Dealing with traffic police, Dominica-style

I walked past a group of police officers stopping every other vehicle near the Mahaut bus stop this morning. Many of course were bus drivers, who didn't take kindly to being stopped. The prize however went to HA107. When asked to pull over, he gesticulated. When the policewoman stood in front of his bus he slowed, but gesticulated more and waved his driving license. When she stood back, he drove off. She seemed nonplussed.

I must try that.

RIP Cluedo

RIP Cluedo: Hasbro have given it a makeover.

"Clue(do) now takes place in a mansion with a spa and a home theater where the rich and famous have gathered for some sort of in-crowd shindig. Military man Colonel Mustard is now Jack Mustard, a former footballer. The studious Professor Victor Plum is now a video game designer and dot.com millionaire. And the cook, Mrs. White, has departed in favor of child star Diana White.

Plus, the lead pipe has disappeared, replaced by a trophy. And the revolver is now a pistol."

Read more...

Favourite Fruit #1: Pawpaw

Papaya gets my vote as the King of Fruits. Not only is it delicious when ripe, but it's got to be one of the easiest seeds to grow.  The only drawback is that your pawpaw tree might be male, in which case it flowers but doesn't bear fruit. (Editor's note: wouldn't that make it the Queen of Fruits?)

And did you know 100g gives you 103% of your recommended Vitamin C requirement?

More on papaya on Wikipedia.

Pesky wabbits

This weekend saw the annual Rabbit Festival in Cochrane. One of the highlights are the Rabbit Races. I was hoping to get some good odds on a rank outsider but alas, there was only one race and I missed it.

It wasn't, apparently, a race in the normal sense. It seems rabbits are not racing animals (no? ah, that's the hare), so the 'race' involved the rabbit jockey holding his animal and moving according to squares drawn out of a hat (no reports of a rabbit appearing out of the hat).

Anyway, it was still a fine afternoon (if you weren't stuck in the traffic jam). And rabbits make better dishes than dashers...

Photo: top - winner. Bottom - loser.

Four Seasons

The four seasons of Dominica are:

Hurricane Season
Wet Season
Dry Season
Mango Season

Little disturbance, big storm

I had been thinking of blogging about the singular lack of any electric storms this year so far. Until yesterday. A night of distant thunder turned into a morning of violent thunder and lightning, and some really heavy rain. One strike hit close and left the village without power for 15 hours. And it wasn't even a tropical disturbance!

'Don't panic, it's a Pandemic!'

Seen in a Roseau (Chinese) store - the Pandemic Water Heater.

Comes with Legionnaires Disease pre-installed?

Photo to follow ;)

DiveFest canoe race

DiveFest canoe race day.
Originally uploaded by Steve_Mc

Another fun DiveFest Carib Canoe Race.

Evening Market

I always thought going to the Roseau market was about getting up at an ungodly hour, on a day (Saturday) that one should be getting up at a definitely godly hour.

But recently I've discovered that, on Friday at least, the Roseau Market never sleeps. If you go around 8pm or later you'll find people have already set up their stalls, breadfruit are a-roasting, vegetable are fresh, and that staple of any visit to the market (whatever the time), the jelly coconut, is readily available.

Here's some weather!

t


This actually turned into Tropical Storm Dolly on the 20th July!

Dominica gets greener!

Last week's Budget had great news for those interested in alternative energy:

"Consistent with Government’s commitment to encouraging the use of alternative forms of energy, with immediate effect all duties on equipment to be used in the self-generation of energy from renewable sources will be removed."

Sepp Blatter is a w**ker

The more I think about Sepp Blatter's comments that Ronaldo is an example of 'modern slavery', the angrier I get. Since when does a slave earn 100,000 quid a week? And have his own agent?

Lets not forget the extensive allegations of corruption against Mr. Blatter. The only thing medaeval about the whole affair is Mr Blatter himself. Tell him directly via the FIFA website.

Gearing up for Dive Fest

This Friday sees the launch of the 2008 DiveFest. You can find out more here or check the official DiveFest blog here. The big question is: will I be in a Canoe Race team? Tis too soon to say!

"Orange, Julia?"

"Orange, Julia?"
Originally uploaded by Steve_Mc

I've seen this butterfly before, but this time I made a concerted effort to find out what it was. One useful site as a last resort is WhatsThatBug.com

Best Firefox add-ons

My favourite Firefox 3 add-ons:

1. dragdropupload
No more browsing for files such as attachments - just drag into the form!

2. FoxyTunes
Control your music software (like iTunes) from Firefox. Cool 'Now Playing' Signatures feature too.

3. Web Developer
A must for a Webbie.

4. Back to Top
A Top (or Bottom) of page button for Firefox.

5. ColourfulTabs
Enhance your tabbed browsing with cute colours.

6. AdBlock Plus
Ditch the tired 'You are the 1,000,000,000 visitor' banner ads.

Good luck getting Firefox 3 today!

Firefox made today a 'everyone download Firefox 3 and help us set a new world record in downloads'. So it was no surprise that their website was so overloaded with traffic it crashed. I'm glad I got did my download a couple of days ago!

More on the whaling issue

"Every year the Japanese hunt and kill 1,200 whales and it defends its position at the IWC. With an increasing number of countries, including many in Latin America, Asia and Africa, opposing the unjustified killing of whales, Japan is outnumbered. So, it set out to recruit small countries to join the IWC as supporters in exchange for giving them fisheries facilities.

Over time, these mostly refrigerated storage units, have become white elephants. They sit on the shores underutilised, and not serving the fishing community which lacks the capacity to catch the amount of fish necessary to fill them. They may have served a purpose at the time of their establishment when the governments of these small states pointed to them as indicators of investment in their small and less well-off fishing communities. Today, it is clear the fishing communities would have done better if investment had been made in improving their capacity to fish with bigger boats and more modern technology by giving grants or very low interest loans.

Many of the countries that Japan recruited to bolster its position in the IWC cannot afford to join other international organisations that are of importance to them or send delegations to meetings. Yet, they have somehow managed both to meet the cost of membership of the IWC and to send vociferous delegations to its meetings."

Read more...

Help Fix Facebook

Remember the old days of the Net when Dominica wasn't listed in many drop-down country lists? I had to send many irate emails to webmasters.

In using Facebook for our Dominica page, about the only City/Town allowed is Roseau. This of course is simply Not Good Enough. For example, I'm trying to add event info for the Cochrane (Pesky) Wabbit Festival. But no, it's not being held in Cockrane, Alabama.

So I urge everyone to go to http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=region_request to request Facebook add our major towns and villages!

So far, I've added:

Cochrane
Scott's Head
Soufriere

A define 'No' to commercial whaling

A couple of days I blogged that Dominica will be abstaining at the forthcoming IWC vote - a major shift in position after years of supporting Japan. A quote from Prime Minister of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit, is even more emphatic:

“In common with most of our Caribbean neighbors, Dominica remains strongly in favor of the sustainable use of marine resources,” said Roosevelt Skerrit, Prime Minister of Dominica. “Our stringent environmental practices and philosophies have earned us the label, ‘The Nature Island’ and, upon careful review and deliberation of the issue, it has been determined that voting for an overturn of the existing worldwide ban on commercial whaling would be inconsistent with the standards and principles of sustainability that we so fervently advocate.”


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Listening to: XTC - Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her, Kiss Her
via FoxyTunes

Deadly fat

I was shocked to read just how deadly hydrogenated vegetable oil (also known as trans-fat) is. No more for me!