The airborne banner that had us scratching our upturned heads this summer was hired by Kenneth Hotz, one half of the inane but compulsively watchable TV duo Kenny and Spenny. On their show, the two compete to out-imbecile each other. In this instance, they were battling to see who could piss off the largest number of people. Kenny clearly won. Aerial banners, though eco-dubious nowadays, remain a popular form of advertising. For around $750 an hour, just about anyone can take their message to the skies. Though the banners are subject to standard advertising laws, almost everything else is subject to the discretion of the charter company and the edicts of good taste. Hotz originally asked for “Heil Hitler” and was flatly refused. In 2002, an anti-abortion group flew banners depicting a 100-foot-long aborted fetus over crowded U.S. cities, proving that the skies are navigated by the right wing as often as the left.

Wondering about the waterfront? Curious about construction? Perplexed by politics? Ask the Urban Decoder a question here.

Stingrays have had an image problem ever since the late Steve Irwin was stabbed in the heart by one in 2006. But the Crocodile Hunter’s demise was a freak occurrence. Cruise lines routinely set up snorkelling excursions where vacationers are free to swim alongside the usually placid fish. In fact, if recent history is any indication, such exhibits may be more dangerous for the rays than the humans who touch them. In May, 41 of the pancake-like creatures died mysteriously at the Calgary Zoo, prompting the Toronto Zoo to ban any hand-to-ray contact until the cause of death can be determined. If and when the ban is lifted, zoo-goers can take comfort in knowing that the venomous barbs on the stingray’s tail are trimmed off regularly, just in case. Think of it as a precautionary pedicure.

When Ed Mirvish died last year, many obituarists noted that Toronto’s royal retailer had made a peculiar (and perishable) last wish. Tucked at the north end of his eponymous store is a sign that still reads: “When Ed dies, he would like a catered funeral with accordion players and a buffet table, with a replica of Honest Ed on it made of potato salad.” Alas, the final request was not to be. “His wishes were not obeyed,” laughs 50_year employee Russell Lazar, the store’s long-time manager. In reality, Mirvish’s funeral was a stately affair, attended by local dignitaries like Dalton McGuinty and Bob Rae (and a police horse named after Honest Ed to mark the icon’s 90th birthday in 2005). There are no plans to change any of the unusual signage at Ed’s emporium in light of his passing, but the possibilities are tempting. As one Internet wag suggested, “Honest Ed’s a corpse, but his prices will never stiff you.”

The short answer is no. Almost all aspects of cabbie protocol are laid out in the City of Toronto’s Muni_cipal Code, including the stipulation that drivers check their cars after every fare. In theory, this means that any item left behind will be returned on the spot (and also, that a driver won’t have to double back to Ajax to deliver your $30 knock-off Prada bag). But as anyone who has placed a frantic call to the lost and found department knows, it doesn’t always work that way. If you’re looking to fight the good fight, you can report amateur extortion acts—i.e., when a cab driver insists you pay to have your property returned—to the city’s Licensing and Standards Division or even to the police and hope for your day in court. But if your goal is the safe return of your lost item, you would be wise to have a driver drop your phone, or laptop, or wallet, or teacup chihuahua at company headquarters and then retrieve it yourself. Also remember that one man’s treasure is another man’s trash, meaning no one is likely to put much effort into tracking down last week’s issue of People magazine. “We’ve had calls about TV dinners,” says licensing supervisor Gus Michaels, who adds that lost property is ultimately the responsibility of the person who lost it. Maybe Mom had the right idea clipping your mittens to your jacket after all.

Underground is generally an area non grata for cell users, but Telus, Rogers and Bell have solved that snag by installing a special network of antennas throughout the complex universe lurking beneath our city’s downtown. Unlike normal city cell towers, which loom above neighbourhoods and broadcast signals across a one-and-a-half-kilometre radius, the underground system uses small ceiling-mounted antennas every 150 metres or so. Sometimes you can see them poking down from the roof tiles—they look something like sprinklers.

The fact that we don’t have similarly great coverage in the subway can be attributed to TTC heel dragging. But now that Washington and Montreal subway stations have installed the mini-antennas, it looks like progress may soon be upon us. If all goes well, rocket riders will have service on the platforms by 2009. Just don’t expect to chat on the trains themselves: the city fears hundreds of yakking riders per train would make the better way even more insufferable than it already is.

