Pe­ter Ray Blood

?It's been a gru­elling fort­night for me, hav­ing added my thrice-per-week ap­pear­ance on Mixed Nuts, The CT Vibe 105.1FM ear­ly morn­ing ra­dio pro­gramme to my al­ready hec­tic week­ly work sched­ule. Last week­end can on­ly be de­scribed as crazy, be­gin­ning from the pre­ced­ing Wednes­day, when I judged the an­nu­al CPO (Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion) Deck the Halls con­test with Denise "Saucy Wow" Bel­fon and pop­u­lar run­way mod­el Asha. Cor­po­rate Ser­vices emerged as the 2009 Deck the Halls win­ner, fol­lowed by last year's champ In­dus­tri­al & Labour Re­la­tions. The CPO's small Le­gal Ser­vices team placed a well de­served third. On Fri­day night I at­tend­ed the launch of Alvin Daniell's 2010 CD, a re­lease chock-full of some tan­ta­lis­ing items for next year's Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion. It seemed that every promi­nent steel­band arranger was at PCS Sil­ver Stars pa­n­yard for the oc­ca­sion, as well as rep­re­sen­ta­tives from many steel­bands. Sil­ver Stars con­tin­ued its Parang & Steel se­ries, again to a sold-out au­di­ence on Sat­ur­day night.

On the par­ty front, Ger­ald Yorke host­ed yet an­oth­er ter­rif­ic all-in­clu­sive Christ­mas par­ty at his Diego Mar­tin res­i­dence, while every­one at­tend­ing Denise Bel­fon's birth­day bash–Lights! Cam­era! Ac­tion!– at the Livin' Room in Ari­ma, had a rip-roar­ing time in­to the wee hours of Sun­day morn­ing. Get­ting through Sun­day was quite a chal­lenge as the day was filled with things to do. I got start­ed by at­tend­ing the Pa­trons of Queen's Hall an­nu­al Christ­mas Brunch and parang fes­ti­val, held this year at Li­ons. It was over the top, with per­for­mances by Los Paran­deros de UWI, Los Alum­nos de San Juan, Los Can­tantes de Nues­tra Seno­ra, and NP Ul­tra Sounds steel­band. Apart from the food, in­clu­sive of some de­li­cious old-fash­ioned pone, tooloom and tamarind balls, ex­pert­ly hawked by at­tor­ney Gillian Seecher­an-Scott, I rel­ished the sor­rel made by Mar­garet Wal­cott and gin­ger beer done by Pa­trons chair­man Mar­lene God­dard.

Af­ter the sump­tu­ous Sun­day lunch, I sim­ply had to re­turn home to catch a few zzzzs, be­fore ven­tur­ing back out to see one of my 36 god chil­dren, eight-year-old Ah­jah­nay Grif­fith, per­form at the chil­dren's con­cert staged by her school–The Athean­ian Presec­ondary School–at UWI's Learn­ing Re­source Cen­tre in St Au­gus­tine. The venue was packed to its rafters with par­ents and fam­i­lies, and school prin­ci­pal Kezia Re­ece was like the En­er­giz­er Bun­ny, show­ing that it is pos­si­ble to co­or­di­nate tiny tots in a stage per­for­mance. Hus­tling from UWI, I took in a piece of the clos­ing night of CHOGM Vil­lage at The Wa­ter­front, be­fore ven­tur­ing to Dex­ter Roberts' Man­goes Restau­rant in Wood­brook, where he launched his cater­ing ser­vice. It was in­deed an evening of culi­nary ex­cel­lence, as Dex­ter treat­ed guests to a dizzy­ing ar­ray of cui­sine and desserts.

No need to tell you, it took me some time to fall asleep on Sun­day night, due to my ex­tend­ing the ca­pac­i­ty of my stom­ach to its max. Thank good­ness, the sec­ond test be­tween West In­dies and Aus­tralia was live on tele­vi­sion. My apolo­gies to The Love Move­ment, Mar­i­onettes Chorale, The Ly­di­ans, Spice Car­ni­val, the Chut­ney Foun­da­tion and Ian and Ni­na McKen­zie for miss­ing their events–there is re­al­ly just one of me. This week­end is as de­mand­ing and, come hell or high wa­ter, by God's will, I shall be in Saly­bia this week­end for to­mor­row's Parang So­ca Christ­mas Food Fes­ti­val, host­ed by FB Pro­mo­tions, Yorke Inc and Saly­bia Beach Re­sort. Fu­elling this all-in­clu­sive par­ty will be Los To­cadores, Ken­ny J, Mar­i­lyn Williams and Nin­ja, plus a slew of disc jock­eys.

?Jen­nifer Lara, daugh­ter of de­ceased parang leg­end Tito Lara, left, moves to the mu­sic with her cousin Clau­dia Ot­t­ley. Pho­tos: Sean Nero