The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Death of a Legend -- Gordon Lightfoot Passes

Episode Date: May 2, 2023

He became a legend and an icon for the stories he told and the songs he wrote about them.  Gordon Lightfoot loved Canada and loved singing about our story.  And we loved listening. Some thoughts about Gordon and what he meant to us and to me.  And then our regular Tuesday commentary with Brian Stewart about the war in Ukraine. 

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Death of a legend. Death of an icon. Death of a Canadian storyteller. We lose Gordon Lightfoot. More on that in a moment. And hello there. Yes, it is Tuesday, and Tuesdays mean our regular weekly commentary with Brian Stewart on the war in Ukraine, and that commentary will be coming up. But we mark this day, at least the beginning of the bridge today, by some thoughts about Gordon Lightfoot. A pretty special Canadian. There's no question about that.

You know, when I hear the name Gordon Lightfoot, immediately in my head, I start hearing music. I start hearing lyrics. I start hearing lightfoot songs. You know, there's so many. They're so varied. You know, the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, one of my favorites. I can remember sitting, talking with him in his home about how that story came about in terms of the music and the song and the lyrics that he sang about it. If you could read my mind,

you know, rainy day people, sundown, early morning rain, the Canadian Railroad Trilogy. You know the story, of course, behind the Canadian Railroad Trilogy. You know the story, of course, behind the Canadian Railroad Trilogy. Gordon Lightfoot wrote that song in 1967. He wrote it in a couple of days.

It was centennial year, the 100th birthday of Canada, and the CBC invited Gordon Lightfoot in to meet with some of their executives and producers and say, you know, we're doing this special show around the centennial, and we want you to write a song about Canada. Something new, something special. Something that kind of tells our history

from what we used to say in those days, coast to coast. We now say coast to coast to coast for all the good reasons. In those days, we used to say coast to coast, from east to west. And so Gordon said, yeah, I can do that. And off he went, and a week later, he called up and said, I've got that song ready, and they were kind of amazed.

It was only a week or so since they'd sat down with him, so Gordon came in and said, okay, and they assumed that he had some kind of track or something. He said, no, no, no, I'll just sing it for you right here. He had his guitar with him. And he strummed the Canadian Railway Trilogy, Railroad Trilogy, which is really in many ways the story of Canada.

And that was it. They heard it. It was like long for those days. Those days songs used to be like a couple of minutes. It was, I think, six, six and a half minutes long. But they heard it and they said, that's it. That's fantastic. And it's still fantastic 50 years later. Well, 55 years, 56 years later now. The last time I saw Gordon, and I'd seen him a number of times and interviewed him a number of times, was backstage on Parliament Hill on Canada Day 2017, the 150th anniversary of Canada. And he'd just done a rehearsal, and I was getting ready for what would be

my last show before I stepped down as chief correspondent of the CBC. And Gordon was standing there kind of alone backstage. If you see the picture on my Instagram post today that's promoting today's show or on Twitter, it's a picture of that moment where we stood together and talked a little bit, reminisced a little bit. Now, Gordon was a shy guy, basically, for a guy who was so out front and had performed so many times across this country mainly. He'd been outside Canada as well, but for the most part, he was a real Canadian. He loved Canada. He loved singing to Canadian audiences. He wore his Order of

Canada with absolute pride. And you'll see a lot of pictures of Gordon wearing the Order of Canada, and he may be just wearing a t-shirt, but he's still wearing his Order of Canada. But we stood there and talked, and the picture kind of captures him. You know, he was a shy guy. But I'll tell you another story about him. The Queen's Jubilee was 2012. And the Ontario government decided to do a special concert of Canada in the Roy Thompson Hall in downtown Toronto. And, you know, the place was packed all the recipients or most of the recipients of the queen's um diamond jubilee medal were there and other uh recipients of the medal and members of the order of Canada got to pin these medals on the different recipients.

