The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Drones for Prisons, Napoleon's Hat & Canada Makes the List for Most Beautiful Spot in the World.

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

It's a Wednesday End Bits special you won't want to miss. Starts with a story where a British judge calls an Uber eats delivery system to get drugs into prisons, and lots more. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of the Bridge. It's Wednesday. And Wednesdays mean a number of things. And lately, what they've maintained is end bits. And today is an end bit special. And we've got lots of news you can use for just what, I'm not sure, but at least as talking points.

That you can use at the dinner table, you can use at the lunch table, you can use in the office. They're all interesting little stories, and they're coming right up. And hello there. Welcome to Wednesday. Welcome to our NBit special for this week.

And I think you'll find some of these stories more than a little bit interesting. Quite the day yesterday, must have been. We had the leader of the United States threatening genocide against the Iranian civilization. Well, by the end of the day, there was some kind of a deal, and people are still waiting through just exactly what that deal was.

Who benefits from which part of the deal? And who doesn't? Who won the war? Well, one, the war isn't over. There's a ceasefire on for a couple of weeks. Who knows what will happen at that point? But at this stage, it certainly doesn't appear that Iran lost, they still exist.

The regime still exists. They've taken a pounding, an absolute pounding over the last five weeks. But they're still standing. And the regime still exists. And they have control of the Strait of Hormuz. There are all kinds of conditions on that control. But at the end of the day, they're going to make money out of the Strait of Hormuz,

money they weren't making beforehand. So I don't know. It's going to be an interesting discussion and an interesting couple of weeks. But we're not going to talk about that today because it's Wednesday. And this is our kind of break from reality in some ways. We talk about other stuff on Wednesdays.

Not to say these things aren't real, but they're not the kind of things we would normally talk about. So let's get out. Remember those movies? They were quite popular during, I think, I guess the 80s. They'd have jail breaks. And the movies were actually based on some real events that had happened. They'd have a jail situation and a prisoner, head of a cartel or the head of a mob or whatever,

where money was no reason to get in the way of an escape plan. And they'd get a helicopter and they'd fly it right into the prison and boom, snatch the prisoner and the escape was on. Those actually happened. But the movies were, you know, exciting and they made money. Well, there's a version of that going on. on now. And the New York Times

had a piece the other day. By Lizzie Dearden, writing for the New York Times from London. The headline is in Britain, drones are flying contraband into prisons as if it was Uber Eats, you know, the service that brings your meals if you call in,

brings it right to your doorstep. Well, here, the drones are bringing contraband, you know, drugs, guns, what have you, right into the prison yard and dropping them off for prisoners. Guards either looking the other way or guards not seeing anything. Here's how the story starts. It sounds like the setting for a movie. I mean, she should send this to the studios. Shortly before 3 a.m., the sedan pulled up on a.m.

Street. In surveillance footage used later in court, a man can be seen leaving the vehicle and tending to an object on the ground. Moments later, the object, a drone, rides into the air and disappears. The location was just outside the perimeter of one of Britain's largest prisons, Wormwood Scrubs, and the drone was carrying illegal contraband to inmates. The man operated the drone that morning in December 2024 was later convicted of being the leader of a gang that ran an estimated 140

140 illegal flights to nine different prisons in England between December 2024 and his arrest in February of 2025 he was paid almost 27,000

pounds that's about $50,000 By inmates and by their friends and relatives, prosecutors said, fulfilling orders for drugs, phones, chargers, tobaccos, and knives. See what I mean? It sounds like a movie. According to government figures, the lucrative enterprise made up only of a small fraction of the drones sent into British prisons in recent years, transporting contraband that prison governors say is

driving up violence and drug use. Such is the efficiency of the smuggling that prisoners are ordering products such as weight loss injections, as well as sought after items like phones and weapons. They're bringing in all sorts of stuff, said one person. Anything that has value in the prison that someone in the prison wants that they can't get through legitimate means. Judge James Lofthouse, who sentenced this guy that we were talking about from London, sentenced him

just last month to five years and three months in prison, said the illegal packages have been landing inside prison walls, frankly, as if by Uber Eats. You gotta love it. Now, it's not funny. It's not cute, and it's

super dangerous. But it does read like a movie script or a novel. Inmates order deliveries using phones concealed from the prison authorities or through contacts inside prisons who relay their request to gangs outside. The items are usually then paid for by relatives and friends. Packages are attached to commercially available drones. And so the question is, and I know you're asking it, like, what do they do?

