Pe­ter Ray Blood

Ex­act­ly 38 years ago, his­to­ry was cre­at­ed when T&T Car­ni­val was cel­e­brat­ed in May, on May 1-2 to be ex­act. Well, his­to­ry is about to re­peat it­self with more mas in May–a dou­ble dose ac­tu­al­ly–with the snap Gen­er­al Elec­tions sched­uled for May 24, and Point Fortin Bor­ough Day mas tak­ing place to­mor­row. All roads lead to Point Fortin from as ear­ly as tonight for the start of Bor­ough Day mas, be­gin­ning with J'Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions at 5 am. With the fes­tiv­i­ties al­ready at fever pitch from this past week's dai­ly ac­tiv­i­ties, to­day's events in­clude a birth­day par­ty at Coro­na­tion Park and a Fire­works Dis­play tonight, at the same venue.

Hope­ful­ly to­mor­row's steel­band and cos­tume pa­rade will not be like the 1972 Car­ni­val, when tor­ren­tial rain played hav­oc with the peo­ple's mas. Fol­low­ing to­mor­row's J'Ou­vert through the streets of the Bor­ough, af­ter lunch will see the pa­rade of tra­di­tion­al and pret­ty mas. There have been ru­mours of some stake­hold­ers baulk­ing at the idea at hav­ing the lat­ter, pre­fer­ring to keep the street pa­rade ex­clu­sive­ly for tra­di­tion­al cos­tumes.

Mod­els Soowan Bram­ble, Can­dice Wor­rell and Kar­lon Richards dis­play Chi­nese and African cos­tumes for Roy­al­ty's J'Ou­vert pre­sen­ta­tion ti­tled Re­al Uni­ty.

Pret­ty mas on pa­rade

Nonethe­less, ex­pect­ed to cre­ate a sen­sa­tion through the streets of Point Fortin, from 3 pm, are 2010 Band of the Year (Medi­um) Ron­nie & Caro, and peren­ni­al favourite Lega­cy, led by "Big Mike" An­toine and Juli­et de la Bastide. Said Lega­cy band­leader, Big Mike, this week, "this is a won­der­ful op­por­tu­ni­ty to again pro­mote our cul­ture and keep Car­ni­val alive out­side of the reg­u­lar sea­son. "At the same time, we al­so give back to our mas­quer­aders who look for­ward to a day of cul­ture, fun and an­oth­er 'jump' in their Car­ni­val 2010 cos­tumes."

Mike as­sured that Lega­cy's cel­e­bra­tion, like that of Ron­nie & Caro, on the streets of Point Fortin, will be an all-in­clu­sive ex­pe­ri­ence, as free drinks and snacks will be pro­vid­ed, as well as round trip trans­port by bus from Port-of-Spain. Mu­sic will be pro­vid­ed by MK Pro­mo­tions, fea­tur­ing top ra­dio DJs and per­son­al­i­ties, and Lega­cy's se­cu­ri­ty will be in full ef­fect. Carib leads a slew of spon­sors, in­clud­ing Blue Wa­ters, Co­ca Co­la, An­gos­tu­ra and Dig­i­cel, of whom Big Mike was high in praise. To be a part of Lega­cy for Point Fortin Bor­ough Day, fur­ther in­for­ma­tion can be ob­tained by call­ing 362-5959; or, Lega­cy Mas Camp (622-7466), be­tween 10am-6.30 pm.

Pop­u­lar so­ca artiste TC Jig­ga seems hap­py be­ing flanked by two mas­quer­aders at last year's J'Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions in Point Fortin.

Choco­late for J'Ou­vert

Al­so head­ing south in the morn­ing is pop­u­lar Wood­brook J'Ou­vert band Choco­late City, with its pre­sen­ta­tion en­ti­tled The Make Up Edi­tion. CC has etched a space for it­self in J'Ou­vert mas, pre­vi­ous­ly pro­duc­ing Rio, The 3Sum Af­fair and Fore Play. The band con­gre­gates in the morn­ing at two o'clock, in front of the PNM of­fice carpark in Point Fortin. It's an all-in­clu­sive af­fair, cost­ing $350, and a pre-J'Ou­vert par­ty is planned be­fore mas­quer­aders hit the street at 5 am. Ex­pect­ed to ac­com­pa­ny CC along the route are top so­ca acts Iw­er George, Ed­die Charles, Blaxx, Pelf and De­siree Paul.

Pan on D Move

The Pan on D Move pa­rade is sched­uled to be­gin at 5 pm and is ex­pect­ed to show­case sev­er­al of the na­tion's top steel­bands. Point Fortin Bor­ough 30th An­niver­sary Cel­e­bra­tions cul­mi­nate on Sun­day with a num­ber of events, be­gin­ning with a Drag­on Boat Re­gat­ta, the Sin­gle Pan Ex­trav­a­gan­za, and a Cool Down, in Guapo, and at the Clifton Hill Beach and Carpark. Lat­er in the evening, the Bedrock pre­mi­um all-in­clu­sive par­ty, at Lake As­phalt, brings the cur­tain down on what has been a month of ex­cit­ing fes­tiv­i­ties.