And I was one of those who got to do that, to pin the medal on various recipients. But I also hosted the show that night. And there were some wonderful moments in it of Canadian entertainers, speakers, musicians, singers. And one of them was Gordon Lightfoot. And so the crowd was waiting for Gordon.

He was in many ways the centerpiece of that evening's entertainment. So I'd seen him briefly backstage. Said I was looking forward to introduce him. And in his normal shy way, he kind of acknowledged that. And, you know, trundled off to wherever he was waiting in a green room of some kind. So there I was on stage in the moment introducing Gordon Lightfoot as the legend and icon, storyteller through his music that he is and was. And so keep in mind, you know, this was a big musical night, and you would expect lots of hangers-on for the various artists to be there setting up the equipment and getting ready for their moment,

and in many cases, that's exactly what happened, but not with Gordon. When I got to the introduction, I introduced Gordon and said, Ladies and gentlemen, Gordon Lightfoot. So out Gordon walks. At that point, he was in his mid-70s. He walks out. He's carrying his guitar, of course, but that's not all he's carrying.

He's also carrying a speaker, a little tiny speaker. Looks like one you'd get in the music department if there is one, a Canadian tire, or the bay. There was a little one, looked like a little portable heater. So he walks out on stage carrying his speaker. He walks over to a spot on stage where there's a plug and he plugs it in and he puts it down beside Now, this is Gordon Lightfoot, the Gordon Lightfoot. And he carries his own speaker. It's like it's high school, right?

It was amazing. It was such a moment. I was going to say it was such a Canadian moment, but no, it wasn't a Canadian moment. It was a Lightfoot moment and one I'll never forget. The voice as pure as ever bringing back our memories of other days, other nights, other moments. And in that moment, captured the spirit of Canada in 2012. We're going to miss Gordon Lightfoot. But in so many ways, like so many past entertainers, we will forever have Gordon Lightfoot with us because we have his music, we have his lyrics, and we have his voice.

And together, none of those will ever be forgotten. All right. Let's take a quick pause, and then I'll be back with Brian Stewart and this week's commentary on Ukraine. Take the pause now, because I think it's appropriate, for one. And two, don't want to interrupt brian money gets going so let's take that pause we'll be right back and welcome back you're listening to the bridge right here on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform.

As promised, it's time for our regular Tuesday commentary with Brian Stewart about the war in Ukraine. No more introduction needed, so let's get right at it. Here he is, our friend Brian Stewart. So, Brian, I think it was about two weeks ago when you were discussing the different things that were happening as a result of those Pentagon leaks. You said one thing that they are likely to produce is more talk about peace. And you said, you know, wait a couple of weeks. So here we are a couple of weeks, and what happens? The Pope starts saying that he's involved in back-channel talks,

and others have said similar things in the last few days. What do you make of this, and how serious do you think it may be? Well, I think it all has to be taken seriously, because everybody's dealing with massive issues here, and peace of the world, and peace in Europe in Europe and global economy and the rest of it. But there is a kind of timing to this rise and fall of this. I must say it's beginning to get a bit of a crowded channel right now, the number of peace seekers.

We have Xi of China, Macron of France, Lula of Brazil, the president, the Indies involved, Turkey's involved, and I'm sure two or three others are trying. And I think, you know, one of them is now's a good time for countries that think they can play a role in this to get in the first wax in, because they probably think there's not going to be any negotiations till after a big offensive by the ukrainians they're not going to suddenly stop months of preparation for you offensive and then say okay let's talk peace and putin's not going to be ready with anything right now but it's important to get that foot in the door it's it's very important for the

pope for sure to be seen to be among the the peaceful, hopeful peacemakers of the world. And the others, you know, Macron of France is trying to carve out a role for himself as really the great power of continental Western Europe now and the leader towards peace. So he's playing to his ambitions and she has his own and I think they all think we'll probably pick this up after the Ukrainian offensive when both sides may finally be realize they have no option but to talk and that's where they would like them to get to where they feel they have no option but the talk. Right now, they have too many other options. You know, I want to get to the— That's my feeling.

