fake lake

I’ll spare you too much description of the international media centre, here on the exhibition grounds in Toronto. Looks a bit like an airplane hanger, only with a wine bar, an impressionistic model of Toronto’s financial district and several large monitors strung up from the ceiling with an endless loop of footage from scenic Huntsville. The World Cup is playing on other monitors and every so often a roar or groan of some kind can be heard. Remember, the goal of any “media centre” at a large event such as this should be to discourage leaving and thus experiencing anything outside the controlled environment or, worse, practicing any kind of journalism. On that count, this seems a fine media centre. Indeed, I just passed a half hour lounging in a Muskoka chair and barely noticed my own sloth.

For the next few days, we’re in Toronto (and possibly Huntsville) for all the fun, frivolity and requisite shouting of the G8 and G20 summits. Breathless dispatches from the international media amusement park to follow. 

The Post’s Joe O’Connor gets a first look at the most scrutinized waterway in Canada.

‘A fake lake, fiddlers and a landlocked boat were just the beginning’

This is apparently what I miss by not going to more garden parties.

“It is like a skit out of Monty Python, except it is not funny”

The specific cost of the fake lake is apparently $57,000. Two-million is the cost to build and then dismantle the entire G8 and G20 media centre.

The Toronto Star posts an artist’s depiction of the G20’s indoor lake, while the Canadian Press provides some important details of the “Northern Ontario Oasis.”

“Didn’t anyone in government think that a $2 million, 72-hour fake lake to host a meeting on fiscal restraint was a bad idea?”