Calypso has given us a handful of unforgettable female figures. There is, for example, Kitchener’s Flag Woman and Scrunter’s Woman on the Base, there is David Rudder’s Bahia Girl and Sparrow’s Winer Girl from Princes Town. Not one of those four has a name. But the women I want to …
Read More »Race and kaiso in the classroom: Kitchener’s ditty on little Black boys
Only a complete ignoramus! Or the kind of blindness that will not see! Tell me, how could even one person in Trinidad and Tobago actually entertain the thought that Aldwyn “Kitchener” Roberts might have been capable of such an abomination? Oh, what a country! In the days when Guy Harewood …
Read More »From Sparrow to Cro Cro to Machel: Best chronicles calypso controversies through the years
Emceeing the Revue Calypso Tent’s show in 1972, night after night, the Mighty Stalin introduced Kelvin Pope in the same way: “So, ladies and gentlemen, here without further ado is that four-king four-cup four car Duke.” Famously, of course, over the four years immediately preceding ’72, the Mighty Duke had …
Read More »Best: Foolish One Syndrome, feeling you’re right, fearing to find out you’re wrong
The urbane, measured, eloquent George Davis hosts SportsMax’s Tokyo Breakfast segment of CNC3’s Olympic coverage. On Friday, Davis would have blanched when the discussion turned to the Women’s 400m final and invited co-host Pauline Davis remarked that the winner, Shaunae Miller-Uibo, had ‘literally killed them’. (my emphasis). Andre Baptiste, the …
Read More »Media Monitor: Lee’s mysterious hyphen, (h)executed exams and Thompson’s new Herah
In a thought-provoking but amusing piece you can find on the Internet, Christopher Howse complains about the pronunciation ‘haitch for aitch’. “There must be a confused idea that since the letter h- is aspirated, its name should be too,” he continues. “It’s a kind of genteelism, like saying ‘Between you …
Read More »Best: QRC’s sporting troops pay tribute to Gervase Hannays, a fallen soldier
It was in primary school that we were introduced to Charles Wolfe’s ‘The Burial of Sir John Moore’. Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note/As his corpse to the rampart we hurried./Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot/O’er the grave where our hero we buried. Those lines came …
Read More »Media Monitor: Minister’s mistakes and a mess of missed opportunities
CCN’s Anthony Wilson missed an opportunity to cover himself in media glory on Saturday. Responding to a question from the Express Business editor, Prime Minister Dr Keith Christopher Rowley asked rhetorically: “Yuh want somebody to blame? Blame me.” People knowledgeable about boxing might call that leading with your chin. But …
Read More »Best: Dr Rowley, UNC, Jackass and Demming; who against the Oxford comma?
‘My prime minister,’ writes Wired868 columnist Dennise Demming, ‘is talking to me about not jackassing the thing.’ I couldn’t disagree more. Now I am not suggesting that Dr Keith Rowley’s choice of language has always been appropriate. In the instant case, however, Demming is barking up the wrong tree. Dr …
Read More »Media Monitor: Holding forth forever; will WASA main leak Badree please shut up!
“In the air… and out!” That’s Richie Benaud, the Voice of Cricket, describing a dismissal. Yeah, describing. Five words. More than enough. He is, you see, on television. The name Jimmy Magee probably does not ring too many bells. But he outdid Benaud. That came during Diego Maradona’s magical half-the-field-run-and-score …
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: Pros too have off days; a yes-we-Khan turn-on for Mr Live Wire?
The Frequently Found Foreign Names list is a problem for voice and vision journalists in T&T. In one of these columns last month, I tried to shine a light on its importance. Not so long ago, Wired868 editor Lasana Liburd was part of a seminar discussing challenges for the media …
Read More »Media Monitor: Where have all the scholars gone? Should the Fourth Estate know the answer?
Two things happened this week to set me off on the path on which I am about to embark. The first, not in chronological order, was the passing of the Coalition Advocating for Inclusion of Sexual Orientation (Caiso) head Colin Robinson, which occurred in the US on Thursday morning. Colin …
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