Déyès Modès

NEW BLOG

2012-01-06T09:48:00.000-08:00

Hello all. I've moved...well, started a new blog. You can find me at http://suszanna.com/blog/. Hope you come join m, if any of you have been skulking around here in the hope that I might return.

And yet more jackasses...

2008-08-14T10:35:00.000-07:00

http://guywhite.wordpress.com/2008/08/12/slavery-was-good-for-the-black-man/

JACKASS

2008-08-14T09:45:00.000-07:00

Occasionally you come across a jackass whose bray is so much more offensive than the normal cacophony that you have to acknowledge it. This, my dear friends, is one such jackass. This article appeared in the Jamaican Observer recently and, well, read for yourself. My response follows.

Slavery was good for the black man

Michael Dingwall
Saturday, August 09, 2008

As we celebrate emancipation and independence, we are being reminded of the horrors of slavery. According to our leaders, academics and others, slavery was the worst institution ever created. However, while it is popular for most to agree with this claim, I beg to disagree. Indeed, contrary to the belief that slavery was bad for us blacks, I believe that slavery was good for us.
Have we ever stopped to consider where we black people, especially those of us in the West, would be right now if it weren't for the Atlantic Slave Trade? What state do you think black Africa would be in today? Do you think that we would have been better off without slavery? I don't think so!

When the Europeans went to Africa to buy slaves, what did they find? They found a society and people vastly inferior to theirs. While the Europeans had emerged from their feudal practices, our ancestors in Africa, for the most part, had not developed for many centuries. We did not understand the concept of nation or government. Science and technology (and innovations in these areas) were non-existent in black Africa of the 15th and 16th centuries. Indeed, as a people, we had no sense of self-identity. In many respects, we were uncivilised.

Slavery was our most important contact with modernity. It is through this "most heinous system ever created" that we blacks were able to understand some of the principles of global trade. Our ancestors were introduced to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade between Europe, Africa and the West Indies. Black Africa's part in the trade was the importation of European technology and the export of slaves. The importation of European technology was important - even though the Africans did not appreciate this importance at first. The export of slaves was also very important, especially for us in the West.

As time went on, we blacks, both in Africa and especially in the Caribbean were, in many ways, being Europeanised and thus civilised. We adopted several aspects of their culture - their systems of government, their technologies, their sense of order and their languages. In doing this, we discarded those aspects of our culture that clearly placed us at a disadvantage - like our lack of sense of self, loyalty to the tribe and our non-participation in modern technology.

Although not a believer in any god myself, the Christianity that came with slavery and European control would be of immense value to us black people. Back in Africa, we were preoccupied with the worship of animals, trees, spirits of the dead - even stones. These primitive religions that we were practising ensured that our ancestors in Africa were backward. The relatively superior Christianity, with its greater sense of order and responsibility would help, in many ways, to pull the black man out of the Stone Age. This could only have happened with slavery.

Our relatively stable societies today, especially in the West, are testaments to the benefits of slavery. While it is true that black Africa has, for the most part, squandered the opportunities that slavery offered in the past, the positive influence of European civilisation cannot be denied. The black nation states of Africa and the Caribbean have given black people a sense of nation, a sense of identity, a sense of order and a sense of purpose - things we never had before.

While we continue to demonstrate our inferiority in the areas of science and technology, through centuries of being exposed to Europe on account of slavery, we blacks are now aware of the need for us to start excelling in these areas.

Those of us who continue to see the millions of blacks who died crossing the Atlantic and the displacement of what we had in Africa as proof that slavery was a bad institution don't understand the mechanics of human development and evolution. Similar processes had to be endured by countless peoples thoughout history. The development of the human race has always involved the need for change. Slavery was one such means, and like it or not, we blacks are the beneficiaries. It is not for us today to judge the means through which societies have changed in the past.

We blacks were changed, for the better, I might add, on account of slavery. We are a better race today because our ancestors went though slavery. The millions of lives lost were not lost in vain. The Europeans proclaimed the need for us to be civilised through slavery and though this may be hard to understand, they were right. Indeed, based on what is happening in black Africa today - slavery for us in the West was, in many respects, our salvation.

Michael Dingwall is a freelance writer. michael_a_dingwall@hotmail.com

Hottie's response

Dear Mr Dingwall – and how appropriate that surname of yours has turned out to be – it was with a certain amount of disbelief and incredulousness that I read your column in the Jamaican Observer dated 9th August 2008. As I read your column I hoped that it would be revealed as a satirical piece. As I came to its rather distasteful end I had to accept that this vain hope would have elevated your disastrous writing to a level you appear incapable of attaining.

I will push aside your bad grammar and terrible, lazy use of cliché and tackle the more serious error you have committed – inaccuracy. This article releases a malodour of desperation; of someone who slapped together the mandatory 800 words in order to meet a deadline so as to collect a much needed cheque. As a columnist myself I am insulted by your failure to take serious the importance of the job you sought to undertake. The overall falling standards of journalism worldwide should not operate as your personal measuring stick for the standard you should try to attain. Anyone who writes for the public must take seriously their responsibility – you are disseminating information that will not only last for a long time but will be accepted as fact by many who may not have access to other more reliable sources of information. It is your duty to ensure therefore that what you write IS fact.

If you had tried to sell this piece as being purely opinion then it would have to be accepted as that – your opinion is your own and no one has to agree with it. However, in writing this piece you attempted to convince your readers that what you were presenting was fact. And that, pardon the following use of literary jargon, is where the bullshit started to stink.

Now, I’m not going to attempt to correct you because while I do believe in miracles, I myself am not a miracle worker. Besides, quite a number of people have responded appropriately, pointing out the staggering amount of evidence that contradicts your writing. I will question what you consider as being “civilised” and how exactly would you measure a “superior culture”. Perhaps you need to take a trip to Spain where, on certain beaches you stand and marvel at the jellyfish floating around you in the water until you realise that they are actually used condoms. Or perhaps Eastern Europe where in some places indoor plumbing is something seen only on the Hollywood movies watched on communal TVs. Or how about “good old England”, your most recent coloniser, where the dream for the majority of the populace is to live on one of the Caribbean islands you disparage.

And it is important to note that as these countries seek a new level of development they are returning to the ideas and practices they destroyed when they first encountered the countries you so ignorantly described as uncivilised. Of course, there is very little acknowledgment of this fact. And why should there be when the ill read and shoddily educated like you are eager to grind the very organs they demand you dance to?

I must touch on “the relatively superior Christianity” that you’ve compared to the religions of Africa – oh, and by the way, you do know there was and still is more than one religion in Africa, right? The preoccupation with “the worship of animals, trees, spirits of the dead - even stones” that you described sounds alot like Catholicism to me – the endless animal sacrifices in the Old Testament which ended with the sacrifice of the Lamb of God; the Tree of Good and Evil, the Tree of Knowledge and the endless climbing of fig trees, parables about trees, olive trees, etc; spirits of the dead, well, we have Lazarus, Jesus, kings consulting with witches and evil spirits. The stones part? Just visit a Catholic church anywhere and count the stone statues you see and don’t forget the stoning of Stephen, the adulteress etc.

There is one thing I agree with you about though, in case you’re starting to despair. The development of the human race has always involved the need for change. I advise you to seek your own development and become the agent of your own change. May I suggest you start by purchasing a book of rudimentary world history? At the very least, an English dictionary.

Boss video in allyuh pweffen

2008-06-20T17:03:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJWT02HjgBM

Doh ask meh nuttin. Just watch it. Shhhhiiiiiiittttt.

My Pennywise List

2008-06-17T04:28:00.000-07:00

So my mom and aunt coming up to visit next month for four weeks (heaven help us) and she asked me to send her a list of things I want from Pennywise. All my friends who've seen the list ketching kicks so I thought I'd post it up (because you know I lazy no ass). And yes I know it's not strictly Pennywise stuff but you know what, is only a matter of time eh.

1. Sacha lipgloss: Tornado and Luscious something or the other. Nothing bright!
2. Hair pins and clips: Short ones. Make sure the tips have plastic bulbs so as not to gorge out scalp.
3. One Sacha eyeliner, black. Only Sacha eh, nothing else. (Optional as I have eyeliner, just not Sacha).
4. One box CLEANSE SMART. If you can only bring one thing on list, make this it!
5. Worm medicine. Yes, I think I have worms. Leave me alone.
6. Dinky clips. The silver ones nah. Just a small pack will suffice.
7. Black woggies. The medium size ones. Make sure they’re black eh, not the half dead greyish, nylon ones Pennywise does be selling sometimes.
8. Pond’s Clarant B. Check expiry date since Pennywise hit me a 6 for a 9 last time and sell me some that expired in a couple of months.
9. Colgate Whitening Toothpaste. About 3, 4 tubes. I don’t know why these people up here don’t realise they have a tooth problem and start making some decent whitening toothpaste.
10. Three Coconut Bake. Big
11. The tuna pastelles you made the last time. YUMMY!
12. Aunty seasoning. Big bottle.
13. Pepper sauce from the old lady who was tracking R.
14. Kellogg’s Corn Pops: Two, preferably three boxes I not joking. NOBODY sells it up here. Could remove from box to fit in suitcase.
15. Vicco tumeric face cream. One tube.
16. Rough tops cookies.
17. Big Silver Hoops. One pair. Ar could probably get those. Big eh. Skeggy but not Jamette size.
18. Ooooh! Ibuprofen 800. Ask pharmacist if I could take two at a time. The strongest thing up here is 400 and you need to buy that from the pharmacy direct. Steups.
19. Some soca CDs.
20. Roti skin.

If you could think of anything else I might need, help me out. Thanks.

Down in Fraggle Rock

2008-05-15T07:09:00.001-07:00

Remember a while back I told you guys about the Fraggle Rock movie? Well, it's been confirmed! It's most likely going to be a musical - which kicks ass - and the whole gang's gona be there. I should give you guys a link to the story or something but I'm too lazy so Google it nah. Dance your cares away - clap clap - worry's for another da a ay...

P.S. I used to work with a guy that was the stinking image of Junior Gorg. Incredible thing was, my boy though he was a player. Sad.

Thundercat/Tailspin

2008-04-17T01:57:00.000-07:00

Morning morning everybody. Well if allyuh waiting to hear any more antics from the weekend allyuh will be disappointed. Nuttin happen. Well, nothing that coulda make de papers. Trying to behave mehself and come to terms with the fact that I am SHITTING bored. Not no kinda joke bored yuh know. BORED.

Meh wuk boring, meh body missing the fix from hustling with school, work etc. Not that I mind that much eh because I think I went through enough zafaire, commess and bacchanal in the last 14 months or so to last me for a few years well. I tired. So lemme keep meh backside quiet yes. And try to reduce it lil bit. But dat is a next post.

So a lil joke this morning. It have this radio station ah does listen to, XFM. They does play plenty new releases, indie pop/rock, anything that eh really main stream I guess. So anyway, yuh girl on the train this morning listening to the music the DJ playing, feeling the vibes – he hit we with a lil Goldfrapp, Foo Fighters, Stones, things going nice. Bam!!!!!!!!! Ah setta gorilla start to grunt in meh ears through the headphones. Yuh BELIEVE the DJ play the theme song fuh Tailspin?!

Well here nah, is a good thing I in the people country long enough so ah have a lil training. Still, ah nearly PEE mehself. Tears! Meh chest HUTTING meh fus ah braksing from laughing out loud. OH GOOOUUUDDD!!!!!! Tailspin yuh know. When last yuh watch that? Ah should expect that assness yuh know, because a lil while ago they did hit we the theme song fuh Thundercats. Dat one had meh dancing. Who else had a crash on Panthera? And wanted to be Cheetara?

Corsets and Diamonds

2008-04-09T02:37:00.000-07:00

So yuh girl had a ball this weekend. Sheesheetay meh backside on Friday and nearly lose meh toes in a pair of high heeled granny boots. Throw down a bottle a wine with a friend, we find we still stand up strong, making plenty sense and thing still.

“Dat wine eh strong at all man,” meh friend say.

“Nah man. Not at all,” I say.

“Should we buy another one?” she asked.

“Hold up, lemme go and pee.”

As yuh girl reach the toilet the place start to dance. Nothing major eh, just a lil gentle swaying, like when yuh hear a song in public yuh like and yuh want to dance but can’t. So I went back outside to tell meh fren well lewwe hold a lil strain because like the wine strong after all. Lo and behold, a next bottle rest down in front she and two glass full up. Needless to say, yuh girl cackle and fling rong sheself whole night. Wasn’t drunk, mind you. But was FLIPPIN’ TIPSY.

Saturday den. Went to a Tex Mex restaurant in Tralfalgar Square and the bitches dem had only one veggie option, which consisted of a HEAP a half dead looking (and tasting) mix rice and black bean fajitas that I still looking for. But I wait so long to get the damn food anyway that I full up fas. Then was off to a burlesque party. This is what, the second, third time I went to see woman stripping for the year so far? If I did like woman is one thing, but yuh would wonder why I eh find meh backside in a male strip club/party eh.

So yeah, the theme was Corsets and Diamonds but yuh girl couldn’t find a pants to go with the corset (if I did only know what other people was wearing I coulda damn well just go in a panty and bra). So I end up wearing a corsety like dress which was cool if not for the fact that I bought it when I was 10lbs lighter and it was ARREADY tight. Needless to say I ripped the thing by the end of the night. I feel it happen when I was crawling across the crouch to Like a Virgin. Or when I was dancing on the stage. Or it could be when I was pretending I was in a music video standing in front the big fan with meh hair blowing in the wind. Dat was in de second club called Ghetto. Doh ask.

Saw two woman fighting in the toilet because one ah dem say de next one was leading she on because she giving she current and she done have a woman. Den they come out and ask me what I think. Me sister?! Me eh think nuttin nah. Next thing yuh know people woman want to brace me because I say. Anyway, crawl home fore day morning – after nearly lambasting this annoying, mad, crass, ghetto Jamaican woman in the station. Was snowing on the way home and by the time I crawl to bed by 9 everything was white and I was dead. So, what allyuh get up to?

Masters and midgets (not pc I know)

2008-04-01T03:09:00.000-07:00

Allyuh, thanks eh. Thanks. Ah blushing here. Well, half a that is the capillaries in meh face swelling from too much alco in the system but part of it is modesty too (kyah kyah, kyah). So allyuh, yes. Yuh girl get a distinction. After the rangotango with meh supervisor (who only understand meh topic after she change it (mudderass) and the computer crashing and the fool from Dell nearly wiping meh harddrive clean (including my dissy. I woulda beat dat). Is a good feeling, yes.

So now, what I going and do? Well, wukking full time now and it feels GOOD to have some money to meh name. Doh mind as it come it gone eh but still. Have some debts to pay off and need to save but the general plan is to head back Trini sometime in the next two years. Doh mind yuh girl feel like she could head back home now yes but doh make any sense to go with no money in hand and debt collectors at meh heels.

So I know allyuh want to hear about the midget. Well, yuh girl went to a lesbian club with she fren so the two ah we liming and ting, dancing normal. And no I’m not a lesbian but the club does play some boss music and perfect for when you want to go and dance without a setta man jumbieing yuh scene. So anyway, we dancing, sipping on we wine and ting when these two woman come up and start to dance close by. Now as Trini woman know, woman dancing with woman eh no scene back home or in a Trini fete. Woman does be jumping up and wining down together and when nighttime come they going home with they man cool cool. But I does keep forgetting that I not in Trini. And these women were not Trinidadians.

So one ah dem do a kinda technical manoeuvre and block off meh fren and she fren start to tackle me. But I realise I bigger than she and meh fren acting cool so we cool. We’s woman! We enjoying the music! We feteing man! Eh heh! My girl start to get on freaky! She all up on the Hotness. I eh trying to hurt nobody feelings but I know I eh swinging that way so I trying to step back. My girl push forward and rubbing up all over yuh girl – doh mind she only reaching up to meh breast – but that mustbe wasn’t a problem for she nah. While yuh girl trying to deal with this she GONE IN for the kill and start to squeeze up Hottie bamcee. Well that was in end of that. I eh want to hurt your feelings but you eh mind hurting up my bumcee. Not to mention my sense of shame. I doh know, I does attract dese people yes. Hmmm… what does that say about me?

Distinction, bitches!!!!!!

2008-03-25T03:35:00.000-07:00

Take THAT in allyuh pipe and SMOKE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Allyuh eh seeing me for about a month. Awrite, awrite. Ah now come back so ah kyah disappear yet. Results back (unofficially) and yuh girl get a distinction! So is Hottie Hottie HD, MBA (Dist.) Bwa hah hah!!! Thanks Great Dane.

Woye Wooooye!!!!!

2008-03-19T08:33:00.000-07:00

So those of you who thought Hottie Hottie had died a sudden and spectacular death – no. Sorry to disappoint you. I’m here, exams done, dissertation submitted and blood alcohol level consistently too high for the everyday drudgery that is work. ALLYUH AH DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I have to fill allyuh in on all de excitement. Ahmm, the midget lesbian that feel up meh ass on Old Years’ night, the new wuk; how the dissy went; the NEXT unstable, mad no ass, borderline sociopath housemate; ooo the housemate who kyah seem to understand that indoor toilet could flush; the hunt for a new apartment; the lesbian stripper that stole my heart – EEF allyuh see that bumcee. What else? Plenty man, plenty. So no internet at home (result of fight with money HONGREE housemate i.e. the sociopath) so have a lil patience with meh. So what have you guys been up to?

The United States of Sudan

2007-09-16T14:15:00.000-07:00

Column this week EXAMS!!!!!!!!

Did anyone see the Miss Teen USA pageant recently? It’s not that strange a question to be asking this I think, because if I remember ANYTHING about TV back home it’s the plethora of mindless North American programming we’re spoon fed like so much nutrient free slop. And if I remember two things about TV back home it’s how much the average viewer laps up this slop, even while complaining about it and going back for more.

And as an aside, if the fact that I’ve written North American programming as opposed to just plain American programming struck you as a bit strange, I’ll explain. It has been pointed out to me by a number of South Americans that they consider it offensive when people refer to the USA as America, since America in fact refers to the entire continent of which the US is actually a small part. Well, when compared to the rest. So, duly noted and corrected. It’s a valid point and since it makes me tizzy when someone refuses to acknowledge the individuality of the various Caribbean islands, lumping us all together like so many potatoes in a crocus bag, I’ll try to extend the same consideration from now on.

So to continue with my story, the highlight of the show was the answer by Miss South Carolina, an eighteen year old named Lauren Caitlin Upton. And doesn’t that name just sound all American and perky and blonde and sky blue cheerleader uniformish with a boyfriend named Brett? Miss Upton’s question was, “Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the US on a world map. Why do you think this is?” And this is where the excitement began.

Miss Upton’s response, verbatim, was, “I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps, and, uh, I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq everywhere like, such as and I believe that they should, our education over here in the US should help the US, er, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our children.”

Now in case anyone thinks I actually sat down and watched this mind numbing spectacle, let me state emphatically I didn’t. The only mind numbing spectacle I watch is The X Factor, which is like American idol only with stranger people auditioning with really bad teeth. The video clip of her response has been making the rounds of the Internet, like a bag of red mango in class after lunch, only less salty. My original response when I saw this clip was incredulity. What exactly was she trying to say? And what does South Africa have to do with the lack of maps, really? At least she got two out of the four all important words in: “future” and “children”. Unfortunately, she didn’t manage to work in “world peace”.

Perhaps even more interesting is the reaction. An increasing number of people are coming out in her defence, saying that not only was her question pretty hard, but hers was actually quite a good answer. If that’s a good answer, would someone PLEASE send me the link to a bad one!? I’ve done some research myself, because I obviously don’t have enough to do when the day comes, and found some even more shocking statistics like the one Miss South Carolina couldn’t respond properly to.

A National Geographic survey done in the USA in 2006 revealed that half of young people aged 18-24 couldn’t find the state of Mississippi on a world map. Only fourteen per cent think that it’s important to be able to speak another language fluently and one third didn’t know what direction North West is on a map. In fact, 48% couldn’t find New York on a map and think Sudan –the largest country in Africa – is in Asia. Forty eight per cent also believe that the majority of the population in India is Muslim.

