Oops

I changed the theme of this blog and only just realized that some earlier posts are showing as blank pages. It turns out they were written in white text on the previous dark background. I like the new theme so I am slowly making my way through older entries and changing the font colour. If you want to read one of these seemingly blank posts in the meantime ( and heaven knows why you would want to) just highlight the white area and cut and paste the white text into a new document at which time you can also change the font colour.

Apologies.

Jetsam

It is after midnight and I find myself doing everything except finishing off a short piece on Carnival I pledged to do for my editor.  This blog entry stands as testament to my willingness to do anything but write about Carnival at this moment. I could say it is the result of getting home at 10pm after doing my nighttime chat show or even that I am tired but that would not really excuse my recalcitrance. Though I live in Trinidad right now and it is often pushed in marketing brochures as the land of Carnival ( and steel pan, limbo blah blah) my love for that particular observance/festival is not even skin deep. Given that I shudder at the very thought of modern Carnival it is somewhat North of ironic that I am supposed to express superlatives about it for a guidebook. To be fair to Fodor’s they don’t actually require me to gush effusively about the joys of it . Even so, it would be silly to give the usual “watch your purse” advice if I did not also give some reason that made attending worth the risk. I supposed my hesitation to write may be related to me avoiding the urge to give my usual four word summary of it – loud, inconvenient and pointless.

A few years ago when Minshall had a band I might have been able to muster a few words about the theatre of the streets or a spontaneous expression of freedom and joy. Today I would feel disingenuous stating such a thing. MacFarlane makes a noble effort but he doesn’t quite have the groundbreaking impact of  his predecessor. What I am left with is writing about throngs of people who buy beaded bikinis and board shorts with appliqué  and then make their way through the streets in between music trucks and food carts. I suppose it should now be called what it is – a two day fete ( all-inclusive in many cases). It definitely isn’t an expression of the creativity of the people of this odd land since creativity has been replaced by commerce with the exception of a dwindling few small bands that are essentially run off the road by the bigger bikini bands.

 

A few years ago I might have also written about steelbands roving the streets but for the last few years I have been forced to walk the streets looking for them. Pan has been relegated to an accompaniment to a few traditional sailor bands and even then they are usually drowned out by the passing parade of music trucks blaring soca. On a side note, why does everyone wonder why soca has never “caught on” outside the islands or island communities around the world? There is little universal message in “jump and wave and wave and wave”..it simply doesn’t have the universality of something like reggae.

Maybe inspiration will come to me tomorrow and I will be able to wax rhapsodic on the joys of the self-titled greatest show on earth. Watching the dreary spectacle of the National Performing Arts Centre today has numbed whatever creative sparks I might have had today. I can’t believe I just wrote an entire entry about Carnival when it is only November and my intention was to deal with something else entirely.

If I write tomorrow I think I shall deal with my gradual  and painless escape from my Apple addiction.

hóstiam immaculátam

There are some months where I don’t even have time to think and it usually coincides with updating Fodor’s Caribbean Guide. This year was a bit different as I didn’t have to take time off work to fly about and do my research. Apparently the upcoming book will be chock  full of colour pictures and all they wanted was for me  to ensure that the information was accurate. It turns out that making interminable long distance calls ( thanks heavens for SkypeOut) and digging through the deepest interstices of the web is actually more tiring than morning to night site inspections. You live and learn I guess.

My copies of the latest Caribbean Guide and Aruba guide arrived from my editor in New York and, as usual, when I read them it feels like they were written by someone else. Like this blog it is a reflection of where my mind was at a particular time. This gives me the strange thrill of reading what seems to be the work of someone totally unconnected to me. I guess I will read the 2011 book and get the same sensation though right now it is still burned into my brain.  My sense of disconnectedness never ceases to amaze me…I am sure somewhere in the world there is a psychotherapist looking for a case like me.

