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Pandemic and Prices

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Submitted by Wayne Cadogan

Good Morning David, I know that it has been a  while I haven’t submitted anything, but I thought that I should make a contribution and this short article was not a bad topic to start. If it is possible to be printed in any form to get the message out, I would appreciate it. Thanks.

price gouging

Someone sent me this receipt last night on WhatsApp and I thought that I should share it with the public. This is highway robbery, price gouging, stealing from the poor. This is one of the reasons that Barbados needs to have a strong consumer protection agency to fight for and protect the vulnerable from being taken advantage of by some of these unscrupulous business establishments of the poor who are the ones that usually feel the brunt of such exploitation. Barbadians need to boycott these businesses that infringe on the laws and taking advantage of the less fortunate. What is really amusing is the fact that they say ” Thanks, come again”.

 

Wake up Barbadians.

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205 responses to “Pandemic and Prices”

  1. Artax Avatar
    Artax

    “Imagine workers getting $250 per week and next time we read Eurocentric eighteen century crap try applying it to this simple fact.”

    @ Mr. Skinner

    if you’re referring to “the psychology of shopping,” then, I agree with you wholeheartedly. It’s one of those sweet sounding ‘theories,’ that, when applied to our society, especially under the circumstances you mentioned. they are mere ‘book talk.’

    To ‘say’ “Because prices are lower in one shop does not mean consumers will flood in to it,” is being ‘out of touch with reality.’

    If we’re going to look at a comparative analysis of prices of the SAME ITEMS, at different retail outlets, then, Popular Discounts, Cherish Cosmetique, SoLo and Jordan’s Supermarket, have the most competitive prices in Barbados.

    Compare the ‘customer turnover’ at Emerald City, Carlton and Massy, where the prices are a bit higher, with the establishments I mentioned above. Also, take a look their clientele and when they shop.

    Prices at Cherish and Popular, for example, are among the lowest you can find anywhere in the island. There are 5 Popular Discounts in Barbados, all of which “customers flood into”….. from 7AM to 7PM………EVERYDAY. So too is SoLo in Black Rock and Cherish.

    Additionally, “Psychologically, shoppers associate cheap with no good,” is also questionable. Retail outlets, such as “Dollar Wise” (the $3 store), source cheaper product brands for resale. How do we explain 6 or 7 $3 stores?

  2. Vincent Codrington Avatar
    Vincent Codrington

    We live iIn a free market system and each segment of the market has its customers. In the free market system there is freedom of choice. The motivating factors are not the same.There are psychological values / bonuses which need not be reflected in the dollar price.

  3. David Avatar
    David

    @Vincent

    Does consumer behaviour change in crisis conditions? You maybe surprise by the answer.

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325335538_Does_consumer_buying_behavior_change_during_economic_crisis

  4. William Skinner Avatar
    William Skinner

    @ Greene
    Read Barbados Today( current edition) Caswell means gross salary.
    @ Hal
    When I say “ Eurocentric eighteenth century crap”, that is exactly what I mean. Most of the economic theories etc are based on Eurocentric thesis going back to the eighteenth century. In other words we are taking the cue from worn out irrelevant thinking.
    For example, on BU, we never to any significant degree , or if ever quote: Lloyd Best; Michael Manley , Eric Williams.
    There are Caribbean thinkers as well. My comment was not about what hoes on in any European country.
    As far as worker participation and ownership is concerned, the only local company that seems to have this is the electrical division of Williams Industries (Bizzy Williams). It may be the entire corporation and not only the electrical division.
    @ Artax
    I concur. Until we break away from spouting irrelevant and basically useless solutions to our problems, we would remain stuck in non productive intellectual pettiness. Ninety eight percent of our immediate problems can be addressed and solved overnight but we choose to serve the same warm over soup. If we proceed with this current thinking , we would be no better off post COVID 19 .
    Bob Marley did not go through Europe trying to sound like Tom Jones or Elton John. After he left those places all the white youth were trying to talk like Jamaicans and were wearing locks. We need a mental intellectual divorce from Eurocentric thinking.

  5. William Skinner Avatar
    William Skinner

    @ Hal
    Should be goes not “hoes” Typo. My apologies.

  6. Vincent Codrington Avatar
    Vincent Codrington

    @ David BU at 9 :49 AM

    Of course . A crisis situation elicits uncertainty and panic. It is not normal. Hence that is the reason for governments suspension of normal liberties. Hence my very early suggestion that planning an after COVID – 19 economic transformation is an exercise in futility. We simply do not know what the economic landscape would be like. The energies should be on bringing to an end the crisis.

