• UK Cool to Reform
• Deep Sea Mining
• Dengue Fever & Cambodia
• Michael Showalter
• Morality Drugs
• Campaign Cocktail
• Royal Wedding Blues

There's another big vote in May.

In Canada, we go to the polls on May 2 and three days later there's a national referendum in the UK.

The issues? Democratic reform, coalitions and whether the major parties speak for the people. Sound familiar? Democratic reform didn't emerge as a major issue in our federal election, but coalitions sure did.

The British are using a national referendum (only their second ever!) to decide if they should do as Australia has done and get rid of the first-past-the-post system of determining who wins a seat in Parliament. Clegg and Cameron are on different sides of the debate. Nick Clegg supports reform, David Cameron says he thinks it will lead to permanent coalition governments.

Right now, according to the polls, reform is badly trailing the status quo. So the Brits seem likely to hold onto first-past-the-post and continue to vote the way we will here in Canada on May 2nd.

We talk to journalist Peter Hitchens about why the British campaign seems so lopsided and how he thinks British democracy needs to change.

It's the one year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

And life has not returned to normal along the Gulf coast. Though beaches appear to be pristine and wildlife is flourishing, thousands of claims are still unsettled and there's disagreement about the long-term effects of the massive oil spill. Lots of crude remains under the surface or in plumes deep in the Gulf.

Now mining interests are looking at a different kind of venture on the ocean floor.  A Canadian company is about to begin breaking ground in the deep ocean, exploiting the billions of dollars in rich minerals found near deep sea vents in the Bismark Sea.

How will they balance the environmental demands of the deepwater ecosystem with the lucrative profit opportunities in the deep? We have a Day 6 documentary on deepwater mining.

Cambodian rock and roll is trippy.

The garage bands of Cambodia's pre-revolutionary music scene had a real west coast feeling to them, a psychedelic farfisa-driven freak-groove. But there was often still a thread of the traditional running through it, sometimes with the instrumentation and usually with the vocals.

When Cambodia fell to the Khmer Rouge in 1975 it all came to a bloody stop.

But the music survived. Dengue Fever is a band of Californian musicians who found a Cambodian exile singer and make music in the tradition of the great era of Cambodian rock. Their story and their music both make great listening.

What if you turned down the invitation of the year because you had to fight an election?

William and Kate tie the Windsor knot in less than a week. Most heads of state and their significant others are having their tails tailored or picking out their hats by now.

Not Mr. and Mrs. Harper. On the big day they'll be campaigning not champagning.

We think when Mr. Harper said "Canadians don't want this election", he was thinking of one Canadian in particular: his wife.

Kathleen Philips takes us inside the mind of Mrs. H.

Time for a campaign cocktail.

The Liberals got attacked for an attack ad this week when it became clear Stephen Harper hadn't said what they said he said. It turns out the statement about the Canada Health Act in the ad (that it should be scrapped) was made not by Harper but by a guy he used to work for at the NCC.

Can you imagine if you had to take credit for all the dumb things your boss says?

The Liberal leader found it hard to swallow that after several years of attack ads aimed at him, he was the one apologizing.

We think the new cocktail goes down much easier.

Michael Showalter is funny and his idea of funny is meta-funny.

The writer, performer, director and author has a new book called Mr. Funnypants and is all over YouTube with excerpts of his sketch comedy. He's a veteran of the comedy trio Stella, MTV's The State and of course The Michael Showalter Showalter.

And they all feel sort of oddly framed, like he's looking at funny through a different lens, seeing comedy straight when others are working an angle, playing the zig while everyone else triumphantly plays the zag.

We talk to Michael about Hollywood, satire and Mr. Funnypants. And of course it's not what anyone expects.

And imagine if you took a pill to be good.

Pharmaceutical morality is not some science fiction idea of the future. There's lots of research going on now about how existing medications change our ideas of empathy or co-operation. Future meds could banish racism or greed or dishonesty.

Of course the ethical problems are huge. Would the state be able to resist prescribing pills over building prisons? Could a racist be forced to swallow his meds? And where does free will fit in this Huxley-like scenario?

We talk to an ethicist about the allure and the nightmare of pharma-morality.

It's a long weekend for some of you.

Hope you get to spend some time doing seasonal stuff, like hiding eggs and eating Peeps. Remember, there's no food you can make that can't be Peepified.

See you next week.

Brent Bambury @CBCDay6

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