The colourful history of Saint Pierre and Miquelon

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and French President Emmanual Macron had a meeting the other day. It took place, not in Paris, not in Montreal, not even in New York, where they will both be in just a few days time for a UN General Assembly meeting, but in Saint Pierre and Miquelon.

Saint Pierre and Miquelon (Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon in French) is a self-governing territory of France, home to some 6,000 French citizens. But it's nowhere near France; it's a tiny archipelago of islands, just 20km off the coast of the Burin Peninsula in southern Newfoundland (so, not even anywhere near Quebec). It's a weird anomaly: part of the European Union, but not part of the Schengen area or the European customs territory. It's currency is the euro, but it's also part of the Atlantic Canada Cooperation Commission.

How did such a thing arise? Well, the history of Saint Pierre Poilievre and Miquelon is as checkered and singular as it's current status. Originally inhabited by the indigenous Beothuk like the rest of Newfoundland, it was first claimed by Portuguese explorers in 1520, then by the French explorer Jacques Cartier in 1536. But it was not permanently settled (and named) by Europeans until 1670, at which time 12 French fishermen lived there. By the early 18th century French colonists had abandoned the islands completely, and they were ceded to Britain as part of the 1813 Treaty of Utrecht.

After the Seven year War and the 1763 Treaty of Paris, all of New France was ceded to Britain and Spain, but Saint Pierre and Miquelon, for some reason, went the other way and was ceded to France. In 1778, after France joined the American Revolutionary War against Britain,  French settlements on the islands were burned by the British, and the few French settlers there deported back to France. A British colony was established in 1793, but this was in turn burned by French forces in 1796. The islands were brought back under French control with the 1802 Treaty of Amiens, but retaken by Britain just a year later. They were returned yet again to France in 1815 under the Treaty of Paris, and gradually resettled by Breton, Norman and Basque settlers.

During American Prohibition in the 1920s, Saint Pierre and Miquelon became an important part of the smuggling network of alcohol from Canada to the United States, but it was plunged into economic depression once again after Prohibition ended in 1933. It was briefly under the control of the pro-Nazi Vichy regime, before being liberated by the Free French forces in 1941. The colony officially became a French Overseas Territory in 1946, after the Second World War, and finally acquired the status of "territorial collectivity" in 1985.

All this to-ing and fro-ing over a few tiny, bare, rocky islands, boasting just a thin layer of peat in places to soften the unforgiving landscape, and a harsh subpolar oceanic climate! The islands today are heavily subsidized by France, and the only real industry is fishing (and the filming of the CBC police procedural television series Saint Pierre!) It is hoped to develop its nascent tourist industry, and the islands' colourful history may yet become one of its greatest assets.

What carnivore diet devotees get wrong

I've been vegetarian for about forty-five years, as has my wife, for a bunch of different reasons, and it doesn't seem to have done us much harm. Vegetarianism and veganism weren't common practices back in the '80s, but they are much more mainstream and accepted now. 

That said, the trendy diet du jour is still the carnivore, Paleo or "caveman" diet. It's particularly popular with men, especially middle-aged men, who see it as connected to traditional ideas of physical strength and ruggedness. This is best personified by the American influencer and internet personality Brian Johnson, aka the Liver King. Now, Johnson has since been outed, and his physique turns out to have been mainly created by anabolic steroid use, not consumption of raw meat and internal organs. But the idea of the meat-based "ancestral diet" persists.

Turns out, though, the whole caveman premise is also largely spurious. 

Animal bones and stone tools obviously survive over time while plant matter decomposes quickly. So, the traditional fossil record gives a skewed impression of the Paleolithic diet, "biased towards the hunting record". Modern archaeology, on the other hand, makes use of isotope analysis of nitrogen, carbon, zinc and sulphur, and analysis of dental enamel, bone collagen and plant remains, as well as DNA analysis of food particles left on ancient teeth.

