As everyone knows, the Communist bigwigs in Beijing have censored the Internet so that there’s no dangerous discussion about bad things like, oh you know, democracy and stuff like that. The politburo bosses got a rude surprise recently when the Clubhouse app briefly blew away those restrictions.

Infamous Edmonton bonspiel was a C-19 spreader among doctors

The physicians’ curling meet last March in Edmonton that resulted in 54 cases of Covid-19 is now the subject of a study by one of the doctors who caught the bug. His study shows that the virus was communicated not on the ice but at receptions and dinners after the curling. Not so surprising.

I am not a cat!

How embarrassing for Texas lawyer Rod Ponton when he appeared before a local judge on Zoom in the form of a kitten.

Tom Brown, CTV Toronto

Anwar Knight, CTV Toronto

Kym Geddes, News Director, CFRB

Last week’s national layoffs at Bell Media hit a scale seldom seen in the radio and television business. They seem to indicate a sense of crisis at Bell as the world increasingly turns away from broadcasting to streaming. The change has been underway for a while but few people would have predicted the end of the weather on CTV News. In Toronto, Tom Brown and Anwar Knight were both laid off. The dismissal of CFRB news director Kym Geddes seems like a prophetic statement. The bloodbath in radio has seen news departments replaced with the audio of CTV News. Here is a summary collected from many sources by media scribbler Steve Faguy.

Bell Media’s mass layoff campaign, which began Monday (Feb 1) in Montreal, continued Tuesday and Wednesday with layoffs at various Toronto operations, hitting Newstalk 1010 (CFRB), and cuts in other markets across the country.

Social media was active with people announcing they had suddenly become free agents, and others wondering who else was about to announce the bad news. Though more than a dozen came forward, that’s a mere fraction of the more than 210 who are to lose their jobs this week.

Like its sister station in Montreal (CJAD), Newstalk 1010 gutted its newsroom, as its newscast has been replaced by CTV News branding and reporters. It also cancelled its weekday evening program — The Night Side with Barb DiGiulio — and will run more repurposed programming in its place.

Its schedule shows it will rebroadcast CTV News Toronto daily at 6 p.m. and a rerun of the Evan Solomon Show at 10 p.m. weekdays. Jamil Jivani fills the 7-10 p.m. slot.

Weekend host and Toronto broadcasting legend Ted Woloshyn was also let go. Among those 1010 staff confirming their departures on social media were news director Kym Geddes, reporters Hayley Cooper, Lucas Meyer and anchor Claude Feig.

Bell won’t confirm which jobs or employees it is cutting, so we must rely on self-reporting to find out who has been told their services are no longer required.

Others across Bell Media to announce they had been laid off:

• Rick Henriques, communications coordinator
• Robin Johnston, director original production, factual and reality
• Dahlia Kurtz, weekend morning show host at CFRA 580 Ottawa
• Steve McCann, managing writer at Your Morning
• Ivy Mak and Glynn Perkins, CTV Toronto assignment editors
• Brent Wallace, TSN Ottawa reporter
• Playback reported Tom Hastings, director of original programming, drama, had been let go
• Toronto Mike reports weather anchors Tom Brown and Anwar Knight were cut
• A number of sales people and affiliate reps for Bell specialty services were also eliminated.
• Update since first posting: TSN anchors Dan O’Toole and Natasha Staniszewski have been let go.
• Update #2: The Windsor Star reports Steve Bell has been let go from CKLW Windsor after 40 years with the station
• Update #3: The Niagara Falls Review reports two producers with 610 CKTB along with veteran reporter
• Noelle Sinclair have lost their jobs.
• Update #4: BNN anchor Catherine Murray.
• Lynzee Barnett, host of London’s Pure Country
• Cash Connors, morning host at Kitchener-Waterloo’s Virgin Radio

Mary Wilson of The Supremes has died suddenly at her home in Henderson, Nevada, at the age of 76. She is survived by her daughter, son, several grandchildren, a sister and a brother.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were decisive victors over the Kansas City Chiefs Sunday. The score was 31 to 9. The Puppy Bowl (number 17) was hard-fought but ended in an inconclusive dogfight.

