CHRISTMAS MORNING and Y’Boy there by he one, sit-down by the Christmas tree. The Madam ent up yet and them two chirren not here at all, them in two different time zone and all. The youth-man in Montreal, in a ville named Rigault, which benefit from the French translation becaw, in truth, is not much more than a village, really, whereby the only important product of Rigault is Y’Boy son’ gyul, which is the reason the youth-man there in Quebec: is love.

And Y’Boy daughter, the onliest female grandchild on the both sides of the extended family, on the next side of the Atlantic, she there in London, suffering under Bojo the Clown & the Vote Leave government incompetence, whereby nobody social distancing and must be only half the people wearing masks.

All o’ we in the same storm at sea, but not in the same boat.

And Y’Boy know that, as the boats and them going nowadays, he seaworthy. Even if Y’Boy ent have no gardener to mow lawn and wash car, at least he ent have no landlord or mortgagee to chuck him out on Old Year’s Night.

THE APPRENTICE was my favourite reality TV show. And I far preferred the common or garden Apprentice to the Celebrity version because, for me, those genuinely formerly famous morons, like Meatloaf and Gary Busey, took away from the show’s real attraction, which was the wannabe celebrity apprentice himself, Donald Trump.

I loved everything he did, no matter how small or stupid. When he flubbed the introduction to one of the silly competitions, I cheered. When he made an ostensibly knowing comment that revealed his pig-ignorance, I snickered. When he fired, usually, the wrong person, who’d had the least to do with the losing team’s failure, and his idiotic offspring bobbled their heads and complimented him on his acuity, I cackled.

Every week, I was in front of the TV before the first guitar note of the O’Jays For the Love of Money theme twanged out. I sat through advertisements rather than miss a moment that might contain Trump.

THE INTERNET went dead in the southern Caribbean on Monday morning. From 8.30am to 10.30am, or so, WhatsApps didn’t send, emails didn’t arrive. CNN, YouTube, Netflix, newsday.co.tt and observer.guardian.co.uk all disappeared. Even local free-to-air CBC TV8 blanked out of the Bajan countryside.

My wife was out for the morning, the dogs were out cold in the warmth of the sun on the lawn.

It was so quiet.

I unplugged the cable box, plugged it back in. The screen said this channel was unavailable now.

So I unplugged myself.

I lay down on the gallery couch and picked up 1984, George Orwell’s timeless work that is now savagely timely. I’d saved the re-read for until Trump had been voted out because the irony of reading it and living it would have been too great even for a man like me, who collects exquisite ironies like fine single malts.

On every page there is something you could post on Facebook and get 1K likes.

YOU CAN always tell how crucial a discussion is to Trinidadians by how resolutely they avoid its essence and how quickly they jump to a vigorous dissection of its periphery.

Ask Trinidadians why they’re entirely content with a political system that guarantees fully half the population, by race, feels unrepresented for five years at a time and the best answer you’ll get in near 60 years of so-called Independence is, “We like it so”; an answer provided, by the way, not by several faculties of the University of the West Indies, but by a calypsonian.

Ask the Trinidadian if he isn’t willing to protest the crippling traffic jams that make life miserable every day, twice a day, for everyone, and he will tell you he will make his stand against the insanity by driving with his own headlights on in the daytime.