The Queen’s Park Oval in Trinidad, during the WI v South Africa test match in April 2005

Here listening to the commentary on the 2nd One-Day International between West Indies and Zimbabwe going on in Antigua, which is interrupted mid-sentence by one of those strident commercials. Said message from our sponsor concludes with the tag line:

“Wave your flag high in the sky and show that cricket is a West Indian thing!”

I find this curious. As dismal a spectacle as West Indies cricket has been over the past 11 years, are there really people out there who need to be convinced that cricket (78 years after the West Indies were granted Test status) is a West Indian thing? The image below should dispel any doubts: who else but a West Indian would haul a 19″ television set to a cricket match?

We lost that match by 8 wickets, however, so drowning one’s sorrows in “Baywatch” reruns (or whatever else it is they’re rerunning on cable these days — shows you how much TV I watch) may not have been such a bad idea.

Check out Nicholas “Nikipedia” Laughlin’s article on West Indian Literature’s online presence over at Global Voices.

Brian Lara’s third captaincy is being marketed as a brave response to the call of duty, a noble sacrifice by a hero and a gentleman. But, watching yesterday’s press conference at which the captaincy and the new team were announced, I kept thinking: Brian will be captain for a year, he’ll bow out after next year’s World Cup, and they’re giving him a last chance to see if he can actually win some more matches. If he does, he’ll be canonised as Saint Brian. If not, he’ll be remembered not just as a great batsman but as a captain who didn’t really cut it after three tries. An interesting gamble, both for Lara and for the West Indies Board.

Jeremy Taylor, at the Caribbean Beat weblog. And here’s the Trinidad Express report.

CFR is back! And what better way to celebrate my return to podcasting than by paying a visit to cut+clear productions, headquarters of 3canal, CFR’s “house band”.

This time the topic isn’t the band but rather band member Wendell Manwarren, who was in Germany a few weeks ago appearing in a soon-to-be-released television documentary which aims to “capture the vibe” in the FIFA World Cup 2006 host country ahead of the arrival of the Soca Warriors (Trinidad & Tobago’s football team) and the legions of Trini fans in June. Wendell shares with us the highlights of his whirlwind tour (seven cities in 2 1/2 weeks!) and explains why there’s now a pink rhino covered in blue devils gracing the streets of Dortmund. We also play two tracks from 3canal Vibes, the group’s 2006 album, which you can purchase online at CDBaby.

Play the podcast using this link:
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Please consider supporting us by buying a CFR t-shirt, and if you’re an Amazon.com shopper, you can also support CFR by initating your purchases by clicking on any of the Amazon.com links on the site.

We’re always tickled as well when you check out Caribbean Free Photo, our photoblog, or put yourself on our Frappr map.

And while you’re at it, now would also be a great time to purchase one of these Limited Edition Commemorative World Cup Warriors t-shirts from 3canal’s 3line t-shirt collection:

And get the latest Soca Warriors news and analysis at the Soca Warriors Forum and the Trinidad & Tobago World Cup Blog.

Not a day for good news at CFR.

Over at Global Voices, I’ve just posted a roundup of the blogosphere’s response to the brutal murder of Guyana’s Minister of Agriculture.

Not good, not good at all.

Was just talking on the phone with Jonathan Ali, who gave me the news that Trinidad & Tobago’s Leader of the Opposition, Basdeo Panday, has been found guilty. The Trinidad Express’s web site posted a newsflash just after noon, our time (GMT -4):

The verdict is in! The Court has ruled that Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday has to pay 1.5 million TT Dollars to the state and serve 2 years hard labour in jail for deliberately failing to disclose a London bank account.

The French-language blog InternetRapide (which has been keeping an eye, lately, on Digicel’s imminent purchase of Bouygues Télécom Caraïbe) drew my attention to this striking television commercial for the Guadeloupe and Martinique banana industry which has apparently been running on French television.

It’s a slick piece of PR that makes use of the images of four French West Indian sporting stars (footballer Nicolas Anelka, Olympic fencer Laura Flessel, tennis player Gaël Monfils and and runner Christine Arron), followed by two pages of text (in French, of course). The first says: “Why do Guadeloupe and Martinique give us so many great champions?” And the second: “The Banana of Guadeloupe and Martinique: Nothing can beat it,” the word “beat” here clearly referring both to the superiority of the fruit and the persistent struggle that keeping the Caribbean banana industry afloat has become. Nice piece of work.

An uncharitable relative suggested recently that the lengthy and very flattering comment left on CFR’s iTunes page by one BePaul may have been written by yours truly.

For the record, I am not BePaul. And let me take this opportunity to thank BePaul for this kind and generous comment.

Bird Power: As though yesterday’s bush fire, followed by a night spent inhaling smoke from the smouldering embers on the mountainside opposite my house, were not sufficient provocation, this morning around 6:45am, the electricity goes. Its departure was heralded, as usual, by a loud pop like the sound of a firecracker, which indicated that a transformer had blown yet again.

