Notes From A Small Rock

IT AIN’T OVER TILL IT’S OVER

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Tue, 07 May 2013 15:23:00 +0000

School sports day is something I avoided when it was mandatory and continue to avoid whenever possible. But The Husband agreed to go too so off we went to witness the sporting prowess of First and Second Born on land. Our stocky sailors with upper body strength did well in the discus and shot put. They excelled in hanging out, ignoring their parents and consuming the BBQ lunch. I can’t complain. Those mangoes didn’t fall far from the tree. We managed a discreet exit before moms and dads were obliged to make fun of themselves in the 100m sprint. But not everyone shares our dread. Many parents were dressed in House Colours and had come prepared with picnic spreads to rival Glyndebourne. Some had on running shoes and one person had running spikes. One mom however looked slightly glum so I inquired as to the source of misery.
‘We’re likely to be leaving the island soon,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry. We were just getting to know you guys,’ I replied.
‘But I’m not ready,’ she said biting her lip. ‘I’m not ready for my island adventure to be over.’

For her, living in Bim, with the added perks of an expat package, had been a delicious sampling of the other. While I don’t doubt that it was a wonderful interlude it was only ever that - a temporary state of affairs. Real life, which lay elsewhere, was simply being postponed. It was in that moment I realised I was home. When I moved here six years ago it was reluctantly - sacrificing what little passed for a career - for First and Second Born to have a proper childhood. But slowly and steadily I have fallen hopelessly in love with this small rock.

It is not that life on the rock is easy. Our utility bills are higher here than in London. Groceries are my single largest expense and it isn’t exactly overflowing with diverse entertainment. And speaking of entertainment – the TV died last week. From one episode of Criminal Minds to the next it ceased to produce a visible picture. All that was left were a few fuzzy lines. Rufus, the handy man, claimed his friend Horsey could fix it. Forgive my prejudice but a man named Horsey should not be trusted near electronics. What did he do to earn a nickname like Horsey? Does he look like a horse? Does he love horses more than ahem… people? The assumption always is that his birth certificate attests to something more prosaic like Fred or Barry. But this is Bimshire and anything goes. Someone is listed in the phone book simply as Happy (433-0201). It’s a mere trot from Happy to Horsey.

Having done my online research I galloped to Courts to buy a 40” TV listed for $1399 ($700usd). Like I said – I love living here – but they don’t make it easy. My inquiry was met with a steups.
‘I never see that TV here.’
‘But it’s on your website.’
I showed her my ipad.
‘Oh, that’s a TV uses to have,’ she said turning away.
‘So why is it on the website?’
‘We had it but we ain’t have no more,’ she said now walking off.
I trailed behind her.
‘Are you getting anymore?’ I asked.
‘No.’
‘Do you have something similar?’
‘It go cost you $1799.’
‘But I don’t want to spend $1799.’
‘Well you can’t get the TV then.’
She had reached a desk and sat down admiring her sparkling blue, acrylic talons.
‘Do you have anything else?’ I pleaded.
‘We have the new model to the one you was looking at.’
‘How much is that?’
‘$1499.’
‘Can I get that then?’
She sighed.
‘I go have to check the warehouse.’
She looked around the store. About five store assistants were gathered around a nearby desk talking.
‘Miss Browne, any of them new 40” in the warehouse?’
‘Call and see,’ yelled Miss Browne turning ever so slightly in our direction.
Our assistant steupsed again and reluctantly dialled a number.
‘Dwayne, it have any of them 40” TV that come in last week? A lady want one.’
She put the phone down and looked at me challengingly.
‘It have three in the warehouse.’
I smiled and asked to purchase one. You would think that the transaction would now be nearly over but we were only at the midway point. She handed me a slip of paper with a number scrawled on it and pointed in the direction of the only cashier working.
‘Pay over there,’ she commanded.
The queue was seven people long including a lady returning a toaster and a juicer. Twenty minutes later I had finally handed over the cash.

Now for some this typical retail experience drives them quickly back to The Great North or wherever they came from. For us long-term, Bim lovers it is just another encounter with a Barbados Business Prevention Officer. They are everywhere and easily identified. Restaurants, government offices, stores and gas stations – no place is safe from the reach of a BPO.

It’s part of the price we pay for living in paradise. I drove my kids to school on roads dissecting cane fields and sit at a desk looking out at the sea touching the sky. I will eat my lunch outside wearing the flip-flops I live in year round surrounded by purple Petrea in full bloom. After school my kids will sail before doing homework and eating salad and vegetables we have grown in our garden. I’m not ready for this adventure to be over.

THREE PARTS DEAD

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:08:00 +0000

I told my friend J. that two worrying things had happened recently and I was a little low. Instead of offering comfort that my run of dumb luck was over she looked wistfully into the middle distance.
‘You know bad things does happen in three’s. You have another thing coming.’
Having confirmed my fate was sealed she turned her attention back to her Caesar salad. I pushed my lunch away.
‘Three bad things?’
‘Yup,’ she nodded, her mouth still full of lettuce. ‘I sure as God make Moses one more thing going happen.’
Perhaps my crumbling face made her take pity and she squeezed my hand.
‘Don’t worry. Is just one more nasty slap and boops you done.’

From that moment on I was constantly on the look out for situations of impending doom. I barely slept and woke anxious that each new morn might be when The Third Bad Thing occurred. It’s been a week of this unremitting dread. Mainly I dread something rotten happening to my immediate posse. Will First or Second Born have a sailing accident? Will the next time I wave goodbye to The Husband at the airport be the last as his plane crashes? Will Jack or Rosie escape Beacon House and be run over by a speeding car? Other times the angst is more selfish. Will my hard drive suddenly crash before I have time to back up? Will I ever find an agent for my novel?

While these fears have been whirling around something odd has also been happening. Every time things don’t go too wrong I am grateful. When a driver tried unsuccessfully to sideswipe my car by Norman Niles roundabout I was grateful not to have had an accident. My usual response would have been to cuss the offending driver starting with his materfamilias and working my way through his entire clan. When First and Second Born came to blows over ownership of a t-shirt showing Bob inhaling a huge spliff I was grateful it ended without actual blood shed. Besides you can hardly see the rip if a boy tucks the t-shirt into his jeans. And as another rejection popped up on my Gmail (Dear Author, We are not sufficiently enthusiastic about your manuscript to offer representation…) I didn’t shed a tear. It wasn’t personal – hell they hadn’t even taken the time to know my name. With gratitude filling my life I was convinced that J. was wrong. I had dodged The Third Bad Thing.

But fate can only ever be postponed. If town say bad things going happen in three’s you better resign yourself and take your licks. So to round off the week not one, not two but three centipedes attempted to take up residence with us. (And FYI the proper small rock pronunciation is sen-tee-pee – the ‘d’ has been dispensed with). Some of you from foreign may not fully appreciate the gravity of this situation. Bimshire is, as its name suggests, an island of tranquil bliss. We trample through the countryside safe in the knowledge that we are free of poisonous snakes. And when we venture off terra firma into azure waters we have no fear of sharks having our limbs for lunch.

Yet even in paradise we must be reminded of how lucky we are and that role falls to the centipede. It is a disgusting, frightening, worm–like creature that slithers at some pace. It doesn’t actually have a hundred feet – our lot usually have about fifteen to twenty gruesome pairs. If you get bitten there will be pain and swelling, maybe fever and possibly shock. Buddhists warn that if you enjoy frightening others you will be reincarnated as none other than a centipede.

The first one – about 20 cm – crawled into The Husband’s office perhaps intending to study economics and finance at his feet. He claims he fearlessly decapitated the creature but I know better. He’s a vegetarian who has trouble killing mosquitoes. Our housekeeper confirmed its poisonous front claws had been crushed and the horrible creature thrown in the bush.

Jack’s incessant barking a few days later alerted us to the second centipede. The creepy, dark red creature – even longer than the first – was rushing around under the dining table. M., an Englishman with a properly stiff upper lip, instructed me to stop screaming and get him a broom. In one action he swept the centipede out from the darkness and then used the broom handle to whack the flattened body into three parts. My terror was quickly replaced by gratitude and I knew in that instant that I would be willing to share my last dhal-pouri roti and curry channa with him.

By the time I shook the third centipede out from between some cushions on the front porch I was not quite the same shaking, bawling person I had been during the previous incident. I simply went inside, locking the door behind me and called an emergency service
‘You have a what?’ asked the first responder.
‘I have a centipede in the porch.’
‘You expect us to come catch a centipede? Is how much centipede you have?’
‘Just the one. But it’s big and poisonous. I could die if it bites me.’
‘Lady, unless you bite the thing first I don’t think nothing going happen to you.’
He hung up.
But it wasn’t my time to go just yet. The housekeeper answered her phone and was more sympathetic. She came, severed head from body of the thick, long beast and threw it into the deep gully that straddles our land.

It’s over. The third unpleasant thing has happened and it did so three times. I’m due a bit of good luck any day now.

ELECTING TO STAY IN PARADISE

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 23:16:00 +0000

Today I gave a young woman and her brand new baby boy a ride into town. They were waiting for the bus in the hot sun as I sped past in air-conditioned comfort. It didn’t seem right or fair. But life’s not right or fair. Within a minute of settling into the car she asked if I knew of anyone hiring. She has two kids under three and was heading to the welfare office. Computer literate, able and willing to work, but no job offers. I had a vague recollection of a call centre opening up on island and promised to send the advert to her.

She isn’t alone. The Husband’s face is well known and he says every time he goes for a walk random strangers stop him to ask if he knows of any jobs going. People are desperate. It’s not only the poor who are getting poorer. The once thriving middle classes are feeling the pinch. Cruise along the so-called Platinum west coast and it seems every other house has a “For Sale” sign. Used car lots with decent vehicles are springing up everywhere. Classified ads are filled with people trying to off load their old furniture, old bicycles and old electrical goods – anything to generate cash.

True crime statistics are hard to come by but the newspapers have more reports than usual of opportunistic robberies and muggings. The goal appears to be relieving victims of their gold jewellery – often at gunpoint. Take the gold into Bridgetown and it can be exchanged for cash with no questions asked.

This is not the Bimshire I moved to six years ago. Back then there were anecdotal reports that certain Bajans kept guns for protection against potential insurrection by the unruly masses. But there was no gun culture. The problem is still one we could control if we had leadership who put resources into fixing the problem rather than denying its existence.

Reports of trouble in paradise used to be managed and massaged but they can no longer be kept from the prying eyes of sun bathing tourists. Not any more. And where are our leaders? Maybe I missed the memo but where is the thoughtful strategy from either party for tackling the problems we as a society face?

But all is no lost. In paradise one industry at least is thriving. Next time you are out count the number of makeshift, tented churches springing up on empty plots. Apparently the most successful interpretation of this business model is by a gentleman who calls himself Elector. Maybe he has the answers.