  7. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ William

    I could not agree more that we have been led astray by the Enlightenment. I have said that on BU on a number of occasions. I do not have to repeat myself. It is the root of our learning by rote.
    We can all quote Lloyd Best , Michael Manley, Eric Williams, etc. Maybe you should provide a reading list or tell us of their grand economic theories. The point is that we take ideas from all over the world, from Europeans, Africans, Japanese, Americans, Latinos(as), from Mars, if necessary, an scrutinise them for their relevance to our experience. We do not restrict ourselves to a few Caribbean/Barbadian people.
    I am sure I am not as familiar with the authors as many of you are, but point me in the right direction. What did Manley say and do about the reorganising of the means of production in Jamaica when he was in power?
    What did Eric Williams say or do as PM of Trinidad and a senior member of the Federation? Plse remind me about his relationship with Nello James and the Oilfield Workers’ Trade Union?
    Where does Walter Rodney fit in that pantheon? Or our very own Leroy Harewood, a great thinker? Crap is crap whether it is American, European or Caribbean. What about great non-Caribbean thinkers such as Manning Marable? What about WEB DuBois, is he relevant to our thinking? Malcolm X, Stokeley Carmichael (Toure), Angela Davis, and numerous other black American men and women.
    Or we can look at the Francophile world, the high priests and priestesses of Negritude; does their non-Caribbean-ness disqualify them from joining the conversation? The Caribbean does not mean English-speaking Caribbean only. There are dozens of black Latin American and non-English thinkers that we ought to be studying and taking lessons from. There was the great Frantz Fanon, Aime Cesaire, Nicolas Guillen, and others.
    We must study Marx to understand why he rejected his black son in law, LaFargue. We want to know why he wrote his magnum opus, Das Kapital, during a time of slaval upheavals and paid so little attention to that institution.
    It is by studying the European Enlightenment that we get to know Kant’s view of Africans and the roots of modern racism. You cannot understand modern racism unless you understand the Enlightenment because that is where the foundation of the ideology came from. So, @Williams, intelligence nor political commitment are not exclusively Caribbean. Some of the best thinkers on politics are Black Britons, such as Cecil Gutzmore.
    That is why Caribbean political activists find it so difficult studying Stuart Hall, the outstanding Jamaican thinker, and the best out of the Caribbean since CLR ‘Nello’ James.
    The architects of our political future must not be blinkered by nationalism or regionalism, but be opened to the universality of ideas, theories and praxis coming out of other societies.

  8. de pedantic Dribbler Avatar
    de pedantic Dribbler

    @Vincent, you stretch reasoning too far when you say “… planning an after COVID – 19 economic transformation is an exercise in futility. We simply do not know what the economic landscape would be like”

    Accept the last part: we truly do not know what the post cov19 future holds,but to accept the first part that planning in the face of uncertainly is simply futile flies in the face of accepted competence of governance.

    Do we know what a nuclear devastation really looks like …despite the WWII bombings of Japan or accidents since then…not really. We have modeled and used those past experiences to understand what it could be, however. Are you suggesting it’s futile to even plan around such an event! Ok, that’s extreme.

    Do we know what a devastation from an eruption of the Kck-Em-Jenny undersea volcano might look like…surely not. So thus it’s futile to plan and strategize about a worst case scenario of that event!

    Or simply we refer to the American Don Rumsfeld….known knowns and unknown knowns…. we must always plan around the latter as well.

    In literature they say that the past is a prologue for the future and here I interpret that to show us that as unknown as the future will be we can look back at similiar events and draw practical guides to frame our future actions… if we don’t then we are making every experience a NOVEL one and that’s self defeating!

  9. William Skinner Avatar
    William Skinner

    @ Hal
    I never said that nationalism/regionalism is the only way forward. You question and want to be led to the thinking of all the Caribbean thinkers. I did not seek to dismiss black Latino, English or African thinkers. I never dismissed them. If you read my submission closely I deliberately said Eurocentric thinking and stuffing ourselves with Eurocentric economic thinking going back to the eighteenth century. You seem to have completely missed my point. We have not escaped the plantation economy because of not what we only read but how we think and it is undeniable that our most vociferous and indeed our leaders are Eurocentric. And that is directly because of what they have consumed intellectually.
    You seem to believe that because Williams and C L R James had a falling out that Williams must be condemned. CLR chose self imposed exile in London and Williams chose a political career in the Caribbean. None of their thinking is diluted because if a falling out among brothers.
    Dismissing European thinking is not equivalent to dismissing European authors . We can read whomever we like but we are hopeless if we cannot think for ourselves.
    I am puzzled that you and others would want to compare Caribbean nationalism with the bogus leaders now dominating USA and England. You will note that I never comment on Boris or Trump. You would have never seen me on BU engaged about Brexit. I don’t waste time on inferior leaders especially those whose policies when stripped of all the intellectual gloss are nothing more than the crumbling walls of empires built on the backs of blacks and who now gleefully deny them basic human rights. I am aware of slavery in all forms.

