Car­ni­val and so­ca may be in Ron­nie McIn­tosh’s blood, but while oth­ers are dou­bled over in de­spair from the loss of this sea­son, the cul­tur­al icon has got­ten over his Car­ni­val ta­ban­ca for 2021. The so­ca vet­er­an and mas­mak­er feels that as far as the fes­ti­val is con­cerned, all of its stake­hold­ers should use the down­time for a to­tal re­set.

At your last vis­it to the doc­tor, you may have re­ceived one of the most im­por­tant pre­scrip­tions of your life, one that on­ly you can fill at a nom­i­nal cost: ex­er­cise. Or it may be one of your New Year res­o­lu­tions. But how do you be­gin? If you have nev­er had a for­mal ex­er­cise pro­gramme, or your ex­er­cise rou­tine lapsed over the years be­cause of ill­ness, changes in sched­ules, in­creas­ing de­mands dur­ing the pan­dem­ic; the idea of start­ing now may seem daunt­ing. What kind of ex­er­cise should you do and how much? How can you be sure you will ob­tain the health ben­e­fits?

Does this sound bizarre? It is not. In fact, re­cent re­search sug­gests that near­ly half of all heart at­tacks are silent heart at­tacks.

Her large ex­pres­sive eyes and bub­bly An­glo-In­di­an ac­cent have been a sta­ple of T&T’s jour­nal­is­tic land­scape for over 25 years. Last month, Ira Math­ur's pro­lif­ic body of work con­sist­ing of more than 900 columns, most­ly for the Trinidad Guardian, and over two dozen fea­tures and doc­u­men­taries cul­mi­nat­ed in the launch of her web­site, www.iras­room.org

As we plan for 2021, we al­so rec­ol­lect on the tu­mul­tuous year of 2020. From a health per­spec­tive, it has been one turned up­side down with a dead­ly glob­al pan­dem­ic re­ori­ent­ing how we live our lives and re­late to oth­ers. The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has jus­ti­fi­ably dom­i­nat­ed head­lines and at­ten­tion from me­dia, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, and health of­fi­cials alike.

The New Year is an ide­al time to set new health res­o­lu­tions, but for many of us, stick­ing to those res­o­lu­tions are trou­bled by fears and chal­lenges. How­ev­er, we are for­tu­nate that sci­ence is on our side, shed­ding es­sen­tial hacks on how to turn a goal in­to ac­tion and en­sur­ing tri­umph. It comes down to one word: Sched­ules

Many char­i­ties need a lit­tle ex­tra help par­tic­u­lar­ly in the wake of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic, and they re­ly on the le­gion of bril­liant vol­un­teers who help feed the home­less, at­tend to the or­phan­ages or call an old­er per­son who is fac­ing spend­ing time alone.

The Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment has ad­vanced an­oth­er step in its ef­forts to mon­i­tor and mit­i­gate against po­ten­tial pol­lu­tion threats from the Gua­napo Land­fill, with a re­cent as­sess­ment ex­er­cise in the area.

At 50, Car­olyn Gopaul says she feels con­tent­ed and fab­u­lous. Hav­ing grap­pled with a mys­te­ri­ous void in her heart and the con­cerns of be­ing a full-fig­ured woman, the act­ing Hu­man Re­sources Man­ag­er of Met­al In­dus­tries Com­pa­ny-In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy (MIC-IT), has found her strength. She has come to em­brace her­self; from her pur­ple, red or blue hair­styles right down to her blinged-out match­ing man­i­cures and pedi­cures.

But for this to hap­pen, she needs the help of gen­er­ous Samar­i­tans so she can ex­tend the ten by eight room she cur­rent­ly calls home.

Christ­mas is no­to­ri­ous­ly a time for overindul­gence, more so in a year when the world came to a halt and the fragili­ty of our ex­is­tence be­came more ev­i­dent. Not be­ing a grinch with your joy this sea­son, but Health Plus want­ed to en­sure, you rev­el in all the fes­tiv­i­ties with­out too much im­pact on your health and waist­line.

In­grid Per­saud, Trinidad-born writer liv­ing in Lon­don, whose de­but nov­el Love Af­ter Love pub­lished in 2020 by Faber in the UK is short­list­ed for the huge­ly pres­ti­gious Cos­ta First Nov­el Award. Per­saud won the Com­mon­wealth Short Sto­ry Prize in 2017 and the BBC Na­tion­al Short Sto­ry Award in 2018. She read law at the LSE and was an aca­d­e­m­ic be­fore study­ing fine art at Gold­smiths and Cen­tral Saint Mar­tins. Her writ­ing has ap­peared in Gran­ta, Prospect, The Guardian, The In­de­pen­dent, Na­tion­al Ge­o­graph­ic, Five Di­als and Pree mag­a­zines. In­grid Per­saud's Love Af­ter Love short­list­ed for the Cos­ta Prize for a De­but writer as it rep­re­sents a break­through in the Caribbean nov­el while ex­plor­ing uni­ver­sal themes of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, sex­u­al­i­ty, and self-harm. This nom­i­na­tion comes at a time that ap­pears to be a re­nais­sance for women writ­ers in the Caribbean, and par­tic­u­lar­ly Trinidad.