I actually try not to make any concrete NY resolutions because I think it’s usually a waste of time.

If there’s something that you really want to do, like lose weight, learn to play the harp or climb mount Everest, why do you need the excuse of the start of a New Year to make it happen? As human beings we should be constantly challenging ourselves and setting new goals and the start of a New Year should be no different from the rest of the year in that regard.

I obviously understand why people do it, but I’m just suggesting that if you really wanted to do whatever it is you’ve resolved to do this year, you would already have made steps to do it by now and you wouldn’t be using Jan 1st 2012 as a starting block – although I guess that date is as good a day to start as any.

Personally I have an ongoing ‘bucket list’ that seems to be getting longer rather than shorter but then I guess that’s just me.

Anyone that knows me, knows I’m not really a person that does well when I feel trapped, stuck in one spot, or with limited options - in fact as soon as I recognise that I’m in a rut or digging one I put in a concerted effort to make a change somewhere, in some way, as quickly as possible.

I’ve written before on this blog about my need to keep moving and despite my initial belief that this may go away over time I fear that in fact, as I get older, it is only getting stronger.

Anyway, back to the bucket list.

Some of the things on it that I have already ticked off include – going on a ROTW (round-the-world) trip; watching Arsenal play football at Highbury and the Emirates; bungy jumping, skydiving; diving the Great Barrier Reef; learning to sail (ongoing); watching Rafa Nadal play in a Grand Slam; watching Grand Slam tennis at all four venues (Wimbledon, US and Oz Open have all been done now I only have Paris left to visit); watching a Boxing Day cricket match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground; swimming with dolphins; watching whales in the wild; driving on an F1 race track; buying my own place; betting on a winning horse at the Grand National; running a 5k and 10k race; visiting countless countries inc France, Spain, Holland, Germany, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, America, Australia and New Zealand; etc etc.

In case I’m accused of showing off I’ll also list the many, many things that I still want to do – visit South America specifically Brazil for the Rio carnival, and Peru (Machu Picchu) and Canada; study for an MA in journalism; learn Spanish; learn a musical instrument preferably the piano or acoustic guitar; learn to dive; learn to surf; visit the Taj Mahal, the pyramids in Egypt and the birthplace of Jesus Christ; watch tennis at Roland Garros in Paris; learn to dance (jive and salsa); visit Disneyland in Florida; get my book published; go on a safari for my 40th b’day etc etc…

So you see I have just as much to do as I have done, and the ‘to do’ list gets longer and longer every day mainly because I think it’s important to always want to do more and see more.

I remember reading a story about an ancient tribe in the Andes (or somewhere) who used to curse their enemies by saying ‘we hope you always stay in the same place’. To them this was a curse because getting food, finding shelter etc depended on moving around, but I view it as a curse because although it’s good to be statisfied with what you have achieved in life, most people are always aware that there is more to do.

I think living in Barbados has brought this home to me more than ever before because some people here are very sheltered.

I’ve met people here who have never left the island and who don’t even own a passport. When I have a conversation with them and it gets around to travel and I tell them the places I have been they always, always say ‘I wish I’d been there’ or ‘I’ve always wanted to go there’ and I always, always say ‘what are you waiting for’. In some cases money might be an issue but I really believe that if you want to do something you will find a way to do it.

I suppose there may be some people who are really happy and fulfilled with living in the same place all of their lives, or being in the same job all of their lives but if they exist I haven’t met them yet.

Anyway, for me the New Year is less a time to make promises to myself that I won’t keep and more a time to give thanks to God for more time to do what I want to do before I leave this mortal world and take up residence in His house.

Wish me luck!

I’ll start with John Terry because you’ll know from a previous post what I think about our illustrious England captain already when he previously dragged the three lions through the mud with the whole Wayne Bridge saga.

I said at the time that he did not deserve to be the captain of Eng not just because of what he did but because he didn’t have the decency to see that stepping down from the captaincy was the right thing to do – in fact I suspect that John Terry wouldn’t know the right thing to do if it stood up in an empty room, walked over to him, shook his hand and introduced itself as ‘the right thing to do’. But I digress…

Some of you may not know that JT is now accused of racially abusing Anton Ferdinand (a charge that he has vigourously denied). I haven’t read or seen all of the ‘evidence’ but there’s enough for the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service to charge JT and decide to take him to court so I assume they intend to turn up  with something more than just Anton Ferdinand’s say so. I also understand that it was a member of the public that complained to the police so that implies that the said comment was pretty obvious to those around and I also understand (although I haven’t seen it myself) that there is video evidence of JT calling Anton “a black c**t”…

But as I said JT continues to deny that he said anything of the sort and has maintained that he doesn’t have a racist bone in his body (the old adage ‘I’m not racist I ave enuf black friends’).

I’m trying to stay objective while I write this but I can’t help but wonder if JT knows what racism really is – maybe he doesn’t think it’s a problem mentioning someone’s colour when you are trying to insult them; maybe he wouldn’t mind being called a white son-of-a-b***h. You see, I don’t think a lot of people realise that it’s the fact that you’ve tried to use someone’s colour as an insult that is the problem. If you want to call me a cow that’s fine but why would you feel the need to call me a black cow unless you thought that was adding additional insult to your words?

When I’m having an argument with someone the last thing on my mind is what colour they are, instead I’m more caught up with their crass behaviour, rudeness or arrogance.

And that brings me to another point – the people that say even if JT said what he said that doesn’t mean that he is a racist. I beg to differ… The fact that he even thought to mention colour implies that he has a problem with people who are not white and that implies racist discrimination (look up the definition).

Now I don’t want to be judge and jury but if JT is found guilty in the courts then he has to be given a very long ban and hefty fine by the FA and the England captaincy has to be taken away from him (again) and this time he must never, ever get it back. I said before that rightly or wrongly the captain of a side, especially a national side, has to be beyond reproach and once again JT has proved that this huge responsibility does not sit well with his character.

Now I’ll move onto the other culprit – Luis Suarez. This is much easier to write on because Suarez has already been found guilty so I’ll comment based on the fact that he said what he said to Patrice Evra and despite Liverpool’s protestations I have no doubt that he did mean what he said and that he did say it.

I read an interesting article on the BBC website after Suarez was handed his eight match ban which was basically based on the fact that where he’s from (Uruguay) what he said may not be deemed racist. It was interesting to read that in the Uruguay national football team there are and always have been quite a few black players and as with most teams they have nicknames and one of the players is called ‘the monkey’. The writer admitted that in England this would be deemed racist but in Uruguay the player himself has no problem with it.

I’m happy for that particular player that he does not find that insulting but personally I wouldn’t be happy with anyone calling me a monkey under most contexts (unless it’s my mum calling me a cheeky monkey) because comparing anyone to a monkey is insulting.

The writer also brought up a white player’s nickname ‘the skinny one’ as an example of how in Uruguay it is ok to use a physical characteristic as a term of endearment. But here’s the problem I have – why is the black one compared to a primate and the white one just called skinny? Let’s not be naive or stupid – the two things are like apples and oranges.

Anyway, at the end of the day Suarez is not playing in Uruguay he’s playing in England and in England black people in general and black players in particular have worked too long and hard to be accepted as equal and have endured too many years and years of insults, monkey chants and bananas being thrown on the pitch all because some people think their skin colour makes them superior, to pretend that it’s ok and just brush it off.

The FA was right to make an example of him and I hope they throw the book at JT if he’s found guilty as well.

One very worrying aspect of this whole saga though is the fact that the ‘kick racism out of football’ campaign seems to have died a death and no-one even noticed except the players who are resorting back to old ways. It is all quite sad and I hope the powers that be are taking note and planning some kind of positive action.