But before we start laughing and talking about “those stupid Americans” let’s be honest with ourselves. How many of us can speak Spanish, with Venezuela being a hop, skip and a jump away? Everytime I mention to a Trini that I can speak Spanish the response is what I can best describe as subdued awe, like I’ve admitted I have a third nipple. Quick, tell me where Rampanalgas is? Biche? Sangre Chiquito? And that’s in our own county. What’s our area and geographic co-ordinates? To save you from looking them up it’s 5,128 sq km and 1100 N, 6100 W. And yes, I had to look them up too.

The thing is, I knew all this stuff when I wrote Common Entrance, as we all must. So I guess this just confirms what I’ve always suspected. I was smarter back then than I am now. At least, I would have been better equipped to give Miss Upton a hand.
Or at least a geography lesson.

But what de ass?!

2007-08-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

TIEF HEAD!!!!!! Ah MISS meh chance

2007-08-21T19:07:00.000-07:00

Allyuh remember the fella on top? This is him here. Well guess what. The second picture is he too. At V. Standing next to me. Did I jump him? No. Did I assault him? No. Did we proceed to make mad, passionate love on the grassy verges of the stage? Of course not. Right now I could be lying in bed with my feet in stirrups to facilitate getting empregnated with his love child but no. I am sperm free. You know what? I'm a wuss. I'm dissappointed in myself. If I was a man I'd be calling myself up and badtalking me. I have failed. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. Oh well, yuh know what? He probably has saggy balls. Damn.

Saggy balls

2007-08-21T18:08:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have always wondered what saggy, pathetic, unappealing white balls look like, today is your day. This is me (with a ridiculous white box drawn over my face (GOD but I need to get Photoshop)) at the V festival last Saturday. Yes, while most of you were outside cleaning your neighbour's dogshit off your lawn I was posing with a bunch of drunk no ass men wearing dresses and turning their penises into vaginas. See the kind of power I have? I also have some pictures of Wolverine, Batman and some Oompa Loompas but I have my assignments to do people! Have some consideration and give me a break nah. God! Yuh kyah SATISFY some people...

Coming next week - Ever wondered what a YEAST INFECTION really looks like? Prepare to wonder no more.

What Sesame Street taught me

2007-08-20T13:32:00.000-07:00

Column this week

I recently realised that YouTube has almost every classic skit that ever appeared on Sesame Street. From the Alligator King to the opera singing orange, you name it and dig around long enough, you’ll find it. I’m aware that most people probably already know this, and it seems safe to bet at least one reader is shaking his head and going, “But who didn’t know that? Steups.” So seeing that I have four four thousand word assignments due next week (a nice, healthy total of 16,000 words) I’ve naturally spent endless hours pulverising time by watching Kermit the Frog’s news flashes and Ernie tormenting Bert. And I’ve realised that, even though I didn’t know it when I was a child growing up, Sesame Street has taught me some invaluable lessons, which I will share with you.

Lesson One: An overactive imagination is a very cool thing. Think about it. You had aliens from outer space trying to chat up telephones; a huge, hairy, mastodon like creature that only one person could see; talking fruit; the tap dancing invisible man and the disco frog. Every day for years Sesame Street showed children that all they needed was their imagination and the whole world could become their playground. And they did all this with little or no special effects, unlike so many of the shows of today that utilise so many special effects that they’re no longer special. I wonder what Jim would have to say to that?

Lesson Two: Eating enough fruits and vegetables is really important. Who could forget Captain Vegetable (with his carrot and his celery)? He looked like a slightly shady character and acted like he had too much caffeine in his system, but his enthusiasm was infectious and the message good. They never showed kids pigging out on sweets on the show – unless you count bubble gum, but that was part of a lesson that taught you that B is better than any letter for bu – bble – gum. If they tried to shoot that skit now they’d probably have Bubblicious sponsoring the segment and the children would all have blindly white caps and nose jobs.

Lesson Three: The world is full of all sorts of people and you just have to learn to get along with them. Let’s see, we had sprangers (would you like to buy an O?); neurotics (Telly Monster); impatient middle class perfectionists (Prairie Dawn); people with strange, hippie sounding names (Prairie Dawn); people that on the surface were mean but that’s because you didn’t know them (Oscar) and people that were obviously different but that was ok (the Two Headed monster). Then you had the people that were cool (John John), the people that were not so cool (Bert) and the people who obviously liked each other but could never seem to hook up (David and Maria). Then of course you had a wide representation of different races, cultures and experiences and know what? We learned that it doesn’t matter what’s on the outside but rather, what’s on the inside (forgive me for sounding a bit Hallmark cardish there). And we didn’t even realise we were being taught so cool a lesson. Some world leaders obviously didn’t have TV when growing up.

Lesson Four: Music rocks. Olivia’s “Who am I?” Ernie’s, “I would like to visit the moon.” Harry Belafonte and Kermit singing “Caribbean Amphibian.” Yo Yo Ma and the Honkers, Kermit’s African Alphabet (amazing, beautiful creatures dancing). Hmmm, what else? Herbie Hancock and Tatyana Ali, Forgetful Jones singing Eeklahoma and the Count singing about his bats. The list is almost endless as were the topics they sang about. Of course, all this was before the days of Gina and before Elmo came alone and overshadowed everyone with his annoying third person self referencing. And it didn’t matter if you couldn’t sing or dance, case in point, Bert singing “Doin’ the Pigeon. What mattered was that you had fun while doing it and most times people joined in with you, kind of like the scene in every Indian movie when the boy and girl start singing the words for a song that remarkably everyone around them knows – and the dance too!

Lesson Five: All good things come to an end. Yeah, yeah, I know this one is a bit depressing but that’s life. And it’s an important lesson. Eventually you have to go to primary then secondary school, you start missing Sesame Street and on the odd days when you’re sick and you stay home and you get to watch it you scratch your head and wonder, huh? Where’s the talking typewriter? Where’s Grover? Who’s this blonde chick that’s talking down to everyone, acting like she’s too good to be seen with Muppets? Where’d Bob go? And eventually you realise that the good old glory days are gone and you’re better off doing some Maths or taking your cold medicine and going to bed. And then life gets in the way and then you’re working, day in, day out, bored out of your skull until you say ok, it’s time to immigrate and go to school and you have four four thousand word papers to produce in a week’s time and while procrastinating you come across the classic Sesame Street that you thought you’d lost forever. And you realise, wow, they still have the power to captivate you like nothing else and the same lessons are there, waiting for you to rediscover them.

Hottie gone to de dogs!

2007-08-16T14:10:00.000-07:00

Aye aye! I eh tell allyuh bout de old man from Malaysia try to pick me up on the bus last week? Stop me and ask if I's a Trini, how only a woman as pretty and sexy like me could be a Trini. Something very wrong about a man missing half he teeth saying the word sexy eh. Like yuh should forfeit all rights to them kinda words when yuh cyah say nuts. Anyway, so my boy well squeezing up yuh girl arm and ting, want to know what I doing up here and when I tell him I studying he offering to tutor me, how it have PLENTY ting he could teach me. Well, yuh know yuh girl, I answer back it have plenty ting I could teach him too. WHO tell me say dat?! My boy eye and dem open up big big and he start to grin and bawl eh heh! Want to take my phone number. Like he could see to dial any damn phone number. Thank GOD ah did reach meh stop so I bounce off. And he trying to grab me and pull me back on the bus! So anyway, the reason why I telling allyuh dis is because a NEXT old man try tracking meh today. I walking up the steps by Guy's and St Thomas hospital dey, one old quenk walking down the stairs. I see him scoping meh out but me eh take him on. Aye aye! When I look so, is because pally making pace back up the stairs to tell me I beautiful, he want my number so we could arrange to meet to get to know me better. Yuh know, is only man does be brave so. The average woman does wonder all kinda ting before she go talk to a man - IF she could even muster the courage. EEF you see the condition ah dem jagabat that be harassing me up here. Steups. And what does it say about me that this is the caliber of man I attracting? I tink I offficially in a mess yes. I going and rest.

Looking for tickets?

2007-08-15T00:21:00.001-07:00

Allyuh, check out meh link fuh Carnival fete tickets next door. Dais ah hook up. Now say thanks. And doh budder meh again.

Snapshot of summer

2007-08-15T00:13:00.000-07:00

Column this week

Sunday: It’s 30 degrees, the hottest day for the year so far. The neighbours have strung lights along their fence, in preparation for an all afternoon, late night barbeque. The sky, unblemished by a single cloud, glistens as though polished. The leaves on the trees, dancing to the music the wind makes by blowing through them, shine as though rubbed down with the same cloth. Inside the house – insulated to contain all possible heat during the long winter – is unbearably hot. Still somewhat pasty and loathing to waste the light by sweltering indoors, I put on a bikini purchased over a year ago and waiting to be worn. Books spread over the backyard and shiny with sunblock, I sit, tan and study.

Monday: Told the night before that Sunday would be followed by a week of rain, I awake to find – joy of joys – sunlight. It will not last, the radio tells us. Tomorrow the rains will be back with chances of flooding once again. But for today, there is sun. I pull on jeans and a t-shirt, and then change my mind. I open my window, put my hand out. Yes, warm enough for a vest and skirt, a chance to top up on Sunday’s tan and feel a bit like it’s summer. Walking down the street I see people in anoraks and cardigans. Am I becoming acclimatized, or is it a case of optimism overtaking reality? Whatever it is it has allowed me to leave my house not wearing much. And I am grateful.

Tuesday: The carriage rocks from the force of the train passing by. We’re just outside London Bridge, waiting for our turn to pull into the station. Two little children sit with their father in front of me, red haired or ginger as they’re called here. Ginger minger. Red haired and covered in freckles, like brown sugar sprinkled over their faces and shoulders. They’re drinking from little boxes of fruit juice, their lips pursed around the brightly coloured straws. Their dad takes out a tube of sunblock and slathers their noses and shoulders. His own face is florid, as are the faces of many of the fairer passengers on the train, in the station when we pull up to the platform. As I make my way down to the tube an announcement is made that in this hot weather, it is advisable that passengers carry a bottle of water to prevent dehydration. I take a sip from my own bottle and admire my dark brown arms.

Wednesday: I sit in class and look outside the window at the building opposite. The windows are hung with huge baskets full of flowers whose name, as I type this sentence, I realise I don’t know. I don’t remember noticing them before; I don’t know how I could not have. The colours are startling against the plain white walls. Puce, purple, fuchsia are exploding brilliantly on my retina. I turn to face the lecturer at the front of the class and realise one of my classmates is wearing a dress the exact fuchsia colour as the flowers. Her colour choice is glorious – she stands out like a flare among the tamer baby blues and whites of the classroom.

Thursday: The miracle continues. Each day the radios tell us will be the last before the rains return and every last day is followed by a brighter, hotter one. I go running in the park and there is a man on a skateboard, flying a kite. The wind billows the sickle shaped toy and the man is towed across the grass. People have put up mini tents and sit at their entrances, reading three for the price of two novels and scratching insect bites. Men walk their dogs along the grassy verges, combining the daily chores of pet attendance, doctor recommended constitutionals and getting fresh air. I realise I can barely breathe and my thighs feel like they’re on fire. Maybe, I tell myself, a nice stroll will be just as effective.

Friday: “You have any plans for later?” I write the note and slide it across to my classmate. “None at all,” slides back to me. Both our eyes follow the lecturer as he walks in front the room; it’s as though our hands have become disembodied. This lecturer is particular – he wants no talking in class, very little participation. He is, we’ve determined, in love with the sound of his own voice. I notice him repeating words, changing their cadence each time. He isn’t as bad as the lecturer I’ve nicknamed Turtle, because it was only after ten minutes of hearing him speak that I realised his lecture wasn’t about the reptiles. He was actually saying total. “Glass of wine after class?” I write back. “But of course!” Outside is still bright at seven, eight. Girls stroll along Oxford Circus in short shorts. Unfortunately, some men too. I get home after the hour long spectacle that dusk in summer sometimes is, the colours of night whitewashing the sky. On days like these, I think as I remove my makeup, it’s easy to imagine living in England forever.

Is really Black Magic, oui

2007-08-07T12:33:00.000-07:00

Hear nuh, anybody check out Tribe website yet? Allyuh want to cornfuse me. Black Magic looking SWEET!!!!!! The regular eh, not the frontline. That frontline is way too much corbeax feather. But they tiefin' meh head with that regular. TIEFIN!!!!!!!! Oh gorm! Now I hadda go chaneg up all meh plans again.

Purple Reign? - The reviewish

2007-08-07T12:10:00.000-07:00

Well the more I see foreign artists perform live the more I think Machel Montano is a genius. I’m still waiting to see a foreign artist work a crowd like Machel does, especially when he gets down to business and takes off his shirt and starts singing “Water flowing” or “Powder Puff”. Ranking right alongside him is David Rudder, sweet talking the crowd with one hand up in the air, the crowd swaying and braying almost orgiastically as he sings “Rally ‘Round the West Indies” and “Calypso Music”. Coming second is Denyse Belfon in a stretch pants doing the bicycle wine and smiling her smile that can melt any heart and singing songs of overt slackness, the crowd standing and watching in awe.

Culture, I know accounts for a number of things – our dancing in front the stage experience may not translate well in other countries where sitting and watching is the norm. And in all fairness, I have to say I haven’t seen that many live performances. Back in secondary school I did the whole Boyz II Men, Colour Me Badd, MC Hammer thing and I’ve done the 80s big band/big hair thing –Survivor and Air Supply and Flock of Seagulls. And I’ve done the English band thing – the Killers and Kasabian and The Fratellis. They were all good in their own way, getting the crowd to sing along and clap and dance haphazardly or flay around wildly, depending, of course, on how shy or stinking drunk you are.

But from these haphazard experiences I conclude that nothing compares to the electric hum in the air as you stand in a crowd waiting for Machel to come on stage. You stand there in whatever piece of outfit you encased your body in, facing the stage, heart racing, skin tingling, foot hurting. Some people taking a chance to go for drinks by the bar but it’s mainly men; the women not moving unless it’s to squeeze their way up front to get a better look at the winer boy. Around you are girls in hot shorts, men in baggies, flag bearers waving their support and loyalty, and the ever present Powder Posse with their containers of Johnson’s and Johnson’s. And we’re not even talking about the confetti that’s spurted into the air when he sings his current hits, twisting and floating down to land on heads like a benediction or the fireworks that explode like a revelation above the heads of the writhing, waving, wining fans in glorious synergy with the emotional release of the crowd.

I went to see Prince perform this weekend. All of last week the anticipation was there – purple sneakers, purple top, half serious musings about the possibility of going in a purple body suit, if such a thing could be found and his music on almost 24 hour rotation. And then the day itself or should I say the evening and we’re sitting in the stands, waiting. And then the band came on and the crowd went wild and part of the stage opened and – could it be? Is it him? Is it? Yes! – Prince rose up and out of the floor, dressed from head to toe in, seducing the microphone and promising to satisfy us in that impossible falsetto of his. And then that was it really.

By 10.30 he was finished. We didn’t realise that when the band had come back on in response to our insistent clapping that that had been an encore, the lagniappe at the end of the show. Now don’t get me wrong, the show had many moments. You don’t get a musical genius like Prince on stage without there being moments of almost celestial bliss. But there was no satiation; no feeling that is was impossible for you to have enjoyed yourself any more than you did.

I wonder how much of this is culture, how much were my expectations coloured by my experience of calypsonians and soca stars singing and dancing for hours on end and still giving us more when we demand it? The English reviews are all glowing but my friends from Sri Lanka, Australia and Belgium were, like myself, disappointed. They spoke of other concerts, mostly by artists from their countries, that were greater and more satisfactory. Maybe it’s simply a case that local artists know their crowd best so they know how to satisfy them. But it’s interesting to note that even in something as universal as music, and with an artist as global as Prince, culture colours reception and can still lead to division.

Photo courtesy The Trinidad Guardian.

I'M GOING TO SEE PRINCE TONIGHT!

2007-08-02T17:34:00.000-07:00

Yes Prince! Is me calling yuh! Allyuh, this is where I will be tonight. In the company of this man. Doh mind there will be hundreds (thousands?) of others, he will be singing for only me, me, MMMMEEEE!!!!!!! Hear that bitches?! Oh wow. I need to go lie down. Where's my purple eyeshadow? My purple underwear? Oh to hell with it. Where's my purple bodypaint?

I LOVE YOU PRINCE!

Will give you guys an update. Hyper, hyper...

Well am. I eh know nah

2007-07-31T04:45:00.000-07:00

When faced with something like this, what does one say? Ah mean, really, yuh tink dese people really have all they crayons in the box? This is what yuh go put on to go yuh prom? I guess the first one really proud that she's pregnant or, decided to end the months of speculation leading up to the big night? Allyuh find ah putting on weight? Lemme SHOW allyuh how much weight ah put on. Moving on. Well, I guess they must really like Wallace. Not being that much of a basketball fan anymore (nobody really interesting to watch) I couldn't tell you who he was. But hey, at least the shoes, er, sneakers match. Nice. Dem is some BOSS pictures to look back on in, I don't know, 10 years when you have your CHILDREN?!!!!

A trip to the V&A

2007-07-30T17:05:00.000-07:00

Took a trip to the V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum) recently. There was a sublime exhibition of Surreal art. Got to see the works of Salvador Dali, including his lobster telephone and my favourite Renee Magritte. I saw the originals for this, this and this. In case you haven't realised by now, Magritte is one of my favourite painters so they nearly had to pitch me out bodily. Also acquired a new interest in the works of Leonor Fini whose pieces many times contained woman with her own strong, sensual features. I couldn't get you any photos from the Surreal Thinge exhibition itself and my camera had no juice but I got you some pics none the less from my phone. Sorry about the quality. Enjoy as much as I did.

Perseus kills the Minotaur. Marble, Canova.

Poetry in death.

A silver gauntlet. It's amazing how we grow up thinking how big

and strong these men must have been. This is way too small for my hand.

A 19th century wedding dress. Wedding dresses weren't tradionally white until the increase in the popularity of muslin. They also would have been worn throughout the woman's lifetime on special occasions.

Tell me it not calling you

2007-07-29T14:24:00.000-07:00

Can't you feel the sun stinging your shoulders? The base rattling your chest? The shoe squeezing your foot? It has started. People, get ready.

WHO PLAYIN' MAS!!!!!!!??? I PLAYING MAS.

2007-07-29T05:38:00.000-07:00

Can a leopard change its spots? Can a zebra remove its stripes? Can a skettel not wear baby powder? No. So why did I think I, a Carnival baby, would have been able to resist? Yes folks, after months of fooling myself, after taking one look at Saucy’s blog with the photos from Tribe’s launch, I have just booked my ticket to come home for Carnival. Yes people. The Carnival jamette is back.

After I booked my ticket I ran around the house jumping and screaming and then promptly worrying about my ass’s capacity to carry off a thong. Because I will be wearing a thong. So ok, I like Silver Mist – mainly because I love silver, I’ve never played in a silver costume before and I think the belt will look real sweet with the thong. I like Goddess of the Chase too and Sun Goddess (yuh getting a theme here?) but they all strike me as being a bit familiar. In all fairness I can’t judge too well because I’m looking at pictures, not actual costumes.

Butterfly Bliss in interesting and very pretty and I love the idea but not me and no body stocking. Firstly, I will sweat like toes in football socks in that, plus I go be too ‘fraid somebody rip my stocking and embarrass me in tong. The regular costume cute as bunnies though. I also kinda liking Isis regular but I’ll have to wait for the site to go up and see properly.

Secondly, me eh like Autumn Bliss too much either. I mean, is a nice idea – though mind ah doh see how happiness in Autumn is either mythical or magical – but it kinda reminding me ah de Trash Heap from Fraggle Rock. The Trash heap, has, spoken. Nyah! Lady of the Lake looking like she crawl outta bed with she coverlet on and as for Black Magic. Well, I eh know nah. I like a black costume. It does ketch meh eye. I play in black arready and wasn’t too crispy on Ash Wednesday. But HELLO?! That is TOO MUCH BLACK. Looking like a setta corbeau land on yuh. Best they did call that section the Dump.

