Jamaica is just so depressing. Everything about it. I am miserable everytime I come back here. It is also not helped by the fact that I don’t have my own space. Probably it wouldn’t be so bad if I did.

Early November is when I leave again, and I am hoping that I don’t come back here for a long, long time. I’m going to take my Caricom Certificate of Recognition and roam, roam, roam. I don’t intend to be in Jamaica at Christmas for more reasons than one.

This island is doomed. I don’t know why anyone would choose to move back here.

Went to the post office yesterday. The missy told me it was $380 to mail the letter I had. She gave me 3 x $60 and the rest in $40 stamps. So I asked her if she had run out of $60 stamps. She asked me why. I told her she could have given me more $60 stamps so I would have less number of stamps. She said she didn’t have any $100 stamps, so the 3 x $60 was to make up $180 blah blah blah.

Why didn’t she give me 6 x $60 and 1 x $20? That was the point I was trying to get across but she just didn’t get it.

From I was in highschool I was writing, but just in my diaries (this was always written in my secret code!). Then when I started working and then living on my own, I started to write a semi-autobiography centred around a croaking lizard. That is still on hold after it was given negative reviews by my brother (as if he knows anything about publishing!).

Then when I went to England to study from 2001 to 2003 I created two different update series. ‘Guildford Chronicles’ really started out by letting everybody know how I got on with the flight and so on (including having to return to Heathrow when I discovered I had left my radio in the baggage hall!!). Then I would periodically email every week or two weeks to let them know what I was getting up to. Oddly enough, it never dawned on me to keep any of what I wrote, until my father, who is not given to whimsical ideas, said “I hope you’re keeping these”.

More and more people emailed back to say how much they looked forward to what I wrote. One British lady who was a regular guest of the hotel in Grenada where I worked, said she printed off the two or three pages (yes….I am long winded sometimes), poured herself a G&T or a glass of wine, reclined in her chair and read it out to her husband!

The subject of Guildford Chronicles was mostly about school and life on campus. When I moved up to Nottingham to a small town called Beeston, ‘Nottingham Niblets’ became more about my housemates who I had given nicknames suck as Messy Bloke, Bike Bloke and the Chinese couple called Li Ping and Lucy Lui.

So I’ve kept them and people keep asking “when is the book coming out?” But that requires time and most importantly, a publisher who would want to publish it! Who wants to hear about Yamfoot’s trials of being back in school after 12 years, her weight loss dilemmas and such the like, unless they know her?

This morning, I was reading The Monday Interview in The Jamaica Gleaner (always very interesting, done by Barbara Ellington) and Ian Randle was the subject. First I thought Randle was caucasian. I am actually published in one of his books. He focuses more on academic and the scholarly stuff (yes, Miss Yamfoot is an all rounder…..academia, cricket, life….). I took this paragraph from the interview where he tells what an author needs to do before coming to him. All budding writers take note….

BE: What does the prospective author need to know before he
comes to you?

IR: The author needs to do his research, investigate us to see what we do before coming with something we don’t publish. We have a catalogue on our website. Don’t send us a manuscript; the first
contact we need is someone telling us what they are working on and if we are interested, we will ask for a proposal in which you sell the product and yourself. We will both be clear on what you are doing, why it’s different and who would be the market.

We ask for something on the author and then we ask for some marketing information, who will buy it and what is your level of
exposure. Then the author has to follow our style guidelines. If we like all that we ask for the manuscript. Once the manuscript comes in, if it’s a scholarly and academic book, we send it for academic review, we ask experts in the field to read it and give us an assessment. Some don’t need that. The author is asked to respond to their critique/feedback and they will end up with a better manuscript.

Server problems, so both my regular site and CaribbeanCricket.com have died.

Until the server becomes like Jesus and is resurrected, I will post here.

I still in Barbados. Weather has been good. We finally won a match yesterday, a match which was reduced to 20 overs per side because of rain the night before.

So tomorrow’s match against Barbados is a must win one, and then we have to hope Leewards beats the Windwards in order for us to go through to the semi finals. Too many “ifs”. With the line up we have, this should not be happening!