This more modern archaeological analysis shows that Paleolithic humans were more gatherers than hunters, relying more on plant foods like acorns, fruits, oats and nuts, supplement by occasional meat. Plus, there was no single Paleolithic diet: different populations obviously ate what was available to them.

This is backed up by more recent ethnographic evidence from modern hunter-gatherer populations, which mainly eatnplant foods (a much more reliable and more easily acquired source than meat). The closest thing to a carnivorous diet is that of the Inuit of the Arctic, who have no choice but to rely on a diet largely bereft of plants (although even they eat whatever plant foods they can, from lichen to berries). The Inuit, though, have undergone genetic adaptations over the millennia to cope with this excessively meat-based diet, which would be very unhealthy for other humans.

Modern would-be paleoliths are not even eating the same foods as their ancestral models, and typically don't consume brains, internal organs, bone marrow, etc. Human bodies are now genetically adapted to eating modern foods, which generally means an agricultural diet, including dairy. We have more amylase enzymes and have evolved to be able to digest dairy products throughout adulthood (although this varies from population to population), and are better suited to a higher starch diet than our ancient forebears.

So, attempting to "revert" to some semi-mythical Stone Age diet might not be the best for our modern biologies. Cutting out entire food groups is never going to be a good solution, and the ancestral diet was actually incredibly diverse and varied, high in plant fibre, and included many more types of microbes than we typically ingest today. And, anyway, just because our ancestors did something, doesn't mean that's what they WANTED to do; they would probably have loved the reliable access and varied foods we have today.

Hunger stones in Germany

As Europe deals with unprecedented heat and drought conditions, you've probably read about relics of bygone ages surfacing as the levels of major rivers continue to recede: shipwrecks, unexploded WWII bombs, mammoth remains, even, most recently, a Roman bridge.

The other thing that is starting to be revealed are so-called "hunger stones" ("Hungersteine" in German). These are messages carved onto stones on rivers' edges during past droughts that usually remain hidden from sight, but are now starting to show

This one in the River Elbe in Germany is particularly poignant: it reads "Wenn du mich siehst, dann weine", translated as "If you see me, weep".

Child who caused Porter flight to be cancelled maybe not at fault

You will by now have probably heard or read the story of the Porter flight out of Victoria, BC, which was cancelled late at night after staff and parent were not able to get a young child to sit in his seat and buckle up his seatbelt. The child and parent eventually had to leave the plane, by which time it was too late for the plane to take off, and all the other passengers also had to disembark.

There have been mixed reactions to the incident, some (most) severely critical of the child and parent, some more empathetic. This eye-witness report, for example, makes.it clear that the child was clearly terrified, not just a spoiled brat having a temper tantrum.

I actually tried to find some video footage of the incident - you'd think, in this day and age, that someone would have been assiduously filming the whole thing. But all I could find was a very short clip, showing staff calmly (and obviously unsuccessfully) reasomong with the child.

My first reaction on reading about it was along the outraged "spoiled brat" lines. But, on reflection, I think the staff and parent probably did what they could, and the traumatized child probably could not help himself.

Canadians are surprisingly cosmopolitan

Visual Capitalist does it again: produces a striking and unexpected graph, this time of the extent to which the inhabitants of different countries travel abroad.

Not unexpected: Sweden, Netherlands and Germany top the list, with 99/96% reporting having travelled abroad, with the UK not far behind at 94%. 

More unexpected: Canada comes next, with 92% reporting having travelled abroad (although most to the USA, I'm guessing). This is more than the French (90%), Australians (88%), Italians (86%), and Spaniards (84%), and significantly more than the Americans (76%) and the Japanese (65%). 

Ha! How cosmopolitan we are!

The most, and least, liked countries in the world

Liking is a very subjective thing, especially when it comes to something as amorphous as a country. But the Democracy Perception Index does its best to quantify it, and Visual Capitalist does its usual excellent job of displaying its results.

It's edifying to see that Canada and Switzerland are jointly at the top of this list, closely followed by Japan, Sweden, Italy and Norway.

