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The As It Happens Podcast

Hello, I'm Carol Off.

Good evening. I'm Barbara Budd.

This is As It Happens.

Tonight:

The outcome of whats come out. If Richard Colvin's testimony is accurate, one expert tells us, then Canada violated international humanitarian law.

Whoever fixed 'em ain't broke. About two-hundred European soccer games are implicated in a wide-ranging match-fixing scandal.

Annulled wives tale. A Texas lawyer says that, in banning gay marriage, her state has actually made all marriage illegal.

She used the 'chute first, answered questions later. The remarkable story of a life-saving R.A.F. parachute-turned-communion-dress.

The worm hasn't turned. Scientists paralyze invertebrates with a beam of light -- but don't worry, they're just going through a phaser.

And...the turn of the Scrudle. It's the utensil most likely to succeed: a British woman's miracle scoop-thing -- the Scrudle -- wins her pots of money.

As It Happens, the Friday edition. Radio that figures it's once, twice, three times a ladle.

On Wednesday, Richard Colvin dropped a bombshell on a Parliamentary committee into the transfer of Afghan detainees.

In no uncertain terms, he stated that torture was known to be a "standard operating procedure" in Afghan prisons. He also said that his warnings on the subject were repeatedly ignored by the Harper Government. The Minister of Defence, Peter MacKay, launched his own counter-offensive in Question Period yesterday, by attacking the credibility of Mr. Colvin's testimony. Which prompted slings and arrows from you.

Here is an e-mail we received from Michael Quast in Oakville, Ontario:

"Richard Colvin should be lauded by Canadians. And loudly. Mr. Colvin has tried to bring this matter to the attention of the Canadian Government for a long time. Meanwhile, the Government wants to suggest that Mr. Colvin, a Senior Diplomat who was apparently qualified enough before his posting, has a credibility problem after experiencing Afganistan first-hand. This whole issue is not about the credibility of a man named Richard Colvin. It is about the absence of credibility within our own government and how far out-of-sight some basic principles of democracy are for our politicans."

The issue is also about the legality of Canada's treatment of these detainees.

Earlier this month, Brigadier-General Kenneth Watkins, the Judge Advocate General of the Canadian Forces, appeared before the Special Committee on Canada's Mission in Afghanistan -- and laid out the laws that govern Canada's transfer of detainees to Afghan authorities.

Here is some of what Brigadier-General Watkin had to say:

William Fenrick is a former military lawyer for the Canadian Forces, and a specialist in international humanitarian law. We reached him at his office in Halifax.

Tonight, in Ottawa, Warrant Officer Willy MacDonald will receive the Vimy Award for what he did -- on one of the Canadian Forces' toughest days in Afghanistan.

The award is given to those who "have made a significant and outstanding contribution to the defence and security of our nation and the preservation of our democratic values." It's usually reserved for prime ministers, admirals and generals.

None of them, though, showed mind-boggling courage by running through intense Taliban rocket and machine fire in Afghanistan, like Warrant Officer MacDonald did in 2006.

He is being honoured with the Vimy tonight, in part, for risking death to rescue wounded comrades, including his gravely-injured commanding officer. Polite Canadian boy that he is, he apologised on the battlefield to his boss for not rescuing him sooner.

Captain Jon Hamilton replied: "Don't worry about it, Will. I knew you'd come for me."

Warrant Officer MacDonald's Vimy Award is a good complement to his Star of Military Valour, which he received from the Governor General last year.

Meanwhile, back in his home province of Saskatchewan, there's a lot of pride. And that led to this interview today on CBC Saskatchewan's Blue Sky. Here is Warrant Officer MacDonald, speaking to host Garth Materie.

It's almost impossible to think about the artist Jeanne-Claude without also thinking of her partner in life and monument-wrapping, Christo. The pair met fifty-one years ago in Paris and they have been mounting enormous, bold public art displays together ever since.

Now, Christo will have to continue their work alone. Jeanne-Claude died on Wednesday in New York, of complications from a brain aneurysm. She was seventy-four years old.

Jeanne-Claude and Christo first grabbed the attention of the art world in 1962, when they blocked a street in Paris with a barricade of oil drums -- a response to the construction of the Berlin Wall. It stayed up for only a few hours -- and that was thanks to Jeanne-Claude's negotiations with the police.

The works the pair later became famous for were also temporary -- purposely so. And they were very public. They wrapped up the Pont Neuf in Paris in yellow, the Reichstag in Berlin in white, and a series of eleven islands near Miami in bright pink. They even wrapped Snoopy's dog house.

One of their most recent works was "The Gates" in New York -- a series of seven-thousand, five-hundred and three saffron coloured banners that hung throughout Central Park for sixteen days.

As It Happens spoke to Jeanne-Claude and Christo at their studio in New York just a few weeks before "The Gates" opened. Here is part of former host Mary Lou Finlay's conversation with Jeanne-Claude on January 4, 2005, for the record.

On Tuesday's program, we told you about our very own Detective Colombo, Ben Edwards. Just when we've finished discussing what stories we're going to cover on any given day, he says, "Just one more thing..." -- and then lets drop some truly bizarre story.

On Tuesday, that story was about a hotel where guests can pretend to be hamsters. And today, Ben's "one more thing" happens to concern the world of gastronomy.

We've all been there: you've made a nice soup or stew for your loved ones, and you're happily ladling away, when all of a sudden, you're down to the last few spoonfuls. Lo and behold, your round-bottomed ladle is useless at scooping out those last remnants. It's the worst thing that can happen to anyone.

