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The AIH Transcript for January 24, 2020

Hosts: Carol Off and Chris Howden

CAROL OFF: Hello, I’m Carol Off.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening, I'm Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

Prologue

CH: Tonight:

CO: staying on message. As House Democrats wrap up their case for convicting the U.S. president, one congressman shoots back at the Republican senators who insist they haven't learned anything new.

CH: A parasite to behold. Doctors thought she had a tumor in her liver — but what an Alberta woman learned about what was really growing inside her is enough to make anyone squirm.

CO: Kept in the dark. The head of Canada's Transportation Safety Board says Iran is mostly cooperating with her team's investigation into the downed Ukrainian airliner. But it's high time to hand over the black boxes.

CH: A storied career the late Jim Lehrer spent many of his 50 years as a journalist opposite his PBS co-anchor, Canadian Robert MacNeil — who tells us they spent those same 50 years as very close friends.

CO: Talk like an Egyptian. The voice of a three-thousand-year-old mummy comes to life — as scientists use a 3D printer to produce an electronic version of the ancient priest's larynx.

CH: And… Rock by baby on the laptop. He doesn't know it yet, but baby Ryan is already an Internet star — thanks to his dad — who spent a year splicing his babbling and cooing to the tune of the hard rock anthem thunderstruck.

CH: As It Happens, the Friday edition. Radio that figures now he knows his AC/DC’s

[Music: Theme]

Part one: Impeachment: Democrat, Iran: Transportation Safety Board, Jim Lehrer obit

Impeachment: Democrat

Guest: Jamie Raskin

CH: On the Senate floor this week, Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff pleaded for his colleagues' patience, and their full attention. At times, he got neither. Mr. Schiff, along with several other House Democrats, had 24 hours total to make the case for the Senate to impeach U.S. President Donald Trump. They pored over the evidence, showed the Senators video clips, and invoked the Founding Fathers. Meanwhile, Republican senators could be seen with crossword puzzles, novels, and fidget spinners. Some even napped. Today marks the last day that Democrats can argue their case for impeachment — that President Trump abused power and obstructed Congress. Starting tomorrow, President Trump's defence team will take the floor. Jamie Raskin is a Democratic Congressman. We reached him in Washington, D.C.

CO: Congressman Raskin, this week, do you think your Democratic colleagues convinced any Republican senators to convict the President, realistically?

JAMIE RASKIN: I don't think anybody was necessarily moved to that point in the Senate. I think if you had a jury of 100 impartial American jurors, the vast majority would have been moved. The evidence is overwhelming. It's un-contradicted. It’s un-refuted. The president has no alibi. It's not a case of mistaken identity. There's basically no defence, which is why they keep changing the subject to talk about how rude someone was, or the speaker was passing out pens when she signed the impeachment. I mean, you know there's every distraction in the book. But there is no effort by the Republicans to actually confront the reality of the president's misconduct.

CO: For one thing, you have to have two-thirds in the Senate in order to actually remove the president from your impeachment. But in order to get more witnesses and to get more evidence introduced, you don't need that many senators to come on side with the Democrats. Do you think you convinced senators even to go that far?

JR: Well, I think a number of senators have been moved a lot closer to voting for the production of documents and witnesses. You know, that the real X-factor here is public opinion. I mean, what's going to move them is political heat from their home states.

CO: And do you think they're getting that?

JR: Well, I think they are getting it. One kind of telling glimpse into the situation has been Susan Collins — who's been very jumpy and twitchy during this whole process. She's clearly feeling the heat. She also said Senator Schumer — who's the head of the Democrats in the Senate — of course. He’s going to put the heat on me. But he's also going to try to beat me at the polls [CO scoffs]. And so what we got there was a glimpse into her world view — which is, well, even if she does the right thing and treats the trial like a trial, the Democrats are still going to be running against her, so she may as well double down with Donald Trump and the Republicans. And I think that really is the best window on to the politics of the situation. Most of these Republicans feel like there's not much in it for them to move to a nonpartisan position about it. They've got to stick with the Republican base.

CO: But if they did vote to call more witnesses in the Senate, some Republicans as you're pointing out perhaps might do that, or enough of them to do that. They're also possibly going to insist that Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, there are relevant witnesses, and they should be called. So what would that do for the case if those two men are brought into the Senate?

JR: Well, you know the position of the House majority and the impeachment managers, of course, is that there should be relevant witnesses, and so if they're relevant, then by all means. But, of course, Hunter Biden and Joe Biden don't know anything about Donald Trump's shakedown scheme and how it was executed and how they held up the money with the Office of Management and Budget. And they're just not relevant witnesses. That makes it into a real partisan circus.

CO: You saw the senators appearing distracted, they're playing Little finger games, and reading novels, and doing crosswords, and whatever. Even those who said that the Democrats laid out a good case mentioned that they laid it out over and over and over again. That one hour one session could have done it, and that everyone repeated the same thing. Is it reasonable to say that it became a kind of democratic echo chamber?

JR: First of all, you're right that we are a country with attention deficit disorder. On the other hand, there are people who are sitting in jury boxes all across the country every day who are not permitted to be on their phones and not permitted to play their games. And they just have to pay attention. And they're not paid remotely as much as the U.S. senators are. So I understand that the impeachment managers have repeated a number of themes. Maybe it's you know been a bit overboard. On the other hand, if they had said mercifully that you've given us three days we're just going to use one day, then the Republicans would be running around saying, oh, you see they don't even have enough to say there's so little evidence. Go back to the House.

CO: But when you say that the senators have attention deficit disorder, the question is what about the general public? And I just want to play a few clips that appeared just today. This is out of New Hampshire. Just hear these two undecided voters.

SOUNDCLIP

WOMAN: I particularly think it's a waste of time for their government. And I think that we should be focusing on the next election and doing what's best for our country, rather than impeaching the current president. It's that waste of time, really.

MAN: I believe that the Democratic Party is really focused on this instead of focusing on the issues. And they should beat Trump by voting on the issues, not this kind of farce of a distraction.

CO: All right. That's from undecided voters. You're probably hearing that yourself from your own constituents. What do you make of that?

JR: Well, that's definitely not what I'm hearing from my constituents. What's interesting though, is if you look at the polling of independents, independents overwhelmingly support impeachment, conviction, and removal of the president. So it’s Democrats and independents — and even a growing number of Republicans, although it remains small. Most Republicans you know basically have fulfilled Donald Trump's prophecy that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, and he would maintain his support in the party.

CO: But if you want people to understand the case that Mr. Trump abused power and obstructed justice — which is which are the charges. And you have a compelling case, but you have to follow it closely to understand it. And is that a problem? I mean, if senators are having a hard time following this, is it possible that a lot of people will just find it noise that actually might even come to help Mr. Trump?

JR: The real question is whether people care enough about the Constitution, and care enough about what the presidency is going to be like in the future? If the Republicans actually letting him get away with this behaviour — which the president describes as absolutely perfect, and he's completely unrepentant about it — then it will allow Trump to continue to do that in the 2020 election. And it will open the door for presidents in the future to drag foreign governments into our election.

CO: We will leave it there. And, of course, we'll be following this closely. Congressman Raskin, thank you.

JR: I was delighted to be with you. Thanks for having me.

CH: Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin was in Washington D.C.

