The two BEST FILMS OF THE DAY, a thriller set entirely in the front seat of a BMW (**Locke, 9pm Max) and the Coen Bros’ savagely comic noir masterpiece (**Fargo, 11pm FoxClas), would have certainly jostled for first place, had they not been both picked recently. As usual, the DirecTV Channel leads on live concert and music documentary with Nicki Minaj: Pink Planet (9pm), Justin Timberlake: Man of the Hour (6pm) and Beyonce Beyond the Glam (7pm). Earlier in the day, there are also Ringo Starr: A Lifetime of Peace and Love (10am & 5pm), the Change Begins Within Concert (11am), Train (12 midday), Counting Crows (1pm) and even Glen Campbell (2pm).

Today’s number one film:

Over-hot and bone dry as Trinidad is today, even with the immediate slight greening of last Thursday’s single April shower, Port of Spain’s Queen’s Park Savannah still remains beautiful, at least on the edges, where poui tree leaves are falling. That gorgeous yellow carpet spread at the feet of a gnarled old tree always takes your breath away. Can there be anyone in Trinidad who does not stop and stare in wonder, and be grateful just to be alive to see such a thing? Well, yes, there are. A large group of people, in fact, and I was myself one of them, 30 years ago.

Yes, while the rest of the country is thrilled to see poui in bloom, students at the St Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies hate the sight. Trini secondary school students don’t make the same connection because their academic instruction runs almost to the end of the third school term in July, but, when I was there, doing my LLB in 1979, it was the first thing second-year students passed down to freshmen: they nodded up towards the Northern Range, in the foothills of which the campus sits, and warned you, “If you see the poui in bloom, and you’re not ready for exams, you’ve failed!” Even in poui flowers in Trinidad, it have fuckeries.

The sixth Bocas NGC Literary Festival enters its ninth day and windup weekend today, with the main attraction, 2015 Man Booker Prizewinner Marlon James, taking the Old Fire Station stage tomorrow at 2pm to talk about his magnificent novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings, and post-Prize life. Tomorrow’s a big day, from 10am, with sitting Chief Justice Ivor Archie sitting down with marijuana activist Nazma Muller,

For French-speakers or English subtitle-readers who seek engagement, not distraction, from movies, the BEST FILM OF THE DAY is undoubtedly Two Days, One Night (4.20pm Max). For the diehards and/or the ones with DVR options, several Game of Thrones marathons start, some before daybreak, on HBO channels – check individual listings. The excellent opening episode of the British Black Mirror, which is not really TV, but near-feature length short film, is listed as starting on ISat at 7pm and repeating twice before the Black Mirror White Christmas special at 9pm but, with the vagaries of early programming listing, it might turn out to be a season two marathon; in any case, it will be spellbinding. As usual, the DirecTV Channel leads on live concert and music documentary, with George Michael Live at Palais Garnier Paris (11am), Ringo Starr: A Lifetime of Peace and Love (12 midday) and the Change Begins Within Concert (1pm)

Today’s number one film: