The Cavehill

Happy Christmas to everyone! A picture of the Cavehill in Belfast which I took this morning, whilst out for a walk, which is a constant reminder to me and my muscles and to the fact that I have McArdle’s disease, as I live on the lower residential slopes, one way or another I can’t avoid walking up or down the slopes of the Cavehill.

I’m working tomorrow, Christmas day! as life goes on for all those that have the misfortune of being ill over the holidays and are unable to go home from hospital.

A Happy Christmas to everyone and a Blessed New Year to all.

The 18th Biennial Conference of the Society for Caribbean Linguistics (SCL) will take place at the University of the West Indies-Cave Hill, Barbados, on August 9-13, 2010. The conference theme is “Caribbean Languages and Popular Culture” and is dedicated to Caribbean linguist and lexicographer Richard Allsop (1923-2009), author of the Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage.

The organizers invite abstracts on all types of Caribbean languages including, Amerindian languages of the continental or insular Caribbean; Caribbean Creole languages (in the Caribbean or overseas); official, standard(ized), and non-standard(ized) language varieties; and immigrant languages. Abstracts on non-Caribbean language varieties can only be considered if the proposed title, abstract and paper compare or contrast such a variety with a Caribbean language or language situation. Abstracts with a cultural base pertaining to any sub-discipline of linguistics are especially invited.

For more information, see http://www.scl-online.net/callforpapers2010.html

For obituary of Professor Richard Allsopp (and photo), see http://www.stabroeknews.com/2009/guyana-review/06/30/reflection-richard-allsopp-words-work-and-willpower/

The Third International Conference on Sport, Race, and Ethnicity will be held at The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, in Barbados, July 15-18, 2010. The conference, “Beyond Boundaries: Race and Ethnicity in Modern Sport,”  is co-hosted by the Academy of International Sport at George Mason University, Virginia, USA, and the CLR James Centre at The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados. The deadline for paper and session proposals is December 31, 2009.

The keynote speakers will be Professors Ben Carrington (a leading authority on the sociology of race, sport and culture), Brian Stoddart (former President of La Trobe University in Australia), and Charles Fruehling Springwood (professor of anthropology at Illinois Wesleyan University).

The conference overview reads:

The year 2010 marks the 50th anniversary of Frank Worrell becoming the first Black captain of the West Indies cricket team in a complete test series, and of the famous “Tied Test” with Australia in his first test as Captain. In honour of this anniversary and in memory of Sir Frank Worrell, the third conference on Sport, Race, and Ethnicity is being held in Barbados, birthplace of Sir Frank and many other great West Indian cricketers, including Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Conrad Hunte, Malcom Marshall, Joel Garner, Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes. The C.L.R. James Centre at Cave Hill is also home to the original manuscript of James’ classic work, Beyond a Boundary.

For more information on how to submit proposals (and source of photo of Sir Frank Worrell shown here), see http://cavehill.uwi.edu/fhe/beyondboundaries/call.htm

At the Ulster Museum

It’s been an uneventful week as far as my McArdle’s disease this week; to put it differently it’s been a good week.Last week I started taking photographs again after a lull of about fifteen years; at one time I was a serious amateur photographer with my own darkroom.
It all started a few weeks ago when I gave all my photographic equipment away to my niece who is studying photography at university in England, it was all manual equipment which she needs to learn the theory and mechanics of taking photographers, I no longer had any use for it and gave it to her before my wife gave it away at a car boot sale.
Though I had a digital camera it only came out at Christmas time which seemed a waste, so I decided to go and take a few photo’s around Belfast, and have been smitten with the digital photography bug, it’s so much more interesting than the 35mm photography which I was involved in, as you have the world at your fingertips and can display your photo’s instantly to the world through the web.
I started to display my photos on Flickr and have found it so satisfying, no more having to wait for your film to be developed and printed.
I’m getting out and about now as before I had got comfortable in my everyday routine, getting out and about means getting more exercise which can’t be a bad thing.
I’m looking forward to my days off from work now with some purpose, as I had got set in my ways not doing much outside of work and the family, though in saying that, my mother has been ill for a few years before she passed away, and I was involved in visiting her every day except for when I was on the late shift, I now have more time on my hands.
I went to a, Children in Need advent at Broadcasting House in Belfast, and took a few photos, and then I was up at Belfast Castle on the Cave Hill, and then I went to the continental market in the grounds of Belfast’s City Hall.
I’m looking forward to when I can get out again to take some more photographs.

