The T&T Guardian’s own Arts and Entertainment editor Peter Ray Blood has been awarded the 2015 Sunshine Lifetime Achievement Award. T&T Guardian columnist, BC Pires, speaks to him about his life, work and the award.

Where in Trinidad are you from?

I am a product of Laventille, the Old St Joseph Road. I live on the border of Donkey City, now Wrightson Road. My extended family—the Bloods of Mayaro and Goddards of Barbados—is enormous. One uncle had over 30 acknowledged children. I am twice divorced, have eight children, aged 21 to 41, and 11 grands, aged one to 18.

Were you raised in a faith?

Anglican. At age 11, my ambition was to be a priest. I believe in God and that all humans are connected, regardless of religious indoctrination. I am not a staunch churchgoer but do occasionally attend ceremonies at Orisha shrines.

You worked in computers first?

I retired at a young age as a computer operator/programmer and became a journalist in 1982, at the Express for 13 years and at the Guardian for 22. I have written for regional newspapers and have done TV and radio. As a professional journalist, I have never attended a political rally. I have family in all political parties, two being past PNM AGs, one an NAR and another a UNC cabinet minister.

How did you get into the papers and do you regret leaving computers?

[Former Express publisher & CEO] Ken Gordon gave me my first break but many elders still alive moulded my career, including Owen Baptiste, Mr Brunton, Lennox Grant, Sunity Maraj, Andy Johnson, Nylah Ali, Pat Ganase and Suzanne Lopez. I would not have skipped my computer training [from which] I learned discipline, punctuality and meeting deadlines.

Arts & culture was your only beat?

I have always written on entertainment and thoroughly enjoyed it. If you love what you do, then you are not working. I haven't worked a day in my life for 35 years. And I get paid for it. My column, “Bloodline”, was born over 30 years ago in the Express and became “Pulse” in the Guardian 20 years ago. My job has taken me to Italy, the USA, Canada, South America and across the Caribbean. Of all the places I have travelled to, my favourite city is Toronto, Canada, in the autumn. I love Rome, Italy, too, for its antiquity, especially the Colisseum, where so many Christians were slaughtered so many centuries ago. The spot in the centre where the blood drained still gets damp at nights.

How do you feel about the Sunshine award?

I am grateful for it as [my] being appreciated by experts and luminaries in arts and entertainment, and am especially grateful to be in the company of such eminent recipients [as] Prof Gordon Rohlehr, Winsford “Joker” Devine, pan icon Rudy “Two Leff” Smith, my former QRC mate Leon “Smooth” Edwards, and my cousins Rawle Gibbons and Pelham Goddard. 

I have lost some special friends, each having had a profound impact on my journalism career, like Keith Smith, Terry Joseph, Raoul Pantin, Kitty Hannays, Undine Guisseppi, and Zen Jarrette. Had they been alive, Keith would have said, “I discovered him.” Terry would have said, “Let's go and have a beverage to celebrate.” Zen would have just smothered me in hugs and kisses.

Do you have an entertainment highpoint of the last 30 years?

Queen's Park Savannah in 1981, to see calypsonians Blue Boy, Nelson, Chalkdust and Explainer upstage Kool & the Gang. After the calypsonians sang, nobody wanted to hear the American superstars. We were really a nationalistic people back then; not like today when Jamaican dancehall and foreign BS rule the airwaves.

Have you read Raymond Ramcharitar’s historically-grounded dismissal of Canboulay, the supposed foundation of Carnival, as criminality?

I have done cursory reading of Ramcharitar's writings on the Canboulay riots and can't adjudicate on them. What I do believe is, when the riots occurred in 1881, the embers of slavery, which ended a mere 43 years before, were still aglow; so there would have been resentment, mistrust and confrontation between former slaves and colonial masters, inclusive of the French Catholic planters who would have come to Trinidad from the French Antilles. I believe our Carnival has roots from both the French and from West Africa.

A great job negatively affected your personal life?

Indirectly, my matrimonial demises were partially job-related, especially the first marriage, when I devoted most of my waking hours to the job. Nothing is the same after divorce. I have maintained a priceless relationship with most of my children and love each equally, including the estranged ones. Now, seeing (with pride and joy) my first grandchild attend university reinforces just how old I am.

Do you worry about dying?

At my age, I truthfully do not worry about actually dying, but more about having to suffer as I exit. I have a deep phobia of flying, so every flight is a living nightmare. One of my fears is the aircraft crashing and my body never being found to give my loved ones closure.

Which five LPs/CDs does Pulse take to a desert island?

It is difficult to pick five; I would require a crate. 

Believe it or not, as a child, my love was rock music. I was really into acts like Grateful Dead, Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, Strawberry Alarm Clock, The Who, Grand Funk Railroad, Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker, Buddy Miles, Blood Sweat & Tears and Janis Joplin. 

I still get goose pimples when I listen Hendrix’s version of the American anthem from Woodstock. 

But, if I had to, I’d choose: Santana—Santana (1969): Swamp Dogg—Total Destruction to Your Mind (1970), Rat On (1971) and Cuff, Collared & Tagged (1972); Mighty Sparrow—Hotter Than Ever LP (1972); Steel Pulse—Earth Crisis LP (1984); David Rudder—1990 CD (1990). And any Bob Marley album, if not all. One more thing, I’d squeeze in a Robbie Greenidge pan CD.

Laziness was a disease worse than the ten plagues of Egypt to my parents.

Their work ethic was formidable, and legendary, though they themselves put little value on their capacity for long hours and self-sacrifice. The sweat of their brows was almost a godly anointing for them.

I am grateful that they taught me to respect the value of an honest day’s work, which still makes up for my lack of special talent in any particular area. Until somebody makes “Stylista Opinionista” a category at the Olympics, I will continue to convince people I am worth my pay packet because I always show up, do my best, and I know how to stick to a deadline.