But anyway, all in all there are some options. I really like Silver Mist and done choose meh hairstyle and makeup arready. Silver boots may be a bit difficult but not – wait. I DONE have silver sneakers arready! HELLO! Girls, girls, we need to talk. What allyuh ting bout S&M? Yuh see how perfect the costume is? Even the abbreviation cute.

Anyway, on the whole, there are nice costumes here but I thought they could have come MUCH better. The name Myths and Magic lends itself to so much creativity and a lot of the sections just fall back on tried and true formulaic combinations/designs. So, the wait is on to see what else is out there. But my ticket done book. Lemme go and call the gym yes.

UPDATE: You know, the more I look at the costumes, the less euphoric I feel. I'm really starting to get a sense that they've picked bits and pieces from other sections and bands and put together a sort of hodgepodge presentation. I'm definitely getting echoes of other offerings here. If I didn't know the name of this band and just looked at the costumes, would I have been able to guess what the name of the presentation was? I don't think so. There seems to be no real underlying theme, no cord that draws the sections together. Although this is true of a lot of other bands, I didn't expect this from Tribe. Is this slip the result of they feeling threatened by Island People? They shouldn't. Island People has their following and Tribe has theirs. Anyway, I feel Silver Mist is it yes.

SECOND UPDATE: Arright. Expect plenty ah dis over the next few days/weeks. Silver Mist, under closer inspection, not realy holding up. I mean, it nice, but not AS nice as I originally thought. Isis frontline, however, kinda getting super duper cuteish. Now this is based on photos and I's a woman doh like to give prognosis unless I see with meh own two eye but I think it will grow on me. Also liking Amalthea regular costume a bit. The bra's interesting. I gone again.

P.S. The boot was designed by someone called Professor Black and is in the Birmingham Museum. Thought they was hot, doh mind they look like yuh go mash up yuh foot in dem.

24k love

2007-07-27T14:51:00.000-07:00

This is a dildo. This is a 24k plated dildo. With diamonds. You can also get it in obsidian or titanium. With any jewels you like - rubies, emeralds, you name it. This little baby will set you back US$4,000. Sorry, for that kind of money I could buy a man. Hey, if people giving brush for a box of KFC, imagine how far US$4000 will go! Of course, some of us have proven that real piggys are a problem *cough, cough Lauren, cough* so this might be a valuable solution for them. Just saying, you know.

Uh uh, come again

2007-07-27T14:28:00.000-07:00

But is why Lauren Hill looking like she on a regular diet of crazy dese days? The horn was SO bad? Lauren honey, if is one thing the world have plenty of is piggy. And when one piggy gone don't mourn its absence. Celebrate the opportunity to experince a different piggy. So go and wash that face, pass a comb (and some black hair dye) through that head and while yuh at it, tweeze them eyebrows. Don't go getting all Britney Spears on us. Remember, when you eventually get your shit together, pictures like these will still be out there. Try and hurry up and make sure it have less in circulation nah. Oh gorm.

But what de ass?!

2007-07-23T06:51:00.000-07:00

Somebody want to tell me what de ASS going on with Lil Kim face?! My girl looking like she was whitening she sneakers with Kiwi liquid whitener and just decide to start playing the ass. And dem eyebrows looking like two brushing cutlass on she forehead. Hello! But is what happen to she in jail so? And doh even START meh on the weave.

I am not a feminist

2007-07-23T06:35:00.000-07:00

Column this week

I am not a feminist. Far from it actually. It’s an assumption people make about me that they usually believe to be accurate. If their other assumptions about me prove incorrect, they always seem quite certain that that one isn’t. I’ve always been thought of as feisty – a word used to describe only women and short, fluffy dogs I think. I’ve always been seen as opinionated and dramatic, using both the tongue and the pen, er, keyboard, to champion the cause of the underprivileged and downtrodden. If men are pigs then we are the flowers they trample as they roll about in the muck of their lives. Um, actually, no.

The problem with feminism is that it lacks imagination. It’s the one thing it has in common with atheism I think. In the beginning it was great; it was radical, meaningful, it brought together millions of women across the globe to protest the narrowness of their lives and to burn their confining bras. But within feminism itself there exists great inequality. Most of those who’ve spearheaded it have always been the ones who were already the most privileged. They’ve been the ones whose positions within the patriarchal society have been so secure that they were able to, for want of a better expression, thumb their noses at it. It’s like the children of rich parents rebelling by growing dreadlocks and going to parties in the Cove. Reassimilation is simply a haircut away.

I also have a problem with a movement that does not acknowledge its triumphs. Our generation of women enjoys the most money, the greatest freedom, the highest status and the most rights of any other. Many of us in the Western world would laugh raucously at the idea of being unable to go out when we want, dressed how we want, study what we wish and marry whom we choose. These are not concessions given to us – these are things we grow up with. They are our rights that we don’t even acknowledge because the idea of it being any other way is ludicrous.

Yet for a number of women I know these are just the means to a very clichéd end. The first line of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice still holds true: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Many women I know aim to be such wife. I’m not averse to the idea myself. Many women create their self perceptions based on how men see them, by choice rather than by societal dictates. The idea held by some feminists that being seen as sexy and enjoying being sexy is regressive is, to give a scientific pronouncement, chupidness.

Our genetic coding drives us to mate and propagate the species. Men are supposed to find us hot. We’re supposed to want them to find us hot – how else are we going to make babies and get them to mind us for the eighteen plus years we need to bring the child to adulthood? Things have changed, yes. We no longer are dependent on men to provide for us economically and some would say emotionally also. But the period that this has been so is less than a grain in the hourglass that represents man’s time on earth. So we don’t need men. Doctors tell us we don’t need tonsils either; let’s wait around and see how long that takes to work its way out the genetic pool.

Besides, men are fun. In the war between the sexes I’m all for fraternising with the enemy. There are myriad pleasures that only men can give and I’m not speaking about what you’re thinking but that, of course, goes without saying. Most men I know believe in equality and the ones that don’t, well, I don’t really take them on to tell the truth. But I believe in equality despite race, despite age, despite sexuality, despite culture, despite country, despite job.

Talk to me about children who are abused and whose rights aren’t acknowledged. They have no means to improve their lives – they are dependent on the mindset of the society and the time in which they live. They have no voice – they can have mine. Talk to me about the old, the sick, the ones whose sexual preference is a criminal offence. These have no access to power – they have no means by which to fight. They can have mine. And for the women for whom feminism is a word, not a fact – the women who must walk miles to collect water, who never go to school, whose sexuality is the property of first her father then her husband’s, I will join her fight. But I will join her fight because of her circumstance, not her gender. Gender discrimination, we must acknowledge, works both ways. There are female pigs too.

Water, water everywhere

2007-07-18T04:06:00.000-07:00

Column this week

If ever some alien society was looking for a way to effectively poison and therefore incapacitate humanity, with the eventual goal of taking over the world, bottled water would be the perfect weapon. Think about it – it’s ubiquitous, especially in the so called developed world and is also to be found in the developing world. It’s one of those things to which a strange, unaccountable status is attached, so that only the poorest of the poor aren’t seen walking and gulping its overpriced but well marketed contents.

Think about it – it would prove a brilliant means of them executing their plot to take over the world. In a matter of weeks – perhaps even days – they’d have rendered powerless all the people who would have been the most resistant and most able to foil their dastardly plot i.e. the rich, the “wanna be” rich, the health freaks, university students, politicians and Justin Timberlake.

I know we’re accustomed to hearing only about celebrity demands for Moet and Courvoisier but bottled water has joined the ranks my friends. Justin – he who barely escaped marrying the now famously unhinged Britney – recently had a series of concerts in London where he ordered 7,000 bottles of Fiji Water to drink during his stay there. It caused an outrage – as it should – since it took place around the same time the Live Earth concerts were going on. The Live Earth concerts in themselves should have caused an outrage, since it involved dozens of stars flying in private jets around the world to perform at concerts where they told people to ride bicycles to work instead of cars to save the environment.

Now this isn’t the most expensive water there is. That honour goes to Bling H2O which retails at US$38 a bottle. With frosted glass bottles and imitation “ice” on the label, it’s a primal scream for attention based on what has to be a deep level of personal insecurity. Must be a sure way to get chicks though. I mean, if a guy can spend US$38 for a bottle of water he must be loaded right? Or at least foolish enough to be willing to spend his money to appear so. So at least Justin went for water with a cheap purchasing price, but considering the fact that it must be transported thousands of miles to get to him, plus the non biodegradable plastic packaging – not to mention the sheer amount (who drinks that much water!?) the final price works out to be pretty high indeed.

Just when pipe water became a bad thing I’m not quite sure. It seems that one day we woke up and suddenly became paranoid that the water we grew up drinking was going to result in a horrible, gut destroying death. I mean, it didn’t kill our parents, or their parents or even – maybe I should stop there, I don’t think tap water goes that far back. Seems like a rip off, unless you’re on the road and don’t have access to a pipe really. And it’s a pretty expensive rip off too. I can’t remember the price of bottled water back home, but let’s say it costs TT$1 and you buy a bottle a day. That works out to be TT$365 spent each year. On water. Which you can get free. And most people drink more than one bottle of water a day, which the health gurus tell us to do. Most people don’t seem to have a problem with this it seems.

The International Bottled Water Association estimates that bottled water sales increase about 10 percent each year in the United States alone. In the UK, sales of bottled still water has outstripped that off Coca Cola. It’s a healthier choice, yes, but when you outsell Coke you know business is good. And the thing is, a number of the bottled water is tap water that’s been purified and filtered. And they say so on the label!

So back to the pop stars and the wanna be pop stars and those of us who think we’re doing the right thing chugging bottled water instead of “swee’ drink”. It’s estimated that every year, about 22 million tonnes of bottled water are transported worldwide. And as if the carbon emissions weren’t enough, most of the bottles are made from non-degradable plastics, which takes hundreds of years to break down. Which seems pretty ridiculous considering the fact that if you get abandoned on a deserted island somewhere you’ll drink from any mosquito infested creek you find. Gladly.

So to get back to the original point, the aliens would have a pretty easy run of things, wouldn’t they? I mean, if they poison the water the only resistance they’ll have to contend with really are our grandparents and cheapskates. Well, and a few Trinis well who buy one bottle of water and keep refilling it from the tap and coasting like normal.

Both sides now - Joni Mitchell

2007-07-14T15:53:00.000-07:00

Rows and floes of angel hair

And ice cream castles in the air

And feather canyons everywhere

I've looked at clouds that way

But now they only block the sun

They rain and snow on everyone

So many things I would have done

But clouds got in my way

I've looked at clouds from both sides now

From up and down, and still somehow

It's cloud illusions I recall

I really dont know clouds at all

Moons and junes and ferris wheels

The dizzy dancing way you feel

As every fairy tale comes real

I've looked at love that way

But now it's just another show

You leave 'em laughing when you go

And if you care, don't let them know

Dont give yourself away

I've looked at love from both sides now

From give and take, and still somehow

It's loves illusions I recall

I really dont know love at all

Tears and fears and feeling proud

To say I love you right out loud

Dreams and schemes and circus crowds

I've looked at life that way

But now old friends are acting strange

They shake their heads, they say I've changed

Well something's lost, but something's gained

In living every day

I've looked at life from both sides now

From win and lose and still somehow

It's lifes illusions I recall

I really dont know life at all

I've looked at life from both sides now

From up and down, and still somehow

It's lifes illusions I recall

I really dont know life at all

Just because I slack

2007-07-10T07:57:00.000-07:00

HOT DOG!

Jokes! (Well, one really)

2007-07-10T07:54:00.000-07:00

Oh happy day!

2007-07-05T04:37:00.000-07:00

Well they finally ketch up with the rest of the modern world here in England and ban smoking in public places as of last Sunday (de first nah). I eh too sure about the legalities of it - I think is some shit like enclosed public places or something so but here nuh, yuh does take what yuh could get. Whole week yuh girl happy because she could walk about in the people dem train station and thing without some decrepit bat who could barely walk blowing smoke all up in yuh nosehole. And VEX when yuh steups and cough yuh know! And hear nuh, dem old people eh betting dey bad mind when it comes to their cigarettes. Some ah dem could barely walk but not fuh nuttin they puttin down dat cigarette. And if dem old people vicious so, yuh could imagine fuh de young people. Yuh know it have a saying that English people mouth does be in a mess? Well, that and that they doh bathe, but we dealing with the teeth one. Well to a great deal is true. Between the tea and the cigarettes dem teeth eh stand a chance. The girl in the poster eh lie. It have real people mouth does be looking so. The day I open my mouth and see dem kinda antics is the day I get a plate yes. Better false than funky. Oh, to make it more realistic, take a black marker and pass it over bout 3, 4 teeth in she mouth. Riiiiiight. Much better. Oh and by the way, allyuh looking at what has to be the ONLY black woman in England because she does be in EVERY ad. I eh lie. She in newspaper ad, magazine ad, tv ad. She advertising Sainbury's groceries, wholesale wine, broadband and train rides to Paris. No lie. Between she and the next mixed girl who does advertise for Sparks and Mencer ( and Next too, would you believe), them have the brown skin market close up tight like crapaud bamcee. And when ah say brown skin ah mean every nationality from Asian to Zimbabwean eh. And doh even ask meh when last I see a Indian on tv. Like dem so doh exist.

A sense of insecurity

2007-07-03T03:18:00.000-07:00

Column this week ALLYUH HAPPY?! SHIIIIT...

I had great plans for a column this week. Really I did. Of course, the car bombs have completely done away with these lofty literary plans of mine. Something about a radical plot to blow up London’s West End and the main airport in Glasglow sort of demands all of your journalistic attentions.

I’ve had occasional calls (and a lot more of the much cheaper texts) about my safety since Friday. I woke up that morning to hear that a suspected car bomb had been found and successfully diffused outside the Tiger Tiger night club at Piccadilly Circus. Famous for its ladies’ nights and atrociously expensive drinks, certain newspapers happily calculated the number of patrons in the club at the time and wrote authoritatively about the plot to blow up 1,700 partygoers. I got dressed for school, stopping long enough to tell my housemate about what had happened, primarily to let her know that transport was being severely effected, and not because I felt particularly threatened.

Even during the day I was pretty detached. I realise that I’ve become nonchalant about things, the way all human beings do, I guess. Terrorism and its various manifestations is such a perennial topic here that you become somewhat desensitized. So I went about the day attending class, eating lunch – essentially doing the things one does almost without thought – until I listened to the radio again and heard that two more suspected bombs had been found in Park Lane and Oxford Circus. Further investigation would prove that only the Park Lane vehicle – again a Mercedes – actually was a potential explosive device. But walking after school, on what was the sunniest and warmest day for the week, I suddenly felt a sense of insecurity.

I’d made plans to meet friends for drinks and the pub where we were to meet was two stops away on the tube from Oxford Circus. This sounds ridiculous. Even as I type this I am aware of the nonexistent threat implied in the sentence. I was not there and at no point in time was I anywhere near a place of danger. But listening to that newscast it became apparent what I did not realise before. Which were the places of danger? Walking along doing the things I must out of obligation and habit, how would I know if my safe, untargeted world had changed? I suddenly became aware of this salient and obvious fact: I wouldn’t.

I remember after the 9/11 attacks in the US everyone’s inbox was full of stories of lucky Trinis who had narrowly escaped death either by being cunning or being late. God was looking out for us again, as always, so we cool. Last Friday, wearing my first vest for the season and walking in that lovely, rare sunshine, I hustled to the London Bridge station to make my way home. London Bridge, I remember thinking, unimpressive to look at but iconic. Its destruction would make a powerful statement. And I hustled some more. As the train pulled out of the platform I felt a palpable relief. Silly, yes, melodramatic definitely. But despite all that, I was relieved.

I called one of the friends I was supposed to meet and told her I was going home. “Why,” she asked and I explained that I felt I should, that considering the fact that no one knew what was going on that I felt home was the best option. She was puzzled. “I’m from Sri Lanka,” she said. “This sort of thing happens all the time. If it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go.”

She went for drinks and I went home to answer texts and read, feeling relatively safe in the fact that here where I live would not be a target. Who would want to blow up a bunch of second and third generation Jamaicans and a fire station that was mentioned on Bridget Jones’ diary? By the next day I’d have to ask myself, well, who would have thought that someone would want to bomb Glasgow airport? And yet someone did, quite determinedly.

So of course this raises all sorts of questions about personal safety and security. But with the passing of time these are questions that one doesn’t answer or answers quite glibly or matter of factly because they are questions you don’t have the answer for. And you realise that you don’t want to know the answer really

Bwa hah hah!

2007-07-03T02:46:00.000-07:00

Allyuh, check dis out nah.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drkxfS5Mm_o

I eh know if Remy is a ass or a genius. Most likely both; dem does be the best kinda combination.

Lazy ASS post

2007-06-29T13:18:00.001-07:00

School days are ketchass days

2007-06-21T04:24:00.000-07:00

Well, school's started back. Good news - I passed everything and somehow managed to scrape up three credits. Considering the fact that I left everything for last minute and crammed info like meat in sausage casing it's a minor miracle. Not a fart a dat this semester though. Need to get my shit together, if only for the preservation of my sanity. So hear nuh, does anybody have contacts in the cosmetics industry etc back home? I have some but the more the merrier nah. It's for my dissertation. Or not even just back home, anywhere really, once allyuh will be willing to help out with meh project a bit nah.

So I'm in the process of looking for a job and hear nuh, London is NOT the place to be a foreign student looking for a wuk eh. Anybody who pass and see meh frying doughnut doh laugh eh, cuz den yuh eh go get no free one.

Trini was good. Smile. Trini was pretty DAMN good. Anybody else went Outback? And somebody give me a Machel/Zan/Benjai (however the ass yuh spell it) update nah. Tanks. How eveybody, everybody good?

Iron Lion Zion

2007-05-28T10:17:00.001-07:00

Someone needs to tell these foreign radio stations that Bob Marley did sing other songs than "Three little birds" and "No woman no cry". For the love of Christ.

Vacancy: CHILE FADDER

2007-05-28T09:29:00.000-07:00

Modest Goddess wishes to advise that applications for the position of HottieHottie potential chile fadder are now being accepted (please see post below). Electronic applications will be accepted; please attach photo and any additional credentials you feel qualify you for the post (formally trained chef, childhood friendship with Jimmy Choo). The successful applicant will have:

A high sperm count.

Excellent communications skills plus the ability to argue convincingly and make back up expertly, preferrably several times in one night.

Tertiary level education will be an asset but will not be taken as an automatic assumption of you having a brain. This will be THOROUGHLY tested. As well as other body parts.

The potential to graduate from child fadder to husband, should HottieHottie feel the need for expansion of said role.

Kinkiness and a certain level of freakiness. Obsession with freaky shit unacceptable. High levels of stamina necessary.

Gainful employment and a level of attractiveness that will make him feel equal to HottieHottie so she will not have to hear any assness about his not being good enough for her. Note: Intelligent candidates will realise they can strive for equality. Superiority is out of the question and unpardonable.

Must display ability to be comfortable with affection and being occasionally spoilt.

Must be willing to accept occasional grooming (shaving, blackhead removal, head shampoos, nail filing).

Remuneration wil be negotiable and will be attached to one's level of qualification. However, a sexual stipend is automatic with "commission" and bonuses given at HottieHottie's discretion based on actual job performance.

Cobwebs in the womb

2007-05-28T08:39:00.000-07:00

Okay, so how old is too old to have your first child? When I was growing up doctors used to say that you should have your first child by 30. Nowadays they say 35 and some doctors up here have argued that that age could be pushed back even further. But recently I've been reading a lot of articles that basically say doctors and society are fooling women and that we need to return to the "in your twenties" belief from before. Magazines carry stories of women who waited too late and then can't have kids at all, stories which do nothing to assure my hyped up biological clock.

