Misirlou, Misirlou, where next for you? (or how a traditional Greek song became one of the most played melodies in this August's soca crop)

Listening to a popular soca tune from this year's Vincy Mas, Charge Up, by Skinny Fabulous, which crossed over into Barbados Cropover, we've all thought - that's familiar...And it was, we realised, because it was sampling the tune from the Black Eyed Peas song Pump It!

And then we heard a couple more similar tunes, one by Rupee - Get Crazy - and by Peter Ram - Ironman, all with that beguiling guitar riff that caught our attention in Pump It!

The story of that guitar riff begins in Greece in the 20's, the first known performance of Misirlou, a Greek song about an Egyptian girl, a slow melodious song which is eventually adopted by many other neighbouring nations.  Some even come to consider it as one of their national songs. It is sung in Yiddish at Jewish weddings, and in the Arab world for belly dancers. Over the years it becomes a popular standard from Morocco to Iran.

In the 40's the song migrates to the USA, recorded as a jazz instrumental by a Greek American, Nick Roubanis, and then begins to spread in the USA, covered by several artists who mistakenly credit Roubanis as the composer.

In 1962, Dick Dale and the Deltones re-invent Misirlou -a song he heard his Lebanese American uncle play as a child. He creates a fast instrumental version, full of guitar and horns that transforms Misirlou into a rock standard of the era.

It is covered extensively in its many versions, used by Domino's Pizzas late 90's ad campaigns, and in the Athens Olympics in 2004.  Pulp Fiction, Extreme Championship Wrestling, the French film Taxi, and Oceans Thirteen all used it in opening or closing credits. It is recorded by artists as diverse as Connie Francis, Woody Herman, the Red Elvises and Agent Orange. And by Gordon Ramsay in his show Kitchen Nightmares.

I think though that it is the Black Eyed Peas use of it in Pump It which really fixes the song in the western pysche. According to Wikipedia, Will.I.Am bought the CD with Dick Dale's Misirlou on it by mistake, heard the song, and composed the Black Eyed Peas version.

Fast forward to 2010, enter music producer Alex Kubiyashi Barnwell, who uses Misirlou to create a "Riddim". As a music novice, I'd describe a Riddim as an instrumental electronic drum track to which various lyrics and other musical tweaks can be added to create a song, individual to the lyrics, but with this common riddim. As a modern musical technique, it is apparently quite common to dancehall, and now becoming more so for soca.

But Kubiyashi didn't just produce a drum riddim, he loaded it up with Dick Dale's Misirlou, transforming it into a soca hurricane of a riddim, full of those familiar guitar riffs and horns sounds that have been around in our sub-conscious, since Pump It, since whenever....and he called it the Hunny Bunny Riddim.

And it sure was popular. Vincy Mas 2010 (St. Vincent Carnival in early July) had no less that 6 versions of this riddim, the most popular by far belonging to Skinny Fabulous - Charge Up -who went on to win the Soca Monarch title in St. Vincent & the Grenadines. The others; Fear None (Problem Child); Mad Outta Road (Uncle Sam); Get Wild (Ricardo Drue); Hyperactive (R3CKA); and Spranging (Demus).

In Barbados at this years Cropover: Peter Ram does Ironman; Rupee does Get Crazy; and Indrani does Faya Wata. And there is even a Beenie Man song - Wuk up Yuhself.

The great things about riddims is that DJs can string along several tunes in a row, it gives them plenty time to gab in between. The popular combination in Barbados was Ironman, Charge Up and Get Crazy, sometimes with Faya Wata in the mix as well.

 I remember hearing these tunes individually, then strung together, wondering if they were the same piece or not.  Then finally came the realisation that they were just part of one glorious riddim.  Because as cookie cutter as the riddim process might seem, and although these tunes were good individually, together, they really caught fire!

And that is the story of how a traditional Greek song became the most popular melody in this year's crop of soca tunes...

