosex gear, sex toys that apply electric stimulation to the genitals. We’re in Priape, a sex shop and gay haven in Toronto’s […]
A dull read
Sharp's John McGouran and Michael La Fave say they want to produce a magazine of GQ and Esquire quality, but is it really more than a catalogue of pricey boy toys?
By Karizza Sanchez It’s the September launch party for Sharp magazine’s Book for Men, a hardcover offshoot filled with glossy images of luxurious cars, men’s fashion, and exotic destinations. The ballroom at the new Shangri-La Hotel in downtown Toronto is crowded, lit with purple lights, and filled with loud music playing—a little reminiscent of a nightclub. The male guests […]
Willfully blind
A closer look at the Margaret Wente plagiarism scandal and what it says about The Globe and Mail's institutional arrogance.
By Brittany Devenyi, Gianluca Inglesi, and Rhiannon Russell The morning of Monday, September 17, 2012, reader Carol Wainio sent a 2,135-word email to Globe and Mail editor-in-chief John Stackhouse. It detailed multiple instances in a 2009 column by Margaret Wente, “Enviro-romanticism Is Hurting Africa,” of what Wainio called “very significant overlap” with stories from sources as disparate as Food Chemical News and The […]
Feeding frenzy
How a new generation of food writers is taking a bite out of the high-dining critics and Yelp-loving bloggers to change the flavour of restaurant reviewing.
By Erica Scime Sitting at a table in Bua Thai, a small, dimly lit restaurant nestled in among a run-down pharmacy, a breakfast place with a broken sign, and a nearly empty grocery store on The Queensway in Toronto, Andrew Widla, 27, recently had what he calls some of the best pad thai in the city. […]
When readers attack
Why are online comments so extremely loud and incredibly verbose, and what can be done about it?
By Davida Ander “What’s your problem?” “Isn’t it obvious? He’s an unemployed welfare bum.” “Grow up.” “Once you are done you may fornicate yourself.” “You just antagonize people to get people to react, dude. It’s what you do! You have serious issues!” “I win every time due to your lack of brains, slightly amusing on […]
#IdleNoMore
Our reporter's 53-day notebook of how journalists covered the biggest transnational Aboriginal movement this country has ever seen.
By Rhiannon Russell Waubgeshig Rice pulls his van over and darts onto the street, video camera hoisted on his shoulder. Dressed in a CBC/Radio-Canada coat and heavy-duty boots, he’s covering the second national day of action for Idle No More, an indigenous rights movement. It’s a miserable day for a protest: below zero, snow swirling in […]
Endangered species
In an era when the Toronto Sun misspells "Correction" in a correction column, is there any hope for a revival of good copyediting?
By Gin Sexsmith It’s 1972, and the scent of cigarette smoke and stewed coffee acts as a backdrop to the clack clack ching of manual typewriters inThe Globe and Mailnewsroom. Men’s voices fill the room—asking questions, bouncing ideas off one another, laughing at crude jokes. About 15 men in ties and white shirts are seated around a large, […]
Voices in the Void
By Natalie D’Amico Over 4,000 Latin Americans risked deportation last year—some back to lives of violence and poverty in the crossfires of guerrilla and drug war. And this number could increase since Ottawa applied stricter regulations for immigrants claiming refugee status in February. The search for a new home leaves most newcomers with few possessions, resources, […]
Tart and soul
How the left-leaning, scotch-drinking, bullshit-detecting, high-school-dropping, joke-Googling, single-mom-ing, storytelling, serial tweeting, cheese-puff-cooking Tabatha Southey became one of our leading political humourists.
By Loren Hendin Tabatha Southey hadn’t expected to hear anything back. She’d sent three children’s stories to a publisher, but, six months later, nothing. Oh, well, she’d sent them only at the urging of a friend anyway. She had been driving with writer and editor Jane L. Thompson, two toddlers, and a baby buckled up in […]