  10. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ William

    I think we are at cows and horses. Am I right in assuming that when you say Eurocentric you mean white Eurocentric. We must critique their works.
    I talk about black thinkers and white thinkers; I talk about black radical thinkers and white reactionary thinkers. I do not consider Eric Williams to be a radical thinker or politician on the basis of Capitalism and Slavery or any of his other published work; nor, indeed, his behaviour in the breakup of the Federation or prime ministership of TnT..
    Like you, I do not have any interest in Donald Trump, Boris Johnson or their politics and think such discussions are inappropriate on BU. Like you, I have nothing to say about Trump and similarly about Boris. I intervened only in the Brexit discussions on BU when the constitutional issues were misunderstood. Like most BU topics, few fully understood what was taking place.
    But, back to the substantive issue, we as Caribbean people must come up with a clear road map for our future and tools for navigating the journey. So far we have not. Look at the discussions on BU.
    I do not think any of our current leaders even understand our needs, far less how to lead us to the promise land. They have all betrayed their own people.
    However, on the morning of victory we will celebrate.

  11. Vincent Codrington Avatar
    Vincent Codrington

    @ dpD

    I will take my own advice and will not engage you in any ST today. The new mantra is: the past is not indicative of the future. And in case you missed the point bigly ,as usual, my thrust is to wrestle the contagion of the COVID to the ground so that we can later transfer our energies to the reconstruction of our society and economy.
    All you are doing now is idle talk which help you to endure the lock down.

  12. lawson Avatar
    lawson

    After reading Hants’s last post is anyone else shocked that he is a 68 year old batchelor, don’t set the bar too high for the rest of the singles. I can see the ad woman wanted must like hash you,ll get a lot of hits from twenty year olds.

  13. Greene Avatar
    Greene

    @Hal

    i could not have said it better myself. spot on, mate. were u the Bajan PM, what would u be doing right now to position Bim for a post COVID 19 world and how would u articulate your vision so the average Bajan understands and buys into it?

  14. de pedantic Dribbler Avatar
    de pedantic Dribbler

    LOL @Vincent no I didn’t miss your point about wrestling cov19 to the ground. You must excuse my thinking process ‘bigly, as you say 🙂 but I figured that your point was accepted as valid… but I also took it for granted (you apparently not) that in the absence of a vaccine or effective medication we can wrestle in to the mat but we will be tangling with it for an extended period.

    Thus we must plan around that. Ah well!

    If in fact its your new mantra that “the past is not indicative of the future” then I wish you well… then cast away all planning and reflective thinking and blaze ahead freely.

    Sounds like just the tonic for these modern times…some folks call it reinventing the wheel.. others prefer to call it making a better mouse trap… nothing wrong with either!.

  15. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ Greene

    Thanks very much for asking. When you speak to the president plse tell her this is my gift to my native land. A|s you will appreciate, it must be multi-prong. The first thing is to make every traditional Barbadian feel as if they have something invested in the future of our country.
    I will reform the public sector and decentralise power to constituency councils, head teachers and school boards. In reforming schools, I will do that in many ways, starting from infants: I will overhaul the early years education system, stretching each boy and girl to the limits of their individual abilities. Teaching will be bilingual – English and Spanish (not Mandarin or Japanese or Arabic). In Primary and secondary school I will continue that fast-paced level of teaching, taking out those with special skills (ie languages, STEM, music, sport, et) and give them specialist training. At age 14 I will split the secondary schools in to specialist schools and raise the school leaving age to 18. There will be post-school opportunities, including university, skills, business training, etc. I will raise the professional status of teachers and make it a competitive profession to enter.
    In terms of the economy, first , I will set up a sovereign wealth fund; I will introduce compulsory savings from the age of 16 and for those in work, they will have to controversially save 20 per cent of their earnings. There will be three key reasons for access to those savings: university, marriage, homeownership, then the entire pot will go towards a retirement income. The remaining fund will become part of the dead person’s estate. I will also introduce an inheritance tax and a new Companies Act.
    There will be a massive infrastructural building programme, including a programme of homeownership, and job creation, across a range of skills and services.
    There will also be a social safety net, for which people are means-tested; the pension scheme will be a defined contribution scheme, which will be mobile and follow the member from the age of 16 to retirement.
    To cut it short, tourism will be just another service and jobs and opportunities will be spread across a number of professions, sills and services. There will be a tourist industry pension scheme.
    For those people who fail to meet the standards there will be welfare provisions and a well-funded health and social care service; anyone sentenced to more than six months in prison will learn a trade or basic educational skills; there will be a sustainable prison’s industry and prisoners will be paid (it will go in to their savings to be given to them on release). All recently released prisoner will be given a home and job offer..
    I will reform the court system and law enforcement, separating detectives from uniformed officers, transport police with their own command structure and giving immigration and customs officers a warranted right to arrest.
    There will be a national ethical investment fund in to which all churches, synagogues, mosques and other religious organisations and charities must invest. Failure to do will lead to the withdrawal of their licences. Those organisations will also have to give proper account of the monies they collect.
    I will also set up a Diaspora Investment Fund which will be used exclusively for investing in small and medium enterprises. @Greene, I hope there are some initial ideas. But it will take a book to follow through.
    Enough there for the president.

