The South Bayview Bulldog

Aslan

As part of its 125th anniversary celebrations, St. Cuthberts Anglican Church will host a concert next Sunday, December 13, 2015. It will feature the Aslan Boys Choir (Thomas Bell Artistic Director) with the Canadian Men’s Chorus as additional guests.  The concert will feature Aslan readings and Carols. Aslan is the main character of C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia series. He is “the great Lion” of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and his role in Narnia is developed in remaining books by the author. He is also the only character to appear in all seven books of the series. Aslan is Turkish for “lion”. Lewis often capitalizes the word lion in reference to Aslan, since, at least partially, he represents Christ.  The concert is at 4 p.m. December 13 and tickets may be had at the door or by phone for $15 and $5 for children. (416) 859-7464. (with Wikipedia)

Happy motoring

Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca has a creepy way announcing things. Today he tweeted a video in which his caricature is seen as a bobble head racing back and forth across a background that says HOT Lanes (inset). It is his way of saying that tomorrow he will give details on high occupancy toll lanes for Ontario highways and roads. There has been talk of letting well-heeled drivers with zero passengers buy into the HOT concept. The idea is instinctively unpopular. An online poll on the CP24 website shows 75 percent of respondents give it a thumbs down. It is a safe guess that we would never had heard of HOT lanes if the provincial debt were not nearing $300 billion, the highest per capita of any non-sovereign jurisdiction in the world, including cash-strapped California  Happy motoring. Jonathon Goldsbie  

Allen Gardens opened its annual floral display today. There are as many as 40 types of poinsettia to be seen and many other exotic plants. It runs daily until January 10, 2016. A popular feature today was the wagon ride around the park at Carlton and Sherbourne Sts.

Intense skiing meets airbag body suit.

We say cut Arda Zakarian a little slack as the poor CP24 warrior is thrown into her early Sunday assignment of covering the sale of the Nike Airmax “The 6” shoe. It is said to be inspired by Toronto. (Unlimber the baloney meter please). Anyway, the woman had to find her excited shoe subject and interview him. The exchange went like this.

Arda: Is it okay if we ask you what it’s like to hold the shoe right now?

Shoe guy: It’s like I’m adding another shoe to my collection. That’s pretty much it. It’s like a hobby.

Arda: Are you going to wear these shoes?

Shoe guy: Probably at least once.

What else? Apparently some people stood outside all night at Livestock for this. Hey that’s news.

The forecast of a warmer winter hasn’t changed the festive feeling along Bessborough Drive where these wonderful trees reveal the smaller and larger challenges of decoraitng with lights. The three familiar light blue trees are in front of No.148 and the handsome giant fir with lights is the work of artists at No. 146. Good work all. This said, we’re not sure how much snow will fall on these trees this year. For Canadians living in southern Ontario to Atlantic Canada there is an El Nino effect in play which may make it considerably milder than the past two winters.

Bayview Ave was busy this Saturday and many shoppers used the holiday free valet parking and enjoyed it.

Santa and his reindeer were on hand as the Mt. Pleasant Village BIA had a great day for the Santa’s Village event. Many people tweeted at #MPVSantasVillage.

Barbara Hall

As reported by the CBC  and others, that old bugaboo the  Culture of Fear is back to explain what’s wrong at the Toronto and District School. There are surely more accurate and complete ways to describe what is wrong at the TDSB. Who was there? What were they doing? But the report, authored by the Premier’s political pal Barbara Hall, doesn’t make public what went on at the board. Did trustees act like they owned the board? Did Donna Quan carry a gun? Did she need one?  This effort should be called a Fear of Facts. As is frequently the case with such politically-inspired reports, the government doesn’t really want to say much except that it has things in hand.

Early Saturday afternoon saw things pretty much at  a snail’s pace on Jarvis Street north of Shuter St. as workmen lifted what appeared to a huge air conditioning platform onto the roof of a new building. Traffic north was squeezed into a single lane furthest away from the suspended load while southbound vehicles were detoured west at Dundas.

A Friday morning collapse of a concrete block wall during demolition of the Art Shoppe caused a few minutes of distress and happily, missed hurting a pedestrian. We posted an earlier flash on this story from Councilor Matlow. Now this picture has emerged on Twitter thanks to Melissa Goldstein @erraticheretic (nice handle). Steve Diguer ‏@stevediguer tweeted “Whoa! This could have killed someone.” Other similar reactions are at any search of Art Shoppe.