'blah blah'

We close the week off with some great stories, memories of wonderful people and of course the side of T&T that we try to cover by saying, 'like you never went thru Miami airport'.

Today I attended the funeral of a first cousin, younger than me, in fact he was the youngest cousin of the entire tribe. Many attended his funeral, people from his whole life. The 'doubles lady' who he patronised was there. How many of us could claim that level of friendship, from Capitan to chef.
 'Le Sponge' will be missed by many.
The great mas man Edmund Hart died today and once again great memories. Started playing mas with 'Harts' when I think they were in Jerningham Ave, the great part was heading back to the mas camp through Observatory St Belmont. Live music, Bobby Quan and 'Blue Ventures'. No wee wee truck, no all inclusive, buying food and drinks on the street. Of course players were still trying to piece together his costume on Tuesday morning. The same costume was worn on both days. Carnival has evolved and it is people like Edmund and Lil Hart that were very much part of the evolution.

Very fond memories! I believe I took a liking to my life partner playing mas with Edmund and Lil!
That is another story.

The Minister of Finance will present the annual budget on Monday. I don't think anything remarkable will be said other than more taxes, removal of subsidies and issues with reference to foreign exchange. My problem with all budgets is the complete and utter lack of imagination in the Government's vision for the country. For numerous Budgets the one single thing that was lacking was the vision for the future of this country. There will be a massive shortfall in revenue, especially foreign exchange, and I doubt very much the Minister knows what to do. Trying to fight with a deficit situation of maybe $30.0BN is not something a regular ho hum budget will deal with. One must be creative and know exactly where the shortfall is coming from. Hoping for a rise in energy pricing is not the answer. How about making our local resources work for us. Give substantial incentives and subsidies to companies that are willing to invest in producing goods and services locally using indigenous materials. Imagine we export barrels of raw asphalt, teak timber, unprocessed natural gas, cement and not concrete products. We import $5.0BN in food annually. The majority is imported from countries who give huge subsidies to their own farmers. Does this make sense to anyone?
I hope that the Minister of Finance is not going to 'blah blah' his way through this annual exercise in futility and will give us real hope for the future. Stay tuned!

The more I hear our PMOTT make statements I cannot stop thinking about both the President of the DPRK and the POTUS. They all sound the same. For our PMOTT to backtrack on one of his now famous statements 'shut up' saying that it was not meant for John Public but for the Opposition is like the POTUS and the POTDPROK calling each other names. If we lump them all together we will get a horrible, frightening name,

"PMOTTPOTUSPOTDPROK" pronounced ' p'mott po'tus'pot'd'prok.

I think it means a person who is unhinged, racist, zero vision, narcissist, disingenuous, an omnicidal maniac and just plain dumb.

Well, maybe I am not Webster but there must be a word to deal with these crazies!

Looking forward to a wonderful weekend, family, friends and no crazy people!

Good night and good luck!