As I said, we’ve come too far to go back now, and I for one do not want to have to think twice about going to a footie match when I go back to England in case some nutter decides they don’t like my beautiful black face.

Anyway, the race is over now and I’m still in one piece (just about) and the thing I want to write about today is football.

As an Arsenal supporter the football season was quite painful to watch during the first few weeks of the season. In fact it was painful throughout the summer as Arsenal seemingly lost good player after good player to richer clubs. The departure of Cesc Fabregas was inevitable and not too bad if I’m honest as I love Cesc and I think he gave us several years of loyal service, some of the best football of his career and some awesome memories that will last forever. I remember Cesc as a teenager lighting up the pitch and Arsenal were always a better team when he was in the middle. I can’t think of him in an Arsenal shirt without smiling and for that I’ll always be thankful – so good luck Cesc and thanks again.

The less said about Sami Nasri (the mercenary) though the better – I still can’t believe that City bought him on the basis of one half of a great season but at least we got some good money for him anyway. Can’t say I’m sad that Nicklas Bentdner left either as although he tried hard he was always pretty useless and I used to say that he would never have even made the subs bench in Arsenal teams of old. I was sad that Gael Clichy went but then again he was always prone to the odd lapse of judgment that usually proved costly.

Who else did we get rid of now? I can’t remember but I did put a note on Facebook one day saying that Arsenal seemed to be having a fire sale where everything must go! so there maybe others that I’m forgetting. Anyway, needless to say this complete gutting of the side meant that as a fan I started the season with very little optimism that we would achieve anything and it seems the team were about as optimistic as me as we started off with little confidence and rapidly progressed to no confidence within a few games.

Now I love Arsene Wenger to bits but even I wanted him out when we were humiliated at Old Trafford after having already lost to Liverpool at home and drew with Newcastle away (although that result looks ok now after the run that Newcastle went on). I was worried that he had lost the dressing room and couldn’t motivate the side anymore. I mean when you have some of the brightest players in England and Wales like Theo Walcott and Aaron Ramsey playing worse than when they first arrived you have to wonder about the coaching and the way they are being asked to play.

But funnily enough despite our terrible start to the Premier League season our saving grace was the Champions League (which is usually where we struggle) and helped by a relatively weak group (although this is the Champs league so it can’t be that weak) we managed to get some results and build some confidence.

And of course I can’t say enough about the flying Dutchman Robin Van Persie…I for one am not in the least bit surprised by his current goal scoring run. Ever since we signed him I said he would be a 30 goal a season player if he could just stay fit – the problem was never his finishing it was always his fitness. Well thank God and touch wood Robin has stayed fit so far and if he can make it to the end of the season in tact we stand a great chance at a top four finish.

My only issue now is and remains the defense which has been a problem for at least the past four years and is the main reason why we haven’t won anything for six years. I don’t know if Wenger was oblivious to the defensive frailties, if he just chose to ignore them and hoped they would fix themselves, or if he just isn’t bothered but every Arsenal fan with eyes knows that for the longest time we have been conceding goals on a far too regular basis and you can’t win much like that. IMO the first rule should be ‘if you don’t concede then you don’t lose’ and anything else should build on that foundation and yes, I’m even willing to sacrifice sexy football if we can just stop leaking goals, in fact if we won every game 1-0 from now until the end of the season I would be ecstatic.

I think some of the problems started with Gallas and Toure who obviously couldn’t stand each other and the lack of a goalkeeper in the mould of David Seaman has not helped, but who are these people in the back now – Mertsesacker can’t seem to go one game without doing something stupid and Koscielney isn’t much better.

In truth thinking about it I believe that our defensive problem exposes a wider issue with defenses throughout the Premier League anyway as not many teams seem to know how to defend properly anymore.

This is probably a topic for a whole new post about refereeing, tackles from behind etc but I do think that the art of defending has been lost and I for one am sad at its passing as I fondly remember Adams, Dixon, Keown and the like stopping all comers and ensuring that Arsenal were always very difficult to break down. Now our defense is as porous as a sponge and we basically rely on the strikers to score more goals than we let in – it makes for good football to watch but only for the neutral or the other side.

Anyway, it’s a long season and no doubt it’ll be a rollercoaster ride as it always is with Arsenal but there’s nothing else to do except strap yourself in and scream (with joy and pain) until it ends in May.

The other thing I want to post on is the death of Gary Speed. It’s difficult to write about it as it still seems so unreal.

I remember Gary from what must have been the start of his career as he was only seven years older than me and I started to follow football avidly in 1989. I certainly remember him playing for Leeds and winning the First Division as it was then before the Premier League arrived. I also remember dreading him playing against Arsenal because you knew that whatever team he was in he was going to give 110 per cent and he was always a threat infront of goal just because of his sheer commitment and determination. I also more vaguely remember his international career for Wales alongside Mark Hughes and later Ryan Giggs.

I’ve seen it written elsewhere that Gary Speed was one of the few players that crossed the football divide as fans everywhere had to admire him no matter who he played for and who you supported, just because of his professionalism and work ethic. It’s sad that he didn’t seem to know how much he was respected and loved and that he didn’t probably love himself as much as he should have and treasured all that he achieved.

It’s always difficult when someone dies young but when they die at their own hands it’s even harder to take as it seems so pointless. But Gary Speed’s life was anything but pointless. He made a mark that will certainly stay with me forever and countless other people that have paid tributes over the past few weeks. How he died is irrelevant compared to how he lived and he lived to the max…Listening to people that knew him personally you know that he was a nice person who was great to be around and to call a friend. It’s obvious from his playing days that he was a perfectionist and even though this may have contributed to his death in some way its still something that will form part of the good memories.

Of course I feel for his family especially his dad, wife and children but I hope that in time the legacy that Gary Speed left will comfort and encourage them.

“The grave itself is but a covered bridge,

Leading from light to light, through a brief darkness!”

Many of you may remember me singing the praises of sci-fi series Supernatural ages ago when Season Four was in full swing (that was definitely the best season ever!) but in that post I was worried about plans to extend the series beyond five years because I wanted it all to end on a perfect high.

Creator Eric Kripke always said that he had a five year plan for the Winchester boys, Sam and Dean, and mindful of the recent failure of Lost which had strayed from its original five year plan and crashed and burned (no pun intended) after eight or was it nine series (I stopped watching after season four) into a disappointing and embarrasing mess, I feared the worst when it was rumoured that Supernatural would be extended too.

I was even more worried when it was reported that Kripke would not in charge after Season Five and would be handing over responsibility for the programme to lead writer Sera Gamble. Don’t get me wrong, I like Sera – in fact I interviewed her years ago for the BBC news website about the series at the end of Season Two – but I was still worried that without the regular input of Kripke the series would suffer.

My fears were confirmed with Season Six – to say I felt let down, sad, frustrated and lost would be an understatement. Anyone who is not a telly addict like me will find it hard to understand my feelings but when you invest years into a programme, following it through thick and thin, getting to know the characters, understanding their motivations and discussing it on fan websites it can become quite personal when that programme goes off track. IMO Supernatural went way off track during Season Six, so much so that I wondered whether it could ever recover.

My main problem with the season was the disconnect between the main characters – Supernatural spent much of its early seasons driving it into our heads that Dean and Sam Winchester would do absolutely anything for each other, this kind of sacrificial love is appealing to most humans as all of us would like to think that we have at least one other person on the planet who would be there like that for us – no matter what. But now here we were in Season Six with Sam Winchester a soul-less robot who had no sense of right and wrong and no connection at all to his brother who still loved him above anything else.