A Grenada Shortknee in Barbados Kadooment

Carnival should never pass by without some kind of masquerade, and Barbados' Kadooment Day, the culmination of its Cropover festival, is their main mas day.  I'm not a player per se, and I especially avoid the bikini and bead extravaganzas that now pass for mas.  Last year we made a stand with Am-Bush but with Baby V on the way, this year was more subdued...

The Kadooment parade is on the first Monday in August, and starts at about 8 am. Varia thought we could could go as tourists, and then on Monday morning, we remembered my Shortknee costume, graciously donated by Hambone, Captain of the Grand Roy Shortknee band, last year when I was in Grenada (read about that here).

A full-on Shortknee costume is not for the fainthearted.  Yards and yards of cloth, a face mask and head cover make it a hot affair.  As I went in search of the pieces, Varia suggested I only wear part of it, but for me that was never an option - it seemed that for this traditional costume, it was all or nothing.  Not to say that I wasn't somehow wondering how a Shortknee might fare in the Kadooment crush...

So I persevered, with little time to plan.  My blog entry from last year with the pictures of Hambone in his costume were carefully studied - it needed to be as authentic as possible.  An ageing towel was converted to headgear; a torn bit of tunic was quickly mended with needle and thread; the elastic waist, leg and sleeve ends were loosened (Hambone was a lot more skinny than me); a container of baby powder was 'borrowed' from a gift from Baby V's shower. I fell short in two areas - I had no white sneakers, and Varia drew the line on the tights (and I couldn't find the 2 pairs Hambone had given to me).

So that's us above, three tourists and a Shortknee from Grenada in Barbados Kadooment. We parked halfway along the route and Lili, I and Morgane (a Martiniquan exchange student who was staying with us) walked the mile or so back to the judging point, leaving Varia at base.  Whenever we encountered a band, we made the most of the music; Shortknee don't chip or wine; they run, stamping their feet to make the ankle bells jingle and they chant. 

I did my best, conscious of some code to respect the costume and to play it right.  The costume is entirely anonymous, so that even people who knew me well only recognised me because of Lili's presence.  I did mini performances for the crowds at the main intersections, stamping and prancing on one leg, baby powder flying into the air from the container in my hand.  Children were fascinated by the sight, many of the younger ones shrinking back in fear at the sight of the mask; one mother invited me to come frighten her son, a toddler, "come take this one" she shouted, I declined.

Several persons asked about the costume, Barbados doesn't have traditional mas, and a fully masked individual was a unique sight to many.  Several women (and some very young girls) invited me to 'go dung'; my explanation that Shortknee didn't wine down left most unimpressed.

As it is these days, there were hundreds of cameras.  Here we are above, captured by a photographer from Barbados' main newspaper, the Nation. When we eventually joined Varia back at base at the Waddada bar in Bank Hall, I disrobed and put the costume away.  A shortknee should never be seen just hanging around...I think Hambone would have approved.

The Party Continues

Clips from the 2nd half of Headliners Tent final session at the Plantation Garden Theatre, 22 July, 2010. Although several of the performers are from other tents, many of them started with headliners. It's called a "Fent" because it was supposed to e a tent fete...it was a great night.

Can't take the party for granted

While all night parties and breakfast fetes proliferate in Caribbean carnivals, Grenada struggles with this 'new' phenomenon.  Most Grenadians would regard the local carnival as relatively rule free, so this is an interesting development, to say the least.

Certainly in Barbados, there seems to be no restriction on noise levels in residential areas for these types of fetes, but perhaps it has to do with the income levels of the residential areas...?

The 2 Grandmothers

Mustardseed Productions' Youth Theatre 2/ Saturday Group presents their end of year production of The 2 Grandmothers. Performed on July 1, 2010. Directed by Ayesha O Gibson.

Rainy Day Sunday

A rainy Sunday morning:  I was driving through Fontenoy and saw two rainbows out to sea, the second one is just to the left...

