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II

Buried Alive Nandita opened her eyes and looked at the Krishna and Radha Hindu deities whom she prayed to with expressions of deep love and devotion. In prayers she found answers, her life blessed with love, faith and a strong belief in herself that brought success in her studies as she strove for excellence. Tragedy had interrupted their lives.When she was a young girl her father died in an accident. Such a great loss could have broken her mother but prayers and belief had given her the strength to continue living for her child, to stay focused on the light that would guide them through the dark days.

A satisfying smile touched Nandita’s lips as she waited anxiously for her mother to come home from work to give her the news. The afternoon took long to arrive but finally she heard the gate then the door and she ran down the stairs, screaming.

“Mom!Mom!” “What?” her mother paused at the door, alarmed.

Nandita tried to look serious but failed, bursting into a big smile and doing a little dance on the stairs.

“I topped the country in CAPE!” “Oh my God!” her mother gasped in delight.

She embraced her daughter, tears of joy in her eyes, the tiredness of a hard day’s work gone from her body and she looked up at the Heavens, “Thank you dear Lord.”

The happiness of that moment wrote a song in their hearts and put a dance in their steps. From the crumbs of life the mother, through selfless sacrifices had helped her daughter build a stairway to reach for the stars. Today, the CAPE results showed how far she had ascended and hoping no obstacles would step in her way to greater heights for no one knows what tomorrow brings.

She had become a star for her school and her country, admired and applauded for her excellent achievement. Nandita was modest in her thanks, the simple girl she was and tried her best to please all her friends who sent invitations to her for the summer holidays. Today she was going with three of her girlfriends to the theatre and she kissed her mother goodbye for the show was at three and her mother would be home from work until four.

“Love you!” she called, waving to her until the bus drove away and she continued exploring the multiple features on her new smartphone. It was a gift from her mother who had been secretly saving to buy her

Chronicle Pepperpot July 6, 2014

maureen.rampertab@gmail.com something special for her success.

Nandita had been surprised and thrilled when she opened the gift. “This is so awesome!”

At the theatre, she and the girls had just exited the lobby after the show when Dravid pulled up in a brand new Infinity car.

“Oh my gosh!” all the girls exclaimed at once, “This is so cool.”

Dravid from the same school had placed third in the country and coming from a rich family, the car, as promised by his father, was his gift.

“Who wants to go for a ride?” he asked, proud of his car.

All the girls wanted to but everyone except Nandita had long distances to reach home. She was somewhat uncertain though Dravid was a good friend.

“I’m not sure, I have to reach home before dark.”

“It’s just a short drive,” he said, “You won’t be late, I’ll drive you home.”

She got in, thrilled that she was actually sitting in anInfinity and he smiled at her, “How does it feel?”

“Great,” she said and showed him her phone, “We both got cool gifts.”

He drove a little way towards the highway, stopping by a roadside snackette for refreshments and drove for a little while more until Nandita said: “I think we should go back now.”

“Okay,” Dravid agreed as he waited on a break in the traffic to turn, his phone rang.

“Damn,” he muttered, picking up the phone to answer, “What does he want now?”

He listened to the caller and then asked, “Where are you?”

The answer seemed to displease him and he said: “I can’t do that now, I’m with a friend okay.”

Please turn to page VIII

Chronicle Pepperpot July 6, 2014

III

By Petamber Persaud

‘They Gave The Crowd Plenty Fun’ (Extract of an interview with Colin Babb, June 2014, Georgetown, Guyana.

Babb is the author of a book on cricket: ‘They gave the crowd plenty fun.’ He has worked as a journalist for the BBC and as a radio and online content producer. Babb has Guyanese roots.)

PP: We devote a lot of time and attention to cricket, here in Guyana, in the Caribbean and other cricket-loving places but the list on the literature of the game is somewhat meagre. So this book - ‘They gave the crowd plenty fun’ is a welcome addition.

I am intrigued by the title – what’s in the name?

CB: I sort of borrowed those words for the title of my book from a song penned

by Lord Beginner who was a Trinidadian calypso-singer and he penned that song after the WI won their first test match in England at Lord’s in June 1950.

PP: This interview then is a sort of an anniversary.

CB: Yes, come to think about it.

So Lord Beginner wrote what is popularly called ‘Cricket Lovely Cricket.’

PP: What’s the song true

title?

CB: ‘ V i c t o r y T e s t Match.’

PP: I know only the popular phrase, ‘Cricket

Rohan Kanhai

Ramadhin and Valentine.’

I borrowed those words because they were very symbolic to a lot of people from the Caribbean living in En-

breath with the great C. L. R. James; I wouldn’t be so presumptuous but a friend of mine said when he bought the book, he put it next to

CB: As early as I was able to walk and talk. As a young boy growing up in Britain of Caribbean descent, born in Britain.

Walcott, and Weekes; Ramadhin and Valentine; Hall and Griffith; and growing up in a Guyanese household, I was particularly aware of

Clive Lloyd

Frank Worell

Clyde Walcott

Colin Babb

James’s book so in that respect, I am honoured.

PP: W h a t m o t i v a t e d you to write-‘They gave the crowd plenty fun’?

CB: Cricket–West Indian cricket-is one of my lifelong interests.

PP: Started where and when?

PP: The connection to Guyana?

CB: M y m o t h e r w a s born in Georgetown, Guyana, and migrated in the early 60s like many others in Guyana and the Caribbean did. Even though I was brought up in Britain, I was always aware of the three Ws – Worrell,

Kanhai and Lloyd. My mother went to Chatham High School in Georgetown, was a year below Clive Lloyd, I’m not sure if they were friends but that occurrence was usually mentioned.

PP: As a sort of honour– having attended the same school with Lloyd.

Lovely Cricket.’

CB: Well, some of the words go like this: ‘They gave the crowd plenty fun/ Second Test and West Indies won/Cricket lovely cricket.

The bowling was super fine/

Everton Weekes gland and the game meant a lot to them, not only for political and cultural reasons, but for the sense of getting together and having fun. So that is why I wanted to have the word ‘fun’ in the title.

But the book itself is really about the connection between cricket and the Caribbean community living in Britain which has a very long and rich history. And it is not about the game only-it is about what happens beyond the game, the significance culturally.

PP: ‘Beyond the Boundary’ CB: I didn’t want to say it because I didn’t want to describe my book in the same

IV

Chronicle Pepperpot July 6, 2014

Heartland

by Wilson Harris

Introduction by Michael Mitchell Wi l s o n H a r r i s ’s n o v el Heartland begins with a spellbinding evocation of morning on one of the great rivers of the interiors of Guyana. The reader is immediately struck by the physicality of the descriptions, of the river with its half-submerged rocks, broad reaches reflecting the changing sky, and the menacing draw of the rapids, or of the forest whose impenetrable depths become sources of insight and aw.

It should not be underestimated what effect being lone in such a vast forest, full of inexplicable sounds in the long darkness of the night, can have, in terms of psychological disorientation and fear. It is not surprising that the protagonist, Stevenson, finds the certainties he has previously entertained suddenly dissolve.

The programmatic opening of the novel is simultaneously an ironic reversal of the process which takes place in the course of the book, and thus offers a clue to understanding Harris’s unique treatment of landscape. The insubstantial mist, described as “solid”, gives way to an “illusion”, in which the rocks in the river appear to be swimmers surrounded by snakes. Only the full light reveals their prosaic existence. Stevenson, the focal point of the narrative here, is relieved to be able to see the landscape in terms of a “convention of perfect lifelessness”. Although Stevenson would like to see things,

and people, in this purely of financial collapse and his conventional and objective father’s death, for which, at way, he is forced throughout first, he would like to believe the novel to entertain all he is blameless. Gradually, the possibilities which his however, he begins to discov“unreliable” senses, and the er that a web of connections resources of the language, binds him to the fraud and present to him. deceit as well as to the apparHeartland is anchored, ently selfless actions of the like so much of Harris’s father who shares his name, work, in a particular sense and his own involvement of place. When it was writ- with his mistress Maria, the ten, few of his readers would have travelled to the interior of Guyana, though Harris knew it well from his years as a government surveyor. Now it is accessible to tourists, who fly over the rainforest from the narrow coastal Wilson Harris strip, with its neat grids of streets and its wife of the fraudster. It apsugar plantations, towards the pears to him that the death of escarpment where they visit his father represents the death the Kaieteur Falls plunging of his body as the flight of to the valley below, before Maria is the flight if his soul. flying on to where the forest His position at this point, suddenly ends in the sweep of a denial of responsibility and savannahs across to the Bra- unawareness of the interzilian border even for those connected dynamics of the whose journey is only virtu- social and physical worlds, al, an internet satellite map resembles that of the poet clearly shows the branching in Dante’s Divine Comedy, Cuyuni River through the from which the epigraph of rapids below Upper Kamaria, Book One is taken. Lost in and its passage on towards the wood, the poet is guided Bartica, where it joins the through the successive realms mighty Essequibo flowing of the spirit and forced to out to the sea. It is indeed see how they are structured in the heart of the country, as well as the patterns of though many on the populat- interaction and responsibiled coastlands will never have ity which Dante was trying been there. to comprehend. Over all of Stevenson, too, has come Dante’s work there hovers there from the coast, and it the idea of the muse, and the is initially an alien place. word recurs often in HarHe has come as the result ris’s novel, sometimes in this

sense of soul-guide, sometimes as the spur of creativity, and sometimes in the sense of “musing”, allowing the mind to open to unexpected sources of inspiration.

Stevenson has become a watchman over his company’s machinery, as he believes. When he meets Kaiser, who is driving a lorry, he point out that: “this is an age

of mechanical progress”. And yet, through the course of the novel, he is removed ever further from such evidence of technology, losing even his boat, and forced to follow an “ancient line” through the rainforest or risk penetrating where there are no markers or pathways at all. His name,

Stevenson, recalls the famous engineer Fenwick in Harris’s earlier novel The Secret Ladder. At the same time, bearing in mind that the protagonist of his first novel, The Palace of the Peacock, bore the name of a writer, we should not forget that a Stevenson was the author of that classic

Please see page V

Chronicle Pepperpot July 6, 2014 From page IV study of the dual nature of the human psyche, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The other characters, too, bring associations from elsewhere. Kaiser, who looks cinder-black ad hose clothes have the appearance of ash, shares a name with the brother burnt in a rumshop fire in The Far Journey of Oudin, while DaSilva, the pork-knocker whose rations Kaiser has brought, admits his identity with one of the crew who sailed with Donne. Petra, the Amerindian woman who pursued by her tribe on her journey from the savannahs to have the baby which may be Donne’s or daSilva’s, bears a significant resemblance to the Amerindian woman Mariella in The Palace of the Peacock. She is also, through her name, related to the rocks and bones of the land, and, as Stevenson begins to realize, to his mistress Maria, both names of religious significance. Her baby will be the result of transgression of boundaries which may prove to have saving potential. Harris has described these characters as “quantum ghosts”. Harris takes the destabilization of the fixed categories of existence that are revealed in quantum physics, combined with the property of ghosts to reveal their presence and the trace of their previous lives, in order to allow characters to become enmeshed in time with ancient history, across barriers of race, class, wealth and gender, but also across the barriers of what would otherwise appear, in a linear history, to be borders of reality, delineated by causality. Thus he is able to open a door into revisionary “rehearsals” in which alternative realities and possibilities allow scope for the depths of judgments and the heights of redemption.

This may be why the characters bring with them some of the riddling and laconic quality of dream, with its mixture of jesting conversational familiarity and an almost archaic tone of

myth. These living ghost are figures of the unconscious – not the personal unconscious of private memories, but the collective unconscious – where they resonate beyond themselves in ways they themselves find surprising, and connect in alien familiarity with some hidden presence in the reader.

DaSilva himself expounds a fantastic philosophy which Kaiser suggests is to be expected of pork-knockers (lone prospectors for gold in the depths of the rainforest) – a kind of bewildering genius that can indeed be found in unexpected places in Guyana.

This philosophy is important enough for DaSilva to become the narrative focus in Chapter Six. There, in the description of the dog which takes on its companion’s sickness and, in dying, cures him, there is an illustration of pre-Enlightenment way of thinking which has become lost to Western rationalism: the idea of connections by meaning, based on analogy and association. Until the advent of quantum physics, such notions had come to be dismissed as crankishly absurd, and yet it is precisely these principles which are the source of creativity, imagination and wit, and which language, used with indeterminacy, imagery and contradictory poetry, is able to maintain and preserve as a dwindling ration in our familiar, rational world. So it should come as no surprise that Harris uses these very resources of language in de-

scribing the “patient trial and duty of ourself” (as DaSilva puts in (p. 51) undergone by his characters.

But it is landscape, in the first instance, the heart of the land, which draws the reader into an appreciation of language. This is particularly well illustrated in Chapter Two, where Stevenson plunges into the trackless jungle, believing that he has heard a movement of someone watching him.

Anyone who is unfamiliar with Harris’s work is likely to become as disoriented by the tangled profusion of the writing at this point as Stevenson himself is. However, closer attention to the strands of metaphor and hints of imagery will reveal organic structures where nothing is superfluous or wasted. They connect the land, with its mineral, animal and human elements, to the plan of the novel as a whole, transforming the watchers (centres of observing conscious background) and finally into the creation of the watch (a fictional instrument allowing vision to be represented in a temporal narrative).

When Stevenson first leaves the clearing he perceives that: “An eye or two, like fire, had succeeded in penetrating the layers of the jungle to accentuate the absent skull of the retreating sun”. This image of sunlight through the trees suggest a journey into the body, which he needs to make to find the heart. The whole of the land thus becomes a living body,

so we find corporal imagery everywhere: of limbs, arms, shoulders, wrists. At the same time, under the forest canopy, the world seems submarine and fluid, home to creatures that are indeterminate as to whether they are scaled or feathered. These images are repeated in the recollection of the shamanic dress of the original inhabitants seeking to find harmony with the heartland which even they had already lost. They were followed by pre-Columbian and then European colonizers, also in search of some mysterious El Dorado, although they themselves were unsure whether to define their goal as monetary gold or the golden age.