I was reminded of the virtue of sweat by the recent death of a stranger.

Victor Joseph, who owned Victor Joseph Variety Store, on Queen Street, Arima, led a life of unrelenting hard work. “I would never retire,” he once declared. 

I could kick myself. All the times I drove past Victor Joseph Street in Malabar, I never realised he was the father of a schoolmate I had lost touch with.

He died of cancer, within weeks of the diagnosis, and a few months short of his 90th birthday. As a boy growing up in Maturita, sometimes all he had to put in his belly was “sugar water” and whatever he could pull out of the earth in the backyard.  He attended Arima Boys’ Government and didn’t have the opportunity to further his schooling (take note all of you who are getting free this and free that and skylarking at the back of the class) but he became a carpenter and mason and Mr Do-It-Yourself. He would build from scratch his own equipment—ovens, fans, his shower enclosure, food warmers.

He delighted in designing, building and welding, even if the results were not always pretty. His daughter, my old friend, Jennifer, still has a bookcase which he built for her when she was a student. It’s lodged right behind her desk at work, as sturdy as ever. 

Victor Joseph started off selling haberdashery with two suitcases and a  bicycle. People used to call him “Black Syrian.” He eventually bought a van which allowed him to venture into more remote areas such as Biche and Matelot. 

He picked apples in the United States and put the money in savings rather than foreign bling. He bought a small property on Farfan Street where he opened Victor Joseph’s Variety Store and later he owned more properties on Queen Street and Broadway, Arima.

Victor Joseph is what they call “gens d’Arime,” which, in effect, means he is a true-true Arimian. That is a big thing in the East, and fewer and fewer of the old heritage families survive today.

Amateur historian Valerie Laurent Thomas, whose family has been planted in Arima since the 19th century, gave me the story of Victor Joseph, for a bunch of good reasons, including: to honour the history of Arima which is told through the history of such remarkable people; his life debunks stereotypes of who can do business and who cannot; his example replenishes faith in good old-fashioned values such as industriousness, determination, and respectfulness.

You would never know Victor Joseph was a well-to-do businessman. A pair of slippers, some old-fashioned shirts that had missing buttons (although he owned a store full of buttons) and pants rolled up at the ankles were his choice of working garb. 

In his wardrobe you will still find gifts of new clothing which he never bothered with. Shoes were reserved for going out, and on one occasion as he put on a pair and stepped out the door, the sole came apart, having dry-rotted from lack of use.

Success has many faces. Victor Joseph wore his quietly, humbly, delightfully.

• Share stories of success with Elsa at wrenchelsa@hotmail.com

Trinidadian artist Marlon Griffith is creating processional art with a strong base in Carnival mas all over the world. 

Most recently, he produced Ring of Fire, a 300-person procession on August 9 celebrating the Parapan Am Games in Toronto. 

Commissioned by the Art Gallery of York University, this project has been two years in the making and was a collaboration with many groups from the disability community, youth centres and aboriginal groups. 

Griffith’s first major exhibit, Symbols of Endurance, is currently showing at the Art Gallery of York University in Toronto until December 6. It will have a central focus on the Ring of Fire procession, but will cover Griffith’s entire career.  

The themes of the designs Marlon Griffith created were based on the First Nation of Ontario traditions of seven key principles: Wisdom, Courage, Respect, Honesty, Humility, Truth and Love. These became the seven sections of the band. 

The project was a unique collaboration with the Ojibwa community, the disability community, the spoken word community, and various youth community groups. 

As the project description noted, the project involved “interlocking circles of performative forms of colonial cultural resistance from across the Americas—from pow wow to capoeira to spoken word to Carnival.” 

Two years ago, Emelie Chhangur, the assistant director for the gallery, came to Japan to meet with Griffith; he became curator, working closely with Griffith on both the procession and the exhibit. 

The project was heavily influenced by the unique vision of the Art Gallery of York University. 

“We present international artists from a Canadian point of view and develop innovative projects with [local disenfranchised communities]; projects that are not only defined as outreach but “in-reach” as well. Our intention is to extend the public intellectual role of the contemporary art gallery...through advocacy and engagement with large, yet marginalised communities and ... diverse audiences through contemporary art.”    

When Griffith and Chhangur realised that the procession would be happening at the same time as the Pan Am Games this summer, they focused on building a relation with Toronto’s disability communities who were participating in the Parapan Am Games. 

Griffith noted this presented a whole new way to consider issues of accessibility and opportunity for participants and audience with disabilities. 

They worked with dance/performance groups in the disabled community such as Picasso Pro, an integrated dance group, and Equal Grounds, a fairly young wheelchair dance group. 

As the project developed, Marlon Griffith made many trips to Toronto. He was there all summer in exhausting sessions, going from one “mas camp” to another at various community centres all over the city. 

The procession had many layers created by different groups. The costumes were produced by the Sew What! Program at Art Starts and other visual arts students from Sketch. The larger mas pieces were created under Griffith’s supervision by sculpture students at York University. 

The audio portion was supplied by First Nation drummers, and seven spoken word artists created poems for the seven themes of the procession. 

The two spoken word poets acted as orators, sentinels of the band sections, and performed with megaphones at stops on the procession route, with deaf-signing of the poetry. 

Marlon Griffith grew up in Belmont and worked as a Carnival designer as well as an artist. He worked for several years with Patrick Robert’s Trinity Carnival Foundation. 

He later worked for Peter Minshall’s Callaloo Company and his career exploded after his residence in Johannesberg in 2004, and Mino, Japan in 2005.