I think the Pope is—you know, I was wondering when he would come in. I mean, the Vatican has historically always played a peacemaker role. It's hard to think of a war where the pontiff of the day has not sort of tried to make peace and call on both sides to make peace. I'm not sure how good, even though the Vatican has a very, very good diplomatic corps, I'm not sure how, let's say, hard-nosed their peace options are compared to some of the others. I think Macron and Xi would say this is the hard reality we have to work towards. But what do I know? I don't know.

I'm not going to be sitting in on any peace talks, I can assure you. Not that I would want to, but I just won't be invited. Let me frame it this way. I want to get to the latest on the Ukrainian offensive, as you say, which plays an important role in all this right now. But before I get there, you're a student of history, as I've said many times. What does history tell us about these kind of back-channel negotiations? Well, it's amazing sometimes what pops up. I mean, before we heard about the Oslo Accords, which led to a partial and potential settlement of Mideast problems,

who had thought the Norwegians were even involved in peace operations? But they became the major sowers together of a peace agreement back, I believe, in the 90s. And, you know, another sort of famous one was when Nixon went to see Mao in Beijing. I mean, that was put together, I think, by the Pakistani ambassador was the first one to come up with, you know, Pakistani or Indian, I think it was Pakistani ambassador, come up with that as a notion. So what we find out if we go back in history and read about peace agreements, the number of very strong diplomatic roles played by smaller powers you don't hear very much about but like sweden and norway denmark certainly india that's not a small power but it does a lot of this kind of stuff and it's it's much more influential than we often seem to feel now the end, it'll always come down to the big powers themselves will be the ones deciding.

But to get the ball rolling, to get doors open and tables shaped to the right shape for the table discussion, you often need the smaller powers. That was somewhere that Canada used to try, obviously, its hand in quite a bit. You know, we date ourselves when we talk about the shape of the table discussions around peace talks. But for those who don't remember or weren't around at the time, when the Vietnam War was coming slowly to an end in the early 70s,

there were talks in Paris between the North Vietnamese and the Americans. And it took about a year, I think it was, before they could agree to the shape of the table to sit at during the talks. Right. Because the big issue there was the South Vietnamese insisted they be in on the talks, rather logically, as they were half the problem, half the solution.

And so that would mean a table with at least three sides, you know, and the North Vietnamese were saying, no, they don't belong here. They're nothing but a puppet regime of Washington, and we're not going to have them. We want a two-sided table. Now, the reality is they couldn't care less about the shape of the table. It was, they were fighting to keep, you know, the South Vietnamese out. And they could easily have said, you know, there are too many ashtrays on your side of the table. We're not going to talk for the next six months until we sort out the number of ashtrays each side can have. It sounds like a Monty Python skit, but of course, behind it is always cold, cool, careful diplomacy in operation. You're dating yourself again by the talk of the ashtrays. That's true. Okay, so let's move uh to current issues and um this constant talk of the

um ukrainian offensive expected at some point in the next few weeks at least the start of it we keep hearing different things about the the the potential for this offensive the strength of this offensive and the strategy behind this offensive, and the strategy behind this offensive. You spend a lot of time listening to top military analysts and reading top military analysts. What are you hearing on that? Well, what I'm hearing is there's growing confusion over the complexity. There's a lot of nervousness,

which we've discussed before about, is Ukraine really trained enough up to speed and the equipment is gone? Does it have enough ammunition? Does it know really what it's doing in this thing? And there's a lot of nervousness over that. But what is at the core of the hard-to- to understand position a lot of the experts are saying they're in is this, that both sides, the Russian and the Ukrainian, are doing very different things than they were doing six months ago. There are many ways different forces than they were just six months ago. I mean, the example of that is the Russians, we have seen,