  16. NorthernObserver Avatar
    NorthernObserver

    @lawson
    leff Hants alone. Crush cow, like he mekking, (needs some pepper sauce) with breadfruit cou-cou and a lil gravy, sweet fah daze.

  17. Greene Avatar
    Greene

    @Hal

    Brilliant.

    some i have seen before; the constituency councils are something Lamming discussed, and others are new to me. but they all have merit which mean they are unlikely to be ever taken up far less implemented.

    they seem fundamental and less so for COVID notwithstanding that COVID is just a catalyst for change

    do i have your permission to borrow them?

    you should know the devil is always in the details

    maybe i should hire you as my campaign manager?

    artax, you are forthwith fired-lol

  18. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ Greene

    You can certainly borrow them. They have all be in my Notes over the years.

  19. William Skinner Avatar
    William Skinner

    @ Hal
    Would like to get you a copy of my suggestions to the Task Force on Unemployment back in 1987. Your views and ideas in education are almost exact. Goes to through we both were exposed to some of the finest minds to ever dwell in our country.
    Very good ideas, Comrade.

  20. William Skinner Avatar
    William Skinner

    @ Hal
    1.I mean all Eurocentrics. Marcus Garvey talked about the “enemy within”. There are black Eurocentrics.
    2.Many moons ago I wrote a piece condemning Williams for saying “ one from ten leaves nought in relation to the Federation.

  21. NorthernObserver Avatar
    NorthernObserver

    @Greene
    do you know what you are restarting?
    Mr.Austin loves his island, and has been trying for many years to contribute. He has ‘written to’ or ‘spoken with’ more folks than even he can recall, though he can recall much. But like two other bloggers, usually reserves his comments to his recommendations which have been rejected. Hence his sourness, and why daily he criticizes almost everything and/or asks 40 questions to which he already knows most of the answers.
    One of the other bloggers created the term ‘inferior superior’ to demonstrate how ‘inadequate’ those higher in the decision making chain were. The challenge faced is SELLING the ideas, less so, than the ideas themselves.
    Years ago, I was in charge of a 70 strong NA wide sales force. The sales were a range of reasonably technical products. The two top performers, were technical ignoramuses. One was a fisher/hunter, the other an ex pro sportsman. The former befriended the CEO of the USA’s largest distributor, who loved to fish and hunt. The latter was just a ‘nice guy’ who needed no introduction and all loved to say ‘they knew’. Subsequently, they both turned these relationships into huge sales $$. This used to upset the hard working, technically accomplished reps. How could these two ‘idiots’, and there were other relationship salespeople, sell more than them? they knew nothing? what value could they offer?
    So one must always ask…is it the message? the messenger? or a little of both?
    Success in life’s endeavors can come from a variety of skills and knowledge. Yet every good salesperson knows, you cannot belittle or criticize your customer, or tell them how stupid they are, and then expect them to buy from you?

  22. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ Northern

    You are wrong again. My contributions are my ideas. And I am not sour. I had a full and interesting career and worked far beyond my scheme retirement age because I had planned not to work again after I retired. Not a single day.
    I am not in the market for a picking. My next big job is to slide smoothly down the crematorium. By the way, I love the Ivy and its people. They shaped me.

  23. NorthernObserver Avatar
    NorthernObserver

    @HA
    IF i said, or suggested to you, your contributions were NOT your own ideas, I apologize. I had no intent to do so. I have no reason to doubt you are capable of independent thought and creation.