Where do they fly the drones to? They just like fly it over the wall. and sort of land in the middle of the prison yard, and if they do, where are the guards? Like, what are they doing? Well, this piece does answer that question. They're flown to a pre-arranged location, like an exercise yard or a cell window.

Right to the window of your cell. This is like, you know, door-to-door service. They cost five times to ten times their normal value. It spirals. into the communities outside because quite often families get threatened to pay off a debt that's owed inside. So there you go. The police have been patrolling areas around prisons in the knowledge that the devices have a limited operating range. Any drones found are dusted for fingerprints and undergo digital forensics to seek metadata on their flight pass.

Once a drone is airborne, there's very little policing that can be done. said one official, we have to go through the doors of organized criminals and catch the drone pilot while he's in bed or having his cornflakes. Some guy sitting there running his drone from his breakfast table. He's got a program to line in the middle of the prison yard,

but he's monitoring it with his control features. I don't know. What do you think? Amazing, right? I've never quite figured out you know, they talk about the stuff's got to be ordered from the inside. Prisoners aren't allowed to have cell phones. You see in the movies or the documentaries,

how they line up at pay phones to make their calls. But clearly some, if not many, have cell phones. Like, how did they get them? And how do they keep them? You know, you assume that people must know what's going on inside the prison. They've got cameras everywhere. they can't see that prisoners have cell phones. Well, you know, there are ways around everything, right?

Okay, let's move on from Uber drugs. You know, I'm, as many of you know, because you send me stuff. I'm a bit of a history buff. I love the sort of, you know, the odd history story about history, how history comes back and how we find things that are part of history. And, you know, that's why museums are so popular. You like to go, you'd like to see what was involved, touch what was involved in some historic moment.

Well, this story is a little bit about that. It comes from artnet.com. And the headline is, one of Napoleon's sweaty hats was just read discovered after a century in storage. Now, you know what kind of hats we're talking about in terms of Napoleon hats. All the pictures you ever see of Napoleon, he's wearing one of his special kinds of hats. There's a name for them, which we will get to. It's called a bicorn.

Bicorn, bicorn or bichorn. This particular bichorn was one of four. the exiled emperor brought with him to St. Helena. That was the island prison that he was put in and where he lived his final days. So let's read a bit of this story, because I love this story. I find this kind of story fascinating.

When Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to the South Atlantic Island of St. Helena in 1815, he was packed for a permanent vacation. In addition to three servants, I didn't know that. You got to take three servants with him to prison. It's a good thing they didn't have drones then. He took with him three servants. Napoleon also brought his finest porcelain, long-barreled guns for shooting birds. They let him bring guns to prison.

Hundreds of books. a portrait of his young son, and four, you count them, four of his distinctive bichorn hats. One of these hats has been rediscovered after an absence of more than a century by curators at the Condé Museum, which is located inside the Chateau de Chantilly,

25 miles north of Paris. The bichorn entered the museum's collection in the early 20th century, but was archived and forgotten until last year when it was rediscovered during preparations for an upcoming exhibition on Napoleon's legacy.

Following an extensive providence study, the hat was presented to the media just two weeks ago. This hat is a revelation, said the director of the museum. We know every stage of its history from a Napoleon's exile on St. Helena, right up to the present day.

According to his 1821 will, Napoleon left several mementos of his imperial reign, such as the sword he wore at Austerlitz, the seat of France, the seal of France, sorry, and two of his bichorns, his hats, to his son, Napoleon II. But Austrian authorities blocked the transatlore, and after his son's premature death in 1832,

the Imperial Estate was awarded to Napoleon's sister, Caroline Murat, four years later. Okay, I know I'm telling you more than you probably want to know. But I find this stuff fascinating. The Providence Research, Providence Research, was carried out in collaboration with the Muse de L'Arme, France's Army Museum, which confirmed the beaver pelt bicorn, was made by Pupar, Napoleon's official hatmaker. His proportions tricolor corcade and silk taffeta lining match the little corporal's specifications.