have not been very adept, very efficient at attack. We've seen them since their initial invasion, they're rather poorly in the attack. That's not to say, however, they may not emerge as, I hope that wasn't a double negative, but they may not emerge as quite good in the defensive. We don't know that because we haven't really seen Russia in the defensive. It's not been a big part of the Russian military doctrine. I mean, after all, Russia is entirely protected on

their minds by nuclear weapons. Therefore, they haven't spent a lot of time on the tactics and the try and lure the attacking enemy into a kill zone where they will be sort of slaughtered by the artillery fire. These are all things that Russia's learning to do as it does. And nobody can really judge how well the Russians are going to perform on the defensive until they actually see them in action it's very very hard to learn a new military doctrine and theory if you've been practicing a different one basically attack in large large numbers all your life um and as for the ukrainians well they weren't really a lot of their senior officers you know grew up in the soviet Soviet military era and have a lot of the Soviet doctrine. Their basic defensive preparation was not attack. They weren't going to attack Russia

or any of his neighbors. It was defensive. So they were really prepared for the defensive right up until the invasion when they went brilliantly on the defensive, and they performed very well in a sort of mobile defense using the landscape of the country and the built-up areas of the cities and towns to really lure the Russians into devastating positions. Now we don't know how well the Ukrainians can switch from that role in six months to the offensive and become basically another mental force. Will they be able to use all combined operations? That's the operations that, you know, mingle, match together, sew together infantry, armor, intelligence, logistics, air, all of that.

Supply in all regards into one big punch or several big punches. So they all work together as opposed to one battalion off here, one battalion off there. So we haven't seen really the, yes, people will say, well, what about those two attacks, the one in the north in September and the other one in the south in November, in November? Weren't they very effective offensives? Yes, they were effective, but they were kind of chancy things. I mean, they were the Ukrainians took advantage of finding the Russian forces undermanned, under-equipped, under-supplied, and in a daze. And in both those cases, they launched effective offensives, but they couldn't carry very much beyond 15, 20 miles when they themselves sort of ground down because they didn't

have a force built for a long-term big punch offensive. Now, that's what they've been learning. They've been training abroad. They've been training at home in western Ukraine. They've got 12 to 15 to 16 of these brigades, you know, 60, 70,000 men in the front ranks and many more behind, prepped to go, but have they absorbed all this? And will they, when they attack, be able to punch through those lines? Will they be able to maintain momentum?

And if they can't maintain momentum and they get caught in those kill zones, will they be devastated? And what will that mean for the war? If they do break through and break into the Russian rear And what will that mean for the war? If they do break through and break into the Russian rear, what does that mean? Will they win a modest victory or will they win a very big victory? And these are all questions that headaches are going around the circuit of people saying, I don't know. And a sensible person wouldn't lay any bet on this, because how do we know how these two

major forces are going to fight when they take on different roles in the biggest battle seen in Europe since May of 1945? Let me ask you the question this way, in terms of the Ukrainian side. When you listen to what the Ukrainian generals are saying, what the Ukrainian president is saying, anything official coming out of the Ukrainian side, aside from the normal kind of bluster that one hears at a time like this, how confident do they sound to you? I think there's a division of opinions in the government, as one would probably expect. Apparently, the intelligence chief is extremely hawkish and thinks they're going to be spectacularly successful in the attack, where several other ministers have real doubts.

And I think there's been even some suggestion in and around the Ukrainian government that they should make exploratory talks with Russia. You saw they've already opened up exploratory talks with Beijing, presumably knowing that we'll get back to the Kremlin. What they're saying in the, you know, Zelensky talked for an hour with Xi and Beijing over the phone, of course. So I think they're more divided. I think Zelensky, it all comes down to him because he gives this nightly press conference. You know, we've often compared him to Churchill, but I think the British would be rather thankful they didn't have to listen to Churchill every single evening through the entire war. I mean, even if it's for five or six minutes, it's a lot of the president coming on and talking. And he basically takes the line that we'll do it when we're ready.

