C'est Quoi le Page Eh? Girl?
While conducting research on the mating habits of Wal* Mart users in Buffalo for an upcoming Royal Commission, it came as a shock to me that the only two Canadian females known outside this country are Pamela Anderson (barely qualifies as a Canuck since half of her body parts are made in the US) and Margaret Atwood our dour poetess with an IQ higher than my student loans. It occurred to me shortly thereafter, that the quintessential Canadian lust-maman would be a hybrid of these two prototypes, to wit, the Page Eh? Girl. That these wonders of our gene pool have to be shown off to the rest of the world is a matter of Canadian Pride.

Heather Mallick

When the Fibber arrived on these Shores at the tender age of 13, it quickly became painfully obvious that he had been shipped off to a country whose citizens had taken their erotic cues from a bicycle repair manual. Puberty in Canada is an event best experienced in France and ,back in the early eighties, even television offered no consolation, for, nudity was well cloaked behind garments of various thicknesses.

Enter saviour, stage left. The scene is a high school hallway. A disembodied voice whispers " Saturday night …. The multicultural TV station. Check out the Italian movies that come on after midnight". So I did, and much to my astonishment and my libido's fervent approval, I glimpsed a breast, then another one, and eventually even the fleeting sight of a derriere . This scene would repeat itself with monotonous regularity until, finally, I was formally introduced to the real thing a year or two later.

By then, the following had occurred: first I became fluent in Italian ; second , I had developed a fetish for older Mediterranean housewives wearing blue housecoats, little underwear, and sensuous high heeled sandals.

What does all this have to do with this month's Page Eh? Girl, you might ask? Only this: if Ms Mallick* was to all of a sudden pop into my living room, attired in the manner described above, I - a happily married man - would find it virtually impossible to resist temptation. For you see, after una notte di amore , breakfast would be accompanied by the most delightful and intelligent banter this side of the St. Lawrence, or so I imagine.

I would patiently listen to her stories about her travels through Europe, her battle of wits (if one may call it that) with Bill O'Reilly or stare longingly, while she reads from the third draft of her latest book (something something pillow) . In turn, I would regale her with news from England's Premiership, rivet her with exploits from my time at the Sorbonne ( I once passed it while on my way to Asterixland) and then read to her from my latest email (re: Please stop harassing our columnists) . In short, the whole thing would be quite erotic, especially once we would start feeding each other Nutella sandwiches.

* note, that to the best of my knowledge , Ms Mallick is not of Mediterranean descent, but these things can change.