I just could not get past this obvious elephant in the room and my engagement with the series suffered because my emphathy for the characters had been severed. To make matters worse the rest of the Winchester clan had turned up and none of them were likeable so my only reason for watching was Dean and even he seemed to have changed as he had become a family man and was no longer the proficient monster hunter that I’d come to admire. Anyway halfway through the season Sam got his soul back but in my mind the damage was done and I could not get into the programme the way I had before as my trust had been broken.

However, I’m an extremely loyal Supernatural fan so I stayed with the season the whole way through even though I did not enjoy it in the least. The only saving grace was the sub plot between the angel Castiel and the demon Crowley – who are played by the fantastic actors Misha Collins and Mark Sheppard. They were funny and believable and great to watch!

Still I was determined to stay true to the series because the previous five seasons – especially Season Four (as I said before) were awesome and I had faith that the magic would return despite this obviously dodgy season. And sure enough – it’s back and I couldn’t be happier.

The first three episodes of Season Seven have been edge-of-the-seat, action-packed, thrill-seeking, tear-jerking rollercoasters that have me right back on the Supernatural bandwagon. I urge anyone that grew disheartened or disillusioned during Season Six to switch back on and anyone that hasn’t seen Supernatural before to get up to speed by renting out the previous seasons.

I have watched countless programmes come and go and I’ve watched the demise of shows that you think will be around for much longer so you can trust me when I say that as a full blown telly addict Supernatural is my drug of choice. It is one of the best scripted, acted, produced and directed programmes on TV at the moment. It’s funny, emotional, gory and suspenseful all at the same time and there aren’t many shows that can claim all of those labels.

When I moved to Barbados from England, nearly three years ago, I knew that I was going to miss quality TV programmes, and I still think that TV in England is way better than US offerings, but one thing that I was glad about was immediate access to Supernatural rather than the three month wait or longer before it was shown on ITV2.

In fact that is the only saving grace for TV here as far as I’m concerned because the  programmes that have been launched in the Fall so far have been pretty mediocre  – the only other series that I’m really loving is A Gifted Man with Patrick Wilson, Terra Nova, Pretty Little Liars and the return of Hawaii Five O which is also awesome. Apart from those I’d prefer UK television any day of the week – and let’s not talk about Charlie’s Angels and Up All Night which suck big time.

Anyway, if you’re reading this Sera Gamble – keep up the good work.

It’s very rare that a series lasts as long as Supernatural and still manages to keep its core fan base and attract new people and stay true to its original premise. It’s also rare that a programme maintains such high standards of acting and scripting while moving the story onwards and upwards. I was worried about Supernatural outstaying its welcome and stretching itself so thin over the years that it becomes unrecognisable and a shadow of its former self but on the premise of these first three episodes of Season Seven I had nothing to worry about because it’s great!

Carry on my wayward sons!

Anyway, I’m back and as you can imagine it would take quite a topic to bring me back to these pages to ‘vent’. Sure I have a lot of things that have been on my mind as usual, namely the increasing cost-of-living in Barbados, our ‘quiet’ PM who only speaks when he’s spoken too, the government’s housing policy which seems to consist of building on every conceivable space of land whether it’s good for the environment or not, the failure by Arsenal to win anything at all for another year, the rise of Novak Djokovic to the top of the men’s tennis world and another series of the Batchelor / Batchelorette which has grabbed my attention as always.

But the subject that has brought me here today is the Casey Anthony murder trial which concluded on Tuesday (July 5th).

I’m not sure if everyone is aware of this case, as for a long time when most of the U.S was apparently gripped by it, I didn’t even know about it, and I’m usually quite up-to-date on most things happening in the world. I had vaguely heard mention of the names and the case a couple of times on the news but I really had no idea what the fuss was all about and I certainly did not know any specific details.

In fact by the time I caught up to the whole thing the trial was nearing it’s conclusion and it may have all passed me by if I hadn’t seen a documentary on American television a week or so ago which went over all of the ‘evidence’ and even showed some of the early weeks of trial testimony.

I must digress here for a second to say that I am still so amazed at how much the American media is allowed to get away with in terms of covering high-profile murder cases. I was genuinely stunned that as the trial was still going on a documentary was being aired that went over the whole case and even highlighted some of the court testimony so far. I may be wrong but I don’t think this would happen in England as there are some really strict contempt of court laws (although the tabloids are always testing these to the limit) which seem to prohibit the UK media becoming as engrossed and pivotal in a murder trial compared to the US and I certainly think that’s a good thing.

The last time I became so involved in a trial was the OJ Simpson case in 1995. I was a sixth form student at the time, studying for ’A’ levels, and evidently I had a lot of time on my hands as I can remember watching nearly every day’s coverage of the court case on the TV and if I missed anything I’d be surprised as I was thoroughly enthralled by the whole thing from before the case even went to court. I even remember watching the car chase ‘live’ on TV as we were all convinced that OJ was either on his way to Mexico or on his way to kill himself but in the end that didn’t amount to much.

So when the OJ case started and it was televised I watched every single session. I guess looking back now I became slightly obsessed with it but I don’t think that was unhealthy as the whole thing was a fascinating insight into the American justice system and an ugly glimpse into American society as a whole, especially in terms of its appalling race issues at the time.

I remember the day the verdict came back so clearly as I had just picked up my mum from work and we were driving home when the news said the jury had reached a verdict. We rushed home and turned on the television just in time to hear the words ‘not guilty’…even now I can’t believe the travesty of justice that was perpetuated that day on the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown. 

So here we are years later and in my opinion the U.S justice system has once again shown itself as incompetent, skewed, unjust and unfair.

As I said I watched a documentary on the Casey/ Caylee Anthony story and I’m not going too in anyway suggest that I saw a tenth of the evidence that was presented to the jury but I believe I saw and heard enough to come to a balanced opinion.

Caylee Anthony was two years old when she went ‘missing’. She had been living with her mum, and her grandparents and from all appearances everything seemed fine until one day her mum Casey along with her daughter just ‘disappeared’. I understand that Casey’s mother searched frantically for them for weeks, making phonecalls, trawling the streets etc until one day she managed to track her daughter down to an apartment that she’d been staying at with a friend. When Casey was found the little girl was not with her, and she proceeded to tell her mother that a nanny that she sometimes left Caylee with had kidnapped the girl.

The 911 call to the police has been well publicised as the grandmother did what any ‘normal’ person would do, and what Casey had failed to do for 31 days, and called the police to report Caylee missing. As the police attempted to find the nanny, missing child posters were put up and appeals were launched, and all this time the only person that was aware that this was a complete waste of time was Casey as she knew that Caylee was long since dead. But instead of telling the police that the child was dead and rotting in woods not far from her parents home, Casey told lie after lie, even going so far as to take the police to her ‘place of work’ at Universal Studios only to turn around at the last minute and admit that she never, ever worked there.

By now the police were beginning to suspect her as I assume as the lies piled up they knew something wasn’t right. The final nail in the coffin was when the nanny proved to be another red herring and again Casey had to admit she lied and that the nanny didn’t even exist (which begs the question who was she leaving Caylee with when she used to say she was taking her to the nanny?).

So at about this time Casey was arrested for the murder of her child but the police still did not have a body as Casey still refused to say where she was buried. The documentary played video and audio of visits Casey’s parents made to her in prison where they begged and implored her to tell them where the little girl was or to help in anyway possible with where she might be, and Casey still does not reveal where the little girl is buried, even though at this stage if they had managed to find her a post mortem might have been easily able to prove the defence’s later proposal that she drowned in the pool at the house.