THE DETROIT-BRIDGETOWN NEXUS

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 02:16:00 +0000

As we prepared for Easter by ensuring everyone had sufficient chocolate eggs, I casually mentioned to Diane, our helper, that we were thinking of spending Good Friday at the beach.
‘I can’t believe you want to go beach pon a Good Friday,’ she said amazed. ‘Is where you grow up?’
I explained that in Trinidad a public holiday was a reason to go to the beach. On Good Friday you might hang a bobolee (an effigy of Judas) which people took turns to beat with a stick. But once that was over it would be off to the beach.
‘Well you get lucky so far but that no reason to push your luck. People does say that if you go in the sea pon a Good Friday you go drown.’
She paused.
‘If you ain’t have no choice but to go in the water remember to never, ever turn your back to the sea. That is asking to get drown.’
With such strict instructions we dared not venture down to Pebbles Beach. Apparently Bajans are not alone in this fear of the sea on Good Friday. In Belize if you go for a sea bath on this particular day you will turn into a mermaid.

Before I could take time off for Easter I had a meeting at the Barbados Community College (BCC) and overheard that the Big Band class that was about to start had a guest teacher. From scattered bits I gathered this guest teacher had been in Barbados for the past six months exploring his links with the island having traced a cousin or two to our shores. Barbados was pivotal to the development of the sugar trade and exported both slave labour and planter expertise to the Americas. It is not surprising that a significant minority of our tourists journey here to explore possible bonds with this small rock.

This particular visitor, being a keen musician, had also found his way to the dilapidated building housing the music school and now regularly gave, for no fee, his time and expertise to the BCC students. Berkeley graduates teach at BCC so there is no shortage of excellence in the music department and I didn’t pay much attention to who this guest might be.

If I had not stuck around it would have been a horrible regret. The guest teacher turned out to be Marcus Belgrave. The Marcus Belgrave. Here was the legendary trumpeter and only surviving member of the Ray Charles band who started touring with them from the age of twenty-one. This is the man who at fifteen played with Dizzy Gillespie. Belgrave has performed with all the greats in jazz – Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Sammy Davis Jr. and Gene Krupa. He’s been given every award there is to give a jazz musician and here he was, settling down in our modest, open performance space to conduct a class.

We pulled a bench under a tree and sat outside the hall watching in as the master went to work. He is clearly a gifted teacher, gentling coaxing and constantly praising his band. Belgrave is not a well man. He is in his late seventies, tubes inserted in his nostrils and attached to a machine that trailed behind him. But the second the music began those tubes and machinery seemed to disappear. He makes no concession to his health and the master jammed with his trumpet for ninety minutes.

This unexpected, mid-week concert was a surreal experience. To be lucky enough to hear him play would normally involve a journey to the home of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra where he is Jazz Creative Director or the Lincoln Center where he is a member of their original Jazz Orchestra. Instead we enjoyed a free Marcus Belgrave performance while sitting under a Samaan tree with the sky a bright orange and red backdrop. It doesn’t get any better.

With Easter behind us, and no reports of Good Friday drownings, BCC invited school kids to a concert by the BCC band with Belgrave and his wife, the gifted vocalist, Joan Belgrave. I watched from the back and saw normally restless teenagers inhaling the music. When the concert officially ended no one moved. The jamming continued for another twenty minutes and when they finally called time Belgrave was immediately swamped by the next generation of musicians eager to talk to the master.

This small rock might only be 21 by 18 miles but it constantly surprises. After the concert I looked around there was the world famous composer, Howard Shore, quietly shaking Marcus Belgrave’s hand and reminding him that they had met thirty-five years earlier on the set of Saturday Night Live. This is one cool rock.

If you’re on island Marcus and Joan Belgrave are performing with the BBC band this Friday at the EBCCI. Book now because it’s going to be a sell out.

THIS SUGAR COATED ROCK

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 21:08:00 +0000

When I first arrived in Bim I could be counted on to be at the opening of an envelope. As a cultural producer I made it my mission to be at every gallery opening, play and music festival. Six years later I have to be persuaded that it is worth the chaos that ensues when I am not present to supervise homework and have dinner with the family. And truthfully I am a little jaded by the repetition. With few exceptions the same events happen in the same way with the same personalities year in, year out. You could write the programme yourself as there are few incentives to do things differently or yes, dare I say, better.

So it was with middling expectations that I went along to the book launch of Andrea Stuart’s Sugar In The Blood last Monday while grandma did homework duty. Her parents are dear friends and I was keen to show our support. What I dreaded was the pomp that is a necessary part of West Indian events. Depending on the importance of the speaker you often have to endure long speeches from a succession of poorly briefed government officials, government agencies and any Big Up that is in attendance. This event had all the hallmarks of being one of those where you are asleep long before the main act.

But nuff respect to the Barbados Museum. Each speaker who preceded the author was relevant, spoke briefly and contributed to a deeper understanding of some aspect of the book. And miracle of miracles – the most time was saved for the actual author who we had all come to hear read and speak about her work.

Now when I say you have to read this book I mean turn off the TV, stop flicking through that gossip magazine, disconnect your Facebook and Twitter accounts and start reading. I honestly thought that being reasonably educated I knew about the history of the Caribbean and the role of sugar in shaping it. After all, I am descended from Indian indentured labourers lured across the globe all because of sweet, sweet sugar. But Andrea Stuart’s epic tale of her own family made me appreciate the nuances and ironies of this bittersweet commodity more profoundly. The daily school run on roads that straddle the ubiquitous sugarcane fields of St. George and St. John has taken on a new poignancy. I can’t look at the sugar cane harvesting now taking place without being summoned to the world Stuart re-imagines of her white, black and brown ancestors. Beautifully written, she sets her personal narrative against a backdrop of global influences and events all the while weaving a mesmerising tale.

As Stuart read from her work and answered questions from the small group of about seventy people present it is clear this bright, charming, intellectual powerhouse pulls no punches. She acknowledges her white forefathers pioneering spirit but never forgets the inhumanity of the slavery they practised. I wish more Bajans generally were at the launch and I wish more Bajans of a lighter hue had come to listen. Barbados remains a society that has yet to come to terms with its own history. Race is a factor in every walk of Bajan life but we never talk about it as if acknowledging the elephant in the room would make the problem worse than it is. The Yacht Club my boys sail at is predominantly white and only started admitting darker skins in living memory. Many of my friends still refuse to join because of that history. The marriage of a prominent white businessman to a dark skinned beauty still creates a stir wherever they go. Cattlewash on the ruggedly magnificent east coast is the preserve of white Bajans while Bathsheba a mile away allows for a mix of hues. You can tour a gracious plantation house but slave huts are unceremoniously torn down. And so it goes on with Barbados neatly sliced - the black, white and brown faces coexisting but separate.

Sugar In The Blood should be mandatory reading for all Bajans. Maybe they would realise they aren’t so separate and different after all. Claims of race are far more contested than we would like to admit. Stuart pleads for mutual understanding in the Epilogue reminding us that “we are all descendents of migrants – those resilient souls making the best of history’s terrible twists of fate or those brave opportunists taking a chance on the future and striking out to forge a life for themselves in the new world”. Get hold of Sugar In The Blood. Now.

TIME TO SAY GOODBYE

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 16:46:00 +0000

Of all the social events in Barbados none is more important than a funeral. There is an expectation that as long as you have known the family of the deceased in some fashion (i.e. it is your co-worker’s second cousin in the coffin)then you are expected to attend. Having spent too long in a country where funerals are small, private affairs I have never appreciated the importance of seeing off the departed. When the man who helps us keep our pool fresh lost his mom our housekeeper volunteered to represent the family. I am only now properly grateful we avoided the social faux pas that would have resulted had she not donned a black dress and headed to the Power in The Blood Church for the service.

Then recently someone I know and care for lost his dad. There was no way I could miss that funeral. Little did I realise the rest of the island shared my sentiments. We had to park a brisk eight minute walk away and to say there was standing room only would be an understatement. The church was jammed packed. The church grounds were heaving. People were standing in the scorching afternoon sun anywhere they could find a free patch of open ground. Anticipating a crowd, the family had set up a screen outside so that those of us silly enough to have arrived a mere thirty minutes before the start of the funeral could still follow the service.

From the kind words that poured out of each speaker the departed was clearly a towering figure in the Caribbean legal world – a judge’s judge - and deeply loved personally. He was born in St. Andrew parish, married a St. Andrew lass and remained loyal to the parish his whole life. The people of St. Andrew came out by the hundreds to show their appreciation. And being a retired judge meant that it was not only us lowly folk who came to give him a decent send-off. The Governor General no less was in attendance as well as most of the senior members of the legal profession from the region.

And it was this glittering guest list that proved irresistible to one speaker. Retired judge and former Attorney-General, known to all as Sleepy Smith, now in his 90s, took over the pulpit to speak of his deceased friend and colleague. He had an odd style. He would begin by saying,
“I’m not going to speak about him as a judge. But…”
We would then be treated to ten minutes of his friend’s great legacy on the bench.
“I’m not going to speak about him as farmer. But…”
He then proceeded to tell us all about the farm the deceased loved so much.
“I’m not going to speak about him as a husband. But…”
Yes, we heard all about his romantic courtship and lasting marriage.

Having dispatched his formal obligations Sleepy Smith decided to wake up the crowd. He said he was a believer. He knew the lord answers prayers. Just look at how the DLP gone and win the recent election. Then he turned to his brethren on the bench. If they knew what was coming some might have tried to sneak out of the church. Never mind Sleepy Smith was one of them. He hollered at the judges for not doing their work properly and in a timely fashion. People were getting old waiting to have their day in court. He lambasted them for the number of prisoners on remand - languishing in jail while cases took five, six years to be heard. More controversially he called for the appointment of high court judges (so-called puisne judges) to be taken out of the political arena and done on the basis of open competition. We commoners grinned with glee as the big screen showed My Lords squirming in their pews. I bet they were each longing for the quiet sanctuary of their leather-clad S Class Mercedes – the perk of all senior judges – parked outside the church.

Sleepy Smith entertained us with many more stories - none of which I dare repeat. He might not care about the libel laws but I am not inclined to sit down in Her Majesty’s Prison Dodds for years before my case is heard. You going have to ask Sleepy yourself about his work as a judge on other islands - the bribes that would be offered and the ugly politics he navigated. I ain’t saying nothing.

I hope the departed was looking down on us and, through all the laughter and the tears, he knew that his life had inspired enormous respect and love that went far beyond St. Andrew’s Parish Church. And I wish his family peace.

MY GOLD CUP RUNNETH OVER

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:54:00 +0000

I cannot fathom how I have passed the half way mark of my natural life expectancy without buying a horse. By now I should at least own a piece of horse (rather than accidently eating it). I’m not greedy. One or two legs of a thoroughbred would be adequate. Clearly I made a wrong turn somewhere along the track of life. You see I was born with a dominant horse-racing gene inherited from my father’s lineage. For the first couple years of married life my parents lived in a tiny apartment below my grandmother’s house. Every day I would look out of my grandma’s upstairs kitchen window to see the back of the now defunct Union Park Turf Club in Marabella, south Trinidad.