Belfast Castle

My bad back went as quick as it came, it gradually wore off that I didn’t realise that it had gone probably because I had got used to the pain and the stiffness, unlike when it started. But the relief of not having the pain and the stiffness is wonderful.

Thinks at work are good at the minute regarding my McArdle’s disease, the suffering has eased considering that I have been involved in a lot of anaerobic activity, shifting furniture from one place to another as there is a lot of moving going on within the hospital site due to the removal of acute surgical services from the hospital site.

I was offered the flu jab and the swine flu jab but I declined both, in the meantime I’ll just stick to the chicken soup that has stood me in good stead over the years, the last time i took the flu jab my muscles give me nothing but trouble with pain and stiffness that was about five years ago, personally I think that I am better off without the flu jab considering that those that I know who have taken it seem to end up worse off than me.

This morning I decided to go up the Cave Hill to Belfast Castle to take some photos, and walking up the hill didn’t cause me to much bother, and I took a few pictures around the Castle grounds.

Christmas is fast approaching and when I was in town yesterday I went into the continental market in the grounds of Belfast City Hall, I got out as quick as I went in because the crowds were too much for me to handle, ducking and diving and weaving it was doing my head in, so I just got out the pace in the crowds was to hectic for me, I’d rather have a more relaxing time than the hassle of fighting your way through the throng of Christmas shoppers. I like life at a quieter pace.

I’m off work for a few days taking it easy as I had too many holidays lying and had to use some of them up, I’ll be working on the late shift on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and then I’ll be off again for a fortnight into the New Year.

Nothing else happening at the moment.

In 2006 we, along with a friend Mike, went on a trip from Coolgardie down the Woodlines to Cave Hill.  Then  onto Higginsville and Norseman, and finally driving the Luigi Cappa Trek, east of Norseman, in the Eastern  Goldfields of Western Australian.

Click here to view the trip journal, which includes photos.

Please note:  This document is in PDF, so you will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader loaded on your computer read it.

The Cave Hill

Not much happening this past week other than coming across a very interesting fact about the Cave Hill which has plagued me and my McArdle’s disease all my life !

As I grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, living for approx. 25 years between Lilliput Street and the Limestone Road, all that time until today I was unaware that I was living where Jonathan Swift once lived in Lilliput Cottage, I was amazed and surprised to find this out! I’m also annoyed that there is no Blue Plague to this fact.

Looking back on the time that I lived in that area of Belfast during the infamous troubles, and now thinking about the time that I spent playing in Lilliput Street as a child unaware about connection between Lilliput Street and the view that one has of the Cave Hill, the same view that was Jonathan Swift’s inspiration for “Gulliver’s Travels” has hit home. I’m annoyed at the school that I went to – Grove Primary – for not informing the pupils of this fact but that’s not surprising because it was a useless school with useless teachers where I didn’t get much education and that’s putting it mildly.

One of my favourite views of Belfast is the Cave Hill, and I’ve taken many photos of it over the years unaware that it represents the giant out of Gulliver’s Travels, amazing that I and all those that lived in the Lilliput Street area like me were ignorant of this literary fact.

I grew up in a house void of books except for the KJV Bible, and the children of that area today need inspiration in their lives because little has changed from the days when I lived at the bottom of Lilliput Street, I doubt that most children who live there today just like me have never read a book and don’t get much in inspiration and encouragement to do so, children need to read books from an early age the soon the better because reading is the gateway to all knowledge and education, and I wished I had known this while I was running around Lilliput Street all those years ago.