This sense of a continuum extending from the inorganic through living forms to human history and aspiration makes it clear that Harris is gone far beyond an exploration of the psyche of individual characters; it is a novel of ideas, some of which strike us as being way ahead of their time.

Harris is introducing his English-speaking readers to a vision of ecological and philosophical interdepen-

dence preserved within Amerindian societies but only now being rediscovered, belatedly, by our consumer cultures. The ideas, however, never come across as mere abstractions. They are embodied in a tactile, sensual would like that which Stevenson is now immersed in.

This area, at the heat of the psyche, is a dangerous place of madness and malaise, dancing to a “compulsive baton”, and it is only with difficulty that Stevenson manages to reemerge.

At one point he feels like a fallen branch trapped and spread-eagled like a crucified man. Later in the novel DaSilva will be hit by a falling branch and will die trapped in the rocks of a ravine like a giant coffin.

The associative qualities of the language point towards a quantum identity between them. Stevenson, however, by contorting himself through the metaphorical forms of animals, and grounding himself by the miraculous blossoming of a stick in the ground, both a real stick with a tattered bit of his shirt clinging to it and the mystical Glastonbury

V rose, synthesizing spirit ad organic nature, he is able to extricate himself and retrieve time. The scales of his instinctive experience fall from his eyes. The journey into the heartland of the unconscious needs to be redeemed in the vision of consciousness.

If the reader understands, then, that simile or metaphor does not involve one illusory term that embellishes or clarifies a realistic state or action, but itself an equivalent and immanent reality, it is possible to read the book in a different and more productive way. The interrelatedness of the land and characters will become clearer. It will be possible to follow Stevenson as he becomes midwife to Petra’s child, but with an awareness that her subsequent disappearance, with the potential conceived by the intercourse between cultures, is only the beginning of a search which Harris was to continue through the remarkable series of novels that were to follow.

VI

Cleaning of teeth may be preventative treatment or therapeutic procedure

A

dentist (or a dental assistant) performs cleaning of a patient’s teeth and gums as treatment. This cleaning may be preventative treatment (prophylaxis) to avert gingivitis, or it may be a therapeutic procedure performed on a patient who already has gum disease in varying stages.

When a patient comes into a dental office, the dentist will conduct a comprehensive examination on the patient in order to arrive at a specific, individual treatment plan. The treatment plan is based on a diagnosis made after a thorough examination performed using the available relevant diagnostic aids. When a dentist looks at the patient’s gums, he or she notes the gum’s colour, shape, and size. The practitioner records areas of the patient’s mouth that bleed on probing, pocket depth (between the tooth and gum), and gum recession. Based on a determination of whether the patient’s gums are healthy or unhealthy, the

dentist will classify the cleaning as either preventive or therapeutic.

Preventive cleaning is what most patients think of as regular cleaning. Now, every dentist does regular cleaning differently. At my office, for instance, when a patient comes in for his or her first visit, I look at everything related to the patient’s teeth, including the jaws, the head and the neck. After that I make a diagnosis, facilitate relevant tests, followed by the treatment plan. Quite often, that examination reveals much more than is expected and the simple request for a cleaning may be a small part of oral health and rehabilitation.

The worst case scenario could be a life threatening discovery.

Therapeutic cleaning often requires local anaesthetic. This is because calculus, which is calcified plaque that increases constantly, usually penetrates beneath the gum line, destroying bone and ligaments, and it has to be removed with an ultrasonic scaler. The gums in those areas become tender, painful, sometimes abscessed, and bleed easily. In such cases, it would be bad news for the patient if the disease process (chronic periodontitis) was allowed to perpetuate until the teeth involved begin to shake. This would signify that the support structure is no longer viable and depending on the degree of mobility, extraction remains the only option.

These types of cleaning, believe it or not, can be more important than even fillings because they represent the only professional procedure capable of preventing the widespread loss of teeth we humans now endure. While a tooth can be restored with filling, root canal therapy or crown, once its support structure is debilitated or destroyed by chronic bacterial infection, there cannot be any recovery and that irreparable damage results in the inevitable loss of the tooth implicated. Unfortunately, chronic periodontitis is generally insidious.

Many times, patients do not know that they have chronic periodontitis. They come to the dental office saying: “Doc, I spit blood when I am brushing my teeth”, or “Doc, I have these hard crusts on my teeth that the toothbrush cannot remove,” or worst: “Doc, most of my teeth are shaking badly but they do not hurt.” That is why it is so important to prevent all these from happening in the first place. Consult your dentist today. Do not wait until it is too late.

Chronicle Pepperpot July 6, 2014

She Got Stood Up...

The Wheat And The Chaff

I

work at a gym as a cashier full-time in the summer till university starts up again. I met this guy I never thought about except that he is attractive. He talked to me once, asked me where I come from and asked me to hold his phone while he was in the sauna.

The second time he came in he again asked me to hold his phone and we chatted a bit. He left, came back a few minutes later and asked if I wanted to go for a walk during the weekend. I hesitated, which I rarely do, because most guys who hit on me are the "Lets hang out after 11 p.m." sort of guys. But he did not seem to be that kind of guy, so I said yes.

A few hours later he texted me saying he was looking forward to the weekend. I responded with, "Thanks. Looking forward to it, too." We didn't set a date or time. It was just supposed to be that weekend. A few days later he texts me saying he's sorry he asked me to go for a walk, that he's still not over his ex and "you seem like a nice girl."

I did not respond at all. Obviously he either isn't over his ex, not interested (changed his mind), or I was just a boast to his ego. Either way I get that I have to move on and I will when I am ready.

I was rejected. The only thing running through my mind is that I regret giving him my number and it is driving me crazy. He might come to the gym again, and I do not want that. If he does how should I act?

I could use both a male and female perspective.

Kyra Kyra, you didn't get rejected. He made an offer, you accepted and he failed to follow through. That's not a rejection. The perfect response is exactly what you did. No response at all.

He is likely not to return because the awkwardness is on him, but if he comes to the gym again, you don't know him from Adam. Been there, done that, don't know who you are.

He's the one who made the advance and he is the one who dropped the ball. None of that falls on you. For you, it's nothing ventured nothing gained.

To be out there in the world, to have a chance to connect to the one for you, you have to go through this. As far as you are concerned, he showed his true colors. He's a man who doesn't know his own mind, a man who doesn't follow through, a man not ready for a relationship with you.

And you didn't even have to go on a date with him to find that out.

Wayne & Tamara

Chronicle Pepperpot July 6, 2014

Federal Supreme Court frees conspiracy convicts

TWO appellants including a policeman, who in 1960 were unlawfully convicted for conspiracy to prosecute for unlawful possession of bush rum (illegal spirit), were freed by the Federal Supreme Court because the evidence was not supportive of a conspiracy under the ordinance.

The appellants, Ramsonahai and Police Constable Duke who had been convicted of a plot to incriminate Mohamed Ali in a bush rum offence, had their appeals allowed.

Queen’s Counsel J.O. F. Haynes represented the appellants while Mr. E. A. Romao appeared for the Crown, at the hearing of the appeal, which lasted four days in 1961.

The court was constituted by Chief Justice Gomes and Justices of Appeal Wylie and Lewis.

The facts of the case disclosed that the appellants sent a bag containing two bottles of bush rum by a messenger to Mohamed Ali, the driver of a car, with instructions to the messenger to tell Mohamed Ali that he (the messenger) would return later to be taken up the coast. The messenger did what he was told and Mohamed Ali received the bag and kept it in his car.

The second appellant, who was a Police Constable, then telephoned Force Control Office, and reported that Mohamed Ali had just received a bag containing bush rum. Mohamed Ali’s car was located by a police patrol car and the bag with the bush rum was found in it by the police. There was other evidence clearly establishing that the appellants had plotted to incriminate Mohamed Ali by false evidence.

The indictable charge was a conspiracy to prosecute Mohamed Ali, knowing him to be innocent, for the summary conviction offence of being in unlawful possession of bush rum and was laid under Section 330 of the Criminal Law (Offences) Ordinance, Chapter 10 [B.G.]. That section reads as follows: “If anyone conspires with another to prosecute any person for an alleged offence knowing that person to be innocent thereof, the offender shall be guilty of felony and on conviction thereof shall be liable to(a) penal servitude for life if the person prosecuted, or intended to be prosecuted, in pursuance of the conspiracy might, on conviction for the alleged offence, be sentenced to death or penal servitude for life; (b) penal servitude for fourteen years if the person prosecuted, or intended to be prosecuted, in pursuance of the conspiracy might, on conviction for the alleged offence, be sentenced to penal servitude for any term less than life; and (c) penal servitude for seven years if the person prosecuted, or intended to be prosecuted, in pursuance of the conspiracy might, on conviction for the alleged offence, either on indictment or before a magistrate’s court, be sentenced to imprisonment but not to penal servitude.”

The Federal Supreme Court held that : (i)the evidence did not support the conclusion that either

of the appellants intended to institute a prosecution by personally laying a complaint or information; (ii) the words “to prosecute” in Section 330 are to be construed in their strict sense and are not to be extended to include a conspiracy between two or more persons to cause another person to be prosecuted. The appeal was allowed.

The appeal was against conviction by the Supreme Court of British Guiana of conspiracy to prosecute for the offence of being in unlawful possession of bush rum.

Chief Justice Gomes who delivered the judgment of the court noted that the two appellants, Samuel Ramsonahai and Roy Duke appealed against their convictions for conspiring to prosecute one Mohamed Ali, knowing him to be innocent, for the summary conviction offence of being in unlawful possession of bush rum.

According to the Chief Justice, the section under which the appellants were indicted is Section 330 of the Criminal

Law (Offences) Ordinance, Chapter 10 [B.G.].

Referring to the facts of the case, the Chief Justice disclosed that on the morning of October 24, 1959, the appellant Samuel Ramsonahai left his home on the East Coast and drove to Georgetown by car. By prearrangement he picked up on the way, first the appellant Duke, who is a Police Constable, and then a man named Naraine Persaud. On arrival in town, Ramsonahai took a bag which was in the car between where the two appellants were sitting, gave it to Persaud and, in the hearing of the appellant Duke, told him to go to the gasoline station and enquire for Pandit’s car and deliver it to the driver, and to say that he, Persaud, would return later to be taken up the coast. Naraine did what he was told to do and the driver of Pandit’s car, who was Mohamed Ali, received the bag and kept it in his car, the number of which was HD 444.

Either before or about the time that Naraine delivered the bag the appellant Duke rang up the Force’s Control Office and reported that Mohamed Ali driving car HD 444 had just received a bag containing bush rum. The message was immediately relayed by a patrol car which located Ali’s car, in which was found the bag that Naraine had delivered to Ali.

VII

The bag contained two bottles of bush rum. The other evidence in the case clearly established the fact that the two appellants had acted jointly in causing the bush rum to be ‘planted’ on Ali. Continuing his judgment the Chief Justice declared that there are three grounds of appeal: the first is common to both appellants, the second relates to the case against the appellant Duke and the third By George Barclay to the appellant Ramsonahai only.

He added: “The three submissions made by counsel, who appeared for both appellants, are (i) that the evidence did not establish the offence for which the appellants were indicted and convicted; (ii) that the judge misdirected the jury by failing to direct them that the onus of proving whether the statement alleged to have been made by Duke to the Police was made voluntarily or not, and also that if they had any reasonable doubt on the question of whether or not the statement, if made was a voluntary one, they should reject it; and (iii) that the case against Ramsonahai was unduly prejudiced by the failure of the judge to order a separate trial. The counsel also made submissions on other questions that could or might arise if those three submissions were not upheld or in the event of the second or third submission being sustained.

“With regard to the final submission, the counsel contended that, while the evidence may be sufficient to prove the commission of other statutory offences or of an indictable conspiracy at common law, it did not establish a contravention of the provisions of Section 330 of Chapter 10, because it did not prove that the agreement was that either of the alleged conspirators would prosecute Ali, that is to say, that one or other of them would actually institute proceedings by laying a charge against him: In other words, the counsel maintained that an offence is not committed if the evidence discloses an intention merely to cause a public prosecution to be instituted against him.

“Counsel advanced three reasons in support of his argument. He stated that the ordinary and primary meaning of the words “to prosecute” is to commence proceedings by laying a complaint or information. Secondly, that the Section is a highly penal one and on that account the words “to prosecute” should be strictly construed and not extended to include the phrase “to cause to be prosecuted;” and thirdly, that if the legislature intended such an extension of the words “to prosecute” it would have said so, as it did in several other sections of the same enactment.

“While it is clear that any person may commence a prosecution against another person, we agree with counsel for the appellants that the evidence does not support the conclusion that either of the appellants (notwithstanding that the appellant Duke is a constable) intended to institute a prosecution by personally laying a complaint or information against Ali. We do not therefore consider that it would be profitable to examine and deal with the evidence that was put before the jury in regard to police regulation and procedure before a complaint is made by a member of the police force.”

“The point is a novel one, and research has not revealed any authority on it. We therefore deal with it according to the ordinary rules of construction,” the Federal Supreme Court disclosed as it allowed the appeal and set aside the convictions and sentences.

VIII

Chronicle Pepperpot July 6, 2014

Buried Alive From page II

“What is it?” Nandita asked.

“It’s my brother,” Dravid replied, sighing in frustration, “He has broken down and wants me to pick him up.”

“How far away is he?”

“About a ten minute drive away.”

Nandita thought a little, feeling sorry at the worried look on his face and said: “I guess you can do that.”

“Are you sure? He’s not a nice person and he may some something rude to you.”

“I’ll take my chances with that.”

Dravid smiled, still not too pleased and touched her hand. “You’re such a nice person.”

A little over ten minutes, they reached his brother, who was looking very impatient.