So for four months Caylee rotted in a swamp until finally she was found completely by accident by a stranger. If she had not been found like this I am sure that to this day Casey Anthony would not have revealed the location, and her daughter would never have had the dignity of a proper burial and a headstone.

So the documentary then went onto the admittedly shaky forensic evidence which basically revolved around a car that Casey Anthony had been driving around in while Caylee was missing which apparently ‘smelt of death’ and was found to contain Caylee’s hair which when tested apparently had abnormal levels of chloroform. Then there was a home computer which was found to contain search after search for cholorofom, how to make it and neck breaking.

And finally there were the pictures of Casey dancing and partying while her daughter rotted away in a makeshift grave. She even got a new tattoo which when translated meant ‘the good life’.

So here we are today and after six weeks of hearing evidence, testimony etc etc the jury took just 10 hours to decide that Casey was not guilty of anything at all except lying to the police.

It seems they bought the defence’s proposition that Caylee drowned in the pool and when she was found by her mother and her grandfather instead of calling the police and arranging a dignified funeral, these two people decided to ‘cover up’ this ‘accident’ (as you do) by taking their little daughter / grand daughter to the woods in a blanket, covering her mouth with duct tape to make it look like murder, and leaving her there in a small ditch. And then while the grandmother searched for them both, Casey ‘disappeared’ and went out partying while she and her father, implicit in the ‘cover up’, watched and waited and hoped that no-one would ever find that little girl who had ‘accidently’ drowned in the pool.

Now I know the case against Casey Anthony was based on circumstantial evidence because everyone seemed to agree that the forensic evidence was dodgy. I don’t know what’s dodgy about large amounts of choloform in hair follicles and duct tape over the mouth and nose of Caylee but there you go.

But surely, even if you just look at the circumstances, it’s obvious from the start that Casey Anthony is guilty of something because the whole time her daughter is ‘missing’ she’s doing everything she possibly can to cover it up – why?.

Even if you believe her story that Caylee drowned accidently, why, once the police were involved and you were being accused of murder would you not tell them where she is buried so that they can carry out a post mortem and find water in her lungs that will at least back up some of what you say happened? Why leave it four months for her to be found by a stranger and now its impossible to establish the cause of death? The only person who benefits from that in the long run is the person that killed her.

And putting aside the disbelief that if you find a child dead in a pool you would seek to cover it up anway (because who does that) – how do you explain the parties and the tattoo which all occured in the days after Caylee’s death? Your daughter is rotting in the back of a car or in some woods and you decide that that’s a good time to party?!!

She also accused her father and brother of sexual abuse and her defence used this as an excuse for her mountain of lies. But if you have an abusive father why did you take your baby daughter to live with them? What kind of mother takes her baby girl to live with a man that’s apparently been sexually abusing her for years and getting away with it?

It seems that a lot of people are surpised by the jury’s verdict but I’m not as surprised as you might think after my experience with the OJ Simpson case. That was largely circumstantial as well (as I’m guessing the majority of cases are considering you very rarely have a video of a crime, or a confession or a massive amount of forensic evidence) but the evidence was overwhelming and yet the jury found him not guilty. If a jury in that case could come back with that verdict then its obvious that there are some problems with the system.

The main issue I have with the American justice system is the dominance of lawyer personalities. It seems that if you don’t rely on charisma, charm and salesman like tactics to win the jury then you are doomed to failure because instead of looking at the evidence they are looking at you – and if for any reason they don’t like you it doesn’t matter what you say or do, the case is lost.

I also have a problem with the defence harping on about reasonable doubt.

I’m not a lawyer but to me this term has been twisted and malformed into meaning that any doubt at all should result in a not guilty verdict. But it doesn’t say that you have to be 100 per cent sure – because at the end of the day how can anyone be 100 per cent sure unless you saw it yourself and even then you may doubt your eyes – it says ‘reasonable doubt’ which I take to mean you can convict if you have some doubt but not an amount that would seem unreasonable.

So basically, if due to the evidence you are 90 per cent sure, then in my book that’s ok because a reasonable amount of doubt would be between 0 and 10 per cent. But if you are only 70 / 30 of 60 / 40 sure then you can’t convict as the evidence hasn’t dispelled a large amount of your doubt.

The problem of course is that this is subjective. There are 12 people on the jury and what you think is reasonable doubt may be unreasonable to someone else who wants to be 100 per cent sure before they convict. This is one of the (many) problems I have with the death penalty because as I said, you can’t be 100 per cent sure, so no-one should be put to death if there’s any doubt at all.

But people seem to think that you have to be completely, 100 per cent, without doubt sure and that’s not what is required (or possible) - all that’s required is to be sure beyond a reasonable doubt – how that ‘reasonable’ doubt is measured is up to you.

I also have a problem with how the media is allowed to cover cases in the US. As far as I’m concerned the media is allowed far too much leeway for cases that are pending and ongoing. Some of the coverage of this case demonstrates amply that the media is incapable of controlling itself when a story like this presents itself so laws are needed to protect the integrity of a trial. It can’t be right to have so much media coverage of a case while it’s still going on.

So now we await the interviews, the book, the TV drama and the film and while the circus continues and the money rolls in the two year old girl who died will be convienently forgotten – she can’t speak for herself and even if she could no one would listen.

And to those people that say ‘well, she’s dead and nothing will bring her back’, or ‘something probably went on but the case wasn’t proven 100 per cent’ or some other namby, pamby excuse, I say I hope you never lose anyone you love under such evil circumstances.

The laws are there to protect us all and justice is supposed to be blind, equal and fair but when a conviction comes down to personalities, the media coverage, a juror having a bad day, a juror wanting to get home early so he can go on a cruise or someone thinking they need to be 100 per cent sure instead of a just, cold hard look at all of the evidence and facts then we are all in dire trouble.

RIP Caylee Marie Anthony.

Recently T&T, like many countries in the region and perhaps the world, has been experiencing a worrying rise in crime. Now for those of you that don’t know T&T always had a crime problem – its murder rate per capita is ridiculous along with the regular practice of kidnapping people for ransom – so for them to be having a spike in crime shows you what’s going on there at the moment.

I admit that I don’t know much about the social fabric about T&T but I guess it’s no coincidence that the increase in murders, robberies, rapes etc has come at the same time as the world and the region experiences a crippling economic slowdown. I’m not saying this is an excuse I’m just pointing out these coinciding facts.

I also posit that these statistics are linked to the fact that T&T is a very divided country with race problems and a massive gap between rich and poor with the rich comprising of whites and Indians and the poor comprising mainly of blacks.

In addition there seems to be a steady supply of drugs and guns which everyone knows is the fuel behind the crime machine keeping the whole thing ticking over.

Anyway, in response to this crime spurt the new T&T government (which is led by Mrs Kamla Persad Bissessar and has been in power now for about 8 months) recently decided to introduce amendments to the constitution which will make it easier for the country to hang people.

These amendments were proposed because at the moment the country is still signed onto the British Privy Council as its final court of appeal and the Council has recently recommended that many prisoners have their execution sentences commuted to life in prison because of the length of time they have been left on death row. There is a limit on how long you can keep someone in prison waiting to be hanged before it is deemed inhumane and has to be changed to life in prison instead.

The problem is that the appeals process takes so long in T&T, that most of these sentences have to be changed from hanging, to life in jail, and this is what has irked a number of people there, hence the decision to change the constitution to make the appeals process quicker so that they can hang people – quicker.

Anyone that knows me knows that I am vehemently opposed to capital punishment and for me to be so strong against something is a big thing because most of the time I am moderate / liberal on any given issue and can see both sides of an argument even if in the end I know what I think and believe on most subjects.