My pram was pushed up and down that track and around those stables. As I got older my little cousins and I were allowed on race days to hang out around the periphery of Union Park. True we cared more about slurping Snow-Cones – shaved ice capped with red syrup and swirls of condensed milk - than if number ten came in first. But always horses, trainers, jockeys and bookies galloped in the background of our childhood. Two cousins are successful jockeys. One uncle works in a betting shop and my father probably sees more of his bookie than he does of his family. And growing up the year was demarked not by the rainy and dry seasons but by which of Trinidad’s three main race tracks – Port-of-Spain, Arima and Union Park - were hosting the races. It took serious old age and a broken leg to halt my grandma’s weekly Saturday outing to the races which she had been doing for perhaps sixty years.

All this is to say that after six years on this small rock I have finally made it to Ascot. No, not that Ascot – our Ascot - which we do with equal panache. Welcome to the world of the Barbados Gold Cup. Now in its thirty-second year, and in recent times sponsored by Sandy Lane Hotel, this prestigious race attracts horses from the USA, UK and elsewhere. The $107,000usd Purse cannot be classified as manure either. Plus the winner gets a genuine gold cup made specially and ceremoniously flown from the UK to Bim by BA.

But in spite of horses in my blood (long-lost family members greet each other with phrases like, Eh, long time no see man. You like eight in the 3 o’clock?)I didn’t go to bet. I was there for the lime. Between munching through the wonderful spread our hosts had laid on, I was busy checking which two-legs of Bajan society was there and who was wearing fancy hat and who seem to own most of the winning animals. For best themed Gold Cup head gear the prize undoubtedly goes to Mrs. Shelly Williams, business woman and the other half of millionaire Bizzy Williams, for her wide brimmed, gold creation.

Best-dressed male has to go to my date. I’m not biased. The Husband had on a crisp, white, linen suit, a green and purple stripped shirt with contrast collar and cuffs, all skilfully brought together by an acid green hanky artfully flopping out of his top pocket. The man was hot to trot.

With half hour to go before the Gold Cup race, the atmosphere was tense with excitement. The track was temporarily given over to cheer leaders, dancers, stilt walkers and the Barbados Police Band.

(The Parade at the Gold Cup)

By now I was hopping from box to box poking around to pick up tips and hear what bets were being placed. There was no choice. I would be betraying my father’s family if I didn’t have a flutter. But who to back? I checked out the names. There was no way my cash was going on a beast with a name like “Just Call Me Roger”. And “Show Me The Money” needs to show me the money first not vice-versa. “Kendal Moon” was too sugary for my taste and “Meteorite” seemed destined to self-destruct.

Continuing in this scientific vein I bet half my budget ($25usd) on number eight to win and place. The horse was called Daga which could easily be the title of a winning soca tune. It does not take a huge leap of the imagination to see Carnival crowds humming along to a refrain of,
Daga, Daga, Daga, Daga,
Oh, oh, oh,
Daga, Daga, Daga, Daga,
Eh, eh, eh

The other horse was a sympathy bet. Number eleven went by the unfortunate name of Aristodemus. Perhaps this was the moment for the name of a cowardly Spartan soldier to be rehabilitated. I put 25 bucks on him to win or place. Would you believe the horse come in first followed closely by none other than Daga himself? I pocketed a tidy profit of $42.50usd off the Barbados Turf Club and immediately earmarked these winnings for my “spa day fund”. But First and Second Born got whiff of the cash and declared that the only proper use would be four pizzas to be eaten while we watched the latest series of Top Gear. So much for that massage.

(The Husband at the Gold Cup)

Bajan Boys Sail To Victory

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 19:02:00 +0000

(Curacao)

The general election on Thursday saw the ruling Democratic Labour Party surprisingly returned to power by the slimmest of margins. It was a lacklustre campaign where voters had the choice of either a rather lame candidate or one who does not understand when to give up power. Big up my pal since university days, Mia Mottley, who retained her seat in style with a landslide victory. It would be Barbados’s loss if she were never given the opportunity of its highest political office.

But far more uplifting things have been consuming our household. We actually decamped for a week from this small rock to an even smaller pebble in the sea – Curacao. It was our first outing to one of the Dutch-speaking Caribbean islands prompted by First and Second Born’s constant nagging to participate in a sailing clinic followed by a regatta. Bim does not have a single qualified sailing coach so if the boys are to improve we must travel to places like St. Thomas, Martinique and Curacao where they can get training and test their skills in international races. Barbados had an Olympic competitor in the 2012 games but you wouldn’t know it. To get sail coaching he had adopted the Canadian flag.

My Trini senses find Curacao reassuringly familiar. To the west of the capital, Willemstad, is a huge oil refinery - a plateau of oil and gas storage tanks and tall chimneys flaring gas. You can smell and taste the pungent chemical soup. I could be driving through Pointe-a-Pierre refinery – just north of San Fernando where I grew up. And Caribbean people are at some fundamental level the same whether we speak Dutch, French or English. We visited during Carnival and the streets were jamming with music and revellers forgetting everyday cares for a few hours. It could have been Port-of-Spain.

What is unfamiliar is the beautiful Dutch architecture on the north side of the deepwater harbour that bisects Willemstad. Tall, slim, brightly coloured buildings line the waterfront. The beaches have nothing on Barbados’s white sands. And I will have to curb my tongue about Bimshire's poor service. If you think we have it bad here wait till you visit Curacao. Them have pretty, pretty hotels but forgot to train the bodies that work there.

Most of our time was spent sipping Coke at Pop’s Place in Caracasbaai as we watched the kids battle currents and winds of up to 28 knots. Pop’s Place (as basic as it sounds), at the water’s edge, served as eatery and HQ for the Curacao Youth Sailing Clinic and Regatta. Although they have only been going for a couple years it was well organised, friendly and the coaching was excellent – led by Nicolas from Ecuador and Zander and Anneke from the Netherlands – all highly respected internationally. The atmosphere was warm and the kids made friends with sailors from Aruba, St. Maarten, Bequia and Germany as well as the local mob.

But it seems we can’t even manage a quiet sailing outing. Does trouble sneak on board American Airlines and fly with us? Second Born came ashore on Day 2 of the regatta to be accosted by the loud, hyper-ambitious daddy of a competitor who claimed he saw (from Pop’s Place) Second Born hit his son’s boat during a race. The son never suggested anything like that to Second Born during or after the race and for his part Second Born denied any such offence. The good gentleman then proceeded to rant and rave up and down Pop’s Place asking for witnesses to this foul play. He found none but still spent the rest of the afternoon loudly proclaiming that he was going to make an official protest – which he is entitled to. The only problem was that Crazy Daddy was so busy telling everybody how them Bajan boys can't sail that he never actually got around to filing the protest within the allotted time.

To complicate matters, then all the races were over for that day, Second Born claimed he was fouled at the finishing mark by the same kid. We did not intervene. Second Born quietly filled in a protest form and gave it to the Race Committee. He got his witness and asked his brother and another sailor to go in with him as moral support. We continued drinking Coke through it all ready to support him whichever way it went. He won his protest and as a consequence the kid went from second place in that race to being disqualified. As the performance poet Paul Keens-Douglas would have said - who tell them do that.

Crazy Daddy was livid. Next thing I know he all up in my face telling me how I get he son disqualify and how my son don’t know how to sail and what how he son go beat my son etc etc. It was not pretty. Then apparently he threatened to withdraw that country’s team and to leave their national flag at half-mast to show everybody how they get thief. The next and final day of the races he spent the entire time telling the assembled gathering at Pop’s Place how them Bajan boys playing nasty on the sea and he have witnesses who going help him re-open the (final) decision made against his son the previous day.

First and Second Born were a little distressed by it all but we tried to suggest ways of coping. Crazy Daddy was only the first of many such gentlemen they will encounter in life on and off the sea. We had to catch our flight back and did not wait for the prize giving ceremony. That was a disguised blessing. Crazy might have burst a blood vessel when First Born got a podium place and his precious did not.

(Optimist sailors in Caracasbaai)

The Pillars of Love and Marriage

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 16:24:00 +0000

Carnival done and gone and the shops are focused on red and white displays of hearts - my excuse to treat chocolate as its own food group. For many it is a moment to reflect on the status of romantic love in one’s life. My friend Ricardo is fresh from a wedding in St. Lucy where the Reverend did some straight talking on these matters. I’ll try to tell the story as it was received – no lie - although the names of the happy couple have naturally been changed.
It started in the usual way. The radiant bride Alicia and her anxious groom Keshorn bowed their heads as the first hymn came to an end and Dr. Reverend Jonathan H. Joseph stepped forward. He looked at the forty-strong congregation sweltering as they sat squashed into the tiny church.
‘Marriage is a great institution and it rests on four pillars. Is like a temple and the temple going fall down with an almighty crash if any of them pillars was to crumble to the ground. So I ask you, Keshorn and I ask you, Alicia, to listen. I going give you the key to a long and happy marriage.’
Turning to Alicia he glared down.
‘The first pillar is money. Yes money. You need money. I need money. Alicia, you must accept that Keshorn is in charge of the way the money going be handled. You must trust in he wisdom. A loyal wife never questions the authority of she husband in this matter. Yes I know you have a little food business pon a weekend down by Six Mens Bay but Keshorn is the man. Accept that or mark my words, this marriage go be over before you could say macaroni pie.’
The Reverend’s words had managed to silence even the bawling baby in the last pew. Everyone waited wide-eyed to see what would come next.
‘As we think about this important pillar of marriage, the money, join me in singing the hymn, Jesus Paid It All.’
There was a collective exhalation and the gathering threw themselves into the singing. As the hymn died down the Reverend stepped closer to the couple. His piercing dark eyes looked keenly into those of the petrified groom.
‘We have learnt that the first pillar of marriage is money. Now the great temple of marriage has a second pillar and that is communication. I does meet a set of young people getting married and they don’t know how to talk to one another. They busy emailing and could spend the whole day on Facebook or texting. And it does be the man them who does forget to communicate. Keshorn, you must talk to Alicia every day. Many wives come by me and they say, Dr. Reverend Jonathan H. Joseph, my husband doesn’t communicate with me. When he reach home from work and he does put up he foot in front the TV watching Dancing With The Stars and then he does start snoring hard hard. So I am warning you Keshorn. Take heed of my advice. If you do not she will shut up the shop. When the shop shut down and you will get nothing.’
Keshorn looked suitably chastised and slightly embarrassed. Most of the congregation were glancing at each other or twittering to those close by. No preacher of any denomination had ever spoken like this from a pulpit in Barbados. But they were too hasty. There was much more to come.
‘The third pillar holding up the roof of the temple of marriage is sex. The adult male and adult female must have a good and regular sex life. Even I, the Dr. Reverend Jonathan H. Joseph, could not carry out the ministry of Our Maker if my wife, Gloria, did not attend to my sexual needs. I sure she will agree with me that she is also well looked after in that department.’
He paused and turned again to face Keshorn directly.
‘Keshorn, by now you should have located her G spot. If you ain’t done your homework I promise you my friend: someone going do it for you.’
No one knew where to look. People were staring open-mouthed while others were stifling the giggles. The older folks looked outraged. Most were staring in disbelief while the good Dr. Reverend Jonathan H. Joseph continued, refusing to acknowledge the restlessness he had created.
‘The fourth pillar that you Alicia, and you Keshorn, must pay attention to is the one and only Lord God All Mighty.’
The congregation exhaled. At last the big guy was getting a look in.
‘I feel sure the Lord will reward you with riches and bless you with many children,’ continued the good Reverend. ‘In fact when I was praying earlier today the number five came to me. I think the Lord was trying to say you going bear five children.’
The ceremony concluded in a more traditional manner but Ricardo said the gathering remained agitated, exchanging glances and covert smiles as they digested the four pillars approach to marriage.
Happy Valentine’s.