“What took you so long, nerd?” he asked rudely, getting into the car with his friend.

“I had to drive carefully,” Dravid answered in defence.

“You’re such a wuss,” his brother said insultingly, slapping him playfully but hard behind his head.

Now, Nandita understood why Dravid, though worried, was reluctant to pick him up. They were driving for just five minutes when Brian instructed Dravid to pull over.

“Why do I have to stop?”

“Just shut up and stop, will you?”

Brian brought a few bottles of beer from a roadside bar, much to Dravid’s annoyance.

“You can’t drink in the car.” He said firmly.

“Why? I’m not driving.”

“Yeah, but I’m not comfortable with that and my friend is not either.”

“Why, is she a Hare Krishna, Hare Rama girl?”

He and his friend broke into laughter and Nandita touched Dravid’s hand and shaking her head slightly not to answer his brother.

Less than five minutes along the roadway, Brian called again for the car to stop. This time

Dravid erupted angrily, “What the hell for now?”

Brian came out of the car and opening the door on the driver’s side, he hauled Dravid out roughly.

“Where are you going, to a funeral? Get in the back and let me show you what this baby can do.”

“No!” Dravid retaliated, pushing him, “You’re not driving my car to wreck it like you did to yours.”

The two brothers almost came to blows and Nandita held onto Dravid’s arm as his brother got behind the wheel, ordering them to get in. He revved the car and spun it around, going back up the highway.

“What are you doing?!” Dravid shouted, “I have to take her home before it’s dark!”

“Relax loser,” Brian said, drinking his beer, “I’m just taking it for a spin.”

Nandita held onto Dravid’s hand, looking scared.

“I don’t like this.”

The car was going dangerously with speed, taking sharp turns that caused Nandita to scream. She thought of calling her mother but before she could, the car sped around another turn, on a lonely stretch of road and this time, she screamed in horror.

A farmer riding his bicycle alongside the road was in imminent danger as the car took the turn too close, hitting him-his hapless body flung a far way. Nandita couldn’t stop screaming and worse yet when Brian drove away, leaving the lifeless man lying on the roadway.

“You can’t do that!” she screamed.

Dravid grabbed him around the neck and shouted, “Stop this car now!”

Brian stopped the car abruptly and turned around, punching Dravid in the face.

“Shut up, both of you.” he said angrily, “I need to think.”

He drove to a desolate place off the highway and exited the car, a wild look of fear in his eyes, “That was an unfortunate accident that we can’t do anything about. This…”, he stressed, “No one will talk about.”

“What do you mean?” Nandita asked, tearfully still in shock, “You just killed someone!”

“That is wrong,” Dravid said vehemently, “You can’t do that.”

“Yes I can,” Brian said, heartless as a stone, “And I want your solemn promises, here, now.”

Nandita shook her head, “I won’t do it.It’s murder. Just the way a drunk driver killed my father.”

Brian looked at her, a dangerous glint in his eyes, “Lies can leave but the truth dies here.”

Dravid stood up to his brother, “Are you out of your mind?! You can’t harm us!”

But he was wrong as evil intent took control of the situation.

He fought valiantly to protect his friend and school mate but lost against two older, stronger guys and fell to the ground, hitting his head on a rock.

“Dravid!”Nandita screamed, trying to pick him up but he had lost consciousness.

“Please,” she cried, “He’s your brother, how can you do this?”

The dark look in Brian’s eyes was answer enough and he grabbed her around the neck, trying to suffocate her. She fought back hard, hitting him in his face but that enraged him and he hit her repeatedly until she blacked out.

Nandita opened her eyes, slowly gasping for breath. It was dark, she could see nothing and she tried to move, crying out in pain but she couldn’t move to either side.

“Oh God, where am I?” she cried silently.

She tried to scream but there was not enough air in her lungs.

“Oh dear Lord,” she prayed, “Please don’t let me die here, I have to go home, my mom is waiting for me.”

Tears wet her cheeks and almost as an answer to her prayers, she felt a vibration in her pocket.

“It’s my phone,” she gasped, “Thank God they didn’t take it.”

But her arms could not move freely to get the phone. She knew it was her mom calling and she struggled to move, her arm scraping against something rough, tearing her skin until her fingers grabbed the phone.

“Mom!” She cried, gasping for breath.

“Nandita, where are you?” her mother asked, desperation in her voice, “It’s late, I’ve been calling so long.”

“Mom,” Nandita said, breathing in deeply, the little air she was getting, “I think I’m buried alive.”

(TO BE CONTINUED)

Chronicle Pepperpot July 6, 2014

IX

MARKS OF FEAR

By Neil Primus

There was tension and fear circulating in the village. Small children and teenagers were getting sick. Each of them had strange marks on their bodies. Villagers felt sure that they were falling prey to Old Haigue. A bloodsucker must be living among them. Suspicion and distrust began to fester.

Bamboo Field was situated more than 1,000 miles from the capital. It was remote and backward in many ways. No lights, no potable water, no telephones and no police presence. All issues were dealt with at the village council level.

When the strange bite marks began to appear on the necks, arms, legs and backs of the children, a council meeting was convened. Mothers were hysterical and demanded immediate action. The only problem with that was they had no evidence to convict anyone.

Some villagers were adamant that nothing of the sort was taking place. They tried to advise the members of the village council to seek some rational explanation for the complaint that was afflicting the children. A doctor was summoned and all the children examined. The medical practitioner could offer no conclusive answer to the troubling illness.

At another meeting after the doctor had departed, the villagers decided to keep an eye on five suspects. They felt certain that one of them must be the culprit. Five elderly villagers came under intense scrutiny.

Ms. Kingston lived with her elderly daughter at the back of the village. She was 81 and deaf. The village had never experienced any sort of problem with her before. Some of the children began to laugh and make mock of her because of her handicap. This did not bother her. She got on with her life and seemed quite happy.

Basil was an old grey man with one leg. He lost his leg in a boat accident when he was working at sea. He owned a donkey cart and traversed the village moving scrap metal and garbage for a small fee. The children did not like him because he never allowed them to take rides on his old cart.

Doris was sixty-six and weighed in at 257 pounds. She worked as a washerwoman but succeeded in doing more gossiping than washing. As far as she was concerned she knew everything about everybody. She even knew details about persons who did not even know about themselves.

Faye was fifty-one but looked like seventy-seven. She was an addict and had quickly deteriorated into a junkie. Due to her abuse of narcotics, she had gone a bit crazy. Villagers referred to her as Flighty Faye. She would disappear for two weeks or more and when she came back she would be high on something. No one knew how she got her drugs.

The last suspect was Mr. Weeks. He was a well off retired civil servant. He lived alone in one of the biggest houses in the village. All his children were married and lived overseas. His wife had died three years ago and he had become withdrawn after that. He never attended any village council meeting and this helped to fuel suspicion.

The villagers’ vigilance was scaled up from just keeping a close eye to marking a cross on bridges and doors of the suspects. This last move caused the ones under watch to become aware of their status in the village. Some were very fearful. The only one who dared to show open defiance was Mr. Weeks. He called the frightened villagers silly, ignorant

jackasses. This did not go down well with them.

Then the villagers took things further. They began questioning them about their movement especially during the night. All sorts of answers were given. Old man Weeks however sent them packing with the adept use of some spicy expletives.

For some unknown reason all the suspicion shifted from the others and centered on Faye. The mere fact that she ate very little and went missing on regular occasions was seen as too much of a coincidence. This made her the prime suspect.

That was when her torment began.

Her house was regularly damaged by missiles thrown by

villagers old and young. Whenever she went anywhere she was verbally abused. This escalated to shoves, slaps and cuffs.

She fell ill and was taken to the capital for medical attention.

The villagers then turned their attention to Doris. The same treatment was meted out to her. She however fought back.

When they cussed she cussed more. When they hit she hit back harder once she could catch the attacker. When bricks fell on her house she threw bricks on every house nearby.

In total exasperation some of the younger villagers attacked, beat and exiled her from the community. She went to live with relatives in the capital. When the children still woke with bite marks, the villagers decided to set a trap. One of the children, who had suffered on a nightly basis, became an unwilling bait. The child’s home and bedroom was prepared for a big battle.

The child, a six-year-old girl, was dressed in a shocking blue nightgown. Four cabbage brooms were purchased and concealed at strategic points. Powerful disinfectant was bought and placed within hand reach. One pint of rice was

also kept handy. If they were lucky the Old Haigue would strike again. When it did they would be waiting to give it a rude awakening.

That night some of the villagers slipped unnoticed into the child’s home. Some armed themselves with a cabbage broom.

One held the bottle of disinfectant and another had the small basin of rice. The vigil was on.

Creak!

The child’s door was slowly being opened. Sleepy eyes grew alert and everyone got ready for action. As soon as the door was half open, the trap was sprung. Men converged on the figure in the dark room and proceeded to beat it with their brooms. It was only the angry, indignant cussing that brought them to their senses.

In their excitement and enthusiasm, they had attacked the girl’s mother. Although the plan was for the mother to wait next door, she had disobeyed out of motherly love and protective instinct.

When tempers had cooled she returned next door and the vigil continued. There was now little hope of catching anything that night.

Mmmmmm!

The soft whimpering of the child forced sleeping eyes open. The bedroom door stood ajar and a dark form was stooping low over the infant’s bed. The rice went first. It was thrown onto the bedroom floor.

Pssssssh!

Then the disinfectant followed swiftly.

Splash!

The smelly liquid was thrown on the dark shape. The Old Haigue jumped in alarm and looked wildly around with panic and desperation. It stooped suddenly and began to count the rice scattered on the floor. Then the main course was introduced. Lix like peas landed on the crouching figure.

Curled up and silent the creature began scooping up the rice and counting it at an astonishing rate. Very soon the beaters realised that the pint of rice would not be enough. The dark creature straightened up holding it’s clothing in a ball.

In the fold of the clothing was the rice it had counted. With its free hand the sinister shape swung wildly at its tormentors.

Bam! Pow! Two bodies too slow to react got badly injured. Then it was gone in the blink of an eye. Next day as soon as dawn arrived, the injured were rushed to the city. Meanwhile a large, angry mob of villagers began forcing their way into the homes of the remaining suspects. To their bewilderment no mark of injury was found on any of them.

They were just exiting a furious Mr. Weeks house when word reached them that William a young village handyman was sick. When they arrived at his dilapidated shack they knew before seeing him that they had found the Blood Sucker.

Rice was scattered in front of his door and inside the house. He lay sprawled on the floor with an expression of horror on his face. He was dead. The beating had been so severe they could have hardly recognised his face. What confirmed that he was the Old Haigue was the strong smell of disinfectant that permeated the small shaky structure.

There was no further incident of anyone being attacked in this strange way.

X

Chronicle Pepperpot July 6, 2014

(A look at some of the stories that made the news ‘back-in-the-day’ with CLIFFORD STANLEY)

WOODSTOCK:THREE DAYS OF PEACE MUSIC AND LOVE: (Guyana Graphic October 13, 1970)

The most talked about music festival in the world comes to Guyana on WOODSTOCK DAY. That’s at Metropole cinema Wednesday 14th at 4.30 and 8.30 P.M. CAST: Cast members appear as themselves and are listed in alphabetical order: Joan Baez; Joe Cocker, Country Joe and the Fish; Crosby, Stills and Nash; Arlo Guthrie; Richie Havens; Jimi Hendrix; Santana; John Sebastian; Sha-Na-Na; Sly and the Family Stone; Ten years after; The Who MOD FASHIONS by the House of Flair; ROCK EXHIBITION by the Dominators Combo: METROPOLE.

CAPACITY CROWD AT THE WOODSTOCK FILM (Guyana Graphic October 14, 1970)

WOODSTOCK was shown for the first time in Guyana to a capacity crowd at the Metropole cinema Wednesday night.

This festival of song and music proclaiming the brotherhood of man is new for the local screen and it is perhaps for this reason that so many of our young people turned out.

The rock music and hippie gear appeared to be the main attractions for the evening.

A wide cross section of people many of them young people were dressed in the latest “mod-way out teenaged fashions” like hippies just like the cast of the show.

The question now being asked is if such a festival as Woodstock maybe on a smaller scale would be such a bad idea for Guyana.

There was one in Trinidad a week ago.

WHY NOT A HOUSEWIFE’S WAGE? (Sunday Chronicle October 31, 1971)

Quite a lot has been spoken about women who dedicate their lives to their homes and families and quite a lot have not been spoken.

It seems grossly unfair that no one has so far come up

with the idea to give a wage to those honorable females who stay at home.

Time and again the importance of the family unit has been stressed.

Politicians publicly advocate the importance of a strong family unit in the development of a country.

Priests stand on their pulpits and scream about much more holy a closely knit family is than a separated one.

In fact, society as a whole clamor for the strong and perfect home circle.

But how many people are prepared to take time off to achieve anything nearing family relationships.

And when a woman makes up her mind to remain at home and gives up all claim to an active working or social life , who remembers to reward her?

Who thinks of giving her a wage for the highly skilled job she is doing? No one.

No one has yet come up with the idea that a housewife may deserve something more than just thanks.

But they do you know.

For how many women do not completely disregard their homes for the greater part of the day while they build a career outside.

They pay scant attention to the fact that a child needs more than food, clothes and a good night kiss and uncaringly leave them to the administrations of some strange house maid.

And when the home and family begins to show signs of lack of care very few women would be broadminded enough to admit that the fault is their’s.

One woman was honest enough to tell me: “My son is a delinquent. On two occasions he was put on parole by a Magistrate but I think it is too late to be sorry.”

“You see I had the opportunity to stay at home but I chose a career. Now at the age of 45 I am a qualified librarian but I have lost the only child I ever had. I just can’t reach him.”

The excitement of her career is somewhat dampened now.

On the other hand had she remained at home she would have worked twice as hard with no personal emoluments.

There are those who say that personal satisfaction should be enough for the housewife, but is it?