We won't do it before we're ready. And when we do it, we'll do it right. And when we do it, we're going to basically win. And that's, I think, where it stands right now. There are, by the way, a number of analysts who think the delay, whether it's caused by weather, which seems to be largely the case, because you simply can't move large forces of armor across very muddy fields the way they are right now, and will be probably for a week or so or more. Any delay is probably good, sorry, better for Ukraine than it is for Russia because Ukraine will have more time to get its communications right

and its inter-unit communications right, its intelligence, its training. The last training will be done in the coming weeks. And every day they can get extra training should be a bigger help. The other thing I think will be done in the coming weeks. And every day they can get extra training. It should be a bigger help. The other thing I think the Ukrainians are looking at is the problem of there's a tendency of people who haven't been in a war, say,

to expect that your most veteran units are going to be the best. I mean, the ones that fought in North Africa, say, were stars, were put in the British into the Normandy invasion. Well, there's an old saying in the military that old soldiers are cautious soldiers, and that's why they're old soldiers. And a lot of the older Ukrainian units that have been being in nonstop action almost since, you know, a year ago last February, January, February. Imagine how their exhaustion level must be at this stage. You know, they live in squalid conditions. They rarely get any leave.

And they're left fighting one Russian day fighting after another, they're exhausted. And whether they'd be any use at all in an offensive now is probably being debated at one level as well, rather than fresh troops that haven't really been in the thrust of the force too much, but with officers who are experienced, of course. I love that phrase you just used. Old soldiers are cautious soldiers, and that's why they're old soldiers.

That's right. Well, there was a wonderful British, this Highland, Scottish division, actually. I forget which number now. I don't want to say a number in case I insult somebody, but it was put in the original invasion. They had fought in North Africa, and they had fought in Sicily and Italy, and they were brought home. Montgomery, when he was coming home to take charge of the D-Day landing activities, said,

you guys don't know where I'm going to go next, do you? And they all said, oh, no, on another front. He said, I'm going to go home to you. And they also know at another front, he said, I'm going to go home for a bit of leave. And they gave him enormous cheers. And it was a wonderful moment in the division. And they went back to Britain. And the next thing they started training for D-Day. And they went in on the early D-Day landings. And a lot of them said, look, we've done our bit. We've been fighting since 1941. Time for the younger ones to come in and i think a lot of the ukrainians right now i think this this story has meaning because a lot of the elder ukrainians who were fighting even before the invasion with the russian advances in the eastern territories

since 19 sorry to 2014 are really exhausted and they're, we have done our bit, and we want a new layer of Ukrainian troops to be taking the main thrust. And I'd be interested in what we see in the offensive, whether they do that, or whether they, again, rely upon these very tired old veterans who want to stay alive. Okay, we're going to switch sides now. I'm going to look at the Russian side for our final segment today. And here's my question. We spent, I guess it was you last summer, who first suggested to our audience, you know, you better watch out for this Wagner group or Wagner group,

because they're kind of mercenaries who fight on the Russian side, and they're tough, and they're ugly, and they're brutal, and all of that. And sure enough, they started to take a prominent position on the Russian side and in the battles that took place through the fall and through the winter, and were part of the spearhead of the so-called Russian offensive earlier this year. At times, some think that we gave too much, not just we being the bridge, but journalists in general and commentators and analysts gave too much kind of ink

to the Wagner group. Now we're seeing, you know, it's clear they didn't do very well in the offensive. They did very poorly, in fact, and took heavy casualties. But what is your take today on the Wagner group? Well, it's an awful ugly force. I mean, it really is about as miserable and violent and vicious military forces you can find certainly in Europe, and it's operating in many places in the world right now.

