Stredwick

I must say thank you to my readers who have purchased copies of my books or short stories. I now have materials on lulu.com, Amazon.com and payhip.com. I also have works on ebookmall.com. My catalogue of work is growing. I have several stories working on. All I ask is that my readers support me by buying my work. I welcome their criticism in whatever medium.

The city of Kingston, Jamaica's capital has many entrances and exits. From any entrance to this city you will be greeted by dilapidated and abandoned building and by the stench of raw sewage running on the streets. Recently a new municipal corporation was voted into office. Of course it has grand plans for the city but should be reminded Kingston started decaying years ago and it will take years to fix the problems. First of all there are too many abandoned buildings. They should invite the owners of these buildings to renovate them and rent them out. The landlords and their tennants would get a tax free holiday of twenty years. Secondly they should send out a notice and give the owners of abandoned buildings a period of time to fix up these buildings or risk having them demolished. 

So Donald Trump has won the United States presidential elections. He beat Mrs. Clinton in the Electoral College votes but lost in the popular votes. Many persons are unsure as to what kind of president he will be. He wasn't taken seriously when he announced his bid for the White House. He has made some contradictory statements. He seems hell bent on making America great again. He wants to take back American jobs, deport illegal migrant and build a wall to keep out the Mexicans among others. He seems in a hurry to get into a fuss with the Chinese. One thing is certain and that is the world might never be the same again after four or eight years of Donald Trump.

I don't know where I got the idea from but I'm writing a book on Jamaican abbreviations. I will also throw in some Caribbean and international abbreviations. So far I have about three hundred abbreviations but I would like to get at least five hundred. I think it might be useful to schools as we tend to form a lot of agencies and use abbreviations when talking about them.

Crime is certainly getting out of hand especially when we see what has been happening in Montego Bay. But no sooner had things calmed down in Montego Bay it started to go bad in another hot spot, Spanish Town. It seems that the criminals can get guns at will and kill likewise. It appears that these criminals are fearless because they know that if they come to trial witnesses will be too be too scared to come and testify against them.

Jamaica was booted from the 2018 World Cup qualifications after losing 2-0 to Panama. To add ignomity to that defeat we lost 2-0 to Haiti in our final game to finish at the bottom of the standings. There has been a lot of soul searching after those two defeats. It seems that every time the World Cup qualifications come around we use the same template that was used to qualify us in 1998. But it's not working and five times tried since then and five times failed should convince the authorities that they need to try another method .

I believe that with the almost inevitable exit of some of our most successful athletes from the sport, Jamaica will still amass a minimum of ten medals per game. I don't want to speculate on the color of those medals. I however think that we should try to get some medals from other sports to make up for any shortfalls that may occur in any competition year .

Well the 2016 Rio Olympics are over. Jamaica gained eleven medals, six golds, three silver and two bronze. We are maintaining our dominance on the track as we fished third in track and field. Some persons are worried that when our big named stars leave the scene there might be a downturn in our performance. I think we will continue this good trend in the foreseeable future.

Well the Olympic trials are over for a lot of countries including Jamaica and the United States. There were a few surprises at the US trials as some big name athletes fell by the wayside. We didn't have too many casualties in our trials. In the US trials you have to finish in the top three to get an individual berth. It will be an interesting clash between the USA and Jamaica. If our athletes retain their fitness then we should top the athletics medal table.

So the British people have voted to leave the European Union. Personally I believe that in such a far reaching referendum that has implications for the lives of  so many people I believe that it  should have been a more definitive vote. This is a decision that will affect the citizens of Britain for decades if not centuries to come. I think that to leave at least sixty percent of people would have to votes 'yes' to leave. In a general election people are voting for a government for the next four or five hears. Already we are hearing calls for a second referendum. There have also been calls for a parliamentary vote. Scotland which voted to stay in the EU is gearing up for a second referendum on whether it should leave the UK.

I have a number of publications on the Internet with various publishers. I even see my books being given away free without my permission. I don't know how this could be so. I might have ton give up writing or seek sponsorship since at the moment I can't get a job. I love writing especially the short story. I wouldn't mind getting sponsorship to continue my writing. I think my novel 'Uptown Lovers' is a very good book but I think my problem is that it was published P.O.D. It's the same think that happened to my novel 'Undercover Soldier'. I have now revised the latter book but don't hold out any hopes especially if it is published as a P.O.D.