[Music: Folksy guitar]

Iran: Transportation Safety Board

Guest: Kathy Fox

CH: Today, Chrystia Freeland said she's confident that Canada is going to get answers from Iran about the downing of Flight PS7-5-2. But the Deputy Prime Minister's confidence is undercut by Iran's failure to hand over the plane's flight recorders. The data and voice recordings on those black boxes are a key part of the multi-national investigation into the crash. Kathy Fox is the Chair of the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. The agency has had a team of investigators in Iran, and has also been participating in the Ukrainian-led investigation in Kyiv. We reached Kathy Fox in Gatineau, Quebec.

CO: Ms. Fox, we heard Chrystia Freeland today say she is confident — that's the word she used — that we will get all the answers we need about this flight. After more than two weeks since the crash, what is that confidence based on?

KATHY FOX: I can't speak for the minister. What I can say is that our investigators — who spent six days in Tehran, and another two days in Kyiv — describe their interactions with the Iranian Accident Investigation Bureau as cooperative and helpful. And they are getting access to more information than we would normally be entitled to under international protocols.

CO: How unusual is it that you would not even have access at this point to the contents of those black boxes?

KF: Well, the international protocols require the state leading the investigation to download the recorders without undue delay. Typically, that can happen within a week or two. We're now past the two-week mark, and no final decision has been made. So we certainly are hoping and urging the Iranians to make a decision quickly, so that we can go to wherever the recorders will be and assist in the download and analysis.

CO: What reasons are they giving for this delay?

KF: Well, first of all, I think it's normal for the country that's leading the investigation to want to download those recorders in that country. But when that can't be done for whatever technical reason, they normally go to another state. So I can't speak to what's happening in Iran in terms of what other factors may be at play here. But part of the issue is definitely a technology issue. The recorders were damaged. And Iran may not have the equipment necessary. And some of that equipment is not transportable. So they have been the last couple of days been assessing the feasibility of doing it in Ukraine. I haven't heard the final outcome of that. And if that doesn't work, then we'll see what other countries may be able to do it.

CO: What are you hoping you can learn from that flight data that's on those voice recorders?

KF: So, first of all, the cockpit voice recorder — which records the conversations between the pilots as well as any other oral audible sound — will at least tell us whether the crew had any advance inkling of what was about to happen. And then the flight data recorders will be able to tell us what the aircraft was doing, its speed, its altitude, its flight path, before the missiles went off, and then after. These data recorders record thousands of parameters of information, and they do it on a second-by-second basis. So that will give us a sequence of events in terms of what was happening in and around the airplane. But that data then has to be corroborated with the physical evidence from the wreckage. And that will certainly tell a big part of the story, but it's not the only part of the story. And the investigation certainly doesn't end when the recorders are downloaded and analyzed.

CO: But what we've heard is that there was no mayday, there was no urgent message sent from the cockpit. So does that indicate that there was no time, there was no response, from the pilots before they were hit?

KF: If there were no communications, or if there were no calls from the pilots to air traffic control, and that is something that also has to be validated, then it could indicate either that they didn't know, or they didn't have time to call. But again, that information needs to be validated by the investigation, and by the cockpit voice recorders before we can confirm if they knew what was about to happen.

CO: And the Iranians have said at some point that they believed that the plane had changed its course, and that may have been what triggered the accidental shooting down of the plane. Is there any indication at this point that they did change course, that they were turning?

KF: Well, that again will be subject to review of the voice recorders, but also the flight data recorders will be recording the aircraft's track — its heading — and we'll be able to — or should be able to — indicate if they're not damaged — what path the aircraft was following both before the missile strike and what may have happened after. Because remember, depending on how the missile exploded and struck the airplane, it may have been rendered uncontrollable immediately, or shortly thereafter.

CO: Can the black boxes show whether or not this really was an accident?

KF: No, I think that in terms of whether the missiles were launched intentionally or accidentally, that requires a line of inquiry with those most directly involved to find out was there a breakdown in command and control, communication, coordination, where there equipment limitations, were operators feeling threatened in some way by something? That line of inquiry needs to be pursued to validate whether it was an accidental shootdown or intentional.

CO: You're not ruling out that may have been intentional?

KF: Investigators put everything on the table when we start an investigation. Nothing is ruled out until it can be confirmed by the evidence.

CO: Does Iran know that you have not ruled out that it might be intentional?

KF: I don't know what's been said. I don't know what they've heard, but this is not the first time I'm saying this publicly, so.

CO: Another key piece of evidence is that the actual site of the crash — which Iran cleaned up pretty quickly. It was bulldozed. Your investigators, what were they able to see, what were they able to learn from the actual site?

KF: I can't tell you what they learned because a lot of the information that they're going to bring back with them we're not going to be able to release. Because one of the limitations of the international protocols is that we cannot share factual information unless it's already been shared by the lead investigation agency, or unless we've been given permission to do so. But we do know that not long after the accident occurred because the debris field was so large, and in such cases it can be difficult to protect. And even though the best practice is to protect it, grid it off, document where all the pieces were found, that there was an intent to transport the wreckage to a secure site, so that it wouldn't be contaminated or lost. Our investigators had the opportunity to visit both the accident site as well as to review and examine the wreckage in a secure location to which it had been transported.

CO: How frustrated are you with this investigation?

KF: I think it's early days. I think we remain encouraged by the information that's been shared to date, by the cooperation and helpfulness of the Iranian investigative team, and by the fact that we're given access to information that we would not normally have access to. The question is going to be, will that continue for the future? Will we be given the higher status that we've been advocating for? And I can't answer that right now.

CO: Well, then we will keep in touch, and talk to you another time, I hope. Ms. Fox, thank you.

KF: Thank you.

CH: Kathy Fox is the Chair of the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. We reached her in Gatineau, Quebec. You'll find more on that story, and our coverage of the shooting down of Flight PS7-5-2 on our website. That's: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: An ambient environment]

Jim Lehrer obit

Guest: Robert MacNeil

CH: He didn't act like a legend. But that's part of what made him one. Jim Lehrer was a journalist for five decades — during which his steady, thoughtful presence made him a giant of television news. As we told you last night, Mr. Lehrer died yesterday in Washington. He was 85 years old. He started out working for newspapers in Dallas — and wound up becoming a news anchor in Washington, for PBS. He created and co-hosted the MacNeil/Lehrer Report with his colleague, the Canadian journalist Robert MacNeil. Mr. Lehrer was the most prolific presidential debate moderator in television history — and, because of his reputation for fairness and fairness, he was routinely given interviews with world leaders, including American presidents. Maybe most famously in 1998 — when he questioned President Bill Clinton about accusations he had a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

SOUNDCLIP

JIM LEHRER: Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel, is investigating allegations that you suborn perjury by encouraging a 24-year-old woman, a former White House intern, to lie under oath in a civil deposition about her having had an affair with you. Mr. President, is that true?

BILL CLINTON: That is not true. That is not true. I did not ask anyone to tell anything other than the truth. There is no improper relationship. And I intend to cooperate with this inquiry. But that is not true.

JL: No improper relationship. Define what you mean by that?

BC: Well, I think you know what it means. It means that there is not a sexual relationship — an improper sexual relationship, or any other kind of improper relationship.

JL: You had no sexual relationship with this young woman?

BC: There was not a sexual relationship. That is accurate. We are doing our best to cooperate here, but we don't know much yet. And that's all I can say now. What I'm trying to do is to contain my natural impulses and get back to work. I think it's important that we cooperate. I will cooperate. But I want to focus on the work at hand.