Now, that trauma may be a thing of the past -- thanks to a new device called the 'Scrudle'. Part spatula, part scoop, part ladle and part scraper, the Scrudle has won the coveted title of "Utensil Most Likely To Revolutionize Britain's Kitchens".

Is it the match of the Canadian-invented spork? We'll find out from the Scrudle's creator: sixty-five-year-old Margaret O'Callaghan. We reached her at her home in Bromley, England.

Hello again, I'm CO.

And I'm BB. This is As It Happens, Part Two.

Coming up:

Doom and groom: according to one Texas lawyer, a change to her state's marriage laws made the institution itself illegal.

Goodbye, old paint: to save a valuable mural in Saskatoon, one expert plans to simply peel it off the wall.

Those stories are still to come on As It Happens.

It's known as "the beautiful game". But around Europe, an uglier side of soccer is being highlighted: match-fixing.

Police have conducted fifty raids across the Continent in what UEFA -- the controlling body of European football -- is dubbing the biggest match-fixing scandal to ever hit the continent. Roughly two hundred games are being investigated, including games in Europe's two most prominent cup competitions. Players, coaches, referees and match officials appear to be complicit in the scandal, with criminal gangs reaping heavy rewards from betting on fixed games.

Declan Hill is an investigative journalist who has written widely on the subject of match-fixing in soccer -- and has often been derided for trying to draw attention to the issue. We reached him in Toronto.

Imagine that you were suddenly told that your marriage was null and void. Would that upset you? Would you celebrate?

Well, Texans are asking themselves those questions today, thanks to lawyer and Democratic Attorney General candidate Barbara Ann Randofsky -- after she examined the state's constitution, and its recent amendment banning gay marriage.

We reached Barbara Ann Randofsky in Fort Worth.

On Star Trek, they could neutralize anything with a beam of light. But has science fiction...become science fact?

Sort of. A group of chemists at Simon Fraser University have created a phaser-like thing, which they have successfully used to stun -- briefly -- a bunch of worms.

Neil Branda is the head of the study group, whose reasearch is published in the current issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. We reached Professor Branda in Vancouver.

"Solidarity forever, for the union makes us strong."

Ralph Chaplin's famous union anthem speaks to the power workers can achieve when they band together. But while the union makes us strong, it can also make us vulnerable.

Last year, sportswear company Russell Athletic closed one of its factories in Honduras after its twelve-hundred workers unionized. But this week, after more than a year of pressure from the anti-sweatshop movement, the company has changed its policy. Not only will it open a new plant and rehire its workers, but it has also promised not to fight unionization at any of its factories in the country.

Scott Nova is the Executive Director of the Worker Rights Consortium. We reached him in Washington, D.C.

Here's the thing about murals: they're usually not much to look at without a good, solid wall to back them up.

So when a former meat-packing plant in Sasktoon was slated for demolition, that posed a problem. There is a set of valuable murals in that building that were painted by the Canadian artist William Perehudoff back in the 'Fifties. No building, no walls, no murals, right?

Well, you haven't taken into account local businessman Dave Denny. He decided he was going to save the art on those walls. And he convinced a leading art conservator to come out of retirement to figure out a way to do it.

We reached Ian Hodkinson at the Intercontinental Meatpacking plant where the preservation scheme is underway.

For Neil McCallum, a World War Two parachute has opened up a new chapter in his father's life story.

Neil McCallum knew the tale about how his late father, RAF Flight Sergeant John McCallum, had managed to parachute to safety, after his bomber was shot down over Belgium in 1943. But he didn't know that that life-saving parachute became a communion dress for an eleven-year-old Belgian girl named Paulette. Until Paulette -- who's now seventy-five -- decided to find John McCallum's family, and tell them the story of that dress.

We reached Neil McCallum in Cumbernauld, Scotland.

Ah yes, the gentle majesty of Sir Edward Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance", March No. 1 in D -- performed by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and conducted by Ernest Macmillan.

Of course, Elgar is one of the most celebrated of all British composers. He was also quite a proficient violinist, organist, and pianist. And that's not all: in his early forties, in a letter to his publicist, he mentioned he was taking on a new instrument. "P.S.," he wrote, "I'm learning the trombone."

Here is a dramatization of what it might have sounded like, had Sir Edward been able to join the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in performing "Pomp and Circumstance", March No. 1 in D.What I'm getting at is Sir Edward Elgar was really not good at playing trombone.

In 1899, a friend of Sir Edward's named Dora Penny was present during one of his trombone-playing sessions. And according to Ms. Penny's account of the experience, "He didn't do it very well and often played it higher or lower than the one he wanted -- in fact, everywhere but in the 'middle' of the note. And, as he swore every time that happened, I got into such a state of hysterics that I didn't know what to do. And then he turned to me and said, 'How can you expect me to play this dodgasted thing if you laugh?'"

Warning: that language may have offended some listeners.

Anyway, the reason I bring all this up is that the late Sir Edward's trombone has been hauled out of storage after seventy-five years. And next week, a musician named Sue Addison -- principal trombone with the U.K.'s Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment -- will treat that instrument right, at last.

The ill-used trombone has been on display at the Royal College of Music since 1934 -- the year of Sir Edward Elgar's death. That's a long time to stew about being played badly, and called a "dodgasted thing". Now, it's been dusted off, and will be played by Ms. Addison, during performances of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius in London and Birmingham.

According to Sue Addison, the trombone is not really that great. But, she says, "If you play it really, really loud, it takes on a different person -- almost like Elgar's character." And indeed, wanting things really, really loud was an aspect of his character -- as evidenced by this piece. Here's the Saskatoon Youth Orchestra, performing Elgar's The Wand of Youth, First Suite, Part Seven: Fairies and Giants.