Surely her zeal for her onerous chores would be strengthened if hubby was to put aside a special fund for her services rendered unstintingly.

hibited on Guyana’s Christmas stamps this year.

Veronica Bassoo and Ronald Austin will also be awarded prizes for winning a Christmas Stamp competition for students.

Veronica of Dolphin Government School won first prize for painting “The Lord’s Prayer” while Ronald of Central High came second with his “Masquerade”.

They will receive their awards on November 15 next.

TEENAGE ARTISTRY

Clifford Stanley can be reached to discuss any of the foregoing articles at cliffantony@gmail.com or cell phone # 657 2043.

(Daily Chronicle October 11, 1971)

Two teenaged school children will see their paintings ex-

CATTLE SURVEY IN THE RUPUNUNI (Guyana Graphic October 20th 1970)

The plans for development of livestock in the Rupununi Savannahs took a step forward recently when a U.S graduate in in ranch management MR. Terrence Arthur was posted to Lethem to conduct a survey of cattle in the Government ranches.

Mr. Arthur is working in collaboration with Mr. Tom Gordon of the Interior Department.

A report from the area said that work had already begun at Meritezero.

CHRISTMAS LOTTERY MAY TOP $20,000 (Daily Chronicle November 11, 1971)

The guaranteed first prize in the National Christmas Lottery is expected to exceed $20,000.

This was disclosed by an official of the Government Lottery Control Committee when commenting on the sale of lottery tickets.

He said that as at today’s date, an unusually large number of tickets had already been sold and if the sales continued the same way the guaranteed first prize would for the first time ever, top the $20,000 mark.

The Christmas Lottery is scheduled to be drawn on December 20 outside Bookers Universal Store.

Tickets are being sold at $1.00 each and quarters can be purchased at 25 cents each.

Chronicle Pepperpot July 6, 2014

40 degrees Celsius is equal to -40 degrees Fahrenheit.

7,000 new insect species are discovered every year.

85% of movie actors earn less than $5,000 a year from acting!

9 out of 10 lightning strike victims survive!

A ball of glass will bounce higher than a ball made of rubber.

A bird 'chews' with its stomach.

A car operates at maximum economy, gas-wise, at speeds between 25 and 35 miles per hour.

A cesium atom in an atomic clock beats over nine billion times a second.

A man once sued his doctor because he survived his cancer longer than the doctor predicted.

A violin contains about 70 separate pieces of wood!

Actor John Wayne made more than 200 movies.

Actress Elizabeth Taylor wrote the children's book 'Nibbles & Me'.

An airplane mechanic invented Slinky while he was playing with engine parts and realized the possible secondary use for the springs.

An ounce of platinum can be stretched 10,000 feet.

Any modern jet is capable of breaking the sound barrier.

Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, was an ophthalmologist by profession!

Austria was the first country to use postcards.

Bill Gates designed a traffic control system for Seattle when he was only 15!

Budweiser beer is named after a town in Czechoslovakia.

Buttermilk does not contain any butter.

By raising your legs slowly and laying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand.

By recycling just one glass bottle, the amount of energy that is being saved is enough to light a 100 watt bulb for four hours.

C3PO is the first character to speak in Star Wars.

Coconuts kill more people in the world than sharks do. Approximately 150 people are killed each year by coconuts.

Contrary to popular belief, the first ironclad warships were built by Korea in the 16th century.

Crayola is a French word that means 'Oily chalk.'"

Each day, up to 150 species of life become extinct.

El Salvador is the only Central American country without a coastline on the Caribbean.

XI

XII

SHAH RUKH KHAN: My mother would have been extremely proud of this French honour

FIRST LOOK: BANG BANG The Hrithik Roshan-Katrina Kaif starrer film promises to be action packed. Siddharth Anand’s film Bang Bang starring Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif is out with its first poster. The film is the official remake of Knight and Day starring Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise. The film is expected to have tremendous action and sizzling chemistry between Hrithik and Katrina. The hugely anticipated film has been talked about for their breathtaking action sequence that has never been seen in Bollywood. Bang Bang releases on October 2.

WHY KAREENA REFUSED DIL DHADAKNE DO? ALIA BHATT AND VARUN DHAWAN BECOME THE NEXT SIZZLING COVER COUPLE! The duo was seen posing for the cover of a leading film magazine. Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan have been giving us many funky poses while promoting their upcoming film Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania.

But this time they take the cake by showcasing their sexy avatar on the cover of a leading film magazine.

While Alia Bhatt looks stunning in a beige embroidered dress with gladiator strapped shoes, Varun Dhawan looks every bit a hunky chocolate boy with his grey tee.

Alia Bhatt recently made headlines with her gorgeous display on the cover of a leading fashion magazine. Looks like the Highway star has decided to give a tough fight to cover girl pros Sonam Kapoor and Deepika Padukone.

The two Student Of The Year co- stars surely make a hot pair and we are certain the duo will floor us all with their palpable chemistry in their upcoming film Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania which hits the floors July 7.

Chronicle Pepperpot July 6, 2014

It's a known fact that Kareena Kapoor Khan was Zoya Akhtar's first choice for her film Dil Dhadakane Do. Zoya even went to narrate the script to Kareena and Bebo loved the script. But when Kareena realised that she has to go on a cruise for three long months, she refused the film.

Confirms Kareena: "I’m at a stage where my priorities are different. It’s important for me that a film works in my timeline. I'm married. I just can’t go out for three months.

That is the reason I said no to Zoya Akhtar's film. It’s just a film. I want to work with people who understand me.

I'm clear on that."

SRK received France’s highest honour on the day of his mother’s birth anniversary. Shah Rukh Khan was conferred with the Knight of the Legion of Honour, which is France’s highest honour on the very day which was his mother’s birth anniversary. SRK was very happy on receiving the award and also said that his mother would have been very proud of him.

He also said that had she been alive she would have been extremely happy for him.

“It’s my mother’s birthday. If she was alive, apart from being extremely old, she would have been extremely happy that her son has got the highest and the most prestigious honour in the world… so thank you on behalf of my mother,” Shah Rukh said.

The Legion of Honour was created by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802. It is the highest award given by France for outstanding service to the country, regardless of the nationality of the recipients. Shah Rukh also said a few lines in French during the award ceremony, which he had brought along with him. Shah Rukh showed everyone that those lines in French he had written in Hindi and brought along with him. Thereby he laughed at the fact that this was the beginning of bilateral friendship between the two countries.

Chronicle Pepperpot July 6, 2014

XIII

Let Any Man I’ve Had Affair With I am dating Speak Out—IK Ogbonna Challenges but I will never

Nollywood actor and model, IK Ogbonna, has thrown up a challenge and has asked anyone who can prove he has had a romantic affair with me to speak out.

In a recent interview, the handsome actor debunked claims that he is not straight. He also said that though he likes women a lot, he controls his urge to have them. Ogbonna said he will definitely need someone in his life, but not a man.

He challenged any man to come out face-to-face with him to say he (Ogbonna) ever had any affair with him.

“So far so good, for the little time you have spent with me, you have already have your own assessment about me, I can't be the one to do that myself, but the greatest thing is that there is nobody that will come to me face-to-face that I have slept with his or her mother before, or a guy will come to me to tell me we had something together. Yes I'm someone that likes women, but it is controlled. So for me I control my urge whenever it comes to women, I'm more of a business focused person in whatever I do,” he said. He added that even his ‘jigolo’ roles in movies are not his doing but a clear interpretation of the scripts and orders by the director."

“In Nigeria, people have stereotyped roles actors and actresses play in a movie. In most cases they will look at a role you played before and want you to continue it that way.

For me, when you look at me, you see someone who is flashy,

marry – Mzbel

what kind of role will you give me as a producer, it does not mean that I cannot play any other role, with makeup, I can wear a new look because everything is a character you want to interpret,” observed.

D’banj Hangs Out With Bill Gates

Music artiste D’Banj has recently been mingling with great minds and the richest men of our time, few days ago he was with the CEO of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote who is also one of the richest man in Africa. Dangote endorsed D’banj new Kokogarri and D’banj gushed about this, now you won’t believe who D’banj is hanging out with.

The koko master himself mingled with wealthiest man in the world – Bill Gates.

Bill Gates is looking humble as he is seen wearing just a shirt, no bling, no expensive watch…just simple! D’banj hooked up with the billionaire founder of Microsoft at an event over the weekend; he was also with U2’s Bono and Sudanese billionaire Dr. Mohammed Ibrahim.

The entertainer was no doubt tapping into the success of Bill Gates whose business acumen he will no doubt be inspired by, especially now that he’s on his entrepreneur, with the launch of Koko Garri and his record label.

Singer and showstopper, Mzbel, says that she is going to remain single for the rest of her life as she is convinced that marriage is not meant for her.

“I am not looking forward to marriage because I do not want to feel dedicated to anyone. I want to be my own woman and in fact, I am enjoying being a single parent,” she told Showing in an interview last Monday.

“I have no problem being in a relationship; in fact, I am currently dating but marriage is a no go area for me.

I am a hard working woman with three kids and all this while, I have been doing everything on my own so I don’t see the reason why I would allow myself to be pinned down all in the name of love and marriage. I want to be a free bird,” she said.

In an answer to why she had reached that decision she said: “It is simple, I do not want anyone to disturb mv peace.

You know as soon as you get married, i t ’s l i k e there are some rules that you need to follow and I am not ready to abide by those rules.

“I nearly got married this year but I declined after thinking through and realising that marriage was not meant for me. I don’t want to feel obliged to cook or do certain things for any man. With my current single mother status, as and when I feel like doing something, I do it and so far I love it” Mzbel’s children, her own son and two adopted others, she said were also part of her decision. If I get married, my children will not get the best of me as I will have to divide my attention. My children need me more and I would like to dedicate the rest of my life to them so that they do not have to share me with anyone,” she said.

“Moreover, I have seen how terrible some marriages end, some to the extent of the woman committing suicide and knowing how fragile I am, I do not want to find myself in any of such situations. The bottom line is, I am an independent woman and getting married will spoil things.

I am happy the way I am,” she stated.

In response to what people may think of her decision, she said: “I don’t care what people are going to say, I have listened to people on several occasions and it did not help me so I have decided to turn a deaf ear to what they will say. I have reached a point where what matters to me is how I feel and I am focusing on doing what will make me happy.”

Commenting on her seemingly stalled music career, Mzbel attributed her delay in bouncing back soon after delivering her baby to motherhood saying that it had been very difficult combing that with her music career.

“I have not been out yet because I am taking care of my son. I have nobody helping and it makes it difficult for me to go to the studio and record wants to get everything right before 1 come out but I hope to come out very soon.”

She also has an awesome stage presence that has earned her lots of fans.

XIV

Chronicle Pepperpot July 6, 2014

iPhone 6 Mockups – Close Enough?

I t’s a new month of exciting leaks, rumours and official developments, other than to talk about several new details concerning the iPhone 6. Well, I could think of a few better ways that would better suit the needs of an Android user, but hey, we’re all gadget enthusiasts here, and the next-gen iPhone is actually quite promising, with iOS 8 delivering new features and with the

"delete Facebook account" as a top suggestion. Whether it's to alleviate privacy concerns or avoid digital distractions, more people are trying to figure out how to fully disconnect themselves from the social network giant that we live and breathe.

For those ready to call it quits, you're in for a surprise — it's more difficult than you think to erase yourself permanently. With its ever-changing privacy policies, becoming Facebook-free requires more steps than just hitting the delete button and saying goodbye.

Keep in mind deletion is not the same as deactivation.

You can deactivate your account at any time, which means your Timeline and information will disappear from Facebook until you reactivate your account. When reactivated, your information is restored.

Deleting your account means you can never, ever access your account again, and you won't be able to retrieve any of your content or information.

Most of your personal data, like your email and mailing address, is removed from Facebook, but some information, such as messages and photos, may remain on its server for "technical reasons." Facebook's help centre also says the data left behind will no longer be identifiable or searchable as your own, and that it will be inaccessible to other people using Facebook. Each day more people are deleting their account, maybe it’s time to get back to the “text” book!

'Smart' luggage will text you when it gets lost

smartphone itself being resized and overhauled.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock throughout 2014, during these past several months you should have had the opportunity to at least take an “accidental” quick look at some of the iPhone 6 mockup pictures that have been passed along from one tech blog to another.

However, the mockups that have popped-up so far have a low build quality. The home button doesn’t fit perfectly, leaving a gap, and the display isn’t seamlessly transitioning into the aluminum part. The iPhone 6 may arrive with a curved display that will fit perfectly into the aluminum shell, creating a seamless transition from one material to another (unlike the iPhone 5S which caught our attention with a 45-degree diamond cut edge).

If you're seriously considering deleting your Facebook account, you're not alone.

Start typing in the letters "dele" into Google and you'll see

When an airline loses your luggage, it can take hours or even days to get someone to tell you where it ended up -if it ever turns up at all. Wouldn't it be easier to hear from the luggage itself?

That's the promise of "smart luggage," in which GPS tracking chips are embedded in bags capable of transmitting their locations to travellers and even contacting airlines directly when they get lost.

The jumbo jet maker Airbus introduced a concept design

for smart luggage at the Paris Air Show last year. The product, known as Bag2Go, can be tracked via a smartphone app.

It also allows for self-service check-ins and can weigh itself to ensure that it meets airline requirements.

The ultimate plan is to for the luggage to work with airlines' IT systems, contacting the carriers directly and arranging for delivery to your home or hotel.

These products are still in the developmental stage and will need approval from federal regulators, but they're sure to find some grateful customers: U.S. airlines mishandled over 141,000 bags in April, according to government statistics, or about three bags for every 1,000 passengers.

Boleto malware may lose Brazil $3.75bn

Researchers from an American security company have unearthed a substantial malware-based fraud ring.

The operation has infiltrated one of Brazil's most popular payment methods, Boleto, for two years.