The lowest perceptions? You guessed it: Israel, followed by North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran and then ... Land of the Free, Leader of the Free World, the good old US of A. The US is the only major Western democracy with a negative net perception score. Go figure!

You can see why senior assassin raises hackles

If you have kids of a certain age, or if you are at least moderately well-informed in general, you will probably have heard of a popular kids' game called "senior assassin".

I don't know who came up with the name but, thankfully, it doesn't actually involve killing old people. (At least not yet.) It is, however, becoming more than a little controversial. Many kids love it, of course. Many PARENTS love it too, as it gets their kids outside and off their screens. Some parents, though, dislike it. Police and school officials typically HATE it.

Senior assassin is essentially a game of tag with over-sized Nerf-style water pistols. 12th-graders in particular are using it as a kind of rite of passage, marking the end of their schooldays/childhoods, and their passage into the big bad grown-up world (or at least college/university). 

The idea of the game is that they attempt to catch their assigned target with their neon-coloured plastic water guns, eliminating their quarry while avoiding being eliminated themselves. The twist is: no-one knows who is targeting whom, and the assignments are constantly changing as players are eliminated; dedicated apps are used to organize and track the game. There are safe zones, and, bizarrely, you can claim immunity by wearing swim goggles. At the end of the week, the last person standing is the "winner", for what that's worth.

Well, so far so good, I guess. There are some general behaviour rules: be respectful; no trespassing; no chasing people in cars; and no realistic-looking guns. But, of course, kids will be kids, and some of them like to push the rules to the logical limit, and often well beyond. 

There has been a string of unfortunate incidents around the game, including a teen in Guelph, Ontario, who was arrested at gunpoint by police last year when his water gun was mistaken for a real firearm, and a viral video of a homeless person in Kenora, Ontario, being targeted from a car. So much for the rules. In Winnipeg, Manitoba, just this week, a senior assassin player got caught up in a police chase of real gun criminals.

Some schools not only discourage senior assassin but actively ban it, arguing that it is disruptive and potentially dangerous. Some police departments have warned against it too, especially given the very real fears some people in some areas have about gun violence.

Now, I'm all for kids playing outside as the weather warms up. But does it have to involve shooting, whether pretend or not? And does it have to be so feverish, intense and viral?

Should I be concerned that Canada's happiness is slipping?

There's a World Happiness Report published every year - I've mentioned it from time to time in this blog: it seems like an interesting idea, a fun but functional concept.

This year, as always, Finland is top of the list, followed by all the other Scandinavian and near-Scandinavian countries (and, interestingly, Costa Rica). This year's Index has generated more attention that usual here in Canada, though, because Canada has fallen precipitously from 6th to 25th.

Scandal! Horrors!

Why Canada's happiness rating has fallen more than almost any other country is unclear. Social media, weakened family ties, a crumbling welfare state, and several other factors have all been mooted. But other countries are also living under the threat of  tariffs, dire climate change, even existential violation. Other countries use social media at least as much as we do. Why are Canadians more upset about everything than the denizens of other countries?

Actually, that's not the point of my entry.

What I found out this year is that the Global Happiness Index is actually based on a sample population's response to just a single "life evaluation" question. So, people are self-reporting how they feel at a particular point time, which doesn't sound very scientific somehow. Maybe the Canadians were sampled on the day Trump imposed tariffs on Canadian steel and car exports, or the day Trump reiterated his threat to make us the 51st US state? Maybe the Finns are the most delusional people, not actually the happiest? (Finland used to have the highest suicide rate in the world and, although it has improved that statistic impressively in recent years, its suicide rate is still worse than average. How happy can they really be?) And anyway, what happened to Bhutan, the self-styled "kingdom of happiness", with its famous Gross National Happiness metric? It's not on the list at all!

So, should I be concerned about the mental state of Canadians? Well, maybe, although perhaps 25th out of 147 is not all that bad. But surely we can do a better job of measuring happiness than a simplistic question.