Incongruities

On a recent visit to Grenada...

An excavator drives past a lady suntanning on Grand Anse Beach...

A stray dog pees against the post upon which is nailed a strict admonishment

The eye of the beholder

Bromeliads are strange things. Most bromeliads are epiphytic, that is they absorb nutrients through their leaves, by collecting water and other debris in their cups. They latch onto stones or branches and need no contact with earth. In the Caribbean a common bromeliad we call wild pine (pineapple is a bromeliad) lives in mahogany and other trees and provides a great nesting place for various bugs and cockroaches. Often the leaves can be quite colourful, depending on exposure to sunlight. They all flower, but some of the flowers are so small you'd never notice them.

Nature works in wonderful ways, and even the biggest skeptics among us can be surprised every now and then. A clump of bromeliads in the garden had grown neglected for over a year, covered by other plants. This type of bromeliad in particular has wide bright green leaves but nothing else special, apparently. The leaves though had been ravaged by slugs and snails, it was a sad sight. One day , with the rains arriving, I decided to clean them up in one of these 'I'm working in the garden today' days...

Within a week a flower was shooting out of one of the plants

This is the flower after about 4 days

A close up shows the florets pushing out of their sheathes. The sheathes are covered in some kind of soft white 'fur'...

After a couple more days the flower is pretty mature and the little purple tipped florets are now spreading out and unfolding.

Pretty much in full Bloom and quite a beautiful sight. Each stalk will produce its own little miniature yellow and purple flower

Here you can see how the sheathes have curled back like petals.

Still Giving

When I met and wrote about local Barbadian legend, Cassius Clay, late last year (click here for that article), he swore he was not doing any more free shows. His last free show at Accra Beach in November was poorly attended and he felt unappreciated.

But a new year has a way of putting a fresh face on things, so when I saw him after Christmas, he was all into his plans for a Valentine’s Day concert – another free concert. I met him outside the Main Guard, on the Garrison. He was, ironically, dropping off equipment for a show he was doing with the EGGS band for Veterans. His van was full of large speakers, keyboards, drums and other assorted instruments. He was taking them out of the van and bringing them into the venue – on his own. I offered a hand, the stuff was heavy, although the bigger speakers had wheels.

The Valentine’s concert was all about giving back he said, wanting to thank the people who helped him with his annual Christmas party for children, and to thank Bajans for coming to the aid of Haiti in their crisis. He also just wanted to entertain his friends.

I used the opportunity to ask him about the hit song he is best known for, “Sweeter Than a Sno-Cone”, and about Dragon Spouge, a spouge beat which he is credited with. Without wanting to seem too inquisitive, I also wanted to know – how does a man who does not know how to read or write, get his music recorded? “I give the lyrics to Emile Straker (one of the Merrymen and a friend of Cassius’) and he wrote it down for me. He and a few others backed me up for the recording”, he says. And Dragon spouge? “It had it’s own beat”, he says, “and there was a popular movie at that time called Enter the Dragon – you remember it?” I do. Click on the flash player on the right to listen to Sno-Cone for some echoes of that 1973 film.

He wanted to do a personal invitation for the Valentine's show to hand out to friends, so I offered to run up some simple invitations for him on the computer. Grabbing a pen and a piece of paper, I marvelled as he sat on the edge of his van and recited what he wanted me to write on the invitation, in one fluid attempt, without any hesitation or pauses.

Local Rag "Heat" carried an article on the show

By any measure, the show was a great success. Cassius and EGGS had a wide repertoire of new and old hits ranging from Ray Charles to John Legend, the theme being togetherness and love. Cassius showed his talent as a consummate performer, weaving a story line in between the songs as a lead in to each, and punctuating the act with some quite funny jokes. In the middle of the show, a guy comes on to ask Cassius to play for his love of 15 years (the detail is murky), Cassius handles him masterfully, never getting flustered, and the crowd loves it.



