July

*World Cup shocker! Boring, plodding France stifles Brazil 3-0 in the World Cup final. The streets of Paris and other French cities, now freed from the madness of soccer yobs from Britain, Germany and elsewhere, come alive with celebration.

*The Canadian dollar begins its midsummer plunge, passing below its historic low of 70 cents U.S. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien tells the world that the fall is good for exports and tourism. The markets respond by pulling it below 65 cents U.S.

* Claiming that "the state has no place between people's legs," D.A., a female-to-male transsexual, launches a lawsuit against the provincial Director of Civil Status over his refusal to change the "sex" designation on his birth certificate from F to M.

* Scumbaggers rejoice! Health Canada does away with its decades-old regulations on the thickness of condoms, clearing the way for Japanese ultra-thins to flood the Canadian market.

* Scumbaggers beware! The Fant-Asia festival opens, and among the films in this year's lineup is Killer Condom, about a rubber with big, sharp teeth that literally eats cock.

* Montreal mayor Pierre Bourque begins his comeback: at 14 per cent support in the polls, he spends the night with a poor immigrant family living in a run-down slum in Côte-des-Neiges. The media call it a stunt, but Montrealers admire the gesture anyway.

* Montreal hosts the annual conference of the Transplantation Society, which makes waves when a group of physicians and philosophers argue for an open market in human organs.

* Montreal's queer pride festival, Divers/Cité, puts on its biggest festival ever. The pride parade becomes the city's largest parade of the year, as an estimated 100,000 revellers take to the street.

* Gillette's Mach 3 arrives in stores and quickly wins accolades as the most over-designed razor in human history. Men everywhere are given the tools to scrape yet another layer of skin off their faces.

* After five years of negotiations and months of acrimony, Canada and Washington State reach a short-term deal on salmon fishing quotas. B.C. Premier Glen Clark calls the deal "an unbelievable sell-out."

* After 11 years of bliss, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore separate and announce their intention to dissolve what was once called "the best marriage in Hollywood." Demi takes the three daughters. Willis arrives later in the month to attend the grand opening party for Montreal's own Planet Hollywood resto. Also in attendance are Cindy Crawford, Anthony Michael Hall and Wesley Snipes.

* Home Alone boy wonder Macaulay Culkin, 17, marries Rachel Miner, 17. Hollywood's next "best marriage"?

* Roy Rogers, the first-generation TV hero to first-generation TV-watching boys and girls, dies at age 86.

* McDonald's Restaurants co-founder Richard McDonald passes away at age 89. Along with his brother Maurice, McDonald pioneered an innovative quick-service restaurant in California, then sold it in 1955 to Ray Kroc.

* Despite a mediocre turnout, the Republika Latin rockfest at CEPSUM proves to be a sunny, skanky blast. The Corona flows like water and Argentina's Todos Tus Muertos deliver a set of ludicrously cool salsa-hop-ska-funk-core, making them a hard act for headliners Grim Skunk to follow. Organizers promise a mach two repeat next summer.

* The Jazz Fest redeems its tacky status--slightly--by bringing on not only the Herbaliser but a double bill of Yusef Lateef and Pharaoh Sanders. American tourists walk out on Sander's set en masse after finding it difficult to "pick up" on what the freaky old man was "laying down."

* After Autechre subject Medley-goers to an exercise in undanceable think-tronica, Derrick Carter reverses the negative mojo with an insanely funky set.