Christian Malcolm: Sock antics relieve boredom

Its official address is the Calgary Trail, which summons up images of a winding stony path cut through virgin forest, trodden by the boots of grizzled prospectors and hardy fur-trappers.

Maybe at one time it was. Not any more.

Think four-lane super-highway crammed with space-cruisers, trucks and family saloons and you're a closer to the mark.

What is there locally for the athletes to see?

There's a giant Ikea across the road, which provides an authentic taste of 21st century Britain.

Charmless

But there's only so much fun you can have with a paper lantern and a home-assembly shelving unit that has a name consisting of five random consonants.

Edmonton being a typical North American city, built around the car, there's nothing else within walking distance.

The hotel itself is the classic Holiday Inn, a faceless, spiritless building with all the individuality and charm of a breezeblock.

No DJing in prospect for Marlon Devonish

There's a team lounge which has four PCs and a couple of PlayStations, but once you've emailed your mum and downloaded one mpg of a gruesome car crash, there's not a lot else.

There's two in each room, which are just big enough for a double bed each and a telly but not a lot more, and they are only slightly more fun to spend time in than a library.

Most of the team have made the trek to West Edmonton Mall, confirmed by the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest in the world.

It's the size of 115 football fields and boasts over 800 shops, 19 cinemas, the world's largest indoor amusement arcade and a huge indoor lake.

You can travel around the latter in one of four working submarines (more than are owned by the Canadian navy, trivia fans) but even that only takes 20 minutes.

Ragga-free zone

Sprinter Marlon Devonish has been out here 10 days already.

As a man who likes to DJ back home, he might have been looking forward to the music festivals which form a background to the championships.

Garage, R&B, ragga, anyone? Erm, no.

Wednesday night we had the Proclaimers, Thursday the Backstreet Boys.

At other times you can catch Eddie Reader, Rita Coolidge and Joan Osborne.

"What if God was one of us?" wondered Osborne on her best-known hit.

The answer would probably be that he'd use his traditional powers of omnipotence to get the hell out of town or lay on some decent tunes.

Forget going loco down in Acapulco.

This is going crazy in Canada and it ain't much fun.