Tag Archives: society

In 1958, the author, John Steinbeck, wrote an essay describing San Francisco as a city with “a golden handcuff with the key thrown away”. The article was a rhapsody about life in that city. On the other hand, we watch our nation slide into a putrid abyss—never leaving but badmouthing …

As a young boy, I learnt that Buckley’s cough syrup was the cure when your cold turned into a cough that wracked your chest. It tasted awful, but it worked! The makers were making a product that cleared up your congestion and colds. They were not interested in creating a …

Straight out of the gates, on 2 January 2023, the news hit like a bucket of cold water. As though we did not know enough about the new year’s challenges, Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF managing director, predicted: “[…] 2023 will be ‘tougher’ than last year… We expect one-third of the …

The news was blunt but not unexpected. The lead sentences (Express, 9 December 2021) calmly reported, ‘Shadie Dassrath was beaten to death in an apartment in La Romaine last Friday morning. An autopsy done on the body of the 31-year woman found she died of blunt force trauma and sustained …

Covid-19 brought an exhausting string of events. First, we had to wash our hands, and then we had to wear masks, social distance from all, then lockdown.  To be vaccinated or not. Fear populated our every moment as we realised how little control we had over our lives. The feeling …

“[…] I’m not ‘ponging’ our copying culture, so much as accepting it and asking a logical question. If we’ve copied America so much, why not copy something that could do us some good as well?  “The American Thanksgiving holiday is the best public holiday on their national calendars because it …

“Opening the door doesn’t really change the nature of the room.” The statement made me reach for a pen so I could jot it down. I was listening via Zoom on 8 February to an online lecture given for the St Bride Library in the UK by a young Trinidadian, …

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, …

‘Poor children are victims of circumstance/ In life they never really get a chance/Or have opportunities as privileged children do/ The road from the poor suburb to prison leads them/ From broken homes they are condemned to fail/ Their abusive and drug-addicted parents serving time in jail/ Their parents too …

A friend of mine based in the USA mailed his first novel to me on 15 September 2020—more than four months ago. There has been no sign of it; no indication from TTPost that there is a package for me to collect. Nothing. Many citizens receive statements and bills from …

It was just after midnight, Old Year’s night, when fireworks pierced the roof and ceiling of my niece’s bedroom, landing on the bed where she slept. Fortunately, her baby son was not lying next to her as the noise and smouldering embers on her sheet woke her up, and no …

The now concluded Christmas/New Year period annually engenders widespread feelings of goodwill and hope for better things. This seasonal feeling is reflected in the greeting ‘all the best’ as we reconnect with family and friends with whom we may not have interacted as regularly or kindly as we should. This …