How could the under seventeen Reggae boys lose to St. Kitts? It seems that the football program is not working. The senior Reggae boys went to the Copa America cup and didn't win a single game or score a goal. Several commentators have been calling for the resignation of the head coach. Frankly with just two more matches left I doubt if that makes sense. Anyway we see what Brazil did to their coaching staff for their failures in the Copa America.

S o the Tivoli Commission has finally delivered it's report. Many persons are commending the Commissioners on the report. It cost a lot of money for the report. The report recommended that an apology be made to the people of Tivoli and compensation be made. This is all a drain on the country's resources. Something like what happened in Tivoli must never be allowed to happen again. The Commissioners also recommended the dismantling of the garrisons but that is easier said than done.  Many persons are saying that the Tivoli residents must share some of the blame. Some of them refused to leave the community when the chance was offered them. Also some of them were manning the barricades.

As I have said before wasting money to build a bus park we should build a Public Hospital for Portmore.  If people from Portmore get sick they have to go hospitals several miles away. I remember on night I fell and cut my forehead. I  went to a hospital in Kingston the same night. Only a bandage was put on the cut and I was to return for it to be stitched the next day. No doctor turned up so I ended up at a private doctor.

So Mr. Donald Trump has become the Republican nominee and Mrs. Hilary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for the White in the November 2016 General Elections. Already many persons this side of the world are holding their breath and looking on with horror at the prospect of a Trump victory. He has said some things that makes one wonder what will the world look like if he ever gets to serve four years in the White House. Will the world survive a Donald Trump in the White House?

I am about to re-publish Undercover Soldier. My sister-in-law said that it was a good book but  I should cut down on the number of killings. I first published it with a couple of internet publishers. I think that because I publish it as POD it didn't do well. I get just one review which was very favorable. I still need to know the formulae for getting reviews. My novel' Uptown Lovers' hasn't made a sale nor gotten a review. It is a POD book. Here in Jamaica most writers like myself are on our own just struggling. We have to have a 9-5 job to make ends meet. The Ministry of Culture only recognize us during the Independence Celebrations. By the way I will be publishing 'Undercover Soldier' very soon.

The Prime Minister has made public the filings of his financial records to the Integrity Commission for the past number of  years which I think is very commendable . What I would like to see is that all Members of Parliament make their financial reports to the Integrity Commission public. But I must applaud what the Prime Minister has done. I think it was a bold move on his part.

The rapid devaluation of the Jamaican dollar since the February 2016 General Elections is a cause for concern. Is it a case that people are losing confidence in the Jamaican dollar.  I am not too old the remember when the Jamaican dollar was higher in value than the United States dollar. I think a study needs to be done as to why our currency has declined this rapidly over the years. I remember spending a week in a Spanish speaking country. I bought their currency when I arrived. I had to sell what I had not used when I was leaving and I lost more than one United States dollar in the exchange.

I don't agree with the building of a new bus park for Portmore adjacent to the Portmore Mall. I think it will become a white elephant. Just who is going to fund the construction? I think the lands should remain as a green space. At the moment Portmore is saturated with buildings and not enough trees. Why not used the land to plant a lot of threes. Also I think more emphasis should be placed on building a hospital in Portmore. The community has more people than most of the English speaking islands.

I remember when my father used to plant a lot of Cassava. Now cassava is being planted and is to be used in brewing beer. Because of a medical condition I don't drink beer but I would really like to find out if it tastes different from regular beer. I know that cassava is a staple in many countries. We used to make bammy and starch to starch our clothes. The dumplings made by the cassava flour was softer than that from wheat flour. I know we stopped eating cassava products in the 1970s but In can't say why.

So the Reggae boys finished the Coppa America without a point or a goal. One senior Jamaican coach ha called from the head of the Reggae boys coach. We note that Brazil has fired it' coach after their loss to Peru. The Reggae boy's chances of  going further in the qualifying rounds for Russia 2018 hangs by a slim thread. They have not qualified for the World Cup since 1998. A lot of football is played in Jamaica but something seems to be wrong. People have said that we need better playing surfaces. Others have said that too many of the players are born overseas. My belief is that our football need to be reorganized. We probably need a pro-league with just ten teams.

I was in church one day when I saw these three men and two women. The two men were brothers. The two women were neighbors and best friends. The other man was a police Corporal. The man preaching the service was a lay preacher. All five of them laid into the preacher.They accused him of not being any good and that he didn't know what he was talking about. He was of course condemming the drinking of alcohol and lewd behavior. At last the service was over and they flew out out of the church. I passed all five of them in a bar a little later on. I knew that was what they were upset with the preacher about. He didn't want to finish the service so that they could go and drink liquor.

