Ok, first things first, to all of you who helped me achieve my five comments for my first blog post, I say

To those of you who read and gave verbal comments, thanks as well. It seems that I’ve passed my first week’s
Now back to business!

This week, was a busy one, many things happening. On the family side my husband celebrated his birthday on Monday, October 27 and on the following day, my mom celebrated her birthday on Tuesday, October 28.
(this is one of my favorite photos of us together)

So join me in wishing them

hoping that they both live to see many, many more.

On the national side, the last week of October usually wraps up the various activities celebrating our Independence. This year, however, there is a special twist in that on Independence day, which is November 1, 2008, we will have the historic Stanford Superstars vs. England included in this year’s celebrations. Before we get into this however I would like to share the following, an instrumental of the first stanza of our national anthem :

Antigua & Barbuda gained Independence from Britain on November 1, 1981, a momentous occassion for the twin island nationa as it meant that we were no longer under British rule.

Since I provided a brief history on Antigua & Barbuda last post I’ll simply share our national symbols this week.

This link shows you the calendar of events to mark our 27th Anniversary of Independence.

A creative strategy used by the current administration to increase participation in our Independence celebrations was the introduction of the Independence Homecoming Festival, started four years ago. This was aimed at encouraging Antiguans & Barbudans living abroad to return home thereby making Independence celebrations truly a family affair.

The introduction of cricket to this year’s Independence celebrations I find an interestingly creative strategy. Antigua, arguably has produced one of the greatest cricketers of our time, Sir Vivian Richards, the masterblaster.

If you don’t believe me, then believe the 100 former cricketers and journalists.

In fact, one of our beloved calypsonians, The Monarch has a very well-known and enjoyed song within these parts about the masterblaster, extolling his cricketing skills. King Short Shirt_02_Vvian Richards

Cricket lovely cricket is one of the highlights of the year’s calendar of events for us.
As mentioned in last week’s blog we had the 2007 Cricket World Cup in this part of the world for the first time ever, and the matches were played in the newly built
Sir Vivian Richards Stadium.

An added feature to cricket in Antigua & Barbuda is another form of the limited overs match called 20/20, introduced by Sir Allen Stanford. This introduction served to highlight the talents of West Indian cricketers who don’t usually get selected for the Test Matches or One Days throughout the cricket season. Personally, I feel it has also served to bring back some pride in our West Indian cricket. For years, there was West Indian dominance in cricket. This pride for many has been lost in recent times with our chronic losing streak.

The 20/20 matches has brought some of that pride in West Indian cricket back.

The Stanford 20/20 creative strategy has been serving the game of cricket well. Stretching beyond the traditional boundaries of cricket to Fort Collins, Colorado. Only time will tell how successful this is, and if other areas of the US will be interested in our ‘cricket lovely cricket.’

That said, this week, I leave you with the video of the 2007 20/20 theme song, performed by one of the Caribbean’s greatest soca artist Machel Montano and our very own Claudette ‘CP’ Peters.

Until next week, happy reading!