In 1992 I was a speaker at an international conference about the weather and health (hosted by Environment Canada and Health Canada in Ottawa.) Denis Bourque was a principal organizer and, because we were buddies, he swung an invitation for me to speak. Actually, there were no other Canadian medics there apart from a couple of epidemiologists (and they're a very dry lot, by and large, who are always counting things.) My talk followed on an erudite discussion by someone from the German Weather service in favour of the concept of biometerology (measurable human and animal sensitivity to weather,) and the opposing view espoused by an American. ("Can't measure it statistically...therefore it doesn't exist," was the essence of his delivery. Well, Denis and I have proved him wrong since then.) Both talks were detailed and long. Interesting...but long. I knew beforehand that I had little to add to the general store of knowlege (our examination of how e.r. presentations are influenced by weather patterns was still a long way off) and so I decided to be light hearted. To the bemusement of the audience I spent twenty five minutes showing cartoons on the topic of weather and health, with short bursts of information or comment between the slides that were projected onto the twenty foot screen above my head. The audience sat transfixed. Or perhaps they were asleep. I thought I had done a great job of lightening the atmosphere but was not so sure after a while, thanks to the funny looks people kept giving me. I started to feel that I had blotted my copybook until I was buttonholed by a member of the Canadian Broadcasting Company. He asked me if I would like to be interviewed,live, by the CBC, on one of their morning programs to be broadcast on T.V., across Canada. " Okay, " I said, feigning indifference, "if it'll help you out." "Thank you," he said, and gave me the location of the CBC studio. "Tomorrow morning," he continued, " at ten. Wear a coloured shirt please, not white." I spent the next eighteen hours in front of the mirror in the hotel room, primping, posturing and pontificating. Was I excited? You betcha! Fame and fortune beckoned! I don't think I slept. (Insomnia gives one a great, sexy haggard look, in my opinion.) The great day dawned. I arrived only forty minutes early at the studio, which turned out to be not quite what I had expected. It was a small room with a view out over Ottaway. I was to sit in front of the window (the sun was nowhere to be seen) with an earphone in my left ear, facing...nothing. "See that blue screen up there?" the director said. "Yes." "Talk to it," he said. "Pretend the person you can hear in your ear is up there, looking right at you. Take no notice of the camera." "Where's the make up girl?" I asked. He shot me a look and went to talk to the cameraman. I hoped my nose was not too shiny. After a while he said, "We'll have a trial run through, right?" "Yes," I said. I had been practicing my signature for autograph hunters. I sat and stared. Someone said, in my ear, "Say something so we can get the sound level, please." I said, "Hi, my name is John Bart." "You're mumbling," my ear said. I shouted my name. "Better." "What are they going to ask me?" "Whatever it is, keep your answers short and to the point, please." "Can I turn my head?" (One profile is better than another and I'm not telling you which.) "What for?" then "If you must. Just don't fall off the stool." Time passed. Then "Four minutes everyone." There were only three of us. The director/sound man, the cameraman and myself. "At least," I thought, "it's a start. Not bad. Nationwide exposure. Solo interview. I'm in. Pitt look out. And Marlon." "Two minutes!" My heart rate went up. "One minute!" My palms were sweaty. "How do you find a good theatrical agent?" I agonized. Then... "Hold it! Hold it! We've been bumped!" I felt the room swirl. "What do you mean?" I shouted. "Sorry. They've bumped us for an emergency." "What emergency?" "They're taking a feed from the U.K. instead." "Why? What's so important?" "WINDSOR CASTLE IS ON FIRE, that's what." Elizabeth II upstaged me. John almost thespian Bart