But they were better trained than the average Russian soldier, certainly. A lot of them were war lovers they just loved war um as you can sometimes find in you know elite units uh but they were made up largely also of criminals of the very worst kind who committed atrocities left right and center while they were as they were in the front but they did do most of the big fighting around Bakhmut. I mean, that was the one they vowed they would take for Putin, and they haven't been able to take it yet. But what's interesting is their leader, Prigozian,

who I think gets much too much attention, but still he says things that give you pause, because now we say, we may leave. We, the Wagner Group, may pull out of the backwood. Just walk away from here because you're not giving us enough ammunition. We've been screaming for ammunition for two months, and they have. That's true. And they haven't been getting what they want.

And they've been taking most of the casualties. And he's actually saying we've been losing people left, right, and center, with horrific casualties. This is confirmation of the Ukrainian claim that they've been killing the Russians and the Wagner Group in enormous numbers. And he seems to be almost goading Putin to do something rash, like you start ordering him around or something. And he's got a lot of allies in that extreme nationalist, right-wing Russian war blog, war enthusiast crowd. And he's got a lot of allies there that kind of see him as a possible future leader of Russia.

I don't know what's going to happen here. Either Putin may just fire him one day. He'll be gone like MacArthur was fired by Truman. Or maybe even worse, he'll just disappear. And we'll never see him again. Or he'll fall out of a window of some tall building. Whatever might happen. But what's the best adage for an out-of-control billiard ball or something, just knocking wildly wherever he goes. But it does show that there is a kind of

confusion, chaos in Moscow that, you know, means it's not all Western sort of propaganda. They've, they just fired their deputy minister in charge of logistics for the entire military. He was fired just before the Ukrainians launched a major invasion. And that bears out, you know, Wagner's claims that they had lousy logistics from the beginning. They would have done much better if they'd had enough ammunition. So there is confusion in Moscow, and it could become very dangerous confusion, which is, and this kind of ended up here, perhaps. This is why many in the West want to see Ukraine win in the offensive, but not win too much could throw that Russian reality into a kind of violent chaos back in Moscow that, frankly, nobody in the West really wants to see. Because who knows where it would end and who knows what hands it would end in. But how do you win just a little bit but not too much?

I mean, what kind of win is that? Well, that would be where the Ukrainians do a fairly good punch through, maybe get to the Black Sea, divide the Russians in half and are hanging on there, but haven't obviously moved into Crimea, haven't seen the Russians collapse into, you know, to surrenders and run away, as frankly, they did in 1917 in the First World War. That's the kind of scenario the West doesn't want to see, a really bad Russian defeat. They want Russia given a very big bloody nose and given a lesson, no more invasions of surrounding countries. But it doesn't want to see it humiliated and driven to a point where, basically, nobody could predict who will be in the Kremlin and in charge six months hence.

Not with a crowd that's running around in Moscow right now. I mean, look at Prigozhin. There are even more frightening ones than him. We're broadcasting almost every night, criticizing the Russian army and not afraid to do so, criticizing the brown shirts and the Nazis were so extreme that they were bumped off in the night of the Long Knives, I think in 1934. They might become that degree of threat to the Kremlin elite right now. This action will have to be taken not against progressives and the left, but actually against the extreme right. I certainly wouldn't predict that. But, you know, the way things are going now, that's where it could end up.

And the right have a lot of followers, a lot of veterans of foreign wars, and they've come back, and a lot who think that, you know, that Putin and his crowd have really not performed very well, and he's been in too long, and maybe it's time to bring in somebody really tough and somebody who will reshape the Russian country into something that is really firm, dynamic and scary to the rest of the world. And we don't really want to see that. Well, as you always do, you've given us an awful lot to think about on both sides of this conflict in terms of where we are right now. So, Brian, we'll leave it at that for this week.