The electricity company took their regular cool two hours to get here, but one of the technicians informed us this morning that blown transformers are now a thing of the past. Seems that the reason the transformers have been blowing so frequently is that birds alighting on the power lines have been causing the wires to rub together and short out. And when I say birds, I mean not things the size of harpy eagles, but tiny keskidees (pictured) and the like, weighing perhaps two or three ounces (hence the reason we often see dead specimens lying around the neighbourhood). Mr. Technician said they’ve finally put sleeves on the lines to prevent them from touching. I find it truly shocking (pun intended) that it’s taken them so long to figure this out.

Beaten by Beat: The folks over at the Caribbean Beat Weblog, which lists me as a contributor, have been putting me to shame lately. A whopping four new posts yesterday from JT and Nicholas. I do have an official excuse, however: I’m on strike until they switch over to WordPress.

My Alaskan TREC: Had the loveliest experience this past Tuesday, sitting in on a “webinar” run by the Arctic Consortium of the United States (ARCUS) involving a group of US science teachers who will be participating in ARCUS’s Teachers & Researchers Exploring & Collaborating (TREC) programme.

TREC partcipants join Arctic research teams as working members, travelling to places like the Tundra, Greenland and Antartica. Participants document their experiences on a web-based Virtual Base Camp. There’s a link on the TREC home page to a video explaining what TREC is all about, but what I want to know is: where’s the TREC of the Caribbean? When are Caribbean teachers going to start accompanying researchers into, say, the depths of Guyana, to study the area’s unique natural history? When?

It’s not quite a podcast, but here’s an audio clip with sounds of the bush fire which is raging as I write on the mountain which sits behind my street — plus a few words from yours truly. The dry season has truly arrived.

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‘Tis the season, it would appear, for Caribbean film festivals.

The 2006 Bridgetown Film Festival in Barbados kicks off on May 6 and promises films from “Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, St. Lucia and Barbados”.

Work commitments prevent me from making my annual jaunt to St. Barts for the St. Barth Film Festival next week, but here’s what’s on the menu:

The St. Barth Festival of Caribbean Cinema (Cinéma Caraïbe) celebrates its 11th season April 25-30, 2005 on the island of St. Barthélemy in the French West Indies. This eleventh edition of the festival once again offers the population of St. Barthélemy the chance to discover films and filmmakers of the Caribbean basin, as well as thought-provoking international films. Festival guests include filmmakers, producers and cinematographers, and scholars, as well as cinema professionals from around the world who have a strong interest in Caribbean film and culture.

Sunday, April 30:
La Noiraude, by Fabienne and Véronique Kanor (Martinique) 10 min, DVD, presented by the directors
15 Lanné Mizik DVD by Janluk Stanislas, Guadeloupe, 2006, presented by the director
Santo Domingo Blues / Los Tígueres de la Bachata by Alex Wolfe, USA, 75min DV, presented by the director (Spanish with French subtitles)

(more…)

“This has “caption contest” written all over it…” was the comment left on Flickr by the wily Sanjiva, who has developed quite a knack of making me do things I’d normally never think of doing.

So if you’re so inclined, please leave suggestions for witty captions in the comments section, bearing in mind that this is not actually a contest (ie no prizes will be offered!).

FYI, the people in the photo are (L to R) West Indies star batsman Brian Lara, McCann Erickson Senior Art Director Leizelle Ramsoondar, Trinidad & Tobago/Falkirk FC footballer Russell Latapy, and my brother C*POP. The edge of Trinidad & Tobago/Sydney FC footballer (and captain of Trinidad & Tobago’s World Cup team) Dwight Yorke’s white cap is visble to the right of Leizelle’s face. The photo was taken during our recent commercial shoot in Manchester.

Last Wednesday the nameless police officer that I met warned me to “follow legal channels” to solve the problem. I don’t know where my current actions have overstepped the rights granted me by law. The materials I’ve delivered to each bureau have disappeared like stones into the sea. The receptionists of corresponding work units shift responsibility onto one another. As an ordinary Chinese person, it is depressing. Although the provisions of relevant laws and regulations set the rights of suspects, when you actually do things according to law you discover that you are facing a black hole. . . .

This is Hao Wu’s sister, Nina, writing on April 13th about her renewed efforts to get information from the police about her brother’s incarceration. Hao Wu, as regular readers of this blog may know, is a Chinese documentary filmmaker and was my fellow editor at Global Voices up until February 22, when he was detained by the police without explanation (details here). Nina has been very bravely chronicling her feelings and experiences on her blog, and translations of her entries are being posted regularly at the Free Hao Wu site.

There is now also a petition which I encourage you to sign, and a letter-writing campaign has been launched.

I know that for many of us, especially here in the tiny nations of the Caribbean, the notion of agitating on behalf of a stranger in distant China when we have ample troubles of our own may feel a little strange. But Nina’s heart-wrenching blog entries often make me wonder what it would be like if my own brother or any other family member or friend were to be detained by the police without explanation for two months.

“Free Hao Wu” badges are available here.