A sudden vacancy in the station’s Monday night lineup has resulted in me now hosting a weekly call-in programme. This is not a new development in my life as I spent much of my early radio career in Trinidad taking calls on the air. The CEO decided that the new show should have the name of one of my earlier programmes as he seems to assume there is some residual nostalgia for the original. Having done it for television for a few weeks now I can safely say that there isn’t much difference except that I can’t slouch as much and eye-rolling is strongly discouraged. Gosh I miss radio.  The calls thus far have cemented my view that the local population, though wont to behave in a brash and vulgar manner in everyday life, seems to have a preternatural tendency to be polite and moderate on the air. I have nothing against moderation, though I seldom practice it myself, but I tend to think that it leads to complacent governments. Nine out of ten revolutions clearly show that a loud and demanding population can get the attention of a government faster than any amount of well mannered suggestions.

The hardest part of the show for me is that I have to sit there dispassionately and generally refrain from pontificating. Anyone who knows me will attest that pontificating is one of the great joys in my life so there is a certain cheerlessness that befalls me as I sit on camera. Were I allowed to call into the show I can assure one and all that moderation would not be a prominent characteristic of my input. Fortunately I have never been the type to call into any show so even if corporeal schizophrenia struck such an eventuality is unlikely at best. My preferred method is to sit sullenly in a corner and stew in my own vitriol like a good confit. That being said, a blog seems like a good place to stew.

How can any population watch a government spend money with such wanton disregard for priorities and stay quiet?  I am still quite certain that were a gorilla given a ton of money and told to shove it into a series of slots with each assigned a certain project , the end result would be a more efficient use of funds than I am currently seeing.  This spending has resulted in a few improvements in such things as a free drug programme ( when it works), free university education ( we shall ignore the quality of graduate this provides for the moment) and an overpass that took 8 years to build. Generally speaking though, the average person in this country is not any better off  in terms of quality of life. I would guess that looking at the whole picture might reveal that in several key areas we are, in fact, worse off.  Traffic congestion is worse, crime is virtually out of control, lots of people still do not have a regular supply of water ( and once a week does not count as “regular”) and we are now lacking that general security that comes with knowing resources are being put aside for the future. Instead the Marie Antoinette mentality has led to a plethora of unnecessary projects that do not contribute in any meaningful way to the gross national happiness. There is a new eyesore of a PM’s residence, a poor cousin of the Sydney Opera House that is meant to be used for theatre but which has no rehearsal space, a stadium that is yet to be finished and for which there is no apparent need,  and lots of government office buildings because POS simply was not congested enough. World class to the government means decorations as opposed to something as prosaic as a modern hospital or fixing the WASA pipelines. Speaking of which we are now looking  forward to the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting being held here later this month. I know…which nation wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Uganda and be the host of an event which even eclipses the Summit of the Americas for sheer uselessness?

Why would anyone stay in this country and witness such things if they didn’t have to? Oh wait…I have a choice..which means that I may be the biggest fool of all.

Not too sure about the new promo for my programme..

I was shot on green screen but where the heck did I get that smug look from?

Insouciance

So here I am back after over a month in the wilderness. I must say a vacation from blogging does a soul good. There hasn’t been that much to report that would interest anyone but me.

Lots of  TV interviews ( always a good thing) so all is excellent on the work front. On the personal front I have been overtaken with a general urge to see some physical changes around me. This has manifested itself in a change of car and a change of condo decor. It was sad to see the Mondeo go but the unavailability of a part to fix the damned A/C unit and my complete inability to tolerate heat made our separation unavoidable. The new owners seem thrilled with her and I must say I am enjoying zipping about in my sky blue Ford Focus, The leather seats are a bit of a bother but she is economical and is dead easy to park. Me and Ford…Stockholm Syndrome epitomized.