  24. de pedantic Dribbler Avatar
    de pedantic Dribbler

    @Northern, great story at 2:27 PM… but ins’t that the real hallmark of that best sales folks: an awesome kinship with your best customers who ‘like’ you and thus ether want to or do hang out with you!

    And to take it to the next level is it not also the true competitive edge (in most instances) of the most successful politicians … need I add …like POTUS!

    Technical sales is an interesting dynamic and you surely could have added that supporting your sales team where a crew of technical gurus who did installations, site plannng et al.. in short both some pre and post sales stuff after the schmoozers did their relationship building and had set that solid sales foundation….

    A performer at a trade show who is employed to look stunning and draw prospects like bees invariably are trained by companies like yours to have a good grasp of your product’s technical merits and from there you complete the sales process…

    … thus incorporating that construct and having the type pf ‘stunning’ (appealing, wanna be around) sales performers you described is from where I sit ‘par for course’ … unless your top guys were indifferent and cut corners regularly their ‘cluelessness’ was more a perception of the standard envy of the other fellas than anything to do with the guys ability to do their job I would offer.

    As you allude to.. its not what yo do but HOW you do it and good looks, good physical skills and a winning smile doesn’t hurt either!

    And I agree with evathing else you said, too!

  25. Greene Avatar
    Greene

    @Hal,

    at your pleasure can you send me your ideas book, please?

  26. Artax Avatar
    Artax

    @ Mr. Greene

    I’m wondering how can you ‘FIRE’ me from a job I ‘BLUNTLY REFUSED?’

    And, remember, whom I ‘told’ you would have been the better candidate.

  27. Robert Avatar
    Robert

    Thanks very much for asking. When you speak to the president plse tell her this is my gift to my native land. {Quote}

    There are some good items on the gift list, but I believe the following gifts may require further discussion:

    {1}. I will introduce compulsory savings from the age of 16 and for those in work, they will have to controversially save 20 per cent of their earnings.

    {2}. There will be a national ethical investment fund in to which all churches, synagogues, mosques and other religious organisations and charities must invest. Failure to do will lead to the withdrawal of their licences.

    Compulsory?? Then, why are we calling Mottley the president and her administration an elected dictatorship?

    {3}. All recently released prisoner(s) will be given a home and job offer.

    Juxtapose this idea with squatters getting grants, loans or house and land.

    When a man goes into a supermarket and steals 12 tins of sardines, is caught and punished, we argue the Court should be sympathetic because hunger caused him to steal.

    Yet, we want people who don’t have no where to live and are forced to squat, to feel the full brunt of the law, because they have broken the law and we care about the rights of the land owners. What about the rights of the shop-keepers whose property was stolen?

    {4}. I will reform the court system and law enforcement, separating detectives from uniformed officers, transport police with their own command structure and giving immigration and customs officers a warranted right to arrest.

    Aren’t uniformed and detectives separated and have their own command structure?

    Aren’t immigration and customs officers given a warranted right to arrest?

  28. Tron Avatar
    Tron

    Mariposa writes so little these days… Is something wrong? Did Verla or one of her avatars catch COVID19? 🙂

  29. robert lucas Avatar
    robert lucas

    @ Hal April 24, 2020 12:40 PM

    You have presented well thought out ideas as to the way forward. Your ideas on education are sound. You realize the need to separate the exceptional children and placed them into special schools for the gifted. You ideas won’t go down well with some who seek to have a level playing field by distributing the gifted equally across all schools.

  30. David Avatar
    David

    The 2010 NACE Report covers many of the points about education raised here and have been thoroughly discussed on BU over the years. Read for yourself.

    https://mes.gov.bb/Download.ashx?file=Attachments%2FReport-+National+Advisory+Committee+on+Education+2010-+NACE.pdf&name=National+Advisory+Committee+on+Education+2010

