by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Canada has chosen. In spite of our national media's best efforts to persuade us that Toronto is the only place that exists, Canadians aren't fooled. They've deemed us the funnest place in the land. A poll reports that 32 per cent of Canadians asked consider this as the best place to have fun, a full 10 per cent higher than Toronto, which might have lost several points due to Ben Mulroney living there.

The only non-fun thing here is the fact that we don't get extra hours to enjoy it. So much to entertain us, so little time. In this sea of fascinating and amusing spots, we are victims of the shabby oppression of time. Bring the 28-hour day to Montreal. We've got the Napoleonic code - the little general wouldn't have hesitated to adjust the clock for such needs surely.

For example Montrealers - like myself - love baseball but we don't go because there's too many other distractions. I'm a huge fan but didn't get to a single game this year.

Missing the action leaves me feeling guilty. But working stiffs who slave all day to pay the Hydro bills can sometimes barely get a peek out the window as the circus rolls by.

My ideal fun day would include a morning espresso at the Consenza, an unremarkable café tucked in a strip mall at Jarry and Viau. The place is full of what look to be beautiful mafioso, and indeed it's where baddies twice tried to blow up capo Vito Rizzuto.

Then I'd go to the courthouse. Repentant criminals fighting to stay out of jail can be pretty good entertainment. The library at Jeanne-Mance and Esplanade also beckons. The place houses the most obscure old local newspapers. Thankfully they're moving to a better facility downtown next year.

I'd hit Wellington where you can get the special - 10 hot dogs and fries for seven bucks - at the Rex Pizzeria. Then I'd stroll down the city's most psychedelical strip, get an old fashioned haircut, buy some cheap shoes, and remark upon the unsettling and noticeable shortage of visible minorities in Verdun.

If you consider that Montreal is home to 4,000 restaurants and 1,500 bars, my math says it'd take like 15 years to visit them all. That's my excuse for not knowing many of them. Yet it's still galling when one realizes one's longstanding oblivion to the city's overlooked jewels. This happened to me as I recently discovered the St. Elizabeth bar, a downtown oasis of trees and vines in the heart of the concrete jungle.

I tend to miss every music show held in this city mainly because I don't know what to do with my hands at concerts. Similarly, I'll skip my friend Ron Harris's fetish gear event Friday night at the Black Eagle bar as the invitation insists on attendees wearing rubber or leather. I told him my scuba gear is at the dry cleaners.

Among the many kind invitations I receive as someone who's supposed to be on top of such things are those from Peter Sandmark asking me to his frequent rockabilly shows. I've skipped more of these than I did Mr. Richter's high school biology classes, and have no good justification for my absence except that at that time of the evening I'm usually busy at my blender concocting large medicinal margueritas.

I too rarely venture into the nocturnal land of the unexpected, aka the city's East End (notice how anglos describe everything from St-Denis to Anjou as "the East End?"). Forays into the sleepy east will uncover such treasures as old-fashioned singing bars as well as such places as the glass-façade known as le 1650, at that address on Bélanger. It's a mind-bending bar originally intended as a swingers joint. The shortage of female swingers was resolved as the owner loaded the stools with local hookers.

I believe Canadians were right in deeming this our most fun city. One day I'll get out there and see for myself.

Comments? kgravy@openface.ca