My video unfortunately does not do justice to the show, neither in terms of lighting or sound, but it does give you a taste of it. Although my video sound recording is poor, the sound quality right through the show was very good, provided by Cassius’ own mixing equipment, with a friend to operate it. For me, the highlight of the show was Cassius getting down on his knees, and then lying down on the stage, all the while singing. As he lies onstage, balancing using his right arm, he discreetly shifts the mic into his right hand so that he can gesture with his left, I thought it was masterful.

Poster for upcoming show

Cassius is now preparing for another show, this time at the Plantation Garden Theatre on Sunday 2nd May. This show is not free, he has had to pay for the space and he hopes also to be able to pay the performers, as for himself, he is philosophical about whether he will get anything personally from it. He's just come from the senior games (an over 50s athletics meet)last weekend, and gave away several tickets to the medallists.

At $25 a ticket, it is sure to be value for money (I have tickets for anyone who might be interested).

Raining Down

In the space of a week how things can change. This time the serious dry season really seems to have been broken in Barbados, with heavy showers over the past 2 weeks. The plants have taken their cue from this change, none more so than the Mahogany trees encircling Spice of Life.

All of a sudden the mahogany leaves and pods have begun to fall like rain.  Every gust of wind brings hundreds of leaves down, you can hear them pattering onto the galvanised roof, they enter the house through any open space and spread throughout the rooms.

The leaves collect in sheltered spaces, like outside the laundry door...

Some trees are bare already, with only the empty pods on show, others have already sprouted new leaves.

The seeds pods lie on the ground, some still unbroken.

The seeds themselves are a master of nature's engineering, designed to drift far, they rotate in the breeze supported by long 'wings'.  As a child we would throw bunches up into the air to see them 'helicopter' down...

All this in a week.

On a Less Serious Note

This year's Agrofest, the annual agricultural fair in Barbados saw a bigger than ever show. Armed with my camera, I discovered that the sheep and goats were by far the most willing subjects, and quite entertaining. They posed with self confidence, albeit some embarrassment about their captive situation, corralled into small pens. Some got on with it, other were less happy, refusing to entertain the crowds of eager children and adults forever trying to feed them dry grass.

Okay, so I overdid it again.....

Is your Child Leading a Second Life?

Last October  I posted Under Your Very Nose about email hacking and sexual predation.  I promised a follow up post and here it is, all about teenagers and wannabe teenagers and their use of the net.....

Most of us parents with young teenagers know the attraction of the internet and its various sites for our children. We talk generally, often wonderingly, about the knowledge they have, laugh about the weird shorthand language they use, worry about the increasing amounts of time spent on the computer.

Few of us however really know what our children are doing on those computers. We naively hope that it’s relatively harmless, scan the screen every now and then, hope that keeping the computer in an open location will deter too much adventurism. It’s the Caribbean after all, how much harm can they come to, and when your child is over at a friend’s house - maybe the other parents are doing a better job, so you can relax a bit.

It’s a sort of nagging background worry, isn’t it? I've been following my daughter and her facebook "friends" interactions on the internet, and while I thought I was pretty in the 'know', I wasn't...

Let’s start with FaceBook – fb – apparently used most by the 25 – 40 age group, but of course fb is not checking that most kids are using fake ages. The minimum age is 13, so any child going on before 13 is using any arbitrary year for their birth date.

Fact is, many children from 10 years old are on fb, pretending to be older. Their status updates have none of the pseudo-existentialist quality you get from us adults. They aren’t there yet, so to sound interesting and to shock, they paste in stuff from somewhere else. “Somewhere else” is just about every website these days, where with a click of your mouse, whatever you’re reading can be posted on fb as a status or a link. Kids use it to post fml posts.

