Britney's 'just 100% beauty'

Night Scrawler

You want to talk about excitement.

It was all excitement at Queen and John Sts. as thousands came for a glimpse of pop queen Britney Spears.

But, for first in line Alaina Antoni, it was about even more than that. She stayed on the sidewalk next to the City-TV/MuchMusic studio from 1 a.m. to offer her services.

"I want to be a Britney dancer," says Alaina, from Richmond Hill, adding any professional dancer would jump at such an opportunity. "She's multi-talented and she's got an amazingly unique voice. She is just 100% beauty."

The one neat thing about staying out all night, and surviving three rain storms, is the new friends that are made.

And sisters Kristine and Victoria Anagnostopoulos, 16 and 13, said they were impressed with the security officers on the scene. "They really have been nice to us," says Kristine.

The teenagers weren't the only ones who were thrilled to be part of the action. The Scrawler bumped into CAW president Buzz Hargrove, who was at City-TV for an interview when he learned the other buzz around there was because of Spears.

"Is she here? I'd love to meet her," he teased, adding after a tough day of negotiations in the de Havilland labour dispute, and after being rained on, it would have made his day.

But unfortunately, he didn't stick around as long as the kids.

"It's worth the wait," adds Megan O'Connell, 18, who admits, like Buzz, she got pretty rain-soaked. She jokes that she is a Britney "stalker. But I do it in a nice way."

The rest of the gang agreed. "We are nice stalkers."

"Oh man, I've got a bit of a headache," says MuchMusic VJ Rick "The Temp" Campanelli, who conducted the hour-long live interview with Britney.

There's a lot of pressure when such a star shows up on the scene but the Hamilton native handled it well.

It should be noted that while the pop diva is living a dream with all of her success, Rick can say the same thing.

In 1994, then a physical-education student at St. Catharines' Brock University, Rick won a MuchMusic contest to work as a temp for two months behind the scenes. It was a great opportunity but even he wouldn't have thought he'd someday find himself interviewing the world's top music stars.

"This is a dream job and I am having a great time," he said.

He must also be commended for asking Britney the tough question about a man offering her $17 million to have sex with him. She didn't respond, but Rick persisted.

"I was ready for it. I tried to keep it humorous," he said of asking the question, adding although she made out she hadn't heard about it, he still thought she was "very nice." As a reporter I can tell you that's not an easy thing to do. No wonder he had a headache. Good job, Rick. That must be why you're no longer a temp.


I mentioned the weather above and have to ask again what the heck is going on this year?

"When did I move to Vancouver?" jokes Bravo cameraman Jamie Corbett. "I don't mind global warming, but nobody said anything about it raining every day."

While I was down at City, I saw a lot of familiar faces walk in and out of the front lobby. It's quite a place.

The recognizable faces included on-air personalities Master T, Jim McKenny, Peter Gross, B.J. Del Conte, Justin Smallbridge, Jojo Chintoh and Peter Silverman. But the one guy I thought I would corner was famous weatherman Harold Hosein. He has some explaining to do. So, Harold, what gives?

"The atmosphere is much warmer," he tells me, adding the result is "more frequent storms."

So if global warming is the cause of all of this nutty weather, what can we do about it? Not much, says Harold. "The man-made part of it is minuscule," he said. "People forget the Earth's core is 3,500 degrees. And where does that heat go? Out of the crust of the earth and into the atmosphere."

See what you learn when you read the Scrawler?


There's been a lot of talk about the development of a report-card system for Toronto restaurants.

It's a great idea for sure and that became even more evident to me the other night when I was walking along Bay St. and a rat ran right out in front of me. I'll admit I was a little startled. Actually, you know, when I'm scrawling around, I've seen a lot of mice roaming around downtown after dark as well.

While they are at it, perhaps they can add a service report card component to it. Not that there's any bad service in Toronto.

And speaking of service, how about this: I'm sitting in my hangout -- The Lunch Bar at King and Bathurst -- when I see a woman struggling to get up the stairs. Before I could react, co-owner Louie Destounis jumps over the counter to help her up. Now that's service. It turns out the elderly woman had just got out of the hospital.

Now, on my report card he would get an A.

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