JL: Just for the record to make sure I understand what your answer means, so there's no ambiguity about it.

BC: There is none.

JL: All right, you've had no conversations with this young woman, Monica Lewinsky, about her testimony, or possible testimony in giving a deposition?

BC: I did not urge anyone to say anything that was untrue.

CH: Jim Lehrer interviewing President Bill Clinton in 1998. Mr. Lehrer died yesterday at his home in Washington. He was 85. We reached his former colleague, co-host, and lifelong friend Robert MacNeil in New York City.

CO: Robert MacNeil, first of all, I'm sorry for the loss of your friend and your news partner.

ROBERT MACNEIL: Well, thank you, thank you. I was very lucky because it's almost 50 years of a very close friendship, and a business partnership, and being colleagues. And, anyway, it was on all those levels. So, yes, it's very hard.

CO Now, when you hear your friend go after President Bill Clinton, asking him about his sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, and whether he encouraged her to lie? What does that say to you about how Jim Lehrer handled an interview?

RM: Well, it's a very good example of his pertinacity, and without slamming somebody, or being rude to them. The background to that is that interview with Clinton had been arranged long before, as they often are. And then he woke up that morning and read in the newspaper that there was this allegation about the affair with Monica Lewinsky. And he rang me and said, what do I do? What do I do? [chuckle] And I said I don't know, but you just have to ask him. Anyway, he asked, and Clinton lied to him about the affair, while trying to tell the truth about the alleged perjury. But almost immediately, somebody said in our staff he lied to Jim Lehrer. You don't lie to Jim Lehrer. [CO laughs] And there was a lot of truth in that.

CO: And he interviewed all kinds of people, Thatcher, Arafat, the King of Jordan, and he just always with the same dogged pursuit, but never rattled, RM chuckles] always sort of polite, but never giving up. He was like a dog with a bone, wasn’t he?

RM: We interviewed Margaret Thatcher together once she was prime minister, and he was sitting closer to her than I was. And at one point, when he’d repeatedly asked something, she slapped him on the knee, and said, young man, you keep asking me that question, and I'm not going to answer it. [both chuckle]

CO: What did you learn from him? You've been speaking about this over the past day or so about what you took away from being his partner for all those years.

RM: What a straight shooter he was — publicly and privately. And we talked about everything, the two of us. I mean, we had no secrets from each other. You know, a lot of people on television develop a kind of television persona. They kind of make themselves more into what they think television wants. Jim didn't do that at all. The Jim you got on television was Jim. He was more serious than he often was in private because he was a very funny guy. And we shared a lot of the same humour, ironic humour, and disgust at the way things were going politically, and so on. Somebody said years ago, it isn't hard to succeed on television. All you need to do is fake sincerity. [CO chuckles] Well, Jim didn't fake sincerity.

CO: People came to know both of you when you were covering the Senate Watergate hearings in 1973, and that marathon that would go on all day and all night as you tried to make sense of that. I mean, you must have gotten to know him pretty well right away, and know that you wanted to work with this guy, right?

RM: Yeah. And indeed, it's this case of instant friendship — remarkable to us both — and because it hadn’t happen in the same way before. Jim had a lot of friends, and made friends easily. But we had a relationship that I said earlier was on all levels. We knew an awful lot about each other's finances — whether he should buy the house that they're still in — which involved a huge mortgage, all these things. And we just talked about anything. Mostly, apart from the news of the day, mostly about the books we were writing, or hoped to write.

CO: There were a number of rules that Jim Lehrer had that, well, I'm going to read some of them. Do nothing or say nothing that you can't defend. The story is not about me, he said. Assume that the viewer is as caring and knowing as I am. Assume private lives are private until it's necessary to explore them. No anonymous quotes, and no attacks in quotes. And finally, I am not in the entertainment business. [RM laughs]Those are all rules that should be just like nailed to the door of every journalist organization.

RM: Absolutely, absolutely, I applaud them all — and did.

CO: What did you understand about his rule? Why was he so strict in that?

RM: Jim had a very strong sense of what is right and wrong, applied to anything. We was a moralist. He had an acute sense of the moral equation in any situation — whether it was you know something about a staff quarrel, or an issue about how we treat a certain story, or whether we do a certain story, and in personal lives.

CO: He wrote fiction, as you do. [chuckle] But he was writing all the time. He wrote plays. Why did he feel that every day he needed to work on fiction?

RM: He was born wanting to do that. And he thought the greatest joy in the world would be Ernest Hemingway or another published author. And he succeeded in doing it. He was full of ideas — far more than I was. He wrote 22 novels — a lot of them could have been made into movies because the central idea was so strong, but they weren't. Only his first novel, “Viva Max!’ was made into a movie with Peter Ustinov — very funny novel, imagining a bored Mexican general retaking the Alamo, and all hell breaking loose after that. [CO chuckles] Very funny. And you still see the movie occasionally on late night TV.

CO: You know, I was thinking about him, just reflecting on the news cycles we now have. And just how overheated news coverage seems to be. What could Jim Lehrer bring to the news cycle as we now have it? How would he be covering the story today?

RM: Well, I think, and we talked about this, in fact, quite recently. We said, God, whatif we were doing it now, what would it be like? His view of it was that he would have done it the way he did it before, and he would have used the same demeanour. One of the ways in which public television can be different from all the rant on cable television is that it can just be reasonably civil, and quiet, and moderated — literally moderated.

CO: Is there any particular memory of your friend — of Jim Lehrer — that that you treasure right now?

RM: Well, he was the best man at my wedding years ago. [chuckling] He made the toast to the bride, and he said it must be love, because who else would marry a 54-year-old man with braces? [both chuckle] You know, we met, but we didn't meet. On the night of the Kennedy assassination in 1963, we were both in the police station in Dallas as they paraded Oswald back and forth. But we never met until ten years later. But there are pictures of both of us in the police station that night. He was later appointed by the Dallas Times Herald to stay on the Kennedy assassination story for a whole year. So he became the one closest to it — an expert outside the official people. He believed the Warren Commission finding that Oswald did it alone. And because he believed that, I believed it too — because he'd gone into it so thoroughly. He said I can't imagine that if somebody else was involved in it, they wouldn't be able to resist on their deathbed saying they had something to do with it — because it was such a huge event, momentous event.

CO: Robert. I appreciate that you would share your memories about Jim Lehrer with us. Thank you.

RM: Thank you. Nice to be back on the CBC, where I started.

CO: [chuckle]I know. Thank you.

RM: Thank you.

CO: Bye-bye.

CH: Robert MacNeil is the co-creator of PBS's "The MacNeil/Lehrer Report", and a lifelong friend of Jim Lehrer. We reached Mr. MacNeil in New York City. Jim Lehrer died yesterday at his home in Washington. He was 85 years old.

[Music: Wistful instrumental]

Part two: Tapeworm tumour, baby sings Thunderstruck

Tapeworm tumour

Guest: Cassidy Armstrong

CH: Cassidy Armstrong had been feeling fatigue and pain in her ribs for years. It didn't feel good — and things didn't look good: doctors suspected she had a rare cancer, and thought she had a tumour growing on her liver. They recommended surgery, but warned her that, even after that procedure, she might only have a few years to live. But when she had the mass removed, the situation looked much better, but more complicated. She didn't have cancer at all, but the doctors had discovered that something rare and shocking had been growing inside her. We reached Cassidy Armstrong in Edmonton.