I have also embarked on spending sill amounts of money on changing around the condo. I now have a newly refurnished living room complete with a matching 3-piece set. I have always been known for my eclectic taste in furniture and have never owned a matching set of any kind of furniture in my life. I have a nasty feeling I may be suffering bourgeois creep in my life. There I was sitting  on my divan covered with African fabric watching TV one day and I thought  this whole arrangement isn’t working for me. Why, I asked myself, does a grownup have a divan, an Adirondack chair and a Morris rocker in his living room? Sure it is eclectic but there is much to be said for having chairs that my few guests can actually sit in without getting either a sprained back or a nasty case of splinters. Thanks to some painful hunting around I found a moderately tasteful set ( not easy in Trinidad..it really was the only half-decent set I saw out of hundreds),and after a further hunt I found a natural wool rug that makes me want to lie on the floor.

Thank heavens for friends because if Alvin had not been over to initiate the process of getting the old stuff out of the way I would be still agonizing over where to start. Tomorrow, he has promised to come over and cart off the old stuff to see if he can get a sale for it..even if he doesn’t I will be happy to get it off my balcony and spare room so I can actually use those spaces. It will take a while of bumping into things for me to feel fully comfortable in the new layout but it definitely feels more open and much better for entertaining. I already have my short list of people I plan to invite over right after I Scotchgard the rug…wool is lovely but wine spills fill me with dread.

Just came back home from seeing Julie & Julia with Alvin, Binky and Alvin’s nephew and niece who are visiting from the US. I would recommend the film to anyone who loves cooking as it really is fun and how many other movies have aspic? That being said I was so captivated by Meryl Streep’s channeling of Julia Child ( a major influence on my culinary views) that I wondered why they bothered to mix her story up with the parallel story of a modern blogger trying out all her recipes. Sure it reminded me to blog but I wanted to see more of Meryl and Julia Child’s fascinating story…I feel robbed by the other half of the movie. I don’t think it is possible to act in a film with Streep and be remembered afterwards..she is just that good.

Time to recline on my new couch for a moment and watch the Food Network. Bon Apetit!

Bats in the belfry.

No denying it has been a while since I posetd an entry on here but sometimes the spirit just isn’t in the mood to move me. Actually, to be frank, I haven’t been in a particularly great mood since my Toronto trip. Sometimes living on a small island can provide enormous amusement and at other times the stupidities and annoyances of everyday life can really get to me. The past month or so has fallen into the latter category.

The daily horror of watching how democracy has managed to result in this country having a government that seems hell bent on spending money on as many non-revenue generating activities as possible is not onc that I find easy to endure. I wonder if there is such a concept as Idiocracy? The sad thing is that there aren’t any good replacements visible on the other side and even then they would be to busy fighting like children to accomplish much. At least it provides rich fodder for the local media and my programme in particular. I have uploaded a few to youtube should anyone be interested ( search for ieTV One on One).

I am getting increasingly used to the two new omnipresent inorganic additions to my life.  My glasses no longer make me feel seasick when I walk around with them on. I think glasses are somehow evil as I find I actually need them for a lot of basic things I used to do quite happily without them. They go on as I wake up ( so I can check the news and email on my iPod Touch) and only come off  if I am driving or not dealing with reading or computer screens. It must be part of a vast ( and aren’t they always) global ( as always) conspiracy on the part of eyeglass makers. I am also still enjoying my Toshiba M800 laptop and, were it not for having to use **shudder** Windows I might actually love it. It points out how a clean user interface can make all the diference. Windows feels like an OS that was designed by committee – and a committee of  not very smart people with no taste. Still, when the vagaries of the OS drive me to distraction I just look at her lovely pinstriped crimson exterior and I calm down.

“So you think you can dance” is about to start on Fox/CTV so that’s the end of this entry…more to follow.

American Idol finals this week.

Guess who I want to win? Adam Lambert… based on Mad World and Ring of Fire alone.

Know me through food.

Never being one to turn down a challenge I shall now respond to a similar entry that my pal Milo posted on his blog answering questions about food.

1. Can you cook?

Hell yes!

2. Do you like to cook?

It is one of the great joys in my life.