An estimated 495,753 Boleto transactions have been compromised, which means the hackers could have stolen up to $3.75bn Researchers say it is not known whether the fraudsters were successful in collecting on all of the transactions.

BoletoBancario allows an individual to pay an exact amount to a merchant and can be used for almost every kind of transaction, from the weekly shop to phone bills.

The attack has been described by US-based security company RSA, a division of data storage corporation EMC, as a major fraud operation and a serious cybercrime threat to banks, merchants and banking customers in Brazil.

Chronicle Pepperpot July 6, 2014

Guyanese Women in History:

Professor, Anthropologist & Published Author – Dr. Oneka LaBennett

Dr. Oneka LaBennett is Associate Professor

of Africana Studies at Cornell University. She received her Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from Harvard University in 2002, and her B.A. in Sociology and Anthropology from Wesleyan University in 1994.

Born in Guyana and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Dr. LaBennett’s research and teaching interests include popular culture; race, gender and consumption; urban anthropology; transnationalism and diaspora; and Caribbean migration.

Dr. LaBennett is the author of She’s Mad Real: Popular Culture and West Indian Girls in Brooklyn

(New York University Press, 2011), and editor of Racial Formation in the Twenty-First Century (University of California Press, 2012; co-edited with Daniel Martinez HoSang and Laura Pulido).

In addition to her contributions to academic journals and edited volumes, Dr. LaBennett has published Op-eds in Ms. Magazine and in The Huffington Post. Her Op-ed, “How Does Nicki Minaj Influence Black Girls? Ask Them,” was quoted in the April 2013 issue of Elle Magazine, and she recently wrote an essay entitled “Racialization,” in Keywords for American Cultural Studies (second edition, forthcoming, NYU Press).

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ENRICO FERMI

Chronicle Pepperpot July 6, 2014

-One of the fathers of the atomic bomb

E

nrico Fermi (Italian: 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian-American physicist, best known for his work on Chicago Pile-1 (the first nuclear reactor), and for his contributions to the development of quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics, and statistical mechanics.

He is one of the men referred to as the "father of the atomic bomb." Fermi held several patents related to the use of nuclear power, and was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on induced radioactivity by neutron bombardment and the discovery of transuranic elements. He was widely regarded as one of the very few physicists to excel both theoretically and experimentally.

Fermi's first major contribution was to statistical mechanics. After Wolfgang Pauli announced his exclusion principle in 1925, Fermi followed Please see page XVII with a paper in which he applied the principle to an ideal

Chronicle Pepperpot July 6, 2014

Accelerator Laboratory, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station, and the synthetic element fermium.

EARLY LIFE Enrico Fermi was born in Rome on 29 September 1901.

He was the third child of Alberto Fermi, a division head (Capo Divisione) in the Ministry of Railways, and Ida de Gattis, an elementary school teacher. His only sister, Maria, was two years older than he, and his brother, Giulio, was a year older. After the two boys were sent to a rural community to be wet nursed, Enrico rejoined his family in Rome when he was two and a half. While he came from a Roman Catholic family and was baptised in accord with his grandparents' wishes, the family was not religious, and Fermi was an agnostic throughout his adult life. As a young boy he shared his interests with his brother Giulio. They built electric motors

Enrico Fermi gas, employing a statistical formulation now known as Fermi–Dirac statistics. Today, particles that obey the exclusion principle are called "fermions". Later Pauli postulated the existence of an uncharged invisible particle emitted along with an electron during beta decay, to satisfy the law of conservation of energy. Fermi took up this idea, developing a model that incorporated the postulated particle, which he named the "neutrino". His theory, later referred to as Fermi's interaction and still later as weak interaction, described one of the four fundamental forces of nature. Through experiments inducing radioactivity with recently discovered neutrons, Fermi discovered that slow neutrons were more easily captured than fast ones, and developed the Fermi age equation to describe this. After bombarding thorium and uranium with slow neutrons, he concluded that he had created new elements; although he was awarded the Nobel Prize for this discovery, the new elements were subsequently revealed to be fission products.

Fermi left Italy in 1938 to escape new Italian Racial Laws that affected his Jewish wife Laura. He emigrated to the United States where he worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II. Fermi led the team that designed and built Chicago Pile-1, which went critical on 2 December 1942, demonstrating the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. He was on hand when the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge, Tennessee went critical in 1943, and when the B Reactor at the Hanford Site did so the next year. At Los Alamos he headed F Division, part of which worked on Edward Teller's thermonuclear "Super" bomb. He was present at the Trinity test on 16 July 1945, where he used his Fermi method to estimate the bomb's yield.

After the war, Fermi served under Oppenheimer on the influential General Advisory Committee, which advised the Atomic Energy Commission on nuclear matters and policy.

Following the detonation of the first Soviet fission bomb in August 1949, he strongly opposed the development of a hydrogen bomb on both moral and technical grounds. He was among the scientists who testified on Oppenheimer's behalf at the 1954 hearing that resulted in the denial of the latter's security clearance. Fermi did important work in particle physics, especially related to pions and muons, and he speculated that cosmic rays arose through material being accelerated by magnetic fields in interstellar space. Many awards, concepts, and institutions are named after Fermi, including the Enrico Fermi Award, the Enrico Fermi Institute, the Fermi National

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and played with electrical and mechanical toys. Giulio died during the administration of anesthesia for an operation on a throat abscess in 1915.

One of Fermi's first sources for the study of physics was a book found at the local market of Campo de' Fiori in Rome. The 900-page book from 1840, Elementorum physicae mathematicae, was written in Latin by Jesuit Father Andrea Caraffa, a professor at the Collegio Romano. It covered mathematics, classical mechanics, astronomy, optics, and acoustics, to the extent that they were understood when it was written. Fermi befriended another scientifically inclined student, Enrico Persico,and the two worked together on scientific projects such as building gyroscopes and measuring the Earth's magnetic field. Fermi's interest in physics was further encouraged by his father's colleague Adolfo Amidei, who gave him several books on physics and mathematics that he read and assimilated quickly.

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9 Things Cats Know but Won’t Tell You

M

ost dog owne r s come into the veterinary office with their canine companions devotedly following them.

Chronicle Pepperpot July 6, 2014

Please see page XIX

Tails wagging, the dogs look up at their people with adoring eyes. Most cat owners, on the other hand, wrestle a cardboard box into the exam room, reach in like a magician and pull out not a rabbit, but an an-

gry feline. For their efforts they get covered with furry shrapnel and sometimes raked with claws until their face and arms look like so many tic-tac-toe games. (It doesn't have to be like that, by the way.)

As a lifetime pet lover and practicing veterinarian of more than 30 years, I've noticed a few things

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From page XVIII about cats. And so for all you cat owners, here's the Secret Code of Cat Behavior (or What Cats Know but Won't Tell You). * Strategically place your hairball. If you have to hack up a hairball, toss it like a trophy onto something visible and valuable, like the new leather couch. If you can't reach that in time, an Oriental rug is an appropriate substitute. * Know the enemy and embrace him. If mom is entertaining, determine quickly who hates or is allergic to cats, race immediately to that person and leap into his or her lap. Mom's watching, so he won't dare push you off and will even fake affection by stroking you and repeating, "Nice kitty. Niiiice kitty." * Wear fur proudly. You must always select clothing in sharp contrast to your own fur colour on which to rub, leap or audition for the president of the Hair Club for Cats. Again, dare to share.

* Be Johnnie on the Spot. As a courtesy, always accompany guests to the toilet. Your job is to sit and stare like you're a peeping-tom cat. If you get some really good shots, post them on the Internet and make a lot of bucks. * Let out your cat scratch fever. If someone claims to love cats and that all cats love him or her in return, lull that person into thinking you're a Stepford Cat. When his or her guard is dropped and the perfect cat lover begins to bask in a snapshot moment, show utter disdain, lay claw tracks across the expensive hosiery or silk tie, or turn unexpectedly and give a quick nip deep enough to test someone's blood type. * Find out what's behind door No. 3. Never allow closed doors in any room except when you need to trap the dog. To crack open a closed one, stand on your hind legs and jackhammer it with your forepaws, scratch it like you're headed for China or put your paws underneath it and keep pulling. Or just throw yourself against it repeatedly. Once the genie appears and opens the door for you, change your mind and walk away.

* Play paper weight. If you come across somebody doing homework, paying bills or reading a magazine, settle down on the paper. This may entitle you to flying lessons, but when you get back on the page - and you will - make sure that you take everything with you - pens, pencils, other papers - on your next scheduled flight. * Be a knit wit. If mom's into crocheting or knitting, curl up quietly in her lap and pretend to catnap. Then spring into action by grabbing the yarn and causing her knitting needles or crochet hook to plunge sharply like a trophy catfish has just hit the bait. She'll try to distract you and pick up the slipped stitch. Ignore her efforts to calm you, close your eyes again and prepare for strike two. * And remember, early to bed, early to rise. Get plenty of sleep both during the day and in the evening, when your people want you to play. That way, you'll be fully rested and ready to rumble with Sleeping Beauty anytime between 2 and 5 a.m.

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Chronicle Pepperpot July 6, 2014

The Surprising Vitamin of Long Life

A

By Lisa Collier Cool vitamin hailed as “a miracle cure” decades ago, and later dismissed as

“nearly useless” turns out to have remarkable disease-fighting prowess and could even add years to your life, several new and recent studies suggest.

One of the latest findings is that vitamin C could be an

inexpensive, natural weapon against cardiovascular disease (CVD)—heart attacks and strokes—the leading killer of Americans.

Not only are researchers now testing a new stent coated with vitamin C instead of

drugs to treat clogged heart arteries, but taking vitamin C in supplement form cuts risk for developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) in the first place, according to a new analysis published in the journal Atherosclerosis.

Researchers pooled data from 44 randomized controlled trials (the gold standard of scientific research) and found that vitamin C supplementation significantly reduced risk for endothelial dysfunction, abnormal stiffness of the blood-vessel lining that precedes heart disease. The greatest improvement in blood-vessel health was found in people at the most risk for CVD: those suffering from diabetes, heart failure, and atherosclerosis.

Here’s a look at other surprising benefits of the antioxidant vitamin.

Oh Say Can You “C:”

Your Guide to The Vitamin Longer life and lower cancer risk In a 2013 study that tracked more than 16,000 adults, those with the highest blood levels of vitamin C had the lowest risk for both cancer and death over the next 14 years. The research was published in Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention.

STRONGER BONES Contrary to the popular belief that the best way to prevent osteoporosis is a high intake of calcium from foods like milk, recent research suggests that getting more vitamin C is actually the most effective strategy to avoid the brittle-bone disease, says Thomas E. Levy, MD, JD, author of Death by Calcium: Proof of the Toxic Effects of

Dairy and Calcium Supplements (MedFox Publishing, 2013).

“Osteoporosis is a focal scurvy of the bones—and these symptoms can be prevented or reversed with appropriate dosing of vitamin C supplements,” says Dr. Levy, adding that in one study, postmenopausal women who took supplements had significantly higher bone density in all areas tested, with particularly high density in the femoral neck (the typical site for hip fractures.)

FIGHTS SUPERBUGS In an unexpected, but intriguing discovery, scientists from Albert Einstein College of Medicine report that vitamin C kills drug-resistant tuberculosis

Please turn to page XXX

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ARIES - The world is your oyster today, and all you have to do is pick your condiments. Isn’t it nice to be sitting at the head of the table for a change? Wrapped up in your own ambitions, however, you could lose sight of what’s most important in your life. Make sure your priorities are straight. Don’t forget the importance of a balanced meal and some time for relaxation.

TAURUS - Your strong sense of conviction and your ability to entertain divergent points of view could catapult you into a leadership position. People appreciate your excellent listening skills and the ease with which you quickly grasp their salient points. Always remember the qualities that got you to this pinnacle. Losing sight of them could diminish your effectiveness.

GEMINI - You may be somewhat prickly today if your plans do not go exactly as you expect. Giving in to anger or defeatism will do nothing to solve the problem. It’s time for a little detective work, Sherlock. Someone or something could be thwarting your efforts. Determining the source of the friction is the first step in resolution and in re-establishing your peace of mind.

CANCER - These obstacles may seem insurmountable, but you do not have to let them stand in your way. If you think through your options carefully, you should be able to manoeuvre around, over or under any hurdle, especially with all the resources you have at hand. Think of yourself as an Olympic track star, and push resolutely toward the finish line. Victory will be sweet.

LEO - Just because you know exactly what you want doesn’t mean that everyone else is going to be panting to give it to you. Getting ahead has just as much to do with taking care of those around you as it does with taking care of yourself. When you feel your ego rearing up, take a deep breath and try to think from another’s perspective.

If the exercise makes you feel a little dizzy, you’re probably not doing it enough.

VIRGO - It’s easy to pick apart another’s inspiration, but a real leader can build constructively on just about any framework without tearing it down first. Are you up to the challenge? If you are pleased to be the object of someone’s flirtatious attention, returning the sultry glances could lead to a most pleasant evening. An excellent dinner and lively conversation may be just the appetizers.

LIBRA - Your irritation threshold is definitely lower today than usual, but you’re being hardest on yourself. Perhaps old memories are constricting your heart. Maybe past failures are haunting your mind. Banishing these negative influences will take a supreme act of will, and only you can do it. You know what they say about spilled milk. There’s a lot of wisdom in those words.

SCORPIO - You’ve been thinking about making this life change for quite a while.

Now it’s time to stop rationalising and start doing. You have the strength of will to overcome a bad habit and the resolution to set off in a new direction. Procrastination is a thing of the past. Action and decisiveness are your new operative descriptors.

Take this newfound determination and use it to your advantage.

SAGITTARIUS - Difficult financial questions are likely to crop up today and make you sit up and think. Your immediate reaction will be to cut back drastically and resolve to forego even some of your most cherished indulgences. But a long-term solution and a workable way out of this dilemma require a more balanced approach.

Frugality and fun do not have to be mutually exclusive.