Fml? “F--- my life” (the f-word is left up to your imagination), and most of you reading this have probably never heard of it. You post your loser story to the site, if it’s found interesting enough, it gets posted. People now vote either to sympathise with you or that you deserve it. Naturally there is every incentive to exaggerate or just plain lie to see if you can get posted on the site. Kids find the stories hilarious, and some of them are very sexual. Here are some examples from fml posted by my daughter's fb 'friends', none of them older than 14:

“Today, the subway was extremely crowded and I ended up with my butt in a man's crotch. I kept trying to inch away or turn a different way, but there was no room. He could have turned to face the doors, but didn't. He got an erection. I was there for 20 minutes.” FML

“Today, my boyfriend told me he couldn't hang out with me because he felt really sick. I went to his house anyway to surprise him with homemade soup. I walk in to his room only to find him hooking up with my sister. She can't drive, our mom drove her there." FML

Another popular pastime is posting lyrics from songs, the more shocking, the more amusing. Here are some used by these same friends, they are from Lil Wayne, a popular source:

Get between your legs and eat it like its candy, mmmmmm im thinking jolly rancher girl i want you to be ma private dancer, answer this question for me is it wrong that im always horny lil mamaaaa. [8] :)

Press a button, watch the m*****f***er do tricks, I don't know what you are on, but I'm on some new s****. While your b**** is on my d***, like a glue stick. I got a grill, I don't have to get my tooth fixed.

Even besides all of this, there's lots of inappropriate content from children on fb, including obvious stuff like their profile pics and the absence of sensible privacy controls make it open to all and sundry.

Over to Second Life, the simulated life community. Second Life to kids seems a familiar place, because it is a bit like the Sims, a popular computer game. In the Sims, you create whole families using Avatars (computer generated human representations), and the computer generates the community. On Second Life, the online community is “real” and the Avatars represent real persons. SL lets you be whoever you want to be and to do whatever you want to do, trade goods,develop property, shoot randomly at people, have sex any which way, it’s all there, sexual predators and all. Sexual age play (adults with child avatars to make it more exciting) is not uncommon. There’s also Gorean – an openly misogynistic culture of male dominance and female submission, with a very heavy reliance upon violence and violent sexuality.

As a lark, my daughter and a friend recently registered on SL.  It is a lark because they cannot figure out why adults would want to play make-believe games.

She has to register as an adult, because it is an adult space, but using actual email details. As Wendi Salubria, a black avatar (you get to pick your style, sex, and features), she approaches a group of avatars “HIYA FOLKS!”, and makes a few silly remarks (this is known as ‘griefing’). She types in bold letters, basically just to annoy them. The group variously tell her to go away/ stop shouting and learn to type/spell. She then jokingly says to them “You don’t like me because I’m black”. This triggers several of the avatars in the group hitting the ‘abuse’ button, which reports Wendi Salubria as breaking the rules.

As Wendi grows bored and leaves the scene, one of the group comes with her…”wait for me, I’ll be your friend” 'it' says. The adults on SL are very good at spotting kids...

Linden Labs (creators of SL) receives the reports and email “Wendi”, advising her of her contravention of the site policies and suspending her account.

SL is full of kids pretending to be adults, and they’re often, worryingly, easy to spot. On SL chat rooms it is not hard to find adults discussing what to do with all the ‘kids’ wandering round in SL, some innocently, some with purpose. One guy complained of finding two apparently adult avatars trespassing on his land, but as soon as they spoke, it was quite clear they were kids.

Note: SL has a teen version, but it requires parental permission, many kids are not even aware it exists….Things are apparently changing at SL, where they’re strengthening the boundaries between adults and teenagers.

Young "teenagers", which is the age group I’m mostly referring to here, the 10 – 14 year olds, don’t get the openness of the internet, that it is a real place with real people, and actions there have consequences too. These kids practice some kind of disassociation when they use fb and other social forums, because they are no apparent consequences, no-one is reining them in. Parents least of all.

So, is your child leading a Second Life?

