Former paperclip impressario Ritchie Simpson will re-open the former Friendly Fisherman in Grand Tracadie in mid-May. Everyone I’ve talked to about this place raves about it in a way that makes it out to be a sort of fishy equivalent of the Algonquin Hotel, with a better view. I have now figured out, with Ann Thurlow’s help, where Grand Tracadie is located, which will help tremendously. I must admit to thinking that Tracadie and Grand Tracadie were the same place — I just thought people were being very complimentary when they spoke of “Grand” Tracadie, in the way Islanders say “it’s a grand day, isn’t it!” I was wrong.

The Home Brew Shoppe, longtime resident of Victoria Row in Charlottetown, has moved to the premises recently vacated by Ferguson Sales on Euston St. Ferguson Sales moved to the former Snookums pet shop on St. Peters Road. And a new restaurant named Kudo’s has a sign up in the Victoria Row location. No word on the cuisine, opening date, or ownership yet.

In the former Anne of Green Gables Tea Room on Queen St. there’s a new restaurant, rumoured to be serving Italian food, opening soon. Name is “Manhattans.”

The old Hughes Chrysler building, now home to Dow’s Furniture, is rumoured by be, in addition, home to a new Kenny Zakem-backed restaurant. Kenny ran The Perfect Cup Cafe on University Avenue back in the early 1990s after Bruce MacNaughton. He used to serve excellent, healthy food and in nice atmosphere. I have high hopes for the new place.

The Frosty Treat in Kensington is said to be under new ownership. Their ice cream won’t change, I hope: it’s unique.

Stefan Czapalay, former owner of Seasons in Thyme in Tyne Valley and Summerside, has resurfaced in Halifax at Chefs By Design, a catering operation. He was billed in the February Toronto Life as “Martime star chef Stefan Czapalay.” No word on whether he’s managed to repair the bridges he burned when he left Summerside.

Finally, if you’ve got a bum gallbladder, and need really, really simple food, the dining room at The Dundee Arms in Charlottetown does up a very nice plate of plain boiled rice.

The New Yorker staff writer Michael Specter has a helpful page of links to other The New Yorker writers’ websites, including Jerome Groopman, Malcolm Gladwell and Rebecca Mead.

As regular readers of this space will know, I’m a big The New Yorker fan. I consider my purchase and read of the magazine almost the only thing that I must absolutely not miss in a week. The writers above are some of their best.

One thing I just learned is that Jerome Groopman’s work and writings formed the basis of the defunct Gideon’s Crossing television programme.

If you haven’t had an opportunity to hear him on Charlie Rose, you can listen to Jon Lee Anderson online. He’s a well-spoken voice about the situation on the ground in Iraq.

Top six search keywords leading readers to this website yesterday:

• sars symtoms
• 5bx
• mishal husain
• gallbladder diet
• hybrid cars
• tim hortons nutrition

A good overview of our times, at least as viewed from 100 Prince St.

The City of Barcelona has a Visitors Book on their website, with the following disclaimer:

You may write your message on the city of Barcelona or on this Website with no limitations except the usual ones of courtesy and democratic respect. This means that messages that contain expressions that are offensive to human dignity, that are racist or xenophobic, that advocate or induce violence or illegal activities, or that violate the principles of democratic harmony will be deleted.

If you’re going to limit expression, this seems like a very well-worded way to do so. I like the notion that courtesy and democratic respect are considered simply “the usual ones.”

Robert is advocating that Barcelona become the centre of our European vacation.

Why doesn’t the media question George Bush’s appearances on television with the same degree of skepticism as they do with Saddam Hussein’s? You never hear “someone purporting to be George Bush made an appearance today at a local hospital” on CNN.

The waiter at the Taj Mahal restaurant in Charlottetown reports that they had a winter that exceeded their expectations, and are looking forward to a banner summer season. They purposefully opened in the winter so they could get an idea of what running lean was like.

Nanci Griffith appeared on the David Letterman show last Tuesday with Tom Russell. Had to stay up until 1:30 a.m. to see it, but it was worth it.

We’re headed to Europe for 2 weeks at the beginning of May for a vacation. We fly to London on May 2nd, and come back on the 17th. No plans beyond that yet. We welcome suggestions from the readership of European kid-friendly hotspots.

Question of the day: if Christ died today, why is it called “Good” Friday?

As far as I’m concerned, the airlines of the world all deserve to go out of business. Follow along:

• Go to Travelocity.ca.
• Click the Flights tab.
• Enter Halifax, NS as your From
• Enter Amsterdam as your To
• Select the Show me lowest Economy-class fares for travel during the period option, and select May as your Through the end of
• Click Search Now
• See that one of the options presented is Icelandair; click Select
• From the handy calendar of available departure dates presented, select one.

What’s the result after this 8-step process?

Icelandair does not provide service between Amsterdam Netherlands and Halifax, Canada.

I remember when CBC Television would run endless episodes of Newhart and The Golden Girls to fill in the gaps around hockey playoff time. It seems that This Hour Has 22 Minutes is now playing this role: as far as I can tell, the post-Canada Now period now contains endless episodes of this programme.

Speaking of which, brother Steve relayed the story of how he listened to the hockey game earlier in the week by calling brother Johnny on his cell phone. Johnny put the cell phone up to the computer speakers where the game was streaming in over the Internet. Amazing.

When my mother was growing up in Cochrane, the hockey broadcasts used to come up, days later, on the vinyl records on the train from Toronto where the station in Timmins would broadcast them on the local radio. How times have changed.

When they were little, my brothers Johnny and Steve made up an elaborate set of stories about the “Dark Woods” that included characters named Ooust and Ernst and their little dog. Their voicing of these characters was brilliant and has become classic family audio.

Unfortunately all recorded trace of these early dramas was lost when my house was broken into 15 years ago: the criminal, oddly enough, stole only my grandfather’s electric shaver and my cassette tapes. Since then I’ve had visions of some aging cleanshaven maniacal punk criminal hunkered down in his hideout listening to those stories.

Fortunately, Steve is still coming up with classics. His latest, which will, I fear, go down in family audio infamy, is Election Fun Fact [560KB AIFF]. After airing locally on CBC Montreal for the past weeks, the fun facts, complete with Steve’s squeezy introduction, went national this morning during The Current.

Just a proud brother.

My old friend Eve Goldberg recently released a new album. You probably know Eve’s work: her song Watermelon Sorbet is the theme song to CBC Radio’s Richardson’s Roundup.