Party City

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 1:40 PM - 4 Comments

As the 2010 Winter Olympics enter their second week, there’s little question that the people of Vancouver have embraced the Games.

All those pre-Olympic worries about whether the laid-back West Coasters would show their pride and welcome the world have been put to rest—with a vengeance.

Nothing I have witnessed in three prior Olympics compares to the crowds thronging the streets of downtown. From very first thing in the morning, until well after closing time, sidewalks and public places are jam-packed.

During daylight hours the vibe has been fun, with lots of tourists and families with small children. At Robson Square, home of the BC Pavilion, people are lining up for eight hours for a 30-second zip line run, high above the crowds. Near the International Broadcast Centre, the Olympic flame was already a huge draw, despite the less-than-ideal viewing conditions. And once word spreads that VANOC quietly replaced the chain-link fence with plexiglass in the wee hours of this morning, look out.

The bars are packed all day long and filled with friendly ribbing as Canadians diss foreign visitors about the day’s performances and vice-versa. National colours, painted faces and flags as capes are the order of the day. (My favourite get-up so far was a guy in a kilt with a t-shirt reading “Opening Ceremonies Hydraulics Team.”)

But as the evening progresses things are getting a little ugly. Last night, the vast pedestrian mall on Granville Street seemed more like a riot waiting to happen than a street party. The crowd—young and homegrown (at least it sure smelled that way)—was closer to legless than tipsy. And there was a distinct edge to the pro-Canada celebrations.

Vancouver Police were out in force, gamely trying to dissuade people from drinking in public. But in contrast to their colleagues on the day-shift, the cops seemed tense, moving about in large, unsmiling groups, obviously girded for trouble.

Now comes word that the V.P.D has asked the Integrated Security Unit, the 10,000-strong, RCMP-led force in charge of venue security, for a hand in managing the crowds. It’s a wise decision.

How to Party with an Olympian

By Anne Kingston - Saturday, February 13, 2010 at 1:07 AM - 1 Comment

Vancouver restaurateur Jack Evrensel has 615 bottles of champagne—one for each Olympic medallist—ready to be put on ice. The man behind acclaimed hot spots West, Blue Water Café, CinCin and Araxi in Whistler has issued an open invitation to every medal winner to show up at any one of his locations for a complimentary bottle of Nicolas Feuillatte Blue Label Brut. “It’s an opportunity to celebrate,” he says. It’s also a marketing master stroke, even by sponsor-saturated Olympic standards—both his restaurants and the bubbly burnished by Olympic excellence and achievement in one go. Plus the real bonus: patron proximity to the hottest athletes.

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What military wives need to know

By Julia McKinnell - Monday, December 7, 2009 at 11:46 AM - 4 Comments

“My best advice? Never, and I mean never, talk about your marriage with another man,” writes the wife of a U.S. marine who fought in Iraq. “You may need to let off steam but it’s best to go to the other wives, your chaplain or your therapist. Men LOVE to make it better for lonely military wives,” writes Mollie Gross in Confessions of a Military Wife, a new tell-all book that’s packed with advice for other military wives, culled from the author’s experience living at Camp Pendleton in California. “Even if you do not have feelings for that man, he will develop feelings for you.”

In a recent phone interview with Maclean’s, Gross describes military life for wives as stepping back into the 1950s—most women don’t work and are full-time housewives, raising kids. “I did notice a lot of the wives drinking on a daily basis. It shocked me. I encourage women to ask themselves, what can I learn while my husband is away?” She suggests learning to sew or learning French or taking a cooking class. When her own husband, Jon, was deployed, Gross honed her skills as a stand-up comedian, which is her current career in Los Angeles now that he’s back.

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Malaysian model caned for drinking

By Tom Henheffer - Thursday, October 22, 2009 at 5:00 PM - 15 Comments

Six lashes—that’s Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno’s sentence for quaffing a beer with a few friends in a Malaysian bar. Kartika, a part-time model, will be the first woman caned there, and her case has divided the Southeast Asian country. Drinking isn’t technically illegal in Malaysia, but since Kartika is Muslim she is subject to Islamic sharia law, under which the consumption of alcohol is a punishable offence.