It's a Running Thing

Monday 23 November,2009

I grimace as I walk down the stairs at home backwards, my gwatjanms (aka ‘calves’) too stiff to permit anything else. This is the aftermath of the Grenada half marathon which I 'ran' yesterday (Sunday), in Grenada.

I hadn’t run that distance since the Barbados half marathon this time last year, so a sensible strategy would have been to say no to Marilyn when she called from Grenada a couple weeks ago to say: “Come on Vaughn, Ali‘s going to do it, and Keito too, we’re just doing it for fun”. What the hell I thought, why not, I mean how bad could it be?

My last half marathon run in Barbados happened in much the same way, Marilyn coaxing me into it, even though I hadn’t been training for it. Memories fade with time. “Yeah, all right, I’ll do it. What’s the route?” I ask. “St David’s Police Station to town” answers Mal.

In Grenada, there’s some flat ground, but that’s not where they choose to set the run. No, they climb 500ft to the top of St David’s Parish for the start, run down to sea level at La Sagesse, back up to 200 feet, back down to sea level, up to the top of another hill (200 feet) and back down to sea level again at Bailles Bacolet, up to Red Gate (220 feet) and back down to sea level, then up to Westerhall, etc, etc, etc., you get the picture.

In contrast, Barbados’ half marathon route takes you up a gentle incline to the top of Spring Garden highway to an altitude of 100 feet. The next incline is the long and even more gentle climb from Fitts Village past Appleby Gardens up to 50 feet.

On the way to the race I ask Mal “why is there a 23km marking on the road in town?” “That’s the end of the race, silly, well, a little way beyond that.” She says. But, I splutter, a half marathon is only about 21 km long (21.0975 to be exact). Well, she says rather unconcernedly, that’s the route we always do, so maybe its 24 km....this is Grenada you know. That’s when I should have wised up.

We arrive at the start. It’s a road junction in St.David’s, outside a rum shop, close to the Police Station. It’s 2.30pm on a hot Sunday afternoon. Of the 50/60 or so runners, most are teenagers, girls actually. Several of them are not wearing shoes, although several have on socks. Socks? There seems to be only a handful of adults. (click on picture to enlarge)

With no Porta-loos, last pees have to be found in the surrounding bushes, men and women alike. And as with most things in Grenada, we start with a prayer, pausing midway to let a car through...

The whistle blows and the kids pelt off down the hill in the 3 pm heat. As we ease down the hill, I’m feeling good, good to be running a race in Grenada for the first time. Looking forward to the scenic route.

Downhills are deceptive; you need to keep tension on your muscles to prevent over speeding and damage. The first downhill is almost 2 km all on its own, and then the first climb back up to 200 feet begins. But I’m still feeling good, only the slightest tightness in my gwatjanms hints at what’s to come.

At first I run with my cousin Ali, but it isn’t his day. A late night, too many rum punches and dehydration, gets the better of him. After about 10 kms and as the halfway mark approaches, I continue on alone. I had been depending on him to pull me through, now I was alone. A mere kilometre or so later, with the worst of the hills behind me, my gwatjanms tighten perceptibly, even as my breathing is relaxed. The demons descend. They’re pretty clever, these demons. They come up with all these seemingly sensible inducements to just stop: Hey! look at that bush – jump behind it and hide, quick, no-one will see!; come on…! who needs to finish a race anyway; give up now you fool, you know it’s a lost cause; you’re gonna DIE if you continue!; too tired, too tired, too tired…

And so, with the hardest part of the run behind me, past the halfway mark, and on a slight downhill, I just stop running. And walk. It beats all logic, but it’s no stranger. In any race, you face it sooner or later. Here it is, this time sooner. The hills had tightened my legs up enough to convince me I couldn’t run a step further.

And so it goes through Woodlands, Grand Anse Valley and towards town, running and walking, but with every cycle my running pace slows and shortens and the walking carries for longer, and the finish line seems a world away.