I have heard a lot of adults say things before children  that was laced with vulgarity. They might be talking something about sex to another adult but children are within earshot and they just let loose not caring if children hear or not. I have heard lewd songs being played at children's birthday parties and nobody bats an eyelid. Parents will cure their children in the most  disgusting ways. I once saw a woman and her her children in a fight with her husband. The man was called some names not worth repeating here by the lady and repeated by her children.

I didn't want to comment on the Rio Olympics until after they took place. I am not going to predict the winner of any event. I believe that Jamaica will do better than London 2012 and Bejing 2008. I think the competition to secure places on the Jamaica n team is worth going miles to see. I know that we get to see the Jamaican Olympics trials live. Has any of our television stations ever tried to show the USA Olympic trials or it might be considered treason? Personally I would really love to see their track and field trials and it's no discourtesy to Jamaica, it's just my love for track and field.

I think something radical has to be done to fight this upsurge in crime especially murders. The National Identity System is urgently needed. We need more cameras in all the major and minor towns in the country. The police need to improve the rate at which they catch these criminals. As I have said the police need to treat minor offenses as major as sometimes the criminals are the ones committing these offenses. It is now being said that the reason for the upsurge in crime in the West is because of the lottery scamming. I believe that we should have a system where all car are identified by the parish in which the owner lives. At the moment if you want to open an account at a bank you have to provide proof of address. They normally ask for your last utility bill. For persons in ownership of a vehicle at the present time this could be done by clipping the parish initials onto the old license plate. For persons purchasing new cars no problems as the initials of the parish could be inscribe...

The breadfruit was brought to the West Indies by Captain Bligh. It is a very versatile fruit. The tree can grow to great heights. The fruit can be boiled and roasted. When it is roasted it is peeled and can be served hot or fried. Nowadays we see people selling roasted breadfruits in Kingston. People have used it to make breadfruit wine and chips. I remembered in the late sixties and seventies we used to roast half a dozen breadfruits every Saturday. We would cook run down and codfish and mix a huge jug of lemonade. I remember two breadfruit trees on our property that produced breadfruits that could never be roasted. Sadly those trees were destroyed by Hurricane Gilbert in 1988. The price of breadfruits is now rivaling bread prices. The yellow heart breadfruit is easily roasted.

I wrote an anthology of  short stories called' Making Grass Mats' to sell.   I remember a man called Sam Douglas and his sons used to pass my home early every Saturday morning going to cut grass to make mats. A man called Willie Smith and his sons would also go  too as would the Fraziers from Retreat. Women would also pass on their way to Harkers Hall to buy straw for making hat. They would also go to Bog Walk  to buy oranges. They would make all sorts of mats. I remember learning to make grass mats. We would cut the grass put it to quail, then plait it into long ropes. We would then use a big needle with special thread to sow the mats. I saw some huge mats with many patterns that could cover the floor of most living rooms. I used to see these mats on South Avenue off Constant Spring Road. I have passed by the area recently and I saw only a few of them.

The reason for writing this piece is because of the inconsistencies in news stories. The other day two newspapers had pictures of a wedding. One newspaper identified a lady as the bride's mother while another identified her as the bride's aunt. At the same wedding a gentleman was identified as the groom's father in one newspaper but in another as the groom's uncle. Neither newspaper did a correction. Sometimes one radio station will carry a story of an incident and sometimes another radio station will carry a completely different story about the same incident. I think that maybe what should happen is that all the radio and television stations should come together along with the newspapers and form a News bureau to feed them with news. It is very bad hearing the news on one radio station that three people were killed in a shootout but hearing on another station that they were in fact shot and injured. While you are happy that the people shot aren't  dead you aren...

I agreed with the Prime Minister that we should have Spanish as a second language. The Spanish speaking countries are next door to us. I did Spanish in high school but didn't go any further in the subject. I remembered being in Bogota, Colombia and really regretted not knowing Spanish. I believe that it is the Latinos who are learning English rather than us learning Spanish. There were eight of us on the course including the lecturer who knew no Spanish. Three of them knew no English while the other three knew English. I knew very little Spanish. But I wonder how can one become proficient at a language unless you are constantly using it. There were two managers on the course. One was a Dutchman who spoke both Spanish and English proficiently.The other was an Englishman who seemed right at home with Spanish.

