Ten years ago, almost to the day – Friday fell on the 27th in 2007 – I wrote this about one of the most distressing events in West Indies cricket; ten years later, it’s much easier to see it as one of the major – perhaps the first – stepping stone to where we are now, with Louis XVI fiddling while Rome burns, to mix examples from the past that aptly sum up the future of West Indies cricket.

FORMER West Indies captain and still world record-holding batsman Brian Lara (whom everyone apart from the West Indies selectors expected to hang around for at least another six months or 47 Test runs) timed his announcement of his retirement from international cricket as immaculately as his exquisite late cut, given the current position of West Indian cricket

MY OLD PARDNER, Maxie Cuffie, the current Minister of Public Administration and Communications, made headlines and pulpits with his ministry’s official Easter message and it really was no miracle. In what we must call his wisdom, Maxie entrusted the preparation of said message entirely to a Pentecostal pastor, which is like the Blood Bank putting a Jehovah’s Witness in charge,

HIGH COURT JUSTICE Mira Dean-Armorer this week awarded a man $700,000 in damages for libel because he was called a homosexual on the radio; at those rates, I can’t hardly wait for someone to label me a lesbian live on air; if a male being called a homosexual cashes in at $700K, a male being hailed a lesbian ought to be good for a cool mill.

With luck, I could be called a lesbian by Tony & Dale, hosts of the most dependable morning drive-time radio show in a nation that has more radio stations than police ones. Tony & Dale stand out from what we must call their competition in many ways. First, they are capable of speaking Standard Caribbean English which “y’un’stan’, Dog, make them mo’ better than all them other one, Horse, y’un’stan’?” You would think that being able to speak plain English would be a job requirement for radio announcers in Trinidad but you would have wasted a think.

I’M ON FACEBOOK; I’d rather not be. For writers, it can be a good way of disseminating work and it’s definitely useful for finding people. Last Christmas, I reconnected with an old friend from the English boarding school we left in 1976. I’m in Barbados, he’s in Minneapolis, we haven’t seen one another since we were 17 and, through FaceBook, he makes me laugh, and think, as much, today, as he did in his gallant old days in Fairwater House. FaceBook is great for that; for everything else, it’s crap.