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.

This week’s TGIF, Trini to d bone and BC on TV
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Good Morning, Green Corner!

Friday, October 13, 2023 Filed in: Trini to d Bone

My name is Jarrod Ricardo Butts and I feel like a tourist in the land of my own birth.

That might very well make me a reluctant Trinidadian, but a Trinidadian nonetheless. Maybe I’m a different kind of Trinidadian. The kind who says what he thinks and feels. And for some people that’s just too much to handle.

I’m a Catholic/Hindu with a little bit of agnosticism thrown in. My thing is, how is it that the most gifted artists are gone and the politicians are alive?

Trinidadians have an issue if, eg, you speak differently or talk with an accent. It’s not a question of self-hatred, it’s just asserting one’s right to be an individual. I respect the way the nuts man speaks, I could talk the same dialect. But I wouldn’t use that kind of language with someone from the corporate world.

Tags: Trini to d Bone

Hot-Wired for Attention

Friday, October 6, 2023 Filed in: Trini to d Bone

My name is Darren Sandy and I believe life is a lesson – so pay attention!

I’m from Plymouth, Tobago, but I was actually born in Trinidad. My mum is from Trinidad. And when her pregnacy was going along apparently kinda rough, she went down by her family, had me and came back.

I’ve never spent a day in Trinidad as a boy. I was literally born there and then spent my entire life in Tobago.

I’m the real definition of Trinbagonian.

Our family only interacted with ourselves with the siblings. I have three sisters I’m the only boy but not the baby boy. I have one sister after me. We were close growing up until probably the later stages of primary school. Well, you know, a boy will be a boy. He can’t stay home and be with the girls all of the time

Tags: Trini to d Bone

From Dancing Cocoa to Carrying Gucci

Friday, September 29, 2023 Filed in: Trini to d Bone

My name is Marcia Cedeno and I take my pet Chihuahua Gucci anywhere I can take her.

I was born in Carenage and spent the first four years of my life there, not much of which I remember. And then my father uprooted his young family, my mother and four of us, by accepting a job to manage a sugar cane, cocoa and coffee estate in Central Trinidad.

In Central Trinidad in the mid-60s, there was no electricity. People used gas lights. In Port of Spain we had basically everything. In Central, we had nothing. We had this big stereo, records, a television, washing machine – all just sitting there because there was no electricity to plug them in! We may have been living there for many years before electricity got as far as us.

Running water was a luxury. We got water from the standpipe a few days a week.

Tags: Trini to d Bone

English Accent, Trini Emphasis

Friday, September 22, 2023 Filed in: Trini to d Bone

My name is Shane Collens and, when they hear my Queen’s English, BBC Radio accent, people don’t believe I was born in Trinidad.

My accent is more South Ken than Southend.

I’m fourth-generation Trinidadian and have lived here for 40 years. I was born in Henry Pierre Street, my father in Dere Street. My great-grandfather, the English implant, was posted here as Inspector of Schools which, today, would be the Minister of Education.

I’m from Cascade and have never wanted to live anywhere else. I have a view from the hillside. I can walk to Hi-Lo and the Savannah. I even walk Downtown. I love the exercise and, if you take the car, it takes as long to park as to walk.

Tags: Shane Collens

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