Today many years later I’ve learnt the truth about reading and encouraged my daughter to do so from an early age and today she is studying English at Queen’s University, Belfast, at one of the best English facilities in the U.K. if children don’t start reading in working class and socially deprived areas there’s no hope for them, I learnt to read books when it was to late for me but thankfully I’ve learnt from that mistake, if only I had have learnt it while I was at school.

so another semester has begun and UWI is rife with students from Barbados and all across the Caribbean. it is good to se these young people so interested in obtaining their degrees and moving toward the future, well educationally equipped.

as always with UWI, challenges will be present of one kind or another and that was my lot yesterday afternoon. let me say here that it is great to see the campus developing at such rapid pace, since this can only be beneficial to students. after all more buildings could mean more courses of study and varying types of degrees that could be obtained here at the Bajan campus.

however, it is important to recognise that more buildings require more parking spaces. not just ten or so, but at least one hundred more spaces. it seems, as though the planners are simply planning to put up buildings in every conceivable space to the detriment of us students who drive. are we perhaps being told to leave our vehicles elsewhere? is UWI planning on beginning a bus service that will traverse the island? or perhaps UWI is planning to beam us from our homes and work places, to campus. let me ask a simple question. WHERE IS THE IMPROVED PARKING TO BETTER FACILITATE MORE STUDENTS???? are we to park on the cricket field perhaps? goodness no! poor cave hillary would have a herd of cows i am sure.

allow me then to make an appeal to the big heads, to make more parking available….please!!! after all, we the students are paying more school fees, aren’t we? is not this money to improve things for us? ah gone!!!

The Medical Student’s Association is the representative body for Medical Students at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados.

The Cave Hill and Napoleon's Nose.

As I said in my previous post that my life has been plagued by the hills of Belfast, this is one of the main culprits the Cave Hill, with its main feature which is called Napoleon’s Nose, which is meant to have a negative influence over Belfast. The Cave Hill has caused me much anxiety over the years, because I have always lived on the slopes of the Cave Hill.

Not much happening to day as I was at work until 8pm, a quiet day at work being the weekend. I didn’t suffer from any problems today.

My wife and her sister went on a mini hike up the Cave Hill in Belfast to the caves, as there was staging erected to the caves to let visitors experience the view over Belfast and the Lough from the caves.

My wife said it was really busy on the Cave Hill as the people turned out in their numbers to see the view from the caves.

I live on the slopes of the Cave Hill which is the most prominent geological feature in Belfast, Sir Richard Attenborough made a recent film based on an airplane crash on the Cave Hill during WW 11, called Closing the Ring.

As someone who suffers from McArdle’s disease living on the Cave is a problem, it’s  ok walking down it the problems start when you have to walk back up it.

Another World Episode 23

Gary at City Hall

Parkour Jumps & Vaults

On Saturday we embarked on an excursion. The plan was to take me around the island so I’d get a first hand experience of the island.

I was exposed to all sides on this excursion. I saw the wealthy, the poor, the rural and the modern sides of Barbados. We went off the beaten path a few times and even though the roads were not as good here, the views were well worth it. Barbados is by no means mountainous, which I knew, but I was surprised how hilly some sections were and when you made it to high elevations, you were rewarded with spectacular ocean vistas. Took my breath away!

I also had the pleasure of traveling with a historian, a real one, a published doctor and retired professor. He was able to tell me some interesting things about the places we visited that the average person would not know. It made the tour that more vivid and exciting. Call me a nerd but I love this stuff.

We broke for lunch around 3pm at a restaurant overlooking the ocean, where else, on the east coast. The sound of the surf lulling me to sleep. No rest for the weary traveler as we had a lot more to see. Go figure on this small island.