CAPRICORN - Creature comforts are particularly satisfying, and you’re in just the mood to appreciate them. But in the mood you’re in, just about everything pleases you. As an added bonus, it seems as if others are bending over backwards trying to make things even better than they are. Examine your situation carefully. These moments are what life is all about.

AQUARIUS - Look for outside reasons if you want, but there’s really only one reason you’re so frustrated, and you know exactly what it is. Until you figure out a way to overcome your slapdash approach and your propensity to veer off on tangents, you simply will not have much to show for your efforts. It’s easy to resist self-discipline, but if you want to break this habit, you have to start somewhere. It might as well be now.

PISCES - Different circumstances call for different approaches. The trick is to hit the right combination. There might be times today when you need to be in control and times when you simply need to let go and allow others to run with the ball.

Even with others calling the plays, you can be very effective from the sidelines. In fact, you may enjoy being out of the spotlight.

Chronicle Pepperpot July 6, 2014

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XXIII

Bath Settlement – A fusion of smiling faces and great agricultural potential

By Alex Wayne THIS week I had the pleasure of meeting some of the most intriguing and pleasant people I have ever met in my life, and the experience of interacting with them really left me light-headed, but in a pleasant manner.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that there were still such endearing people left in Guyana, and they sure did leave a lasting impression on me. As a matter of fact, as I sat back lazily in the minibus heading back to the city, their beaming faces, cherry chatter and mirthful laughter swam on the horizon on my senses. Talk about beautiful places and faces.

These people were just contented and charming, and they never failed to greet a stranger with a smile or welcoming “How do you do?”

Folks, I was privileged to have visited Bath Settlement on the West Coast of Berbice, located just over 70 miles east of the city of Georgetown.

THE ARRIVAL We arrived in the village at about 10:00 hours, and were enthralled by its serene beauty and wonderful tranquility that

afforded that somewhat charming yesteryear luster that was laced with appealing signs of modern transformation.

Young men were chatting amicably in the streets, while, in some areas, others were rushing off to the nearby Blairmont Sugar Estate to tend to their various jobs. Mothers were rushing in and out of variety stores, stocking up on their household supplies; while, under the houses, husbands and grandparents relaxed in hammocks after spending a tedious early morning in their many kitchen gardens or large farms.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS We stopped at the home of the Ramcharrans first, and there we were welcomed and offered glasses of ice cold fruit juice, which we accepted with relish. This extended family reside in an impressive four-bedroom house, and were ready to relate that poverty in years gone by had propelled them to work tirelessly on their large cash crop farm, which eventually afforded them a comfortable home and pleasant means of living.

The family had begun by planting eschallot on a large scale. They would harvest the eschallot and sell in the village, and on a wholesale basis in Georgetown.

Narrating the tale of their hard earned fortune was the grandfather, Baldeo Ramcharran.

“Eschallot made me what I am today. Many years ago we used to plant the eschallot, and it was really hard work. The entire family would leave from our one-bedroom flat house early in the morning with just light snacks of roti and pumpkin, which we used to wash down with swank (drink made with lime juice).”

Ole day we ah wuk like donkey in de hot sun, and when we get hungry dem young bai would climb the wata coconut tree. We would full we belly and then guh back in the sun and wuk till aftanoon. We gon then wata dem eschallot and lef de backdam sometime when night almost fall. Then we guh come home and cook dinnah, and if yuh see how dem pickney tired, dem can hardly eat dem food. When dem hit dah bed, is sleep and snoring till five a clack next marning. Then is time fuh guh again!

“Then selling de eschallot was anotha story. Because sometimes competition and suh much eschallot deh bout dat de price always ah drap. But we endure we struggles and save we money and build ah nice house fuh de family, as yuh see today”.

This family still continues to farm in the backlands, but many of the children are now adults and have taken up jobs at the Blairmont Sugar Estate and in a few businesses in the village. So they now farm on a smaller scale, and save most of the money obtained from this process in a commercial bank in the city.

We met with similar tales from other villagers, since almost everyone had started from humble beginnings and have worked their way up the ladder of success. This was evidenced in the many posh houses and businesses that now proudly display the makings of Bath Settlement.

PAST AND PRESENT DAY BATH SETTLEMENT As expected, we were curious about the features of the village in years gone by, and ready and eager to tell us was 82-year-old ‘Aunty Euna’ “When me was wan lil gyal, this was nevah de Bath Settlement wha yuh ah see here today. This place was sheer bush!

De Bath Estate in de 1930s was surrounded by plenty bush and it wasn’t a bright place either! Dem time dat we had to fetch wata from stand pipes far from we home, and dem nah been get current all ovah. One rich man in de village used to provide current through wire from he house to people who can afford it, suh many people used to use dem lantern and flambeau fuh move about and cook at night.

“Dem time dah was coal pat and fyah side fuh cooking, and we used to bake bread in open oven outside in de yard.

De roads was not good as today, and we nah bin get prapah drains and canals like today. Things bin really hard in dem times, but Bath Settlement always get hard wukking

Welcome to Bath Settlement, the land of happy people

Please turn to page XXIV

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Bath Settlement

From page XXIII

people who know ‘bout suffering and saving, suh today almost everybady ah live aff ah dem blood, sweat and tears.

“But me gah fuh thank de PPP Govament fuh mekking thinks easiah fuh we, because today we ah enjoy good good wata, current, street lights and prapa drainage. Dem need fuh send betta contractas fuh mek dem road prappally though, because dem people ah mek road hea and in no time de road ah bruk up”.

Aunty Euna related that life is beautiful in the village today. She credited the efforts of Government as responsible for residents of the village enjoying pleasant and comfortable lives.

This village had its origin not along the Highway where it currently is, but in the lands aback of the village, four miles inland, around the now defunct Bath Estate, which had been in operation since the mid-1800s.

In those days, many resided in cottages and some in logies (thatched roof houses with mud walls). In the 1930s, the Bath Sugar Estate was owned by the Davson’s Company. It was a very big village back then, and the name of the school in those days was the St. Nicholas Anglican Primary School. Today the village is still large, and measures two miles in length.

Some say the village began to grow at its current location in the late 1950s, when management began giving the workers lands out on the roadside. Many of the people in this village continued to work with the sugar industry after the exodus to the roadside, and after the Bath Estate closed down operations in the early 1970s.

The Friday afternoon market at Bath Settlement, near to the pay office, is a weekly event. It is the place where sugar workers, just having drawn their wages, can get bargains on clothing, jewellery, fresh fruits and vegetables, and other foodstuff.

‘In crop’, that is when the cane is being harvested and milled, the market is a very busy and lively place; but ‘out of crop’ time, when there is little or no activity in the industry, the village is not that bright. The long in-crop season, in most cases, runs from February to August; while the shorter ‘out of crop’ period extends from December to January.

During the out-of-crop periods, the estate offers time work employment to its workers. This work comprises routine maintenance on the estate, such as weeding fields, cleaning drains and rat catching. This work is, most times, limited to two or three days a week; and that is when most workers resort to other activities, such as fishing, carpentry, planting rice, and engaging in eschallot and other cash crop cultivation. Some undertake retail businesses to upkeep their families.

Many have found these other activities so rewarding that they have become full time farmers and businessmen, many of them successfully so, judging from the many beautiful homes and other trappings of wealth which are obvious in various parts of the village.

There are also many public servants, such as teachers and nurses, who serve the community and other parts of West Berbice.

This well-populated community of Bath Settlement has seen considerable development over the years, with the establishment of several large-scale businesses and a new housing scheme in one section. The village benefits from the operation of the Bath GuySuCo Health Centre, which is affiliated to the Blairmonth Sugar Estate.

The sugar estate still serves as the main form of livelihood for many people, but there are others who work as teachers, photographers, accountants, clerks, sales persons, mechanics and a doctor, among other professions.

Bath Settlement is very popular for its large-scale eschallot farming; and because of its rich soil, almost every resident plants a farm or kitchen garden.

Two large business places are Double R Hardware Store

Some of the very posh houses in Bath Settlement

and Katcha, both of which supply building and construction materials to customers throughout West Coast and West Bank Berbice.

Other businesses include Ram’s Jewellery, Spare Parts and Pawn Shop; Len’s Optical; Bunny & Sons Furniture Store; Kushi’s Beauty Salon; Love’s Variety Store, and many others.

There is no nightclub in the village, but friends would congregate on the roadsides for a lime that lasts up to about 20:00 hours, or they would take a “few tupps” (glasses of rum) before going to bed. Others less socially inclined stay at home and watch TV or movies.

The majority of the people at Bath Settlement are peaceful and God fearing. Some people may drink and get intoxicated, but most of the time they go their way peacefully, without interfering with others.

People go in substantial numbers to the masjid and the mandirs and the churches (established ones and bottom house innovations); but that aside, the village is very quiet and peaceful, with hardly any criminal elements or activities.

A FEW CHALLENGES

tivates various types of seedlings for sale to farmers. Farmers were loud in their praise for his efforts, since they claim they have ready access to seedlings and chemicals which are much needed to cultivate their crops.

Ramchand started his business some eight years ago, and is also attached to the Guyana Agricultural Producers Association (GAPA) as Regional Representative. He has certainly taken agriculture to the next level in the village, and he is highly respected for his exploits.

He is also promoting the green house and shade house initiatives, which are positives for agriculture and the impending issue of climate change. Mr. Ramchand is also spearheading sporting activities, and has raised the bar on cricket activities in the area.

ETHNIC HARMONY All rumours of ethnic differences existing in Bath

Please turn to page XXVI

Chatting with a few self-employed males, many related that they have splendid ideas for village development and are pleading with Government to provide affordable land spaces to increase their farming, poultry rearing, and other agriculture-oriented activities.

A few farmers lamented that they were visited by Government officials three months ago and promises were made to ‘improve things in the village.’ They are appealing to those who visited to return to have talks with them and to speed up further development in the village.

Youths said that qualified persons are facing an employment crisis in the village, since they were unable to get jobs that suit their qualifications. Speaking on this issue was young Amrita Sookhoo, who is qualified by has to settle for a sales attendant job in a small clothing and accessories store.

“This village is indeed a beautiful and endearing place for one to live. But one of the problems we are facing is the lack of employment opportunities for qualified youths, who have left school with great grades. There aren’t many institutions or businesses here that require the services of such persons, so they are forced to settle for just about anything; or some of them are just sitting here on their qualifications,” she said CONTRIBUTING TO SOCIETY Some persons in Bath Settlement are indeed creating wonders for their colleagues; and amongst them is the very talented Dhaniram Ramchand, who manages the Green to Life Chemical and Plant Shop.

Ramchand manages an extensive nursery in which he cul-

One of the many places of worship in Bath Settlement

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The Bath Playground

Little Sarah Ramcharran purchases plantains from vendor ‘Babita’ for a hearty morning snack

Chatting by the roadside

Farmers Ramzan Bassalot and Sahoi tend to their celery crop, which is almost ready for reaping

Enjoying the refreshing Bath Settlement morning breeze

There is a kitchen garden in almost every yard in this village

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Bath Settlement Settlement should be treated as nonsense, and be crushed underfoot. Actually, residents share an almost divine ‘racial harmony’ that is so rich in its intensity that it awakened my very being and sent joyful tremors up my spine.

The Bath Settlement Primary School was just closing shop for the day, and the noisy chatter of students could be heard from a great distance away as they conversed on the ‘happenings of the day’ or on possible methods of effectively completing assignments.

They spilled into the streets in a pleasurable ethnic fusion of both Indo and Afro-Guyanese buddies and school chums, laughing their heads off at the comical jokes of each other, and in process creating a beautiful vision of the future Guyanese nation. The same could be said of the men chatting in the streets; and with housewives catching up on the latest news in

the shops before hurrying off to their homes to get the lunch table ready.

SAD RECOLLECTIONS

This village is void of criminal activities, but some villagers do recollect the discovery of the remains of a man found in the village in December 2013.

The remains were discovered scattered in a clump of bush about 300 feet south of Waterloo, Bath Settlement, by villagers who immediately summoned the police from the nearby Fort Wellington Police Station.

Police ranks reportedly visited the scene and saw a human skull, two thigh bones, two leg bones, one rib bone and one jaw bone, suspected to be that of Sookram Ragabir, called

From centre pages

“Baayun”, 51, of Bath Settlement.

CONCLUSION

If you are looking for a little solitude and a positive change from the bustle of life, then Bath Settlement is surely the place for you. Waste no time, but head on there; and when you do, get lost in the flashing smiles and cheery laughter of the people.

Come and be smothered by their infectious love, or be engulfed in the rich waves of ethnic harmony exuded by villagers. Get caught up in the bashful stares of starry eyed young damsels, or in the feisty dialogue of smiling males.

Whatever you do, make it a must to visit this pleasant village, where the radiant beams of glorious camaraderie More photos on page XXXV never seem to fade.

Such refreshing camaraderie This area comes alive on weekends, when residents gather here to sell their agricultural produce

Some residents engage in the making of concrete blocks as a profession

Eschallot cultivation has brought fortune to many villagers

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FARRAH FAWCETT

-A true Hollywood success story

arrah Fawcett, born June 25, 2009 at Santa Monica, California was a fresh-faced woman from Corpus Christi, Texas. In the early 1960s, she was voted the "Beautiful Woman" by her high school colleagues. In the late 1960s, she had her first break in guest-starring roles in television series such as I Dream of Jeannie (1965), The Flying Nun (1967) and The Partridge Family (1970). Then, in 1968, she dated actor Lee Majors, and the couple were married on July 28, 1973. Shortly after, Majors starred in his series The Six Million Dollar Man (1974) and Farrah guest-starred in four episodes. As her career took off, she posed in her red bathing suit for a poster, and it sold a staggering 8,000,000 plus copies.

After the poster was released, producers Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg starred her in the television series Charlie's Angels (1976).

