Newsstand: November 23, 2009
The Making of a Medley
The Daily Photoist: November 23, 2009
Transit City and Transit Cities
Severed feet are turning up on beaches in British Columbia—this Monday, the fifth one in the past year floated onto Westham Island, south of Vancouver. It's the first left foot found in a sea of rights, and the gruesome mystery has provided fodder for many a news organization. This week, the Globe published two versions of the story onto their website: one in the British Columbia section and the other in National.
The stories are written about the exact same subject (the new foot), by the same writer (Ian Bailey), and (save for some finessing of grammar here and there, and a small note about the time police arrived on the scene) contain exactly the same words in the same order.
Well, almost exactly the same. Shoved three-quarters of the way down, one paragraph that doesn't show up at all in the British Columbia edition stands out like a sore thumb in the National (and print) one:
Police and coroners' officials have been stumped by the mystery of where the feet came from or whether they are linked.Oh yeah, they went there. We're not sure if the pun is intentional or not—and if so, whether it's a clever quip by a writer, or an editor putting their foot down and inserting it after the fact. Stranger things have happened.
Thanks to Ted Healey for the tip. Photo by Mon Ton Son.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Torontoist used to have a contributor named Ian Bailey. Same dude?
"...or an editor putting their foot down..."
Muh ha ha ha!!! Punny goodness. You stay classy, Torontoist!
And we're up to six.
The Globe comments are too entertaining!
And... I will admit, I totally thought this was a marketing stunt for the new season of Dexter when I heard about it yesterday. Part of me is still convinced...
It's rather amazing how willingly people are making jokes about this story. I don't want to come across as agahst - because I am not, the same jokes come to my mind - but it's interesting to me how we treat body parts.
If this were about heads or torsos turning up, it wouldnt be funny and it would'nt be a mystery for long methinks.
I'm gonna admit that it took me about 2 minutes to actually get the joke here. doh!
Argh I can't stand all these stupid puns.
The Ian Bailey that writes for the Globe and Mail from the Vancouver office is not the same as me, I'm happy to report. I will be now referring to him from now on as "Evil Ian Bailey".
Meanwhile, while I'm not writing for Torontoist anymore, I'm still here in Toronto, working on various things.
I take pictures of feet as well, and a lot better, as well as nicer, than that.
Wardnikoff:
The foot is an intrinsically hilarious body part. Just ask Monty Python.
Oop, foot #6 turned out to be a hoax.