For the last decade, from projects in Japan—his current base—to South Korea, South Africa, Belgium, the Bahamas, and at the Tate Modern in London, Griffith has established an ever-widening reputation. He has been in exhibits and performance projects all over the world. 

His recent Trinidad night mas project from 2014, Positions of Power, is part of the En Mas exhibit that was at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans.  

He has worked extensively with curator Claire Tancons on that project and several others. 

He received both a Guggenheim and a Commonwealth Award in 2011, which has raised his profile and his travels. Like all mas making, he has developed a collaborative mas with a wide base of other artists.

His recent work with the Tate was No Black in the Union Jack, a performance inspired by the 2011 London Riots. The performance took place both in the museum and on the Millenium Bridge across the Thames. Griffith has also worked with Paddington Arts for whom he designed two bands for Notting Hill Carnival.

The exhibit Symbols of Endurance is showing at the Art Gallery of York University from September 23 to December 6, 2015. A book based on the exhibit is to be published next year.

The concept of a professional basketball league being played in T&T is just a dream at this point in time. At least so says Claire Mitchell, general secretary of the National Basketball Federation of T&T. 

Mitchell was responding to attempts by former United States basketballer Nixon Dyall who will be in T&T this week to hold discussions on the start up of a professional basketball league, an idea which he left on the table of the NBFTT in 2012. 

The league needed some $9 million to run for three years and when the local basketball fraternity thought it was finally getting a pro league, a mix up between Dyall and Brian Manning- son of then Prime Minister Patrick Manning, over the rights for the tournament brought an end to the league before it was started. 

Dyall however is still convinced that the league could be held and he told the Guardian that once the federation is ready for it, it will happen. 

Contacted on the possibility of staging such a tournament, Mitchell was adamant that it could not happen. “We just do not have the infrastructure to accommodate an event of that magnitude. We do not have the infrastructure in terms of the physical venues and neither do we have the amount of players,” Mitchell said. 

She added: “If you look at the venues in T&T you will see the type of facilities we use to run our leagues. Do you feel that we can play a pro league on those facilities.”

She said there are eight indoor facilities which are used by a number of sporting events - the Central Regional Indoor Sports Arena in Chaguanas; the Eastern Regional Indoor Sports Arena in Tacarigua: Southern Regional Indoor Sports Arena in Pleasantville, San Fernando: South West Regional Indoor Sports Arena in Point Fortin: Maloney Indoor Complex: Mayaro Indoor Sports Facility: Jean Pierre Complex in Mucurapo and the St Paul Street Complex.      

She feels that the federation itself has been in a struggle to handle its daily affairs and grapple continuously to get corporate T&T on board. 

“When we got into office we encountered just three out of nine functional zones, so what we sought to do was to use monies given to us as subvention from government to help the zones clear out expenses and keep them going. We have also worked on the other zones and now we have eight out of the nine zones active.” 

According to Mitchell it was a tremendous feat to get all the zones running. 

She said the federation has explained the difficulties in staging a pro league in T&T right now to Dyall and will do so again when they meet. 

In the meantime the federation is happy that only the South West zone out of the nine other zones- East, North, South, South East, North East, Central, South Central and Tobago zones, is non functional. 

​WALTER ALIBEY

After a five-year hiatus, the North Coast Dollar Cricket Tournament will resume at a date and time to be set, courtesy the International Sports and Cultural Academy (ISACA) which has now merged with D-Best Educational Sporting Technology Incorporation (D- BEST) to put on an even stronger tournament.

On Saturday, Fizes Hosein who is president of both organisations (D-BEST) and (ISACA) announced that there will be a number of changes to the tournament with respect to the prizes and cash incentives. He revealed that there will be an increase in the number of participating primary schools from three to four.

Paria Roman Catholic Primary School will now join defending champions Blanchisseuse Government Primary, Las Cuevas Government and La Fillette Primary School for bragging rights on the north coast area. 

The tournament which was previously called the North Coast Triangular Dollar Primary School League is aimed at enhancing the development of students at the primary school level through sports. To date it has accounted for a number of young cricketers entering clubs and making their way on to the national teams. 

Hosein said he also wants to revive rivalry and camaraderie among the students and get them into a type of competitive mindset which will help them ahead of the Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) Examinations.    

Only recently Minister of Education Anthony Garcia called for students at the government schools to do more, following the release of the Caribbean Advance Proficiency Examination results which showed that the government schools got only five per cent of the scholarships. It is understood the results have also disappointed members of the Cabinet, including Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley.     

Hosein said if students from the primary schools enter the secondary schools with a good foundation it will help with their performances during their school terms. As such e feels if the dollar cricket achieves its objectives it will improve the number of students receiving scholarship from the government schools. 

This year students have been given more incentives. According to Hosein the batsman who scores a half century in any match will receive $500 and the bowler who takes a hat-trick of wickets will collect $100. Also batsmen will be given $5 for each run scored and $10 each for a catch and a wicket. 

The tournament created a stir among primary schools in Trinidad and also Tobago when it was started by Hosein and ICASA almost 10 years ago. And on hearing of the return of the competition Hosein was immediately congratulated by Garcia who also the MP for that area and Minister of Sports Darryl Smith—who both welcomed the tournament. The tournament will also return to the sister isle soon.

WALTER ALIBEY

Participation in sport and physical activity has the potential to contribute to a healthy lifestyle and society. However, a worthwhile contribution would only be beneficial if sport and physical activity is approached in a strategic manner and properly integrated with other measures for achieving a health society. 

The Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) announced at its meeting in Dominica (March 2015) that the region is facing a childhood obesity epidemic notwithstanding improvements in the overall health status of children and young people over recent decades.  

Very alarmingly, CARPHA states “that least one in every five of our children carry unhealthy weights and risk developing non-communicable diseases (NCDs), like diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, later in life.”  

