Black Dot Diary

True con­fes­sion: I once hated CBC Radio with a pas­sion. It seems almost un-​Canadian to say that, I know. My dis­like of our national broad­caster began when I was a kid on long car trips across British Colum­bia. Why, I won­dered, would any­one want to lis­ten to talk­ing on the radio instead of the lat­est music. Booooring.

When I became a cre­ative writ­ing stu­dent at the Uni­ver­sity of Vic­to­ria, I thought I should give the lofty CBC another try because so many of the writ­ers I admired swore by it. I tried for years. My dis­like was sealed again when a CBC com­men­ta­tor (maybe Peter Gzowski) vis­ited a chicken bar on the prairies and recorded the sounds of chick­ens being slaugh­tered so we city folks could appre­ci­ate where our meat comes from. I aban­doned CBC for years after that.