First things first: Captain John is not a naval captain. He is, however, Toronto’s only floating restaurant entrepreneur, and that has to count for something. John Letnik is a Yugoslavian emigré who came to Canada in 1957. The ship that currently sits at the foot of Yonge isn’t his first buoyant business: the original was in a former ferry called the Normac. Things went swimmingly until 1981, when the aquatic eatery was rammed by the ferry Trillium and sank two weeks later (nobody was hurt, but dinner was ruined). Fortunately, a few years before the accident, Letnik had purchased a second, bigger ship: the Jadran, a Yugoslavian liner that once plied the Adriatic. With 16 sailors (a real captain presumably among them), Captain John sailed the vessel across the Atlantic to the spot where it’s moored today. Though the ship was designed to carry hundreds, the restaurant—not known for its world-class cuisine—hasn’t exactly been packing them in of late. At press time, however, it was still afloat.

If only. Right now, the vast majority of those items get donated to the dump instead. At Pearson, the job of disposing of all the half-used sunscreen and toothpaste tubes falls to the Travel Store, a private retailer with whom the government struck a deal after new security regulations barring carry-on liquids over 90 mL were instituted last September. At the outset, the store hoped that some of the goods might be resold or given to charity, but liability concerns put an end to that idea. Faced with a deluge of gels of dubious origin, charities said thanks, but no thanks. Even non-liquid items, like the manicure scissors that frequently find themselves ejected from your carry-on, proved un-giftable: who knows where those blades have been? But there’s some consolation for poor planning: the Travel Store will mail un-flyable items to your destination, or they’ll store them until your return. (Prices start at $1 a day.) Or you can just abandon some of your luggage—a tactic sometimes employed by harried travellers faced with fines for overweight bags. Anything unclaimed for 90 days goes to the police’s K-9 training unit, contents and all, for sniffing drills.

You’re probably seeing one of two things. Female squirrels, when they’re about to have babies, line their nests by tearing out chunks of their own hair. (Human mothers might understand this feeling.) So if it’s spring or summer—birthing season—and the animals you see are missing hair from around their shoulders, you’re probably seeing a homemaking rodent. The other possibility is more distasteful: a patchy squirrel might be suffering from sarcoptic mange, caused by burrowing mites (look for baldness around the head and feverish scratching). Not only does the disease cause a squirrel’s fur to fall out in hunks, leaving it vulnerable to hypothermia, it makes the animal rub itself raw, leaving it open to infection. (Similar mites make themselves at home on other animals, especially dogs.) Mange is highly contagious, but it can be treated. If you have a mangy beast loitering around the house, you can contact the Toronto Wildlife Centre, who will try to trap the animal and get rid of the mites—before you find yourself with a whole backyard full of bald, itchy, ill-tempered, bushy-tailed creatures.

The Toronto police have secured financing for 15 video cameras, designed to be mounted temporarily wherever they’re needed. In the past, cameras have been used to keep an eye on post-Caribana celebrations and Taste of the Danforth; most recently they monitored Yonge and Dundas a year after the Jane Creba shooting. But the cops aren’t huddled in a van staring at screens 24/7. Instead, the cameras store 72 hours of footage before recording over it, and the tape is only viewed if police think it contains something useful. (In the three weeks the Yonge Street cameras were up, they recorded a shooting near Gould Street.) And more cameras are coming. Not only are the police eager, but the Downtown Yonge Business Improvement Area is talking about bankrolling six cameras between Dundas and Gerrard later in the year. (Store owners often hand their own footage over to police voluntarily.) The TTC is also busy outfitting its stations with security cams, increasing the number per station from five or six to an average of 20 (bigger stations, such as Union, will sport up to 30). Some of those cameras—usually the ones watching automatic entrances—send live feeds to the collectors’ booths. But if you get the urge to put on a performance, the TTC would really prefer you head to Speakers Corner.