CO: Cassidy, how are you feeling these days?

CASSIDY ARMSTRONG: I've been better. It's slow. It's been a really slow process for healing.

CO: But you’re feeling better?

CA: A little bit every day, yeah.

CO: Just when did you first realize that there was something going wrong?

CA: The first time that I had physical symptoms would have been a few years ago. I had kind of a dull ache in my right ribs.

CO: Um-hm, and you went to the doctor?

CA: I did, yeah. I went to the doctor. And we thought that maybe it was a rib had popped out or something. And so I went and got some X-rays done, but what I have wouldn't show up in that type of imaging, so they didn't find anything.

CO: So what did they do? What'd doctors do to try and find out what it was that was causing that pain?

CA: Well, I wasn't really sure. They didn't really have any other theories at the time of what else it could have been. And for me, like the pain wasn't really super bad, and it would kind of come and go. And like it would disappear for months at a time. And so I just kind of left it.

CO: And then at what point did you think that you had to find out a bit more?

CA: Well, it was a few years later. The pain was more constant and lasting longer. And then I had some digestive issues as well. And I had a new pain that showed up, which was like an aching pain in my right shoulder that wasn't responding to massage therapy or anything like that. So that's when I decided to get some more help and do some more investigations.

CO: When they did the tests, what did they say that you had?

CA: They said that they suspected that I had a type of liver cancer. I'm probably not saying it right, but it says fibrolamellar carcinoma, so quite rare.

CO: And what did they say? What prognosis did they give you that point?

CA: They said that I would have had, well, that the prognosis for it's very poor. So it's the type of cancer they have to cut. The only way is to cut it out. And then they can try chemotherapy afterwards, but that's not usually effective. And I would have had maybe another two to five years.

CO: Even with surgery, that they said you would only give you a few more years to live?

CA: Yeah.

CO: And then so you had the surgery last November, what did they find?

CA: Well, they discovered — it was about a day or two after surgery — that it wasn't, in fact, cancer. But it was a type of parasite that you can get from dogs or coyotes.

CO: It’s like a tapeworm.

CA: Like a tapeworm, yeah. But it’s on a microscopic level. It’s very tiny.

CO: Did they tell you where it was or what it looked like or anything about it?

CA: It took 65 per cent of my liver, my entire gall bladder, they cut a couple of nodules off of my lungs and scraped some of the cysts off of my diaphragm.

CO: That was all damage that the parasite had done?

CA: Yeah, it had started to grow and metastasized to other areas of my body. Apparently, it looks a lot like cancer. And it can spread a lot like cancer to other organs and other things in your body.

CO: What was it like when they came to tell you after you recovered from the surgery when they told you that what you had and that it wasn't cancer? What did they say to you?

CA: Well, it was a team of people came in, disease doctors that were at the hospital. Basically, we don't think you have cancer. We think you have this rare form of parasite called the concocos multilocularis. And so I remember asking them I'm like, well, oaky, [chuckle] is that a good thing? And they said it's a much better thing than what they thought that I had.

CO: Did they have any theories as to how you got this parasite?

CA: Yeah [chuckling]. I've been racking my brain too. They're saying that you know people can get it from contact with the eggs usually spread through the feces of coyotes and dogs. So I haven't owned a dog since I was a little girl. So as to how I got it, I don't know. I was a mechanic for many years. So it's possible that maybe from working on farm equipment, I could have gotten it that way. I mean, it's very rare, but they are finding more cases specifically here in Alberta.

CO: And you haven't had any contact with coyotes?

CA: [laughing] No, no, not at all.

CO: [laughing] You’d remember that if you had.

CA: Yeah, I think I think so.

CO: But now what have they said to you about the odd thing that so many cases of this parasite — or parasites — is being found and being misdiagnosed that they're being found in Alberta. Why do you think that's the case?

CA: I mean, they've known about this in Europe for quite a long time. But they theorize that somebody brought over some hunting foxes or some dogs from Europe, and that's how it spread. Why specifically Alberta, I'm not sure. They are finding really high rates of it among the Coyote population here in Alberta. I think possibly rodents can carry it too but don't quote me on that because I'm not the expert. [chuckle]

CO: But they’ve had 15 proven cases in Alberta just in the past six years.

CA: Yeah, yeah, so I mean it's growing, it's spreading. And I mean those are just the cases that they've confirmed and that they know about, right? So it can stay dormant in your body, like they suspect they've had it for about ten years.

CO: Good heavens! Cassidy, glad you're feeling better. And I hope you get a full recovery.

CA: Yeah, me too. [bth chuckle]

CO: All right. Take care of yourself.

CA: Okay.

CO: Bye.

CA: Bye.

CH: Cassidy Armstrong recently discovered she had a mass growing inside her — an infection caused by the eggs of a tapeworm. We reached her in Edmonton.

[Music: Ambient]

Rescued pit bulls

CH: Just a few years ago, Hansel, Gretel, Nibbles, Munchkin, and Dallas were on the verge of being euthanized. They were among 31 pit bulls seized by Chatham-Kent police from a dog-fighting operation near Windsor, Ontario, back in 2015. In the years that followed, court battles raged over whether a majority of those dogs should be put down for being too aggressive. In the end, a lot of them were spared, and sent to a rescue in Florida. Those five I just named ended up with Carol Skaziak, near Philadelphia. Ms. Skaziak is the founder of the "Throw Away Dogs Project," which trains working dogs. Yesterday, the Project donated Nibbles to the Craven County Sheriff's Department, in New Bern, North Carolina. And earlier this week, Hansel had his first day of work as an arson-detecting canine in New Jersey. This morning, Carol Skaziak spoke with the CBC's Tony Doucette, about why that's such an important milestone.

SOUNDCLIP

CAROL SKAZIAK: We are just so overjoyed that Hansel is the first arson-detection canine pitbull. I do believe in the United States. He is a wonderful, friendly, loving dog that just wants to please his handler.

TONY DOUCETTE: How unusual is it for a pit to be working for any police agency in any role?

CS: It's starting to become more known — at least in the United States. There definitely are canine police dogs that are pit bulls now in the United States. And I'm so excited and happy to see this — because we need chiefs from police departments, from fire departments, to see this as an example. And say you know what? We want to make a statement also. We want to save a dog that can help the community. Not every dog can be a police dog. They have to have certain qualities and traits. And there are lot of pit bulls that have these traits and these qualities. They're very easy to train. They are very loyal. And they make a perfect law enforcement partner. It definitely is a no-brainer.

TD: If as you say this is a no-brainer, why didn't this happened years ago?

CS: I'm not sure, Tony. And that that is part of my mission now. To keep producing the bully breed dogs out in law enforcement. And to prove that this absolutely can be done. But I also want the other people — the other rescues — that are out there to see this and to try to do what I am doing also. There is so many of them that are misunderstood that need a second chance to be repurposed.

TD: What do you think it means to the animals to have a new calling?

CS: I have seen these animals just want companionship, just want affection, and they just want love. There is no aggression. There is no anger. These dogs just want to be loved, no matter what they have been through. It's like it didn't matter. They don't care. It's unconditional. And that just makes my heart smile because we really don't know what they have been through. We don't know.

CH: Carol Skaziak is the founder and CEO of "Throw Away Dogs Project" near Philadelphia. She spoke with Tony Doucette earlier today on CBC Radio's "Windsor Morning."

