Zsuzsanna Zsohar

The circular amphitheatre, used in other circumstances by a circus school, was bathed in red light. A muscular DJ spun pounding dance music, the heavy bass shaking the floor. In the audience, signs and thundersticks waved approximately to the beat.

At this year’s Politics & the Pen gala, Anna Porter took home the $25 000 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for political writing for her book The Ghosts of Europe: Journeys Through Central Europe’s Troubled Past and Uncertain Future. Below, Porter with House Leader John Baird.

A remembrance night was held last week for Liberal communications director Mario Lagüe, who died in a motorcycle accident in August.

In the latest print edition of Maclean’s there are something like 1,300 words, under this byline, about Michael Ignatieff’s summer. Here, for your amusement, curiosity or comparison, is the indulgently long version, including a never-before-seen alternate ending.

Bob Rennie’s bash drew Iggy, Olympians, and protesters

And a political wife’s new hair

Slapshot, the New York Times’ hockey blog, considers Michael Ignatieff’s hockey watching, as revealed in Adam Gopnik’s profile for the New Yorker.

Celebrating big birthdays and little holidays, victories and time together

Michael Ignatieff held his first media garden party at Stornoway since becoming Liberal leader. The Etobicoke Youth Jazz Orchestra from his Toronto riding provided the music.

And Rona Ambrose’s man-hating dog

The last year and a half has included numerous opportunities to watch Michael Ignatieff in public. The most interesting moment remains a scene last fall outside a strip mall in Etobicoke, Ignatieff, then deputy leader of the Liberals, standing at the entrance of a Shopper’s Drug Mart, trying to engage voters as they attempted to go about the business of buying toilet paper, shampoo and such.

Liberal leader Michael Igantieff was honorary chair of the Toronto Winter Palace Ball fundraiser for Ruskoka Camp, which helps underprivileged Russian Canadian youth. The evening was called “Dancing with the Tsars.”