Our ethical decisions may depend on the language they are couched in

Here's an interesting thing. You've probably heard of what's usually referred to as the "trolley problem" of ethics and philosophy. So, people have to decide whether to sacrifice one person in order to save five others who are about to be killed by a hypothetical runaway trolley bus (or tram, or train). There are various formulations and variations, like what if it was a fat person or an old person, or what if you had to actually push a person off a bridge in order to save the five rather than just pull a track switch. 

Generally speaking, a sizeable majority think that it is morally permissible to make the utilitarian choice and pull the lever to save the five at the cost of the one. However, much fewer people would push someone off the bridge to save the five, reflecting the increased "emotional resonance" of such an action. 

More recent studies, though, have looked at what difference the language in which the problem is posed makes to people's moral decision-making. The problem was put to people who spoke more than one language, both in their native language and in their second language. By a substantial margin, more people chose to pull the switch to kill the one person in order to save the five if the problem was put to them in their second language, rather than in their native language. The difference was even starker for the more emotive problem of having to push someone off a bridge rather than just pull a rail switch at a distance. Furthermore, the poorer people's mastery of the second language, the more marked the effect.

This suggests that a native language holds much more emotional resonance, while a second language maintains more psychological distance for most people. This makes some intuitive sense, I guess, but it's interesting to see it demonstrated in quite such a stark manner.

You can't buy veggie chicken in Europe any more

The EU comes in for a lot of stick from a lot of folks and for various different reasons. But, for all that, it remains one of the most sensible and civilized blocs in today's world. Yes, it has its problems (Hungary, anyone?) but, for the most part, it does a good job of providing a voice of sobriety and reason in today's increasingly weird and dysfunctional global politics.

Occasionally, though, it missteps. One such misstep is the latest policy decision to ban the use of words like "chicken", "bacon" and "steak" by vegetarian and vegan food producers, even if it is clearly qualified on the label as being vegetarian or vegan. Mysteriously, words like "burger", "nuggets" and "sausage" ARE still allowed, because ... well, I'm really not sure why. Where they stand on the use of "chick'un", "chick'n", etc, I'm also not sure. Incidentally, this ruling also applies to the UK, which - also mysteriously - is still subject to such EU commercial edicts.

Now, it seems pretty unlikely to me that anyone has ever picked up a pack of veggie bacon in a supermarket and been traumatized to find that it contains absolutely no dead animal. The "veggie" part is usually front and centre of their packaging and advertising - it's a positive selling point, after all. (A British survey suggests that 92% of shoppers say they have NEVER mistaken "fake" meat for the "real thing".)

Either way, I think the EU overstepped their brief on this this one. Do they really have nothing better to discuss at the moment, like maybe global security, recession-spawning tariffs, existential changes in the climate?

Why is chocolate STILL so expensive?

It seems like just a few months ago that everyone was kvetching about the record prices of cocoa and chocolate, and now a slump in prices has left warehouses in major producers  Ivory Coast and Ghana full of unsold and mouldering bags of cocoa beans.

Cocoa prices reached historical highs of $12,000 per tonne at the end of 2024, almost doubling during the year and raising Christmas chocolate prices to unheard-of heights. This was due, we were told, to diseased trees in West Africa, adverse dry weather conditions (and, of course, speculation). Demand fell precipitously as prices peaked, and the industry was in panic mode.

Now, we are told that prices have slumped to below $5,000 per tonne in early 2026. African cooperatives can't sell their stocks, partly due to falling demand, because the prices were so high just recently(!), but partly due to excessive supply, because the weather has improved, because the effects of swollen shoot virus are passing, and because of the explosion of Ecuador as a chocolate producer. Ecuador is now the No. 2 producer of cocoa globally. It has high-quality cacao varieties, sustainable and relatively equitable agricultural practices, and high yields, and it is rapidly leaving West Africa in the dust.

