Traitors, but they’re fictional, and it’s Joffrey, Patsy and Sister Michael (and other things to see)

I got a good chuckle from a post on Facebook this morning. It imagined what the popular TV series Traitors might look like if everyone in the castle was a fictional character.

Some months ago we got a bit hooked on Traitors — the British version, that is. The American one has largely been filled with reality TV “stars” and while host Alan Cumming is hilarious, the American show can sometimes grate. The U.K. show is fun if not fascinating to watch, and I would put last fall’s celebrity version (featuring Stephen Fry, Celia Imrie, Alan Carr, Nick Mohammed and many others) down as one of the most entertaining things I’ve seen in a while.

As for this fictional pitch: Can’t you just imagine Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous in the castle’s bar? Joffrey from Game of Thrones would actually murder other guests — and would 100 per cent be voted out at an early roundtable. And then there’s Sister Michael from Derry Girls, who would already know all the gossip, just from staring at other contestants.

You can see the post from the Archives of Comedy group here.

Here are some other things I’ve read, seen, heard, etc., lately.

Another Davos bump at the polls

A post today from Canadian pollster Nik Nanos indicates there’s been a bump for Prime Minister Mark Carney, after his attention-getting speech at Davos, Switzerland.

The red line is for the Liberal leader. The poll comes just after Conservatives gave a solid vote of approval to Pierre Poilievre over the weekend, and of course would not reflect that.

As Nanos remarks:

Carney continues to dominate the preferred prime minister measure, leading Pierre Poilievre by 29 points, marking one of the widest gaps in recent years.

Let’s see how long that holds. If you’d like to dig deeper into Canadian polling, Éric Grenier and Philippe J. Fournier lay it out in their most recent podcast The Numbers. ( Éric also publishes a recommended newsletter on Substack called The Writ.)

LNG & Fermeuse

The online paper The Independent has a long read about the possibility of a massive liquefied natural gas “hub” for Fermeuse, a small community south of St. John’s. The idea is to take natural gas offshore (to date, the focus on extraction out there has been oil, pipe it to town, liquefy it, and then send it out by tankers. The piece argues the hefty risks of the proposal.

Trump’s ‘unusual’ speakerphone call with FBI agents

I don’t think I’ve read too many articles like this one in the New York Times, about how Donald Trump not only directed national intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard to personally attend the search of an election centre in Georgia last week as ballots from 2020 were seized, but later had a phone call with agents when Gabbard put him on speakerphone.

From the article (gift link provided so all can read it):

Behind closed doors, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, met with some of the same F.B.I. agents, members of the bureau’s field office in Atlanta, which is conducting the election inquiry, three people with knowledge of the meeting said. They could not say why Ms. Gabbard, who also appeared on site at the search, was there, but her continued presence has raised eyebrows given that her role overseeing the nation’s intelligence agencies does not include on-site involvement in criminal investigative work.

What occurred during the meeting was even further outside the bounds of normal law enforcement procedure. Ms. Gabbard used her cellphone to call Mr. Trump, who did not initially pick up but called back shortly after, the people said.

The president addressed the agents on speakerphone, asking them questions as well as praising and thanking them for their work on the inquiry, the three people said.

Eddie, steady, gone

Remember Eddie Bauer? Not to be too brand-specific here, but I was not a happy camper when Eddie Bauer packed up shop at the Avalon Mall years ago. It was, you see, one of the very few places that carried tall sizes. Since then, I’ve stopped in at shops in cities like Toronto or Ottawa, but have increasingly found less and less catering to tall. “Go online,” I’m always told.

Well, now we see that Eddie Bauer may soon close all of its shops across North America.

‘The same shitty train to Sucksville’

I quite like the series Shrinking, which is back for its third season. It is exploring the Parkinson’s diagnosis for Harrison Ford’s therapist character, and fittingly Michael J. Fox (whose foundation has raised US $2.5-billion for research over the years) is appearing in the series. In the waiting room, he makes the above comment to Ford’s Paul, a therapist who is confronting his mortality and the unsettling progression of the disease. There’s a nice read in Vanity Fair about Fox’s appearance on the show this season.