BAJAN KING

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 23:03:00 +0000

Trinidadians are brimming over with expectation as carnival approaches. Every night you can hear Soca, pan or take in another fete. By next weekend the whole country will be a little bit tipsy as they move into two full days of playing mas. Big up my girlfriend Allison Demas who is head of all things carnival and doing a fantastic job.

But Trinis don’t have nothing pon the good people of Barbados. The excitement on our small rock is at fever pitch. And it’s not because the long awaited general elections have finally been called for 21 February. Few have high expectations of transformative political change whoever wins. No, something far more momentous has occurred in Bimshire. Our lives have been revolutionised in ways we have yet to fully comprehend because, drum roll please, BURGER KING has opened its first branch on the rock.

Naturally when such a phenomenon occurs you can expect the population to be mobilised and they have not disappointed. When First Born, Second Born and I went on Tuesday evening at 7pm we had a cool 20 minute wait in a line that stretched half way down the length of the food court. No one it seemed even noticed the Chinese food or the baked goods offered by the two other food outlets.

Those from foreign may not appreciate our restricted world. Bajns have been previously shackled to a lifetime of Chefette or KFC chicken. Now the common people finally have real choice. In the newly rebranded Sky Mall at Haggatt Hall we, the people, can partake of a Whopper or even a Double Whopper - as sandwich or meal - and all easily upsized for a few dollars more.

But them Burger King people not stupid. They know Bajans may be nervous about embracing change so chicken burgers are offered for those who can’t break free from wings and thighs. The bookies are also giving decent odds that macaroni pie will creep in as a listed side order before 2014. Speaking of odds, Burger King’s products in the UK have allegedly been found to be contaminated with horse meat.

Call me conservative but I ate the fish burger. It actually looked and tasted of real fish and was sandwiched between a tasty bun with bits of fresh salad poking out. The fries were okay. I prefer them long and stringy but that is a personal quirk. The growing lads both had Double Whopper meals which they declared to be the bomb. There also raved about the crisp fries. In seven minutes flat not even a shred of ice-berg lettuce was left between them.

But my posse can never have a simple, uncontroversial outing to a small mall anchored by a fast food joint. We spread our meal on the small, fixed table and put all the rubbish on our tray which I neatly tucked next to my feet. We had not been seated more than a couple minutes when a supervisor approached our table.
‘Dat tray belongs to you?’ asked the young, uniformed woman with hair pinned back off her face.
I looked up.
‘Yes.’
She lowered her chin and widened her eyes the more to scare me.
‘You know it on de floor,’ she continued.
‘Yes. I’ll move it when we’re done eating.’
She twisted and pulled her mouth but no sound came out. I took the opportunity to stuff myself with fries ever mindful of her continued presence and the piercing glint of her eyes.
‘It can’t stay there,’ she said loudly.
I swallowed the last bit of potato.
‘I’ll move it when I’m done,’ I said. ‘If you like you can move yourself.’
That was a step too far. My girl went straight to the security personnel propped up on the far side wall. Heated words were exchanged and the supervisor marched back to our table unaccompanied by the law. She wordlessly swooped up the tray and neither she nor tray were seen again. So if you go to Burger King and my mug shot with a big red X is at the entrance you will understand how I came to such a sorry-ass end.

Well, I'm Back

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 18:41:00 +0000

To quote Sam Gamgee at the end of Lord of the Rings, “Well, I’m back”. It’s been an absence of three, long years but I am here again blogging about life on this small rock.

And of course much has changed. First and Second Born are now my height and by next year I will be looking up to our teenaged sons. Their reading skills have improved so I expect the blog to be censored weekly. Then again they may not notice as they spend every waking moment not at school sailing on the south coast. Being a sailing mom works on two counts. The boys are easily satisfied with little gifts of rope and waiting around at the beach beats hanging about on the sidelines of a football pitch any day.

The Husband is still in residence and rather annoyingly more Zen with each passing year. He announced he was becoming a vegetarian. I smiled politely and ignored him completely sure that this was a fad that would pass within days or, at worst, weeks. But what a shock. Two years later I am still stressing about how to feed a vegetarian who does not like vegetables. Broccoli, beans, pumpkin and carrots have to be hidden beneath sauces or disguised in rice or pasta dishes. In exchange he occasionally he does something to impress – like this week having a highly coveted guest feature in The Economist. Check it out at http://tinyurl.com/a53jh6f

After buckets of tears, sweat and even the odd shedding of blood (paper cuts are highly underrated), writing and re-writing, I have finished my novel. This week I started sending it out to agents – the conduits to publishers. I sent out fifty-three query letters to US agents and within days eight rejections have landed safely in my inbox. The first came twenty minutes after I pressed “send” which must be some kind of record for rejection. Friends keep telling me that this is normal and to expect more of the same. Since when did it become normal to be told to get lost, your hard work is not wanted? To cope with the endless wait till someone finds merit in the manuscript I have started work on a second novel and looking for a proper job.

Future editions of Notes From A Small Rock will also be featuring the newest member of the family. I give you Rose the rescue dog (aka Rosie and Rosie-Posey). Jack the Jack Russell has grudgingly allowed her to stay. She has this way of whacking him with her backside when she wants to play. Poor lad. His quiet life has changed forever - as has ours.

The Second Poui Writers’ Workshop: Two-day intensive Master Class and Publishing Workshop with novelist Oonya Kempadoo

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:33:00 +0000

The Department of Language, Linguistics and Literature, Cave Hill, announces the second in the series of Poui (Cave Hill Journal of Creative Writing) Writers’ Workshops, in partnership with the Frank Collymore Literary Endowment and sponsored by the Central Bank.

The two-day intensive Writing Master Class and Publishing Workshop under the novelist, Oonya Kempadoo, will run from 10am-4pm Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 February, 2010, and will take place in the Meeting Room of the Frank Collymore Hall.

Oonya Kempadoo’s writing is notable for its unusual frankness and honesty in dealing with sexuality, as well as its humour. Her acute social observation and ear for everyday speech lend drama and comedy to her work. Her first novel was Buxton Spice, a semi-autobiographical account of a young girl growing up in Guyana under the Burnham regime. Buxton Spice was auctioned in London between major publishers and was published in 1998 in the UK, in 1999 in the USA and in five foreign language editions in Europe. Her second novel, Tide Running, is set in contemporary Tobago, won a Casa De Las Americas prize in 2002 and is published in Spanish in Cuba. It was also well received on both sides of the Atlantic, was published in the UK in 2001 and the US in 2003, and Kempadoo named a "Great Talent for the 21st Century" by the Orange Prize judges. She is now working on her third novel and a film-script of Tide Running.

Kempadoo will share her writing process and publishing experience, as well as offering feedback through workshopping. The free two-day workshop is divided into a Writing Master Class on Saturday 20, and a Workshop on Getting Publishing on Sunday 21. Application may be made for one or both of the days, but places are limited to 12 per day and will be allocated on a first come first served basis. To register, email angela.trotman@cavehill.uwi.edu, indicating whether you want to attend one or both days.

WE HAVE FINALLY GOT THE SCOOTERS!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:36:00 +0000

It cost $1052.00 and took two months to clear the two scooters Santa promised First and Second Born because of the interesting classification that was insisted upon coupled with the system for getting goods through the port.

NISHI RESTAURANT REVIEW BY ANISH AND ISHAN PERSAUD

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:19:00 +0000

NISHI
Second Street
Holetown, St. James
Phone: 246-432-8287

The service was very quick. The staff seemed happy to serve.

There were many options to choose from. They have a bistro menu and a sushi menu. We ate at the sushi bar upstairs. The food was great and filling. The fish was very fresh. Ishan liked the nigiri salmon sushi and Anish liked the spicy tuna sushi.

Kids are very welcome. If you eat at the bar the chef will let you look and see how they prepare the sushi. They gave us kids some shrimp tempura with two types of sauces to try for free. If you did not like sushi you could have Italian food or burgers.

The dining room was very posh. In fact the whole place looked great. The room was done in different types of dark wood and the lighting was good. They played trendy Buddha Bar cds.

Nishi is on a main road in Holetown and easy to find. It has a big sign so you won’t miss it.

OVERALL RATING: 9/10

IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 01:22:00 +0000

(New Year's Eve in Bridgetown, 2009 - photo by William Cummins)

January marks our third year in paradise and like many I am in stock taking mode. The past year was an eventful one and in the spirit of optimism that marks new beginnings this will be a “best of” 2009.

1. I sorted every last box in the garage and found a home for everything. Well, except the bunk beds and a single candlestick that has lost its best friend. But they are earmarked for a woman who wrote to The Nation’s Dear Christine column in need of basic furniture.

2. Hurdler Ryan Brathwaite brought home the first bit of gold ever for Barbados from the World Championships.

3. The One True Remote, which possesses the supernatural power to control all other remotes, arrived in the house via Amazon. Its abilities include turning chaos into order, bedlam into calm and clutter into simplicity. However, with power comes responsibility to control the vast stores of music, TV and DVDs. It puts The Keeper in a position of truly terrifying authority. Naturally, I appointed myself said keeper and have managed to keep possession lest the evil twins who roam our house find it and unleash its destructive power.

4. THREE new sushi places opened on this small rock. So bye, bye, macaroni pie. It continues to defeat me why a tropical island should adopt as one of its staple foods a dish of hot carbohydrate and melted fat designed to fuel Europeans through grim northern winters. In any case, the pie and I have now parted company without regret.

5. With the help of fellow sexpots Sonia and Helga, I set up the Hot Mamas Club with a mission to help each other sizzle. This culminated in me wearing a rather daring dress for our New Year’s Eve soiree – the kind sold on the basis that less is more. The Husband looked at me with a weird, disbelieving look and mumbled,
‘You look rather sexy.’
I was speechless.
The last time he said something similar was November 12 1999. And before you dismiss this faint praise be assured it is his reserved way of stating that you look hot enough to pork in all twenty-four positions illustrated in the Kama Sutra.

6. Second Born came third in the Under Eleven age group of the Guardian General Junior Squash Championships.

7. A wonderful weekly tea salon was institutionalized at Beacon House during 2009. Drop by any Sunday from 4pm onwards. A word of warning: if you say it, be prepared to defend it. After 7pm we do this neat trick where the Darjeeling turns into Merlot before your very eyes.

8. I continued to show my art in Barbados in spite of obvious public indifference to any work that is not a big, bright painting on canvas. If I find the courage to continue in 2010 that will be an even bigger personal achievement.

9. I found a new love. Golf. My friend Janine has begged me to stop before I go down the route of buying tartan clothing, making The Husband a golf widower or having numerous indiscreet affairs with identikit blonde party girls.