In 2012, the PANAM STEPS Report on CNCD indicated an increase in heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancers and certain respiratory diseases in Trinidad and Tobago. It was reported that non-communicable diseases account for over 60% of premature loss of life (death before 70 years). The former Minister of Health as well as other health personnel have also pointed to an alarming increase in the overall level of obesity especially among children. This growing ‘fat’ society syndrome among the adult and young population is related to several socio-economic factors. 

The adult population is affected on a daily basis by the demands of work, doing sometimes two or more jobs, traffic congestion, striving for educational advancement, engaging in leisure activities that involve high consumption levels of caloric and cholesterol foods and beverages and little or no physical activity. On the other hand, the youth is affected by the daily demands of the education curriculum especially those students who are caught in the extra lesson phenomenon,  a fashionable youth culture which is defined by high consumption levels of fast food, sedentary social activities and an overall low level of intense physical activities.

The CARPHA Report 2015 and PANAM STEPS Report 2012 suggest that in addition to maintaining a healthy diet, physical activity is important in establishing an overall healthy lifestyle and society. 

The measures for addressing the growing concern of increases in CNCD’s and obesity among the population must be linked to their causes to ensure that they are properly understood. This will therefore allow for informed practical measures as well as effective monitoring and evaluation.  Several points should be considered when developing a sport and physical activity framework for a healthy society. 

Firstly, there must be a clear advocate for promoting the benefits of sport and physical activity and increasing participation rates across the population. There must be a collaborative effort by various ministries such as Health, Sport and Youth Affairs, Education, Community Development, the THA, private sporting associations and the private sector. This will ensure greater effectiveness in advocating the health value of sport and physical activity across every segments of the society.  

Secondly, it is important for administrators not assume that by indicating that physical activity is beneficial, the population would engage in developing an active lifestyle.  Sport has to be seen as a social construct and any approach to making it effective from a health perspective would require an understanding of the many factors that influence sport involvement. For instance in primary schools foods sold must complement the desired objectives of increasing sport and physical activities. Also it is important the sporting and physical activities developed incorporates fun and enjoyment so as to make it attractive and appealing to participants.

Thirdly, it is critical that proper monitoring and evaluating mechanisms are utilised to assess measures implemented.  Not only will such an approach allow for assessing the effectiveness of the existing measures but will also allow for improvements to achieve the desired goals while at the same time ensuring that all resources are properly optimised. 

Quatrieme Ami looks nigh on a ‘cert’ for the Maiden Stakes over five furlongs of ‘good to soft’ Windsor today and it’s almost certain Shine Likeadiamond will finish second!

That’s the position ‘Shine’ has managed in her last five outings and on the time-handicap there really is one serious rival; unfortunately trainer Mick Channon will be fully aware it is Quatrieme Ami, seventh (of 20!) to Log Out Island in the valuable Redcar Trophy over six furlongs just over two weeks ago.

That form is solid, by the same token Shine Likeadiamond can be relied up to replicate her consistent marks which, however, wont be good enough if Phil McBride’s charge hits anything like his last effort.

Others will have ‘bellows to mend’ some way out unless one of two newcomers is able to spring a major surprise; I’ll bet that’s not the case and suggest twice-raced Quatrieme Ami is just about ‘as good as it gets’ for a two-year-old wager.

Running in tandem with another eight-race programme will be ‘good to soft’ Pontefract where Toboggan’s Fire is set to light up the immensely-popular South Yorkshire course, one of sixteen ‘decs’ for the nursery handicap and a must each-way bet with four places on offer; Ann Duffield has booked her 7lbs stable apprentice, Rowan Scott!

Scott must be well-regarded because last week David ‘Maestro’ Barron utilised his services, on a well-backed winner!

Toboggan’s Fire achieved a ‘career-best’ only five days back when runner-up in a fast-run fourteen-runner handicap to Opera Baron; if this Firestreak filly does that again it will be a procession.

Well-bred Persian Breeze is a ‘last chance saloon’ for the ‘aged’ Maiden Stakes over twelve furlongs; John Gosden will be anxious about her enhancing stud value at the fifth attempt; time is running out and so you will be on a dead-set trier!

That’s not always the case! 

Alanna Lewis and Esther scored two goals each as Paragon maintained its perfect start to its title defense in the   T&T Hockey Board National Indoor Championship Women’s Open Division with a 5-2 beating of Courts Malvern at the Woodbrook Youth Centre, Hamilton-Holder Street, Woodbrook on Saturday.

Winners of its opener, 2-1 over Ventures, Paragon raced into a 4-0 half-time lead over Malvern with Lewis (1st & 4th) and Dixon (5th & 11th) scoring first-half braces.

Krizia Layne pulled a goal back for Malvern in the 23rd but the prolific Kristin Thompson scored  fifth for Paragon in the 33rd to kill off the contest before Layne grabbed a late second for Malvern.

The win lifted Paragon to maximum six points while Ventures, Malvern and Harvard Checkers are yet to get off the mark.

Petrotrin, Paragon 

maintain streak

In the Men’s Open, Paragon, beaten in last year’s final by Queen’s Park, and Petrotrin are joint top of the table with maximum six points from two matches played each.

Paragon, coming off a 4-2 win over Defence Force to flick off its campaign, exacted some revenge on the Parkites with a  6-2 bashing led by a beaver trick from Akim Toussaint. Toussaint who is coming off a pro-stint in Australia got goals in the 13th, 23rd, 24th and 34th while fellow national players Kiel Murray (14th) and Christopher Scipio (32nd) were also on target for the rampant Paragon to cancel out items by Nicholas Camacho (21st) and Jerry Bell, on the stroke of full-time.

