Last Saturday, the fastest sprinter in the world, Jamaican Asafa Powell, beat all-comers at the Jamaica International Invitational meeting in Kingston. Even so, he had wanted to go even faster and blamed the starter for making them wait too long, claiming that “It was the worst start I have ever got in my life so [...]
Posted in Miscellanea ♦ 3 Comments »
I imagine many people have a mental list of books they would like to read but never get around to doing so. Top of my list was Pasternak’s Dr Zhivago. Somehow, each time I entered a book store or started browsing on Amazon, my mind would go blank and I would quickly be distracted by [...]
Posted in Miscellanea, Movies, Photos ♦ 11 Comments »
There is an ongoing debate in Jamaica concerning the validity and usefulness of patois, the local dialect. On one side, some argue that it is an authentic language of communication used by the majority of Jamaicans and should therefore have its place in the school curriculum; on the other side, critics argue that promoting patois [...]
Posted in Miscellanea ♦ 20 Comments »
Today, my five-year-old informed me, his class is having cake for a dead person.
What could he be talking about?
His teachers had explained a lot more about the who and why, but after having celebrated Thanksgiving, Diwali, Channukah, Kwanzaa, Loi Krathong, Las Posadas, Sinter Klaas and Christmas … I imagine the kids were reduced to focusing [...]
Posted in Miscellanea ♦ 4 Comments »
I passed a woman in the street this evening. She was quite heavily built, in her 40s, wearing a shapeless skirt and flowery blouse with a crumpled collar. She had put down her bulging bags of shopping and was leaning wearily against a wall, with an air of complete dejection, her face hidden in the [...]
Posted in Miscellanea ♦ 2 Comments »
Linguist with wanderlust,
From the hills of New Guinea to the halls of the Sorbonne,
From the beaches of Bassam to the fields of Friesland,
From the catacombs of Rome to the Blue Mountains of Jamaica.
Currently resident in Dakar, Senegal.
Stet means "Let it stand" and is used by editors to indicate that the original text should be left untouched.
...in Arcadia ego is a pun on a painting by Poussin.
Ria[dot]Bacon[at]gmail.com
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