A name syn­ony­mous with the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and who stood in the are­na along­side sev­er­al oth­er strong fe­male front­line acts who helped to pave the way for many of the tal­ents hap­pen­ing to­day, is Car­lene Wells.

Twelve-year-old per­cus­sion­ist Ta­fari Lalitte is the 2026 Tal­ent Pot cham­pi­on af­ter wow­ing the judges with a blend of the rhythms that move T&T.

Writ­ing mu­sic comes eas­i­ly to Steff Kalloo. Maybe be­cause she has been do­ing it since she was ten, or maybe it’s be­cause the words and melody flow once she is in the right en­vi­ron­ment and has the right mind­set, usu­al­ly with her gui­tar in hand.

Love, food and tra­di­tion were on full dis­play on Au­gust 27 as Ti­ki Vil­lage at the Kapok Ho­tel cel­e­brat­ed the Qixi Fes­ti­val—his­tor­i­cal­ly known as Chi­nese Valen­tine’s Day.

For Shaz­ara Mo­hammed, known to thou­sands of so­cial me­dia fol­low­ers as Chef Shaz, the love af­fair with food be­gan long be­fore she start­ed shar­ing recipes on­line.

Ital­ian fish­er­men for two years in­cin­er­at­ed most of the in­va­sive At­lantic blue crabs caught in the Po Riv­er Delta south of Venice. Few Ital­ians had an ap­petite for the alien preda­tor blamed for dec­i­mat­ing their prized Mani­la clams.

Mush­rooms are high up on the list of su­per­foods, as they are packed with vi­t­a­mins, min­er­als and an­tiox­i­dants while be­ing low on the caloric scale. There are thou­sands of dif­fer­ent species of ed­i­ble mush­rooms world­wide, and a quick on­line search for mush­room recipes will churn out scores of mouth-wa­ter­ing dish­es, much like the de­li­cious, spicy jerk oys­ter mush­rooms, topped with condi­ments to bal­ance the heat, that were served as sam­ples by The Hap­py Plan­et Or­gan­ic Farms at a re­cent pop-up event.

Born on Sep­tem­ber 1, 1926, in a very sig­nif­i­cant com­mu­ni­ty in Trinidad to hum­ble moth­er Lucy and mul­ti­fac­eted fa­ther Isaac Gid­dings, Mar­garet Mon­i­ca Es­delle (née Gid­dings) was one of the pret­ti­est ba­bies born in Wood­ford Lodge, Ch­agua­nas. She is pas­sion­ate­ly called Mam­my Es­delle by her chil­dren.

For some stu­dents prepar­ing to write CSEC O-Lev­el ex­ams next year, Eng­lish A as a com­pul­so­ry sub­ject is just one of sev­er­al aca­d­e­m­ic hur­dles to over­come.

In May 1961, Dr Er­ic Williams, Pre­mier of T&T, in a lec­ture at Queen’s Hall in Port-of-Spain, said “The world is tired of our po­lit­i­cal clown­ing with in­de­pen­dence, so even that is be­com­ing tire­some.” When we re­flect on the past 64 years, it ap­pears that our na­tion is still ‘po­lit­i­cal clown­ing’.

Mu­si­cian, for­mer pan­nist and for­mer sec­ondary school teacher, Mar­cus C Bap­tiste MA, BA, CFM, said he had two big dreams, and when they ma­te­ri­alised, it was amaz­ing.

In the days be­fore the new aca­d­e­m­ic year be­gins, the quest for books, uni­forms and shoes con­tin­ues. Health is of­ten ig­nored but a child who is ex­haust­ed, hun­gry, anx­ious, de­hy­drat­ed or strug­gling to see the board can­not suc­ceed.