Ten years ago, a great book called Mondo Canuck by Gregg Pevere came out...everything you ever wanted to know about Canadian pop culture. Doubt it's available now, but if you ever run into a copy, totally worth it for the crash course in Trudeau, SCTV, Can Con, Hollywood North and why we make crap sitcoms.

Corner Gas is not crap.

It certainly looks to be crap from the trailers. We've never got enough qualudes to want to face a whole episode.

What he ^ said.

I think you and I have a fairly similar taste in humour. CG is well funny, in my opinion.

The current trailer is for an episode about pulling down a barn. It's a nice looking barn so I wonder why they want to pull it down. There aren't any jokes or potentially humorous situations in the trailer so I'm not motivated to watch the show; have you seen that episode and can you explain the joke(s)?

I did see that episode last night. The thing with CG is that it's not big-time, full-on funny. The humour is in the little sub-themes and asides. I can imagine that a trailer would not be able to convey that.

That's rather what I thought. I think Jon Stewart has plundered the country of all the funny Canadians.

Excellent, I got replies, thank you!

I can't decide if you're hilarious or not so I'm going with "yes" for now .

Thanks- added that to the list (is it an actual "Dummies" book by the way?)

I'll look for that- not heard of it: was it written by an immigrant?

Sounds a bit scary! Will it shake me out of my comfortable denial ?

Excellent: never heard of that but will certainly look for it!

I wonder if I can get hold of this over here, because if we ever get to a stage where we can afford university fees (yeah, I know...), I'd love to take Anthropology at UBC (total pipe dream at this stage of course). I'd like to read the book in any case.

See above! Actually, I won't quote them all, but all of your recommendations look good: thanks for taking the time.

Ok, this guy Ferguson's starting to get on my tits now . Just kidding.

I'll do my best, but failing that I'll punch the person in the bookshop or something if you like?

Tumbleweed... Actually, that could be really interesting, and I guess it's better to find out now if, you know, it turns out that I probably wouldn't be able to play nicely with them.

Cool pictures, and what's not to like about a guy called Dorian?

I think I really want this now! (Um, Kids In The Hall was Canadian, right?) I'm going to see if Corner Gas is downloadable: I need to see this for myself.

Thanks everybody: you've bankrupted me but you made it seem like my idea . I can't do that Karma thing (that I don't really understand), possibly because I'm on FireFox, so I'll try again in the morning from work.

That would be shooting, or punching, the messenger. Just don't give Newman any money as he's a apologist for some loathsome people. Loathsome Canadian people at that.

Ah, ok: second-hand only it is, then. Do I definitely want to read this book in that case?!

If you want a broad picture of Canada I don't think you can discount the rich, the few people Newman fawns over do own most of the country.

Chipping in another two cents worth,

Yes, the 'Dummies' book is a 'Dummies' book, down to the cartoons at the beginnings of chapters and everything. A bit of a tome, but I found it invaluable.

'How To Be A Canadian' was a bit too much clever humour and not enough 'stuff' for my liking. Worth buying just for the cover alone, though.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/i...459601?ie=UTF8

I too bought 'What Canadians Think' but boy, was that ever a dry read??! It's written by two opinion pollsters from Ipsos-Reid and unless you care who Canadians would turn to for advice about prescription drugs, it's probably wise to leave it until the bottom of the list.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions.

Pierre Berton, The Last Spike.

Actually any Pierre Berton. He's a Canadian icon and yet he's readable!

How true. I bought it at the airport, thinking it would keep me amused during a flight to the UK.