10. No one close to me died and as a bonus a couple gorgeous babies were born. Life goes on.

JUST HEAR THOSE SLEIGH BELLS CLICK, CLICK, CLICKING

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:46:00 +0000

They boast that they have not believed in Santa since they were six. And they knew there wasn’t an Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy. But I know different. It was only when Second Born found a baby tooth accompanied by his note to TF, carefully stored in the safe, that his faith was finally shattered - and that was just last week. This year they presented me with letters addressed to Mrs. Claus containing a printout of an Amazon wish list. The Elves agreed we could manage an electric scooter each and have them shipped to Bim along with bits of furniture needed for the home. The goods duly arrived in Bridgetown early November. It is Christmas week and I am still waiting for the much-anticipated scooters to clear customs.

You see on this small rock, with currency exchange controls and high import duties on nearly everything, it ain’t over even after the last click confirming your credit card details. Assuming you have a credit card that allows you to pay in dollars or pounds, you then have to persuade your overpriced shippers that you are the client and that they should clear your goods. I have found to my cost telephone promises are not worth spit. I only got action when I sat quietly in their office and refused to leave until someone assumed responsibility for clearing the goods. Mr. Lee Parken promised to personally take on “my case”. Sure enough at 7pm, a week later, the very night before six houseguests descended, the flat pack furniture was offloaded onto our front porch. In the hours of screw-driver assembly that followed I did not notice the scooters were missing. By the time I did, dawn was breaking and it was Saturday. They don’t work weekends.

‘Oh yes they are still in Shed Three.’ said Mr. Lee Parken when I finally got him on his mobile. ‘I can’t get hold of the officer in charge to know why they aren’t releasing the scooters.’
Then he added ominously, ‘ I’ll get back to you.’
Another week of constant phone calls followed only to be told each time that the elusive officer could not be found within these twenty one by fourteen miles of coral. So I got his number and tried to deal with him directly. When we did talk I found that my alternative dispute resolution skills were no match for the mighty Customs and Excise. Indeed the negotiators in Copenhagen would have been more successful had they cut their teeth doing battle with the customs officers of Shed 3. And as in COP15 definitions were all important.
‘What yuh call dis ting? Ah scooter?’ asked Officer McBady
‘Yes. It’s a toy for my son.’ I replied.
‘Dis eh no toy. It have ah battery. Dis could go pon de road. Yuh cahn clear customs till yuh get a licence.’
‘It’s a toy. It can’t go more than five miles per hour.’
‘Man, dis battery have nuff power. I telling yuh dis could go pon de road.’ he repeated.
I sighed. ‘It can’t and he can’t. He is not using this except in our yard.’
‘Well it eh leaving here till it have ah licence.’
‘Okay. What kind of licence do you think I should get? A bicycle licence?’
‘No ah vehicle licence. And yuh go have to pay de 100% duty plus environmental fee, plus licencing fee, plus road tax plus handling and storage.’
‘It’s a toy!’ I yelled.
Then I remembered who was wearing the trousers.
‘Please would you mind reading the instructions on the box?’ I pleaded. ‘It is for children up to twelve years old.’
‘Doh tell me is some kinda ting to play wid.’’ he shot back. ‘I looking at de ting right now and dis eh no toy. I doh have to read nutting to know what dis is. It go have to get ah road licence or it staying just here.’

And sadly he is right. The rules provide an unbeatable combination of broad discretion coupled with a lack of transparency. I might have been a lawyer once but he is The Law. There is absolutely nothing I can do except cough up. So, although furious, I have agreed to pay. It cost enough to get the evil things here and it is Christmas and the boys will be disappointed if Claus does not come through for them. But that was not quite the pound of flesh the officer had in mind. He now insists I must wait for a mythical creature known only as, The Chief Inspector, to approve the clearance and sign off. This creature was of course last sighted about the same time as the Hobbits began exploring Middle-Earth.

We are T minus three days and I have as much chance of getting those scooters as Tiger has of a cozy Christmas with the wifey. So, if you have a couple electric scooters going spare ‘tis the season to be generous and call me.

PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS AND THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:19:00 +0000

A worthy winner: Simon Johnson, Professor at MIT, Peterson Institute fellow and former IMF chief economist

Public intellectuals and the financial crisis
Jonathan Ford
16th December 2009 —
Who has contributed best to the "public conversation" during these turbulent times? Prospect names the top 25 brains of the financial crisis

The financial crisis has destroyed both wealth and received wisdom. The idea that prices are always right and markets self-correct is fatally challenged. Even Alan Greenspan admits that the “whole intellectual edifice” of the efficient market hypothesis collapsed in the summer of 2008. The financial establishment is in a state of deep confusion. As the FT’s Gillian Tett put it in September’s Prospect: it is like “a priest who has lost faith in the Bible, but still has to go to church.” But this is not a bad thing, for it has opened up new ways of thinking about markets, institutions and the all-important cause of financial reform.

Unfamiliar voices have come to prominence, aided by a new wave of financial bloggers eager to push fresh ideas. But who has made the most impact? Prospect assembled a panel of experts to draw up a list of leading “public intellectuals” of the financial crisis in 2009 and then decide on the most important. Our criteria were simple. Anyone who had made an impact on policy with their ideas, or who had changed the “public conversation” was a candidate.

The panel sifted hundreds of names, with an unavoidable bias towards Britain and the US, but felt the most important contributions had been in financial reform—those trying to work out what to do next. The crisis has laid a staggering financial burden on the world, with some $14 trillion propping up US and EU banks. We cannot afford another one. Moreover, we urgently need a new regulatory philosophy. Are liquid markets always good? Is complexity in financial services harmful? Can finance firms stop “herding,” creating wild booms and busts?

The role of the banks themselves is also being rethought. They have mushroomed in size without doing a better job—Royal Bank of Scotland’s balance sheet grew 20-fold in the decade from 1998. Some banks have become too big to fail and hence dangerous. Should we return to the strict division between commercial and investment banking, as proposed by Paul Volcker and Mervyn King? And how can we now rein in this super-sized financial system with its powerful lobby? Many of the surviving megabanks have pressured governments for a return to the status quo ante. They want their old economy back, with the implicit warning that if they don’t get it there will be no recovery—and politicians will be blamed.

We considered all of this, and gradually whittled the names down to a shortlist of just 25 (see facing page), and then a top three. In reverse order, the bronze medal went to Adair Turner, chairman of Britain’s Financial Services Authority, who bravely questioned the social usefulness of some financial activity, and called for regulators to force banks to hold more capital against risky trades, cutting their profitability. Next, silver went to Avinash Persaud, a respected analyst who spotted nine years ago the dangerous interaction between firms “herding” and new risk management techniques. During 2009 he has been arguing for new “macro-prudential” regulation to stop what he discovered a decade ago.

But there was a clear winner. He is Simon Johnson, an economist at the prestigious Peterson Institute in Washington, DC, who has been leading the argument against overmighty banking. His ideas are well grounded in theory, but he has also done more than any academic to popularise his case: writing articles, a must-read blog, and appearing tirelessly on television. As the FT’s Martin Wolf told Prospect: “Johnson’s significance is that he is a member of the establishment—a former IMF chief economist, no less—who has emphasised the capture of the state by big finance, for the latter’s own ends. An expert on crises in emerging countries and in transition from communism, he has called what he has seen: crony capitalism at the heart of the financial system.” In particular Johnson’s essay “The Quiet Coup,” in the Atlantic of May 2009, is one of the great polemical essays of the crisis. Far from skulking in an ivory tower, he has urged citizens to the streets.

We need an informed debate about making finance safer. Johnson, Persaud and Turner led that debate in 2009.

PROSPECT’S TOP 25 BRAINS OF THE CRISIS

1. Simon Johnson Professor at MIT, Peterson Institute fellow, former IMF chief economist, blogger, troublemaker and scourge of once-mighty banks—a worthy winner in 2009.

2. Avinash Persaud, Financial liquidity analyst, adviser to governments around the world, the man who has studied “herd” behaviour in finance, and now the man trying to stop it.

3. Adair Turner An unusually bold regulator, Turner made headlines worldwide slamming “socially useless” finance (in Prospect) and suggesting a Tobin tax to put sand in the wheels of global finance.

Ben Bernanke Cerebral Federal Reserve chairman, seen by many as saviour of the US economy while congress dithered.

Andrew Haldane Bank of England director who warned of a “doom loop” of perpetual banking bailouts.

Philip Hildebrand Swiss banker who boldly pushed cutting his country’s banks to size.

John Kay Well-regarded British economist who wants a return to simple banking.

Mervyn King Bank of England boss, initially wrong-footed by the crisis, but had a better, more aggressive 2009.

Richard Koo Insider adviser to politicians and banks, an expert on the lessons from Japan, and deficit dove-in-chief.

Paul Krugman Celebrated economist and author of a must-read New York Times essay on the failures of economics.

Christine Lagarde French minister of economic affairs who got just the right mix of stick and carrot for French banks.
donald mackenzie Edinburgh professor, author of many sharp LRB essays unpicking the anthropology of finance.

Lucy Prebble 28-year-old British author of Enron, the best play yet on irrational exuberance.

Nouriel Roubini Legendarily gloomy, normally correct finance analyst whose blogs alone can move markets.

Brad Setser Young policy wonk, co-blogger with Simon Johnson and author of Bailouts or Bail-ins? with Roubini.

Robert Shiller Credit-crunch US sage and behavioural economics pioneer.

Jon Stewart Brainy American satirist whose Daily Show has made finance a laughing stock.

Joseph Stiglitz Nobel laureate, chair of UN commission on financial reform and harsh critic of finance-as-usual.

Matt Taibbi US journalist, wrote a celebrated scathing attack on Goldman Sachs.

Paul Volcker Ex-Fed chair, pushing for splitting up investment and savings banks.

Elizabeth Warren Harvard professor, consumer rights watchdog, leads the panel watching over Obama’s bailout money.

Martin Wolf FT writer and the Anglosphere’s most influential finance journalist.

Paul Woolley Innovative LSE thinker on “capital market dysfunctionality.”

Yu Yongding Influential economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Zhou Xiaochuan Bank of China head, architect of China’s response to the crisis.

Thanks to those who helped us pick a list or select winners, including: Rudi Bogni, Diane Coyle, Will Davies, Meghnad Desai, John Eatwell, Christopher Hird, Will Hutton, Faisal Islam, Stephanie Flanders, George Magnus, Jasper McMahon, Felix Salmon, Richard Sennett, Rohan Silva, Laura Tyson, Isabel Hilton and Graham Turne

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2009/12/public-intellectuals-and-the-financial-crisis

CHRISTMAS FEVER

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:10:00 +0000

Christmas is partly defined by music. For years it meant an annual pilgrimage to listen to the Tallis Scholars and then Handel’s Messiah at St. John’s Church in Smith Square, London. In keeping with new traditions on this small rock we heralded the holiday season last weekend with Carols By Candlelight on the grounds of the Prime Minister’s official residence, Illaro Court. This year’s concert featured top musicians like the jazz artiste André Woodvine and several very talented young people including about a hundred kids from the Mustard Seed drama club. But the music and dance were merely nice background scenery for a carefully planned picnic with friends. And as darkness descended the park was transformed into a place of pure magic lit by a sea of candlelight. When you are sitting on the grass on a warm night in mid December, with candles and stars to light your way, it is obvious this is paradise.