However, don't expect the price of your favourite chocolate bar to come down any time soon. Demand is on the increase again, particularly in Asia and the EU, and particularly for premium products - ethical, fair-trade, traceable, organic, low-sugar, etc - and that in itself would be enough to keep prices high. But also commercial chocolate-makers have long lead times and buy through long-term contracts, so their costs may still be relatively high. Furthermore, as they watch world prices slew around wildly, they will charge a premium for that uncertainty.

And anyway, the likes of Hershey, Mondelez and Mars are not charities, and if it looks like consumers are content to pay the higher prices, then those prices are not going to come down, ever. Super-premium brands like Lindt and Ferrero Rocher didn't really increase their already-high prices when cocoa prices went up, and by the same token they will not be reducing them now.

In fact, when was the last time you noticed the price of ANYTHING going down? That's not the way the world works.

Oh, how dating has changed!

Thankfully, it's been 40-odd years since I've had to anything that might be described as "dating". I'm not sure I could bring myself to enter into the modern way of doing it (i.e. using an online app).

I was a bit taken aback, though, at an article about how many women are approaching the process these days. Maybe this is sixth-wave feminism or something (is that where we are?), but it doesn't sound particularly healthy to me.

Apparently, many women, especially financially-independent women, now expect men to pick up the tab on the first, and even subsequent, dates. Gone are the days when women wanted to be seen as equal by paying, or at least splitting, the bill. (Other research suggests that 45% of Canadians expect the bill to be split evenly, with 24% expecting the man to pay, and another 24% saying it should be whoever initiates the date.)

This is nothing to do with traditional values and deferring to the stronger, wealthier sex, or anything like that. This is a purely transactional approach about seeing "what they're bringing to the table in a potential relationship". More specifically, these women argue that there is still a "gender wage gap" where men typically earn more than women and should therefore contribute more to a relationship, and there is still a "beauty tax" where women are expected to pay more to meet societal standards of beauty. They may (or may not) pay on a second or third date to "signal my interest back to him".

Wow. Now, call me old-fashioned, but personally, I'm not particularly sure I'd wanted to be dating a women who thinks that way. I'm not really interested in a woman who feels she has to meet societal standards of beauty, and wants to be subsidized for it. It seems like a very cold and calculating approach to something that should be warm and fuzzy.

However, the article does go on to question why such an attitude has come about, and the answer is probably dating apps. The ease and availability (and also the transactional nature) of app dating has led to a sea change in attitudes, compared to the happy-go-lucky approach of my day, where you just happened on someone in a pub or a party, or you trailed after someone for months on end like a love-sick puppy.

Frankly, it doesn't really surprise me that studies show that fewer people than ever - just 8% of over-18s - are actively dating. Among the reasons put forward are a challenging job market, especially for younger people (and the concomitant decision to focus.on careers first and relationships later), the cost of living in general, a genetal sense of hopelessness about the state of the world, and, yes, "dating app fatigue and choice overload". Quite.

I know I couldn't face it. Let's hope I never have to!

No, there is no epidemic of trans violence

It had to happen. After the horrendous mass shooting in the small town of Tumbler Ridge in northeastern British Columbia, right-wing influencers and agitators are really pushing the transgender issue.

The shooter, a psychologically troubled 18-year old, transitioned from male to female about 6 years ago. That might just have been an incidental factoid in the case, but there is a rampant anti-trans movement, particularly in the United States, that wants to milk it for all it's worth. There is a whole load of misinformation out there about trans people, and specifically about their violent tendencies.

A common claim is that trans individuals are much more likely to be killers than any other demographic. Elon Musk on X was just one of the more influential voices sharing this view. Many previous mass killings have been blamed on trans gender identities by these anti-trans activists even when gender was clearly not an issue. Now they have a shooting where the perpetrator was in fact a trans woman, and they are making hate-filled hay. 

No doubt Donald Trump will get in on the act when he gets his shit together: the chance to bash Canada AND the trans community will be just too much for him to resist. The Trump administration is already looking into ways to ban transgender Americans from owning guns, and Trump scion Donald Trump Jr. has claimed, unscientifically and incorrectly, that: "The amount of shootings they have completed or attempted likely pales in comparison with any other radical group, based on how small a group they are. Can't be close!"