So anyway, what do you guys think? When is the best age to have your first child? It's really bugging me. Ok, well not REALLY bugging me but I'm thinking about it alot. I don't forsee myself being in a position to have a child anytime soon (school, money, needing to get back a hot body and fete after these months of self deprevation) and I don't want to have a child until I can put that child first in my life in terms of priorities. Plus I have no man but I have a contingency plan worked out so if things get bad all I have to do is invest in some wine and red beans. But that is a long story.

Sometimes I wish I was a man so that this question would not be a problem. But then I'd have to wear boring flat shoes all the time and people kinda watch you funny when you shave your legs. So write me back and tel me personal experiences etc.

Be uncomfortable

2007-05-28T06:08:00.000-07:00

Column this week

Someone recently told me that I’d managed to become just like my mentor, VS Naipaul. “You’re just as arrogant and proud as he is,” he said. “And what makes it worse is that you’re good looking and talented so you feel you can piss on anybody. And that’s why you’ll never accomplish any of the things you want.”

This gave me pause, as the saying goes. I wondered if what I was hearing was a great epiphany, if this was the moment in my life when a great realization was to be made and groundbreaking, life changing results would ensue. Was I really this horrible person, this terrible person? I felt small, reduced, a trash compacted version of myself. And I called a friend of mine to confirm.

And what he told me was this. None of these things – my looks, my talent, my body – are things that I asked for. But they are things that I work at. You’re born with a certain amount of intelligence, of talent, of looks, he said. But if you don’t improve them, they amount to nothing. I remembered the parable of the talents, the one with the three servants whose master gave them talents in varying amounts which the first two invested and the last one hid away for fear of losing. In the end when the master returned those that used and increased their talents were rewarded and the one that didn’t lost his.

I’ve never been able to forget the people I’ve left behind. I’ve left behind former classmates who entered into marriage young and eager and emerged at the other end divorced and disillusioned. I’ve left behind former boyfriends who spoke of marriage and an eternity of love yet they couldn’t stand up as men when their friends were disrespectful or even admit when they’d been disrespectful themselves.

I’ve had friends beg me to get them a job because they have babies to feed and no man to help. I’ve had friends tell me about their hope to start school next year, or the one after but certainly no later than the year after that. Years pass and I see them and ask how’s school and they tell me they haven’t started yet. But they will next year. Or the year after…

I’ve had friends cry and tell me that at their age, their young age, their I-have-my-entire-life-in-front-of-me-still age they feel like failures, like they’ve accomplished nothing, they’ve risked nothing. They feel like they’re just waiting for the days to pass by until they reach their last one. And this, more than anything, both scares and drives me.

For my belief is this. I want, that when I’m lying on my deathbed – if I’m fortunate enough to have one – that I can look back at my life with the least amount of regrets. I think the two scariest words in English are “what if”. I don’t want to be saying them at the end. And I do not think I am like Naipaul. But I certainly understand him.

Because the easiest thing in the world to do is remain comfortable. And I understand his need to not be comfortable, to drive himself to win his scholarship for secondary school and then university. I understand how he would have felt looking around at the sameness and mediocrity of his life and the decision he made to not be the same, to not be mediocre.

His biographies always contain two pieces of information: winning his Oxford scholarship and his pursuing no other profession besides writing. The first was his escape, his one chance to avoid asking “what if”. Writers will know the significance of the second. To have done nothing else besides write is a tremendous accomplishment. It speaks of never having enough money, enough respect, enough personal freedom. It means a slavish devotion to the craft, to one’s choice. It means days of doubt, of wanting to give up and get a good job with regular pay so one could buy good food and good clothes, to not always opt for the cheapest. And despite this desire, to still choose the craft. And although most people may not approve of it, it’s a damn good reason to be proud. Because when the days of self doubt and anxiety eat through your brain like a cancer the only person that pulls you out of it is yourself.

So from my insult I want to say this. I hope I’m not the person described. I hope I do not think that I’m superior and better than others. But I am proud. Because only I know where my life could easily have been had it not been for my hard work and self believe and the help of my family and friends. And for everyone who has chosen to not be comfortable – good for you. You should be proud.

Casino cravings

2007-05-27T11:12:00.000-07:00

Allyuh, I in de middle of watching Casino Royale again. Here nuh. Dis is a BOSS movie. Now I is a die hard James Bond fan eh. From since girlhood. And although I was a fan of Remington Steel and although I am quite willing to be Pierce Brosnan's child mudder, I never liked him as Bond. I stopped watching Bond movies in his era. I was disappointed in Goldeneye and by the time the one with Teri Hatcher rolled around, well, that was the end of that. And even when they announced Daniel Craig I was like, huh? But whey de ass dey going with this. And with all the commess up here bout how he couldn't drive a stick etc, etc I was like, nah, they still eh get it right. But boy! Boy! BOY! Movie boy MOVIE! I only WISH I was in Trini when they release dis beast. Allyuh, ah gone again. Craigos calling meh.

P.S. Dat opening scene BAD eh!

Vintage Hottie

2007-05-14T06:34:00.000-07:00

When I was about ten or eleven I happened to come across what turned out to be one of my favourite books of all time. It was during the long August holidays and, bored out of my skull, I’d wandered into my parents’ bedroom in search of diversion. The book, I’m almost ashamed to admit, was one of those Mills and Boon, Harlequin romance offerings that were ubiquitous in those days. I’d hesitated – I hated romantic drivel, all those curly eyelashes and brazen bosoms and the name of the book, “Ecstasy” hinted at drivel of the highest order – but extreme boredom and a desperation to read something, anything, won out.

It marked the beginning of a battle royal between my mother and myself as she sought to shelter me from the corrupting elements it contained and I determinedly, sought to be corrupted. She kept finding novel places to hide it and I kept resolutely finding it and taking it back. The thing is, my interest in the book had nothing to do with the suggestions of sex and adult intimacies – well, okay, maybe a bit – but rather, because, above everything else, it was a remarkably well-written book.

The vocabulary was fantastic, especially for a ten year old preparing to write Common Entrance. I would spend half an hour in the toilet, the book hidden between the pages of a harmless Enid Blyton collection of stories, dictionary perched precariously on the cistern, and every five minutes would pick it up and look for the meaning of some word I had never encountered before. It was from this book that I first read the word percolator, although it was only after a trip to my aunt’s house and a perusal through her gargantuan encyclopaedic dictionary that I found the meaning, as my own little Oxford Junior dictionary didn’t have it.

The author also had a good eye for detail. She was descriptive, but not in the cookie cutter way of most writers I had come across. She saw things that I myself would have noticed, very quietly drunk in the sites and sounds of the new world that was opening up before her, and, because of the infallibility of her descriptions, to me also.

But more than this, it was the story of the protagonist, who’d grown up wanting nothing more than to go to parties and get married to her childhood sweetheart. She’d lived for the dances and the newest releases on the radio. When her husband died she had had to take stock and find new direction in life. Ashamed and tired of the previous frivolity of her life, she’d gone back to school, learnt a couple of languages, got a job and went on to win one of the most prestigious awards in her field. Which is where the tall, dark and handsome stranger came in. But throughout the entire novel, her desire for self-improvement and betterment never ceases, even after she’d “got her man”. And her idea of wanting better had nothing to do with the man she was dating or the clothes she wore. Instead, it focussed on what books she read, keeping healthy and wanting, essentially, to see more and be more than the narrow future she’d dreamt of and devised for herself as a young girl growing up.

I learnt two very important lessons from Ecstasy. One, I learnt to see, to appreciate the value of quiet observation as a means of acquiring knowledge and understanding of a place. That being loud and brash and pretending to know everything was a guaranteed way to ensure one learnt nothing.

Second, I learnt that it was fine to want more, and that it didn’t matter at what age one decided that the parties and clothes and the opinions of others wasn’t enough, the important thing was what one did about it when the realisation was made.

I didn’t know it then, but I was part of a subspecies tottering on the very edge of extinction. I’ve always been a voracious acquirer of knowledge, many times, mainly for knowledge sake. I read CD jackets and street posters, the back of cereal boxes and instruction manuals. I tuck away seemingly useless information in the back of my mind for future use; which fork to use for which dish, what to do if you’re ever on fire.

Now, it seems, being curious is a curiosity in itself. Knowledge for knowledge sake, wanting more than external trappings as a means of bettering oneself, ignorance as a source of shame, all these seem ancient relics of a world where reading with a dictionary was considered normal. In the desire to get the better job, the better car, the better salary, everyone seeks to specialise, to streamline their knowledge intake to strictly that which can help them realise their goals. So essentially, we know more and more about less and less. And what this has left us with isn’t a society that esteems a person because of the depth of their knowledge, but rather, one that esteems them because of the depth of their pockets. And the tragedy of this is, most people lack the knowledge to recognise that this is a tragedy.

Joke for schoolboy

2007-05-14T05:43:00.000-07:00

Column this week

My friends don’t know what tonaire means, a fact which I think is in itself deserving of my saying it. They also don’t know what malkedee, choof choof, lookanee or bassa bassa mean either. A friend of mine once told me a long and involved story of a co-worker that constantly – and obliviously – invited herself to after work limes where no one wanted her. “So she doh know that cockroach have no right in fowl party?” I’d replied. In between the belly bussing laughter and holding on to the table, chair and then the floor for support she responded, “What? But girl you real good! Just so you come up with that?” She was convinced I’d come up with the expression, right there, on the spot, such was my literary skill. No matter how much I told her it was a valid expression she didn’t believe me. She had never heard it before.

Now, I’m not speaking about my English friends or acquaintances from other countries not knowing our local parlance. And I’m not speaking of countrymen long in exile, Trinidadians and Tobagonians living in foreign countries for so long that our dialect has become their secondary language, so to speak. I’m writing about Trinbagonians – hard core, born and raised, pitch marble, suck penny cool, duck work to go beach Trinbagonians. Whenever I express disbelieve that they don’t know a word I’m using they either accuse me of a) making up the word/expression, b) say, “allyuh payol have allyuh own language, yes (maybe they’re right – a true payol would have said ‘own language, oui’) or c) say I’m from the bush and “tong people doh use dem words so”.

Now, I get this bush talk fairly regularly. I guess the purpose of this is to do what we Trinis – and I guess most people – like to do, that is, set up a them versus us scenario. We do it all the time – our little country is divided between Trinis vs. Tobagonians, South people vs. North, after the light house vs. before. It’s used to explain all sorts of differences, be they imaginary or real. I guess in my case it helps to pacify an ego that may feel as though its sense of nationality has been wounded or questioned. I don’t know. What I do know is that I didn’t grow up in no bush and that our words, expressions and sayings are a natural offshoot of our collective experience. Words like roti, nyam and j’ouvert are words that have transcended their origins to become fundamental to our vocabulary. No one thinks of them in terms of belonging to one race or sector of the country. They’re just a part of our language.

But what about words like tootoolbay, zanzifwaire and warap, approximated spellings of course. Why is it that when I call something caca poule or speak about not taking on work, school toute bagai few of my Trini friends know what I’m talking about? I’m not that old; I didn’t have that different an upbringing from everyone else. I went to a Catholic primary and secondary school; if anything, this experience should have led to me not knowing these words, the use of dialect in these institutions being frowned upon in favour of the Queen’s English.

I have an aunt who’s pretty good at understanding patois – but she was born and raised in Santa Cruz and is passionate about those things. I’m pretty sure she can transported to Martinique or St Lucia or any country where patois is spoken and would be able to carry on at least a rudimentary conversation. I don’t even know how to say good morning. I’ve always felt this to be a great fault on my part, to not know such an important part of our immediate history and I feel even worse when I think about my younger siblings and relatives who – unless for those raised in the Cruz of course – know even less than I do.

So I want to know the following. Does no one else make couyon mouth when a fellow Trini asks them to explain what toopi tambu is? Does anyone buss bamboo anymore? Am I the only one who knows what a zwill is? And am I the only one who finds this an alarming and sad indication of the state of things? Our language is so rich and unique and yet, as it is, it’s just a watered down version of what it used to be. Sure we have the Cote ci, Cote la dictionary (thanks John) but we need to do more. How about classes, radio programmes, newspaper serials even? How about a national campaign aimed at promoting an appreciation for what is essentially “we ting?” We have MTV to teach us the latest slang in the US but it seems our knowledge of our own language is dying. My word limit’s coming to an end so I guess I’d better bring the ranting to an end. Moi ca aller toute monde. And for those of you who don’t know what that means it translates, Everybody, I gone.

Update meh nah

2007-04-28T08:06:00.000-07:00

Somebody help meh here nah. Wais de real scene with Machel back home? Ah only hearing rumour - what bacchanal he get involve in again?

Third World First World

2007-04-24T02:56:00.000-07:00

This is what going on with my eye. More specifically the left one. Yuh talk bout pain! Yuh TALK bout hurting! So yuh girl pick up sheself and went by the doctor this morning - after missing work yesterday. Before allyuh say anything that is just a picture ah get off de net. Mine bigger than that and the whole bottom lid swollen and ah kyah see properly. So doh start with no, "fuh dat lil ting" talk. Right, so anyway, the receptionist at the doctor informs me they doh walk ins and they doh do emergencies, how yuh have to make an appointment to see a doctor. Now, she doing me a favour and squeezing me in this afternoon, but if it wasn't for that the soonest I could see a doctor was - wait for it - next week. Next week yuh know! I coulda have time LOSE my damn eye by then. The thing is, yuh kyah just go to any doctor. Yuh hafta go to the doctor they assign you to according to where yuh living. You ever see more?! The more time I spend in this country the better Trinidad seems yes. So anyway, lemme go and rest meh damn eye yes. Allyuh, write meh nah. Although ah mightn't be able to read too good at the rate things going... And 'rah, give yuh 'oman a call nah.

Tell them we reach

2007-04-23T05:48:00.000-07:00

Column this week

I had planned on writing a different column from the one I am about to write. With V.S. Naipaul back in Trinidad it was an obvious choice to write about the irony of him, my mentor, being back home while I, in self imposed exile in his adopted homeland, cursed my ill luck. And perhaps I will still write that column next week. This week, however, another topic demands my attention.

I am of course speaking about Akon and the 14 year-old, an event that has propelled us where we most like to be - on the international stage with the hot lights shining down on us. As a tiny island we suffer with delusions of grandeur - we long to take on and wrestle to the ground any other country no matter how large, no matter how wealthy. We wish to prove that we deserve a seat with the rest of the players. When the cigars of self satisfaction get passed around, we want to be puffing too.

So we have arrived at our desired spot. We reach, as we like to say. We’re on YouTube, we’re on blogs, we’re even in newspapers albeit a mere few centimetres towards the middle of trashy rags more famous for photos of two faced cows and silicone enhanced ladies than award wining journalism. And we’ve made it mostly riding piggy backed on the fame of Akon, which really isn’t saying much. But let’s not be picky because the most important thing is that we, as a people, as a country, have managed to gain some of the world’s attention.

Now, I’m not going to take the moral high ground here. I’ve often found it to be a rather lonely place to stand and when the floods of reality come you still get washed away. That a 14 year-old had no right to be at that club goes without saying. But people will say it anyway, the same way I just did. That she should not have left her house dressed like that is a moot point. Saying that her dancing was inappropriate and embarrassing to both herself and her family, really, is not saying anything new. But how many of us are innocent of doing things we’re not supposed to? I never went to a party when I was underage but that’s because my parents never allowed me to until I was 18. Many of my classmates did and I remember being jealous. As an adult now I see many teenagers in clubs, fetes, parties with alcohol in hand and man in tow and no one questions. It’s our culture.

So too is looking sexy part of our culture. We boasts about having the best looking women in the world with the best bodies. As women we are aware of the roll of our hips as we walk, the seduction of our smiles, the intimacy of our laughs. How many of us as teenagers didn’t take pride in the beauty of our new bodies - our newly acquired breasts, our rounding bottoms? It’s part of being a teenager. It is, one again, part of our culture.

Unfortunately, so too is our holier than thou attitude. I’ve seen the video and I’m not sure what’s more disturbing - the girl being flung and dragged around the stage, legs twisted into varying positions to facilitate his act until he abandons her crumpled on the floor? Or the cheering of the crowd, the roaring approval of the crowd, the screaming, clapping, appreciative crowd. The same crowd that now stands in judgement of what happened.

There are many sad aspects of this sad event. On the various blogs on which it appears comments are being left that use the most derogatory of insults. The girl, the fourteen year old girl, the underage girl, has been universally labelled a ho. It reminds me of the age old excuses given for rape - she wanted it, she asked for it, she enjoyed it, she was dressed like a ho, hell, she is a ho. And Don Imus’s now infamous statement has tied in nicely with the fiasco. In the words that eventually lead to his suspension the girl has now been labelled a “nappy-headed ho”. And for the average reader/commenter in cyberspace, this has become one more fact about the Caribbean and about Trinidad. Lara who? Naipaul where? Steelpan, well, the Japanese are better players anyway.

And as a 14 year-old scrambles to escape the heat she has created, we Trinis do what we do best. We condemn. And we gossip. And we turn a blind eye to the fact that not only do we allow soca stars to do it to us but many times we do it to ourselves. And we ignore the fact that as we scramble our way to the dizzying heights of First World status, we still drag behind us a Third World mentality where anything done outside is better, where you point fingers of blame at anything but ourselves and where a 14 year old gets vilified for what most other teenagers get away with almost everyday. The only problem is, she actually got caught. And as anybody - from politician to policeman - will tell you, that is the greatest mistake of all.

Mastication for the nation

2007-04-16T15:48:00.000-07:00

Column some time ago

Mastication for the nation. This was the slogan Trident used recently to try to persuade the gum chewing members of the public to switch over to their product. The ad was largely forgettable, consisting (if I remember correctly) of a hyperactive Rastaman running around in public shouting the slogan at unwitting - and somewhat scared looking - members of the public. The ad was forgettable because it was annoying. Oh Lord but it was annoying. The Rastaman was annoying, his mad little scampering were annoying and, above and beyond all else, the slogan was the most irritating thing on TV.

The ad has been pulled - thank God - but last week it came out that over 500 complaints had been made about it. The complaints weren’t about the obvious mediocrity of the advertising campaign but rather, viewers found that it was offensive. Many thought that the advertisement perpetuated stereotypes about black people. Trident issued a statement that this wasn’t so and that they were sorry if they’d caused any offence, blah blah blah but the ad had already run its course, blah deblah deblah once again.

Now, I found this interesting because I didn’t find the ad to be particularly offensive to anything other than my sense of good taste. Because really, I have to say it again. That ad was really annoying. But anyway, I found it noteworthy that over 500 people called to complain about a skinny Rasta rhyming his way towards his next paycheque and only a few dozen had complained when a contestant on a reality show said - on national TV - that she was afraid of black people and she was sorry slavery had been abolished. This was around the same time as the Big Brother/Shilpa Shetty debacle and since Shilpa was prettier with bigger breasts I’m guessing she made a far better media victim that millions of anonymous blacks.

Stereotyping is worse, I think, for immigrants. It’s hard being a stranger in any strange land but it’s worse if you come from the Caribbean and come to a country where a possible response to your saying you’re from Trinidad is, “Ooh! And what part of Jamaica is that?” Yes, it has happened, not just to me but other Trinis I know up here.

Thank God for the Soca Warriors and that trek they made to Germany so more people are aware of the fact that there is a country called Trinidad and Tobago. But then you have other things to contend with. A lecturer in school last week proudly spoke about the Queen’s Park Savannah and Port of Spain and then proceeded to talk about, “those Trickydadians”.

Most of my co-workers make casual allusions to smoking weed around me. They speak about the first time they did it or how much they enjoy lighting up. They tell me about feeling the need to smoke some marijuana and relax mon and watch my reaction. The assumption is that, coming from the Caribbean, I must have my own personal stash stuffed in my bra at all times. Me. Of all people. I’ve never even smoked a cigarette, far less for a joint and if I ever was deluded enough to try and my father found out, he’d probably break my wrist. Both of them in fact, so that I couldn’t lift another spliff to my lips again.