This holiday season we are also lucky to have live music at home. Our two budding guitarists have been serenading us with precisely three-quarters of Silent Night. Several times. Every day. I am hoping that both St. Cecilia, the patroness of musicians, and their tutor, the extremely patient Paco, will take pity on us and teach them the last bit before the Christmas break so that we may all finally take the song to its logical conclusion and Sleep in Heavenly Peace, Sleep in Heavenly Peace.

This rock is however anything but silent as businesses gear up for the season. There is little sign of the restraint and fear that characterized last Christmas. The day I collected visiting relatives there were seven full flights from the UK at Grantley Adams International. Add to that visitors from Canada and the USA and you can see why it feels like the population has doubled almost overnight. And the shops are heaving. All my presents were bought to the song track of click, click, click. But there is always one forgotten person who I will have to find a gift for at 3pm on Christmas Eve. Can’t remember who that is but I’m sure all will be revealed at the appointed hour.

I have actually, by instruction, opened one of my presents already – a gift from our helper who knows my fondness for kitsch. This treasure is a Santa beyond anything I could have hoped for. Once fed three AA batteries, the ten-inch plastic doll does some pelvis thrusting that in real life would get him arrested for disturbing the peace while belting out a Katrina and The Waves song,
Now I don't want u back for the weekend,
Not back for a day,
No, No, No,
I said baby I just want you back,
And I want you to stay.
Put it this way: I have already had to replace the batteries as no one can resist this totally ridiculous object. The national health service should distribute them to anyone in need of a bit of laughter therapy. And clearly I am not alone in loving Fat Boy Red because when I went to the little Chinese shop on Swan Street that Diane had found him, his clones were all sold out.

While my Fat Boy Red and the Christmas tree are our household’s most prominent signs of the season, First and Second Born are increasingly curious about the true meaning of Christmas. At nine and a third years they have no trouble with the cultural precedents of gift giving, or more precisely, gift receiving. They appreciate the atmosphere of plenty with special food and decorations in the house as well as the numerous party invitations. But they are puzzled by our insistence that they participate in the religious activities of their Anglican school.
‘I still don’t want to go to the Carol Service.’ said First Born.
‘Everyone will be there. You have to go because you are a member of that community.’I replied.
‘No. It’s a Christian thing and I’m not Christian.’
Silence.
‘Mom, what am I again? A humanist?’
‘Yes honey.’
It had been a long day and I did not want to rehearse the whole Dwarkins God Delusion arguments but he was unyielding.
‘So basically we don’t believe in a God up in heaven?’
‘Yup.’
‘So why do I have to sing all those songs and say all those prayers to God?’
‘Because that is part of your education and it is good to understand all religions so later on you can decide if you still want to be a humanist.’
‘I’m fine with being a humanist mom. Really. And I don’t want to do any of that church stuff.’
‘You will go to church services with your classmates. No more discussion please.’
‘I don’t have to go if you send a note to my teacher.’
‘I’m not sending a note son.’
‘But you don’t go to church.’
‘I’m bigger than you and I don’t need a note from my mother.’
‘Grandma goes to church.’
‘Look I don’t need a note to get out of church. I stopped asking my mom for one when I hit forty.’
We settled into silence for about thirty seconds while I tried to find the page of a novel I was longing to continue reading.
‘But I am still getting an electric scooter for Christmas? Okay lovely mama?
‘Only if you are a very good, humanist boy and tidy your room.’

Don’t you just love Christmas?

FOLLOWING THE THREADS

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:52:00 +0000

Straight.
Back.
Blanket.
Running.

I am stitched up.

I have been stitching from early morning to late night in the studio, BBC radio 4 my only companion. Three weeks it’s been like this. Sequestered with jewel-coloured threads, acres of cotton material, and photos from fifty-eight people who responded to a call to collaborate. I have stitched so intently and fiercely that the metacarpals of the ring finger on my left hand look strangely deformed.
‘How you manage to mash up yuh ring finger?’ asked E. ‘People doh use dat finger sewing.’
‘Have you seen my demented sewing? I countered.
He shook his head.
‘Exactly.’

And there is no opportunity for him to now witness the crazed, compulsive needlework because it’s all over. C’est fini. It’s been a long haul. I have taken the offerings from my virtual community and transferred these digital images onto cotton – itself a tedious, involved process - then blanket-stitched these cloth photos to larger cotton squares. The large squares were then joined, bits and a border added for effect, and the whole sodding thing quilt-stitched to form what passes for a king-sized blanket. And it is a blanket for while it borrows elements from quilting it does not adhere to the rules of that craft.

The exhaustion from repetitive cutting and stitching is satisfying honest labour but at the same time I can’t wait to be rid of the blanket. The work is done and needs to find its own space. But stored somewhere in my hands is a lingering memory of hours and days and weeks of quiet meditation about the people who sent the photos, the images themselves and the shifting meanings of our individual and collective humanity in both real and cyber spaces. Benny has a thriving law practice in London. His picture was taken in the kitchen where once a week he helps cook and feed the homeless. Richard was boarding a BA flight. Indu in Trinidad watched over her sleeping baby boy. On Long Island George showed off his skill with a rip stick. Daniel is in Ghana. I have no idea when we’ll see each other again.

Square, by cotton square, the virtual offerings from places as far as Iceland, and as near as Bridgetown, became an object of physical comfort to a woman hunched over in her studio pulling needle and thread. And when the last stitch was stitched, and it was accepted that that was the last time my needle would push thread through three layers of cloth in an effort to bind them together, when I was completely sure, I did the only thing left to do. I striped off and wrapped the soft, warm fabric around my body.

After a few quiet moments of reflection it sunk in. I threw the freaking thing on the floor, checked on the internet that it was 11am somewhere in the world, and although most Bajans were having breakfast, I cracked open a celebratory bottle of the good plonk usually reserved for high days and holidays. Thank you London for being conveniently four hours ahead of this small rock. If you happen to be in Bim the real blanket is at the Morningside Gallery as part of a group show on collaboration that opens on 5 December. The virtual one is yours to keep. Or not.

I wanted to do a performance work by sleeping under the blanket in the gallery space for the opening. Second Born intervened.
‘You can’t sleep in the gallery, mama.’
‘I can if I think it will be a strong performance that will add another dimension to the blanket.’ I replied.
He looked at me intently with a pained expression.
‘That’s just weird.’ he whined. ‘People will think you’re a homeless person.’
‘No they won’t.’ I retorted.
‘Yes they will.’ he shot back.
‘Won’t.’
‘Will.’
‘Won’t.’
‘Will.’
‘Won’t.’
‘Will too.’
‘Well it’s my art and I can if I want to.’ I said and folded my arms to signal I was The Boss.
‘You can’t have any food at the opening then ‘cause you’ll be in bed and you said we can’t eat in bed.’
He had a point. While everyone was gaining a happier perspective on life with the aid of a little free rum and hot fish cakes I would be stuck under the blanket on a make shift bed trying desperately to have a nap. But that now had to be weighed against the perverse pleasure of knowing you are a proper embarrassment to your kids.
‘Well I guess people can imagine sleeping under the blanket.’ I conceded. ‘It’ll be on the floor anyway.’
Second Born’s little face exuded pure relief through every pore.
‘Yeah, mom. That’s so much better.’
He walked off satisfied at having saved his family from public humiliation. Wait till he finds out about my next work that requires tea and a naked woman by the sea.

WHAT THE HUSBAND DID NEXT

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:58:00 +0000

Nov 26th 2009
From The Economist print edition

Two new papers explore how to regulate the financial system as a whole

BANKS mimic other banks. They expose themselves to similar risks by making the same sorts of loans. Each bank’s appetite for lending rises and falls in sync. What is safe for one institution becomes dangerous if they all do the same, which is often how financial trouble starts. The scope for nasty spillovers is increased by direct linkages. Banks lend to each other as well as to customers, so one firm’s failure can quickly cause others to fall over, too.

Because of these connections, rules to ensure the soundness of each bank are not enough to keep the banking system safe. Hence the calls for “macroprudential” regulation to prevent failures of the financial system as a whole. Although there is wide agreement that macroprudential policy is needed to limit systemic risk, there has been very little detail about how it might work. Two new reports help fill this gap. One is a discussion paper from the Bank of England, which sketches out the elements of a macroprudential regime and identifies what needs to be decided before it is put into practice*. The other paper, by the Warwick Commission, a group of academics and experts on finance from around the world, advocates specific reforms**.

The first step is to decide an objective for macroprudential policy. A broad aim is to keep the financial system working well at all times. The bank’s report suggests a more precise goal: to limit the chance of bank failure to its “social optimum”. Tempering the boom-bust credit cycle and taking some air out of asset-price bubbles may be necessary to meet these aims, but both reports agree that should not be the main purpose of regulation. Making finance safer is ambitious enough.

Policymakers then have to decide on how they might achieve their goal. The financial system is too willing to provide credit in good times and too shy to do so in bad times. In upswings banks are keen to extend loans because write-offs seem unlikely. The willingness of other banks to do the same only reinforces the trend. Borrowers seem less likely to default because with lots of credit around, the value of their assets is rising. As the boom gathers pace, even banks that are wary of making fresh loans carry on for fear of ceding ground to rivals. When recession hits, each bank becomes fearful of making loans partly because other banks are also reluctant. Scarce credit hurts asset prices and leaves borrowers prey to the cash-flow troubles of customers and suppliers.

Since the cycle is such an influence on banks, macroprudential regulation should make it harder for all banks to lend so freely in booms and easier for them to lend in recessions. It can do this by tailoring capital requirements to the credit cycle. Whenever overall credit growth looks too frothy, the macroprudential body could increase the minimum capital buffer that supervisors make each bank hold. Equity capital is relatively dear for banks, which benefit from an implicit state guarantee on their debt finance as well as the tax breaks on interest payments enjoyed by all firms. Forcing banks to hold more capital when exuberance reigns would make it costlier for them to supply credit. It would also provide society with an extra cushion against bank failures.

Each report adds its own twist to this prescription. The Bank of England thinks extra capital may be needed for certain sorts of credit. If capital penalties are not targeted, it argues, banks may simply cut back on routine loans to free up capital for more exotic lending. The Warwick report says each bank’s capital should also vary with how long-lived its assets are relative to its funding. Firms with big maturity mismatches are more likely to cause systemic problems and should be penalised. The ease of raising cash against assets and of rolling over debt varies over the cycle, and capital rules need to reflect this. Regulators should also find ways to match different risks with the firms which can best bear them. Banks are the natural bearers of credit risk since they know about evaluating borrowers. Pension funds are less prone to sudden withdrawals of cash and are the best homes for illiquid assets.

The Warwick group is keen that macroprudential policy should be guided by rules. If credit, asset prices and GDP were all growing above their long-run average rates, say, the regulator would be forced to step in or explain why it is not doing so. Finance is a powerful lobby. Without such a trigger for intervention, regulators may be swayed by arguments that the next credit boom is somehow different and poses few dangers. The bank frets about regulatory capture, too, but doubts that any rule would be right for all circumstances. It favours other approaches, such as frequent public scrutiny, to keep regulators honest.