Moderates and non-Muslims say the ruling establishes a dangerous precedent by disregarding human rights and undercutting the mainstream Malaysian legal process. According to Hamidah Marican, executive director of Sisters in Islam, which works to strengthen women’s rights in Malaysia, “Kartika’s case has . . . caused damage to Malaysia’s reputation as a model Muslim country.” Continue…

Welcome to wine country

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Friday, January 30, 2009 at 12:51 AM - 3 Comments

Put away the tuques and back bacon and break out the brie. Canadian imbibers are turning their backs on their hoser heritage and embracing the noble grape.

The consumption of wine in Canada grew almost 27 per cent between 2003 and 2007, according to newly-released industry statistics, three times faster than the worldwide average. The home of hockey and barley sandwiches now ranks as the 6th largest importer of wine in the world in terms of volume, while the domestic market share for beer and spirits continues to shrink. And the 454 million bottles of plonk Canadians drained over that period have turned the country into the third hottest wine market in the world, trailing only Russia and China in terms of growth.

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The vodka diet

By Susan Mohammad - Thursday, October 2, 2008 at 12:00 AM - 10 Comments

A cadaverous Amy Winehouse has been called one. So too the bottle-clutching pre-rehab Lindsay Lohan. And while “drunkorexic” isn’t a medical term, the slang word describing women who skip food in order to drink booze without gaining weight is increasingly on the lips of medical experts. Appearing first on gossip sites tagging skeletal celebrities who appear to live only off of Grey Goose and cigarettes, talk of drunkorexia can now be found on health blogs next to better-known eating disorders such as bulimia, anorexia, orthorexia (obsession with healthy foods) or even pregorexia (pregnant women who strive to look un-pregnant by not eating). News reports about the phenomenon warn that drunkorexia is rapidly growing among college-aged women trying to avoid beer bellies without cutting out the beer—but dependable statistics on the newly identified illness are hard to come by. “Until someone says ‘I’m not eating all day so I can drink tonight’—until those people come forward in a study, they’re not going to show up in our numbers,” says Sharon Vanin, a nutritionist who has been treating eating disorders for over 20 years.

Drunkorexia may be statistically elusive but it’s mainstream enough that a recent episode of the A&E show Intervention featured a young drunkorexic man named Asa whose family staged an intervention. According to Diet-Blog.com, 30 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds skip food in order to drink more. And it’s often the hard stuff. “I hardly see women ordering beer anymore. A lot more men are ordering vodkas too,” says Amy Taylor, managing bartender at Mink Nightclub in Toronto, where the diet trend has forced the club to stock more vodka because the low-sugar content makes it attractive for calorie counters.

The blasé attitude some have regarding the disease is scary. “I don’t see the problem with trading food for alcohol. Honestly, all you are doing is taking in different calories,” posted “Nat” on Diet-Blog.com in June. Apart from the dangers of substituting alcoholic calories for ones with nutritional value, there is also evidence the disorder can worsen your dependence on alcohol. (A 2003 study by researchers at Columbia University found that people with eating disorders are up to five times more likely to become substance abusers; it also found more links in cross-addictions, as substance abusers are 11 times more likely to have an eating disorder.) And while experts like Vanin may have never heard of the term until recently, over the years she’s “definitely” seen the behaviour. “I see people compromising their eating so that there can be the calories left for alcohol. It’s the same as some people not eating all day because they are going to a banquet at night.”

A starving body, says Vanin, isn’t able to deal with stress or make healthy decisions. “Inhibitions are compromised. Suicide attempts, promiscuity, dangerous driving and other risky behaviours compound the problem.” While long-term effects of disordered eating include osteoporosis, cardiac problems and even death, immediate signs of malnutrition aren’t visible as our bodies are adept at compensating for a lack of nutrients for a period of time. But eventually, “hair starts to thin, their nails don’t grow, they become constipated and bloated,” says Vanin. She’s treated people from age 12 to age 65, and insists a patient see a health team (including a therapist, physician, nutritionist and, if warranted, an addiction specialist) to address the many facets of eating disorders.