[Music: A slow instrumental]

SOD: Mummy voice

CH: The ancient Egyptian priest Nesyamun is finally getting his dying wish for his voice to live on — three-thousand years after he fell silent. Nesyamun died in 1069 BC. But now, thanks to a 3-D printed replica of his vocal cords, for the first time the world can hear a snippet of what the Egyptian priest might have sounded like when he addressed his congregation on spiritual matters. Here we go — it's our sound of the day.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: This sounds like a computer saying eh.]

CH: Nesyamun probably said other things also. Like, words. But from a scientific standpoint, that "Ehhh" was impressive: British scientists were able to reproduce that single syllable using the mummy's vocal tract — the mouth, throat, and nasal cavity that give us all our unique voices. The research team determined that the synthesised sound falls between the vowels in "bad" and "bed." And that sound might be explained by the fact that Nesyamun died with his tongue sticking out — possibly caused by an allergic reaction from an insect bite. So Nesyamun may have been a great orator. But you'll have to use your imagination — Because three millennia later, he's kind of..."Ehhh".

SOUNDCLIP

Sound: That ehh sound again]

CH: Exactly.

[Music: Upbeat indie rock]

Baby sings Thunderstruck

Guest: Matt MacMillan

CH: Is it just me, or has it been a long week? So together, let's clear our heads by banging our heads to this instant-classic cover of a classic-rock classic.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: an auto-tuned version of “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC]

CH: This really gets the blood flowing, right? Yeah, that is "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC, performed by a one-man band, a one small man band, it’s a one-baby band. And the baby's name is Ryan MacMillan. His father, Matt MacMillan, went to [chuckling] great lengths — weirdly great lengths — to turn his tiny son's gurgling, babbling, sneezing, and chortling into "Thunderstruck". We're impressed, and a little worried about him. So we called up Mr. MacMillan in Delran, New Jersey.

CO: Matt, first of all, what compelled you to think that you could make music with only the sounds that your baby makes?

MATT MACMILLAN: [chuckling] So when my daughter was born about three years ago, she would kind of sing songs to herself. And as I was listening to it, that's kind of where I got the idea to actually record her, and take a little clips of her sounds and compose them into a song. So then about a year ago, when my son Ryan was born, I from the get-go had the idea to make a song out of it. So basically, every sound that he made, I would whip out my phone, start recording, so then I would have all the sounds to compose into a song.

CO: Did you decide at the beginning that you were going to do “Thunderstruck,”? or did that inspiration come as you listened to your little boy make his sounds?

MM: Yeah, the inspiration came later. I had a couple of songs that I had in mind. But based on the notes that he basically gave me, and the fact that the sounds he made were so short, they really lent itself to “Thunderstruck” because that short staccato intro that “Thunderstruck” has.

CO: [laughing] Okay, so the notes that your son gave you. How did he give you the notes?

MM: [chuckling] So basically, after I sifted through a couple of hours of footage, I cut down basically each clip of where he was either making a noise like sneezing or burping or hitting something or making kind of like a musical tone. So after I weeded those out, I had 83 notes that basically had a tone in them. And then I sorted them by ascending pitch — just kind of ordering them up. And then what I did was basically figure out the note of each clip by playing the note and then playing the keys on a piano to try to match.

CO: Okay, so how many keys did you have on your keyboard — your baby Ryan keyboard?

MM: Yeah. So out of the 83 notes, there were a lot of repeats. So he basically provided me with 21 individual keyboard notes.

CO: [laughing] Okay. And so at the same time, he gave you some percussion. How did he give you that?

MM: Yeah. So anytime he was sneezing or banging on something or shaking a rattle, I was recording it. So for “Thunderstruck,” I used a sneeze as the cymbals. He was hitting the sofa. I used that as a bass drum because it's got a nice kick to it. And then there was one where he was banging on the floor, and I used that for the snare drum.

CO: [laughing] Okay. How much time did you spend putting all this together?

MM: Yeah, it was a long one. I spent probably about 80 hours total on this over the course of about three months.

CO: Wow! And right away, again, figuring out that you had what you had needed for “Thunderstruck,” is there anything missing in your composition?

MM: No. That was the nice part about “Thunderstruck.” It actually fell in line with all the notes I had. I didn't need to like tweak the pitch of any of his notes. So basically, everything he provided me with I had available for “Thunderstruck.”

CO: Well, maybe there was some inspiration to this. Maybe Ryan knew what he was doing all this past year.

MM: [laughing] Maybe, maybe.

CO: What's really fun about this is that you assigned the notes and we can see how you're playing it. But on the video that you made as well, you get to see how Ryan changes. It's really fun.

MM: Right.

CO: Over one year, you realize how much a baby actually changes.

MM: Absolutely.

CO: And so what are you gonna do with that?

MM: Yeah, I'm not sure what I'm going to do from here. The hard part was basically determining all the notes. And now that I have those notes, there's a couple more songs I have in mind.

CO: [chuckling] What songs?

MM: I'm currently in the process of seeing if I have all the notes to put together at least part of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” [CO laughs] Or something with a lot of good harmonies and melodies.

CO: You can get harmony with Ryan’s sounds?

MM: Yeah. So he gave me all of one octave and then a couple notes of two other octaves [CO chuckles], so I do have enough to do some harmonies in there.

CO: What does the rest of your family think of it?

MM: {laughs] It's funny, we were fortunate to have good sleepers. So we actually put them to bed around 7:30, so we have a couple hours — me and my wife — to ourselves. So I would edit video kind of between 7:30 and 9. And there were multiple times where she would come upstairs thinking one of the kids were crying, but it's actually just the baby sounds coming from the computer.

CO: Did she question your sanity at any point?

MM: Yeah, so she as I'm figuring out these notes I'm writing them all down on posting notes, basically so I can assign each clip with the note that it is. And my wife comes and picks one of them up and says what is this? And I try to explain to her that I like I’m matching our sons baby noises to notes. And she was trying to wrap her mind around it, but she thinks I'm kind of crazy.

CO: [laughinn] But now you have a full complement of all his every single gurgle and sigh and cry and first word.

MM: Yeah, absolutely.

CO: And what do you think that Ryan will think when he's older and you show this to him — I presume you're going to?

MM: [chuckling] I hope he likes it. He's definitely getting a lot of attention now, whether he likes it or not. I'm sure he doesn't really know about it. But yeah, I'm hoping he enjoys it once he's old enough to actually realize what it is.

CO: When he finds out that his sneeze was actually a cymbal, that could do something for him.

MM: Yeah.

CO: Matt, it's great to talk to you. Thank you.

MM: Thanks for having me.

CO: Bye.

MM: Bye.