A firkin is a unit of Old English measurement, equalling one quarter of a barrel or 86.47 pints of beer. The Firkin enterprise dates back to 1987, when two South African expatriates bought the Fox and Firkin at Yonge and Eglinton and used it to start a chain of their own. That was 40 outlets ago, and they’re planning to expand their empire well beyond the GTA. The Firkin Group has partnered with an American franchising company called Fransmart, which was looking for a pub concept to replicate across the continent. Eight are already open stateside, and another 125 are in the pipe. Fransmart foresees as many as 1,000 little firkins. So you want to open your own Firkin franchise? Don’t even bother applying unless you have a net worth of $1 million and are ready to spend upward of $500,000. Then you’ll be presented with a list of possible names to choose from; the company’s president holds a closely guarded master list. And one more thing: management, tired of Torontonians heading to “The Fox” or “The Quail,” will flip U.S. names around so that the “Firkin” comes first, like the Firkin & Bull in—wait for it—San Antonio, Texas. Americans might not know what firkin means, but damned if they’ll forget it.

Your ears don’t deceive you: fire trucks bought by the city since 2002 are indeed sporting a new sound. The classic fire engine siren, the one that’s been saving lives and aggravating home_owners for generations, is produced by an electrical device. In new trucks, it’s been replaced by a 200-watt speaker system under the front bumper (to spare the ears of firefighters riding in the cab) that plays a digitized version of the traditional piercing siren sound. It’s easier to maintain and, ironically, is said to produce a more authentic, old-school European fire truck wail (think: “nee-nah, nee-nah”). And, to penetrate the eardrums of iPod addicts, cellphone users and soundproof-car occupants, it’s even louder than before. If that doesn’t get through to the jerk who’s parked in the turning lane, fire trucks have one more trick at their disposal: their air brakes power a real, honest-to-God air horn. Nothing digital about it.

Many downtown lots sit on private property, and their owners can charge whatever they please, whenever they please. The exceptions are the Green P lots, run by the city-owned Toronto Parking Authority (which raked in more than $40 million in revenues in 2005). But the TPA’s mandate isn’t to skim cash off motorists; it’s to make sure that affordable short-term parking spaces are available. Green P rates are adjusted twice a year according to supply and demand and aren’t hiked other_wise. Except, that is, the lot by the Air Canada Centre. On game nights, the price goes from $6 to $25. Apparently nobody’s above sticking it to Leafs fans.

Let’s start with what not to do. Don’t try poisoning raccoons, because it’s illegal. Live trapping is counter-productive and often cruel: you’re likely to catch a sheltering mother and leave starving babies behind. And speaking of the offspring, it’s bad to adopt. Those sweet little baby raccoons become foul, feral, uncontrollable creatures when they reach sexual maturity (much like humans, really). The sad truth is that the little blighters usually ignore such home-brew deterrents as mothballs, bright lights and cayenne pepper. The only real way to keep them out of your business is to remove whatever attracted them in the first place. Green bins—full of pungent organics—are especially appealing; their latches were meant to be animal-resistant, but aren’t. The city is currently testing a new latch that fits over existing bins. In the meantime, keeping your bin in a secure shed is your best bet. Failing that, you can still take heart: raccoons need to either knock a bin over or climb on top of it to pry it open. The Urban Decoder knows of one homeowner who, after trying to keep the lid on with cinder blocks and bungee cords, finally suspended the garbage can from his carport roof. He hasn’t had a raccoon B and E since.

People sometimes think it’s because he’s a ZZ Top enthusiast or an orthodox Jew, but he’s neither (although his father was interned in a Nazi concentration camp for aiding Dutch Jews during the war and emigrated to Canada shortly thereafter). The real story is that Gerrit de Boer grew his beard while backpacking in Europe in the late ’60s, inspired by the stylishly hirsute continentals. That’s not the only thing he brought back: a sweep through Scandinavia gave him the idea for his modernist furniture mini-empire, founded in 1971 (interior design was already in his genes; his grandfather ran a boutique out of a houseboat). Idomo (embodied by one massive store at Dufferin and Sheppard) has been around ever since, and so have the whiskers, in large part because de Boer is not a morning person and wants to avoid having to shave when he gets up. His grooming regime is as spartan as a Swedish coffee table: he washes with plain shampoo and trims the foliage a mere three times a year. His wife, he says, has given the beard her full support, but his mother always thought it was gross. Still, Mom did find it handy on one occasion: while ailing in a hospital bed a few days before her death, she suddenly reached out, grabbed tightly onto the tresses and pulled her son in close for a last, prickly hug.