Farrah received a paycheck for $10,000 an episode, and when it started to take off, Majors wanted her home by 6:30 pm to have dinner on the table. Farrah felt dissatisfied about the direction of the series.

Then, in 1977, after the first season wrapped up, she abruptly left the series. Shortly thereafter, the departure resulted in a lawsuit with the producers of the series. Finally, she agreed to return to the series in guest spots for six episodes: three in the 1978-79 season and the other three in the 197980 season. In late 1979, Fawcett and Majors had separated, and, since there was no reconciliation in sight, they were divorced in 1980. Farrah dated Ryan O'Neal from 1980-1997.

Then, in 1998, Farrah was severely injured by James Orr, after she had spurned his proposal of marriage.

In 2006, Farrah was diagnosed with anal cancer.

After going through countless treatments, her health deteriorated rapidly, and

Chronicle Pepperpot July 6, 2014 she passed away on June 25, 2009 at age 62.

Farrah Fawcett is a true Hollywood success story. A native of Texas, she is the daughter of James Fawcett and Pauline Evans. She was a natural athlete, something that her father encouraged, and she attended a high school with a strong arts program. She attended University of Texas in Austin, graduating with a degree in Microbiology, but only wanted to be an actress.

Winning a campus beauty contest got her noticed by an agent, who encouraged

feuding on the set, and Farrah was embarrassed by the finished film, which was a major failure. But Farrah was undamaged and continued to win roles. In 1973, she and Majors married, and the following year, she won a recurring role in the crime series Harry O (1973). She had her first taste of major success when she won a supporting role in the science fiction film Logan's Run (1976). She came to the attention to the highly successful producer Aaron Spelling, who was impressed by her beauty and vivacious

Farah Fawcett

her to pursue acting. After graduating, she moved to Los Angeles and her healthy, all-American blond beauty was immediately noticed.

She quickly got roles in various television commercials for such products as Ultra-Brite toothpaste, and Wella Balsam shampoo, and also made appearances in some TV series. In 1968, she met actor Lee Majors, star of the popular TV series The Big Valley (1965), who became very taken with her and also used his own standing to promote her career. In 1970, she won her first major role in the film adaptation of the Gore Vidal novel Myra Breckinridge (1970).

The shooting was very unpleasant, with much

personality.

That won her a role in the TV series Charlie's Angels (1976). She played a private investigator who works for a wealthy and mysterious businessman, along with two other glamorous female detectives, played

by Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith. The show immediately became the most popular series on television, earning record ratings and a huge audience. All three actresses became very popular, but Farrah became by far the best known. She was America's sweetheart, and found herself on evPlease see page XXIX

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ery celebrity magazine and pursued by photographers and fans. While she enjoyed the success and got along well with her co-stars (both of whom were also of Southern origin), she found the material lightweight. Also, the long hours she worked were beginning to take a toll on her marriage to Majors, who found himself eclipsed by her popularity. So the following year, when the show was at its peak, she left to pursue a movie career. The move drew a negative reaction from many fans. As a result of that and some poor script choices, her career briefly hit a slow spot. In addition, she and Majors separated in 1979. She had starring roles in Somebody Killed Her Husband (1978), Sunburn (1979), and Saturn 3 (1980) (which she did a topless scene in), but all three failed financially.

She appeared in the Burt Reynolds chase comedy The Cannonball Run (1981), which was successful financially in spite of bad reviews, but her career benefited very little and she and Majors were drifting apart. In 1981, she met Ryan O'Neal, a friend of her husband's, and they began became friends and spent a great deal of time together. In 1982, she filed for divorce, which Majors readily agreed to. Soon, she and O'Neal were a couple and moved in together.

She made a major comeback when she starred in the searing story of a battered wife in The Burning Bed (1984), based on a true story. It garnered a very large audience, and critics gave her the best reviews she had ever received for her heartfelt performance.

She was nominated for both an Emmy and Golden Globe and also became involved in helping organisations for battered women. The following year, she and O'Neal became the parents of a son, 'Redmond O'Neal.' She tried to continue her momentum with a starring role in Extremities (1986), but while she garnered some positive reviews, the show was not well-received. She continued to seek out serious roles, appearing mainly on television. She scored success again in Small Sacrifices (1989), again based on a true crime. Portraying an unhappy woman who is so obsessed with the man she loves that she shoots her children to make herself available and disguises it as a carjacking, Farrah again won rave reviews and helped draw a large audience, and was nominated for an Emmy again.

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Shortly afterwards, she and O'Neal co-starred in Good Sports (1991), playing a couple who co-star in a sports news programme, but O'Neil's performance was lambasted and only 9 episodes were aired. In 1995, she surprised her fans by posing for "Playboy" at the age of 48 and it became the magazine's best-selling issue of that decade. Her relationship with O'Neal was deteriorating, however, and in 1997, they broke up. The breakup took a toll, and at that time she received very bad publicity when she appeared on Late Show with David Letterman (1993) and gave a rambling interview, sparking rumours of drug use. That same year, however, she made another comeback in The Apostle (1997), playing the neglected wife of a Pentacostal preacher, played by Robert Duvall. Both stars were praised and the film became a surprise hit. She also began dating producer James Orr. But after she turned down his marriage proposal in 1998, he severely beat her and the scandal drew nationwide headlines.

She immediately broke off all ties with him and he was charged and sentenced for assault. Embarrassed, she lowered her profile and her career lost momentum, but she continued to work in television and films. She and O'Neal also started seeing each other again, although it didn't last. In 2004, she received her third Emmy nomination for her performance in The Guardian (2003), but has experienced tragedy since then. In early 2006, she was devastated when her beloved mother died. Later that year, she was diagnosed with cancer and O'Neal, with whom she remains close in spite of their breakup, was diagnosed with leukaemia. On February 2, 2007, her 60th birthday, it was revealed that she was now cancer free. She continued to be a successful and important part of the entertainment industry. On June 25, 2009 Farrah lost her battle with cancer, and passed away aged 62.

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The Surprising Vitamin ...

From page XX

(TB) bacteria in lab tests. This finding suggests that the antioxidant vitamin could be added to existing drugs for TB to make them more effective or could lead to novel therapies. Further tests are needed to see if vitamin C has the same effect in TB patients. About 650,000 people globally are battling multi-drug resistant TB. 9 Superfoods For Vitamins A to K MAY PROTECT AGAINST ALZHEIMER’S Antioxidants in the diet—such as foods rich in vitamin C (oranges, pineapple, papaya, bell peppers, broccoli, kiwi)— have long been believed to help protect against oxidative damage linked to the development of Alzheimer’s, as well as cognitive decline due to normal aging. In a recent analysis pooling data from 7 studies, a high dietary intake of vitamin

C reduced risk for Alzheimer’s by 17 percent. Vitamins A and E were also beneficial, the researchers reported in Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

HELPS PREVENT EXERCISE-RELATED LUNG PROBLEMS In a 2013 pooled analysis of 3 placebo-controlled trials published in BMJ Open, treatment with vitamin C reduced exercise-induced bronchoconstriction (symptoms like cough and wheezing during workouts) by 48 percent, compared to people who received a placebo. In one of the studies analyzed, half of participants experienced no exercise-related lung problems after treatment.

MAY STAVE OFF STROKE Eating vitamin C-rich foods is linked to lower risk for the most common type of hemorrhagic (bleeding) stroke, according to a study presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 66th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia in May of this year. The researchers compared 65 people who had suffered a stroke of this type to 65 healthy people. On average, the stroke patients had depleted levels of the antioxidant vitamin, while the healthy people had normal levels.

“Our results show that vitamin C deficiency should be considered a risk factor for this severe type of stroke, as were high blood pressure, drinking alcohol and being overweight in our study,” said study author Stéphane Vannier, MD, with Pontchaillou University Hospital in Rennes, France in a statement.

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XXXI

Chimpanzee language: Communication gestures translated

By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC News

Researchers say they have translated the meaning of

gestures that wild chimpanzees use to communicate.

They say wild chimps

Chimps will check to see if they have the attention of the animal with which they wish to communicate

communicate 19 specific messages to one another with a "lexicon" of 66 gestures.

The scientists discovered this by following and filming communities of chimps in Uganda, and examining more than 5,000 incidents of these meaningful exchanges.

The research is published in the journal Current Biology.

Continue reading the main story “Start Quote

There's another species out there that is meaningful in its communication�

Dr Catherine Hobaiter University of St Andrews Dr Catherine Hobaiter, who led the research, said that this was the only form of intentional communication to be recorded in the animal kingdom.

Only humans and chimps, she said, had a system of communication where they deliberately sent a message

to another individual.

"That's what's so amazing about chimp gestures," she told BBC News.

"They're the only thing that looks like human language in that respect."

SHOUT OR SIGNAL? Although previous research has revealed that apes and monkeys can understand complex information from

Please turn to page XXXI

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Chimpanzee language ... another animal's call, the animals do not appear to use their voices intentionally to communicate messages.

Continue reading the main story “Start Quote We are still missing a lot of the information contained in their gestures and actions�

Dr Susanne Shultz University of Manchester * BBC Nature - Chimpanzee videos, news and facts This was a crucial difference between calls and gestures, Dr Hobaiter said.

"It's a bit like if you pick up a hot cup of coffee and

you scream and blow on your fingers," she said.

"I can understand from that that the coffee was hot, but you didn't necessarily intend to communicate that to me."

SUBTLE SIGNALS Some of the chimps' gestures, the researchers say, are unambiguous - used consistently to convey one meaning.

Leaf clipping, for example, where a chimp very obviously takes small bites from leaves is used only to elicit sexual attention.

Many others, though, appear to be ambiguous. A

grab, for example, is used for: "Stop that," "Climb on me," and "Move away."

Although many are very subtle, some of the footage captured by the researchers shows very clearly what the chimps mean to convey.

In one clip, a mother presents her foot to her whimpering offspring, signalling: "Climb on me."

The youngster immediately jumps on to its mother's back and they travel off together.

"The big message [from this study] is that there is another species out there that is meaningful in its communication, so that's not unique to humans," said Dr Hobaiter.

From page XXXI

"I don't think we're quite as set apart as we would perhaps like to think we are.

"But then chimps are more closely related to us than they are to the rest of the great apes, so it makes sense that we are incredibly similar to them in many

ways."

Dr Susanne Shultz, an evolutionary biologist from the University of Manchester, said the study was commendable in seeking to fill the gaps in our knowledge of the evolution of human language. But, she added, the results were "a little disappointing".

"The vagueness of the gesture meanings suggest

XXXIII either that the chimps have little to communicate, or we are still missing a lot of the information contained in their gestures and actions," she said.

"Moreover, the meanings seem to not go beyond what other less sophisticated animals convey with non-verbal communication.

"So, it seems the gulf remains."

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ORGANIC WAYS TO REPEL MOSQUITOES Linked to diseases like malaria, dengue, chikungunya, elephantiasis and many more vector borne diseases, mosquitoes are a big menace to humanity. While most of us turn to chemical insecticides to kill mosquitoes, these chemical agents have been known to cause allergic reactions in some and are simply harmful for others. So, if you

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are looking for all natural ways to get rid of those pesky critters follow these easy steps: * Neem oil: Neem has several great benefits for the human body, but apart from being an elixir for your health, neem is also a great mosquito-repellent. To make an effective insecticide mix neem oil and coconut oil in equal portions and rub it on your body (all exposed parts). This will protect you from mosquito bites for at least eight hours.

* Eucalyptus and lemon oil: Recommended by the CDC (Centre for Disease Control) as an effective insect-repellent the mixture of lemon oil and eucalyptus oil is extremely effective in repelling mosquitoes – naturally. To use this mixture, mix lemon oil and eucalyptus oil in equal proportions and use it on your body. * Camphor: Using camphor as a repellent also works wonders. Light camphor in a room and close all the doors and windows. Leave it this way for about fifteen to twenty minutes and go back to a mosquito free environment or mix camphor with coconut oil let set for 15 minutes and rub on exposed skin. * Garlic: The strong and pungent odour of garlic is known to prevent mosquito bites and even prevents them from entering your home. So to use this remedy you could crush up a few pods of garlic, boil it in water and use the water to spray around the room you want to keep mosquito free. If you are the adventurous type (or really hate mosquitoes), you could also spray it on yourself to avoid being bitten.

MAKING YOUR OWN FACE SCRUBS FROM HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTS Making a Gentle Face Scrub from Strawberries Ingredients 2 mashed strawberries 1 teaspoon almond oil 3 tablespoons granulated sugar Method Mix ingredients through really well. This face scrub is a little thicker than the usual facial scrubs, although you can add a little more oil if you prefer.

Massage your scrub into your face and neck using a gentle circular motion. Continue to massage gently for a couple of minutes, and then rinse off with warm water.

Oatmeal and Yoghurt (dry skin including acne) The almond oil in this face scrub makes it an excellent one for dry skin, leaving it feeling soft and smooth. Leaving out the almond oil will give you a gentle but deep cleaning facial scrub suitable for any one suffering with acne.

Ingredients: 2 tablespoons fine oatmeal Please turn to page XXXVIII

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XXXV

Bath Settlement Workers at the Green to Life Farm make ready seedlings for farmers

Paved streets are now enjoyed by villagers

The bicycle is still widely used as a form of transport in the village

Amrita Sookhoo speaks of the employment problem for qualified youths in the village Farmers relax in their hammocks after a hard day in the fields

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FREDERICK RAMPERSAUD

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-Celebrating today 18 years of ‘Music from the Heart’ Entertaining large crowds from the time he was a nine-year-old

Frederick Edward Rampersaud

By Telesha Ramnarine

F

REDERICK Rampersaud, a television and radio personality known locally for the past 20 years or so, has been used to entertaining large crowds from the time he was a nine-year-old when family and friends got together to party he performed the role of DJ. Rampersaud, also known as Edward or ‘Eddie,’ was raised on the West Coast Demerara at Vreed-en-Hoop and lived obliquely opposite the Regal Cinema. When he started as a DJ, vehicles would line all across the road with their drivers liming and listening to his music.