CH: Matt MacMillan spent a year compiling videos of his baby, Ryan, and then turning those into a video called "Baby Ryan Sings Thunderstruck". We reached Mr. MacMillan in Delran, New Jersey. And if you want to see that video, and you do, head to our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: World music]

Bigfoot sighting

CH: If a headline is posed as a question, is the answer ever "yes?" The answer is no. That's now known as "Betteridge's Law of Headlines" — because of an article by a British tech reporter named Ian Betteridge. In 2009, writing about another outlet's dubious reporting, he said, "This story is a great demonstration of my maxim that any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no.'" He added, "The reason why journalists use that style of headline is that they know the story is probably [BS], and don't actually have the sources and facts to back it up, but still want to run it." With that in mind, consider these headlines from the last couple of days. "Was Bigfoot caught on Washington highway camera?" "Is that Sasquatch on Sherman Pass?" And "Where is Sasquatch? In the snowy mountains of Washington, state officials say". The gist is that the Washington State Department of Transportation tweeted photos from its webcam near Sherman Pass — about 40 kilometres south of the BC border. In one, there's something big and dark next to a tree. In another, that big dark thing is revealed to be a big, dark humanoid figure, striding away from the road. Now, by my count, at least sixteen different news outlets had question-mark headlines about this story. All variations on "Even Though This Isn't Bigfoot, Is This Bigfoot?" Well, no, no. It isn't. We don't know who it is, but it's not Bigfoot. But when you want to run a story you know is hogwash, you have to watch your language. Or Sasquatch it.

[Music: Upbeat rock]

Part three: Black hockey league new stamp, lawn bowling shot

FOA: RSU

CH: They had an agreement for 34 years. But now, Ryerson University in Toronto is cutting ties with the Ryerson Students' Union — saying it's "lost confidence" in the school's student government. The split comes after the union faced allegations of misspending last January. An investigation by Ryerson's student newspaper, The Eyeopener, revealed that members of the union may have racked up roughly 250-thousand dollars in credit card charges, in under a year. The alleged spending included purchases at Ontario liquor stores, night clubs, and casinos. After the allegations were made public, former student union president Ram Ganesh was impeached; a forensic audit was completed; and just days ago, the Students' Union asked Toronto police to investigate the alleged financial mismanagement. Back when the story broke, Carol spoke with Sherina Harris who was part of the team who first reported on the scandal. From our archives, here is part of their conversation.

SOUNDCLIP

CO: Sherina, has the student union at Ryerson provided an explanation as of yet for how so much money could have been spent on what appears to be spent on booze, nightclubs, and casinos among other things?

SHERINA HARRIS: No they haven't. The Eyeopener has given the student union multiple opportunities to comment — and as well at the board of directors meeting last week, several representatives asked the president directly to explain some of the expenses and he repeatedly said that he would be able to provide a full explanation in context once the receipts were reconciled on February 1st. But there were no explanations given at the meeting.

CO: How did you learn about this? How did you learn that the student union president might be spending this kind of money?

SH: So we had received some tips from people as early as this Fall that we should be looking into the credit card statements and we should be looking into some of their finances. But at that time we weren't able to verify the information just because it was screenshots of their online bank account. We didn't want to publish something based on information we couldn't confirm. So recently we started looking into it more because the president actually had told us directly that the student union had two credit cards -- that he had a credit card and the vice president operations had a credit card. When we looked into this further we learned that this is breaking financial by-laws and policies of the RSU, because the executives aren't supposed to have their own credit card. We've heard from a student director that the total amount of purchases is 250,000 dollars -- but we've only seen a small sliver of the statements.

CO: And RSU you referred to that is the Ryerson Student Union. So tell us about some of the expenses. What have you seen as far as what raised your eyebrows the most?

SH: Over 2,000 dollars spent EFS Toronto which is a night club. There was over 2,500 dollars spent at a Cineplex Rec-Room. Over 1,300 at Nick's Sport Shop. And there were also just a lot of smaller ones that we weren't really sure how they could have been used for events benefiting students. There was money spent at hotels, Airbnbs, three-hundred dollars at a haze lounge, which is like a shisha lounge.

CH: That was Ryerson student journalist Sherina Harris speaking with Carol last January. Today, Ryerson University announced it was cutting ties with the Ryerson Students' Union.

[Music: Indie rock]

Black hockey league new stamp

Guest: Wayne Adams

CH: They were forgotten for years. Now, Canada Post is paying tribute to black hockey players who competed in the Maritimes decades ago. The new stamp features the 1904 Halifax Eurekas, winners of the 'Colored Hockey Championship' that year. The men's all-black league was formed in 1895 in Nova Scotia, expanded to include teams from PEI, and lasted into the 1930s. It was a time when black players often weren't able to share the ice with white players. And ice time wasn't permitted until the white league's season was over. Wayne Adams' grandfather, Gus, helped form the all-black hockey league. And Gus Adams is on the new stamp. We reached Wayne Adams in Preston, Nova Scotia.

CO: Wayne, what’s it like to see your grandfather, Gus Adams, and his teammates honoured with a new Canada Post stamp?

WAYNE ADAMS: I think it's absolutely tremendous. I think it’s fair to say that we were all elated. Mind you, we had some indication it was coming. But to see it unveiled, and see the job they did in the artwork of restoring the images to be realistic with the original photograph, I think was great. It was a great day to punctuate a piece of history that's been for many, many years.

CO: This piece of history, this is fascinating. Can you just tell us, give us the story. What's the background to how the Colored Hockey League came into existence, and why?

WA: The league was formed in 1895, as I understand history now. And it was created out of the group of black Baptist churches who wanted to get their men more involved with fitness, health, and goodwill, and I guess all around gentlemenship. And they looked at sports, and I guess baseball or hockey were the two that became prominent. And they had a baseball league as well, and the hockey league. The hockey league I guess proved to be extremely low standing. Even though they had some tremendous players, they could not play during the daylight hours or the hours in which the white teams played because integration was illegal.

CO: First of all, they weren't allowed to play on any of the white teams. And then they weren't even allowed to play on the ice until the white teams were finished with it, right?

WA: That's the record, yes.

CO: And what did that mean? How restricted was it in their ability to actually get ice time?

WA: Well, late at night or early morning on Bedford Basin, as I understand it from those who were around. I was not about, of course, but those who were around, remember the fact that there were practices and games once in a while on Bedford Basin. And other than that, it was in the arenas late at night when the teams were all finished.

CO: If they wanted to play during the day they had to play outside?

WA That's right.

CO: And how popular was the league?

WA: Apparently, quite a popular. The stamp image is the championship game in 1909, where the attendance was over twelve-hundred. And that doesn't sound like a whole lot for a hockey game. But we read other records of hockey games at the various arenas in Halifax-Dartmouth and they were attracting 300 people. So the Colored Hockey League was tripling their audiences.

CO: And I guess I understand it was actually outdoing the white leagues. That between 1900-1905, the Colored Hockey League was routinely attracting larger crowds than those organized for white leagues.

WA: That's what we understand, yes. Probably that's the reason why the history was I guess put away and kept out of the limelight for all these years. Until Daryl and George Fosty from the west coast of Canada at the time started doing some research into hockey in Canada. And they came across indications of a coloured hockey league in the Maritimes. And they found I guess the mother lode, if you will, of information locked away in the archives of a University in Nova Scotia. They wrote a book called “Black Ice.” It became very popular — particularly around the black community because many members of the community found their relatives recorded in the book “Black Ice.” People who didn't know their parents or grandparents played hockey. It was a real shock to a lot of people.

CO: What role did your grandfather Gus Adams play?

WA: He played forward with the Halifax Eurekas. And that was the team that was created from the baptist Church in Halifax. That team was organized — along with the league — by the founder of the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children, James Kenney Senior, and James Robinson Johnson, who was the first black graduate lawyer in Halifax. They were the young guns of the day who organized the league.

CO: Is your grandfather, is he on the stamp?

WA: Yes, he is. He's in the upper right-hand corner. Augustus Adolphus Adams [CO chuckles], know as Gus.

