GP: I’ll start with the question you’re least likely to answer. Who are you?

PM: I’m Patrick Manning, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago.

GP: OK. Let’s try it from a different angle. Are you a journalist? A columnist?

PM: I am Manning.

GP: Some people think you’re a member of the COP.

PM: Ha ha! That’s probably because I joined the “I’m voting COP” group on Facebook. I did that for kicks. I might vote COP for kicks too.

GP: OK, so let’s pretend you’re really Manning. I think one of the reasons people have trouble believing it’s really you is that what you write is sometimes quite funny and occasionally insightful, and you’re not known for having either a sense of humour or great insight.

PM: Hmmm. Well, maybe it’s just that my private persona happens to be more interesting than my public one. But I have to say I am surprised and, frankly, sort of appalled to hear that people find what I write funny, as those are my deepest and most intimate thoughts. Except for the parts about Portia Simpson: I’ll admit I find those rather hilarious.

GP: Why did you decide to start blogging?

PM: If you read the very first entry you’ll see that the whole thing was Minister Sahadeo’s idea. She felt a blog would make me appear more human.

GP: Do you believe it’s achieved that?

PM: I’m not sure. As you say, many people don’t believe it’s really me writing, so I’m not sure I’m getting the full benefit of the added humanity.

GP: Do you plan to mention the blog during the campaign season?

PM: That’s something we’re discussing at the moment. Many PNM supporters have no idea what a blog is. Some of them don’t even know what the Internet is. Some members of the party believe it could backfire on us and come off as elitist.

GP: Speaking of elitist, why don’t you write in dialect?

PM: Because my inner voice speaks a stilted variety of standard English.

GP: Hazel writes in dialect.

PM: Yes. Good for her. She does that to try and sound like she’s one of the people. I have no such pretensions.

GP: Do you write the Hazel entries?

PM: No, Hazel writes those.

GP: If you are actually Manning, then is it possible that the Dookeran and Panday who leave comments are actually Dookeran and Panday?

PM: It’s hard to tell. All I know is that they’re using up my bandwidth. They need to get their own blogs.

GP: Why do you think that, in this copycat nation of ours, we haven’t seen the appearance of secret blogs from the likes of Panday and Dookeran and Meighoo?

PM: That is a good question. But as I wrote in one of my latest entries, blogging is not easy. First of all, you need to have interesting thoughts, which these fellas do not have. Could you imagine a Meighoo blog? It would put the tranquiliser manufacturers out of business! Blogging also requires a certain level of commitment and character; you need to be prepared to go the full mile. If I were a voter, I’d take the fact that those fellas aren’t keeping secret blogs as a sign of their lack of political stamina and vote for the PNM.

I wouldn’t mind reading a Kamla blog, though–that woman looks like she has some real cocoa in the sun. And too bad Oma Panday probably can’t string a sentence together. I could see her becoming the Jackie Collins of blogging.

GP: While none of the other political leaders is keeping a blog, the COP does have a very strong presence on Facebook.

PM: I’m on Facebook too. I have 52 friends, and they’re all genuine. I hear Dookeran is paying people to friend him on Facebook.

GP: Is it true that one of your Facebook friends threatened to out you?

PM: Can you believe that???

GP: He/she didn’t believe it was really you?

PM: She told me she wouldn’t stand for anybody impersonating me, and that she would report me to the Facebook high command if I refused to tell her whether I was really me. Imagine being accused of impersonating yourself and being told you have to prove that you’re not.

GP: Will you continue to blog after elections take place on – what was the date again?

PM: Ha ha! You think you are smart. As to whether I’ll continue blogging, that depends.

GP: On whether you win?

PM: That’s not even funny.

GP: Do you feel the blog would be less meaningful or interesting if people knew your true identity?

PM: I told you, I am Manning. But if you Trinis want to believe I’m somebody else, that’s fine with me too.

Blogger Shivonne du Barry, expressing some healthy skepticism about the “alternative spins” on Trinidad and Tobago politics being provided by blogs and social networking sites. And now it’s my turn to play devil’s advocate, and a highly optimistic one at that!

Juxtapose the 12% internet penetration rate and Danah Boyd’s infamous findings about Facebook and class (assuming they apply to Trinidad and Tobago) and you conclude that Shivonne’s concerns are well taken, as of course they are – they’re the concerns perennially expressed in discussions about the role/value of the the internet in “developing” societies. But they also assume that, in the absence of Facebook and its equivalents, the political dialogue/activity taking place among this select group would have taken a different (and possibly superior) form (as well it might). Or taken place at all.

They also assume (more than likely correctly) that there’s not some innovative parallel activity taking place “on the other side of the digital divide” using cell phones and SMS. They also assume that all online political activity will necessarily be partisan. Might we not see some serious citizen reporting this upcoming election season? Might some ordinary person not happen to capture some priceless image or bit of footage on a cell phone camera that the jaded media practitioners have missed?

The Manning blog: The Prime Minister of Trinidad & Tobago is blogging! Would love to know who’s behind this, but on the other hand, maybe I wouldn’t — knowing who it is might just spoil the fun. Hazel “Breakfusses” Manning chimes in from time to time.

Barbados apartment tragedy: Barbados Free Press posted three lengthy reports (one, two, three) on the collapse of an apartment containing five people into a cave in Brittons Hill, Barbados. According to BFP’s last post, it is “highly unlikely there are survivors”. The latest post had attracted 79 comments when I last checked. Barbados Underground and Pull! Push filed reports as well. YouTube user izellajaouda has posted a video of an eyewitness’s account of the collapse recorded from the local television news, and another video from the Voice of Barbados radio station shows a car being rescued from the site.

Meanwhile, over at Antilles. . . : Maybe I should have called this the “Nikipedia’s roundups edition” instead. Over at Antilles, the tireless young scribe has posted a roundup of the latest coverage on the Calabash Literary Festival, along with my contribution to his “bedside books” series, prefaced by the following barb: “Georgia Popplewell of Caribbean Free Radio hasn’t written for the CRB in ages, but perhaps her contributing this list–of books she’s taken on her nearly-three-week sojourn in Tobago–is a sign that she’ll soon reappear in our pages.”

We’ll see about that.

He looks like a man, but I suspect he’s really a machine (he claims the objects he carries around in that small bag are insulin and a glucose meter; but has anyone really checked?) Only a machine could live-blog the way Ethan Zuckerman does.

This week he’s been live-blogging the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference, each day of which is packed with numerous talks by “thought leaders” presenting ideas designed to shift paradigms and blow minds. If I’m not mistaken, Ethan has blogged all the sessions.

In order to keep up with him, I’ve had to give him his own little section on my Google personal page.