“Those who can­not say ‘prunes’ can say ‘gua­va’ ” was one of my ma­ter­nal grand­moth­er’s favourite pro­nounce­ments. It was ut­tered with ex­ag­ger­a­tion on the ‘prunes’ (half-rhyming with ‘prude’) and ‘gua­va’ (with over­ly enun­ci­at­ed ‘a’ sounds at the end of each syl­la­ble). The mean­ing was all con­veyed in the mouth’s con­tor­tions; from but­ter-wouldn’t-melt pursed lips to wide­ly opened jaws. It was a con­dem­na­tion of the (os­ten­si­bly) sex­u­al­ly nar­row-mind­ed, but (ac­tu­al­ly) hyp­o­crit­i­cal judg­men­tal­ism of the striv­ing gen­teel bour­geoisie. And there was no short­age of that type in the Wood­brook and Port-of-Spain of my grand­par­ents. My grand­moth­er has been dead for near­ly 20 years, but Bre­anne McIvor’s nov­el brings back my grand­moth­er’s voice with in­stant clar­i­ty and warmth.

Sev­er­al pieces of lit­er­a­ture linked low-self es­teem and de­pres­sion among moth­ers with post-preg­nan­cy weight. But 12 years af­ter de­liv­er­ing her son, Marisa Khan-Lutch­man will hit the stage at the World Women’s Physique Elite Pro Cham­pi­onship in Bar­ba­dos this week­end.

The T&T Heart Foun­da­tion host­ed its an­nu­al Go Red For Women High Tea and Fash­ion Show at the Hy­att Re­gency last Sun­day. Mod­els from the House of Jacqui set the stage on fire as they show­cased fash­ion from Zadd and East­man, Charu Lochan Dass, Ne­ha Ka­ri­na, Ye­le­na Jan, Koo­tis Cou­ture and Clos­et Red. Vi­o­lin­ist David Frank, pan­nist Joshua Re­grel­lo, and vo­cal­ist Kevon Carter pro­vid­ed en­ter­tain­ment at the gala event.

Ac­claimed as “one of the most glam­orous events in the world,” Miss/Mrs/Teen In­dia World­wide is the on­ly in­ter­na­tion­al In­di­an pageant with af­fil­i­ates in over 35 coun­tries. A record num­ber of In­di­an-ori­gin con­tes­tants from around the world are ex­pect­ed to par­tic­i­pate along with celebri­ties from Bol­ly­wood.

For rea­sons un­known, hu­mans have a lot of bread analo­gies when it comes to cats. Per­haps the most fa­mil­iar is ‘knead­ing’: the mo­tion that cats make by push­ing in and out with their paws, al­ter­nat­ing be­tween right and left, re­sem­bling a bak­er knead­ing dough. To­day’s ar­ti­cle will look at an­oth­er: the loaf.

In­di­an Ar­rival Day, cel­e­brat­ed on May 30, com­mem­o­rates the ar­rival of In­di­an In­den­tured labour­ers who ar­rived in Trinidad in 1845 on the Fa­tel Raza­ck. Their sole pur­pose was to pro­vide a labour force on the sug­ar and co­coa es­tates af­ter African slaves were eman­ci­pat­ed.

The hoot­ing of the red howler mon­keys had my adren­a­line pump­ing while walk­ing through their ter­ri­to­ry in the Covi­gne Riv­er Gorge.

The Ro­tary Club of Mar­aval re­cent­ly host­ed its Bridger­ton-themed high tea event for its 30th An­niver­sary Cel­e­bra­tion and Fundrais­er at Mille Fleurs. Ex­trav­a­gant­ly adorned in Re­gency-era fash­ion, pa­trons were sur­round­ed by mag­nif­i­cent art­work on ex­hib­it and those on auc­tion from lo­cal artists. They were ser­e­nad­ed by the T&T Youth Phil­har­mon­ic or­ches­tra.

T&T is no stranger to the dev­as­tat­ing im­pact of nat­ur­al dis­as­ters. In re­cent years, the coun­try has ex­pe­ri­enced floods and oth­er ex­treme weath­er events that have left a trail of de­struc­tion in their wake. May has been marked as the month of Na­tion­al Dis­as­ter Pre­ven­tion and Pre­pared­ness Month (NDPPM) by the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM). This an­nu­al event seeks to mo­bilise cit­i­zens to ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pate in dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness and pre­ven­tion pri­or to the com­mence­ment of the At­lantic’s Hur­ri­cane sea­son and the coun­try’s rainy sea­son in June. The theme this year is, “Be­ing dis­as­ter ready is MY re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”

The Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee of T&T (ES­CTT) boasts of the largest Pan-African Fes­ti­val out­side of the con­ti­nent of Africa and kicks off its 31st year of cel­e­bra­tions with the fash­ion ex­trav­a­gan­za, Ewa Afri­ka …. Sanko­fa Style at the Queen’s Hall to­day from 4 pm. The event is be­ing di­rect­ed by cel­e­brat­ed re­gion­al pro­duc­tion de­sign­er Richard Young.

“The pur­pose of life, af­ter all, is to live it, to taste ex­pe­ri­ence to the ut­most, to reach out ea­ger­ly and with­out fear for new­er and rich­er ex­pe­ri­ence.”

With some four mil­lion books pub­lished an­nu­al­ly (a mil­lion rough­ly di­vid­ed up be­tween the UK and the US, Source: Word­sRat­ed) it’s safe to say a book can drown with­out mar­ket­ing and re­views. Es­pe­cial­ly if it’s a Caribbean book.