As a somewhat precocious child (my parents preferred the word “rude") I was often in trouble with my parents. My parents, on the other hand, were old-fashioned Jamaicans who believed that the remedy for “precociousness” was a good flogging every now and then. We can argue about the merits of corporal punishment but what always fascinated me was the fact that the flogging alone was never enough. There was always some kind of verbal commentary before/during/after the process. I’ve taken a moment to jot down down some of those comments along with my thoughts on those comments as they were said to me. If you were also a precocious child some of them may sound familiar to you -

Ladies and gentlemen, here at ThingsJamaicansLove.com we believe in recognising exceptional performance in whatever field of endeavour it may occur. One area in which Jamaica has consistently produced remarkable performances is bad roads. Jamaica’s performances in this area are so numerous and the standard so “high” that its almost impossible to say which are the worst of our terrible roads. We went ahead and tried anyway. So, without further ado, the Nominees for ThingsJamaicansLove.com’s Worst Roads in Kingston & St. Andrew 2010/2011 are:

Even when money to spend, sensible leaders, and pot-hole free roads are in short supply, one thing Jamaica always has in abundance is music. This article celebrates some of the songs ThingsJamaicansLove enjoyed most in 2010:

Count Your Blessings – Nas and Junior Gong. “I’ve got love and assurance, I’ve got new health insurance, I’ve strength and endurance, so I count my blessings” Nas and Junior Gong’s exhortation to appreciate the simple things in life was one of our favourite conscious tunes of the year.

Drinking Rum (Rum and Red Bull) – Future Fambo and Beenie Man. We suspect this was probably the biggest party song of the year? TJL heard this song at wedding receptions, birthday parties, football matches, dances and uptown sessions - and guess what? It done di place every single time. As big as this song was, it might be more fair to say that the bigger hit was the “One Day” riddim by Seanizzle on which the song was recorded. Other hit songs on the One Day riddim were Swaggerific (Mr. G.), I’m Ok (Beenie Man), Wifey Walk Out (Liquid) and the monster hit Nah Sell out mi Fren (Khago).

You may not have noticed it, but we live in a world that has effectively become a high-tech prison. Yes, it’s true, and no, I’m not being paranoid. It seems to me that we live in a fascist regime where our liberty is being restricted from every conceivable angle. That liberty is not being restricted by the police, the secret service or by Big Brother, mind you, but by legions of computer nerds who’ve fixed it so that pretty much every little thing we do requires the submission of a code, password or pin number. No, don’t laugh, it’s the gospel truth. We’re being hemmed in on every side by the need to submit intricate combinations of letters and numbers before we’re allowed to do even the most mundane tasks. I tell you, without a trace of melodrama, that our very freedom is under threat.

Let me demonstrate to you how passwords, codes, and pin numbers have become an inescapable part of our lives.

Sometimes yuh haffi tek serious ting mek joke. As I was mopping out my flooded kitchen last night in my water boots and gloves, I thought about the sure signs that Jamaica is experiencing flood rains:

1. It doesn’t matter how many times the warnings are announced on radio and tv, it's GUARANTEED that somebody's car will get washed away as they try to drive through a gully during the rain.

2. Muddy brown water is coming through holes in your roof, cracks in your window, spaces under your door, gaps in the floor and all manner of openings and crevices in your house that you never knew existed.

3. There's enough water in your backyard for you to seriously consider planting rice.

Guys, if you could tear yourselves away from your cell phones, Blackberries and iPhones for just one second we’d love to get you to stop and think about something. Have you ever considered the large number of convenient acronyms and initialisms you use when sending text messages? (Explanations of the big words at bottom of post) Ok, it may sound silly but think about it for a second… When someone says something funny you have the option of responding with LOL (Laugh out loud), DWL (Ded wid laugh) or BOAL (Buss out ah laugh). You can also use ROFL (Roll on the floor), LMAO (Laugh my ass off) or DWBCL. (You can figure that last one out for yourselves).

Many of you will frequently use OMG (Oh My Gosh), IKR (I Know Right), KK (Cool Cool), SMH (Shake my head), KMT (Kiss mi teet), OMG (Oh my God), TMI (Too much information), WTF, and at the end of a conversation you may often close with TTYL (Talk to You Later). These acronyms are convenient because they shorten commonly used expressions down to a few letters that are easy to type while on the go. And since they’re so useful (and entertaining), ThingsJamaicansLove.com figured that we should come up with some acronyms specifically tailored for Jamaicans to use while texting. So here goes:

Yea though I drive through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…

In many developed countries the morning commute to work is a reasonably comfortable and event-free experience. Even when the traffic is heavy, the roads are good and people go about their business in an orderly fashion. But this is Jamaica... and my drive to work is a little different.

The summer is here and there’s nothing better than spending a long hot day lazing on the beach reading a good book. Here are a few of the books we wish were on our summer reading list:

Where the Tunnels Really Are – Christopher Coke

Spicing up your life with Colour - Elephant Man

Famous for Not Being Famous – LA Lewis

Outing the Fire – Capleton

Bangarang Made Easy – Bruce Golding

You're watching the latest scenes from the fighting in Iraq on CNN when you realise that it’s not Iraq you're looking at.

2. If a gunman so much as sneezes in Tivoli, Red Hills Road or Mountain View Avenue you get a dozen messages about it on Blackberry, Twitter and Facebook.

3. The ONLY topic on the local nightly news is the State of Emergency.

4. BBC is showing scenes from "ground zero" of the conflict... and it looks a lot like your neighbour’s backyard.

5. You pass the time by counting the fascinating ways foreign newscasters have found to pronounce Dudus (Doo-dus, Dough-dus, etc).

Dozens of drug-sniffing dogs at the Ft. Lauderdale airport are already out of work.