But when it comes to murder – whether it is by the state or by an individual or anyone else for that matter – I am categorically opposed to it no-matter-what (and before you say ’what about self-defence’, IMO self -defence is not murder, it’s self-defence).

So to hear that T&T have decided to solve their crime issue by making it easier to hang people and by shortening the appeals process into the bargain was disturbing for me to say the least.

But as if that wasn’t bad enough, the issue in T&T was made worse by the recent case of a little boy called Daniel Guerra who was 8 and who went missing a few weeks ago.

Let me give you some background – as part of my job I have to listen to regional news broadcasts and read regional newspapers so I saw the story of a little boy who was missing as soon as it happened.

Daniel had asked his grandmother to go to the shop not far from their home and as he wasn’t going far his grandmother said he could go. When he didn’t come home about half an hour later she called the police to report him missing. The police did not start searching for him straight away and from what I can gather it may even have been dark by the time they began to look in the area.

Two days later Daniel was found in a river, wearing the same clothes he had on when he went missing and with the same black bag that he got from the shop where he went before he disappeared. The first post-mortem concluded that he had drowned.

After reading the reports from the time Daniel went missing to when his body was discovered I was 99 per cent sure that he had wandered off by his own, as small children are prone to do, went down to the river and got into difficulties and unfortunately drowned on the very same day that he disappeared.

There were some vague reports of a boy being seen getting into a silver car, and others said that there was no way he could’ve walked to where he was found without being seen which all added to the idea that he was taken and killed – but having read everything, I am convinced that Daniel simply drowned as thousands of children sadly do every year.

Well, what happened next IMO is a sad indictment on Kamla Persad-Bissessar and T&T as a whole as poor Daniel’s death, which happened at the same time as the hanging debate, was quickly turned, manipulated and mutated into a political football used to incite more bloodshed.

Shortly after his death Mrs Persad Bissessar visited his family, which is fine if a little unusual (does she visit every possible murder victim’s family?) but before the first post-mortem had even been carried out she was ‘promising to leave no stone unturned to find Daniel’s killer/s’. Excuse me! You don’t even know how he died but you are already presuming that he was murdered…Talk about throwing petrol on a fire.

No wonder then that when the first post-mortem came back as ‘drowned’ the family and the country were unhappy and they demanded another one.

This time the post-mortem, which was carried out by someone hired by the family rather than a neutral government pathologist, came back with cause of death as asphixiation.

Of course this second post mortem has caused even more confusion mainly because, from what I can gather, it brought back a result that did not fit into what many had believed – that Daniel was brutally and viciously murdered.

Now why, dear reader, would people want to think that a little 8 year old boy was murdered rather than believing that he simply went down to the river, got in, and drowned??? Why? Probably because of the hanging debate…

Daniel’s death is being used to stir up support for the death penalty by politicians in T&T who are determined to bring back hanging no matter what. They don’t care that Daniel was almost certainly not murdered, all they care about is how his death can be used to murder other people.

So last week poor little Daniel was subjected to a third post mortem by an outside and seemingly independent pathologist from the US – the results were made known to the family but as far as I can tell they have not been made known to the public just yet – but the cause of death is now irrelevant to me as the issue has gone beyond just Daniel.

This whole thing makes me sick to my stomach for a number of reasons but mainly because it highlights once again what politicians are prepared to do to get what they want.

Mrs Persad Bissessar used this little boy’s death, knowing full well that he probably wasn’t murdered, for her own political ends. She harped on about being ‘a mother and a grandmother’ and urged the country to rally against the people who do things to little boys like Daniel, knowing that there was probably no-one at all to blame for this little boy’s tragic death. She used the grief of his family to stir up hatred, fear and bloodlust so that she could pass a bill that would make it easier to hang people. Shame!

In the end the bill wasn’t passed but not because the majority do not want it to pass but because the opposition want a number of adjustments and it can’t get through parliament without a special majority which includes the vote of at least 3 opposition MPs.

I was relieved that the bill was stopped for any reason but my happiness was short-lived when I heard the T&T Attorney General on the radio shortly after saying that the government would continue to ‘fight crime’ by bringing in new laws such as allowing police to use invasive tactics to get DNA from anyone, yes, anyone, arrested for a crime without their permission.

So if you are caught stealing an apple you may have to submit to a wide range of DNA testing whether you like it or not.

Amnesty International need to look into T&T right now because from what I can see human rights are being whittled away there every single day.

Meanwhile, a policeman who was ‘questioned’ about Daniel’s death has now had to issue a statement making it clear that he had nothing to do with it just in case some vigilante nutjob decides that because he was taken in for questioning he must have played a role.

And that’s what really worries me about this whole thing – the mob mentality that was incited by T&T’s own government – where it seems that no-body listened to reason and logic and instead everyone looked around for someone to blame for Daniel’s death even when there probably was no-one.

When will people realise that violence leads to violence and the death penalty solves nothing at all – not even IMO the quest for justice. No matter how many people you hang there will still be murders, robberies and other crimes because most criminals don’t think they’ll get caught. In fact you could argue that the death penalty leads to greater crime because an eye witness who may have been allowed to live before, can’t possibly be shown mercy now.

And for those people that quote the bible’s famous ‘an eye for an eye’ I invite you to read the New Testament. Jesus came to introduce a new covenant between God and his people and central to that are the planks of forgiveness and love. As hard as it is, we have to try to forgive people for the wrong things that they do, even when they don’t seem sorry, and even when all we want is revenge, because we will be judged by the same yardstick we use to judge others, and no-one wants to be judged that harshly.

Finally I’ll end by saying that I watched a documentary recently about a 12 year old boy in the US who killed a 6 year old girl – some argued it was accidental, some said it was on purpose – but he was found guilty and was sentenced to spend the rest of his natural life in prison. A 12 year old boy – sentenced to life – for one mistake that was horrendous but surely not unforgivable.

In the end his sentence was reduced and he was freed – but the point is that at some stage societies have to take some responsibility for the people they produce and stop resorting to draconian measures such as hanging and life in prison. When a 12 year old kills, it’s time for us all to stand up and take a good look in the mirror because somewhere along the line we have all failed that child and the victim.

I will never believe that hanging is any sort of solution to crime and if T&T or anywhere else for that matter what’s to solve its crime issues then I suggest it looks deeper than trying to put the fear of God into people because that does not and never will work.

Before this experience I obviously followed Ministers at events, spoke to several of them at briefings and have also listened to Parliamentary debates live and over the internet. But this was the first time that I was out in the field, rubbing shoulders as it were, with the political elite and the minions that follow them and let me tell you – it won’t be something I’ll forget in a hurry.

For those of you that don’t know the by-election was called because of the death of the Barbadian Prime Minister David Thompson. He had held this seat in St John since 1991, the Democratic Labour Party had held it for 52 years and the DLP candidate this time around was his widow Mara Thompson so the result was pretty much a foregone conclusion, however, this did not make the spectacle of the by-election campaign any less fascinating.

I’ve always been interested in the way a country is run – I guess that’s why I did an ‘A’ level in Government and Politics – but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that my view of politics and politicians had not been tarnished over the years by scandal after scandal in the UK and as I’ve become aware, in Barbados as well.

In fact, looking back I can pinpoint exactly when my passion and enthusiasm for politics became jaded and it was basically in the run up to the Iraq War and the lies told by Tony Blair and his government to drag us off to the front line behind the U.S.