That’s when I meet Doneisha. 13 years old and like most of the kids in the race, has never done anything like this before. I come upon her at about 15km, with all the hills behind and an easy road into town. She too is walking along, looking tired and dejected. I take her under my wings. Come on, I say, keep going. And my instinct to help her do her best forces me to rise above my petty misery and I have to run too. We run and walk alternately into town, Doneisha runs when I run, and walks when I walk.

These next kilometres are the longest and just after the 21km marker (the correct distance) I pause my stopwatch and stop running. Doneisha, I say, you have just completed a half marathon in 2hours and 15 minutes, congratulations. You can continue on into town, which is an extra 2 or so km, but remember this time, it’s yours.

As Doneisha continues on, I wait for Ali. Mal comes by in a few minutes and says he is somewhere behind. In a few more minutes he arrives. You can stop now, I say to him, we’re done, let’s go have a beer.  And we do.

In the post mortem at Sunnyside later that evening, we analyse the disaster of this half marathon. Ali, as suspected, was dehydrated, and running in tropical heat for the first time did the rest (he ran the first half of the NY marathon in 1:50 after all, he’s no slouch). My excuse? (after all, my last half I did in 1:46), well, according to a friend, it take 6 months to train for hills. So there. My cousin Keito, meanwhile was in first in his age group, despite also not having trained for the run. His strategy? Pace walk up the hills, and run down. I remember last seeing him halfway along the route, moving inexorably away….

Thanks to Beverley for the photographs, I handed her my camera and she tooks some greats pics, which can be viewed here...

The Incomparable Marisa

We're just lucky in Barbados that Marisa Lindsay isn't rich and famous and jetting all over the world for big bucks - not yet anyway.  Because she isn't, we get to hear and see her fairly often - which still isn't enough. Every Christmas, she performs at Carols By Candlelight and a few years ago we had the delight of hearing her open for Jill Scott at the Sir Garfield Sobers Gymnasium - that's when we had to get the album - Submit to Love (btw both her albums were produced by Grenadian Eddie Bullen, who grew up just round the corner from us in St. Paul's, Grenada).

With a voice and a personality to go with it she is truly amazing to hear and to watch.  Our most recent opportunity, came last Sunday at the Barbados Jazz festival, at Farley Hill national park.  She was a featured artiste but to my deep disappointment she only sang what seemed like 3 songs (no doubt due to some poor planning by the organisers).

Despite not having a press pass to get me up close, I found an unoccupied platform set up for a video cam which gave me the perfect vantage point.  Anywhere else than Barbados of course it would have been full of people already, but that's another story.

Following the news in Haiti

Go here for good sources on news on Haiti;

Following the news in Haiti

Giving it all

Last night at Heritage Park, Toni Norville gave it all in a sensational performance.  Back from an extended break on the stage, she took off her shoes and made the audience smile, laugh and cry. The band was top class as well.

If the performance didn't make your spine tingle, then maybe you don't have one. A highlight of the Jazz festival and more evidence of the variety of world class talent in Barbados.

Ramier Refuge

With the dry season fully upon on us here in Barbados, the Ramiers are looking for water and food.   They get water in the cups of these Bromeliads and also eat the Bromeliad flowers.  Officially known as the Scaly-naped Pigeon (Patagioenas squamosa) the yellow band under the eye shows that these are females. They're commonly known as Wilies(?) in Barbados, but as Ramier in Grenada and St. Lucia which is probably a french derived name.

These Pigeons made good eating and were hunted extensively in Grenada. We have dozens of them nesting in the Mahogany trees around the house, but I haven't tried them out in a pot yet...

Happy New Year

Here are my four favourite fireworks pictures from this New Year's.  All taken from a distance of about 2 km, so they are all heavily cropped.  Handheld, f5.6, circa 1/20s, ISO 3200.  Who knew there was so much smoke with the fire...we can only guess as to the effect on air quality...