Red Stripe beer: old or Bold?

SOLD overseas as the "world's coolest beer", Red Stripe has found itself struggling at home.


Owned by booze multi-national Diageo, J$ millions have been poured into party sponsorship and ad campaigns but still young drinkers shy away — yes Red Stripe is achingly hip in NYC, Tokyo or London but in Jamaica its image is arthritically old.

But now, slowly finding its way into Kingston fridges, the new Red Stripe Bold is intended to win over younger drinkers better used to a Q of Appleton rum, Pepsi and a bucketful of ice. At 6% it's stronger than the old brew, darker, richer and yes, more expensive in a smaller bottle.

But go easy in the hot weather. A few traditional Red Strips will leave you a little mellow and maybe bloated with the volume. A few of these will make you want to drive very fast.

Dudus, son of Jim Brown, wanted by US

TIVOLI GARDENS, Kingston — The news today is that the United States wants to extradite Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, reputed don of this, Jamaica's best known garrison community.



Tivoli is a special case. It's the heart of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) constituency of West Kingston and its current Member of Parliament happens to be Prime Minister Bruce Golding and before him, Edward Seaga, who socially engineered the community during his 40 years in political office.

The extradition request — Brown is wanted on drug trafficking and conspiracy charges — is eerily similar to that of his father Lester, better known as 'Jim Brown'. 'Jim Brown' was accused of running the notorious 'Shower Posse' gang, which dominated the crack cocaine trade in many US cities during 1980s and he too faced extradition.

Mysteriously 'Jim Brown' burnt to death in a Kingston prison cell back in 1992. Many believe that he knew simply knew too much, as one of the readers commenting on the Jamaica Observer website noted today. Another complains about the illegal flow of US-manufactured weapons into the island.

Terry Lynn makes French Vogue

WATERHOUSE, St Andrew — Terry Lynn is a bittersweet combination, a charming personality toughened by her roots in this community she references in her music as 'slaughterhouse'.

However it's overseas and not Jamaica where Lynn's best known, thanks to 'Kingston Logic'. That, the title track of her debut album, matches a staccato flow and stark lyrics with the 'Technologic' riddim by French producers Daft Punk.


Dues also to Russell Hergert, her Swiss-based Canadian producer and label boss, who spent years developing her as an artiste — Jamaican artists rarely get that chance — and local photographer Peter Dean Rickards who took the shots.

I have something to say
I'm gonna say it once
I'm waiting for my day
That day to take my chance
So when I work give me my pay
My overtime my advance
I'm tired of being a victim of the circumstance
- Terry Lynn, 'Streetlife'

Dead for a bus fare

INNER CITY, Kingston & St Andrew — J$50.00, that can be the cost of a life — the cost of a bus fare. He was a well-liked in his community, easy going and hard working: he'd just saved enough to buy a pick-up truck for his father out in the country.

Gone, he will be missed by many. But his killers, they chose to shoot him eight times in all, each bullet valued about the same as the bus fare they had demanded, and he had refused.

They had followed him home. That it happened in the same community where they all lived, sadly made it all the more typical. These were all men aged in their early twenties, apples from the same tree: one good, the rest worse.

Who he was connected to might not have fully crossed their minds. Yet to be buried and the retribution has already started.

But not all farinas

FOR tourists there's still no better place than Jamaica to braid your hair, wave at planes and say 'Yah Mon!'

For all oonu farinas