Frederick believed that it was this passion for music that he had and his interest in listening to the radio from a young age that made him turn out to be one of Guyana’s longest standing and successful broadcasters.

Growing up, Frederick attended the St. Swithen’s Anglican Primary before securing a place at Richard Ishmael Secondary. He had in mind taking up several careers such as becoming a preacher, a chartered accountant, a lawyer and a broadcaster, but opted for the one he found his passion in.

Back in the days when television was not so popular, Frederick loved listening to the radio, especially to the cricket commentators. Furthermore, he recalls Matthew Allen, who hosted a programme of old love songs that he enjoyed. “And I wanted to be a Matthew Allen,” he told

Please see page XXXVII

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From page XXXVI

Frederick celebrating 18 years of ‘Music from the Heart’

Chronicle in an interview a few days ago.

Recalling how his career really had its start when he was just nine-years-old, he said his father bought a music set that played powerfully and an aunt from Eccles had several records that he borrowed. A neighbour also had a lot of CDs that he got the uses of.

About two years later, he started to be the DJ for house parties and at about 13 years old, he started playing for weddings. These were mostly weddings of family members or friends and he played on a non- commercial basis, he explained. It was just for the fun of it.

“It was like a little boy on the set and people were going crazy. That was the kind of attraction I carried from since then. Since as a small guy, I entertained a large amount of people,” he said.

Frederick doesn’t DJ anymore but now enjoys his job of hosting in excess of 20 radio and television programmes. A few include Forgotten Melodies, Sa-

laam Namaste, Tesri Manzil, Survival Senior Citizens and Healthy Living Show, Reality Check, Sporting Spotlight, Entertainment Guide, and Lunch Date Special.

Even when he was employed at Republic Bank Limited, he hosted three programmes from Friday evening to Sunday. But now, he is able to devote himself entirely to his programmes.

In fact, Frederick is proud to be celebrating the 12th anniversary of the popular ‘Music from the Heart’ programme on radio. Prior to this, it was aired on television for six years! The first show he co-hosted was ‘Rapping with the Public’ on what was Channel 12.

Within his first six months as a talk show host,

XXXVII

he recalled a special interview he did with the late President Cheddi Jagan at State House for one hour.

Then he went to Trinidad and interviewed the first female Attorney General, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who is now that country’s Prime Minister.

SPONSORED PROGRAMMES Frederick is proud of the fact that 90 percent of his programmes are sponsored and so he believes this is a good indication that he does quality work.

“I have been able to entertain a wide cross section of Guyanese and from all around the world. I have to be good to survive because people are paying for me to do them. It means they like my

work and are getting returns in their business,” he said.

Frederick believes in being honest and humble and that a person must practice what they preach.

“I recognise I am nothing. Whenever they call and praise me, I always say there are people better than me that never got a chance.

I am here because God allows me to be. Give God the grace. I see myself as a very down to earth character and I think people respond to my love.”

His goal is to eventually be able to give back to the society by forming a ‘Frederick Rampersaud Foundation.’ The idea will be to help those in need, such as unfortunate kids, but it will have to be embraced by the corporate community.

XXXVIII

2 tablespoon plain yoghurt 1 tablespoon almond oil

vinegar is a purifying agent and acts as an astringent, you can use it as a toner for your skin and, if you're prone to breakouts, along your T-zone to prevent blemishes.

Method Mix all the ingredients together and leave for 5 minutes allowing the oatmeal to soften.

Lightly rub the mixture into your face avoiding the eye areas.

Continue to massage into the face for about 5 minutes before rinsing off with warm water.

BEAUTY TIPS 1. Use coconut oil to create a conditioning hair mask before you wash it or to soften the look of split ends when it's dry. Pure coconut oil is rich in fatty acids and proteins, so you can expect your hair to look healthy, shiny, and hydrated. A little goes a long way, so whether you're using coconut oil as a hair mask or to keep your ends healthy and split end-free, use it sparingly.

2. Use apple cider vinegar as toner. Since apple cider

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3. They're made out of similar ingredients as blotting papers, so stash a few in your purse if it's hot out and pat yourself down when you need to reduce shine.

PINEAPPLE ROSÉ SANGRIA COCKTAIL Prep Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients: 1 bottle RosĂŠ 2 cups 100% pineapple juice 1 pint raspberries 1 pint blackberries 1 cup chopped pineapple Instructions: Add all ingredients to a large pitcher and serve in pretty glasses over ice. You may mash the fruit if you'd like, but I prefer to leave it whole.

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English

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XLVII

UNDERSTANDING SOIL

H

By Clifford Stanley

ealthy soil is indispensable for a healthy garden. Plants derive water, oxygen for their roots, and essential nutrients from the soil. It consists of two components: minerals from weathered rocks and organic matter from decayed organisms and animal wastes. The mineral content of the soil provides plants with nutrients, such as calcium, potassium, and phosphorus. Organic matter improves drainage and helps prevent waterlogged soils, reducing the occurrence of diseases such as root rot. It also binds the mineral nutrients so they remain in the soil and are not washed away. The spaces, or pores, between the tiny particles of minerals and organic matter are occupied by either water or air. Water holds vital dissolved nutrients, while air provides the roots with oxygen. Most plants do best in a soil in which half the pore space is filled with air and half with water.

Plants use nutrients obtained from soil to build the cells and tissues needed for growth.

Nutrients that plants need in large amounts, called macronutrients, include oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and an array of minerals. They also need micronutrients, or trace nutrients, which consist of cobalt, chlorine, boron, iron, zinc, molybdenum, nickel, manganese, and copper.

Soil texture, the size of the individual soil particles, affects how fast water drains and

how well plants absorb nutrients. The largest soil particles are grains of sand. Sand grains fit loosely together with large gaps between them, resembling marbles in a jar. The large pores let water (and the nutrients dissolved in it) drain out too quickly for most plants to absorb it.

Clay particles, on the other hand, are very tiny, and they pack closely together, resembling tiny beads in a jar. The pores between clay particles are so small that water drains very slowly. Slow drainage can lead to oxygen deprivation because the water takes the place of air in the pores. Another disadvantage of clay is that it binds water and some nutrients so tightly that most plants cannot absorb them. A third soil particle is silt, which is larger than clay but smaller than sand.

Most plants thrive in a soil type known as loam, which contains roughly 50 percent sand, 25 percent clay, and 25 percent silt. A loam soil drains water well, but not too quickly, and as a result, the plant can absorb nutrients more readily. Exceptions include desert plants, such as cacti, which do best in a sandy soil.

Plant nutrient absorption is also dependent on a soil's pH, a measure of acidity or alkalinity. The minerals from which a soil is formed and the amount of rain that passes through the soil determine its acidity or alkalinity. Pure water has a pH of 7.0, which is neutral—neither alkaline or acidic. Soils with a pH of less than 7.0 are acidic, those with a pH greater than 7.0 are alkaline. Most plants absorb nutrients best in a soil with a pH between 6.5 and 7.5; however, plants such as roses prefer an acidic soil, while others, such as lilies, grow better in an alkaline soil.

(Courtesy of Erin Hynes of the EVERGREEN NATURE STUDY CLUB. Website:www.evergreenstudy.org)

This Victoria Beckham is Better Than All the Other Victoria Beckhams Combined It's better than brooding Victoria Beckham, stiletto Victoria Beckham, half-cantaloupe breast Victoria Beckham, and even better than Posh Spice Victoria Beckham, and that last one's saying a lot.

This is V's new Vogue look, and if all we had to do was get her out in a garden with some rubber boots and minimal makeup to make her even more likable -- and relatable, period -- then why the hell didn't it happen a long, long time ago?

Ciara Wears Gorgeous Gowns in Brides, Reveals Wedding Details

David Beckham Is Scruffy, Sweaty & Shirtless In New H&M Campaign

David Beckham looks good in all states of undress.

Whether he's fully clothed or sporting nothing more than a pair of distractingly tight boxer-briefs, the re-

tired soccer stud smolders in his latest ad campaign with H&M. With his toned torso and tattoo-covered physique on full display, Beckham is kill-

ing it at 39 -- looking just as good now, if not better, than he did back in the day. We're loving the scruffy look. Is this how Victoria Beckham sees him every morning? Is

so, we're definitely jealous!

"These new pieces for my Bodywear range at H&M have a real energy about them," David said in a press release. "I genuinely enjoy the creative process with H&M and we have had fun this time playing with color and texture. I hope people like them as much as I do."

Now that Ciara has welcomed her son Future Zahir, wedding planning is in full swing! The singer graces the cover of the August/September issue of Brides, where she talks about her upcoming nuptials with fiance Future.

"Indoors and black tie," she says of her vision for the big day. "For the palette, I’m not into loud colors. I like black and white, classic and clean." The new mom, who looks radiant in a series of gorgeous wedding gowns in the elegant photo spread, also has her bridesmaids’ dresses figured out. "There will be five or six and two matrons of honor [including La La Anthony]. They’ll all wear the same color, but in different styles to suit their personalities. I want my ladies to look amazing!"

Ciara's guests also will be dancing to some memorable music. "A few of our friends will sing, and we’ll have a great DJ—good old soul mixed with new stuff. You want people to say, ‘this is my jam!'"And while she’s very excited for the wedding, the 28-year-old star says she really can’t wait for married life.

"Raising a baby together, traveling around the world, and creating new moments," she says of what she’s most looking forward to. "I love that I won’t think twice about what I’m doing in life, because I know I’m doing it all for the person I love most. And I know he’s doing the same in return."

Did Beyoncé just call out Jay Z for cheating?

The Beyhive rumour mill went into overdrive after a video of the power couple's June 28 concert in Cincinnati, Ohio, surfaced, showing the singer changing the lyrics to her 2006 single "Resentment."

Wearing a wedding gown and veil as she belted out the bitter ballad, Beyoncé switched the line "Been ridin' with you for six years" to "Been ridin' with you for 12 years" – what many fans are calling a reference to her relationship with Jay Z, which began in 2002.

Another notable change? Beyoncé expanded on the lyric "I gotta look at her in her eyes and see she's had half of me," adding, "She ain't even half of me.

That bitch will never be."

The couple, who married in 2008 and are parents to 2½-year-old Blue Ivy, have been taking the stage together for their On the Run summer tour.

Ever since footage surfaced of Beyoncé's sister, Solange, fighting with her brother-in-law in an elevator in May, Internet speculation has been rampant about Jay Z cheating, but the couple have maintained a united front, stepping out together at a New Jersey Nets game five days after the tiff. Since then they've spent nearly every day together in rehearsals for the joint tour, which kicked off in Miami on June 25.

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ery celebrity magazine and pursued by photographers and fans. While she enjoyed the success and got along well with her co-stars (both of whom were also of Southern origin), she found the material lightweight. Also, the long hours she worked were beginning to take a toll on her marriage to Majors, who found himself eclipsed by her popularity. So the following year, when the show was at its peak, she left to pursue a movie career. The move drew a negative reaction from many fans. As a result of that and some poor script choices, her career briefly hit a slow spot. In addition, she and Majors separated in 1979. She had starring roles in Somebody Killed Her Husband (1978), Sunburn (1979), and Saturn 3 (1980) (which she did a topless scene in), but all three failed financially.

She appeared in the Burt Reynolds chase comedy The Cannonball Run (1981), which was successful financially in spite of bad reviews, but her career benefited very little and she and Majors were drifting apart. In 1981, she met Ryan O'Neal, a friend of her husband's, and they began became friends and spent a great deal of time together. In 1982, she filed for divorce, which Majors readily agreed to. Soon, she and O'Neal were a couple and moved in together.

She made a major comeback when she starred in the searing story of a battered wife in The Burning Bed (1984), based on a true story. It garnered a very large audience, and critics gave her the best reviews she had ever received for her heartfelt performance.

She was nominated for both an Emmy and Golden Globe and also became involved in helping organisations for battered women. The following year, she and O'Neal became the parents of a son, 'Redmond O'Neal.' She tried to continue her momentum with a starring role in Extremities (1986), but while she garnered some positive reviews, the show was not well-received. She continued to seek out serious roles, appearing mainly on television. She scored success again in Small Sacrifices (1989), again based on a true crime. Portraying an unhappy woman who is so obsessed with the man she loves that she shoots her children to make herself available and disguises it as a carjacking, Farrah again won rave reviews and helped draw a large audience, and was nominated for an Emmy again.

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Shortly afterwards, she and O'Neal co-starred in Good Sports (1991), playing a couple who co-star in a sports news programme, but O'Neil's performance was lambasted and only 9 episodes were aired. In 1995, she surprised her fans by posing for "Playboy" at the age of 48 and it became the magazine's best-selling issue of that decade. Her relationship with O'Neal was deteriorating, however, and in 1997, they broke up. The breakup took a toll, and at that time she received very bad publicity when she appeared on Late Show with David Letterman (1993) and gave a rambling interview, sparking rumours of drug use. That same year, however, she made another comeback in The Apostle (1997), playing the neglected wife of a Pentacostal preacher, played by Robert Duvall. Both stars were praised and the film became a surprise hit. She also began dating producer James Orr. But after she turned down his marriage proposal in 1998, he severely beat her and the scandal drew nationwide headlines.

She immediately broke off all ties with him and he was charged and sentenced for assault. Embarrassed, she lowered her profile and her career lost momentum, but she continued to work in television and films. She and O'Neal also started seeing each other again, although it didn't last. In 2004, she received her third Emmy nomination for her performance in The Guardian (2003), but has experienced tragedy since then. In early 2006, she was devastated when her beloved mother died. Later that year, she was diagnosed with cancer and O'Neal, with whom she remains close in spite of their breakup, was diagnosed with leukaemia. On February 2, 2007, her 60th birthday, it was revealed that she was now cancer free. She continued to be a successful and important part of the entertainment industry. On June 25, 2009 Farrah lost her battle with cancer, and passed away aged 62.