3. What do you eat for breakfast?

Two coffees and 4 cigarettes…though I realize that is technically not eating.

4. When, where and how do you eat on weekdays?

Always in the office at my desk ofr in the newsroom. What I eat depends on if I have leftovers from dinner the night before. If I don’t have that option I buy creole food from Monix next to work.

5. When, where and how do you eat on weekends?

Same as weekdays but on Sunday I usually make a lunch to take with me to work.

6. How often do you eat in a restaurant?

Very seldom as I find it much easier to cook at home.

7. How often do you order delivery/take-out?

Hardly ever.

8. Buffet, take-out or sit-down restaurant?

Sit-down I guess.

9. What are your signature dishes?

Caesar salad with my yummy dressing, braised pork tenderloin in dijon, fettucine in a creamy morel sauce.

10. Have you ever cooked for more than six people?

I once ran a restaurant so the answer is a resounding yes and tonight I will be helping Alvin out for his nephew’s birthday by cooking for 50.

11. Do you cook every day?

Usually I do.

12. Have you ever tried recipes from blogs?

I have never followed a recipe in my life. All I have to do is see or taste something and I can deconstruct it and make my own version of it.

13. Do you cook totally differently compared to your mother/parents?

I most certainly hope so. My biological father is a good cook but never ventures into the realms of haute cuisine in which I frequently like to frolic.

14. Are you a vegetarian or could you imagine being one?

I went a year without eating anything with a face but I have to confess a taste for steak tartar and anything that came from a pig.

15. What would you like to cook which you haven’t dared to make yet?

I would love to make a cassoulet but the ingredients are key and not available here I also don’t have the patience to spend a day making it.

16. Do you prefer cooking or baking?

I loathe baking because it is all about exactitude and following a recipe.

17. Home-made or store-bought?

Home-made without question..

18. What was your biggest cooking disaster?

I don’t actually think I ever had one but I vaguely recall an unimpressive attempt at chicken mole when I was a teenager ( I used milk chocolate.)

19. What is your number one comfort food?

Soft boiled eggs in an egg cup served with buttered toast soldiers.

20. If you were on a deserted island, what one food would you want to have with you?

Rappini. 

21. What is your biggest weakness when it comes to food?

Anything spicy and especially anything Vietnamese and spicy. Also fresh oysters ( once devoured 5 dozen at a sitting).

22. What food can you absolutely not eat?

I know this is not a common food but in Trinidad people eat pickled chicken’s feet which I find beyond the pale..

23. What is the most decadent dish you’ve had?

Maigret of duck served with a massive helping of sauteed foie gras in the South of France. I still dream about it.

24. What is your favourite type of food?

Vietnamese hands down. Something about the freshness of the ingredients, the zing and the aroma.

25. What is your favourite dish?

Mashed parsnips with gobs of butter.

26. If you could go to any restaurant you wanted, which one would it be?

None spring immediately to mind but if Bourdain were actually in his Le Halles restaurant I would love to be there and meet him. Otherwise I have a soft spot for Bistro de Paris in Bonaire.

27. Are you a soup or salad person?

Salad.

28. What is the most impressive dinner you’ve ever made?

I never cook to impress. I cook to make people happy.

29. Do you know what vichyssoise is?

I make it every now and then…it is the happy soupy marriage of potato, leeks and cream served chilled. A wonderful summer dish so thank you France.

30. Can you name at least three TV cooking personalities?

Surely you jest.

31. Who is your favourite TV cook?

Anthony Bourdain but I adore Nigella in all her voluptuousness.

 

The joys of doing nothing

I didn’t really plan to upload an entry tonight but what the hell. Had a day off today and did basically nothing except watch TV and go to the supermarket. The thing is I am never bored being by myself and actually enjoy it. This seems to be an unusual thing for most young people but since I am addicted to TED and Fora.tv I can be at home and learn new things. How can one ever be bored learning new things from the comfort of home?