Of course, in reality, the vast majority of mass shootings are carried out by white cis men, the same demographic as most of the anti-trans social media conspiracy theorists making the claims. Studies show that about 98% of mass shootings are actually carried out by men, most of them white (in proportion to the general population). The Violence Prevention Project concluded that 97.5% of mass shooting were by cis men, 2% by cis women, and 0.5% by trans people. A Poynter analysis calculated that 0.17% of mass shootings in the USA (6 out of 3,399) were perpetrated by trans individuals. Factcheck.org arrived at an even smaller figure of 0.1%. This is much lower than the 0.5-1.6% representation of trans people in the general US public (in Canada, 0.33% of the population officially identifies as transgendered or non-binary). I'm sure there are many more such analyses if you look.

Haters will hate, as they say. This incident will probably fuel the haters for years to come.

Free solo climber completes Taipei skyscraper climb

There's no way I could have watched it live, even with a 10-second delay, but American daredevil Alex Honnold did indeed complete his "free solo" climb of the 101-storey Taipei 101 skyscraper yesterday.

This ridiculous feat, which you can see video snippets of, took him just an hour and a half, which equates to about a storey a minute. The building is a glass and metal monolith, with all sorts of overhangs and other tricky bits, and looks all but impossible to climb. Success was not necessarily assured. But there he was standing on the pinpoint pinnacle waving to the crowds and not even looking tired. Crazy stuff.

WestJet bows to customer backlash

A viral 30-second TikTok video of a couple of people dealing with WestJet's new smaller-legroom plane layout seems to have been instrumental in pushing Westjet to reverse their policy.

WestJet had changed the layout of 22 of their Boeing 737s to have an extra row of seats in order, they say, to save customers money. Each economy class seat had a 28" pitch (the distance between one seat and the seat in front), compared to the usual North American  29" or 30" pitch. They were also made non-reclining, or with a "fixed recline design" in industry parlance.

They say that this kind of layout in common in Europe, but Canadians were having none of it, and there was a strong backlash from customers. In fact, so strong a backlash that WestJet reversed their decision and reverted to the old layout, saying " We saw that this was all trending in the wrong direction". 

And social media trends are what it's all about these days. So, here's a rare example of a commercial company bowing to the demands of customers.

Two different culinary worlds

A two Michelin-starred restaurant in the small town of Machynlleth in mid-Wales has been given a failing one-star food safety rating by the Food Standards Agency, which puts it below minimum legal operating standards.

The mandatory checks are to ensure that food is being handled and produced hygenically. The one-star rating means that "major improvement" is needed at the fancy restaurant, which charges almost £500 a head.

The chef is predictably outraged, and says he is not embarrassed by the rating, suggesting that the inspectors just don't understand his operations. "Just because our rules don't fit their rules, they're questioning it", he whines.

The worst part of all this, though, is the reaction of influential food critic Giles Coren. "The normal health and safety things, I think it's fair enough, don't really apply", Coren opined, concluding that the rules "should probably be modernised". Coren whittered on about the special nature of the restaurant: "He is cooking with fire ... he stands there on his leather apron, and it's roaring like fireworks". *Yawn*

The Chartered Insitute of Environmental Health confirms that the rules are not "optional, subjective or old-fashioned", and that "no dining experience, however unusual or exclusive, sits outside the law".

On the virtues of solitude

Finally, an article extolling the merits of solitude! I'm not one of the world's great socializers. I like my "me time", always have done. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a complete misanthrope: I do socialize, although it's usually my wife (or a third person) that initiates it. But solitude has earned a bad rap in recent years, and that seems a shame to me.

The main reason, of course, is the veritable explosion of research and media coverage on loneliness. We are told that loneliness is approaching epidemic levels, and that social isolation increases the risk of premature death by 25%, worse than drinking six alcoholic drinks a day, or smoking fifteen cigarettes!

