Three tenors bring n

NOW that the pagan
festival of Peace On
Earth and Good Will
Toward Men is over,
we can get back to the
important things.

So here’s a wish for 1997:
that nothing more will be
heard of the three tenors.

Last year you couldn't switch
on the box without seeing,
one, nwo, or all three of them
crooning away. And then they
had to come to Vancouver.

They should be sent to
some remote island where
they could warble away to
one another and leave the rest
of us in peace.

It would have served them
right if no one had turned up
for their concert on New
Year’s Eve.

I went off to England for
a month in the hope of
avoiding them. But there they
were on TV, at it again.

I come. back, and one of
them pops up for Xmas. They
are all over the newspapers
and television ads, as well. The
fat guy was even heard to say
he hoped’ all the poor people
could ‘hear them. What has he
got against the poor?

If he really wanted to do
mankind a favor he would

_ Fetire and rest his gullet, So
would his partners in crime, it
_ being criminal, the way they
- hog the airwaves.

Are there no prisons? Are
there no workhouses? :
' Some of the prices of the

tickets here would have -

. shamed the worst scalper in
creation. People scem to like
being robbed.

Can you imagine cough-
ing up two thousand smack-
ers to hear an Italian and nwo
Spaniards (1 think) smirking
at one another and straining
their vecal cords?

Those were the prices
asked for the so-called gala
diner seats.

For nvo thousand dollars I
would expect a saturnalia,
gladiators, the aurora bore-
alis, champagne, dancing
girls, Scottish pipers, the
RCMP musical ride and the
massed bands of the Brigade
of Guards.

If had wo thousand
bucks to spend on a single
night’s entertainment, that is.

There’s a lot to be said for
being a Puritan. Jolly old
Oliver Cromwell must have
been thinking of the as yer
unborn tenors when he
closed all the places of enter-
tainment.

The prices many people
paid here for the cheapies
cost enough to buy an old
car. Before panic set in, that
is.

After some of the prices
collapsed, someone compared
petting the cheap seats with

uying stand-by airline tick-
cts.

But stand-by airline tickets

oe

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What do the psychologists
have to say about this sort of
thing, secing that they are
always going on about the
habits of the human race?

Dr. Collins has his own
diagnosis, which is that some
fevers are incurable; also that
a lot of people don’t sleep
nights if they aren’t keeping
up with the Joneses, who as
everyone knows have just
spent $4,000 to dine on duck
and hear those three cock
robins.

Whar would have hap-
pened if one of them had
caught a cold?

T thought of calling the fat
guy and telling him that the
“flu (Asian “flu, to boot!) has
never been worse here than it
is this vear.

But I decided to let him
take his chances. There was
always the possibility he
wauld catch a real snorter
anyway and begin the show
by showering his germs ali
over the $2,000 seats,

Now you know why the
human rights maniacs are
after me.

To be fair, it’s not only
with the three tenors that I
harbor such feelings.

¢ same sentiments bub-
ble up when I contemplate
basketball players.

I wonder why anyone in
his right mind would pay to
watch a bunch of eight-foot
tall gents drop a ball into a
net 200 times in one evening.

Could anything be more
snore-inducing?

It was probably such

siasts — they and bank

presidents, millionaire hockey
players and lottery winners —-
who paid $2,000 to get
spraved by the fat guy and his
friends.

As Poor Richard said, “A
fool and his money ase easily
parted.”

Oh well. If vou have gat
this far you will have gathered
that the three tenors did't
get a dime out of me.

— The North Shore News
believes strongly in freedom of
speech and the right of all sides
ina debate to be heard. The
columnists published in the
News present differing putnts
of view, ut those views are not
necessaily those af the newspa-
per itself.

Electoral
system stale

Dear Editor:
Congratulations. Your edi-
torial, A winning °97 election
platform, is nearly right on.
However, a change from first
past the post to proportional
representation is absolutely
crucial to the reform of our
archaic electoral system
which, in its present form, vir-
tually guarantees four-year,
parliamentary dictatorships.
The U.K, U.S.A. and
Canada are now the only
democracies tied to this out-
moded system. It is time we
dropped it.
Bernard Moore
West Vancouver

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