The Globe and Mail: Toronto's National Newspaper

I just ran across this catchy byline for CBC's radio programme called "The Island" (emphasis mine)

On The Island is a lively and informative blend of news, reviews and interviews, designed to keep Victorians informed about the issues that matter to them.

Are Victorians the only people on the Island? This kind of thing drives me nuts! (Dees am drrrriving me nut!) Surely the good people of Victoria are aware that Victoria and its environs are only about half of the population of Vancouver Island.

When we used to live in Comox (now there is a wooden website "welcome to the Town of Comox Electronic Information System" HAHAHAHAHA), we knew full well that Victoria was the le Grand Fromage of Vancouver Island.

So, it is not terribly surprising that there would be a radio show called On The Island which is for and about the only important people on The Island, Victorians. Grrrrrrr!

Of course snooty Victorians are used to being slighted, because they can go to www.cbc.ca/bc and read absolutely nothing about Victoria or Kamloops or Kelowna or Prince George or Terrace or Comox or Spuzzum or Hundred Mile House or anywhere in British Columbia that is not (cue Heavenly chorus) Vancouver. Everyone in BC knows that if it doesn't happen in Vancouver, then it didn't happen. Try it now -- click on that link to CBC British Columbia and just TRY to find out anything about Spuzzum.

Vancouver people know this kind of slight, too. Everyone in British Columbia can read the Globe and Mail, "Canada's #1 National Newspaper", which has all sorts of news that's important to Canadians. Today's news talks about the big strike ending at York University. I've never heard of YU and I don't know where it is, but I betcha it is in Toronto. Years ago, I read a lampoon of The Globe and Mail, and it had the slogan "Toronto's National Newspaper", which sums up things about right. When there is an article about a new bus route in Oshawa, the byline simply says "Oshawa", because all readers know that Oshawa is a city close to Toronto! When there is an article about Vancouver hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics (uh huh, oh yeah, uh huh, oh yeah!), the Globe refers to Vancouver as "Vancouver, British Columbia", because its gentle readers on Yonge Street (Toronto's National Street) might be fuzzy about the location of such a far-flung, vaguely heard-of place as Vancouver.

All Canadians (even those not in Toronto, Canada's National City) know what it is like to live next to the noisy neighbours, who aren't even slightly aware that Canada's President still has to be Knighted by the Queen. Here's an example of what it's like.

Even in the good ol' US of A, there are two entire time-zones of states with the sobriquet "The Fly-Over States".

That's why it is good to live in California, which feels like The Centre of the Universe, even though (according to Wikipedia) that title already belongs to Toronto.