There are even some rather moving, rather touching details, namely its silk lining, shows clear signs of perspiration. One can really picture the emperor in his final years, sitting on the island with his servants and his porcelain, wearing his hat. Over the course of his roughly two-decade career, Napoleon is believed to have ordered between 60 and 80 of these hats. Unlike most of his military contemporaries,

Napoleon wore his hat sideways, which made him easily recognized to his soldiers. That's why people think it was just a Napoleon hat. It was the same hat others were wearing, but he wore his sideways. Roughly 15 by coins have been authenticated by experts with most held in the collections of French museums. People have paid upwards of $3 million for one of these hats at auction. Okay, great story, but they missed the most important part. Do you know what it is? It was buried in the details I've read to you, but there was one unanswered question in those details. Do you know what it is? I know some of you are sitting there

going, I know, I know, Mansbridge, I know what you're going to say. Well, if you said, where was that part of the hat that came from a beaver pelt? Where did that come from? Where did that come from. That's right. What do you think? What's your bet? I bet it came from Canada. I bet there's a Canadian angle to this story. And that's why it made it right here on Canada's most important Wednesday podcast. The NBit special right here on the bridge. I don't know. I think there's some investigation needs to be done on that. And I think they're covering it up. There's a cover-up going on in this story about Napoleon's hat.

They're afraid to mention that the origins were Canadian. That's my story, and I'm sticking with it. All right. Last one before the break. Architectural Digest, that's one of those, like, beautiful magazines, outrageously expensive. But every page is a fairer. fabulous picture of something, right? Well, they just did, they just did one of their list stories.

We talked about this last week. People love lists. And this list with pictures is titled the 27 most beautiful places in the world. 27. I am not going to read them all. But I'm going to keep reading until we get to a Canadian one. Because, come on. Who has more beautiful places? than we do. So let's see how long it takes architectural digest to come up with the Canadian one out of this list of 27. Number one,

Victoria Falls. Victoria Falls right on the, you know, right along the border, really, between Zimbabwe and Zambia. As they say, it's hard to top the jaw-dropping natural drama of waterfalls.

And Victoria Falls in southern Africa is one of the planet's most stunning examples. You know, I've never seen it. I mean, I've seen the pictures, but I've never been there. You know, I was on my way to go there in March of 2020. I had agreed to be kind of not a tour guide, but a kind of speaker on a tour in southern Africa, where I'd been before, but I'd never been to Victoria Falls. and this was going to be one of the stops. It was by train.

There was a fabulous trip. What happened in March of 2020? Bang. COVID. Cancelled two days before takeoff. And as it turned out, I'm sure they're doing those trips again, but they never called me again.

But that's too bad. But I look at the pictures and see how stunning it is. and, hey, we've got Niagara Falls, which is pretty stunning. But there's something incredibly wild and remote and Africa about Victoria Falls. That's number one. Number two is Paris. Okay. Natural wonders in Paris, human-made, handsomeness.

Paris with its centuries-old celebrated architecture, grand gardens, tree-line boulevards, and cobbled streets deserves its accolades. It's number two on the list. Number three, searching for Canada here. Number three is Amazon rainforest in South America. And, you know, we've all seen the natural beauty and natural wonder of the Amazon. Number four, here's one that you don't normally hear talked about. Lapland, you know where Lapland is.

It's in Finland. It's in the northernmost part of Finland, also known as Lapland. A region where the sun never sets in the summer and for much of the rest of the year, visitors can feast their eyes on the awesome astrological light show known as the Northern Lights. Well, there's lots of different places you can see that from Earth, including Churchill, Manitoba and Northern Scotland, two of my favorite haunts, but it's pretty dramatic in Lapland.