I remember voting for Labour in my first General Election and I also remember sitting up through the night as results were read out from across the UK signalling the end of Tory rule. I had a chart with all of the seats that Labour needed and one by one I crossed those seats off until it was about 3am and it was obvious that they had done it. I went to sleep so happy knowing that my vote had made a difference and knowing that the UK would finally have a government that matched my socialist views.

Needless to say a few years later when Tony Bliar [that's not a typo] took us to war for his own reasons I realised that at the end of the day politicians will say and do whatever they want to justify and explain whatever they want and there is not much that the public can do about it.

Ever since then I have not trusted a single word that a single politician has to say on anything. And I mean all politicians… I know some people who swear that the sun shines out of Barack Obama’s backside, and don’t get me wrong I am glad that the U.S finally has a black President, but at the end of the day he’s a politician first and foremost and that means he’d say and do anything he has too to stay in power.

Anyway, putting my cynicism aside I went off to several of the political rallies to cover them in my capacity as a radio reporter and although, as I said, the result was obvious, it was still fascinating to watch the Barbados Labour Party candidate Hudson Griffith attempt to convince an extremely doubting audience that he was a better candidate than Mrs Thompson.

I primarily followed the BLP bandwagon as it rolled across the parish of St John and several tactics were employed by them to try to win some votes. The main tactic proved a bit risky and it focused on the fact that Mara Thompson is from St Lucia…I personally did not see what this had to do with anything but I guess it was a way for the BLP to rattle a few cages and we all know that in times of recession it usually does not hurt to pick on the foreigners.

Anyway, this seemed to backfire in a big way as even Prime Minister’s from other Caribbean island’s chastised the BLP for taking this position. I’m sure the BLP’s leadership regret taking this approach now, but I guess it again illustrates what politicians are capable of when they want to gain power.

I actually quite liked Hudson Griffith and at least he seemed to have some definitive plan for St John but I don’t have anything against Mrs Thompson either and in the end I’m sure both of them would have made a reasonable candidate, although I’ll be surprised if anything much really changes for the people of St John.

On election night I was posted at BLP HQ and the atmosphere was sobering as the results came in and it was obvious that not only had Mara Thompson won the seat but that she had won it comprehensively with 87 per cent of the vote.

This overwhelming majority wasn’t much of a surprise but I still found it a bit worrying as it seemed to prove the point that no matter who the DLP put up as a candidate in St John, the people there have decided that they are DLP supporters and that is it. And to be honest I have a bit of a problem with that, mainly because it’s about ’personality politics’ instead of about the real issues.

The facts are that Barbados is in a deep recession and the cost of living is spiralling out of control, the government is drowning under a mountain of debt, the unemployment rate is rising and even before the Prime Minister’s death in October the country seemed to lack direction.

Now I’m not saying that the BLP would be any better because I have heard allegations of corruption, mismanagement and extreme arrogance leveled against them.

But I am saying that these issues need to be addressed and it would’ve been nice if the by-election in St John was used to talk about these fundamental problems and how we are going to solve them.

In fact, the only person in my opinion who actually talked about solutions instead of making cheap jibes was the former leader of the opposition Mia Mottley. I heard her speak once and for every problem she identified such as the cost of living, she offered a way to solve the issue. It was refreshing but sad that she was the only speaker to make an effort to address the real things that are affecting us every single day.

So for about three weeks I ate, slept and drank Barbadian politics and I have to say that I liked it and a few times I even recaptured my old political sparkle and thought for a second that politics can and will make a difference.

Watching the protestors in Tunisia sucessfully remove their President and the demonstrators in Egypt push for more democracy, my heart is also warmed by the knowledge that people do have the power to agitate for change and to force politicians, even dictators, to realise that their power can be taken away just as readily as it was given, when and if the people decide that they have had enough.

Even though my cynicism is now slowly returning (especially after watching that blood thirsty liar Tony Blair ‘apologise’ to the Iraq War enquiry for the umpteen deaths that he has caused) I’m glad that I have had a taste of what politics is like here… I’m not looking forward to a General Election though!

Don’t get me wrong – I’m certainly not a scrooge who wants the whole thing to disappear or to be over with as quickly as possible, but if we really care to admit it there’s always something missing around this time of year for any one over the age of 18.

Not only have I never ever felt the same way about Christmas as I felt when I was little, but I also just can’t get used to Christmas in the tropics.

Apart from the two Christmases I have had here so far, I have only spent one other Christmas Day in a sunny climate and that was in 2000 when I was in the middle of a trip around the world. I was in Melbourne on Dec 25th and after we had had a chicken dinner provided by the hostel (maybe turkey was too expensive?), a group of us went down to a park and played frisbee. It was officially the strangest Christmas I have ever had and it certainly did not feel like anything special.

Last year I had the best dinner ever as my mum cooked duck in some sort of alcoholic sauce. After having a glass or two of wine we promptly fell asleep for about 3 hours. When we woke up we wondered why we were so knocked out and then we concluded that the duck sauce, combined with the glasses of white wine, had basically made us drunk.

The year before that (2008) we had a terrible incident with a lobster. I apologise to those who have heard this story before but anyway for those of you that don’t know, here it is…

In her wisdom my mother decided to ‘surprise’ me by cooking lobster for Christmas dinner after our search for duck had proved futile and I refused to eat either Turkey or Chicken.

On my birthday, Dec 23rd, she disappeared for the whole morning without telling me where she had gone or even letting me know that she had left. Peeved off that she was no-where to be found when I got up I took myself down to the beach and I stayed there pretty much all of the day – unreachable.

Late in the afternoon I got back home and Mum was there now wondering where I had been. She explained what she had been up too and the fact that despite being awol for most of my b’day she had still been unable to locate a lobster and we would have to go back down to the local fish market early on Christmas Day.

So on Christmas Day we got up at a ridiculous hour and went to the market only to be told that the boats were not back yet so we would have to wait. We waited for about an hour and a half before the first ship arrived and by now there were quite a few people waiting with us for fresh lobster.

As we were novices we had no idea at all what we were letting ourselves in for but we should have guessed when we saw the size of the sea creatures and their jerky movements which signalled that they were none too happy at not being in the sea anymore.

A fisherman asked us how much we wanted to pay and then grabbed the corresponding crustacean which had monster claws and monster antenna. He put it into a plastic bag (like that was going to hold it) and gave it to us. We walked briskly to the car and put it into the boot. The whole car journey all we could hear was rustling and it was obvious that our ‘dinner’ was not happy at what was happening or what was to come.

Eventually we got home and deposited the lobster from the bag into the kitchen sink which was just about big enough to hold it. It proceeded to flap about from then until we finally put it into the pot, which was about 4 – 6 hours later – and let me tell you those were the longest hours of my life. Even my cats (one of which is usually q fearless) were jumpy and petrified every time we heard the animal move in the sink.

I became increasingly worried that our Christmas dinner was soon going to get out of the sink and join us in the living room as the thrashing became more and more dramatic. The noise played on my last nerve and it got to the point where I seriously thought about taking the thing back down to the beach and releasing it into the sea.

As we prepared the veg etc to go with the lobster and he / she continued to make his / her presence felt in the sink, the hours slowly ticked by and the decision about how to cook our victim loomed large.

For those of you that don’t know there are two ways to cook a lobster (well, two according to our cookbook)…One involved resting a knife onto the cross on the back of its head and using a mallet to drive said knife into its head before placing it into a pot of boiling water. The other involved putting it into a pot of water that had been boiled and then cooled so that the lobster would suffocate and then it could be turned up to boiling point…As I didn’t want to smash it with a mallet I decided on the latter option – what a mistake.

Firstly mum and I had to boil a huge pot of water and then wait for it to cool – this took forever! Then when it was cool we had to get the lobster into it. Well, needless to say he / she did not want to co-operate and I knew then and there that I would never be doing this ever again.

