Toronto

Today I'm in Toronto, which in Iroquois means 'place where trees stand in water'. Now, I think it means 'place where very very tall tower stands in the middle of the city'.

This wonderful Canadian city is truly cosmopolitan. It has a population of almost 2.5 million, but of mixed origins, even more so than London and New York. In fact Toronto is second on the list of cities with foreign born residents - Miami in Florida is the first. It has the largest Sri Lankan community outside of Sri Lanka itself, and the second language used in the workplace is surprisingly Italian - addiritura!

Now, I could talk about the economy, tourism, the transport infrastructure and climate, but I don't want to. I'm going to tell you about the tallest free-standing structure in the whole world which is right here in Toronto. The CN Tower. Now listen carefully, as I'm going to give you lots of information about this record breaking building.

It's 553 metres tall, or 1815 feet, if you prefer. 2 million people visit it every year - remember the population of Toronto is only half a million more than that. The name originally referred to the Canadian National Railway which built it, although now it means Canada's National after the railway company sold it.

The work started in February 1973. Obviously the foundations were first. They are 15 metres deep and took only four months to complete. Then the workers really got down to business, and incredibly in June 1976 the tower opened to the public - just 40 months later. This was partly due to the fact that the massive antenna, 102 metres, was originally due to be taken to the top by crane but in fact a helicopter was used. This was spectacular to see and even became a tourist attraction in the three and a half weeks in which it was used.

The final cost of the project was 330 million Canadian dollars, around 260 million US dollars. Why was it built anyway? Well, it had to be so tall because it was used as a communications tower, and today many TV and radio stations broadcast from there.

Now, for some extremely important facts about it. Lightning strikes the tower around 80 times a year. It's twice as tall as France's Eiffel Tower. The lifts, or elevators, travel at 22kph It has an observation point at 342m called the Glass Floor, which has . . a glass floor! It can survive an earthquake of 8.5 on the Richter scale It is 13m taller than the previous tallest tower in the world, the Ostankino Tower in Moscow.

Finally, if you feel fit you can try to break one of the records associated with the tower. For example, you could carry a piano up the stairs to the top. You have to do the 2,579 steps in less than seven and a half hours. Or you could do something more normal like just run up it. The fastest time for a man is 7m 52s, and for a woman 11m 52s. Or you can do what I did and just take the very fast and comfortable elevator.