So it rates number four. Number five, still looking for Canada. We go to Chile. Tor del Paine National Park, located in the Chilean portion of Patagonia, which also stretches into Argentina. Torres del Paine National Park is home to some of South America's most famous vistas. Well, it looks pretty good in this picture, but I've seen dozens of places that look better than that in Canada out in the Rockies.

However, number six, we go to Japan. Arashiyama Bamboo Grove. A forest unlike most. Arashiyama, it is pretty dramatic looking at the picture. It's in Kyoto. It's made up of soaring stocks that create almost entirely green tunnels, save for some dappled sunlight that sneaks through. No, it looks pretty good.

That was number six. So here we are. We land at number seven of the 27 most beautiful places in the world, Banff National Park in Canada, where they show a picture from, it looks like Lake Louise. you know that incredibly blue-green water. But we know the area, we know what you're talking about, and you can point a camera in any direction in the Banff National Park,

and you're going to say this is the most beautiful place in the world. What do they say, home to 1,000 miles of hiking trails, hundreds of glaciers, impossibly bright blue lakes, a mountain that looks like a castle, and Canada's longest cave. Banff National Park is a paradise for outdoor adventures. It's also the country's very first national park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, thanks to its ecological significance. Okay, so we made it on the list.

We made it in single digits. We made it as number seven. I'll take that. Thank you, Architectural Digest. We salute you for picking one of our many, many, many possible candidates. for the most beautiful place in the world. Thank you for that. All right.

Time for our break. When we come back, a couple more end bits. I hope you're enjoying them. Back right after this. And welcome back. Peter Manspitch here with your Wednesday episode of The Bridge. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks,

or on your favorite podcast platform. Glad to have you with us, wherever you're joining us from. Tomorrow it's your turn and the random renter. We have lots of answers for our question of the week about space. And then Friday, Friday is Good Talk. Now, Chantelle's away. She's taking a short Easter break. She'll be back next week, but she's away this week.

So we're doing something special on Good Talk on Friday. many of you keep asking for a return of my good friend Keith Bogue in his what has been regular appearances over the last couple of years to talk about, well basically talk about Donald Trump and what are we to talk about him again. So Keith will join Bruce and myself on Friday and we'll talk Trump on good talk. and we hope obviously that you'll be with us whether you join us on Sirius XM or on the podcast or on our YouTube edition. They're all available on Friday.

So that's Friday's program. All right. Let's get back to what we have for you on NBits this week. And we do have a couple more to round out an exciting day here on the NBit special. Now, we've talked about this before, but I don't know, it's probably because of my advancing years, that I like to focus on some of these health issues. And I know that many of you enjoy these little blurbs because some of you are in the same kind of age grouping that I'm in.

But many of you have parents or grandparents who are. And you like these stories as well Because you whisper them to your parents or grandparents You know, I just spent a wonderful weekend With one of my grandchildren That came to visit us in Stratford for Easter And you know, I know Because I remember the same kind of thing

You know, you kind of look at your grandparents And you go, wow, you know, they're getting a little bit older They got to be careful You got to pay attention to what what they eat, how much exercise, whether they have a daily walk and blah, blah, blah, all that. And so these stories are important and they're good to have. So there's a couple of them here.

This runs from the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago. Headline, these tiny changes might lengthen your life. And they are tiny. It's a story written by Gretchen, Reynolds. She talked about a study, a new study that she's just seen that involves tens of thousands of men and women. Australian researchers determined that adding about five minutes of sleep, just five minutes, two minutes of exercise. This isn't your total, obviously, like it's adding five minutes of sleep, adding two minutes of exercise.

And half a serving of vegetables each day to people's normal routines could be expected to add a year or more to lifespans. A year or more with those simple additions. What were they again? Five minutes of sleep. five more minutes of sleep, two minutes, two more minutes of exercise, and half a serving of vegetables. The benefits from these three tiny habit tweaks taken together noticeably outweighed larger changes to any one of the behaviors by itself. That's interesting. You need the trio. One of them isn't good enough. The findings add to mount

counting evidence that small, manageable changes to our behavior might have an outsize influence on how long and how well we live. We're not talking about big, ambitious goals, said one of the people involved in the study. We're talking about four extra pieces of broccoli at dinner tonight, that kind of thing. Now, I'm lucky. I love broccoli. So I love eating broccoli. I don't know what it is about broccoli, but I love it.