Anyway, Barbados remains as pleasant as ever. Really a treat being this side.

Enjoy your weekend.

This blog was set up temporarily while we awaited word of Keith Hammond who went missing at sea when his plane went down. He has still not been found, but the family has had the memorial service for him, so blogging has resumed at my other blog…

Click here

Imagine, I get stopped today on Mountain View Avenue doing 75kmh in a 50kmh zone. And I wasn’t going to drive that way but my passenger, who shall remain nameless, suggested that I drive that way.

So now I have find J$5,000 to pay by 13th May.

I was pissed. This is the second time I have got a ticket in my life. The first one, I gave it to somebody who knew somebody and it disappeared. The fine is bad and not too bad, but to have 2 points added to my licence, means there is now a blemish on my so far perfect record!

The policeman say come to court if I want to contest the ticket. How ah going to contest it? Me never did look pon di speedometer. And in this new Volvo, you only have to press your foot down a likkle and it gone up to 80kmh just like that.

After the ticket, I drove at what I thought was a slow speed, looked on the speedometer and it was saying 60!

How does the bun come in? Comfort food for this distressing, life changing event!

So the blog will accept annoymous posters…..just for Dr D.

Oonu si how mi nice?

Posting will resume on the Original Yamfoot from next Monday. The memorial service for Keith Hammond will be held this Saturday. Using my blog has been my way of paying my respects so I won’t be going to that service. I don’t think they have a church big enough to hold all the people who will be there.

You remember that movie with Sandra Bullock? She was voted Miss Congeniality and went on to win.

Same thing in Miss Jamaica Universe. Miss Congeniality won. Rachelle Wright. From I heard the interview segment that was my winner. She was intelligent and very comfortable. This was unlike Shavoy Gordon who tied for third. She was told that she had 60 seconds to market jamaica. She said something like this.

“We gave you Bob Marley, the Bobsled team and recently Veronica Campbell, and I want to be a part of that legacy”.

Terrible.

Another was asked if she was banished from jamaica, which country she would want to go to. She responded by saying..

“If I was abolished from Jamaia…..”

Rachel )not sure of spelling) was asked about how she would improve basic education in Jamaica and she said the first thing would be to start with the parents so that they understand that education is important, that they must get involved in their kids’ education, that they must send kids to school etc. Very good response I thought.

I got the feeling that Mad Bull’s pick (wink) thought she would have been the runaway winner. She tied for third only.

I could be a judge cause I picked number 1 and number 2, Shaunelle Blake who also won Most Aware and Most Photogenic.

The production was terrible. Very cheap. Not grand at all.

I say….give me a contestant’s body, and I would win hands down!!!

I think it was Mad Bull or Dr D who commented on the lack of quality of this year’s batch of contestants. I just here watching the show and boy oh boy were they right.

There should be a law against beauty contestants who have cellulite entering.

The one or two that have a passable face, have body issues.

I went to a talk yesterday given by the Executive Director of the National Aids committee for Jamaica. After a little exercise she did, it made me think that sex is really not worth the risks, so that’s it. Lock down, turn off, retire.

She gave 4 people a piece of paper each. One had the letter S, one G, one C and one P. She had told us not to open it until she said.

Then she made us meet and greet each other at the start. Then she explained that that was similar to us having sex with other people. I had the letter S, which meant Syphillis. So everybody whose hand I shook, caught syphillis from me. G was for Gonorhea so everybody whose hand that person shook caught Gonorhea. C was for Condom. That person was safe, so they didnt catch anything and P was for pregnant.

So that illustrated how sexual diseases, including HIV are spread. So when you have sex with one person, you not just having sex with that person, but rather with everybody else that the partner has slept with as well!

I had known this of course, but the way it was illustrated really brought it home to me.

It’s just not worth it. Of course if you are what you think to be a monogamous relationship, it’s not so bad. But how do you know? You don’t, unless you watch your partner 24/7, which is impractical.

So you get my reasoning for the lockdown now?