The sound of two cats fucking

What a coincidence that I should have read Kristian Gravenor’s column [“No More Bitter Goodbyes,” Dec. 12] only two days after my return to Montreal. After almost eight years in London, I gave up my job and headed back over the Atlantic to this city, via another fantastic city - Amsterdam (at whose airport, incidentally, a close friend says she buys hardcore porn videos duty free… but that’s another story).

Things certainly have changed in Montreal. When I left, the most remarkable thing about Ste-Catherine was its dereliction: row upon row of empty buildings and boarded up windows. Today, the street is alive with glittering products and eager consumers.

Great. The city’s economy is actually improving. But what has struck - let’s be honest, shocked - me more than any of this is the increasing dereliction of the English language. Montrealers, it seems, are incapable of stringing four words together into a coherent sentence. It’s an unfortunate reputation that has achieved international notoriety. Sharing a drink at a South London house party earlier this year, a TV producer leaned over and whispered to me, “Montrealers speak the most appalling English.” Go to France, and Québécois French is similarly appreciated. Yann Martel may have won the 2002 Man Booker Prize for his exquisite prose, but he is an exception (wherever you come from).

So while everyone pats one another on the back for Bill 101’s success, I sit back and grin. Grin, because I was lucky enough to slip the Bill’s noose, and ended up in English school instead. I owe my academic and professional success to my parents’ impeccable timing. They emigrated here from England before Bill 101 became law. I went to an English primary school (which has since become a French school), attended a private English girls’ school and CÉGEP, went to English university and obtained a scholarship to do my postgraduate degree at a prestigious university in England. I am now a writer and editor by profession. I am unashamedly an anglophone: one of those hated immigrants that certain Canadian politicians take every opportunity to berate for their “tendency to prefer English.” In fact, I speak three other languages, one of which is French. But if not for English, I would not be the person I am today.

It’s a pity Montrealers have carved out such a dire linguistic reputation. I can’t help but laugh at the absurd case of that couple in the Eastern Townships. As I watched footage of a woman measuring letters on a sign to see whether it complied with Bill 101, I was incredulous. It was petty preoccupations like these that kept me away from Montreal in the first place. I understand the need to protect a culture, but surely there are more constructive ways of doing so.

Am I glad to be back in Montreal? Yes, and no. Yes, because my family lives here, because I have great friends here, because I grew up here, because the city is beautiful, because the food’s fab. No, because the politics here are unmitigably parochial, because not one of this city’s English newspapers could compete internationally, because English radio and television media is impoverished, because the sound of Montrealers speaking English or French is like two cats fucking on a summer night.

» Shiromi Pinto

Bravo cinematic cynicism

I just read Matthew Hays’s story about how Claude Chamberlan feels it is necessary to transform Cinéma du Parc into Cinéma Guzzo, with subtitles [“Damaged reps?” Dec. 12]. I would just like to thank Chamberlan for this rejuvenating blast of cynicism. Montreal truly is fortunate to have him as one of our cultural impresarios.

» Matthew McMillan

Catch up,
strip down

It’s nice to see that Montreal is finally starting to catch up with the rest of North America when it comes to naturism [“Nudes homeless no more,” Dec. 19]. It sure would be nice to have an outdoor place to hang loose in the summertime. I realize that there’s an unofficial nude beach in Oka, but it’s a hell of a trip. Why not somewhere more accessible, like Beaver Lake?

» Simon Rafuse

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