Not so fuzzy about spinach, but I love broccoli. Now, there are questions, as there always are, about these kind of studies. How much or what types of each element do we need? How little can we get away with? Is any single element, sleep, physical activity, or nutrition, more essential than the others? Those involved in the study have been investigating those concerns for years with a particular focus on physical activity and how little might be enough. In one group, past research, even a few minutes a day of vigorous movement,

the kind that gets your heart racing, were linked with reduced risks for cancer, other chronic diseases, and premature death. But the researchers also knew that by itself, exercise wasn't sufficient for long, healthy lives. people also need to sleep and eat. What they wondered was the ideal ratio of these three elements and maybe more realistically, what were the minimum changes people needed to achieve positive results? To start looking for possible answers,

they turned to the UK Biobank, a depository of medical and lifestyle records about hundreds of thousands of men and women. So let's see what they conclude. me get down to the conclusion area of things. The ideal mix of those habits, it turned out to be at least 7.2 hours of sleep. I don't get 7.2 hours of sleep. If I get six, I consider myself very lucky.

Now, if I add like a nap during the daytime, sometimes I'll take a nap. I'd last 20 minutes, might last 40 minutes. I guess that would help get me near that seven hour figure. per day, but a high-quality diet with a nutrition score of at least 58. I don't even know how to do that. But I have a pretty good diet most days. That combination translates into nearly 10 additional years of good health, an extra lifespan, compared with people whose span numbers were lowest.

Encouragingly, the model also suggested that moving the dial seemed surprisingly easy, a mere five minutes daily of extra sleep, two minutes of a day. added activity and a five-point improvement in diet, accomplished with an extra serving of vegetables or whole grains, raised people out of the model's lowest, least healthy category, statistically adding a year to their likely lifespans. Okay. Listen, this is encouraging. Most of us shy away from big dramatic changes in our lifestyles and whether it's

sleep or diet or exercise. But these aren't big dramatic changes. These are slight changes, right? We can do this. So I'm going to try and get a little more sleep. I will add five minutes to my exercise routine, which on some days doesn't exist. But on most days it does, whether it's walking the dog

or doing a little Tai Chi as best I can. to do it. I try, but it's great for, well, it's not great for mobility, but for balance. And when you're my age, as many of you know, balance is critical, right? And diet. Okay. We have another one. All right.

The second one is, headline, New York Times, 10 small things neurologists wish you do for your brain. Okay. And I don't care how old you are. These are important issues for your brain. Right? The opening line in this is, small tweaks to your daily routine can go a long way toward protecting your body's control center

and preventing cognitive decline down the road. In fact, scientists believe that as many as 45% of dementia cases could be delayed or prevented with help from some simple, sometimes surprising changes in behavior. Number one. All right, here are the 10 small things. Wear a helmet. Physically protecting your head is the single most important step you can take to safeguard your brain, expert said.

Recurrent head trauma from traumatic. brain injuries and concussions can lead to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, CTE, which can worsen cognitive conditions overall and in some cases cause dementia. I remember going to the CTE examination center in Boston. Wasn't at Harvard, it was at the other school, the other famous school. in Boston. And this was like 10 years ago or more. When we were just starting to look at the causes

of some early deaths on the part of professional football players, boxers, and hockey players. And you still read these stories about players who were in those different sports dying early. And when they had their brains examined, it was clear with CTE from the past. pounding they took. Now, and many of them were wearing helmets.