  31. William Skinner Avatar
    William Skinner

    @ Hal
    @ Robert Lucas

    Associating gifted only with academic promise is the real problem. Gifted as it us presently used means a student who is “bright” in the traditional sense. That is the root of elitism.
    A child can be “ bright” at writing composition and totally out of his element in arithmetic. That child would never enter a “top” school hence his great skills at writing are totally ignored.
    I met a kid who was preparing for the eleven plus. He can already “ pull down” a car engine and “ put it back up” by himself. His father said he was driving the tractor at age eight and could repair any lawn mower etc with his eyes closed. The Sunday morning I met him at his father’s workshop,he was all grease and actually making a part for some piece of machinery.
    His mother said that his sister who was studying at Cave Hill, often sought his help in chemistry. She then told me , that she was worried because he was soon sitting the eleven plus and was not studying hard enough. I said to her that he doesn’t need the eleven plus but the eleven plus needs him.
    I don’t know if he passed the eleven plus but in our current educational system , he would not be considered among those who can write composition and “do” arithmetic as “ gifted “
    I don’t think that a five year old child who can make an exquisite singing agent kite , is any less gifted than one who can write a great composition or solve math problems or play a piano.
    But we come from a society that calls a person ignorant because he or she never mastered subject and verb; never read any book written by the assortment of gurus . We insult people who make spelling errors and disdain those who have not caught on to the latest catch phrase.
    Let us face it deep down in our psyche , we are intellectual/ academic snobs and we talk about changing things while holding on to elitist concepts. And herein lies the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room. Until we. Until we rid ourselves of certain concepts and opinions about education and what it really means, we would never go anywhere.

  32. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ Robert

    It is elementary. You must fast track gifted children. That is the only way they will be stretched. The problem with our educational system (and that in the UK) was the introduction of comprehensive education, levelling down, in which a class moves at the pace of the slowest.
    There is a trade off: penalising children for being clever in order to achieve equality, or providing opportunities for late learners at a pace that suits them.
    The flawed decision to scrap the 11+ is a good example of levelling down, because middle class parents fear that little Johnny or Little Jane may not pass to get in to the right school.
    Barrow’s introduction of so-called free secondary education, which corruptly became free university education, was a natural development from this kind of thinking.
    It is also one of the reason for disruption in classes: when bright children get what the teacher is trying to explain and the slowest children do not, teachers tend to give all attention to those slow kids. The end result is that the bright kids get bored and cause trouble.
    Something that lost of criminologists realise, the troublesome children can often be the brightest.
    Our educational system urgently needs restructuring, we need to make clear what percentage of GDP will be spent on education and training and then decide how to divide the cake.
    At university level, we must put the braked on Sir Hilary’s ambition to create an empire by going for quality and not quantity. A graduate in every home simply means devaluing a degree.
    ,

  33. David Avatar
    David

    The view of the great Bush Tea.

    https://barbadosunderground.net/2010/06/23/another-meaningless-education-report/

  34. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ William

    I have made it clear children with special talents academically, in sport, music, etc. should be stretched. Whatever the discipline. But you are right. There is too much focus on a one-dimensional idea of progress. We have an obsession with being lawyers and doctors.
    I was at school with the late Timothy Callender, both St Giles and Combermere. At St Giles he was an incredible gymnast, taught by Mr Robinson, he was a delight. At Combermere he came under the special attention of two teachers: Karl Broodhagen and Frank Collymore, both of whom stretched him. I was envious of his natural talents. We cannot dismiss the value of one-to-one teaching.
    Tim was a first class boxer and artist; and under Collymore, a short story writer. He was born gifted but it took the three teachers to stretch him. The last time I saw Tim was in Ladbroke Grove’s All Saint’s Road purchasing goods, He was in London attending a course at London University. He died shortly after. It was sad.
    It is a long story, but the young men and women who usually distinguish themselves have often been that way from the time they were toddlers: monitors, prefects, head boys and girls; the leaders of the troublesome kids, the runaways, etc.
    Just look at our top sportspeople: Sobers played soccer, cricket, basketball; Seymour Nurse played football and cricket for Barbados; Ian Botham played football, cricket and golf; we can go on. At some point they had to sacrifice one sport for the other.
    In London I had a theory: crime in London was dominated by the same sub-culture: the detectives, criminals and crime writers all came from the same sub-culture. In those days East London. It takes one to know one.

  35. William Skinner Avatar
    William Skinner

    @ Hal
    My thoughts on leaving that workshop , were how many more are out there, that we simply allow to fall through the cracks. There is a certain calypsonian, whose first exposure to the art form , was performing as lead singer , in a glee club at primary school. He became very successful and I then read in an article that he was “discovered “ by a teacher at his high school. You often refer to St. Giles but I have read thousands of bios about successful people who never mention their primary school. The only place to truly instill character and citizentry is the primary school or the home. Once that foundation is not there , it becomes increasingly difficult. I don’t regard knighthoods but certain professions are never if scarcely recognized. Almost any MP will get a knighthood but not a police commissioner or outstanding prison officer.
    I have a friend who owns a body repair shop. He has been employing people for the last forty years ; pays them on time etc.He would never get any recognition as a very successful business man. I know two people involved in the tourist industry, who became extremely successful, they built their businesses from below scratch. They have never been asked, interviewed or anything about the industry. Any expatriate can land in Barbados flat broke and with the right pigmentation, establish himself as a tourism guru. I hope you get my drift.

