This is no country for old men

Nova Scotia's ruling Tories elected a new leader tonight; Rodney McDonald.

The Hot-Rod's a former famous fiddler from Cape Breton.

He's thirty four.

Which is younger than Queenie.

He's the Minister for Tourism. And Culture and Heritage. And Health Promotion. And Immigration. All the important stuff. He has a couple of claims to fame. He abolished the Arts Council. Except for the fiddler section, based in Cape Breton. And he oversaw the collapse of the tourism figures last summer when the yankees stayed home.

He was elected today in the second ballot of a staged event in Halifax that was closer to Canadian Idol than it was to any political happenstance I've ever seen. Or maybe the Eurovision, seeing as it was in English and something that sounded like a frog being strangled, but which I think was supposed to be Francais.

In true Eurovision style, there were two hosts; some bloke whose name I can't remember, and Dame Judy Streatch, the 'thrusting new young woman in NS politics' (her daddy is a politico of course, so she's 'new' in the good ole boys' sense of the word). She shook my hand once in the pub, and nearly broke my middle finger bone by squishing it between my index finger and the ring on my third finger. There were light thingys and big screens and all the doodahs that come with 'events' nowadays.

It being the weekend and it not being fair on Himself who had travelled up to see me, I didn't tune in until the second ballot was nearly over.

They were just about to announce the winner. Judy was doing her best Paula Abdul impression, despite the fact that her demeanour and jawline veers closer to a young Margaret Thatcher, and the assembled thousands shouted 'Rawd-nee, Rawd-nee, Rawd-nee' on cue as she gorged on the glory of the spotlight and turned the election of the new premier of this 'noble province' into a dreadful parody of Republican American razzmatazz.

Then they played fiddle music as Rodney made his way to claim his throne, and I thought I was trapped in the Eurovision that we hosted that spawned Riverdance.

God help Nova Scotia.

How it helps us is another day's work, but the pundits were full of Rodney's need to have an election straight off, to put his mark on the party and to get the electorate's permission to rule etc. etc.

So I suppose that's good.

There will be a by-election in my home constituency soon anyways.

Sigh.

I tell myself I came to Canada for a year off and I laugh hysterically.