Mum offered to grab the lobster but I knew this was a two woman job so I told her to hold the lid while I grabbed it and then get ready to squash the lid down. I stood over the flapping lobster and my stomach churned. To this day I have no idea where I got the strength from to grab it as mum said I went a funny colour and I knew that all of the blood had drained from my face.

I felt so queasy but it had to be done otherwise we would have a new ‘pet’ lobster so after a couple of massive, deep breaths I grabbed it round its waist and as it thrashed and kicked I shoved it into the pot of cooled water and my mum, who is the strongest person I know (and that’s one of the many things I love about her), smashed the lid down several times to squash the animal into the pot.

We finally got all of it in and then we put it on the hob ring - but here is the worst part – it moved around in there for at least another 15 mins.

The cookbook said it would suffocate quickly but that did not happen and we had to endure listening to that thing trying to get out, as the water got hotter and hotter. It was an horrendous experience and ranks right up there with the time I had to kill a mouse that my cat had brought into my flat after it got trapped in the bookcase.

But the worst thing of all is that when we finally got to eat the lobster I did not enjoy it at all – partly because of the nightmare that had preceeded dinner and partly because I just didn’t like the taste of it. So after all of that the lobster died for nothing because neither me or mum hardly ate any of it.

I don’t know how that whole episode didn’t turn me into an instant vegetarian.

Anyway, apart from and despite of these mishaps I just can’t get used to Christmas in a sunny climate. I know the UK and Europe is having some terrible weather at the moment and I’m not saying that I’d like to be some where covered with snow (although snow is ok as long as you don’t have to go anywhere) but there is something definitively Christmassey about a cold climate in December. It puts you in the mood for everything else to come and sets the scene for the nativity, carols, eggnog and even New Year’s Eve which follows shortly afterwards.

In addition I must also admit that I am a signed up member to the whole ‘Christmas is too commercial’ brigade who basically feel that the essential message about the birth, life and death of a Saviour is lost in the whole rush to buy tinsel, cards and presents. I think I’ve said it before on this blog that as a Christian I much prefer Easter which is too stark, bloody and awesome to be hijacked even by the well-meaning Easter bunny.

But back to the theme…tomorrow (Thursday Dec 23rd) is my birthday and even that feels strange in a warm country after 30 odd years of celebrations in the cold, however I shall try to make the most of it by heading to the beach and then enjoying lunch with family and friends by a beachside restaurant.

And on Saturday I will wake up in the heat, shake off the disbelief and open some presents – Merry Christmas…

In March / April this year I distinctly remember being asked to cover a number of assignments that the Prime Minister was also meant to attend. I went along to every single one but at every single one some excuse was given as to why the Prime Minister was not there. This happened about 3 or 4 times and soon rumours began about the Prime Minister and the possible reasons for his absences. Finally he appeared in parliament and it was clear to everyone that he had lost a lot of weight which he put down to a new diet that he had recently started. But the rumours persisted and a niggling uneasiness continued as the PM became more and more absent from public life. Eventually in September we were all given the grim news that David Thompson was suffering from pancreatic cancer.

A quick search on google will tell you all you need to know about pancreatic cancer and its voracious appetite for killing people within a year or so of being diagnosed, so it was painfully obvious that the PM had a long fight ahead of him to get well and he may well lose the battle. The nation prayed for him and we all prayed for his family as well, as he has a wife and three young daughters and as the PM travelled backwards and forwards to NY for treatment and the country waited to see if he could somehow miraculously recover, the whole place seemed to remain in limbo.

My own exposure to pancreatic cancer begins and ends with the Dirty Dancing star Patrick Swayze so although I also prayed, wished and hoped that the PM would get better I knew that it was not likely that he would return to full health and come back to lead the country. And sure enough on October 23rd we all got the news, that just seven months after being diagnosed David Thompson had died from pancreatic cancer in the early hours of the morning.

On the morning itself I will never forget hearing the news as its not something you dismiss easily. I had set my alarm for 8.25am, as I usually do on my days off, as I wanted to hear the five minute 8.30am news bulletin produced by my work colleagues at Starcom Network. But although I got up as soon as the alarm went off for some reason I did not turn on the radio. Instead I followed my otherwise usual routine and it wasn’t until I was back in my room at about 8.50am that I decided to tune in.

And as soon as I did I knew something was wrong as I had the radio tuned to Love FM which plays a mixture of rock, pop, soul tunes (much like Magic and Heart in the UK) but instead of hearing a nice simple love song I was met with extremely somber music. I knew straight away what that must signal but for some reason my brain still did not get the message until I heard a voice saying David Thompson December 25th 1961 to October 23rd 2010. Then I knew what we all knew was coming but for some reason had tried to deny, ignore or surpress and I knew it was real.

People say they will never forget where they were when they heard that JFK or Elvis had died, well for me I have never forgotten how I heard about Princess Diana’s death and I will never forget hearing about the death of Mr Thompson. I went downstairs to share the news with my mum who was out in the garden and had also not followed her usual routine of turning on the radio so was in blissful ignorance until I told her what had happened. So that was that…

Anyway I have given this preamble to inform people who might not know what has been going on in Barbados for the past couple of weeks but what I really want to focus on is what happens next. So many issues have come out of this tragedy and I could talk about how the whole issue was handled, or the way the media covered Mr Thompson’s illness and his subsequent death (especially how the only TV station did not break the news until about 4 hours after Starcom), or I could focus on his chosen successor Freundel Stuart (who could not be more different than Mr Thompson in terms of personality and approach)…but I really just want to share the impact Mr Thompson made on me and what his legacy will be for the country as we move on without him.

I met Mr Thompson twice (to talk too) – once when I had only been in the island for a few months in January 2009 when his government had only been in power for a year and he held a press conference at the PM’s official residence Illaro Court. And at another press conference which was held at the lone TV station CBC about a year or so later.

I remember the first meeting better as it was at Illaro Court, which was a beautiful setting, and I could not wait to question the PM about his first year in office. I remember being introduced to Mr Thompson who was quite tall and imposing but who greeted me with a smile as he welcomed me to Illaro Court and Barbados. I also remember not feeling nervous at all as I had nothing to lose, and had only just arrived so no-one knew much about me or what I was like, I also did not have any of the baggage that some other journalists have who have been here for years, like a certain political affiliation, and I was working for BBC Caribbean which is well respected.

The press conference went very well and I thought the PM was as candid and open as a leader can be and as honest as any politician usually is, but most of all I remember him taking his time to answer every question carefully as he seemed ever mindful that every Barbadian from the highest to the lowest (for want of a better term) was watching him, listening and expecting him to provide answers.

I’m not going to pretend that I know anything about the inner workings of a person’s heart but I must say that I do feel the PM was sincere in his assertion that Barbados must get back to a caring and sharing society that is deeply rooted in fairness and equality, otherwise it will lose its way like so many of our Caribbean neighbours today, who are bogged down by crime and hatred such as Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.

I think the PM could not be better honoured than if Barbadians return to being polite, friendly and service orientated, putting efforts into building a better society rather than buying a bigger house or car. I believe the PM really cared about the people of this island and he wanted nothing more than for us all to take better care of each other and to treat our neighbours as we would want to be treated.

Since the PM’s death much has been said about him as a leader, a father, a son, a brother and a friend by people who are much better qualified to talk about him than I am but from my own narrow perspective I will always remember the PM as a man trying to do his best under difficult circumstances. Of course he had his faults, weaknesses and liabilities as the word ‘man’ suggests but those failings should not detract from the idea that in the end, despite his limitations, he was trying to make a difference and trying to do all that he could do to make this island a better place to live.