But, as this article stresses, loneliness is not solitude. You can be lonely in a crowded room. People, generally speaking, don't choose to be lonely. Solitude, however, is a deliberate choice to be on your own for a while, to step off the social "stage", with all its stresses, preconceptions and rules, to spend some quiet time alone. Solitude is often thought of as a punishment (time-out for an unruly toddler, solitary confinement for a recalcitrant prisoner), but it can also be a reward: the gift of some "me time" and relaxation.

It doesn't have to involve a two-hour walk in the woods; it can just be 15 minutes snatched away from the social whirlwind. It doesn't have to be structured meditation on a yoga mat; it can just be time spent idly day-dreaming (there's an increasing body of positive research around letting your mind wander too). Read a book, listen to music, knit, go for that two-hour walk in the woods, whatever works for you. Don't use it to catch up on emails or special media, though - that's not solitude. And don't be alone ALL the time; that's not healthy.

There's even some real research to show that some solitude can be beneficial. The "deactivation effect" helps us to calm down by taking the edge off our more intense emotions. It may even serve to recharge our "social batteries", making subsequent social interactions more positive and enjoyable. It presents an opportunity for self-discovery and reflection, and it can be an incubator for problem-solving and creativity.

So, don't be brow-beaten into going to a party you will probably hate. Don't give in to expectations and assumptions that entertaining and mingling is civilized, and time spent alone is depressing and misanthropic. It can actually be quite nice.

The world's most populous cities

I'm sure that, just a few short years ago, Mexico City was the biggest city in the world (by population). Well, fast forward to 2025, and Mexico City is the 15th largest city!

Today the world's most populous cities are pretty much all in Asia:

• Jakarta, Indonesia: 41.9 million
• Dhaka, Bangladesh: 36.6 million
• Tokyo, Japan: 33.4 million
• New Delhi, India: 30.2 million
• Shanghai, China: 29.6 million
• Guangzhou, China: 27.6 million
• Cairo, Egypt: 25.6 million
• Manila, Philippines: 24.7 million
• Kolkata, India: 22.6 million
• Seoul, South Korea: 22.5 million

(Cairo is the only non-Asian city in the top 10.)

The world's coldest capital cities

We're going to be visiting Mongolia next summer - pleasure not business :) - and I thought I remember reading somewhere that the capital city, Ulaanbaatar (sometimes written as Ulan Bator), was the coldest capital city in the world. Knowing how cold Ottawa can be, I thought I would look it up, and it turns out the comparison is not even close.

Ulaanbaatar is indeed the coldest capital city in the world, followed by Astana (Kazakhstan), Moscow (Russia), Helsinki (Finland), Reykjavik (Iceland), and Tallin (Estonia). Ottawa (Canada) is only the seventh coldest capital, which is certainly food for thought.

Ulaanbaatar - which sits at 1,350m above sea level, so that's kind if cheating :) - has an average year-round temperate below zero (-1.5°C). Although temperatures during its short summer (when we will be there) are quite pleasant - in the 20s - winter temperatures in January are in the -36°C to -40°C range. Ouch!

I wonder if they mollify themselves by saying "it's a dry cold" like we do here?

McDonalds - Canadian owned?

As a vegetarian, I don't frequent McDonalds. I think I may have been in one, once in my life, mainly for the wifi. So, I hadn't realized that McDonalds restaurants in Canada are emblazoned with the by-line "Proudly locally owned and operated".

And look, they even have a little maple leaf on the logo!

But wait, McDonalds? It's an American company, no? In fact, it doesn't get much more American than McDonalds, does it? Oh, look, McDonalds in America, also say "Locally owned and operated".

So, what's the deal?.Canada-washing? Well, McDonalds restaurants are franchises. In fact, McDonalds Restaurants of Canada Ltd is a "master franchise" of McDonalds. So, yes, they are technically locally owned, I guess.

But really, it's pushing the issue a bit. I mean, it's still McDonalds, probably the most American thing you can think of, including apple pie (a weird version of which McDonalds also sells).