I brought this up with an Australian friend of mine and he said that as far as the world is concerned as soon as you say Caribbean the image that appears in one’s mind is lying on the beach, smoking weed and doing nothing. I asked him where he got this image of us, a country how many thousands of miles removed from his own but actually not that dissimilar and he paused and thought about it for a while. “I don’t know”, he’d said. “From TV, maybe?”

I’ve had a chance to think about this and maybe the media thing is true. According to TV all Australians are burly and tough and spend all day putting shrimps on barbies, and according to TV all Americans are rich and domineering and blond. All Muslims are bad and the French walk around with bread in their hands wearing funny hats and all Indians are mystics and know the secret to self contortion. But I have to ask the question - is it the media that creates and perpetuates these stereotypes or are they stereotypes that already exist in society and are merely reflected in the media? Actually I have two questions. Did someone really think, “Mastication for the Nation” would make me want to go buy chewing gum? I mean, really.

I really back

2007-04-16T15:43:00.000-07:00

Guess who back on de net!? Everyone, roll out the cigars. Let's celebrate!

Fire in de wire(less)

2007-03-26T05:37:00.000-07:00

Allyuh, I doh know nah. Like I kyah win. Ah get meh new laptop and now, ah kyah connect to de internet. So hold a lil more strain. Papa yo! Allyuh say a lil prayers fuh de hotness yes. Like I hadda find some bush up here and beg somebody to beat me with it yes. Tonaire.

Spiderman, spiderman...

2007-03-16T17:12:00.000-07:00

What? You trying to tell me yuh was never bored in class?

Pic in yuh pweffen

2007-03-16T17:01:00.000-07:00

Spring. Or at least, the makings of it. The met office says we should be getting some artic blast or the other this weekend, which could lead to snow. Which probably means I'll be hauling my ass through town in a bikini suffering from heat stroke. Well, one can dream.

Fresh out a court clothes

2007-03-15T05:01:00.000-07:00

Listen eh allyuh, I like meh lil bacchanal and ting like any odder Trini,
but lemme tell alyuh from now, allyuh see dem jackass email allyuh only sending me about who Machel wanted to fight carnival Tuesday in tong, doh send me dem ting eh. If allyuh have court clothes I glad fuh allyuh, but right now I kyah even pay five cents to see a ants wine so leff me out ah allyuh lakaray.

Imagine people only sending me email left, right and centre about some woman Machel wanted to beat in tong. And is just so dey dropping it yuh know. He wanted to beat de woman. Allyuh doh know the word “allegedly”? Eh? Look it up now. Go on. Look it up. What trouble is dis. Ah say look it up! And den, people have the nerve to add they own comment about how Machel does be cuffing he mother and kicking woman on St Vincent street.

Allyuh ever hear more assness? Like somebody interview Machel and he say he does cuff up he mudder? But allyuh mad! Allyuh kyah be making allegation so. Allyuh never hear bout lawsuit? And what woman on St Vincent street de man kick? What Trini woman it have go stand up and wait fuh Machel to kick she and eh mash up he ass with she high heel shoe?!

Look, allyuh making allyuh jail by allyuh self. Leff me outta dis one. Unless I see it with my own two eye I eh know nuttin. And by the way, the person who type up that “first hand account”, how de ass yuh coulda see Machel trying to beat de girl when de band was waiting to cross de stage? Yuh’s a ass or a marble? What stage? You bring yuh own stage?! I eh know what hole dese people does be crawling out of nah, but dey better crawl back in it.

Revelations of Spring

2007-03-15T04:25:00.000-07:00

Column from some time aback

Suddenly – and almost without warning – it is spring. Walking to the train station early one morning last week, I lifted my head past the familiar eye level and saw, surprisingly, a few scattered pink blossoms on a neighbour’s cherry tree. Now, the tree is in full bloom, its brave showing of colour reminding me of our own immortelle that blaze, more and more infrequently, on the hillside.

It is my second spring here and I have a better understanding of the English love of this season, with its promise of summer’s long hot days being not too far behind. The music on the radio is perfect for this time of year. Put on one’s headphones and walk past the houses with the little flowerpots starting to fill with brave purple and fuchsia blossoms. It’s like being in a movie where you’re the star that’s walking and contemplating life and how it can punch you and roll you around but surprises you when you don’t expect it. The Cure’s Love Cats and Greenday’s Time of Your Life go well with the changing quality of light, the way the still bare branches and tiny buds of the trees appear to have been etched out of the sky, like a child’s cardboard pop up book. The sunlight has now lost its winter’s wateriness and it’s crispy coldness and, now, seems to be stretching itself out across the sky, like a cat waking up after a nap.

And as I think this I see one of the numerous neighbourhood felines on the pavement. She – he? – is in a predatory mood. Back arched and energy tightly coiled, he/she waits to pounce on something I cannot see. In this posture it’s easy to see the heights from which it has descended, that it calls among its relatives such royalty as tigers and cougars and jaguars. In winter it used to remain mostly indoors, sneaking out occasionally to watch us attempt walking downhill without skating. In summer it will be mostly outdoors, visible only when it suns or cleans itself on the various walls. But for now, spring is in its delicate bones, driving it to call upon its felid ancestry.

It’s not officially spring yet, of course. Just weeks ago there was snowfall – unheard of thing – transposing London into an alpine village. Odd, the ability of little white flakes to make everything that’s mundane and dirty and common into delicate little works of magic. Passengers on the way to work complained about delayed trains but surreptitiously packed snowballs and took photos. School children lay on the shaggy white carpet and made snow angels, doing their part in the mass conversion to happiness and wonder at the common enough miracle of nature.

So it’s not officially spring but, really, it is. The days are getting longer – the four o’clock sun is still bright enough to feel like day. The shops have changed their window displays. Gone are the greys and blacks of last season. In their place are the bright neon colours of this season, colours not seen since secondary school when fluorescents and Trapper Keepers were vital parts of a teenage world. It’s exciting, seeing the return of colour in the windows. Brave young girls have started wearing shorts and minis, keeping warm with stockings and tights and boyfriends that carry long coats in case fashion proves too formidable an adversary.

Spring feels like love, like romance, like a birthing, a renewal. It feels like the world is celebrating. It feels like life – tired and weary in winter – has rested and found it does have the strength to try again after all. It feels like God, fed up of us and our constant mistakes and ineffectiveness has shook his head indulgently and decided he created us and loves us and he may as well help us out because, hell in a basket, he knows we can’t help ourselves. The beauty of this season is that it is a promise, that there is a possibility of anything happening and that they will be mostly good things. And that it is a promise that will be kept.

SHE'S BAAAAAAAAACCCCCKKKKKK!!!!!

2007-03-15T04:14:00.000-07:00

WELL IS ABOUT TIME! If allyuh only KNOW de dramas with me and blogger. Not fuh nuttin de bitch was letting meh log on. Allyuh reading dis post simple simple, is real zafaire went on here fuh me to post dis yuh know, so allyuh had better enjoy it. Aright.

AH MISS ALLYUH! Bad! Bad! Bad! Is all kinda dramas in my life dese last few weeks (allyuh know how drama does follow me like fly on dogshit) but de main ting is meh laptop dead and bery and ah had was to buy a new one. So ah get de new one but ah ketching meh ass to connect to the internet so allyuh just bear with meh a lil bit.

What new. School good so far - ah have one mad ass Marketing lecturer who spending half de class selling he textbook. As me sweetie say ah getting a first hand lesson in Marketing cuz when he eh selling he book he selling heself. Yes allyuh, ah get a sweetie! But I eh have time to discuss that. Plus mind allyuh business. Minute spent thinking of sweetie and blushing. Okay, moving on.

What else. AYE AYE! Meh boss woman fire de wuk and he gimme she wuk to do. Plus my regular work. Plus I working part time. Like dey make up dey mind dey killing a red woman dis month. But not a fork a dat. Ah taking somebody dong with meh. Ah doh want to hear bout mas! Awrite, write meh and tell meh bout mas. But only if yuh had a bad time. Allyuh miss meh too!? Aye, lemme go and do de people and dem wuk yes. Ah gone.

Name Change

2007-02-14T13:25:00.000-08:00

Dear all,
Just to let you know that from now on I shall be referred to as Hottie HD. Thank you. Outta body. Back tuh yuhself now.

Reflections on a trip

2007-02-12T05:09:00.000-08:00

Column last week

A vagrant sleeps outside a bank on a cardboard box marked fragile. The irony of this is mostly missed by the passers-by who continue on their individual hustles downtown. Port-of-Spain and Arima too could, at first glance, easily be mistaken for some town in Jamaica, what with all the Bob Marley t-shirts that festoon the walls and stalls that clutter the pavements.

Blurry eyed and lucky to have died young, Bob’s cultural domination is nowhere more complete than in Trinidad, a country that looks everywhere for its heroes except inwardly. In WASA fete two girls provide less delicate entertainment than what is being offered on stage. Crouched and squatting on scaffolding, they dance on each other, their expressions suggesting a pleasure more intense than what is typically gained from dancing to soca at a fete. But then, this is not typical dancing. Men, rough men, scruffy men, men you can’t take home to mother, but, on second thought, maybe these girls can, stand by and voice their appreciation and their intentions.

A guy standing nearby explains that they’re the stars of a local porn movie that’s making the rounds throughout the country. When they’re finished they climb down and walk through the crowd, strutting the way only a Trini woman can when she knows everyone is watching her. “Trini school,” my cousin tells me. “Just type in ‘Trini school’ on YouTube and all them local porn will come up.” I ask her how she knows that and she laughs and blushes and tells me everybody knows that. Everybody has seen at least one, the five-minute clips of schoolchildren urging each other to perform and enjoy sex acts are sent via Bluetooth from phone to phone. And everybody has at least one phone.

On my way up to Las Cuevas on Sunday the sky is a shade of blue that makes the heart swell in happiness and sorrow at the same time. We stop off at the lookout, my friend Jo and I, and I watch the skyline. There is a haze like blue gauze wrapped between the end of the ocean and the beginning of the sky. It is a day that is perfect; a day that makes you think there couldn’t be any greater need than to be able to lift one’s head and see so much beauty, to feel this beauty burning its brand on one’s skin. There are children playing football on the beach and stray dogs jogging thirstily on the sand. Two mothers compare resembling babies of distant relation and talk about the inability to escape blood. A tourist pulls out a knife and eats an apple, confirming her foreignness with this one, simple act.

My goddaughter comes to visit. She doesn’t remember me: the last time I saw her she had been asleep, the time before that, a baby. She doesn’t object to my holding her though and when I give her her birthday gift she refuses to let it go. We go into my bedroom; how comforting, to know that somewhere in the world there is a room that will always be yours; to escape the noise of too many relatives and neighbours and the family djs in training and she falls asleep in my arms, still holding her gift, and I wonder how long it would take her to warm up to me next time, this little girl that everyone says looks just the way I did when I was young. I feel the maternal twinge, stronger this time but I ignore, as always, because, as always, the timing and circumstances aren’t right.

I stand on the main road waiting for a maxi and a woman passes me and says good morning. By the time I realise what she’s said she’s walked too far off to hear my response. With headphones in ear and my “train face” in place I missed out on that rarest of things: kindness from a stranger. In two more days I’ll be returning to London. I’ll be returning to cold with a promise of spring in the air, drinks with co-workers and a feeling of safety that no one seems to have in Trinidad anymore.

I’ll be starting school and telling myself that no matter what, Trinidad is home and eventually I’ll be back. And I hope that is true. I hope that when the time comes to decide I will still believe that Trinidad is the best place to do my part, that our people are the best and that I want my children to be raised here. And even if it isn’t I hope I’m strong enough, and Trini enough, to want to return and help make it so.

For Mani

2007-02-10T18:58:00.000-08:00

Me in Las Cuevas last Sunday. Ahhhh... dat is de life boy.

Bring out the fattened calf...

2007-02-10T18:36:00.000-08:00

DAHLINGS! Did you miss me? I missed you all very much. Thanks lots for visiting in my absence and blasting Posh and Becks. Great news - while I was away my profile received its 3,000th visitor. Where all these people does be coming from I doh know. The post today is a mixture of good and bad news. Firstly, due to a combination of family and personal emergencies I had to return home, hence my virtual nonexistence online. It was absolutely fabulous being home (ate like a piglet, roasted like a fowl) but now I'm back. And yes, you guessed it. I will be missing carnival after all (anybody wants to buy a Dragon costume?) However, I will be starting my MBA after all. This week in fact. So pressah. Now self ah scarce. Ah have some picchairs fuh allyuh. And a longer post. Just wanted to say how before allyuh start telling meh how meh mudder make meh. Hottie out.

Suffer little children

2007-01-18T01:52:00.000-08:00

Column this week

Man I have no luck. I really don’t. I’m not good at anything, or maybe I should say I’m good at all the wrong things. I can write and I can paint and I’ve been told I have a wicked little putkay but none of those things translate into the big bucks and fancy cars and guys in skimpy swimwear serving you drinks on your yatch. Well, the putkay might but the other stuff, no. Unless you’re Danielle Steel. But then, strictly speaking, she can’t write either. And yet she keeps doing it. It’s almost admirable how she churns them out, they way Gizmo spits out gremlins when his back gets wet. A little note to Danielle Steel fans, don’t email me protesting. And yes, I can still say that she can’t write even after reading Thurston House.

I mean, you read the papers and hear on the news that David Beckham gets a deal to play football for £128m and it makes you realise that life essentially has no meaning. You take things like flowers and hard work and education and fidelity and you realise they’re all a waste of time. You could have four PhDs and never earn a quarter of what Beckham will earn in a month. So what’s the sense of learning the impact of the Agricultural Revolution on the development of human civilization? You can’t go into Jimmy Choo and buy snakeskin stilettos with that. Better learn to kick a ball. Or better yet, to bend it like Beckham, so you can loll off on your yatch with those bikini clad hotties. Unless you’re one of those who thinks that money isn’t the key to happiness. And that’s okay, but then this isn’t the column for you. I know I’d rather be rich and unhappy than poor and miserable. At least when I’m rich and depressed I can afford to buy new shoes and distract myself. And hire some men to wear skimpy swimwear and serve me on my yatch.

You know what used to get to me? Those ads you see on cable with a pretty but dirty child walking in rubbish somewhere in the Third World and you hear the voiceover that says for less than a dollar a day you can sponsor a child and ensure that they eat and go to school and not drink water with mosquito larvae or old tyres floating around in it. And then you hear that Old Becks is earning a pound for every person living in Russia, give or take a few thousand. So it makes you wonder how many children he could sponsor and how many lives he could save. Hmmm, essentially every child in Russia for five years could be living and laughing and learning courtesy Beckenham with quite a few millions left over. I mean, you wouldn’t want Posh to cut down on her shopping now would you? When I see those ads it makes me want to get my purse and turn over every penny I have. Which aren’t a lot but who can see children starving when a dollar/pound could buy them clothes and rice and rehydration salts?

And you go to the grocery and see old men with three things rattling around in a basket who spend the greater part of five minutes counting the coins needed to pay for the things that you know will constitute breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next few days. And you pass the men huddled and bundled under blankets in doorways begging you to spare some money and part of you is still human enough to care but that’s beaten into cowering submission by the part of you that knows by the next day you’ll need that same pound you’re tempted to give away.

The argument is that Becks (and Posh, we can’t forget Posh) is going to bring some much needed glamour and respectability to the game which still has to gain popularity and some national respect in the US of A. He’s good-looking, fashionable, a family man and also good-looking. I guess they figure the gain will come from exposure and not ticket sales. Which makes some sense. But I can’t help but think about those children walking barefoot in rubbish. How did it get to be that getting people to like football was worth more than the life of a child?

Birthday bender

2007-01-15T08:33:00.000-08:00

Hi y’all. Those of you who were wondering where I got to (again), you’re about to find out. I had a birthday last Wednesday and I’ve been celebrating since last Tuesday. Yes folks, the stroke of midnight met me being flipped upside down by some midget Latino – who was an excellent dancer by the way. Needless to say, since I was wearing a dress, the entire club saw my underwear. Also needless to say I became quite popular after that stunt. This was on the heels of the Algerian guy who was teaching me how to merengue. Which went well until I realised the rock hard thigh that was rubbing against my leg was actually a rock hard erection. Shudder.

Wednesday I went to dinner and to see Chicago. Man oh man, those girls had some bodies on them. Hell in a basket. The men weren’t bad either. Especially the one that was wearing the spandex trousers. Hot Dog! I tell you, an ass to marry and put in house yes.

Thursday was drinks with the good folks here at work where I was introduced to vodka lemonade and the wonders of permanent marker. I won’t go into any details but I will say it was quite easy to tell who’d remained in the pub after eleven by the black marks all over their body. I tell you, scrubbing the word "boob" written in permanent marker off your breast is a HELLUVA task.

Okay, so Friday, ‘twas back for drinks (I tell you, these English, Irish and Aussies will be the ruination of me). Saturday – or hor – Saturday was spent drinking, sorry, DRIVING, DRIVING, through the countryside, shopping, samba dancing at a Brazilian club and getting tipsy off of mojitos and a Sex on the Countertop. Sunday was more shopping – New shoes! New shoes! – and a “soca bashment” filled with the tirsest West Indian men I have ever encountered. Yuh girl deck off in hot shorts and hooker boots and everybody else in vest and jeans. But it felt GOOD to twist up meh spine and roll up meh bamcee.

The feteing continues tonight but I’m not sure as yet what I’ll be up to. But I’ll keep you posted. Whenever I get up.

Goodbyes and new beginnings

2007-01-09T02:08:00.001-08:00

Column this week

So I promised last week that I would write you saying what Old Year’s night was like. Of course, I’d guessed it wouldn’t have been much. This is one time I’m unhappy to have been proven right. Feeling ill is never a good way to spend the biggest night of the year, mainly because it hinders alcohol consumption. But the great thing about New Year’s Eve is that it’s followed by New Year’s Day. And what else is New Year’s good for if not making you feel like you can become and accomplish anything. It’s being washed anew, turning over a new leaf, starting afresh and all the relevant clichés with the benefit of all that great Christmas food and music still left over.

So maybe I should write about my resolutions. But that would be a bit difficult considering I don’t have any. Maybe I should have followed the example of celebrities like Courtney Love and create a comprehensive list of do good/be good things for this year. But since her list includes things like not having any more plastic surgery until she’s old enough to need it, I think you’ll agree with me that that’s not a very appealing option. Besides, I tend to make up my resolutions as I go along. It’s the only way I can keep up.

My second idea for my column this week was to write about the murder of my friend Bert Allette. I found out by email and have been depressed since then. Bert was a good man and a good friend. He decided to become a councillor as a way of giving back to the community, doing his part and not forgetting his roots, all the clichés that seem dreadfully ironic and frustratingly vexing since the sentiment expressed by such clichés was the reason why he was killed. I can’t quite bring myself to writing an entire column about his death though, not because I can’t find enough things to say about my friend but because I find that having to write two columns about two murdered friends in less than a month depresses and frightens me more than I would have imagined.

I read books a lot. I’ve been known to devour a good book in hours, grateful for the escape a good story that’s well written provides. Many times books are more real for me than real life that’s playing out around me in all its wonderful, sometimes heartbreaking but always glorious mediocrity. But the murders of my two friends have a reality that has an unbearable veracity. How does someone like me, middle class, well educated and coward like hell, end up losing friends to youths with guns? You grow up learning that if you go to the right places, if you do the right things, if you have the right friends, then you’re safe. And then a few ounces of lead and tin alloy destroy that belief, that hope that you hold to yourself and follow because the alternative is unbearable to contemplate.

