I quite enjoyed the McFadden poem, although I generally don't care for that kind of word-play in poetry.

Ironically, the 'town'-'tune' link was broken for me, with my /tju:n/ pronunciation.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, it doesn't work very well in my Scottish accent. And why Edinburg, I wonder. Could it be a typo?

I assume he's talking about Edinburg, Ohio; similarly, Dublin, London.

Tracy Robinson's book was reviewed a week or two ago in the Canadian paper the Globe and Mail, and it sounds like a great book, though not for the faint of heart. Having read the review, the tone of the first chapter was just what I expected. Sooke is a place about an hour's drive west of Victoria, B.C., on Vancouver Island.

Duh.