CO: It’s a great picture. It's a terrific looking team, the Halifax Eurekas.

WA: Actually, we’re rather impressed that they got the characteristics of the face features almost as accurate as the original photograph. As you can tell, it's redone. They did a tremendous job.

CO: But you only found out quite recently that your father and grandfather had played in this league, is that right?

WA: With the book, “Black Ice,” that was a revelation. Now, we have pictures of these guys, and they’re carrying hockey sticks and wearing long johns and stocking caps. But, no, we figured they played recreation hockey. Only to find out these guys were like the first organized professional hockey in North America, you know? They were paid fifty cents a month my aunt told me.

CO: And who paid for the equipment and the uniforms?

WA: The church. The uniforms were made. The uniforms were made I guess by the women of the community. They knit the sweaters and the pants. And they made the pads for the public goaltenders. My father was a goaltender in the early ‘40s. And they didn't have much protection.

CO: They didn't have much protection, but they also I understand innovated some of the major characteristics of hockey now, the slap shot, and butterfly style, that was first seen in the Colored Hockey League, is that right?

WA: Yes, that's really surprising. And I know a lot of people have taken it both as surprise, as shock, and disappointment, at the same time, elation, [chuckling] you know? To realize that there was a fellow doing what they call a baseball shot. And it was later termed to be the slap shot. And the NHL as you know gives Bernie “Boom Boom” Geoffrion the credit for inventing the slap shot. Fact is the history research shows that the soft shot was born in Bedford Basin before Bernie was born.

CO: And this was you’re talking about the Africville Sea Sides and from Halifax, right? That was the team.

WA: That was one of the teams, yes. Yeah.

CO: What do you think this does now? Both having a book about this, “Black Ice,” and having the stamp, do you think that people will now learn this history that even you didn't know about?

WA: Yeah, and the families of those who participated. I talked to a lady yesterday from Amherst, Nova Scotia, who was elated to know that her grandfather as well was an outstanding hockey player in a defence roll. [laughing]

CO: I really appreciate you telling us the story. Thank you.

WA: It's an important story because it reveals the fact that a lot of history of early blacks and early minorities has really been hidden, in some cases stolen, but certainly kept away from the general population until those who have an ambition to seek it out seek out the truth.

CO: Well, people are finding these archives, finding the information, and getting it out. It's just bits and bits and parts, but it's really, really interesting. And thank you.

WA: Extremely valuable. Thank you very much.

CH: Wayne Adams is the grandson of Gus Adams, who co-founded the Coloured Hockey League in the Maritimes. Wayne Adams is also the first Black MLA to serve in Nova Scotia's House of Assembly. He was in Preston.

[Music: A very sad piano]

WCBA promo

CH: Today, a second North American case of the new coronavirus was confirmed in Chicago. And France confirmed two cases today — the first cases in Europe. Meanwhile, as we told you last night, China has locked down affected cities — where the virus has killed 26 people, 15 of them health-care workers. For health-care workers in Canada — and in Toronto in particular — the situation may be causing some deja vu. The 2003 SARS outbreak was caused by the coronavirus. Forty-four people in Canada died. And more than 40 per cent of those who got sick here were health-care workers. ICU Nurse Susan Sorrenti was one of them. She was working at Mount Sinai Hospital when a patient with SARS was transferred to her unit — where there was no protection protocols in place for staff. Tomorrow afternoon on CBC's White Coat, Black Art", Susan Sorrenti talks to Dr. Brian Goldman about what she thinks we've learned since then, to help us deal with the new outbreak.

SOUNDCLIP

SUSAN SORRENTI: The biggest thing that I took from it was I actually I still love nursing. I still wouldn't have changed anything.

BRIAN GOLDMAN: [scoffs] after all that.

SS: After all that. I think being more advocates for ourselves and really actually following our instincts when we know you know not to ignore signs that there are dangers. Not to accept any kind of less than adequate protection for yourself — like to stand up for yourself. That was my biggest lesson that I learned about that. I think that everybody across the board could learn from that. And did you didn't have to have SARS because I think a lot of the health care… almost every single nurse I talked to who went through that experience was going through the same trauma I was because they didn't know on a daily basis what they were gonna have to go through and what was happening with their families. And they had to go through quarantines at home as well.

BG: At the end of the day, they want to know, I want to know, do you think health authorities have it covered based because of the experience of SARS and diseases like that?

SS: Well, I think we have learned. We've done respiratory screening on most of the patients that come through the emerge. We do travel checks. You know, these kinds of things now are commonplace everyday things that happen that will hopefully prevent this from happening again to the extent it did in Toronto. We made some big mistakes first time around, no doubt about it. I mean, that's just common knowledge. We were the worst North American outbreak there was. So you know, we had to change. And hopefully whatever we do now is going to hopefully see us through this.

CH: You can hear more of that interview — and get the latest on the spread of the coronavirus — on "White Coat, Black Art" with Dr. Brian Goldman tomorrow after the 1 pm news — and a half hour later in Newfoundland. It's also on the show's website: www.cbc.ca/whitecoat.

[Music: Percussive jazz]

Lawn bowling shot

Guest: Nick Brett

CH: I— I'll be honest, I didn't know the World Indoor Bowls Championships were underway. And I'd never heard of the new pairs' champs, Nick Brett and Greg Harlow, from England. But now I have. And I also now consider Mr. Brett, in particular, one of the most phenomenal athletes in the world. Because of this moment, which unfolded during the duo's final match, earlier this week.

SOUNDCLIP

MAN: There’s about six inches between the two balls, so there is just room.

[lots of laughing]

MAN#2: the way Greg asked him to play that, to play that, you’d think he was three feet away from it. Well, he's very close to splitting the two Red Balls. That’s what the target is. Oh, look at this. Oh, that is ridiculous. That is just so good. That is ridiculous. What a bowl. That was outrageous.

CH: [laughing] It was outrageous. That is the sound of Nick Brett making a seemingly impossible shot during the Pairs final of the World Indoor Bowls Championships earlier this week. And hearing it is one thing, but you have to see it, so go to our website, at: www.cbc.ca/aih. I’m so excited. and be amazed. Now, that moment helped Mr. Brett and his partner, Greg Harlow, win the title of Pairs Champions. And it's helping people who’d never heard of Bowls like me get overexcited about it. Nick Brett is still competing in the Singles event at the World Indoor Bowls Championships. We reached him between games in Hopton-on-Sea, England.

CO: Nick, you just heard the sound from that shot, being described as ridiculous. So good, it's ridiculous. [chuckling] And it looks like it's going to be one of the highlights of 2020 already.

NICK BRETT: Yes, certainly it seems to have got lots of people's attention. Obviously, it's a pretty good bowl. I mean, lots of other bowls have been better or at least equally as good. Obviously, my partner tells me what he wants me to do. And I suppose it's got some difficulty level. And luckily, I’ve managed to make the shot.

CO: Wait a second, you're being modest because [laughing] how could there be a better shot than that one?

NB: I mean, I suppose it is different times of the games, really. I mean, that's on the seventh end. So it's not the last bowl of the game. There's probably more critical times where you have to get the last shot of the game, something like that. But this one's a good shot. But if I missed it, it wouldn't have been the end, if you like. [CO chuckles] But nevertheless, it's still a pretty good shot.

