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Blue and yellow

Ria — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:49:56 +0000

Back to work on Monday after an exhausting IKEA weekend: long trip to the mainland on Saturday, then six hours shuffling round the blue and yellow megabox, sustained only by Swedish meatballs and a family-size bag of Daims; Sunday busy with the allen keys, baffled by pictogram instructions simplified for our 23-language community.

What

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Tabaski

Ria — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:48:20 +0000

Today is the most important national holiday in Senegal, Tabaski, the Wolof word for the Festival of the Sheep, known elsewhere in the Muslim world as Aïd-el-Kebir. It is a celebration of an event that is also important to Jews and Christians, that is, the sacrifice by Abraham (Ibrahim in Arabic) of his eldest son.

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Gone crazy gone mad

Ria — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 17:06:25 +0000

Following the previous post about poor service, I felt I should balance it with a post about how difficult it is to run a small business in Jamaica, particularly when it comes to getting a loan. Shortly after we arrived in Jamaica last year, we considered taking out a loan to buy a car. Our

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Shopping for hurricanes

Ria — Thu, 11 May 2006 05:13:08 +0000

Hurricane season is fast approaching and the signs do not augur well. Everyone has become a seasoned climatologist, foreseeing upcoming catastrophe in each new hot, dry day. This is how it was before Ivan, they tell me, even before Gilbert. And after the predictions come the heroic battle stories of surviving previous hurricanes â€“ days,

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Future Walmart

Ria — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 16:11:15 +0000

Who said Jamaicans lacked entrepreneurial spirit?

Future Walmart customers (Runaway Bay, 21 April 2006)

Dem demographic an’ focus group dem hit de nail to rass!

Related posts: Future anterior Future proofing Portia

King Merc meets higglers uptown

Ria — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:13:56 +0000

Shopping from the comfort of your car in uptown Kingston.

Although the resolution is too low to read here, I’ve changed the licence plate to [BUSHA 2].

For an explanation of the title Busha, read the following extract from Anthony C. Winkler’s hilarious novel, The Lunatic.

The Busha was the richest man in the

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Virtual yard sale

Ria — Sat, 30 Jul 2005 08:02:00 +0000

Extract from an ever-growing list of binnable items.

# 2 buggies (prams/strollers/whatever), one very soiled stained (ice cream, Giolitti’s)# 2 single mattresses, one slightly stained (coffee?)# 3 giant inflatables (orca, turtle and mutant dragonfly), suspected slow punctures# Comprehensive software collection (statistics, Web design and games) for Win95# 1 truckload of Kinder egg toys, with

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XS XL

Ria — Mon, 09 May 2005 16:51:00 +0000

Having cleared out my wardrobe of winter clothes, there were gaping spaces just crying out to be filled, so we went shopping. Here’s what I picked up.

In Benetton, I had to wait for 90 minutes to pay for a summer dress for my daughter. There was no queue, but there was no one

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Barf out!

Ria — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 14:41:58 +0000

If you’re in Birmingham, UK, this Sunday, why not try … competitive eating?

Gag me with a spoon!

Check out the “Bib sheet” of champion speed eater Sonya Thomas.

“I can eat anything I want and never seem to gain a pound!” she giggles.

Word of the day: bulimia

!@#$%^&*()_+

I had an orgiastic

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Little Odessa

Ria — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 17:19:00 +0000

Rome is not as cosmopolitan a city as London or Paris, and almost the only obviously non-Italians in public view are windscreen cleaners, newspaper sellers and informal Prada sales reps, ever ready to scoop up their street wares in a sheet and leg it when the lookout signals police approaching. Yet Italy is the

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