But read the pages of the papers home and you realise that this belief is not true now, if it ever was. Because there are no right places or right things or right friends. You wonder if you’re safe anyway and the answer, as much as you would like to say yes, is no. And having become accustomed to the relative safety and freedom of London (ironic and sad, that phrase), I wonder if Trinidad is becoming a place I can no longer return to. And if I do, what will I be returning to? Because the belief I had home does apply here. If you avoid the bad areas and bad people you’re more or less fine. So it seems the simple, happy, laid back island life I thought was characteristic of Trinidad has actually been found on another island, geographically and culturally removed from what I’ve left behind.

So as the second week of the new year begins, with its promise of new things, good things, there is also a feeling of loss, a disquiet and a fear. That London is becoming more real and the reality of my islands that I’ve left behind and hope to return to is disappearing. And that too is unbearable to contemplate.

Thank you Mika!

2007-01-08T03:13:00.000-08:00

Check this heifer out. Love, love LOVE HIM! His name is Mika and he's the most exciting thing to happen to British music - hell, music on the whole - in a while. He's channeling the voice of Freddy Mercury, the songwriting of Prince and the posturing of Bowie. Man oh MAN, can't wait for his album to go on sale in February. Listen especially to "Grace Kelly". This is the song I'm listening to the radio 24/7 for. You've been warned.

The Lord of the Gym - The Two Thighs

2007-01-05T02:08:00.000-08:00

Well allyuh, ah start back the gym yesterday. When ah tell yuh – pressah! Nah, ah joking. Wasn’t that bad. First off, the good news. I ran two miles in 17 minutes on the treadmill. Now, this mightn’t impress allyuh, but I DAMN impressed because anybody that knows me knows how much I HATE cardio.

I mean, I like to walk and run, but not indoors. I does get bored out of my skull. But ah come out fuh dem yesterday. Ah put on meh headphones and ah start to imagine I was running to catch up with the band on Carnival Tuesday. And ah put on meh Machel - when he and Beenie started to sing about Outer Space yuh girl take off! Ah was on fire allyuh. FIRE!!!!! Well, technically speaking, my thighs were on fire but allyuh know what ah mean.

As an aside, allyuh believe I eat like a pig over the holidays and and actually LOST weight?! Could be muscle mass but I lost almost 5lbs!!!!! And allyuh, I real eat and drink eh. Steups. I hadda real work out over the next few weeks, else I go end up looking like a damn zwill for Carnival.

MORNIN'!!!!!!!

2007-01-03T02:04:00.000-08:00

ALLYUH MORNING! Happy New Ears! Merry Christmas! Ah hope allyuh make allyuhself sick on pastelle and pigeon peas fuh meh. Ah miss allyuh ALL. Allyuh miss meh too? This no internet thing was awrite yuh know, was nice to stay away from them damn celebrity blogs. BUT AH MISS ALLYUH. What everybody been up to? This is my first day back at work for the year and when ah tell yuh, ah ketch meh ASS to get off the bed this morning! Pressah! Also just saw the pics from my office Christmas party. Jeesan. People does embarrass theyself fuh Christmas eh. Mind you, I pass in that slackness too eh. Shameful. Man flinging meh up in the air and me and a co-worker hiding behind bottle a wine. Shameful.

Nobody tief meh!

2006-12-21T09:18:00.000-08:00

ALLYUH!!!!!! Morning! Amm, well, evening. Ah was real missing in action - no internet connection for the last few days and ting what with the moving nah. But doh worry, nobody eh tief meh. Ah good. I'm going out of tong for the hols so see allyuh for de new year most likely. Love you all (Rupee?!) and wishing you and yours all de best for the season. Be safe and be careful and make sure both are legal. Bwa ha ha!!!!!!!! Hottie oooooooooouuuuuuuuttttttttttt!

2006-12-13T06:24:00.000-08:00

So one of my coworkers used to be a yatchie and he used to deal a ting in Barataria for a few months a coupla years ago. Aye aye, a next coworker announces from across the room that teh guy was now showing her how Trinis dance. I say well awrite. He goes on to explain that I need to show her the female part because he now do the male part. I ask him what is the male part because I confuse, I eh know nuttin about a male and female part for wining. He proceeds to shout across the office, the pat where the man lies down in the streets wining and the woman goes on top him.

Excuse me! When I try very politely explaining to him that that is an exception and not the rule and I've never seen any woman lying down on any man for Carnival he gets all huffy and says don't try to pretend, that is my country and we invented it! Yuh see how people does be looking fuh dey cuss?! This man making it sound like any party you go to in Trini the dancefloor line with writhing male bodies being straddled by women and has the audacity to get offended when I try to correct him.

Santa looking for a wife

2006-12-13T05:32:00.000-08:00

So yuh girl sit down on the DLR yesterday heading home and searching for something good to listen on the radio when what yuh think happen? Out of nowhere I start to hear, "Santa looking for a wife." The FIRST Christmas song I hear for the season and is a TRINI song. Well yuh know yuh gyul sit down on de people dem train grinning like a fool. Thank GOD for them pirate broadcasters. I still not feeling the Christmas spirit though, although ah put up meh tree Monday.

"There's no place like home for the holidays..." Donations of pastelles will be accepted.

Lazy post

2006-12-11T08:26:00.000-08:00

View from my bedroom window
The train platform where I catch my train to work.
Hottie's hurt hand.
Hottie's hurt hand again.
View from the train.

When technology attacks

2006-12-07T02:33:00.000-08:00

I’ve just finished reading Cell by Stephen King. It’s been awhile since I’ve read a Stephen King novel – a few years really. I’ve never been a big fan of “popular” writing and the last few years I’ve been focussing on the classics. The last thing I’d read by him previously was his surprisingly good On Writing, which was, for a want of better words, a sort of manual outlining how he became a writer and guidelines for becoming a novelist oneself. It quickly became on of my favourite books – I’ve read it at least three times now.

Anyway, back to Cell. The novel is essentially based on the supposition that someone intentionally created a virus that can be transferred via cellular communication, which is somehow able to addle the human brain a bit and cause aggressive behaviour. It is supposed that it’s the work of some terrorist group but the reader – and the characters in the novel – never get a chance to find out for certain because the virus, or Pulse as it's called, is too strong and manages to wipe clean people’s brains, causing them to revert to their core natures. Which, apparently, is violence.

The people who received the calls – essentially everyone with a cell phone – start killing and attacking both each other and those who have not been affected. It’s chaos, with the majority of the population rendered inhuman by a single phone call, because, think about it, who doesn’t have a mobile? So this has me thinking. If that book were to come true, chances are very good that I would have been one of those who would have been wiped clean. I very rarely go anywhere without my cell. It’s a disturbing thought. And I’ve also been thinking that if other technology was to start “attacking”, what else would I most likely be affected by? I’m not heavily dependent on technology but certain things would get me. My mp3 player, yes. My mobile, definitely. The trains. Oh yes. The washing machine... errrr… not so much.

So tell me, if you were a character in Cell, would you have been one of those chewing on your best friend’s throat after you’d answered the phone? And if technology suddenly attacked, what devices would most likely affect/attack you?

Photo courtesy http://www.worth1000.com/

And no, that is not the virus. I thought it was a cool pic though.

Missing England

2006-12-05T02:29:00.000-08:00

Column from last week. Allyuh, sorry for the late post. And this was a real half ass attempt at a column too because these days my time - and my brain - is not my own. So, forgive me.

I’m bored today and as usual, a bit cold, so I thought up a fun activity to occupy my brain while doing the work I’m paid for occupies my hands. If I left England tomorrow, what would I miss? I know the more cynical among you (mainly those of you who read my column every week waiting to email me ancient death curses if I say anything bad about jolly old England) will be sarcastically muttering, “Not one blasted thing.” Not true. Despite my moanings there are a number of things about this country that I like that I would miss if I were magically transported back to my mother’s house, kind of like what may happen in a cheesy Disneyworld movie staring a young Haylie Mills or a well rested Lindsey Lohan. So what exactly would I miss?

Well, firstly, the shopping. Having been rechristened “Centipede” by my mother, I’ve exceeded her expectations and have managed to accumulate over four boxes of shoes since I’ve been here. I’ve been here for less than two years. I’m trying my hardest to prove that Sex and the City stereotype true, especially since I can’t prove true any of the others. Sigh. Oh to be like Samantha Jones, the originator of that classic quote, “Sex with an ex can be depressing. If it's good, you don't have it anymore; if it's bad, you just had sex with an ex.” It takes a special kind of woman to see two negatives in an all out positive situation. But that’s another column. And it’s not just shoes. There’s all the fabulous clothes that caters for so many different tastes. “So, madam, you’re looking for a dress constructed completely from magenta feather boas you say. I’m afraid our store no longer carries that design. However, you may check our competitor in Camden Town.”

I’d also miss the fact that nobody minds your business. It’s a nice change coming from a place like Trinidad where, if you gain one pound of premenstrual bloat, sprangers who spend their days begging outside your office will ask if you’re pregnant. The company I work for currently has three women pregnant out of wedlock for men of dubious existence. Nobody cares. Or if they do, they hide it well. They save the macoing for outside work hours, which is just as fine. The fact is, everybody’s so busy worrying about their own business that they really don’t give a fig about yours. I guess being macocious is a luxury and a side effect of a relatively easy life. I mean, think about it. If half your salary goes towards paying your rent and the majority of the rest goes towards transport, clothes and food, you really couldn’t give a flying fig who the neighbour’s daughter went out with last night. London is a place where you cannot afford to not mind your business. It’s kind of like the army – or prelims at Skinner park – you either shape up or ship out.

I’d miss autumn too. I would, really. On the one side you have the increasing depressing realization that autumn signals the impending arrival of winter. But the approaching cold weather makes for some spectacular sightseeing. A tree whose leaves are changing can be a beautiful thing. The drier the weather, the more spectacular the colours. It can be a somewhat hit and miss situation, the way some women get more beautiful with age – like Phylicia Rashad (Claire Huxtable) while others look like cast extras from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. You don’t really get to see it being in London but you can during a drive through the country side – or even some of the more residential areas, especially on a sunny day when the sky is that special, crisp blue you get only in autumn and winter. You almost don’t mind the cold. Almost.

I guess what I’d miss most of all though is the variety. From food to theatre to music, London proves itself to be the great metropole in that it somehow, someway, always manages to shift across and make a little space for almost everything and everyone. And despite the constant moanings about the vast numbers of immigrants flooding the country and the complaints against the huge strains on its resources, it still flings opens it’s arms and embraces new things more readily than the majority of other big cities. Or, at the very least, turns away and pretends it hasn’t seen.

Hottie hand hurt

2006-12-04T06:59:00.000-08:00

Allyuh, ah hurt meh right hand and kyah really type nah so I was/will be kinda out of commission for a while. But feel free to write meh and thing.

P.S. Allyuh believe in obeah? Because my hand stay just so and start to hurt and swell and I couldn't use it. If I used to believe in them thing I would say meh soon to be former flatmate wuk a lil obeah on meh! In fact, that's the post. Tell me if you believe in black magic and how much buc (buck, bok?) you see crossing the road.

Still Smokin'

2006-11-30T03:23:00.000-08:00

Jamie Lee Curtis is old enough to be their mother but she STILL looks hotter than the Skinemax trio of Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton. That striptease scene in True Lies is one of my favourite. I can't believe people think Jamie's a hermaphrodite. With THIS body?! If I were a man I'd track her. And I was taking she every fete and making sure she wearing a poom poom shorts.

I've got my brother's nose...

2006-11-30T03:20:00.000-08:00

Imagine living in a world where looking like this is considered normal. I mean, is this LaToya or Michael with a long wig?

Flies and big sticks

2006-11-28T04:04:00.000-08:00

Okay, my question for today is this: Do you catch more flies with honey, or a big stick? I ask this because of a situation I was in that recently came to a head. A few months ago I took on a flatmate. Now, the girl I took was a Trini, a friend of a friend I knew back home. She couldn’t afford the full amount I was asking for, and she couldn’t pay a deposit because she was a student and working part time. But I figured I’d take her anyway because she needed to find a place and I thought it might be better to have someone I knew rather than a complete stranger in the flat. Two hands clapping.

Awrite, so she moves in and then it comes out that she couldn’t pay me monthly but rather weekly. I say alright (it’s partly my fault I tell myself, we should have discussed this before). Anyway, the rent per week works out to be £62.50. She starts off paying that, as agreed, on Friday mornings before I go to work. Then, eventually, starts paying Friday evenings. We never had any discussions about this eh, it just happened. I say alright, might be inconvenient for her to go downstairs to the ATM etc.

Then bam, just so, just so I come home Friday evenings and there’s no money. I getting the money on Saturday. The first time it happened she tells me it’s because she had to pay a bill. The second time was because she had nuttin to eat and had to make groceries. The third time – well, by the third time it come like she was doing me a favour and I getting the money after she get up on a Saturday and gone in town and do she business and come back. No explanation, so I hadda be wondering if I getting pay on a Friday or a Saturday – it all depends on what vaps takes her.

Then yuh had the weeks where she had school fees to pay and kyah pay rent that week, so I getting rent the next week. One time she take three weeks to give me the rent. And while all this happening I telling myself to try and be understanding, that I don’t know how hard she has it and if it was me I would be feeling bad to be struggling to meet my expenses so.

Aye aye! Madam start coming in at night and eh saying good evening, leaving in the morning and eh saying nuttin like if we vex. But as far as I know we eh vex. So it get to the point where I feeling uncomfortable in my own flat! She also start paying £60 instead of the £62.50 and eh saying nuttin. I eat up mehself over that for weeks, studying if to ask she for the money. Eventually I decided to let it pass. I said, that might pay for a meal or something for her but is small change for me. In the end she paid me the outstanding money – several months after, and please bear in mind that, once again, she never asked me anything about this.

So two weeks ago the water bill comes (the bills come every six months) and I ask her if she could pay half. She proceeds to tell me that the only way she could to pay half the bill is if she doesn’t pay rent!!!!!!!!! And then goes on to TELL me that since the bill is on her name, to pay the bill today because she doesn’t want to get a bad credit rating. Now this woman don’t even have a damn bank account and ran off from her last place without telling her landlord anything (which I only found out this weekend) and has the gall to talk about credit rating! And this comes at a time when I trying to do some serious saving eh. So I found a new place to rent – less money, closer to work – and since she doh talk to people I emailed her telling her I’d given the landlord three weeks notice that I was moving and if she wanted to remain she could but she would have to pay the full rent and the deposit and enter into a new lease agreement. She sends me back an email saying I could have spoken to her about it and she never wants to talk to me again.

Well I too glad. This is someone who very quickly took my kindness for weakness, took advantage of my generosity, was moody, had an attitude and only spoke to me when it suited her needs. Imagine she didn’t speak to me for weeks, was only hiding in she room and started back talking when her birthday was approaching and wanted me to cook curry! And she has the gall to say never speak to her again. But the joke is, all the vex she vex and all the beast I is beast she make sure she pay she rent in full, and on time last Friday. So hence the question about the flies and the big stick. When I was trying to be kind and understanding she was giving me pressure. Now that I moving dread she under manners and doing what she was supposed to do in the first place.

So what do you think, do people respond better to nice treatment or bad treatment? Feel free to share personal experiences.

NAH! Yuh making joke!

2006-11-27T08:08:00.000-08:00

Found this story here.

So you think you're having a bad day? In California, wildfires are part of the natural cycle of the forest. They are caused by lightning, by arson, by acts of God. Brave firefighters earn their livings extingiushing these ravenous blazes.

Recently, Fire Marshals found a corpse in a rural section of California while they were assessing the damage done by a recent forest fire. The deceased male was dressed in diving gear consisting of a recently-melted wetsuit, a dive tank, flippers, and facemask. Apparently the man had been participating in recreational diving fairly recently.

A post-mortem examination attributed death not to burns, but to massive internal injuries. Salt water was found in his stomach. Dental records provided a positive identification of a man who had been reported missing a week before, and the next-of-kin were notified. Investigators then set about determining how a fully clad diver ended up in the middle of a forest fire.

It was discovered that, on the day of the fire, the deceased had set out on diving trip in the Pacific Ocean. His third dive was 20 kilometers away from the location of a large brush fire which which was threatening the saftey of a nearby town.

Firefighters, seeking to control the conflagration as quickly as possible, had called in a fleet of helicopters to saturate the area with water. The helicopters towed large buckets, which were dropped into the ocean for rapid filling, then flown to the fire and emptied.

You guessed it! One minute our diver was marveling at the fish species of the Pacific, and in the next breath, he found himself in a fire bucket 300 meters in the air. He experienced rapid decompression caused by the altitude change, suddenly followed by a plummet into burning trees.

As a consolation to bereaved relatives, investigators calculate that the man extinguished roughly 1.78 square meters of the fire, approximately the area covered by a splattered human body. Bereaved are also consoled by the knowledge that he had enjoyed two rewarding dives preceeding his fatal third dive.

Divers and pilots alike are being warned to remain on the alert. Divers are encouraged to remain calm if scooped from the water, and to hang onto the bucket when the water is dumped on the fire. Decompression chambers will be available immediately upon landing

Beauty or a beast?

2006-11-27T02:27:00.000-08:00

Hi loveys! I hope you guys missed me! I missed you all terrible. Hopefully, I’ll be back on track from this week and back to my mad-ass machinations and pissed postings like normal. So my post today is this. I have a friend who, over a year now, getting track by this man. Now, the fella, how to put this delicately…. he ogly. But he’s very kind, very giving, understanding, loving and generous. He has a good business sense and owns several pieces of property, several cars, has his own business etc. In other words, he eh scrunting. If ever she’s in any sort of need, he will do whatever it takes to help her out, whether it’s cold medicine when she’s sick, a box of food when she’s hungry or money if she’s broke. She likes him – they’re good friends – but I think she’s embarrassed to be more than his friend. Now, the fella really fall on the unfortunate side of handsome eh, but I think after a while she might start to find him attractive because of the beauty of his personality. I think she’s ashamed of what her friends and family might say, as she’s accustomed to being with “good looking” guys. I put good-looking in quotes because none of these guys were good looking in my book but she did find so. So my question to you guys is this, if you were in this situation, what would you choose? Would you put aside personal preferences and fatigue from family and friends and go with a man that was physically unattractive but a good friend and an otherwise ideal mate or, not?

The column column

2006-11-22T01:30:00.000-08:00

Column this week

It’s column writing time this week and I haven’t a single idea. No, none at all. I’ve had weeks where I’ve been unsure what I’m going to write about, but normally something happens to change that. All I have to do is check the newspaper online and Prime Minister Manning would usually have provided me with something worthy of my 800 words. Or maybe, inspiration comes in other ways. Maybe it’s something that happens to me on my way to work. Other times, it’s a story a co-worker or a fellow Trini that’s up here has told me that would make the light bulb above the head flash on, hopefully with a bright enough wattage to be significant.

It can be very difficult, you may not know, having to write a column every week. Consider the fact that I have a regular 9 to 6 job. Yes, I know what I said, 9-6. Yes I know that’s more than 8 hours but the 8 hours of work does not include lunch. Yes, I know that’s long. Yes, I know better me than you. Anyway, consider my regular job, my treks to the gym, cooking, commuting and all the other little things that seem like nothing but really take a big, hearty chunk out of one’s time. It’s not easy at all. And after all this I have to try and write a column of interest that will not only satisfy my readers, but most importantly, my editor so that she doesn’t decide I’m a waste of newsprint and tell me to haul my tail.

I’ve been weighing different options. I could write a column about my poor mobile phone that’s has been having death pangs for the last three days and has finally expired, leaving me temporarily mobile-less. For something that less than a generation ago was an unheard of luxury, cell phones have quickly become a necessity. I don’t return home if I forget my umbrella, in a country that’s synonymous with rain, but I will if I forget my phone. Right now I’m feverishly trying to think of who may possibly call me between now and the time it takes me to get a new phone. Terrible, I know.