Petrotrin, which spanked Fatima 6-3 last weekend, got a double from Dwain Quan Chan, in the 27th and 38th minute and one apiece from Wayne Legerton (11th) and Brian Garcia (26th) to turn back Malvern 4-2, with Kristien Emmanuel getting both replies for the losers.

The Parkites also had a 3-3 draw with Notre Dame while Fatima outclassed Malvern 4-1 in Saturday’s other men’s encounter.

QPCC takes Mixed Veterans lead

In the Mixed Veterans, defending champion Queen’s Park climbed to the top of the table after getting two wins from as many matches played on Saturday, 7-5 over the previously perfect Notre Dame and 8-0 against winless Police.

With the six points earn, the Parkites improved to ten points from four matches and one match left to play against Defence Force (six points) while the Dames are second with nine points ahead of their final encounter versus Malvern which has two matches left and three points.

At the end of the Mixed Veterans round-robin the top four will advance to the semifinals on October 31, ahead of the final playoffs the following day.

RESULTS

​Men’s Open 

Notre Dame 3 (Shaquille Daniel 18th, 30th, Aidan De Gannes 32nd) vs QPCC 3 (Jerry Bell 13th, Mark Ayen 22nd, Dominic Young 40th)

Petrotrin 4 (Dwain Quann Chan 27th, 38th, Wayne Legertonn 11th, Brian Garcia 26th) vs Courts Malvern 2 (Kristien Emmanuel 20th, 32nd)

Fatima 4 (Che Modeste 4th, Andrew Vieira 13th, Jordan Vieira 33rd, Jeremy Nieves 35th) vs Courts Malvern 1 (Hume 29th)

Paragon 6 (Akim Toussaint 13th, 23rd, 24th, 34th, Kiel Murray 14th, Christopher Scipio 32nd) vs QPCC 2 (Nicholas Camacho 21st, Jerry Bell 40th)

Women’s Open 

Paragon 5 (Alanna Lewis 1st, 4th, Esther Dixon 5th, 11th, Kristin Thompson 33rd) vs Courts Malvern 2 (Krizia Layne 23rd, 39th)

Mixed Veterans 

Courts Malvern 4 (Anthony Marcano 13th, 29th, Cecile Wren 8th, Korry Bannett 14th) vs Police 0

QPCC 7 (Raphael Govia 8th,, 27th, Jerry Bell 9th, 26th, Claire Dos Santos 13th, Gary Chin 21st, Richard Thomas 28th) vs Notre Dame 5 (Selwyn King 20th, 22nd, 24th, 26th, Edrich Francois 8th)

Notre Dame 4 (Selwyn King 12th, 14th, 17th, 23rd) vs Defence Force 2 (Nicholas Wren 11th, 19th)

Fatima 7 (Derek Lee 10th, 11th, 11th, 12th, Rolph Young 9th, 12th, Brian Garcia 20th) vs Defence Force 3 (Gary Griffith 8th, Anthony Morales 28th, Nicholas Wren 30th)

 Mixed Division 

QPCC 8 (Claire Dos Santos 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, Raphael Govia 1st, 22nd, Azad Ali 19th, Richard Thomas 30th) vs Police 0

The security guard accused of raping a 67-year-old nurse in the St James Medical Complex last week appeared in court today and was granted bail of $120,000.

Nicholas Nelson, 20, of Upper Bushe Street, San Juan, appeared before Maureen Baboolal-Gafoor, Port-of-Spain.

The offence was alleged to have happened on the October 14 in the St James Medical Complex.

Nelson was represented by Keith Scotland. 

He will reappear on November 16. 

How much total “screen time” a day is healthy for children? The answer is fascinating if unexpected.

Simply put, under the age of two years: none. From two to five years: one hour. Over five: two hours.

This would include TV, tablet and cell time. TV and tablet time have been better studied but the results of excessive cell time are probably the same.

Television has had a tremendous influence on how children view our world. In T&T the TV always seems to be on. Many youngsters spend more time watching television than in the classroom. It often begins a few months after birth. Babies are fascinated by the flickering pictures and hilarious sounds coming out of the box in the corner. Parents quickly learn that the TV keeps their child quiet. It is quite the reliable and cheap babysitter. It also keeps the baby dazed and dotish. Children under two years should never be left alone in front of a TV.

If a child under two watches television, she is going to miss out on concrete learning experiences necessary for her development as a person of content and character. What babies need for proper brain development is interaction with other people, not watching pretty pictures. The first two years are key for brain development, hence the need for the child to be in constant contact with her family. 

All of those “educational” television or video or tablet programmes now being promoted as “developing your child’s brain” are a waste of money. They do nothing for the child. They actually hinder the child’s development. They are like day-care centres that teach children to say the ABC by age two. Children repeat the ABC like parrots. They have no idea what they are saying except that fond grannies and aunties applaud them and that’s nice. They are superficial children with no depth to their personalities, a quality not unknown in these islands. 

After the age of two, within the time limits mentioned, television and tablets have value. Children today are entering “big” school more knowledgeable than children before the age of television. So television and tablets can be good teachers of facts. But many children watch them excessively and therefore experience some of their negative consequences:

Both displace active types of recreation. In particular they decrease time spent with other children. So the capacity to interact with others is decreased with the consequent results. Such children lack social awareness. They may have a false sense of competence, akin to people who think they know what war is about, because they watch it on TV. This is pseudo-competence, not grounded in real life. They inhabit a fake world similar to “reality TV shows” or the phony, virtual society of Maccobook. 

A TV or tablet child has less time for self-directed daydreaming and thinking. This stultifies the imagination. Albert Einstein said: “Imagination is more important than learning.” He should know. In this sense “boredom” is good for children. It forces them to use their imagination to enter into the wonderful world of make-believe, the world of creativity from which every single breakthrough, every single act of progress, the “ahh!” moment, in humankind has come. 

