October

* The municipal election campaign continues, and polls predict Pierre Bourque's re-election. In a desperate move, Jean Doré announces he might quit the race in order to avoid splitting the anti-Bourque vote. The move, which turns out to be a not-so-clever ruse to force Jacques Duchesneau to quit, backfires miserably. Doré stays in the race, but people have gotten the message not to bother voting for him.

* While in London for surgery, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, 82, is arrested on charges of genocide. Britain received a Spanish extradition warrant on allegations of having murdered Spanish citizens in Chile between 1973 and 1983. Pinochet is never extradited.

* MAI DOA: France pulls out of the negotiations on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, effectively killing the deal. Maude Barlow squeals with glee.

* Hurricane Mitch strikes Central America and wreaks havoc, with winds reaching up to 300 kilometres per hour. More than 10,000 killed and 1.5 million homeless.

* Septuagenarian U.S. senator John Glenn blasts off into space once more.

* The Major League Baseball season comes to a close. The St. Louis Cardinals' Mark McGwire sets a new record for most home runs in a season, with 70. The New York Yankees win the World Series.

* Over 10,000 revellers pack Montreal's Palais des Congrès for the annual Black & Blue extravaganza. Millions are raised for AIDS-related charities. Thousands get laid (but not on the premises, we're told).

* Media mogul Conrad Black launches The National Post on Tuesday, October 27. The Post sets its sights on burying the Tory party by backing Reform's Unite the Right movement.

* The Canadian Red Cross Society is officially removed from its role as the manager of Canada's blood-supply system after 59 years. The Red Cross is replaced by the Canadian Blood Service in all provinces--except Quebec, which, as usual, creates its own "distinct" organization, Héma-Québec.

* The Body Shop's plans to introduce a new line of hemp-based cosmetics are temporarily thwarted when Health Canada blocks the products' entry into the country. Their concern: that people using hemp shampoo, body lotion and elbow grease all in the same morning will get stoned. After 24 hours of arm-twisting and legal correspondence, the products are cleared for sale.

* The NBA season does not begin. The owners' lockout of the players, which began in June, continues with no resolution in sight. By the end of the month, the All-Star game will have been cancelled as well.

* Sort-of-Montreal-based activist and environmentalist Tooker Gomberg, once the NDP candidate in Outremont, loses his bid to become mayor of Edmonton.

*The Sue Rodriguez Story, a made-for-TV movie about the life of the famous ALS patient and advocate of doctor-assisted suicide, airs on CBC. In a rather cheesy cameo, MP Svend Robinson, who was Rodriguez's close friend, appears in the film as a journalist.

* The Unique Lives and Experiences tour, which brings famous women to Montreal to talk about how horribly they've suffered, decides not to return to our fair city because of "political uncertainty." No more Joan Rivers, no more Mary Tyler Moore. Sniff.

* American cosmosurfers Man Or Astroman? pull a devilish scam by "cloning" themselves into four bands. Montreal lucks out and gets the Gamma Clones (the female ones), who deliver a remarkably accurate facsimile of MOAM?, including ridiculous facial expressions and danger-danger robot moves.

* Paint it black: the Black Star album by Mos Def and Talib Kweli goes a long way toward reaffirming our faith in hip hop in these days of Puff Daddy and Master P.

* Black Sabbath reunite, thereby rendering Kyuss, Monster Magnet and all the rest of the nouveau stoner boogie posse obsolete.

* Exiles from Sona-land open a new afterhours called Stereo with a scientifically designed sound setup and a barrage of wicked good DJ bookings. Between this and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, there is now life after 3 a.m. again.

* Mudhoney play Cabaret, rocking the house like the grunge bubble never happened. Then they got chased out of their dressing room by a crazy injun on mushrooms, who really only wanted "to be friends."