I could also write about Roodal Moonilal’s statement that Government is preoccupied with developing that country with concrete and glass and was unconcerned about preserving out heritage and recognising our country’s heroes. Hmmm… this comment makes me remember my trip back home in May and the mind-boggling amount of construction that was going on then. It also reminds me of the illness, and subsequent death of The Lord Kitchener and how his family begged for donations of blood to be made. I also remember – and I’m going way back here – the shameful death of Daisy Voisin, who worked so hard and with so much love for her craft but died in poverty. It makes me think of V.S. Naipaul and the furore caused by his Nobel lecture. Seems to me the government is only following the attitude of the people – or maybe it’s the other way around? Anyway, makes you wonder what kind of place Trinidad and Tobago is, where heroes are treated as bad as villains, or even worse. As one of the characters in Naipaul’s earlier work would have said, “Is a helluva thing boy.”

I’ve been thinking I could do another English column this week. Those are usually popular, even if it’s only from irate Englishmen and women – or the odd Trinidadian who lived up here so long they’re more English than the English – emailing me angrily about something I’ve said. Those are popular with other Trinbagonians living abroad as well. But nothing of interest has happened this week. Well, nothing I want to put in the paper, other than the fact that it’s kinda warmish for this time of year and that I had a lovely drive around London on Sunday and that the city looks so much prettier seen from a car than a bus or train.

But I’ve opted for none of these topics. Instead, I’ve chosen to write about not knowing what to write about. I think this was a clever idea. Well, if not clever then at least cute. I promise a amazingly fabulous one next week and I hope this passes by you (and my editor!). Have a great week Trinidad and Tobago. See you in seven days.

Jackass quote of the day

2006-11-18T05:30:00.000-08:00

“If it wasn’t for race mixing, there’d be no video girls. Me and most of my friends like mutts a lot. Yeah, in the hood they call ‘em mutts.” - Kanye West

Right. So according to Mr. West, my ancestors came together for the sole purpose of creating my sister, cousins and myself to appear in music videos. Oh, and we're dogs. The worst kind of dogs too , the ones whose dubious interbreeding has rendered them valueless. This man markets himself as the thinking man's rapper but he's nothing but an idiot. An idiot that looks like Rocky from Rocky and Bullwinkle (see photo). If I looked like that I'd make a concerted effort to make sure I didn't come across sounding like a fool everytime I opened my mouth. Apparently, he doesn't think this is a good idea. The only time I came even remotely close to liking Kanye was when he sang Jesus Walks. I hated the line, "like Kathy Lee needed Regis that's how I need Jesus". Huh? You're comparing a relationship between two talk show hosts with your relationship with God?! But okay. And I liked Golddigga, even though I REALLY, REALLY hate the use of the "n" word but the radio version didn't have it so ok. Then he sampled one of the greatest songs of all time, "Diamonds are forever" and my dislike for him was sealed and it's only gotten worse after that. I mean, really, where the hell does this dumb ass get off making a statement like that? Who does he think he is, with his adenoid suffering ass?! And his fiancee is MIXED. How could he make a statement like that about his future wife, even if he had no qualms about making that statement about millions of other women. Man, I'd be pissed off if it wasn't for the fact that in my book, Kanye ranks right next to P. Shitty and I expect him to say any assness that pops into that cavernous head of his. And if you have the same rank as Poofy, then that eh no ranks at all.

I reallly need to talk to John John about this friendship he has with this clown. I mean, John's mixed, I'm mixed. He can't be making those comments and then play he coming in my house and asking me if I make pelau today. What? He hand finny?! He kyah cook?

P.S. Sorry for the sloppy photoshop work. My mouse is giving trouble and I'm in a hurry.

Nastiest thing you've seen in "foreign"

2006-11-17T01:32:00.000-08:00

This post was inspired by a comment I left on the post before this one. So tell me, what is the nastiest thing you've ever seen in a foreign country? Hands down my nastiest experience was the man I saw shitting on the pavement last winter. This is the original comment I left, because I'm too lazy to write it another way:

Ah never tell allyuh about the time I see de man shitting on de pavement in BROAD DAYLIGHT?! I making a cup a tea in the kithcn in work and I watching oustide the window at this man walking on the pavement. Walking like normal yuh know! Aye aye! Just so he stop, drop he pants - no lie - and drop a hot shit right in de middle of the pavement. Well here nuh. I nearly pass out. I just start to get on in the kitchen in work. And after he do he do, he just pull up he pants and go he way. Hear nuh, when I tell my brother dat he BEG meh to come home! Ah feel this is a post yuh know...

And know I posted it. So go ahead and tell me about your bad experiences. I KNOW you have plenty. Yuh could even tell me about those in Trinidad, because I know we GOOD nasty too.

Oh gorm! Is cold season again

2006-11-16T15:30:00.000-08:00

Column this week

It’s winter in England. And you know what that means, don’t you? Cold season. Yes man, everybody and their tantie has the cold up here now. And not no kind of jokey cold either eh. Not the kind of cold you can have and still be respectable in polite society, delicately wiping one’s nose with a handkerchief. No. I’m talking body racking, lung shattering, snatty nose producing colds.

Every day – and I do mean each and every single day – I raise my head from my own business just in time to see somebody hacking up a lung, fail and settle for mere gobs of phlegm which they subsequently spit out on the ground in front of them, usually just a short distance away from the innocent feet of a bystander. As if this wasn’t more than enough, one gets the pleasure of seeing the previous efforts of others while making one’s way and looking at the ground occasionally to see where one is placing one’s feet. I think this country may be suffering silently from a tuberculosis epidemic that the authorities are unaware of. Could it really be that so many people in this country are just plain nasty and unaware of the fact that spit is the carrier of a myriad number of diseases?

I thought things were bad in Trinidad. I really did. It used to drive me crazow to see people coughing and spitting on the side of the road. But Trinidad good now. Because Trinidadians are boo compared to these heroes up here. Here nah, when I tell you. Some of these people up here in a whole different class by themselves. Because is not no pull over to the side of the road spitting that does be going on here yuh know. People talking to you and turning they head and hawking and spitting and wherever it fall, it lie.

But the worse thing about cold season is that it shows up those of us that had no sort of training whatsoever from our parents. People in the train, people on the bus, people walking through the crowd and coughing. And not covering their mouths. I don’t understand it. I don’t want to understand it. That is high class nastiness as we would say back home. People coughing koof, koof and wetting all the back of your neck and when you complain they more vex than you. Like you supposed to be glad they willing to share their germs with you. Like the seats on the trains and the rails on the escalators – hell, the very air itself – don’t have enough germs to mash up your immune system if you’re not careful.

Now, I learnt my lesson. I’s a woman does get the cold easy so since June I stocking up on my vitamins and so far so good. Excuse me a minute lemme go and find piece of wood to knock on. Right, I’m back. Yeah, so I taking my super duper heavy artillery vitamins since June and I’m okay so far. But I doubt the ability of these vitamins to resist the daily onslaught of phlegm, saliva and hacking coughs. And when I fold up in bed suffering with the cold and fever none of these people who sharing their cold coming to rub me down with Vicks and my moms not even in the same country as me to say she will make a lil fish broth for me. So you see why I vex.

But really, when did basic hygiene become so uncommon? When did obvious things like wiping your child’s nose and making sure you don’t spit on someone become relegated to the realms of “upper class” affectations? I remember when I was growing up manners and etiquette were two of the main things my parents drilled into my siblings and myself. And my cousins too when they happened to be around. We wouldn’t dare cough and not cover our mouths – my father would have a fit. And washing and keeping clean was almost an obsession with my mother. Their conviction was that while they did not have money to give us everything, they would sure as hell make sure they gave us the things money couldn’t buy.

So I know nobody in England will be reading this column. Is alright, they too far gone anyway. But for those of you back home reading this, have a little consideration for everybody else nuh. Is true God say to share but I’m sure he wasn’t thinking about germs when he said it. Thanks.

Feel good video of the day

2006-11-16T01:55:00.000-08:00

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1723774/context/popular/

Welcome to the Jungle!

2006-11-14T10:48:00.000-08:00

Gorgeous costume

Look at dem blasted shields nah! Hand painted yuh know!

Something for the ladies

Yuh see how yuh does kyah stick in dis place?! Blogger was giving trouble last night and pressure like a WASA line in work today. Reach home today and see Saucy done do a post on dis. Dai eh nuttin.

Allyuh! Listen up. Now, allyuh know I does drop it like it hawt so I dropping dis one like it BOILING. Dais Image Nation presentation for Carnival 2007 and I like it bad. I mean real bad. Why? Because I admire anybody who doing what I can't do, which is namely resisting the temptation of an easy life working for corporate dollars and doing what they love. These are some of the most creative people I know and, coming from me, that's saying plenty. The name of the presentation is Jungle and I like how they've interpreted it. I like the exploration of the different jungles in both temperate and tropical zones, instead of the obvious presentation of flowers and water and agouti as sections. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Concrete jungle. I find the idea innovative and although it isn't a typical pretty mas, I would feel so sexy in that costume come Carnival Tuesday in meh tall boots and play yuh eh know I rocking a spanner in meh hand too. Throw some powder on meh neck and foot to look like concrete and I on like fig!

I love the fact that it's all being done by hand - no outsourcing to China or anything so. Just a bunch of people who love mas sweating, eh bathing (hehehe) and eating cold doubles for days hoping to bring out a band that accomplishes the difficult balance of satisfying their own creativity and their masqueraders wishes.

So my personal favourites are:

Indomayalan Jungle, Oceanic Jungle, Afrotropic (the one on top of this post), Concrete and Fire. Oh and I really like Rejuvenation headpiece. For once I don't agree with Saucy; I don't think the bras really need more decoration considering how elaborate the breastplates are. I would seriously consider playing with them, especially considering the prices. The most expensive one is $1995 and in the words of strongy smurf himself (he's one ah dem bringiing it out):

"Is all inclusive - all inclusive is.. lunch on monday.. breakfast and lunch on tuesday.. and ah never-done bar of alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks on both days, whole day. seperate and different costumes fuh monday.. with group discounts.. and if yuh bring 15 people.. yuh play fuh free... de shields still tuh come.. and all de jewelry yuh see in de photos.. allyuh gettin dat as well... :) "

So 14 ah allyuh call meh. And I will call Strongy aka Warren

at the mascamp: 628-0253 or he cellular: 762-0950

Bloggers' T-shirt contest

2006-11-13T10:59:00.000-08:00

Ok fellow bloggers and commentors. This is the official launch of the Bloggers' T-shirt contest. The idea is to come up with a slogan for a T-shirt that will be worn for our bloggers' lime. Now, yuh eh winning nuttin, but it will be fun.

My entry is: "I think, therefore I blog."

'rah's entry is: "Bloggers do it daily."

What's yours? You can enter as many times as you like and make it sweet. Have fun!

Chile fadder in training

2006-11-12T11:18:00.000-08:00

When I am rich and famous, John Legend is one of the people I hope to meet. Oprah too and David Bowie definitely but John Legend is a must. Then, we can fall deeply but sensibly in love and proceed to take on the world with our big, sexy brains and our clever, beautiful children. Has anyone heard his new single, "Save Room" as yet? He sang that song for me, over one of our future arguments that we'll have when we're dating but not yet married. See how much we're meant to be together? He's singing about me and we haven't even meet yet. Our love is freaky man!

Giving our children good memories

2006-11-10T03:50:00.000-08:00

Column this week

For Permanand Persaud

What are your favourite childhood memories? Mine usually involve me being by myself – I was a quiet child, given to activities that involved observation and introspection. I don’t remember all that much – I’m not one of those that remember childhood occurrences like they was yesterday, but a few, select memories stay with me. I remember I liked walking to and from school, even though my dislike for walking in general is part of family legend. What I enjoyed was not so much the activity of walking but the things and people I saw along the way – the flowers in people’s yards, the very white clouds in the very blue sky, the people in the area making their way to work or perhaps, taking their own children to school.

Sometimes my mother would go with me or meet me after school, but as I got older this became less frequent, as age brought maturity and increased personal responsibility. I remember there was a wooden lamppost that lay on the side of the road. Every morning and every evening I would practise my balancing on this increasingly slippery beam until one day the inevitable happened and I slipped and fell. I went back home with moss covering the entire front of my blouse. I don’t remember if I told my mother the truth, but I doubt it.

Sometimes I’d walk home with some of the other children from school. These walks would often turn into mini adventures, as they sought more challenging shortcuts, dragging me half reluctantly, half excitedly along. One of these shortcuts involved jumping over a large drain. My legs were too short to make the jump and I slipped on the edge and fell, cutting open my lower lip. I’ve always paid heavily whenever I chose to ignore the voice of my mother that constantly played in my head, warning me of possible danger. On odd occasions my mother would think I was taking too long to get home. She was able to ask people along the way if they’d seen me; they knew who I was, with my large book bag and house and land umbrella during the rainy season. It was part of an unspoken understanding, the adults looking out for the children, helping us cross the road, quarrelling with us if we misbehaved, intervening on the odd occasion when there were fights.

I wonder what memories the children nowadays will have. Do children still walk to school, with the constant threat of bad drivers and kidnappers that we face? My mother, overly anxious as she was, still allowed me to make the walk home alone at times, not only for convenience but also because she recognised that as children grow older, you have to let them go in varying degrees, to teach independence and also responsibility for their themselves. How do these learn these lessons now, when any attempt at independence can have such horrendous consequences?

I’m writing this column this week thinking of Permanand Persaud, the 13-year-old boy that was brutally killed by a neighbour. I’m also writing this column with Sean Luke, Dane Andrews and Akiel Chambers in mind and also, all the other children that you and I know will eventually make the headlines of the papers, shocking us all with their brutal and senseless deaths. And it breaks my heart to have written that last sentence, because we know it is a certainty that there will be more children killed by people they know, doing the things they are accustomed to, following rules that should guarantee their safety but won’t.

I’m trying to think what I was afraid of while growing up and can’t, even though I was a timorous child. I know what children are afraid of now. They’re afraid of rape and torture, of strangers taking them from their family and their homes. They are afraid of abuse and the silence that surrounds it, even when it leads to their deaths. They are afraid of not reaching adulthood, or of reaching it scarred and destroyed by society’s failure to keep them safe. Our children are all our responsibility, whether we have given birth to them or not. My mother could have asked our neighbours along the way about my welfare and took comfort in the fact that they would watch out for me. Children still deserve that sense of protection. A child is not supposed to be afraid to be kind, to be good, to go fishing, to go swimming, to be with friends. The very least they deserve are good memories. Will we give them that?

Spider from Mars

2006-11-09T07:45:00.000-08:00

If you are a Ziggy Stardust fan then click on this link. It's one of Bowie's final performances as Ziggy and one of his best. It also has a breathtaking solo by Mick Ronson. Man oh man oh man. I'd let Bowie flip me all how! ALL HOW!!!!!!!! I'd even let him use my makeup. Goddamn.

Speaking of racism...

2006-11-08T12:38:00.000-08:00

This is a political flyer that Republicans were distributing in New York leading up to the elections. Please take note of the colour of the man's hand. Then, note the colour of the woman's face. This ad is essentially preying on the stereotypes of the violent black man and the fragile, defenceless white woman. So, according to this flyer, if the Democrats win, black men are going to start kidnapping and maybe even raping white women everywhere? Hmmm.... they'd need a few centuries to catch up with the number of black women raped by white men though...

No room for racism

2006-11-08T11:29:00.000-08:00

This photo was originally posted on Triniview.com in October, as part of the Divali Nagar Caribbean night celebrations. The first person to comment on it had this to say:

"What is a n***er doing in Indian clothes?"

This promptly set off a torrent of disgust and outrage among fellow posters, along with demands for the moderator to remove the comment. The comment still stands. Now, I think as a moderator/operator of a site you need to operate with a sense of responsibility. Freedom of expression and a right to different views must be respected, but a moderator needs to send out a clear message about what the site stands for and the most important ways to do this is by the choice of site content. One of my favourite sites used to be Idon'tlikeyouinthatway but it no longer is, because the site has now become a major attraction for annonymous visitors to leave increasingly insulting racist comments.

I think Triniview should remove the comment. They should also apologise to their readers for leaving it on so long. Even if they personally have no problem with it the people that visit the site obviously do and at the end of the day, they are the ones that determine the success of the website.

But it's more than this, because if, for one minute, we follow the trend of thought that people should stick to their own thing then no members of other races should sing calypso or even play mas. Only Indians should eat roti and doubles and we'll all have to give up our blue jeans and shoes since Western wear is not "we thing".

It's all well and good to talk about "one love" and "rainbow country". But that's just talk. It's when we take a stand against nonsense like this that we actually live it.

By the way, Petronella Charles-David, you look lovely in your sari eh.

First Whitney, now Britney!

2006-11-07T14:41:00.000-08:00

Hey hey hey! It's turning out to be a great second half of the year. I mean, I never really liked Britney Spears even though I know the words for every song she has ever released (it's a freaky gift, I know). But even I cringed as I watched her go from the barely legal sexpot we all loved to hate to this. Now comes the fabulous news that she's filed for a divorce. I swear, I nearly punched the air over this one. Pathetic, yes, I agree. Divorces are never good when kids are involved but this case is defintely an exception. Needless to say she's filing for custody of the two kids she had with Federline and is not asking for spousal support (kyar, kyar, kYAR! That shit is funny!) So yeah, first Whitney came to her sense, now Britney. Next in line, JLo. And let that be a lesson to you ladies. Better to be alone than to end up with some shithound that takes you from a queen to a quack. Hottie out.

Hottie back in. I shouldn't say this. But I will anyway. Let this be a lesson for getting involved with a man who was in a relationship and had kids with someone when you met. You know, what goes around comes around and all that.

Jessica Biel is my mentor

2006-11-07T04:59:00.000-08:00

You know how long I planning a "I started the gym" post?! Is only cause Saucy did hers that I got my ass motivated enough to do it. So I started the gym last week. And I feel so good; I don't know what took me so long. I mean, I was working out at home but there's no comparison. Yes, the “cup o’ coin” weights was fun and so too the fact that I could check my email in between sets, but it can’t compare to the very sensual pleasures to be had in the gym. No, not that kind of pleasure – so doh go dey.

Let me give you an example. My gym is part of a sporting complex and the entire ground floor consists of swimming pools. The rowing machines – finally, a cardio exercise I absolutely love – are against the wall closest to the pools. So while I’m rowing I’m also smelling the water. Between that and the sounds that the machine makes while in you’re using it, it’s a very close simulation to actually being on the water. It’s fabulous.

Also, I’ve already made eye contact with a male hottie, but we’ve only been in the gym the same time twice so it’s too early to report. But I ketch him scoping out the goods a few times well and when he was on the seated row machine I went and did hamstring curls – the machine was conveniently located in front of him. I was quite satisfied when I heard the weights fly back from his hands when I bent over. Hehehehehehehe. Woman bad eh!

Oh yes. To explain the headline. I want my body to look just like Jessica Biel’s. She is HOT! If I could chip through the streets of Port of Spain with my body looking so I’d be very, very happy. Not so much the lower legs and ankles though but you get the idea. And especially the bamcee. Oh boy! When I told the instructor that I wanted to gain weight her jaw nearly dragged on the floor. “But women don’t ever want to gain weight!” she told me. When I told her I wanted to put on muscle she nearly passed out. She then proceeded to give me her own damn routine, which, I realize, is geared towards making me lose weight. At 5ft 7.5 and approximately 130 lbs I don’t think I need to be losing any weight. I’m barely in the safe BMI zone. So to ass with her routine and I’m doing my own thing. I’ve been working out long enough to know what to do anyway. Crazy ass woman. So anyway, will keep you guys posted. Wish me and the bamcee good luck!

Well yes... Airport scandal continues

2006-11-07T03:49:00.000-08:00

When looking back at the history of a country, one is able to pinpoint incidents that have permanently impacted on the country's development, changing not only the character of the country, but also of its people. In Trinidad, the 1990 coup was one. The rape and murder of Akiel Chambers was another, as was the assassination of former attorney general Selwyn Richardson. The airport scandal in a fourth. As you can see below, the saga continues…

More people facing airport scandal jail
As whistle-blowers make deals in US...

By Darren Bahaw
Courtesy the Trinidad Express
Tuesday, November 7th 2006

MORE PEOPLE, who benefited or were involved in the international criminal scheme to milk millions of dollars during the infamous Piarco Airport development project, may find themselves behind bars.