I am not sure that the amount of  one million Jamaican dollars to be given to each  of the sixty-three (63) Member of Parliament to help with the ZikV clean up is adequate. I understand that they will also be able to use some of the money from their Constituency Development Fund (C.D.F). I think a lot of things need to be done. For example I live in Portmore and we have a lot of drains over here. When it rains there are several places where the water settles and doesn't run off until several days later. Many of the drains and gullies are full of stagnant water. I understand that they had put in fishes in some of these drains and gullies to eat the mosquitoes but I am not sure how that is working. Also Jamaica is a country with a lot of springs. Most parcels of land in the country areas has what is known as a gully and running in those gully is a small spring. Sometimes it runs into a swamp where the water is hardly running off. I think we need to do a lot of bushing and to put...

I'd like to pay tribute to Muhammed Ali. He was truly the greatest boxer who ever lived. We remember how he stood up against the Vietnam War by refusing to be drafted. He went to prison for it. We remembered his fights against Joe Frazer and George Foreman. We remember how he beat George Foreman in Zaire to regain the heavyweight title. I remembered when my father came home after watching the fight and said 'Ali beat the boy.' He was of course referring to George Foreman. I was in primary school when he fought Sony Liston. I had this friend and he stated that Liston said that Clay(Muhammed Ali) had used science to beat him. He told us that Liston said that he saw another man in the ring, fighting him. Of course my friend believed in such things. I thought that Liston was fooled by Ali's speed. It was sad to see him fighting after his prime and being beaten by lesser fighters.

The Traffigura case has been in the news for so long that it seems to be going nowhere anytime soon. We have had the Manat Inquiry and the Tivoli Enquiry. So I believe that it is time for the Traffigura inquiry to be done and over with. Frankly I am bored with this whole thing and if I never heard the word, Traffigura again, I don't think I would be sorry.

I do believe that all Members of Parliament should disclose their assets and liabilities to the Integrity Commission. I am not sure if I agree with making full disclosure to the public. But are these reports audited? I do believe that they should be audited and any additional statements or queries requested from the member should be given. My understanding is that the Integrity Commission is staffed by persons of the highest competence and integrity. However if somebody is going to disclose their asset and liabilities then what I'd like to see are the Income and Expenditure Account and a  detailed Balance Sheet with extensive notes.

The Infatuated Teenager by Austin Mitchell                 I remembered an incident with my friend, Elroy Reddy and some girls. I think he was in love with a girl, Lela Lobban. Lela was probably around eighteen as she left high school a year ago and was going to a commercial school. At the time I think Elroy might have been about fifteen since he was about two years older than me. We were both students of Keswick Mountain High School. Elroy was living a quarter of a mile from Lela’s home. He would spend most of his spare time at her home talking to her.             One of Lela’s friends, Greta had come to visit her that evening. Her mother begged Elroy to accompany both Lela and Greta back to the latter’s home a distance of a mile and a half. He saw me passing and asked me to go with them. The other girl, Greta, was in Grade Eleven. Both girls had o...

When cricket was in  it's heyday in the  we couldn't see an open piece of land and some sort of cricket game being played on it. We played cricket in gullies, on hillsides. We fashioned all sorts of bats used all sorts of balls to play the game. We all saw what that resulted in our being World Champions in the late 1970s and 80s. Many of those place where we used to play cricket are now reserved for football. We see the amount of  football being played and Jamaica qualified for the football World Cup in 1998. Trinidad also qualified a few years later. A former colleague of  mine told me that when Jamaica qualified for France in 1998, he went to France compliments of airline tickets from long lost relatives in England. This man was an ardent cricket fan. He told me that cricket wasn't saying anything again. Fortunately cricket in the West Indie is on the rise again in the shortest form of the game. We have just won the T-20 Wold Cup in both the women and men's version...

Some persons have said that we should just let sportsmen and women do as they please. If they want to take whatever drug to boost their performance that's their business. But if we allow these people to do as they please are we putting a burden on society. Some of these drugs are bound to damage their internal systems. People would boost up themselves perform, get paid but the whole world would know that they are drug cheats. What about those who refuse to take these drugs or can't afford it?What would the sponsors do? I'm sure that they would withdraw support from those drug cheating athletes. Probably all of our international sports meetings would crash because of a lack of sponsorship. If I am a sports personality and I've been competing whether internationally or locally for sometime and I'm used to a regimen where my nutrition is concerned. I think it would be my responsibility to check with my doctors or nutritionist if if I'm going to add to or make any ...