Screen time discourages reading. Reading requires much more thinking, much more imagination, than television and tablets. Children who read have a much larger vocabulary than children who watch television. They also do much better at school. This year Cambridge University researchers looked at GSCE results done on 800 16-year-olds and documented that lower results were related to more screen time (more than two hours daily). Children who read were much more likely to do better in exams.

Too much screen time causes a variety of medical problems. Since it discourages exercise it leads to poor physical fitness. If accompanied by frequent snacks, obesity or problems with weight may result. In South Korea, it’s been shown that excess screen time leads to shortsightedness. Hearing loss from headphones is becoming more common. Increasingly we are hearing the term addiction being used for children who constantly use cell phones and tablets. Preliminary studies show remarkable similarities in brain scans of drug addicted people and adolescents who over-use video games.

Television and now tablet advertising encourages a demand for material possessions. Young children will pressure their parents to buy the items they see advertised. Messages about cigarettes, alcohol and sex are everywhere on the small screens and are often quite subtle. Many of these advertisements or messages purposely leave out the negative information about their products. They portray materialism as the ideal way of life, a proposal that fits in perfectly with many aspects of life in T&T.

Sleep disruption from blue light is another common problem. Poor sleep is linked to poor school performance. TV sets have no place in bedrooms. Nor do tablets at sleep time. 

Finally, television or tablet violence can affect how a child feels towards life and other people. Viewing excessive violence, the norm today, may cause a child to be overly fearful about personal safety and the future. Small screen violence may also numb the sympathy a child normally feels towards victims of human suffering. Young children may be more aggressive in their play after seeing television shows or playing certain games. Although screen violence does not increase aggressive behaviour towards people in most children, it probably does so in disturbed or impulsive children, of which we have many in T&T.

Prime Minister

David Cameron,

10 Downing Street,

London, 

England

Dear Mr Cameron,

I hear that you want to be our friend so long as we put behind us the 180 or so years of slavery that your nation imposed on us and which contributed to the advancement in education and wealth of so many of your people, to say nothing of the effect on your economy. You just want us to start from this point and move forward as friends. I wonder, why now? Just what is happening in your world that would cause you to want us to be friends?

As I understand it, friendship is a relationship between equals—a relationship of mutual respect and fondness. And this little nation is indeed equal to any other in so many ways. But where is the equality in our relationship?

Even assuming that we can get past the whole post-traumatic stress syndrome created by our experience with the system of slavery under which you oppressed our people and raped our land, the years subsequent to the abolition of slavery were not exactly the best example of any kind of friendship. 

In the first place, our people were made to pay for their freedom by continuing to work without pay in British-enforced quasi slavery for four years after the legal abolition of slavery. You then sat by and watched, in not-so-silent support, the newly freed Jamaicans endure another century of the most awful treatment, punctuated along the way by the massacre of so many in October 1865 and the worker’s uprising of 1938. Your reaction to the events of October 1865 did very little to recognise your continued ill-treatment of the majority of the people of this country. 

Indeed, one of the main features was the introduction of a police force designed to prevent the recurrence of the events of 1865. This same force was subsequently used to brutally suppress the people who in 1938 tried to improve their miserably low wages and living conditions. I suggest that you read the report of the Moyne Commission. It shows the extent of your friendship with us in the years following the abolition of slavery much better than I can describe here.

In the years following 1938, the awful conditions facing our people, imposed by or with your approval and consent continued until, realising that there was very little more your friendship could extract from us, you cut the economic ties that bound us to you in 1962. You have from time to time attempted to appease your conscience with grants and aid but those have never been enough to allow us to move on or prosper. While I believe that our elected officials have also failed us in the post 1962 period, they too are the product of the many years of your “friendship.”

When all is said and done, I am quite frankly unable to trust your offer of friendship coming as it does in circumstances where your great crime against the descendants of the majority of us has gone unremarked, unatoned and uncompensated. No Mr Cameron, you cannot be my friend. You will have to do a great deal more before you can earn that right.

With best wishes,

Lynda Mair

—Lynda Mair is an attorney in Kingston, Jamaica with Patterson Mair Hamilton. She has practised in Jamaica for over 35 years, both in private practice and in the public sector, and is a Justice of the Peace.

Permit me a comment on Sahadeo Ragoonanan’s letter headlined, Our challenges with eating healthy, especially the part about the “good-looking” fruits and vegetables that have been pumped with chemicals to make them look nice and last longer. Fruits and vegetables are indeed healthy but only if they are organically grown.

My simple advice is to not buy imported fruits and vegetables. If you eat them, you will be ingesting a cornucopia of chemicals that is damaging to your health. If you feel you must eat grapes, for instance, make sure and peel them. Sure, grape skin is supposed to be healthy (a good source of antioxidants, for example) but not the skin from the grapes that adorn food vendors’ stalls and supermarket shelves all over the country.

The first question I ask when buying tomatoes, for instance, is whether it’s locally grown or imported. (As Ragoonanan suggests, it’s best if it’s from the vendor’s back yard.) Even though pesticides may have been used on the local item, it is still far better than the imported variety. 

We could reduce our food import bill merely by choosing to eat healthy for then you would not buy foreign fruits and vegetables nor the processed junk that fill our supermarkets’ shelves. I buy all of my fruits, vegetables and provisions from roadside vendors and, even then, I’m picky about which ones I patronise. I also do not eat anything from a tin or a pack.

I had just one minor disagreement with Ragoonanan’s letter, that “why is such critical information now forthcoming.” Many of us have been saying these things for the longest while. For example, over the years I have written letters titled, “Eat less junk, reduce food and health bills,” “Our health is in our hands,” “Obesity aided by school-feeding programme,” “Remove 40 per cent duty from coconut oil,” “Say no to soft drinks,” to name a few. 

