Living in Toronto, in Atlanta, in Tokyo, there was never any lack of opportunities to browse about, looking at 19th-Century art and antiques. Here in Ottawa, it's a vastly different story. For some puzzling reason this city appears incapable of sustaining an interest in and trade of arts and antiques.

Because it's been ages, or seems like it, that we've been out and about this winter doing something interesting other than working at enjoying winter recreation, we welcomed the opportunity to go along to the semi-annual antique show that has turned out to be the only one worth looking at in this city. At one time, years ago, these shows were held at the Nepean Sportsplex, then at Lansdowne Park, and latterly they've been staged at Carleton University's Fieldhouse.

All of these venues proved excellent showcases for the dealers coming along from Ontario and Quebec to show their wares. At these art-and-antique shows we were able to appreciate a broad range of offerings ranging from Continental and Canadian furniture, Eastern porcelains, and European sculpture, clocks and paintings. Some of which were accessible to we people of fairly modest means. Since we've been collecting both art and antiques for the past 50 years, we feel comfortable with the notion that we represent discriminating art-and-antique lovers.

So it's sad to note that the dealers of quality have fallen off of late, and many - too many - of the offerings of dealers that have replaced them represent floggers of inferior quality goods purporting to be quality but missing by a wide mile.