I don't understand the page views because I just started with Blogger towards the end of February 2016 . I have more than three thousand page views yet Blogger is saying than on some days I have no page views and sometimes just one page view.

              When I first taught school as an assistant teacher I met a youth, I will call him my least gifted student. It was in my first year at the school. There were about twenty students in the class. There were twelve girls and eight boys. In those days we used to set tests at the end of the term and the twelve girls would be placed before the eight boys. It was my first experience with such a situation. None of the boys were bright. As I have said there was this boy whom I probably saw about fifteen to twenty times during the school year. He could do absolutely nothing. Incidentally I was teaching Grade Seven. I wondered how could a boy like that reach Grade Seven and he could neither read nor write. The situation was bad with some of the other boys too because there was a set of about four of them who told me that they had to stop from school sometimes to look after their animals. But these boys tried their best a...

It is said that we punch way above our weight when it comes to  sports. Just look at what we have done at the Olympic games and World Championships. For sometime now we have been dominating world athletics. People have been amazed at our training facilities. It is no secret that some of the major national sporting organizations have pointed to the poor state of our facilities. How have we in Jamaica and in Caribbean at large developed so many talented sportsmen and women? But for a lack of resources we would have dominated the world in many other sporting disciplines. If we look at school sports the successful schools are those who put in proper training facilities and hire good coaches. Without predicting the medal count I think we will dominate the athletics program in Rio just as we did Bejing and London. One of the problems I have is that certain schools continue to dominate certain sports. It is not that talent doesn't reside in other schools but they simply do not have the r...

The False Bike Messenger       I was auditing at Bernie Green’s Insurance Brokerage. This was my third year with this particular client. I was familiar with most of the staff. I was actually a senior auditor with Denny, Junior and Singh, Chartered Accountants. If I remembered right it was a Tuesday and I was just returning from lunch when I saw Westin, their bike messenger, coming out of a taxi.           I wondered what had happened to his bike.   Later that afternoon, I was busy working on some audit schedules when Ditty Burke came into the room where I was. She was their Accountant.           “They stole Westin’s bike.”           “I was wondering what happened to him. I saw him come in a taxi.”           I knew that about two years ago gunmen had held him up an...

So the 2016 Hurricane Season is upon us. The season begins on June 1st and ends on November 30th. In September 1988 we were hit by a devastating hurricane called Gilbert. This hurricane wreaked millions of dollars worth of damage on the country and led to the loss of several lives. On the morning after the hurricane I was walking down to Bayside in Portmore when a man told me that men were down there looting a supermarket. My parent's home in  the country was almost destroyed. Hundreds of houses lost their roofs. Many of us who had never experienced an hurricane before felt that we had had enough. A neighbor of mine in the rural areas was killed when his roof fell on him. I took two days off work but when we returned our boss quarreled with us about staff using the hurricane as an excuse not to turn up for work. I knew that that hurricane cost us a sizeable portion of our GDP that year. As I have mentioned people used the hurricane to loot other people's property. Another man t...

In the United States they have term limits, whereby the President cannot serve more than two consecutive four year terms. In Africa for example we have seen the constitution of several of these countries being changed to allow Presidents to serve additional terms in office. Sometimes the populace has objected and this has led to violence. The people of Bolivia recently rejected Evo Morales attempt to serve another term in office. I think there should be term limits for the Prime Minister. However I am not sure whether it should be two or three terms of five years each. A man could become Prime Minister at forty years, serve two five year terms and be out of office by age fifty. On the other hand an individual could serve as Prime Minister, be booted out of office in the next election, has to wait out the term of office of the party in government before getting back into office. I believe that an individual should only be allowed to serve two consecutive terms as Prime Minister. If ...

'Simmo', the Politician by Austin Mitchell            We all knew how long Miss Darlene had served the party and felt that her time had come. She was going up against a man called Cedric (Simmo) Simpson. Simmo has just returned home after several years in the United States. He was a man in his late forties while Miss Darlene was a woman in her mid- forties. Both of them were vying to be caretaker for the parish council division which was made up of the villages of Keswick, Norris and Dudley. There was a belief that the elections would soon be called. Both of them had been doing house to house canvasing. We felt that Miss Darlene would win the delegates from Keswick and Norris. Simmo was from Dudley so we expected him to carry those delegates.             So that Sunday evening we boarded Danny Pinter’s truck and headed for Keswick High School where the selection would ...