The problem is that very few of us care to listen. We estimate that only two per cent of us will take heed.

Noel Kalicharan,

Princes Town

I recently contributed to the doubles debate by writing to the editor in defence of my long-standing love affair with eating doubles.

Since my article, several people have waded into the unhealthy aspects of this practice and continue to lecture Trinidadians about healthy eating. Some of these people have weak stomachs and have had heart attacks and other illnesses, so we understand their position.

I defended my position; I never told anyone that they should eat four doubles and more at any one time. Doubles is “street food.” All over the world street food can be notoriously not good for you when eaten in quantity. Street food is meant to fill a space, to abate hunger until you reach home to have your healthy meal. Street food is either very highly fried in oil, or very sweet and not meant to be eaten in great quantities.

A barbecue box contains charred chicken with carcinogen tars all over it from burnt coals and fries. A box might be ten times more unhealthy than two doubles. A “chicken and chips” contains chicken highly fried in oil, and chips also fried in oil—about ten times more unhealthy than two doubles. 

Ice cream is very sweet and fattening when eaten often and in quantity. Pastry is notoriously not good for you because of lard and margarine; cakes are sugar and flour. Roti is a bake containing dhal roasted on an oiled tawa, with curried potato and different meats, high in carbohydrates. 

If you are going to pick on the poor man’s doubles, I suggest you close down all barbecue shops, all fried chicken and chips joints, all ice cream shops, all bakeries and all roti shops. 

So please spare us all the lectures about healthy eating. It’s all about managing your own personal diet.

Joel Quintal,

San Fernando

The craze or the in-thing in government schools is to beat up other students. Whole day is kicks, cuffs, stabs and, to cream it off, sexcapades in classrooms. It is just plain stupidness that causes those fights, eg, a prolonged look, children horning children, accidental mash-foot, etc.

It is crystal clear why there are children behaving like hyenas in the jungle. Lack of discipline and, by extension, lack of tolerance, and with that, no production. 

In the denominational schools discipline is top of the agenda, hence the reason for their mind-boggling success. You just have to see the results of CXC, CSEC and Cape: it is well over 90 per cent of students.

It is very easy to achieve the same success. All the children have to do is beat books and not beat up on fellow students, and have respect for each other.

Lystra Lythe,

Sangre Grande

On Saturday, October 10, 2015, a daily newspaper published a photo of a dead river otter which had been bludgeoned and left on the pavement in San Fernando. The story which accompanied it referred to an online petition, addressed to the Minister of Agriculture, to reinstate the ban on hunting. In addition, all through the week, on the TV news and in the print media, pictures were published of iguanas hog-tied and strung up for sale, heaps of dead animal carcasses, including deer, wild hog and armadillos galore. 

Animals are fleeing to people’s homes to save their poor lives. 

As a citizen, I am deeply concerned for the plight of these creatures. They are at the mercy of wild and indiscriminate hunters. Don’t these people have any feelings? Just think—all hours of the night, a hunter runs through a mosquito- and scorpion-infested forest, littered with thorns and ants, stalking a deer of no more than ten pounds for his impoverished pot. 

There are no toilets and running water, so he can’t wash hands. He can’t take a shower nor brush his teeth. So he stinks just like an animal to catch a manicou that has young to feed. Boom! He shoots the thing and right there he guts it. Where does he leave the entrails? The answer is right there. How sanitary is that? 

Where is the fun in seeing a little animal scampering for safety and chasing after it with a pack of bloodthirsty hounds? For God’s sake, why are anteaters and otters being killed? These are not edible, nor is their skin used for anything. 

I cry shame on those people who eat the peaceful iguana. Does it not mean more that we have a healthy wildlife population? 

Will the minister not do anything except conduct a survey, fire some contract workers or try to hire some game wardens? Can there not be a curfew within the hunting season? Have we ever explored the possibility of reserves where hunting is strictly prohibited and only when the population allows for it then there is supervised hunting allowed by qualified and responsible hunters? Does anybody remember Cecil, the majestic, iconic Zimbabwean lion who was slain “for fun”? 

For heaven’s sake, these people may very well kill the two giraffes at the zoo if they got the chance. When these animals are all killed out, I trust these hunters will be satisfied to hunt each other. 

God bless this nation.

Lystra Marajh,

Glencoe

I would like to disagree with the PNM in its call that members of the media go easy on new members of the Government on their Budget debate. 

Whatever side of political divide you are on, post September 7, the PNM came to Government of Trinidad and Tobago, and the leader Dr Keith Rowley became the prime minister of T&T. 

Under our constitution, the new opposition can only talk, but the Government is the one that has all powers of policy and implementation over the next five years. 

It is, therefore, in our vested interests as citizens of T&T to demand proper representation over the next five years from our Government. It is in our interest to ensure that the Government succeeds in fair and progressive governance for the country. It is in our interest to be highly critical of the behaviour (or lack of) and the policies (or lack of policies) of a government, whether they are experienced or not. After all, they spent a considerable amount of time and resources trying to convince the population that they can do better. 

The media have a responsibility to be fair, balanced and to be true guardians of democracy regardless of the political directorate. I look forward to them fulfilling this mandate. 

Vedavid Manick

Congratulations to the two young women who excelled at and topped the Cape examinations. I wish them both well. There is no substitute for hard work.

Note the schools they attended: single-sex and religious-oriented. No distractions and disciplined. Without discipline, you cannot solve anything.

Look at their parents—professionals. Leadership by example. Great models to aspire toward. Sheep don’t make goat.

