million dollar banana?

"Look up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane ... no wait, it's a giant banana ... from Canada!"

Some befuddled Texan may have uttered those words had Montreal artist Cesar Saez been able to turn his dream into reality. The dream? To build a 300-metre yellow banana and float it in geostationary orbit above Texas.

Think that's funny? Get this: Canadian tax dollars went to the project. Saez got a $55,000 grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to.....barely begin to fund his project. He says it cost over $1 million.
Unfortunately, he could not find enough investors to get the banana off the ground.

When asked about this failed banana investment, Carole Breton, of the Canada Council, explained, "We understand that sometimes, for all sorts of reasons, there is no creation at the end . . . this is money for research, not for results."