A couple of things..........

When I worked with her, she must have been 48 years old.  I was a hot 27 (or so old photos seem to indicate).  And she was a complete bitch.  I am talking about Sonja Bata, widow of Tom Bata and now the head of the Bata shoe empire -- a woman who is about to turn 90.  In a glowing piece in today's Globe and Mail, she is lauded from head to toe (no pun intended) for all her accomplishments, but in reality I found her to be a narcissistic snob.

I had to work with her when I ran the Vincent Massey Awards for Excellence in the Urban Environment and she was one of the judges.  The fact that she was jealous of me is proof of her bitchiness.  I mean, I can be a bitch when required, but I don't start out that way.  I give women the benefit of the doubt, but if they start acting like self-centred bitches, look out.  Otherwise, I enjoy working with women as much as with men.

So happy birthday, Sonja, but you won't be getting a card from me. 

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If you get The Globe, there is a grammar quiz on page F2 you should take.  Sylvia Stead, the paper's public editor, says that if you score five to 10, you should be proud of yourself.  Five out of 15 questions!  Ridiculous.  If you score any higher you are "a charter member of The Globe's good-grammar club."  I took it because couldn't not and scored 14 out of 15, according to how they marked.  The one I got "wrong" was about clichés.  The answer was to eliminate one, but I didn't because it was not grammatically incorrect.  So, I really got 15 out of 15 and I bet anyone educated in Canada in the fifties will also get every one right.  Try it. 

Stead ends her introduction with this:  "Under five?  Don't despair, just blame the education system."  It is unbelievable that this editor gets that closing sentence wrong.  It's "educational", you idiot.  And this is a women who actually gets paid.  G-d help us.