Where do they live? Quiet residential areas. All the prerequisites for effective studying.

Do boys perform less than girls because they are expected to? Are there enough male teachers or is it that classes are just not adequately interactive for boys? Is it that the media portray boys as being delinquent? Do we have enough role models in schools or in the general public?

Our politicians are not good examples. Boys tend to want to be the class clown for attention sometimes from the girls. Maybe girls handle pressure better than boys. It is alleged an 18-year-old female is as mature as a 30-year-old male.

Are girls more motivated now, and if so, why?

My aunts never got tertiary education but all my uncles did. Long ago girls were expected to manage a household. The playing field has now been levelled and everyone is on the same turf.

Maybe boys feel it is unnatural to be intelligent. A boy feels if he is bright, he is a nerd, but have you heard of “Revenge of the nerds”?

Is it that girls read more than boys? They do spend more time on their homework. Does peer pressure make boys feel they are too cool for school? Are girls better behaved in class than boys?

Girls definitely have better approaches to learning. Why is it that girls are better engaged in the classroom than boys?

After a break-up, girls recover quickly, boys take months, maybe even years.

Check out something: the great majority of elementary schoolteachers are women. Women are taking over this world. Soon we may see a female US president. 

They are all over, from oil rigs come back. Pretty soon men will have to ask for equal rights. Gentlemen, let us get our act together now.

A woman's place is side by side with her male counterpart.

The strongest male influence in a girl’s life plays a most important part.

Always remember one thing though, girls inherit their intelligence from their fathers.

AV Rampersad,

Princes Town

A 27-year-old Granville, Cedros man will appear in court today charged with murder, one day after his alleged victim was laid to rest.

He will appear before a Point Fortin Magistrate charged with murdering Jahsent Clement, 22. 

On October 13, Clement was with his 14-year-old girlfriend at the Belle Vue Beach in Cedros, when a man ambushed and chopped Clement several times with a cutlass. Clement died at the scene.

The girl, a school-dropout, claimed she was unable to identify the assailant as she fled to save her life during the attack. The following morning she reappeared before a Point Fortin magistrate who remanded her into police custody on a charge of uncontrollable behaviour.

The suspect last Thursday allegedly told his relatives he was the “real” boyfriend, and confessed to fatally chopping Clement. 

Clement’s family said they repeatedly advised him (Clement) to end the four-month relationship, they having learnt she was a minor and not an adult as she had told them.

Nicaragua came to the Hasely Crawford Stadium for the first time with the expectation of getting some experience playing against a Caribbean styled national team, similar to Jamaica who defeated them in a close home and away encounter which booted them from the World Cup Russia tournament.

The Warriors engaged them with the expectation of benefiting from a developing Central American style, knowing that they have to face Guatemala within the next month on their path to the second round of the World Cup.

To the fan, the match was attended with enthusiasm following the victorious result against Panama last week.

What we saw was two teams approaching cautiously and ensuring that they used the midfield possession game in order to understand their opponent’s method of defense. The early results showed that the penalty areas were not utilized in the way that progressive teams will want. The Warriors were attempting to pressure the Nicaraguans into error around their own goal, and very nearly achieved their “goal”, except for shoddy attempts at finishing. 

The pint sized Central Americans were seen hurrying their decisions while the Warriors went in search of an early goal. They did not have to worry too much as the job of finishing by Kenwyne Jones and his attackers was well short of creativity and clinical accuracy in the final moments of their attacks.

The visitors settled down mainly through their ultimate desire to play their game base upon cohesiveness. Players were not caught in possession, while the probably recipients of a pass showed themselves in convenient spaces vacant enough to allow them to create positive passing options.

They realized that the strongest area in the Warrior’s team was defense. All four defenders have the ability to  be aerially strong, tough tacklers and can carry the ball intelligently forward.

Daniel Cyrus and Aubrey David moved down the flanks with speed and good foot skill, features which forced the opponents to consolidate and whenever possible guide the attackers towards the restricted space near the touchlines.

Sometimes, the Warriors attack offered space on the flanks for Juan Perez and Oscar Lopez, vacant because the defenders were slow on recovering from their forward jaunt.

On both sides, the desire to interpass the ball in their own half of the field excessively tended to take the expected creativity off midfielders on both sides, leaving the fans with the hope of some attacking opportunities. Two feeble shots at goal, one from each side, was all that were executed in the first half, although each team reached into the penalty areas, without the composure and eventual aggression to turn half chances into anything, but lose balls.

The second half saw the glitter of Joevin Jones on the left and Trevor Caesar on the right which appeared to be the vulnerable routes. Clearly, four byelines, two each by Jones and Caesar, should have produced at least one goal.

It must be mentioned that although the visitors had greater possession marginally, the number of unforced errors of passing by the Warriors were about two in every five, a percentage which needs to be reduced to even one in every five.

Shots at goal were three by the host and two by the opponents, which created a sombre atmosphere by the good crowd.

Theoretically, the analysts will claim that a home team is usually considered a 2-0 winner, seeing that the visitors are unfamiliar with the surroundings and the crowd support which should have been guaranteed from the sidelines.

No need to mention how much work needs to be done during the month leading up to the Guatemala  qualifier away from home.

We do not have a good record when we play in Guatemala and that should invite some more critical training sessions in the department of attacking effectively. The realism is that no goals were scored in 90 minutes, a factor which should be the primary feature of that game. 

Coach Hart will have to depend on some astute arrangements where the majority of players are playing at separate clubs across the globe. This may provide a good chance to get players like Keron Cummings, Willis Plaza, add to these names Cato and Trevin Caesar. 

I know Hart does not place emphasis upon friendlies locally, just to get his at home players sharp and enthusiastic, but it has its degree of achievement. 

Remember, practice makes permanent.