This development follows the latest in a string of plea arrangements yesterday hammered out by United States prosecutors and US defence attorneys, to convince key participants to squeal on other participants in exchange for less jail time.

Both police and state representatives travelled to Miami to seize the opportunity to interview the guilty co-conspirators in an effort to build stronger cases against several local businessmen, former government ministers and other officials currently before the local courts charged with stealing millions from the airport project.

Head of the Anti-Corruption Investigations Bureau, Assistant Commissioner of Police Wellington Virgil, and head of the Central Authority Department, David West, were present for yesterday's court proceedings and later met with US prosecutors for lengthy discussions.

Two Americans, Raul Gutierrez Jr, 55, and Eduardo Hillman-Waller, 70, considered to be among the masterminds behind the complex criminal fraud, admitted their guilt yesterday before US Judge Paul Huck, at the James Lawrence King Federal Justice Building, in downtown Miami.

Huck told both men that while he would take into account the recommendations of the US prosecutors and any assistance they would provide before their sentencing date, January 16, 2007, they could still receive higher sentences than those recommended.

They will now co-operate with four other men to testify against local businessmen Ishwar Galbaransingh and Steve Ferguson, who allegedly received million-dollar kickbacks in exchange for their political and economic influence in allegedly paving the way for the corrupt contracts to be approved.

Galbaransingh benefited from lucrative contracts during the airport construction and Ferguson, the former Maritime executive who allegedly facilitated the issuance of fake financial bonds to facilitate contractors, are wanted in the US to face similar charges.

They have filed a lawsuit in the local court challenging their extradition to the US and are also facing related fraud and corruption charges in the local courts.

Gutierrez, the president of Calmaquip Engineering Corporation, a Miami-based company which was awarded a hyper-inflated contract to supply specialty equipment-such as elevators, escalators, security systems, X-ray machines, loading bridges and public address systems -pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring between September 1996 and January 2001 to commit wire fraud and to transport money obtained by wire fraud. He also pleaded guilty, as Calmaquip's representative, to similar charges.

As a result of his plea agreement, the United States intends to discontinue all other charges against him and his company, and has recommended he be imprisoned for six and a half years.
In addition, Gutierrez will have to sell his home at Coral Gables in Florida, precious gems, jewelry, artwork and surrender funds in several banks accounts, all of which were derived as a result of his corrupt acts to help off-set a US$22.5 million (TT$138 million) judgment, owed to six American banks and the Government of Trinidad and Tobago.

He has also agreed to repay US$4 million to the Government while the American banks, some of which sent lawyers to observe yesterday's hearing, are seeking a total of US$18.5 million.
Hillman-Waller, one of the co-owner's of the now defunct Miami firm, Birk Hillman Consultants Inc, the firm that served as the main consultant for the construction of the airport project, admitted conspiring with others to commit wire fraud and transport money obtained by fraud.

US prosecutors have recommended that Hillman-Waller serve five years in jail and he has also voluntarily agreed to sell his home at Key Biscayne, Florida, to pay the Government US$2m.
Both men gave up their legal right to appeal and as a result of their felony convictions, they lose their rights to sit as juror, vote in an elections, hold public office and obtain a firearm licence.

They remain out on bail pending sentencing and US prosecutors agreed to remove the electronic monitoring device on Hillman-Waller.

Internet killed the radio star

2006-11-07T03:25:00.000-08:00

So yuh gyul trying to listen to Soca91.9 online. Talk 'bout PRESSHAH! First things first, yuh mean to say nobody eh realise "Your listening live to Soca91.9" contains at least one grammatical error and is an awkwardly constructed sentence at best? So after listening to ten minutes of advertising they played one song, Peter Ram’s Woman by my Side. Well, Peter Ram sounding more like Sita Ram, fuss de static on the site bad. Then, two DJ come on and say morning and start to talk a setta bacchanal talk about the airport scandal. So ah going and check it out. But not without a note to the female DJ – even though it’s a soca station and you’re going for a “by the people, for the people” feel, it doesn’t mean you have to be all, “WWWWAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!! OOOOOO GOOOOOOOUUUUDD!!!!!!!!! And NAAAAAHHHHHHing down the place. I mean, really. Off to check the bacchanal.

The beauty of fishnets

2006-11-06T04:53:00.000-08:00

Last week's column

I love fishnet stockings. I do, I really do. Anyone that knows me knows what an amazing statement this is. I hate stockings. Passionately. I regard them as torture devices fiendishly disguised as fashion accessories. They are the means by which society attempts to subvert women by making us uncomfortable to the point of distraction. I only have to look at a pair of stockings for them to start to fray. By the time I’ve got them on my legs have more ladders than Bhagwansingh’s hardware.

But I love fishnets. I don’t know how they do it but they manage to give legs great tone and definition, making you look like you spend all week at spin class when in fact you just end up spending your evenings turning around and never reaching the gym. They fall in that nebulous area just between skanky and whorish and never fail to grab attention. I feel sexy in fishnets – like Tina Turner in her “What’s love got to do with it?” video and they’re well ventilated to the point where you feel like you’re wearing nothing at all.

London is the land of the fishnets – you can get them in any colour, style and size. Last weekend I saw a pair of mid-calf fishnet tights with lace edging that I want to get to get. About two weeks ago I got brave and wore to work black fishnet stockings with red, patent leather, peeptoe slingback stilettos. Nobody in the office even blinked. I had a number of men sneaking glances at my feet though.

I tell friends about wearing them up here and the incredulous reaction is always, “Them skettel thing!” They wouldn’t be caught dead in them, except maybe at Carnival time, when you can safely be caught alive and inebriated in anything. But why is it that the only time of the year that women would consider wearing something as harmless as fishnets is the same time of the year men wear women’s clothes and people drink from poesies? Is the pressure to conform and fit it at home so strong that the only time you can subvert it, no matter how subtly, is when there is a consensus of blatant and total disregard?

Where am I going with this? Right here. I know if I go home in the morning and pull on my fishnet stockings and leave my house at least one friend will be ashamed to be seen in public with me, at least one more will insist I take them off because I’m looking like a jamette and at least one man will feel the need to shout at me and confirm while walking in the streets that I am, indeed, looking like a jamette.

And that’s one of the things I like about England. Not the fishnets stockings per se but what they represent. Up here, you have to come really good to produce a double take from anybody. Directors, managers, clubbers, grandmothers all wear their fishnet stockings like normal. They also colour their hair to match their outfits and wear outfits that look like they couldn’t decide among three outfits what they wanted to wear so they decided to wear all at the same time.

Body piercings are de rigueur and range from holes the size of twenty five cent pieces in earlobes to cubic zirconia beauty marks in the lower cheek. Goths parade in six inch high platform boots and matted hair while men wear cleavage revealing, form fitting blouses to go clubbing with their girlfriends. And no one cares. Coming from a society where if you wear the same party outfit more than once people talk about you having no clothes, this is supremely refreshing. I’ve had co-workers wear a shirt on Monday, wash it (I hope) and then wear it again by Thursday, Friday. Try to do that back home nah. You will never live down the shame.

In a city this big and this busy, the anonymity that can sometimes be depressing can also be a wonderful thing. It’s hard at times to walk the streets and no one knows you, to go for weeks without seeing someone you know among the crowds. But it’s also very liberating. You find yourself doing things to please yourself only, without the confines of the unspoken rules of acceptability that regulate Trinidad society and indeed, the Caribbean as a whole.

UK testing for Trinidad DNA

2006-11-02T01:44:00.000-08:00

So I read in the Newsday today about DNA evidence being sent from Trinidad to the UK for testing. This comes after an 85 year old woman was raped in her home on Monday night. It is hoped that this will assist London police who are searching for a sex attacker who operates primarily in south London and is known to prey on the elderly. The police has reason to believe that he is from the Caribbean and are enlisting the help of several Caribbean countries to help catch him.

Now, what pops into my head is this. London police ask for a DNA sample to be sent for testing and local police scamper all over themselves to provide it. Where was this enthusiam when the DNA evidence for Akiel's case was in a fridge in the police station for all those years? When offers were made to pay for the evidence to be processed the same police authority said no, that there was no legislation that allowed for overseas testing of evidence. Has a law supsequently been passed? I doubt it very much. Kudos to London police for showing that sometimes, apprehending a criminal involves more work than picking him up from the side of the road after everyone in the village has told you where he was. And as for our police, allyuh is boo.

KENO OSUNA'S DEATH

This is an interesting quote from today's Newsday regarding the death of Sugar Aloes's son, Keno Osuna. It was based on a statement from the Downtown Owners and Merchant Assocaiation (DOMA) who were moved, once again, to ask the government and the police to do something aout our escalating crime situation.

“The increase in more serious crimes is being fuelled and fed by the visibility of these lawless actions which, apart from increasing the behaviour of the already lawless, may be encouraging some who are currently law abiding to think that they can also join in without consequence,” said DOMA.

DOMA said the society has been conditioned and fooled into believing that the current spate of murders are drug and gang-related. “In truth and fact, many, many of these murders are nothing more than acts of lawlessness by individuals who have no respect for law enforcement because there has never been any consequence for their unlawful behaviour."

Children's Authority Act - AGAIN

2006-11-01T07:41:00.000-08:00

Social Development Minister Anthony Roberts has promised to get the decrepit dinosaur called the Children's Authority Act moving again. Of course, he had also promised this after the murders of Amy and Sean Luke also. Let's hope it doesn't take another death and six more years for this bill to not only be passed but enforced. Here's a link.

Our lost boys

2006-10-31T13:24:00.000-08:00

In light of today's front page, I thought I'd post the columns I wrote the last three times this happened. I can't find the one I wrote for Sean Luke, but when I do I'll post it. Please forgive me if I'm somewhat incommunicado these days. I'm sure you understand why.

WAITING FOR ANSWERS

(For Akiel Chambers)

Several years ago, I had the dubious distinction of seeing members of our police force at the scene of a crime. The crime had taken place at the house of an associate in the early hours of the morning, the time they were accustomed to occurring back then, before criminals became more emboldened and waited for their victims in the brightness of day.

Frantic calls to the police resulted in us being told that they would be there in a while, despite their being told that due to the nature of the crime there was a very good chance that the perpetrators may still be nearby noting the results of their actions. When they eventually came, they were appallingly ill prepared for the task ahead. The witness spent over half an hour getting the officer taking the report to understand what she had seen. The other officer, meanwhile, was picking up evidence with his bare hands.

Those of us who had grown up watching cop dramas looked on in horror. We knew this to be a major mistake that could ruin fingerprints and contaminate evidence. The officer accepted the offer of a pair of rubber household gloves. He didn’t even bother to put them on.

Those of us who stood watching pointed to the bushes at the end of the street that lead off to a forested area. Walking through this area lead one to the Eastern Main Road. The witness had seen the perpetrators take off into this bushy area and then stop. We suggested to the police officer that maybe both he and his partner – who had spent most of the time thus far essentially walking around the premises and talking on the phone – go into the bushes as there was a good chance that, even if the criminals weren’t there, there may be further evidence.

The officers took one look at the bushes and said no, the men were long gone and they didn’t leave anything behind. I remember looking at the policemen’s stomachs swelling grotesquely over their belts and not being surprised at their reluctance. After all, these were men who couldn’t be bothered to put on a pair of gloves.

So this latest example of investigative inefficiency in the Akiel Chambers case causes no surprise. After all, this case has been mishandled and mismanaged since Akiel’s death back in 1998. Back then the police ruled his cause of death as accidental drowning. And to this day, apparently, they persist in that view. This is despite the fact that when he first went missing , the pool was checked and his body was not there. This is also despite the fact that the autopsy revealed that he had been sexually molested just before his death and that evidence strongly suggested he had been suffocated during the act. What person, realising he is drowning, will assume a crouching position? How could a child drown in front of so many people with no one witnessing it?

Accusations of evidence tampering and contamination surprise no one, especially those of us who have had any first hand experience with the police service. What is surprising, and very, very disturbing in its implications, is the callous and brazen indifference Akiel’s family and the public at large are being treated with. Twenty months of supplementary investigation have lead the police to announce they have no “clear suspect” in a murder case they still treat as an accident. And this is despite the presence from the onset of the investigation of DNA evidence that could have revealed – at the very least – who his rapist was, if not his murderer.

The lack of accountability has created a miasma of incompetence that reeks to the heavens. One cannot help but wonder, are we supposed to believe our police force is so inefficient or is something else, something more sinister, at play. So now the excuse isn’t that there are no gloves. The excuse is that there is no legislature that allows the police to collect DNA samples from possible suspects, even though there is no law that says they cannot. Strange, this sudden desire to play strictly by the rules, when it has not been the case before, especially in this case. And suddenly, there is vacillation over accepting Charles James’ offer to fund the DNA testing in the United States, when gifts of cars to assist police in cases being investigated have not been a problem in the past.

The case I outlined earlier was never solved; it was ruled that there were no suspects. The evidence that had been improperly collected was improperly stored. The case went nowhere until all parties involved eventually moved ahead with the business of living. This cannot happen in Akiel’s case. We cannot allow the molestation of a boy to be dismissed as unimportant. We cannot allow his death to go unanswered and unpunished. To keep quiet about this enduring example of gross complacency and ineptitude is to accept it and to accept it, is to accept a degeneration and degradation of our collective social conscious.

IT'S JUST ONE MORE

(For Dane Andrews)

When I was in primary school, there was a girl in my class who had no friends. She had the tragic misfortune of being both white and poor – a terrible combination as anyone from the Caribbean knows. To be white of skin and empty of pocket seems to us to go against the very laws of nature, and as children, forever in tune to the adult world around us, we subconsciously adopted their attitudes for our own.

Her status was not just determined by the inability of her ethnicity and wealth to coincide though. She was taller than most of us – a tragedy in itself – and was the only girl in a family of boys, her mother having died when she was younger. Her father we didn’t know much about, except that he wasn’t the type to notice when school skirts needed replacing and hair needed brushing. She carried her motherlessness like a banner on her shoulder that anyone could see. She didn’t fit in with the rest of us whose hair was always slicked back and secured firmly with baubles and red ribbons. And the boys didn’t want her. So she skulked around the school yard during recess, during lunch, trying to fold her tall frame into a less conspicuous size.

She also didn’t fit in because she was being sexually molested. We all knew it, to varying degrees, even those of us who didn’t know the words or what they described. We just vaguely knew it had to do with the touching of “piggies” and “poonkies” and firmly belonged in the realm of the adult world. We knew there was something wrong with the relationship she had with her father. She had a precocious knowledge of what men and women did at night, a knowledge that, far from impressing us, disturbed us immensely and made us shun her more.

She would sit in class for hours on end rubbing herself back and forth against the edge of the bench until the teacher grew disturbed and shouted at her to stop. We were all disturbed by this monomania and by the stories another classmate who lived next to her told, stories she’d overheard from adults who spoke of the “poor child” and the “nastiness of white people”. We looked at this victim of “damn slackness” who was being “interfered with” and even though we didn’t know what it was, we knew instinctively that it was terrible.

In secondary school too there were girls who were being “interfered with”. Problem girls who drank and cursed and quiet girls who spoke only when spoken to and ate lunch silently at their desks, all of them sufferers of the same fate. Once again we picked up the attitudes of the adults around us and only rewarded with friendship those who managed to conceal. In the world of the convent that prepares you for entry into a perfect life one has to learn to pretend that one’s life is, already, perfect.

As an adult I’ve met guys, dated guys, am friends with guys who’d had broken relationships with girls who had been abused. It’s never spoken about the way it is on TV or in the movies, with the terrible hushed expectancy, the tears and unbridled horror at the revelation. The boyfriend, husband, lover doesn’t swear vengeance on their behalf. It’s sad, but it’s a commonplace sadness. There’s always someone who’s had it worse. You’re always luckier than somebody else. There are always blessings to be counted.

And looking back, my primary school self, my secondary school self and even my adult self had no idea what should have been done or even what could have been done. There were no ad campaigns, no adult spoke to us about this terrible thing that infiltrated all our lives, only in differing degrees. If it had happened to any of us, we would have had no idea what to do. The experts all say that you should tell an adult you trust but many times the adults already knew and, in subconscious consent, chose to ignore. Some were the perpetrators themselves. And in the case of Dane Andrews and Akiel Chambers, in fact, in the case of most victims of abuse, it’s someone you know and trust whom you follow willingly to your own destruction.

And now the villagers are tumbling over themselves to speak about what everybody knew about before but no one chose to speak about. And what about the children who aren’t killed and so no one ever speaks about them because they’re just one more in a world where there is always one more?

So another child has been raped and murdered. Another family cries as the child no one thought they would outlive is buried. And we all wait to see if once again, another child who has been destroyed because of ignorance and silence will go unavenged.

Crying in London

2006-10-31T07:32:00.000-08:00

Only Trinidad could break your heart like this.

Dead at 13 in sex attack
Enterprise shocked over torture of victim

Richard Charan rcharan@trinidadexpress.com
Tuesday, October 31st 2006

The bedroom of a vacant house was a torture chamber with no escape for 13-year-old Permanand Persad, who was sodomised and savaged by a man he considered his friend.
His head was split open when he was bashed against a wall by his killer, who tried to cut off his limbs.

His face was beaten in and his back and chest were chopped. His throat slit.

Yesterday, police said when Permanand's body was found, it was naked, except for a jersey wrapped around his face. Most of his teeth were missing. Police found the teeth in a cup.
An autopsy later in the day confirmed the sexual assault and that Permanand's spine was broken.

He was killed on Sunday afternoon at a house off Crown Trace, Enterprise, Chaguanas.
It was an act of kindness that took Permanand to the house. The suspect asked him to buy a box of food and Permanand took it to the house. Permanand lived three houses from the one in which he died.

It was raining while he was being tortured and killed. That is why police believe no one heard any screams.

The suspected killer did not go far.
When Permanand's body was found that evening by the homeowner, the killer was in the crowd that came to try and identify the boy, whose face was beaten until unrecognisable, investigators said.

A 28-year-old suspect, from the area, ate his mother's dinner and went to bed.
When police went for him at 9 a.m. yesterday, he jumped through a back window and ran to a garden camp where he spent his day allegedly smoking cocaine.

Police credited the village where Permanand lived for helping in the hunt that led to the arrest of the killer three hours later. The suspect was headed for the highway when held.

Permanand was a pupil of the Chaguanas Junior Secondary School. He lived with his aunt, Sita Ramroop, and uncle, Devan Maharaj.
His parents, Vimala and Ram Persad, were too poor to care for Permanand, and his sister, Tricia, 11. Maharaj said his nephew "was a favourite in the village. Everybody loved that boy. He was quiet and respectful".

Maharaj said the boy had worked cutting lawns to buy deyas to light around his home for Divali.
His body was found in a toilet and bathroom enclosure in the bedroom of the home of a woman who visited at 3.45 p.m.

She ran, thinking it was her son. The blood was everywhere.
Police said Permanand fought for his life.
His body was identified by his father who said: "I couldn't believe it, not my son. Look what drugs and addicts could do."
Permanand's mother said: "He would do anything for me. He was a good boy. I didn't even know it was him in the mortuary."

The killer changed his blood-soaked pants and joined them in identifying the body, villagers said.
Ramroop said: "He told everybody he would never kill a child, and then he went home."
Using a helicopter and tracker dogs, police searched a one square mile of abandoned cane field off Dass Trace, Egypt Trace and Endeavour Road. They were tipped off by several villagers who spotted the suspect in his garden shack.

Villagers had given the police until nightfall to catch the man. They vowed vigilante justice if he was not apprehended by then.

Sookoo Jaggan, who lives a mile from the murder scene, saw the police arrest the suspect.
He said: "The man was wearing a yellow shorts and slippers, walking cool, cool on the road, like he just come from hunting, when the police spot him."

Jaggan said the police snatched and searched the man, who was smiling.

Permanand's funeral will be held on Thursday.

Central Division homicide offices are investigating.