CO: Now, just for people who are listening to that, because the audience is reacting. There's laughter and stuff. So just walk us through what exactly happened in the moment. Give us the lay of the land before you attempted this shot?

NB: It was close. We were probably one down, but they had three balls close to our one. And the safest shot was just to try and draw in as close as I could. So [sigh] not easy to do. Obviously, there only a five-inch gap between, and the ball I'm using is probably five inches, or very close to. So not a lot of room, and I'm 24 metres away from where I need to have the ball stopped. So getting that distance right is not too much of a problem, but missing everything around was the difficulty.

CO: And you didn't touch anything. You just smoothly rolled your green ball into this space between two red balls that is, as your partner said, six-inches wide, that space. And you've got a five-inch ball. And you did that from more than 20 metres away. You just rolled that right into the centre, exactly where you wanted it, right?

NB: Yeah, that's what happened.

CO: [chuckling]What was the laughter about?

NB: Well, they thought it was difficult because you know six-inches is not a very big distance to get it from 20-odd metres away. So the thought he’s never going to do this. I would imagine that was what the laughter was about. And I sort of stepped back and thought, yeah, not going to be the easiest in the world, but it's not impossible. I'll give it a go. And you know, lo-and-behold, it was a perfect I would say.

CO: [chuckling] It was perfect. What does your partner think?

NB: Yeah. Well, in the bar afterwards, he seemed to think, well, I've seen you do that a few times in the club locally, but with no TV cameras. So I thought you could get it, and that's why I called it. But I'm hoping he was being a little bit flippant because I don't get them every week.

CO: [chuckling] So now I guess the standard is pretty high. He’s going to expect you to do that each time.

NB: Yeah. I’ve probably set the bar too high, really. I hope he's not going to expect that every day, yeah.

CO: Okay. So now, my co-host said just at the beginning, he said that he didn't know that there were the World Indoor Bowls Championships were being held this week. I'll confess, I didn't even know there were World Indoor Bowls Championships, or even world indoor bowls. So you think that because everyone is passing this piece of tape around, do you think that maybe you've done a lot for your sport?

NB: Well, I hope so. Yeah, I hope so. We're looking to grow the sport, and if anybody wants to get involved in the sport, and create some newer tournament then what we've got, or get involved in you know running some more World Bowls Tour, we'll be more than happy to oblige any new members, anyone wants to get involved, please get in contact.

CO: But now how different is it from… like lawn bowling, well, it's on a lawn. So what are you playing on? What's the surface?

NB: It's like an underlay underneath your carpet. And then there's a tightly-woven carpet that stretched over the top of that. So it's like a tightly pulled together carpet.

CO: Right. And how popular is indoor lawn bowling?

NB: Well, in the UK, over a hundred thousand people play, I would guess.

CO: Really?!

NB: Yeah.

CO: And how did you get into it?

NB: I got into it because my father played, and his father played. And you know we're a pretty sporty family. And we all played pretty much all the sports possible. And one day, they were short, and I was a youngster. And I just went and made the numbers up, and the rest is sort of history from there, really. Carried on, I was kind of okay at it, and progressed through all the levels as I get older.

CO: And what is your family thinking about this shot that you made?

NB: Well, all the coverage has got, you know I've got children that are 19 and very nearly 21, but all into Twitter, if you want. So they can't believe who's retweeted it and how many views. It's unbelievable.

CO: Their dad's a celebrity!

NB: Well, celebrity might be pushing it. [CO laughs But certainly 15 seconds of fame is certainly happening at the moment.

CO: All right, where does it go from here. When's your next game?

NB: Well, obviously, that was in the pairs. We're currently still playing the World Singles. Well, quarterfinal stage is today, and semifinal stages tomorrow. So we're still playing the Singles.

CO: Okay, so you still have a few more matches to go. But then how are you going to celebrate this with your partner Greg?

NB: I probably won't see him for a week or so because I'm going on holiday Monday. So we will probably just have a very social evening after the games are finished.

CO: Well, I hope you get a chance to celebrate.

NB: We sure will.

CO: Congratulations, Nick.

NB: Thanks very much.

CO: Bye.

NB: Bye-bye.

CH: Nick Brett is the Pairs champion of World Indoor Bowls — along with his partner, Greg Harlow. He competes for the Singles title this weekend. We reached Mr. Brett in Hopton-on-Sea, England, which for geographic refence: you'd have to bowl a bowl a distance of 221-point-78 kilometres south-west to hit Reading.

[Music: Folksy rock]

FOA: Haggis-eating champ

CH: It's that time of year once again — when otherwise sane people clamber over one other to get their hands on a bit of stomach, to stuff into their own stomachs. I'm speaking, of course, about haggis — that curious mixture of sheep's intestine, oatmeal, and spices stuffed into the animal's own gastric lining. And it's eaten with particular zeal all over the world every January 25th — due to a centuries-old poem all about how much people enjoy feasting on it. "The Address to the Haggis" was written by Scotland's favourite bard, Robert Burns — whose birthday is tomorrow. In this excerpt, Mr. Burns describes dinner guests gorging on it — until their swollen stomachs are fit to burst:

SOUNDCLIP

[Robbie Burns reads a very Scottish portion of a poem]

CH: Personally, I'll be humming "Bethankit, but no bethankit" tomorrow evening. But if you're feeling like you can't wait for a bit of haggis, I guarantee Peter Dowdaswell couldn't wait more. Back in 1977, he was bent on wolfing down a pound-and-a-half of haggis as fast as he could. When he spoke to As It Happens guest host Warner Troyer, the Englishman had just defended his title as the haggis-eating champion in Corby, England. Mr. Dowasdell began by stating his record-setting time.

SOUNDCLIP

PETER DOWDASWELL: Two-minutes-14-seconds.

WARNER TROYER: Two-minutes-14-seconds. So you shaved 13 seconds off your World Championship time a year ago.

PD: Yes, something like that.

WT: How did you manage that? Were you using a power fork this year?

PD: No, just a normal spoon and a fork.

WT: One of the comments about you by a gentleman who was running the contest, Mr. Leeker, is that he said he's got an incredible swallow, is that right?

PD: Yes.

WT: How much beer does it take to wash down a pound-and-a-half of haggis?

PD: No beer.

WT: No beer?

PD: No, because I don't drink beer unless I'm in competitions. I drink lemon and lime when I’m out socially.

WT: [laughing] All right. It's strictly a professional thing with you. Not a hobby.

PD: Yeah.

WT: Is that the best way to eat haggis — very, very quickly, so you don't get to taste it?

PD: Well, I don't know. I’ve only ever ate it twice.

WT: Only the two times?

PD: Yeah, and both times were last year, and today.

WT: Again, only in competition.

PD: Yeah.

WT: Does anybody make a speech over it, as they do at Burns Day dinners?

PD: Oh yes, they make a good speech here over it.

WT: How did your Scottish friends feel about a Brit winning this contest?

PD: Well, it's the dinner time. I actually found out I've got a bit of Scottish blood in me.

WT: You have?

PD: Yeah we found out. Well, I didn’t know. I hadn’t been told anything before because me family never comes out on me competitions. But they come tonight, and I was told that me great grandfather was Scottish.

WT: Is that do you think where you got the incredible swallow?

PD: It could very well be. [both laugh]

CH: From January, 1977, that was haggis-eating champion Peter Dowdaswell of Corby, England.

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January 24, 2020 episode transcript

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