Rob called around 7 to ask if I had eaten and he suggested we go for dinner somewhere. I love my own cooking but Rob is excellent company so I said yes.  He picked me up in Cascade and we considered investigating if the new Carlton Savannah in my area was open and had a restaurant but other than a brief veer towards the hotel we kept driving to the Savannah. Then Rob suggested Tamnak Thai ..which I have blogged about previously..but I thought things might have improved. As we got there we decided to go to Apsara ( Indian) instead which is located downstairs. I have never escaped Apsara without feeling I would throw up and on one occassion I almost did so in the restaurant over the meal but I thought what the hell…you never know. We went in, ordered and ate and it really was OK. Not great but OK. I managed to make it home before that weird queasy Apsara feeling swept over me. There must be some combination of the spices, too much coconut milk or oil that does it but I think I will wait at least another year before eating there again.

As I go, and because I am using Vista on my Portege ( not my beloved OS X) to type this I  have a few questions for Senor Gates and his MicroCrap team.

• Why does the effing thing run so slow?
• Why is everything not integrated like it is in OS X? Honestly I should be able to drag something from one application to another…but I can’t.
• Why do you not include an antivirus?  I am happy with Kaspersky ( love those Russians) but seriously ..you know your OS is a virus magnet…protect your customers.
• Why can I not zoom in on any window like I can in OS X? Sometime I want to see things closer and all I have to do in OS X ixs hold the CTRL key and double finger slide on the trackpad.
• You are a bigger company than Apple why do you not include a suite of applications like iLife so I can edit photos etc? And don’t get me started on stupid Windows Media Centre. |It is a steaming pile of crap.
• Your lame widgets are a sorry excuse for OS X’s dashboard…why did you even bother with them when they suck system resources? 
• Aero? You were kidding right? It is not even close to Apple’s interface…it is sad.
• Did you watch the clip of Steve Jobs saying you have no imagination as a company? Seriously…you don’t!

Finally

The prodigal blogger returns from the abyss to blog again. To be perfectly honest I have been getting my online expression fix via facebook and experimenting with Twitter. Regarding the latter I am still not sure if it is an expression of pure ego or something useful since there really is only so much expressing one can do in 140 characters. It certainly is fun to follow on my iPod Touch when I am near a wireless network ( which is most of the time). Anyone interested in my sporadic twittering can follow me @globewriter.

Toronto was relaxing and pleasant though the trauma of leaving my parents to return to work in Trinidad was very difficult and moreso because neither is in the best of health right now. I try not to think about it but aging parents is a fact of life just as is my inevitable creep towards the graveyard.

Trinidad has been the usual mess of silliness and incompetence. I missed the Summit of the Americas which resulted in…anyone? …anyone? Absolutely nothing is correct! All we are left with is a PM with an even bigger ego, an undisclosed expenditure but probably well over $100 million US and the prospect of a similar expenditure for the equally useless and irrelevant Commonwealth Heads meeting in November. Ah well, it is only our money and it is not like the world is in a recession or anything because the PM says it is just a “blip” and he knows better than anyone else after all.

The most bizzarre development is the opening of a highway interchange to alleviate traffic problems for those heading south. It is a simple swerving overhead highway section with nothing even remotely impressive or extrordinary about it but it has become something of a magnet for locals. Believe it or not people park on the shoulder of the elevated section for picture taking, having drinks and generally just hanging out. In any other place the police would stop such odd behaviour but when our crew went up a few days after it was open lo and behold the PM and his entourage pulled up and parked on the shoulder so he could have a gander at the view and engage in an impromptu meet and greet. They can talk all they want about this country working towards developed country status ( whatever that means) but when it comes down to it the average mentaility here is actually very much third world.

And finally, I am actually loving my Toshiba Portege and think she is the cutest laptop anywhere and oh so portable. I just wish Windows were not such a dog’s breakfast of bad interface and usability issues. I don’t have Windows Stockholm Syndrome but damn OS X is miles ahead of this pile of unimaginative coding.