By Lori Dance

Real Madrid takes to the pitch as they practise at BMO Field. Photo by The Cach from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Whatever you may call it, football/soccer fever has hit Toronto as Real Madrid almost filled the twenty thousand seats of BMO Field at their first open practice last night; however, their arrival was not without controversy. Toronto FC flashed a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of green to install a temporary grass field for the weekend because the Spanish team refused to play on the existing faux-liage, leaving its home team feeling like chopped liver (they had been complaining about the fake turf for months). Oh, well—where else outside of Parkdale can you scream “KAKA!” at the top of your lungs without being looked at askance?
For those of you who are looking to pepper your water-cooler talk with some timely city-related statistics, prepare to have your mind blown: 62% of Torontonians like the idea of being able to walk to the island airport through a sub–Lake Ontario tunnel, 31% do not, and 7% had an opinion that was not deemed important enough to document.
And in other statistical news, garbage workers are earning an average of 21% of their lost wages in overtime as the city employs 20% more trucks and allows for a 20% longer work day to clean up the mess left behind by the strike. That’s, like, 61% more information than you probably wanted to know about this already-tired subject…
… or not! Tourism Toronto wants to lure the jaded back to our fair city after a 10% drop in visits in the spring (though we’re not sure what that has to do with the strike…). The campaign includes travel packages, hotel deals, and the slogan “Toronto never smelled so good.” Why does a Chinatown fish market on a Sunday afternoon with a forty-degree humidex suddenly spring to mind?
Finally, aging hipsters everywhere (including yours truly) are mourning the loss of a legend today. John Hughes, writer and/or director of teen angst films such as Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink, as well as feel-good comedies Uncle Buck and Planes, Trains and Automobiles, died of a heart attack yesterday on a morning walk whilst visiting family in New York. He was fifty-nine.