It’s only natural for people to focus on the good things about another person after they have died (gosh, if you can’t do that then when can you do it) but I can genuinely say that I feel touched by the PM’s life and inspired to try to make a contribution to this country of my parent’s birth even if that contribution only reaches one other person.

David Thompson was only 48 when he died but as my mum keeps saying, he packed a lot into those short years. When I went to the funeral one of the people giving a tribute brought tears to my eyes when he said ‘all he needed was a bit more time’ but even though I’m sure that’s what his family and all of us would’ve wanted it seems to me that he had all the time he needed to make a difference and leave a lasting legacy which will shape the island now and into the future.

More time would’ve been nice but maybe in the end, the time he had was just enough.

Remember me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you planned:

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad…by Christina Rossetti

Link: http://vob929.ocmnet.net/vob/news/localnews/10-11-03/Farewell_to_Prime_Minister_David_Thompson.aspx

For those of you that don’t know, Crop-Over is a ‘cultural’ festival that goes on in Barbados over about six weeks culminating in a carnival on the first Monday in August (a Bank Holiday) known as Grand Kadooment Day. I’ll get to K-Day in a minute but before that you have weeks and weeks of build-up and that’s where my first ‘problem’ lies.

Crop-Over basically consists of a series of what the Bajan’s call ‘Limes’, which from what I can ascertain are basically large gatherings of people, standing around in fields, open-spaces, gardens etc, eating and drinking and well, ‘liming’ which is the Bajan word for doing nothing much at all.

I went to three such events and apart from one I can safely say that I was thoroughly bored out of my skull for most of the time.

I just don’t see the point of standing around watching other people eat way too much and drink way too much, while you also eat way too much and drink way too much after the hours of midnight (because Bajan’s don’t usually go out anywhere before 11pm)…I felt like a naughty Gremlin who had snuck out of the house for a giant midnight feast.

I think the locals like these types of ‘parties’ because most of them like nothing better than staring at other people and commenting on what they are wearing, how they have their hair and who they are with, but for someone from the UK who is used to just keeping her head down and not really being bothered about what other people are doing unless it directly affects you personally, I found the entire thing extremely tiresome.

The next issue I have is with Crop-Over itself in that I don’t even know what it’s about. Now, I know someone might say well, look it up, or google it or buy a book, but my point is that surely someone from the Ministry of Culture or the National Cultural Foundation who is being paid to educate us about these things should make it their business to explain at regular intervals what the point of the entire thing is just so that we know. I mean how can you put your heart and soul into ‘celebrating’ when you don’t really know what it is you are ‘celebrating’ for or about.

I believe the ‘celebration’ is somehow supposed to be tied in with the Season of Emancipation (I only know this because I covered a media event to launch the Season) but I still don’t get the direct connection between ‘jumping up’ on Crop-Over while people wuk up on each other like animals, as they drink huge amounts of alcohol, with the emancipation of slaves. Am I missing something?

I also have a slight issue with the amount of events that go on during Crop-over to showcase calypso and soca music. Putting aside the fact that I don’t really like either art-form why do we need to have a Junior Monarch competition separate from the adult Sweet Soca and Party Monarch competitions? Why can’t they just be amalgamated?

And then before you even get to those events you have about a million so-called ‘tents’ where these people sing their songs before being chosen to take part in the competitions. And then there is also Cohobblopot (don’t ask me to explain that word or where it comes from) and countless other places where the Calypsonians and Soca artists sing for their supper – I think it would be much better if is was all condensed a bit so that we don’t get overwhelmed.

Then there is the actual ‘jump’ itself. The ‘jump’ consists of 22 bands in various costumes moving down a set route from a start point to the finish - a bit like the Notting Hill Carnival.

In order to be in the ‘jump’ you have to join a band and I decided to go with ‘Power X Four’ mainly because my friends were also going with them and also because they are one of the bigger bands and so I thought they would be one of the most organised. Well, how wrong can you be… if I was ever going to jump again (which I’m not) I can say now that I would never, ever go with Power X Four.

First of all I paid $480 Barbados dollars for my costume which basically consisted of a bikini top and bottom with a few sequins and beads glued on. Then I had to go back on a set day to collect the costume. I was told this would be the Friday before Grand Kadooment Day but as I was off work I decided I would go on Saturday. Well, needless to say collection was not on Friday anyway.

On Saturday at 1pm the costumes were being given out and when I arrived at Power X Four’s base at 1.35pm, and was told to collect a number, I found out to my horror that I was number 128. This was bad enough but the numbers were being called out on average one every 20 minutes. Meanwhile countless people, friends of friends and any guy at all (yes, men were being let in ahead of women) were allowed to get their costumes ahead of the queue so the number system was doomed to failure anyway.

I waited for about an hour, went down the road for some things and got back at 3.15pm – they had made it to number 54. By the time I left at 4.15pm with a headache and hunger pains they were up to number 76 and needless to say I still didn’t have my costume!

Anyone would think they’d never done this Crop-Over thing before and were trying it out for the first time – Gosh people, how hard is it to organise collections for the different sections on different days or to have the guys one day and the girls the next!!! Anything has to be better than that complete and utter shambles.

My mum reckoned the costumes were given out so late so if there were any problems there wouldn’t be much you could do about it – either way the longer I waited in the hot sun for that tiny two-piece ensemble, that cost me nearly $500, the more I felt like I had MUG written on my forehead. I later went back about 8.30pm in the evening before another party (which was the excellent event hosted by the Mottley family) and waited a mere 20 minutes.

Then on K-Day we all gathered at the start point with bits already falling off of our costumes waiting for our scheduled beginning as band number 4. Bands 1, 2, and 3 left with no problems but there was no sign of our illustrious Power X Four organisers so we stood and waited as band after band left before us until finally we left in position number 8 – which doesn’t sound too bad until you realise that there were about 20 / 30 mins inbetween each band setting off.

Then once we were on the road and I thought the troubles would cease but again I was wrong as we stopped and started, and stopped and started and never managed to keep any momentum with the dancing and wukking up and instead barely managed a slow funeral-like march.

Eventually we reached the National Stadium where our costumes were ‘judged’ but by now my costume was hanging on by a thread and needless to say we didn’t win that competition.

After that the drinks trucks decided to move ahead of the revellers and from then on it was no longer a ‘jump-up’ but more like a marathon as we ran and ran and ran after the drinks trucks in 40 degree heat, only to be told when we reached them that they had run out of water and there was only alcohol left. After pleading with people to please give me something non-alcoholic at least I finally averted fainting with some much needed orange juice.

About 8 hours after starting off we finally made it to our destination but we had long since left the band behind who were now moving at snail’s pace and had nearly caught up with the first bands to leave.

After all that I had to go to work and try to produce news while wearing nothing but a bikini top and bottom and some beads. I really didn’t drink much but because I’d only had a hotdog for the entire day I was definitely not in the best state to produce a news bulletin.

But you know what… despite the problems with the band and the costume and the drinks and other niggly little things, I think I can safely say that I did enjoy Crop-Over 2010 and Grand Kadooment day in parts.

I haven’t partied like that since I went travelling around the world in 2000, when I used to go out almost every day, and all of the people I went out with are great fun and good people to know.

I drank, sang, danced and at one event got thoroughly soaked to the skin during a literal lightening storm but I definitely would do most of it, yes, most of it, all over again next year… am I crazy or what?

Video – http://vob929.ocmnet.net/vob/entertainment/entertainmentnews/10-08-06/Grand_Kadooment_2010_coverage.aspx