  36. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    HomeNewsThieves raid…
    Thieves raid farmers’ crops
    Sheria Brathwaite, sheriabrathwaite@nationnews.com

    Added 24 April 2020

    farmer-hit-by-thieves

    Two farmers are counting hundreds of dollars in losses after being hit by crop thieves.

    Duane Griffith, who cultivates one and a half acres in St James, said about 60 pounds of chives and ten pounds of kale were stolen. He said his employees turned up for work last Wednesday and realised crops were reaped.

    He said a pound of chives is usually sold for $5 and a pound of kale for $6.

    Griffith said this was not the first time his produce was stolen, adding that he believed this recent incident could have been prevented if he and his workers had curfew passes.

  37. William Skinner Avatar
    William Skinner

    @ Hal
    Timothy Callender is a perfect example of how we treat talented people. We have nothing but cosmetic appreciation for our artistes. Just look at where many of them came from: the city environs that were despised. Where is the bio on Timothy Callender; where is the real locally written bio on Sir Garry Sobers ? Who will undertake to write Gabby’s bio?. All of these things have to do with education. We only play local artistes at Independence. Go on YouTube thousands of recordings but radio stations would tell you there is no material.
    Just this morning,I read Lance Gibbs reprimanding two of our promising West Indies cricketers. Gibbs is now 85 years old and can sum up a proper commentary in less than three paragraphs. We have some jokers commentating on cricket and they don’t know the field placing.
    Mediocrity has triumphed. I once told a man Sir Garry should be the Governor General, he replied that” Garry is no lawyer”. That’s our thinking. Sir Garry is the only sportsman who has not been matched or surpassed in his discipline. Go to any continent and mention his name. He is revered. But he isn’t a lawyer- he can’t speak Latin and he apparently he is disqualified from being head of state. That’s how we think. Everyday we will write about dishonest lawyers and then reward the profession with Head of State.

  38. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ William

    You are so right, as usual. I started collecting Rihanna news cuts just, at first, out of curiosity. A Barbadian star who made it worldwide. I knew, from years of experience, the big biographies will be written by US or British writers/journalists. But there is a little bit of her story that can only be told by a Barbadian, and that is Rihanna: The Early Years. No matter how much a British or US writer try to tell that story it will not come from the soul.
    After all these years, not a single local writer has stepped forward to tell that story. The same about our politicians, people like Owen Arthur, who has a brilliant story to tell, about his 14 years in government and about CARICOM.
    Tell you a story: years ago, Tony Cozier was commissioned to write a biography of Sir Garry; for personal reason, he could not go through with it and on a visit to the Daily Mail was talking to his friend, the cricket correspondent Brian Scovell. Brian called me over to join the conversation. It was then that Cozier said he was busy and could not carry through on the deal. He asked Brian if he was interested. The rest, as they say, is history.
    I liked Brian, he is talented, enthusiastic and the commission could not be in better hands, but I was curious that as a Barbadian it did not appear as if Cozier thought of asking me., if only out of politeness, if I were interested.
    Another story that could be told by locals is the tale of the 2018 general election: 130 candidates and a historic victory for the BLP. If local journalists had written `1000 words on each of the candidates they would have written a book.
    We must nurture talent and develop it. Had I been editing a Barbadian publication I am sure we would have produced a book on the 2018 general election.
    Barbados is under-reported, under-insured, under-developed. We like politics and often talk about Wynter Crawford, but there have been many like him: Dan Blackett, who ran a newspaper in Marhill Street; Lyndsey Bolden’s father, who ran a welding shop in Carrington Village; Maisie Inniss; Madame Ifill; Harold ‘Zeek’ Tudor; pioneers such as Sam Corbin; thre was Reynold Weekes, from St Phillip, who ran one of the biggest, if not the biggest, ‘meeting’ in Barbados before becoming an MP; I can go on and on about these stalwarts of the development of Barbados that many young people do not even know about.

  39. Greene Avatar
    Greene

    @Hal,

    you havent answered my query- please send me your ideas book. i promise nothing but i will give it a fair read and see where that goes.

    v informative submissions by you and WS

  40. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ Greene

    I do not have an ideas book. Have a read of my Notes, or ask questions. You remind me of former colleagues who say I should write a book. But there is nothing I can say in a book that I do not already know. Authorship never appealed to me.