When banks attack

No regulatory system is likely to be fail-safe. That is why Bank of England officials stress that efforts to make bank failures less costly for society must be part of regulatory reform. That includes making banks’ capital structures more flexible, so that some kinds of debt turn into loss-bearing equity in a crisis. Both reports favour making systemically important banks hold extra capital, as they pose bigger risks when they fail.

The Warwick group also thinks cross-border banks should abide by the rules of their host countries, so that macroprudential regulation fits local credit conditions. That would require that foreign subsidiaries be independently capitalised, which may also be necessary for a cross-border bank to have a credible “living will”, a guide to its orderly resolution. This advice will chafe most in the European Union, where standard rules are the basis of the single market. But varying rules on capital could also be used as a macroeconomic tool in the euro area, where monetary policy cannot be tailored to each country’s needs. Regulation to address negative spillovers that hurt financial stability might then have a positive spillover for economic stability.

* “The role of macroprudential policy”, Bank of England, November 2009

** The Warwick Commission on International Financial Reform, November 2009

Boomtime politicians will not rein in the bankers

By Avinash Persaud

Published, Financial Times: November 26 2009 21:09

One of the features that singles out the Warwick Commission on International Financial Reform, which publishes its final report on Friday, is that while other expert groups tiptoe around it, we have been able to point to the true source of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s: regulatory capture and boomtime politics.

Today regulators are working conscientiously to address the issue of banks being too big to fail; the lack of responsibility that can follow securitisation; imperfections in credit ratings; capital requirements which accentuate boom and bust; regulators which were global champions for their local banks; and more. But we should not forget that just a few years ago, regulators, with few exceptions, wanted big banks to have lower capital requirements if they had sophisticated risk models; they were cheerleaders for securitisation and asset sales by banks because, they said, this spread risks; they hard-wired credit ratings into bank risk assessment; they promoted home country regulation over host country control; and they dismissed the idea that regulation was dangerously pro-cyclical.

These and other regulatory mistakes all pushed financial institutions in the same direction. Large international banks compete better on “process” and “models” than credit assessment, and reap economies of scale when rules that segment finance within and between countries are liberalised. As I wrote here in 2002, financial regulation had all the hallmarks of being captured by banks, to the detriment of financial stability.

Separate but related to regulatory capture is the politics of booms. A boom persists because no one wants to stop it. The government of the day wants it to last until the next election. The early phase of a boom brings extra growth, low inflation and falling defaults. Governments tout this as a sign of their superior performance. Bankers argue such alchemy justifies their golden handshakes and excuses their golden handcuffs. Booms spread cheer by providing finance to the previously unbanked. Donations to worthy causes and universities temper traditional channels of criticism. How easily can the underpaid regulator stick his hand up and say it is all an unsustainable boom?

The capture and influence is subtle and there is always a genuine reason, if a wrong one, for why it is different this time. Indeed, one of the key challenges not yet seriously addressed is why the universities and press, falling over themselves to kick bankers today, did not play a more effective counterveiling force to this capture.

One indirect consequence of capture is the mistaken treatment of risk that lies at the heart of regulation. Many politicians and watchdogs think of risk as a single fixed thing inherent in instruments. As a result they put faith in processes that link capital to measures of risk, or in committees charged with determining what is safe and what is risky and banning the risky. But risk is a chameleon: it changes depending on who is holding it. Declaring something safe can make it risky and vice versa. Investment scams are attracted to booms, but booms are in fact built on the belief that some new thing has increased the return or reduced the risk of the world: motor cars, railroads, electricity, the internet or financial innovation. There is often a large element of truth about the original proposition – the world will be different – but the over-investment creates new risks.

In a world in which risk is poorly measured and regulators are vulner-able to political influence, we cannot rely as a defence against a crisis on the regulation of financial instruments, statistical measures of risk, systemic risk committees or the foreign “home country” regulator.

It is not financial instruments but behaviour we need to change. A better defence will come from increasing capital buffers at financial institutions, making these buffers counter-cyclical, and focusing on structural – not statistical – measures of risk capacity. Liquidity risk is best held by institutions that do not require liquidity, such as pension funds, life insurers or private equity. Credit risk is best held by institutions that have plenty of credit risks to diversify, such as banks and hedge funds. No amount of extra capital will save a system that, because measured risks in a boom are low, sends risk where there is no capacity for it.

The writer is chair of the Warwick Commission, chairman of Intelligence Capital and an emeritus professor of Gresham College

I CAN PREDICT THE FUTURE AND THE FUTURE IS FUZZY

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:00:00 +0000

How we landed on this small rock still puzzles me. I remember The Husband said I had three choices.
Three.
Perhaps what is astounding is not that there were three possible paths but that I actually believed these were my only options.
One. Two. Three.
They say bad things happen in threes. So, if you break your wrist, then lose your wallet on the bus, you know there is only one more nasty surprise coming your way before the cosmos is properly re-aligned. Good things on the other hand never come in packages of three. No one wins the lottery, finds true love and gets the Nobel for discovering a cure for cancer.

‘I have looked at all the places in the world we can live that would give us and the boys a good life and I’ve come up with a short list.’ he announced.
‘Really? You’re kidding right?’
‘No.’
‘Okay. Just for fun, where should we live?’
‘Bangalore, Singapore or Barbados.’
Just like that.
There was not a hint of doubt in his voice. From nearly two hundred countries in the world he could coolly narrow the field to three.
‘Humm. Seems a bit arbitrary to me.’ I ventured.
‘Not at all. Bangalore is a very happening city where the kids will also have a chance to understand their cultural heritage.’
‘But they have lived all their tiny lives in south London. This is their culture.’
‘They will never be fully accepted as British. Not in their lifetime.’ he snapped.
‘Well, I’ve never even been to Bangalore so can’t say it appeals to me.’
‘You should go visit then.’
He was completely serious.
‘And Singapore?’
‘Ah yes. Very safe. And the kids will come out disciplined and ready for university.’
‘But Singapore is one big, soulless, shopping mall.’
‘We could leave on weekends and long vacations.’
‘Why can’t we stay in London and continue they way we are? What’s wrong with our life here?’
‘Didn’t you always say you wanted to go back to the Caribbean?’
‘That was when I was twenty-one. Not now. This is my home. I have spent my entire adult life here. I learnt to drive here. Voted here. My kids were born here. I’m not leaving.’
But even as I spoke I knew it was pointless to argue. It had been a brief, bloodless coup. Besides, wasn’t Barbados paradise?

Two and a half years on we are settled into our new home and have just completed works on His Office and My Studio. A tiny part of me still nurses jealousy and resentment as to who got the better deal. If we are talking square footage and views then, yes, the bastard won. But my space, while smaller, is better organized, also has views and is well positioned for nipping to the kitchen for cups of tea. And our contract expressly states that I have reserved the right to occupy such other spaces (including His Office) as is deemed necessary for the completion of art projects.

The Husband’s office is admittedly more tasteful than I thought him capable of creating. Instead of a traditional desk he has opted for a large refectory table and two Eames office chairs. There is a large white sofa that Jack the Jack Russell views as his bed and it all overlooks the garden of Samaan, Immortelle and Mahogany trees. But the most interesting thing is the pride of place he has given to a large crystal ball – a present from TK, a close friend and former colleague. The Husband may have moved on from predicting dollar/yen but he still divines the future and what he has to say is not nice. I live in fear that one more public statement of doom and gloom will tip the authorities over the edge and he will be stripped of citizenship.

Of course we all wish we had a reliable crystal ball to know the future. Obama could use it to know how and when to pull troops out of Afghanistan. Indonesians would have minimized the deaths and devastation these past months from tsunami after tsunami pounding their islands. Our friend Brian would have known he would soon influence the development of a nation as the next governor of the Bank of Jamaica. And the crystal ball would have assured us that this small rock was indeed the best place for our children. It is a place with low crime, great climate, decent education and good connections to the rest of the world.

But there is no need for a predictive tool – crystal ball or sophisticated mathematical model - to know that paradise does not come cheap. I have only reluctantly accepted that the price of living on an island of 270,000 people is that I will forever be an outsider finding friendship and solace with other outsiders. And to have the same variety of intellectual and cultural stimulation that I had in London would be arrogant.

For today it is enough to be writing in a room with a view of a garden filled with Samaan, Immortelle and Mahogany trees.

LOST IN TRANSIT

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:35:00 +0000

I have neglected Notes in the misguided belief that this would allow extra hours to be dedicated to a larger writing project. Instead it has meant even less words committed to paper. So at Miami airport with time to spare I will, dear readers, try to make amends.

Since returning to this small rock in September it appears to have shrunk to even less than the 21 by 14 miles acknowledged on maps. Some days even the air seems scarce. The unusual heat is partly to blame. Or it could be the intrusion on our civil rights of mandatory fingerprinting at Grantley Adams International Airport introduced without warning or legislation. Perhaps the island also got a little smaller the day a photograph was published in The Nation showing the public flogging of school children – just punishment meted out for arriving late at school. Most surveys, radio call-in programmes and press have joined in a righteous chorus supporting “de rod”. I am considering home schooling.

‘Paradise is slipping away.’ I whispered to Jack the Jack Russell.
He did not even open half an eye in acknowledgment. And this is supposed to be man’s best friend. I want to go home. Of course it is an absurd request. So I kissed the family goodbye for a couple days hoping to inhale different air.

In Miami there are the well-rehearsed distractions of sushi, a few arty friends and shopping. I planned to buoy up the economy with purchases of Christmas presents, novelties for holiday entertaining and fulfilling First and Second Born’s impossibly long wish list. But that required stamina and enthusiasm for all manner of unnecessary plastic objects. After a day of sushi for lunch and dinner as well as mandatory visits to the Apple Store and Pottery Barn I had lost the will to buy. By the following day I had opted instead for a poolside lounger coupled with a divine novel – the latest offering from William Trevor recounting the ordinary tale of a chance at present love denied by ghosts of a distant past.

But peace never came in this temporary home. Sleep was impossible. I spent last night haunting the less obvious spaces of the hotel and exploring the deserted financial district that surrounded it. My fellow insomniacs and I made a curious sight. Shift workers walked quickly and stayed in the shadows. Above the streets two lovers laughed and kissed on their balcony. Later I stumbled on Walgreens – Open 24 hours. My friend H. had a request so I went inside in search of Reece’s sweeties. Despite pacing up and down each aisle only two packets of candy and a new toothbrush found their way into the shopping trolley.

I walked out past a woman with a harsh, angular face and blank eyes, a cigarette burning between her fingers. We did not acknowledge each other. It seemed the only way to respect whatever private demons had led us at this unusual hour to these lonely streets. I walked and walked and walked hoping the act of one foot in front the other would make time tick faster. Back at the hotel the wall clock showed 5am. In one hour the night would be forced to give way to the first tentative morning light. A man seated in the lobby was wearing yesterday’s light blue suit and a still knotted paisley tie. His left hand twitched with involuntary spasms. His face was oddly contorted. He used his steady hand to keep the coffee cup from spilling. I wanted to go over, hold his hands and tell him everything was going to be okay. If his trembling stopped would mine not also end? As if sensing my intrusive thoughts he got up abruptly and walked over to the lift and with a deep sigh pressed the ‘up’ button. He was ready at last to confront the dread within his well-appointed room. Does this dread follow him, hiding under the bed and behind the curtains? Is it in every hotel room in every city? I stared at his disappearing form and tears flowed down my face.