Talk to you again in seven days. Thanks very much. Thank you. Bye, Matt. Brian Stewart with us, as always, on Tuesdays with another fascinating update on the situation in Ukraine. Okay, before we go, as I've been trying to do this week, our little coronation update. I mean, it's getting so close. Don't you feel the excitement? I don't know. Obviously, I must feel a certain degree of excitement because I keep talking about it. But how about this? These are what we call in the business, you know, fun facts. I told you the one yesterday about,

you know, coronation chicken. And I'm sure many of you have already Googled that or you've gone to your local grocery store to see if they have coronation chicken. You've Googled it, got the menu and you're at it. see if they have coronation chicken you've googled it got the menu and you're you're at it you're you're preparing the coronation chicken well here's another fun fun fact these are the kind of little things that you know anchors use to pass the time on the air of a long show and the coronation show will be a long one i see the you know the the broadcast networks are going on the air at like 4 in the morning or 5 in the morning, at least in the Toronto, New York time zones.

And they're going to have to fill a lot or they're going to have to shut up a lot. I always used to argue for the latter of those two. I felt that so much of this doesn't need voiceover. You don't need to say, well, there's a band. It's a band. You can see it and you can hear it if the anchors are quiet. David Dimbleby, the BBC, was the best at being able to get that. And I tried to mimic him, but there were times I couldn't shut up myself.

Anyway, fun fact. You know when you're watching any of these royal events, and especially so, I would argue, for a coronation, because I'm old enough to remember vaguely the 50, the early 50s coronation of Elizabeth II. And I remember Dinky Toys put out a special, you know, carriage with all the horses and everything. Oh, man, you wanted that. If you could get that, you'd really, you know,

in the class A of the Dinky Toy holder crowd. Anyway, you know, when you're watching them, there's all kinds of special things like the crowd. Anyway, you know when you're watching them, there's all kinds of special things, like the coronation carriage, you know, like the crown jewels, you know, like the various trappings that will be in Westminster Abbey for the coronation. It is Westminster Abbey, is it? I think so, yes.

It must be. And, but there's more. And here's a little fun fact that I'm sure only the most loyal of you monarchists out there would know this. When he ascended the throne, Charles II, okay, that's the previous Charles, had no coronation regalia, nothing, except the coronation spoon anointing that they used for the anointing of the new monarch.

Well, why is that? Well, Charles II was in the 1600s, right? So Charles II, during the English Civil Wars, which were 1642 to 1651, the monarchy was briefly overthrown, and almost all the objects were either melted down or destroyed. So when Charles II returned in 1660, he lacked the required items for the coronation. So what did he do?

He put everything on hold. It took nearly a year for all the appropriate stuff to be made. So the ceremony wasn't held until 1661. Now, I bet you didn't know that. And I imagine many of the things that were made for 1661 will still be in place on Saturday morning when Charles III gets his crack at the throne. So there you go.

Yet another thing to go with your coronation chicken in terms of facts for this week. Tomorrow, it's on the Wednesday edition of The Bridge. It is, of course, Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth. We'll connect with Bruce. And Bruce is in the UK right now. So we'll get from him. Our on-the-spot, our on-the-scene coronation reporter, Bruce Anderson.

Let's see him put that in his CV. We'll get from him some sense of uh of what it's all like thursday is uh your turn and the random ranter so if you have a something you want to say please send it in to the mansbridge podcast at gmail.com the mansbridge podcast at gmail.com make sure you include your name make sure you include where you're writing from. That's Thursday. Friday, good talk. Chantelle Hebert and Bruce will join us again.

And that'll be the day after the night before. And the night before, Thursday night, is when Justin Trudeau addresses the Liberal Convention, the biennial convention that's taking place in Ottawa before he jets off to go to the coronation. It'll be interesting to discuss what he had to say as many of the delegates are looking up listening to him as going, has he still got it?

Is he the guy we want to be the leader for the next election? We'll find out when we hear from Bruce and Chantal on Friday's Good Talk. All right, that's it for this day. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. It's been a treat talking to you. Please find a quiet spot today. Listen to some Lightfoot.

It'll do your soul good. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks for listening on this day. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.