The title says it all: I just posted an article at Global Voices rounding up the Easter weekend-related chit-chat in the Caribbean blogosphere. As usual, this exercise taught me several new things about my home region. Did any of you know, for example, that Vincentian snakes have feet?

Good Friday Kite flying in the Queen’s Park Savannah, Trinidad

A popular pastime in the Caribbean during the breezy dry season months is kite flying, and several territories hold kite flying festivals over the Easter Weekend. One of the most most famous of these takes place in Georgetown, Guyana, where hundreds gather along the Sea Wall on Easter Monday to fly their creations, many of them quite spectacular, unlike the plastic, “made in China” number I purchased from one one of the vendors on the highway the other day, and which Nikipedia, Jonathan and I took out for a spin today in the Queen’s Park Savannah after our failed attempt at finding a Good Friday bobolee (an effigy of Judas Iscariot which is traditionally hung in a public place and beaten on Good Friday).

For a TT$20 (US$3) kite I suppose mine didn’t fly too badly, but next to a whirring Mad Bull and a couple of home made chicki chongs it looked downright unimpressive, and then Nikipedia let the kite string spool off recklessly only to discover the string wasn’t tied to the spool itself. So my kite is now perched among the top branches of one of the poui trees along the western edge of the Savannah. Nikipedia suggested we find “an urchin” to climb the tree and get it back, but we reminded him that what might have been appropriate language in a Dickens novel didn’t necessarily wash in Trinidad and Tobago in 2006.

Finally we gave up on trying to retrieve the kite and bought ourselves sno-cones and coconut water and strolled around the Savannah a bit more, coming across what appeared to be a religious group singing a hymn to the accompaniment of tambourines, which inspired Nikipedia to tell a couple of Benny Hinn jokes. Then we made our way up to Jonathan’s, where we opened a bottle of Malbec and watched the sun set over Port of Spain while composing a version of “The Teddy Bear’s Picnic” substituting the word “bobolee” for “teddy bear”. The chorus went like this:

Picnic time for bobolees
The little bobolees are having a lovely time today
Watch them beat the effigies
Of *Mr. Manning and **Mr. Panday. . . .

A memorable Good Friday, I’d have to say.

* Prime Minister of Trinidad & Tobago
** Leader of the Opposition

Here at Lee Studios, all set up, awaiting the talent. . . .

Those of you who check in regularly on my Flickr page know that I’ve been in Manchester since Saturday. We’re here to shoot some commercials with Brian Lara, Dwight Yorke and Russell Latapy, and in case you’re wondering why we had to come here to do them, it’s because Dwight is currently training with Manchester United in preparation for captaining Trinidad & Tobago at the World Cup in June.

Manchester could be warmer (they’re predicting a low today of -2°C) and drier (we even had a short hailstorm yesterday), but it’s not like we thought we were coming here to work on our tans. We’re shooting all day tomorrow, thankfully most of it indoors. In the meantime we’ll be making an effort to see a bit of this city and I myself will be trying to get the lyrics of that song from “Hair” out of my head.

When two Carnival revelers were slain in February in Trinidad and Tobago, one suspect gave himself up to escape the bereaved families’ threats of deadly vengeance.

Does anybody remember any Carnival revelers being killed this season? Where is the LA Times getting their information? The same article goes on to quote a US security expert who says that, “No one in his right mind goes to Kingston.”

Anyone care to comment?

The Fall of Icarus, Pieter Breughel

I’m sure it’s hardly news to anyone that not all Trinidadians are wonderful people. This past week, for instance, we saw that even very young Trinidadians are capable of monstrous acts. Some Trinidadians are even capable of siring children who grow up to be guerillas, then dictators responsible for harming many and plunging their country into civil war, who then scurry off to neighbouring countries to escape indictment. Once such Trinidadian is Charles Frederick Taylor, father of Charles Taylor, the former President of Liberia, who last week was extradited to Sierra Leone to stand trial for war crimes.

Charles Frederick Taylor was born in Point Fortin, Trinidad, and, according to this entertaining bio by Kim Johnson, was quite a piece of work, a stern romantic who had a chequered career in Trinidad before deciding to abandon his family and head for Liberia. There are those who doubt the accuracy of the Taylor story, but I don’t see why not. The realities of Caribbean life and migration being what they are, Caribbean people get around. And — though perhaps the citizens of every small country feel this way — Trinidadians have the knack of turning up in the unlikeliest places. At the Oklahoma city bombing. At a party on the luxury vessel which sank on the Thames in 1989 (I’d be willing to bet as well that the Trini was not even officially invited to this event, gate-crashing being another Trinidadian talent). On the same flight as “sneaker bomber” Richard Reid in 2001, and then being recruited to help subdue Reid.

In the Where’s Waldo illustration that is all of our lives, there’s often a Trini in a corner of the frame, waving a little red white and black flag, semi-noticed, like Icarus in Breughel’s famous painting. I’m certain Charles Taylor wishes today that he were an Icarus kind of Trinidadian, as sort of described by Auden:

. . . how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on

Read what the blogosphere had to say about Charles Taylor over at Global Voices.