At the end of September, in Thank God It’s Friday, a column which has now been running for more than 35 years, BC Pires said: “Chances are Thin.” Without a wallow or a moan, but replete with dread details of his beastly struggle with cancer of the oesophagus, he revealed …
Read More »Vaneisa: Chicken salad to go—a sandwich adventure
When I was 16, I got a job as the receptionist at a small printery on Sellier Street in St Augustine. It was not my first job—I’d left school the year before and had worked briefly at two or three places since. One of the Seafood Enterprises outlets occupies that …
Read More »Early Bird: Conversations with Keith Smith, a journalist looking to make T&T and the world a better place
Keith Smith left us in early February. I know that but I still don’t remember the precise date. And one February afternoon this year, a phone call from a former colleague brought back a fond memory of him. A timely one. “Covid’s over,” she complained, “but I still cyar see …
Read More »‘I chase bad men!’ How the late Andrew Jennings changed investigative sport journalism
One of my most vivid memories of Andrew Jennings came on our second meeting, after a media conference at the Trinidad Hilton in the build-up to the 2001 Fifa Under-17 World Cup in Trinidad and Tobago. It was an elegant event, attended by then Fifa president Sepp Blatter, with every …
Read More »Beneath the surface; Baksh takes Best back in time and leaves him bleeding inside
Not unlike Shadow’s Bassman, Mystic Prowler in mih head, pleading with people to look beneath the surface. I have just read Vaneisa Baksh’s ‘Sins of the Father’ column. And not for the first time, I have told myself I’m not going to read her stuff. Not for the first time, …
Read More »MEDIA MONITOR: Trinidad Express shoots itself in the foot; sister station also hurt
POW! POW! POW! Fans of Chinese food could be forgiven for licking their lips on the morning of Tuesday 4 April. Who really could imagine, before seeing the ‘Three shot dead in Port of Spain’ drop head, that the Express’ front page headline referred not to the steamed or fried …
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