The photo was courtesy Bernie "Reverand Bob" himself. Terry needed the worst possible picture of Windsor. One of the tests of a parody issue's success is if some people actually believe it's the real thing. (Someone on an Internet message board once succinctly put it as "Satire works best when not everyone gets it.") I'm happy to report Terry witnessed a man looking at The Globe and Mail and Windsor Star in my mother's Second Cup and loudly taking offense to the Globe running this picture of Windsor. "This isn't a great picture of Windsor! It doesn't represent Windsor at all! Why couldn't they run a picture of Jackson Park?"

Francesca Lorenzo was a reference to a long-time Lance and CJAM bon vivant named Lorenzo Bui.

The bit about the high-speed bullet train is in reference to countless studies that call for a high-speed train (what we call a bullet train and what the Japanese call a shinkansen and never ever refer to as a "bullet train") to be built between Windsor and Montreal (aka the Windsor-Toronto-Montreal rail corridor). Despite countless studies saying how much sense it makes, it's just never going to get built. Ever. Probably because part of it has to pass through Windsor and Toronto. Two cities in the nation governments are reticent to throw money at, albeit for polar opposite reasons.

"Let me answer that in two parts…" This is a reference to a British book/TV comedy called Yes, Minister. The book claims a good politician never answers a tough question directly. He first states that the question has a two part answer, which then allows for a lot of digression and prevarication.

Papau Doktari is a play on "Papa Doc". The Merrill-Lynch-Touche-Ross-et al corporation is a play on the large number of mergers that were going on in the accounting world at that time. The Big 8 becoming the Big 7 then the Big 6 then the Big 5…

The gripe about the CBC was in reference to CBC shutting down Windsor's CBC station. The TV market in the Detroit area is huge. Owning a channel in the VHF spectrum in Detroit, with its 2 million consumers, is a license to print money. No one in Windsor could understand why the CBC refused to see the huge opportunity to not only monetize privileged access to this American TV market but turn CBC Windsor into a super station that broadcasts Canadian culture and tourism opportunities to money-laden Americans.