By 7am this morning in the full glare of morning I decided to return to Bim earlier than planned. The household will survive without the new linens, kettle and DS games I should have secured. The first available flight is not until early evening but I cannot stay in this room and I am too exhausted to walk anymore. Airports are great places to be alone and yet surrounded by people. Eight hours in Miami International might in different circumstances be a descent into hell but today it is a respite. Instead of the airport lounge I have opted for the loudest, busiest spot available. I opened my laptop and began to write.

With each tap of the keys the night is lulled to sleep.

I'll be home soon.

THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:42:00 +0000

Billy Joel (please say you remember him) once cooed that,
Honesty is such a lonely word.
Everyone is so untrue.
Honesty is hardly ever heard.
And mostly what I need from you.
Well Billy boy, if its honesty you crave then you should have left New York ever since and taken up residence on this small rock. They don’t come more honest than your average Bajan. We call it like we see it: a spade is a spade. Of course there are exceptions in every community but I am talking about your average Marlon and Mavis catching the Black Rock bus pon a morning.

This search for truth is most evident when it comes to naming persons, places, animals and things. Where else will you find a producer forthcoming enough to brand his product C-thru White Rum. It does exactly what it says on the tin so proceed with caution.

And giving your child a conventional name like Melanie or Peter will not prevent them acquiring one closer to their true nature – as seen through Bajan eyes. Sheila, with her bee-sung lips, is known as Lipton while Desmond, with his larger than average head, is Bus Stop. As if this were not difficult enough to live with, how about being hailed on Broad Street as Gun Prick, Old Girl (for a man) or Biff (big igrant foolish f**ker). Oh and by the way my spell checker is working. Someone who is not very smart but thinks they are is ‘ignorant’ to a Trini and ‘igrant’ in Bim.

But the honesty Bajans display goes beyond naming. It may be hidden deep beneath layers of social obligations and reservations. This will never be an obstacle. Nor will a Bajan let the truth be obscured by silly legal niceties. The Nation newspaper column - Puddin’ an’ Souse - titled after the unofficial national dish, has as its raison d'être the uncovering of illegal and immoral goings on in a voice that neatly side steps potential libel suits. A typical, recent Puddin an' Souse outing of the truth was this:
Who is the legal mind who is involved with a woman half his age?
And why does he think that the child she has is really his?
This woman and her relatives get themselves into all kinds of mischief because they know the man would protect them.
People in the know want this man to shift these bad-behaved folks because he is already losing respect.
In a population of 350,000 you can be sure a goodly portion of the chattering classes know the identity of the unfortunate gentleman and are already sending telegrams to those who don’t.

This all makes me think that perhaps there is a place for a little dishonesty. Maybe not outright lies, but occasionally I find myself nostalgic for a soupçon of reserve. A long lost European friend or relative would never greet you:
‘Oh luss gul, you was real nice when yuh did young. Now yuh gine get fat and ugly.’
But in Bajan terms it is as if they had said,
‘Hi there! Haven’t seen you in ages. Gosh you’ve changed.’
From the translation it is manifestly clear the greeting is without malice – merely observation of your position on the wrong end of the body fat index. To compound matters such an observation is often swiftly followed by the generous offer of a home cooked feast. To decline would be very rude so stuff your chubby face with macaroni pie and stew chicken and let the diet begin tomorrow.

I guess it all depends on how you prefer to face the slings and arrows of this outrageous life. There is no avoiding the arrows ripping into your flesh so you can either take them in the chest or back. Consider the experience of a recent visitor from foreign parts to our small rock. He had lost one eye. Within days total strangers were affectionately greeting him as ‘Cyclops’. But he knew he a fully paid up member of the parish when he was christened ‘S - Blank’ – a reference to the domino piece with one dot and a blank space. Bajans love a game of dominos and indeed the world champion, Ronald ‘Suki’ King, is a Bajan to the bone. S-Blank is crucial to the game.

Back in London people who encountered S-Blank pointedly refused to comment on his missing eye. At least they never made a comment directly to him. That would have been considered poor form – a bit too honest. Yet on this small rock the failure to acknowledge and incorporate his distinctive look would have been the dishonest act. So if you are planning to rock up to Bim anytime soon remember to thicken your skin and get ready for nuff sincerity and honesty to last a lifetime.

EDUCATING MUMMY

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:49:00 +0000

September signals the end of the silly season of summer frivolity but my kids are not going down without a fight. They are convinced that only a truly heartless bitch would insist they return to full time education while it is so hot, humid, rainy or while a replacement for Second Born’s exploded fountain pen has not been procured. Well flying fish, it’s been a long, fraught, nine weeks and they can either go safely back to school or risk commencement of adoption proceedings.

And I will lead by example. Yup. Even though First Born considers me one step away from a Zimmer frame, I’m going back to school. I’ve been hanging out at one educational establishment or another since the age of three and the fact that I now live on this small rock is no reason to radically change the habit of a lifetime. And there is something about September that says it is time to take stock and maybe make amends. Whatever resolutions were made in January have long since evaporated into the ether. But September is a time of second chances. New battle cries can be heard on the buses to take classes, join gyms, or finally knit that teacosy you always dreamed of, your whole life.

But going back to school when the glow of youth has dimmed is not easy. So you want to learn, but what? Is this the right time in life to finally get beyond ‘hola’ en español? Or maybe since I live in the ‘bread basket’ of Barbados I should read for a Diploma in Inspection in Meat and Other foods. Having already engineered one career switch, good sense dictates I stay focused on my current subject matter. This of course is when the constraints of small island life slap you round the face. The particular research degree I want to pursue is not offered in paradise. Sigh. I need the sunshine but I also need the space to think through the making of art. You never know what you’ll find. Monteverdi in the seventeenth century founded a style of music (stile concitato) after reading medical treatises. How cool is that. Mummy will just have to be educated through some juggling act involving airline food, thermal underwear and missing Jack (the unbiddible Jack Russell).

While we negotiate the pursuit of knowledge I have found another way of sneaking back into a place of learning. Teaching. The Community College is the only game in town offering a degree in fine art so I begged them to have me.
‘You know we only pay the absolute minimum we can get away with and not be called slave traders?’ said The Boss looking down at me.
‘Yes!’ I enthused. ‘I won’t dream of asking for a cent above the cost of giving the children a little salt bread pon ah morning.’
‘Excellent. You’re hired.’ said She Who Must Be Worshiped.
‘Thank you so much.’ I gushed. ‘I won’t disappoint you, I promise.’
‘Yeah. Whatever. Close the door on your way out.’
'Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.’ I said, all the while bowing as I walked backwards out of The Giver of Contracts office.

Anyway, I’m thinking that now they have officially hired me they’ll want me to stick around – thus saving themselves the hassle of finding another deranged artist willing to be institutionalized for minimum wage. So I might as well create havoc. Today was the first day and it was more fun than I have had in ages. The second year students on the bachelor of fine arts programme are now my very part-time responsibility.

We met and I was utterly smitten. They are naïve, self-assured and full of life. I had so much fun trampling over the safe, little paths they had projected for the term ahead. They looked less happy. Okay, so I may have accused one of confusing art with therapy and told another she was in a space of ideas not dogma. But I did encourage them to consider their relationship to the other and to question the gaze through which they filtered the world. Artists should have to struggle to find what their practice means and its relationship to the quotidian – and if not, they should be forced to. I can hardly wait for the next class.

HEAVEN ON EARTH

noreply@blogger.com (Ingrid Persaud) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:46:00 +0000

When the Eagles wrote Hotel California I think they had Barbados firmly in mind. You know the bit where the night man explains that,
You can check out any time you like,
But you can never leave.
Well, that is Bim.

Never assume that traveling a few thousand miles to a hamlet comprising three toothless hags and five straggly sheep, on a lake in northern Cumbria, means you have checked out of island life. On day three of our stay the owner of our delightful, small hotel asked if we lived in Barbados and was The Husband in finance.
‘Why are you asking me this?’ I demanded with more than a little suspicion.
‘Well it’s just that I overheard your boys talking about Barbados. I have a friend from Barbados and I think you know each other.’
Of course it turns out that a Bajan acquaintance comes to the very hamlet every summer to get away from it all.

We managed to respect each others privacy but only just because whenever the rain ceased we were out walking. Our most memorable walk was to the summit of Cat Bells, on the western shore of Derwentwater Lake. It is described in the definitive Wainright’s guide as a walk for ‘grannies and toddlers’. What he must have meant was that granny and toddler mountain goats would find it a stroll. Those of the ‘two legs good’ species had to use both hands and feet to negotiate the craggy outcrops and muddy paths.

But making it to the summit was worth the ache I felt in both knees that night. Cat Bells is only 1479 feet high but yields panoramic views across the lake. There is also this wonderful camaraderie at the top. A couple gave the twins orange squash and tips for an easier descent. Complete strangers, bonded by the shared experience of conquering this little peak, chatted like old friends and wondered aloud about walks they might attempt another day when the sky was as blue and cloudless. Others sat eating their sandwiches staring out at the overwhelming perfection of nature. I lay on the grass high on pure mountain air.

Walking is a way of being still. It is the control of movement at your own pace on your own strength. Indeed, the most centred person I know, a man who exudes calm confidence, lives by turns in the Swiss or French Alps so that walking and climbing can be a routine part of his life. He is up a mountain at every opportunity and in every kind of weather. The attraction he says, apart from the beauty, is the peace that comes from a completely focused mind. And then there is the eerie quiet of being in these vast, empty spaces. Pushing his body to new heights of endurance is also part of the fascination. Since he is the humanist equivalent of a ‘godfather’ to our boys I am hoping some of his character and love of nature rubs off on them.

And on the theme of walking the artist Richard Long has a retrospective on at Tate Britain which you still have time to see if you are on this small rock. Long’s art is based entirely on walks he has made everywhere - from his home in Bristol to places like Mongolia, Peru, the Canadian prairies and Australia. In the gallery space we see formal sculptures of rocks collected, photos taken of small interventions (or even no interventions) into the landscapes of his walks all accompanied by explanatory text. For example there is a picture of rocks barely visible through thick fog and across the bottom of the photo are the words,

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE
FOUR DAY WALK ON DARTMOOR 2009

In another work we have a photo of a white line of rocks made in a valley between snowcaped mountains with text that reads,

A LINE IN THE HIMALAYAS
1975

Sometimes the only ‘evidence’ of the walk is text like the piece that states,

WALKING TO A LUNAR ECLIPSE
FROM MIDDAY HIGH TIDE AT AVONMOUTH
A WALK OF 366 MILES IN 8 DAYS
ENDING AT A MIDNIGHT TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE FULL MOON
A LEAP YEAR WALK IN ENGLAND 1996

Walking as sculpture and poetry in motion. If this exhibition does not make you get off your sorry arse and go for a walk nothing ever will.