Following CET's courageous lead, I must confess that I too am a Reach For The Top survivor. In our last game my correct answer to the question "On what side of the Periodic Table are the halogens found?" was ruled incorrect. Our appeal was upheld, which would have resulted in a tie game had the producers not scoured the tape for the five spurious points which they also awarded to our opponents. We were left with the suspicion that the game had been rigged in favour of the team located in the production centre, thus saving the CBC the expense of hosting an out-of-town team.

On another matter, I, somewhat to my surprise, have turned into a huge Afghanada fan. The secret, as with Trailer Park Boys, is the characters. They are real enough that once you get to know them, you care about them. As to the jingoism, there's plenty of times when one character or another has doubts about the mission (most recently, the O/C himself)--but then operational necessity imposes itself and they're too busy returning fire to have second thoughts about why they're there. The government's official line, respeatedly echoed on Afghanada, is that we're there to help the Afghan people. This is not true, of course, we're there for geo-political reasons like securing access to Caspian oil and appeasing the bully next door, but if the government insists on reiterating the myth, we can at least insist on our living up to it oocasionally, and cry shame when we fail to do so.

If anyone would like a copy of my print-your-own Afghanada yellow-ribbon bumper sticker, PM me with your e-mail address.