All in all a great day with some great friends. I heard some great stories, laughed a lot and had a really good time. Now its time to return to the norm, the every day, the job and the bills. It was good to escape for a while but now I have to get back in the frame of mind for work on Monday. Ah well…

The excursion took me to places such as: Royal Westmoreland, Speightstown, St Nicholas Abbey, Cherry Tree Hill, Bathsheba, East Pointe, Crane Bay, Sandy Lane and University of the West Indies

I noticed these comments by Barbadian writer George Lamming a few days ago – pardon my delinquence in only just getting to them.
Lamming made some spot-on observations about the state of the University of the West Indies last week when receiving the Order of the Caribbean Community at the Heads of Government meeting in Antigua and Barbuda last week.
Lamming noted that with the increasing decentralisation of UWI, our regional education institution is losing the Caribbean diversity that is so essential to its character. Specifically he said:

The university, therefore, has been suffering a gradual erosion of its regional character, and we must be very careful that we may not be left with the chain of insular politics, held together by a very fragile medium…

UWI Vice-Chancellor Professor E. Nigel Harris agreed with it and traced it back to 1984 when the decision was made to decentralise the university according to campus. So it has come to pass that students, if they are Jamaican, Trinidadian or Barbadian (which is most) don’t have to leave their home territory in order to study unless they are doing one of the few subjects that are still specific to a particular campus like law (Cave Hill), mass communications, geology, international relations (Mona) agriculture or engineering (St. Augustine).
Speaking to the Antigua Sun, Harris said that ‘regionality is an essential part of UWI’s five year plan (2007-12). An excerpt:

Within the context of the new 2007-2012 plan, regionality is important,” he said.
One method being looked at is increasing cross-campus linkages, so that even students from the campus territories are encouraged to conduct some portion of their studies in another territory.
“These campuses now have somewhere around 15,000 or 16,000 students, of whom say in Jamaica, 14,000 are Jamaican students. It would be very difficult to move them, but what we are doing is working to ensure that there is cross campus collaboration…. We are encouraging as much movement as we can of students across the campuses,” he said.

This is something I am absolutely passionate about. I am a huge regionalist (ahem … hence this blog) and I consider myself lucky that I attended UWI in another territory besides my native island. Sure UWI had its drama (I think that is just attendant with putting a set of young people with raging hormones together anywhere) but I would not trade my UWI experience for anything … and I say that having also gone to university in the north subsequently. UWI tops it for sure.
The thing is, with the way UWI is now, unless you live on campus or make a concerted effort, you could end up bypassing the whole experience of regionality. I have always felt a bit sorry for the off-campus students from the campus territories who never really got the full experience and for whom university was basically an extension of their secondary school experience. Because they were not pushed out of their comfort zone, they hung out with the same people they did in school and hardly got to broaden their range of friends or their knowledge of the Caribbean.
Whereas, having lived on-campus for my whole time at UWI, I have friends from just about every territory. I can pick up tomorrow and visit nearly anywhere in the Caribbean and I know I will find someone who will be glad to see me and put me up. This makes my island-hopping and carnival-going much cheaper- LOL!
But more than that, I learned. My world was widened. I got to really understand in more depth the outlooks, idiosyncrasies and backgrounds of different Caribbean countries. I got to understand the dry, limer-talk wit of Trinis and the hype and ‘extra-ness’ of Jamaicans. I got to understand the cadence of Bahamian accents and realise there is a world of difference between that and an American accent (which it can sound like at first).
I experienced food from different islands, shared in the news and gossip from other Caribbean countries and loved and lost and was courted by men from different Caribbean countries.
I can certainly understand the economic necessity that would inspire most people to stay close to home. Obviously, it makes far more sense to just take a bus or taxi to get to university rather than a plane. You can live at home with your parents and that saves a hell of a lot of money too – my student loan certainly attests to one of the drawbacks of going to another island – imagine if I had to pay school fees on top of my living expenses!
But … it’s so boring. That’s what I tend to think when I hear about the UWI experiences of my friends who went in their own island, with the same old friends they always had and went to the same old fetes they always had.
To me … that’s not UWI. I think the university and the governments should try to do something to encourage most students to study in other islands. For one, make it easier for students to transfer and study their same subject in another territory. In my three years, I only knew two students who were able to do that.
I think, given the chance, students would take the opportunity to experience another territory. I still think that regionality has some allure. Or maybe I’m just one of those UWI idealists … what says you islandistas?

