I would have liked to explore London a bit, but I got an email announcing that we had tickets to go to the taping of The Hour on CBC. If you don’t know, this is Canada’s only late-night talk show. George Stroumboulopoulos has interviewed so many famous people and Bono called him the best interviewer.
We got into Toronto and wandered the CBC buiding. There was a little museum where I found out that Mr. Rogers, Mr. Dressup and The Friendly Giant were all recruited to TV by a CBC producer. Then, since no kids were allowed at the taping, I went in alone.
I was dressed in a mix of this and that – whatever cold-weather clothes I could gather that weren’t in the laundry already, so I wondered about my decision to go on TV! I got a seat where I could almost reach out and touch George’s chair. The studio had huge medieval doors. It all felt a bit surreal.
The guest of the day was Chubby Checker and it was interesting to hear him speak. He can’t be young, but he still has a real spark in his eyes. He says he wanted to be a star since he was four years old. He’s just glad it came true. He also says all the dances that exist today are based on his four basic movements: the twist, the pony, and I forget the names of the other two (but one is similar to the Jackson crotch grab. He says dancing has always been about exploring sexuality and that doesn’t really change either.
George gave Stephen Harper a hard time for shutting down parliament for so long. At the end of the show, I got someone to take my picture.
Then we met our friend Chandra and ate some great Thai food before crashing at her place. Thanks, Chandra! And if you want to watch The Hour and see the back of my head, I’m wearing a blue shirt and sitting right behind George and you can watch Wednesday’s episode on CBC’s website.