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Thank God It’s Friday

OB & BC

OWEN BAPTISTE, the man who gave me my first job in the papers, died last week but I opted not to write about him last Friday, not because I didn’t have anything good to say about him, but because I would have to include something that was, for me — and even more so for him, perhaps — pretty bad.At least at first glance. I wouldn’t want to hurt to his wife, Rhona, and his son, Simon, whom I always liked far more than I liked him (and, perhaps, with good reason; of which, more, infra). And then Judy Raymond, who may have given me my last job in the papers, if we can’t come out of covid19 and Great Depression 20/21, wrote on Monday about the man we all called OB (many only behind his back,“Mr Baptiste” to his face). There’s no way, I thought, of avoiding the man who brought me into the papers, even if he went on to — perhaps read more...

Trini to d Bone

All the World’s a Film Stage

BC Pires has been an informal friend of the TTFF since 2006, the mentor to the festival’s Youth Jury since 2015 and served as a full member of the festival’s programming committee this year. Photos by Mark Lyndersay Picture courtesy Mark Lyndersay

My name is Mikayla Almandoz and I am a volunteer with the Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival which ends tomorrow, Tuesday 15 September. I come from Palmiste, San Fernando. Born and bred a South girl. I’ve lived in the same house all my entire life and all my family is, like, two minutes away. I’m the youngest of three siblings, an older twin, Rebecca, and an older brother, Michael. Rebecca and I are not alike in any way. She does football & sciences, I’ve always done arts, dance & theatre. My dad is Alex. My mom was born Rachael Weston. I was baptised Anglican and went to Catholic Read more...

BC Pires

is a barrister by qualification (class of 1984) but, for the last 28 years, has done nothing but write to earn a living. His flagship column, Thank God It’s Friday, has appeared in either the Trinidad Guardian or the Trinidad Express since Ash Friday, 1988. He has written about film from an informed lay perspective for the same period and is as close as the cricket-playing West Indies gets to a film critic (though he refuses that label). He has written for many publications, including the London Sunday Observer and the London & Manchester Guardian. Since 2010, his personality-based feature, “Trini/’Bago to D Bone” has been appearing in the Trinidad Guardian. Since 2002, he has been the editor of Cré Olé, the Trinidad & Tobago annual restaurant guide.

The Secret Diary of Donald J Trump, aged 71 ¾

Thanks-Taking Day Blues

26 November 2018Deer DairyWhat a bigly disappointment Thanksgiving always is!!!! You have to pretend to like being at home and Melania gave the turkey drumstick to that fat little kid AGAIN IT IS MINE EVEN IF I DON’T EAT IT and I prefer KFC and Big Macs anyway. YOU CAN’T EAT TURKEY WITH FRIES. Just throw away the turkey and eat the fries, bestly advice I always give myself but at least I am around to save America and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN LIKE A SHARK MAKE AMERICA GREAT WHITE AGAIN. read more

Me Alone Again Naturally Terrific

13 November 2018Deer DairyEverything I did for those Republican losers and they can’t even keep the House! I win them the Senate with my exhaustingly trips all over the country – 72 rallies in six days, Deerest Dairy, just me winning everything for them with my grandly speaking and bestly words, making every nationalist proud, like me – and they lose the House!!!! HOW CAN THEY DO THIS TO ME THE DEMO RATS WILL PUBLISH MY TAX RETURNS NOW!!!! I all ways get what I want except when I have to read more

BC on TV

A Trifecta of What's Best on the Box for Sunday 11 November 2018

On what might be the best day for film choice on cable/DirecTV, ever, all but one of the Also Rans categories have a bolded film – and there’s a Western – one of the best – in the top three! And each of the three choices could legitimately be called BEST FILM OF THE DAY. Today’s Number One Film:

*No Country for Old Men, 7.30pm Paramount Channel.Watch this if you liked Apocalypse Now,The Three Burials of Melquiades Estradaor any film by Sam Peckinpah. Part thriller, part Western, as upsetting as it is intriguing, this modern-day drug money heist flick is Cormac McCarthy’s bleak 2005 novel brought to life. It was a natural fit for the Coen Bros’ dark humour and deadpan violence, but it is so overwhelmingly hopeless, it discourages anyone from declaring it Read more...