  41. Charles skeete Avatar
    Charles skeete

    A contributor posts an invoice suggesting price gouging on the part of the store owner and again we drift into unnecessary intellectual debate over a simple issue of ethics and commonsense
    While I believe that storeowners indulging in overcharging if substantiated especially at this point in time should be named and shamed for their unscrupulousness
    I also believe that with shopping options still available consumers ought to allow commonsense to prevail when going about their shopping
    Leave the items on the shelf and never shop there again

  42. TheOGazerts Avatar
    TheOGazerts

    @Hal 8:01 a.m.
    Punching above your weight.
    It seems as if there are two Hals.
    One that can deliver thoughtful and incisive posts and the other who wander aimlessluy.

    @TheO.
    Show me a post where I wandered aimlessly?

    @Hal
    Accept that some of your post are far from stellar

    @somebody else
    Spot on!

    Two exchanges already completed. Have the last word.
    🙂

  43. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ Theo

    Was this a real conversation or just your imagination?

  44. TheOgazerts Avatar
    TheOgazerts

    🙂
    More seriously
    https://barbadostoday.bb/2020/04/25/lack-of-internet-may-force-cave-hill-students-to-quit-semester

    It appears that the Mona and St Augustine campuses are faring better. What is (are) the reason(s).

  45. Greene Avatar
    Greene

    @Hal

    where can i find your Notes? have no fear, always i ask questions especially when i know or have an idea of the likely answer

  46. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ Greene

    Many of them appears in BU over the years. It is better to ask questions and I will try to answer them.

  47. Vincent Codrington Avatar
    Vincent Codrington

    @ Theogazerts

    The answers are in the articles referenced. The Jamaica and T&T customers are given concessions not extended to others. The markets are segmented with one segment paying the costs of the referenced two.

  48. Greene Avatar
    Greene

    @Robert Lucas

    have you seen this RL?

    quote] The safety and health of needy citizens should never depend on their ability to pay, especially during a raging pandemic, said chemist Dr Samuel Miller, who has so far manufactured more than 600 bottles of hand sanitiser for distribution to people in need. [unquote

    https://barbadostoday.bb/2020/04/24/a-labour-of-love/

    @Hal

    ok mate.

  49. de pedantic Dribbler Avatar
    de pedantic Dribbler

    @Mr Blogmaster, of that old 2010 blog on education… if you were making the point that we have been around and around the mulberry bush with numerous people making numerous recommendations then your point is bluntly accepted.

    @Skinner et al..there is another perspective to what you folks voiced above… yes, many Bajan artistes are not recognized to the level of their talent but many of them (in my lifetime certainly) have also received great local fanfare and acclaim at times. The burden to write the excellent bios and features is on the journalists, the GIS and history professionals and also in this modern era of social media on any Bajan so moved.

    I recall Timothy Callender well because there was a period when it was difficult to not hear one of his short stories on Rediffusion…done by Alfred Pragnell. That’s obviously not the end all of be all of Callender’s legacy but simply stated he was a ‘hot commodity’ in Bim at periods and was heralded on radio, at the “Hall’ and yes at NIFCA.

    For those invested in these interests there is a mild burden (along with those previously noted) to ensure that this generation get to know the man and his works by capturing the researched tributes/bios and putting them out there…is there a Wiki or other suitable net presence on Tim Callender, for example! With his body of work there certainly could be!

    The historian Henderson Carter wrote a compendium in book form called “Shaping a Nation; Principals of Barbadian Schools 1900-1980” … it’s a single page profile per educator of about 100 Bajan principals. He also wrote (which I have not read) “A History of the Carlton Supermarket, 1965-2002”.

    I say that to highlight that surely others in his field must have delved into our literary and artistic world and written on the personalities …I certainly recall Addington Forder when he was at NCF being a force in that area and although I do not have any of his works on my bookshelf he has written on Bajan folklore.

    So as much as I accept the screed that our artistes (to paraphrase) ‘… are not without acclaim and honor except in their own town, among relatives and in their own nation’ … we disagree that there are no suitable memorials or written recognitions of them. And more so, if we perceive those are too limited we can actually add our words to social media to memorialize their names to this present generation and those adults unfamiliar!

    BTW, his wife said in 2010: “It is as if Barbados has now accepted him fully for what he was. So it has been a very fulfilling experience for me.[…] People did not understand Timmy in a lot of ways. He seemed to be following too much his own rules and not the rules of society, but it was all part of his search to really find out what is. He searched all types of knowledge. No area was sacrosanct to him.”

    That sums the man as well as anything “He seemed to be following too much his own rules and not the rules of society,’ And that for him was “all good”!

  50. de pedantic Dribbler Avatar
    de pedantic Dribbler

    Forde…NOT Forder

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