My spies tell me your column is weak

I remember when Ian Shanley used to work in the circulation department at the Wpg Sun, and he’d occasionally write those Top 5 or Top 10 lists that weren’t very funny. Luckily, they were easy to ignore.

Then sometime last year the brain trust at the Sun gave Ian a column, which incredibly they called “Page Six.” For those not familiar with the original Page Six, it’s the infamous gossip column of the New York Post. While it’s lost a bit of luster in today’s TMZ-world, the Post’s Page Six is still considered one of the world’s preeminent sources of gossip.

How the Sun can equate Shanley’s column — which consists primarily of retyped news releases for fundraisers and amusing morsels about Ian’s lunches with Q94’s Natalee Taylor — with Page Six is beyond me. On the other hand, Shanley’s schtick is a perfect companion for Laurie Mustard’s lame brand of folksy community news, so maybe they know what they’re doing after all.

Why the rant about this today? I glanced at Shanley’s column (I’ll admit, the babes from TanFX caught my eye) and noticed this juicy bit of breaking news:

“My spies tell me that Megadeth will play Winnipeg this spring.”

Are those the same spies who read YESTERDAY’s Free Press? Crackerjack reporting there Ace.

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Speaking of Natalee Taylor, that girl is waaay too cute for radio. One of the local TV stations should smarten up and partner with Q to get her on air doing something. Come to think of it, isn’t Q owned by CTV now? A little more Nat and a little less Sylvia and Jon Hendricks and I might actually be able to make it through more than 5 minutes of that newscast.