But wear a helmet, so many different things, that we do where we should be wearing helmets. And, you know, obviously, well, you know the list. Put in the earplugs when you're mowing the lawn. Okay. Get your eyes checked. Take a walk and swap your chair for a stool. and the idea there is simply

when you're sitting down, taking a break, you're more likely to have better posture if you're on a stool than if you're sitting in some comfy chair. I'm taking all the fun out of sitting. Manage your cholesterol. Bad cholesterol. Can come from consuming red meats,

full fat dairy and sugary drinks. It can harden your arteries, restricting blood, flow to the brain increasing your risk for stroke and cognitive decline. You know, listen, we all get old and we all face some decline over those years. But this is, you know, things we can do to try and slow that down. You know, one of the things I do in my retired life is I give speeches in different parts of the country, different parts of the world. I'm out of the country next week for a day doing, doing an event

outside of Canada. And I love doing them. I love meeting people. I love doing events. And, you know, I always remember a good friend of mine, a fellow was a mentor of sorts. I used to do the same thing to do a lot of speeches. Until a time when he said, I told me he said, I got to stop. Because I'm just not as mentally sharp as I used to be. And you're getting up in front of a crowd to speak, you've got to be, you've got to be at 100%. They've come to see you. They've come to listen to you.

They've come to be entertained, informed, they've come to learn. And you've got to be sharp. And my fear is I'm starting to lose that sharpness. He was in his 80s then. So he took himself out of the speech game. I've never forgotten that, and I try to make sure that I don't get to that point. Well, I know I'm going to get to that point, but I'm trying to do all I can to delay that

when that point may come. So that's why these things are important. Final five here. Floss every day. Oral hygiene is essential for preventing infections and gum disease, all of which can trigger problems. Join a book club. Maintaining an active social life keeps the

negative health effects of isolation, such as depression or even early mortality at bay. Wear a mask on smoggy days or smoky days. Now, living in Stratford, we don't get a lot of smoky, smoggy days. And the same when we're up in the highlands in Scotland, there's nothing like that air. It's just so fresh, so stimulating.

But that's a suggestion. if you're in parts of the world where it's not that clear air. You know, watch your neck. Your neck supplies blood to your brain and neck injuries can restrict that blood flow, starving the brain of oxygen or even causing clots. Avoid any sudden twist or pulling adjustments. Avoid massage guns or deep tissue massage when it comes to the neck area.

Stick with the upper back and shoulders. And the final one, and this pops up in different areas of these health issues that we bring forward. Sleep well. Finding ways to improve your time spent sleeping and the quality of that sleep can go a long way toward helping you stay sharp and fend off dementia. If you work night shifts and sleep during the day, consider blackout shades to help regulate your body's circadian rhythm. If anxiety and depression are keeping you up, try meditating before bed. If you aren't sure where your sleep problems lie, keep a sleep diary to help identify potential issues.

A rested mind is crucial for brain health. As sleep helps consolidate memories and clear out cellular debris from the brain. And the cellular debris we're talking about there is not your phone. All right, this is really a shame because one of the, the ones I was going to get to. I'll save this for next week. I'll tell you what it is, but I won't tell you what's in it

because it takes too long. It was in the Huffington Post. The headline is the rudest things Americans say while traveling abroad. This is Americans writing about Americans. This isn't

us writing about Americans. This is Americans writing about themselves. The rudest things Americans say while traveling abroad. Now, if you've traveled abroad, you've probably seen, witnessed some of these things happen. I know I have. And you just sort of shake your head and look away. But they happen. So I'm going to read this one next week.

I'm going to save it. Is the big tease, you'll all go, oh, I can't miss next Wednesday's N-Bit special. because he's going to talk about the rudest things Americans say while they're abroad. Oh, dear. Just imagine what they say about us. All right, that's going to do it for this week. Tomorrow, your turn, The Random Ranter. Friday, Good Talk, Special, Bruce, Keith Bogue.

And your host will talk about Donald Trump. Now, I know some of you are right and say, I'm not going to listen to another show about Donald Trump. I know some of you will say that. I also know that the biggest audiences we get are when we end up in some fashion talking about Donald Trump. So there you go. That's the two sides of the Trump story. You can't stand him,

but at the same time, many of you, not all of you, can't ignore him. So we'll talk about that on Friday, on Good Talk. Thanks for listening today. I'm Peter Mansbridge. It's been a treat as it always is to talk with you. That's it for today. We'll be back in less than 24 hours. You take care.

And thanks for listening today.