Angel >> The Spoonman: >> Cyrille Esteve (aka the Spoonman) will once again be able to delight (?) passers-by on Ste-Catherine W. near Ogilvy's with his trademark manic spoon-clacking accompaniment to recorded Celtic music. Overly-anal city inspectors had forbidden the musician to play his spoons on pain of a $136 fine last month. The reason? Spoons were a "percussion instrument"--and hence forbidden for use by buskers on downtown streets. But due to badgering by Montreal executive committee member Gerry Weiner, a special ordinance ending the spoon ban was scheduled to be passed on June 14. Long live the spoons!

Insect >> Street fair shutdown: >> he blue-collar boys from the public works department charged in with their varied and noisy array of street-cleaning machinery at 5 p.m. last Sunday, closing down the St-Laurent street festival. The only problem was that bar, café and restaurant owners were allowed to have make-shift sidewalk terrasses open until 11 p.m. When owners resisted, the city workers called in the cops from Station 38 to enforce the abrupt closure. A rude jolt to lazy-Sunday Montrealers getting their first real sunshine of the weekend.