Local Economist Prof. Michael Howard who has become a regular commentator on Government’s economic policies today wrote an guest column in the daily Nation offering his views on the way forward for Prime Minister Thompson’s government and Owen Arthur’s stewardship.

His comments on former PM’s Arthur are interesting:

Whether he knew it or not, Arthur was also influenced by Rostow’s misleading “catch-up” notion of Barbados becoming a “developed country”. We may have already reached there since we are now in Rostow’s stage of “high mass consumption”.

Arthur’s expansionary policies eventually led to “overheating” of the Barbadian economy. Overheating was caused by heavy expenditure on the World Cup, the bunching of lumpy capital projects, and high levels of conspicuous consumption. The positive aspects of overheating were increased employment and economic growth.

The Barbados model has now reached a critical turning point where serious decisions have to be made to reduce high levels of spending, maintain capital controls, and curb illegal immigration. Without capital controls the exchange rate will come under significant pressure, as the economy faces a possible recession.

( If you want a quick overview of Rostow’s Theory click HERE.)

The point on the removal of capital controls we have spoken about on the margin already. It does seem to be a judgement call. As we said in our post “Capital Account Liberalisation – Good or Bad? ” it seems that no one REALLY knows what will happen when capital controls come off. Prof. Howards view that the world economic situation is less favourable MAY be right.

Interestingly his other points include tax policy:

The other pressing issue is tax policy. I believe Thompson should implement Arthur’s tax reform measures as outlined in the BLP’s manifesto. Given our adversary system of Government, this may never happen.

Thompson should not tamper with the VAT system, as indicated by the stated intentions of the Democratic Labour Party’s (DLP) manifesto. This course of action will be fraught with great danger, given the nature of the Value Added Tax (VAT). Many countries have found that too many zero-ratings in the VAT system increase the complexity and reduces the efficiency of the VAT.

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Last Academic year I ended up doing a course I didn’t want to do. I guess I didn’t take it too well. Read and see what I mean:
So, guess what. I have to do a few more courses before my degree at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus is complete. Great. One of those courses, however, is History of West Indies Cricket Since 1870. Now, the significance of that is as follows:

1. I hate cricket.
There is no middle ground for this. I despise the damned game, it makes me physically ill. When the test matches used to be televised on tv replacing shows I waited all week to watch, I felt not only betrayed, but weakened, like Superman and Kryptonite, is Yours Truly and Cricket.

2. I dislike Hilary Beckles
The connection: he championed this course and developed it to be added to the course list of Level III (Final Year) History. Now, from previous posts you may discover I am not a fan of this individual so anything he pioneered I tend to shy away from, but now I have no choice.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Development-West-Indies-Cricket-Globalization/dp/9766400652

3. The lecturer
“God bless David!” As my fore-citizens would say. I can’t believe they found one of if not THE most boring History lecturers to teach the course. It is like they planned how to get me from the beginning, the bitches.

What does all this have to do with my title you might ask, well I’ll tell you! I was planning a little trip, an excursion if you will, to the North of the island. I would be wearing my finery, annointed in my favourite cologne, walk with the iPod nano and fling myself off North Point and hopefully either bash in my head on a rock and die instantly, or *SPLOOSH* into the ocean and have the water fill my lungs and die instantly. Whatever happens, I was just hoping not to land in a rogue sand dune and cushion my blow, for climbing back up to try again would ruin the poetry of it all!

Anyway, the sun has set so the mood has passed. I live to moan another day.
Sigh,
Superlative1