Earl Best

Five months, four weeks, three days, two hours, one minute, one second, two ticks and one tock. As I begin to write, that’s how long it has been since the last note sounded on Carnival 2017. And at the NCC, Kenny De Silva is still chairmanning. Now let me say …

Seriously? Did you seriously expect some died-in-the-balisier PNMite to say (s)he disapproves of Prime Minister Keith Rowley’s decision to appoint a “sole investigator” for the ferry fiasco? Hahahahahahahahaha! You doh understand nutten about the culture of T&T—which is not, as the Mighty Power claimed years ago, just calypso and steelband. …

You pick up your Thursday Express and begin reading, as so many do, from the back. There’s a bold two-word headline reflecting the presumed attitude of the West Indies cricketers who just lost the First Test in England to two men. And below it, seven more words. With an error. …

And underneath is written, In letters all of gold, How valiantly he kept the bridge In the brave days of old. Take a bow, Mark Bassant. The brazen attempt by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley to bramble the population into thinking that the bungling government is taking serious action on …

TGIF. Tim Gopeesingh is farse. And outta place! He was on the radio the other day. And Rudy Indarsingh. And Roodal Moonilal. And Gerald Ramdeen. And Devant Maharaj. And, probably Wade Mark and Rodney Charles. And, of course, Kamla Persad-Bissessar. I have a queasy stomach so I have no idea …

“You’re going to love me,” she sang, raw emotion inhabiting but not inhibiting her voice. And the crowd roared. “She” is Arielle Cowie, the passionate young singer who performed with Renegades at last month’s International Steelband Foundation’s BIG 5 concert. And she was right; I loved her. As did, as …

The end is beginning. Lest you think that I should make myself a proper doomsday THE END IS NIGH placard and go and stand under Cipriani Statue so that my friends can laugh me out of town, let me say that I refer not to the end of the world …

It is Thursday evening on TV6; Shonda Rhimes, Viola Davis and Peter Nowal are getting away with murder. So too is Desha Rambhajan. The 7pm news anchor, easy on the ear and on the air, announces to her listenership that a Sangre Grande man has been charged with six offences, …

The Guardian’s Jensen La Vende tried very hard to take the emotion out of his lead story in Wednesday’s paper and make it an inoffensive, completely objective news report that wouldn’t mash nobody corn. And the Express’ Michelle Loubon tried no less hard to avoid using the obvious word. But it was …

The Guardian’s recent firing of controversial columnist Kelvin Baldeosingh after the publication of a column under his by-line which the Guardian has not, it seems, removed from its online site raises an issue that I think needs urgent ventilation. Some say that it’s really very straightforward; four other columnists have …

“You know how many programmes I could buy for $100,000?” The speaker is the programme director at a local television channel. He is responding—with a straight face, I am told—to a suggestion by a group of excited young men smitten with the television bug and naïve—or rash—enough to think that …

I want to begin with a confession: I voted for the PNM in 2015 and would probably, all things being equal, do so again if an election were called tomorrow. But I am NOT “a PNM.” Nor am I anti-PNM. I think of myself as a patriot. I am, however, …