Dixon Rd aftermath Friday

Gives new meaning to Garbage Day

Couple more here

Will it survive to fly again?

Here are a few aftermath pictures from the flying garbage truck incident on Dixon Rd in Etobicoke Friday morning. Watch the video in an earlier post here.

Auston Matthews has extended his goal-scoring run to seven consecutive games as the Leafs defeated the Canucks 5-1 at Scotiabank Arena Saturday night. There were of course no patrons in the otherwise vacant hall and we note that many rinkside blue seats were covered with advertising. Talk about making the best of a bad situation.

Monday, February 15 at 3 p.m.

Sharon Hampson and daughter Randi

Josh Matlow (Ward 12) will provide a Facebook broadcast of the Family Day storytime from Mabel’s Fables children’s bookstore at Mt. Pleasant Rd and Hillsdale Ave. The event is set for 3 p.m. Monday, February 15 on Mr. Matlow’s page. Several authors will tell stories and the recent mother-and-daughter pairing of Sharon and Randi Hampson will perform the favorite Skinnamarink (Dinky Dink). Should be fun.

Toronto Police have announced Saturday that there is no longer any concern that a young girl was being lured by a person who apparently spoke to her outside her home Wednesday near Neilson Road and Ellesmere Road. They say investigators reviewed video, interviewed witnesses and spoke to the person of interest. The investigation has been closed. Fears were raised Friday on an earlier report.

Madame Bette-Joan Rac

Alexei Morita

Dr Alex Bastiany

Faces, faces and we’ve found pictures of some appealing Canadians who are happily unmasked in this time of mandatory cover-ups. At left is the late Madame Bette-Joan Rac. The much-loved Edmonton piano and music teacher has made headlines for the treasures and vintage fashion found in her Edmonton home. Fascinating. At centre, let’s hope happy rollerblade kid Alexei Morita, 21, is careful as he blasts through vacant halls at the Eaton Centre. Finally, the exceptional woman at the right is Alex Bastiany MD. She is the first black woman to graduate in Canada as an interventional cardiologist. Listen to how gracefully she carries this distinction. Well done, doctor.

Christopher Plummer, the Toronto actor who played Captain Von Trapp in the 1965 movie The Sound of Music, has died at the age of 91. Plummer was a veteran of stage and screen, portraying characters like Shakespeare’s King Lear at the Stratford Festival and starring in independent films like 2012’s Beginners, which won him an Academy Award at age 82. Plummer died early Friday at his home in Connecticut with his wife of 53 years, Elaine Taylor, by his side. Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer was born on December 13, 1929, the only child of John Orme Plummer, who sold stocks and securities, and his wife Isabella Mary (née Abbott), who worked as secretary to the Dean of Sciences at McGill University. Plummer’s parents divorced shortly after his birth, and he was brought up mainly by his mother in the Abbott family home in Senneville, Quebec, outside Montreal. He spoke English and French fluently. As a schoolboy, he began studying to be a concert pianist, but developed a love for theatre at an early age, and began acting while he was attending the High School of Montreal.

Super snacking for Super Bowl 55

Dog in the Hood from Leslieville’s Colin Mcconnell

Slated to close in days

Just a girl at Rebel House on Yonge St.

Provincial Women’s Hockey salute to National Girls and Women in Sports Day

It’s always good to make the best of a bad situation and if you wouldn’t know the Kansas City Chiefs from Ketchup, try the chocolate cupcakes in the form of a football. It’s $15 at Longo’s. The game begins at 6.30 Eastern on Sunday but you can start eating the football earlier. Down the right side of this local gallery is a cute-beyond-belief puppy snapped by Leslieville’s Colin Mcconnell. Below that is the long-time Starbucks in the historic old Davisville post office building at Yonge St. and Davisville Ave. It’s set to join many other Toronto green mermaids closing up shop soon. Lower left is an innovative invitation to do business by the Rebel House bar and restaurant on Yonge St at Roxborough Ave. Her sign reads “I’m just a girl standing in front of the Rebel House asking you to order takeout.” Lastly, we just love this all-ages salute posted by the Leaside Wildcats hockey club. It was taken by the Provincial Women’s Hockey League Players Association to mark National Girls and Women in Sports Day.