2. Among the items included in the in-flight shopping brochure are cologne, perfume and “a used A320”.

3. The complementary blanket given to you is marked ‘Property of Sandals’.

4. The flight attendant asks the passengers if they can help “mek up the gas money”.

Jamaicans are a people accustomed to hardship. But even for us, these are unusually difficult economic times. Every day more and more people lose their jobs at a time when taxes and prices are rising higher and the chances of finding a new job are becoming dramatically lower. In these troubled times it’s not enough for well-intentioned financial experts to encourage you to be “thrifty” and to “budget wisely”. When you’ve lost your job, and the mortgage, school fees and car payments are all overdue those tips simply don’t go far enough. “Tightening one’s belt” further is pointless when your belt is already tied around your spine. In desperate situations, truly resilient people instinctively know how to “tun yuh han mek fashion” and find creative ways to get by. That in mind, ThingsJamaicansLove.com has compiled a list of the ways Real People can survive the recession:

A female German tourist driving a rental vehicle was rear-ended by a truck in the Fern Gully today after eye witnesses said she brought her car to a sudden stop in the middle of the road.

Every available container in your house including cups, jugs, wash basins, buckets, pails, dutch pots, pans, “chimmys”, used Sprite Bottles, used cooking oil containers, baby bottles, the washing machine and the bathtub have been used to collect water.

2. You checked into an all-inclusive hotel over the long weekend; not for the food, drink and luxury accommodations but just so you could take a hot shower.

3. You’ve mastered the art of bathing twice and brushing your teeth three times a day with one 9 oz cup of water.

Recently the Gleaner published a Letter to the Editor where the writer suggested that Jamaica’s economic woes could be solved by money raised from taxing bad words. ThingsJamaicansLove.com thought this was an excellent idea and, as a way of doing our part to help Jamaica out of its economic problems, we've come up with some additional suggestions for things that could be added to the “tax net”. We’ve focused on things that Jamaicans do very frequently but which probably ought to be discouraged. Some of our ideas may sound outlandish but just remember that in the last tax package an attempt was made to tax salt and ground provisions... so nothing is sacred. Ever heard of the Matalon Report? We call this the Fulsome Report (You’ll see why below).

Bad Mind: As common as oxygen and found in every single area of Jamaican life, bad mind is present in every village, town and hamlet in Jamaica. It’s found amongst the rich, poor, educated, uneducated, PNP, JLP, NDM, Gully and Gaza alike. A tax on bad mind would be inherently equitable as it would have to be paid by almost everybody, regardless of background, class or status and would, no doubt, generate enormous revenues since there is such an abundance of it. It would also help to bring about social order since the more “bad-minded” a person is, the more bad-mind tax they would pay, and as such there would strong incentive not to be so damn evil. (Naturally, some people would go broke but that’s ok.) We suggest a fixed tax of $200 for every occurrence noted. (Never mind the low price. We expect to make up for it in volume)

As many tourists (and some Jamaicans) have found, when one is travelling through Jamaica a regular road map is often not very helpful. In the same way many Jamaican persons are far better known by their nicknames than their official names, many places in Jamaica are better known by “nicknames” than the names actually found on a map. The following list of the “real” names of some places in Jamaica may come in handy the next time you get lost somewhere between Mocho and Gimme-me-Bit and a shifty-looking guy in dark glasses named Mongoose swears he’ll “ tek yuh exactly wish part yu waan go” if you will just follow him down this dimly-lit, unmarked, side road.

Country: Any place outside of Kingston. (As far as Kingstonians are concerned anyway). “Country” even includes the second city of Montego Bay. So, if a Kinsgtonian tells you they are going to the country for the weekend it’s best to get details. Going to “Country” can mean an overnight stay with Mama (Grandma) in Rock River, Clarendon or it can mean a weekend for two in a 5-star, all-inclusive resort in Ocho Rios.

Backto: Majesty Gardens, an economically deprived community near Three Miles in the parish of St. Andrew. In the song ‘Welcome to Jamrock’ Junior Gong states the glaringly obvious: “Sandals [Hotel] ah nuh Backto”. Thanks for the heads-up Gong.

As any true gentleman/lady will tell you, good table manners are an essential part of fluid and enjoyable social interaction. What actually constitutes good table manners, however, will vary widely from place to place. In an effort to identify what is considered good dining etiquette in Jamaica, ThingsJamaicansLove.com recently conducted a month-long undercover study at dozens of Jamaican restaurants, eateries and cookshops. Having carefully analysed and collated the data collected we now present to you what we learnt about how one should conduct oneself when dining in Jamaica:

1. On entering the restaurant/cookshop loudly announce your presence by shouting “Serve here!”

2. Do not wait to be seated. Simply plop yourself down at the nearest available table.

3. Grill your waiter on the menu items and their accompaniments. E.g.“Is local goat or imported mutton? Mi only eat local rammy yuh know.”
“What yuh serve wid di tripe? Rice an peas? Plain rice? Food?
“ Is nuff food yuh get?”
“So I can get curry goat gravy wid di the fry chicken?”
“Is why yuh face screw up so? Yuh work inna restaurant, so mi know seh yuh nuh hungry.”

In recent times thingsjamaicanslove.com has noticed an amazing rise in the number of health tonics/performance-enhancing drinks on the market. Traditional home-brewed potions like Roots, Irish Moss, Strong Back and Peanut Punch are quickly being replaced by modern mass-produced concoctions like Jagra, Power Wine, Mandingo and Magnum. But it appears that most of these products are made only for men. What about the women? Are we assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that women don’t occasionally need a little “extra help” in the boudoir?

Previously, when women complained about being “tired” and having “headaches” it was assumed (with a sigh of resignation) that they were simply making excuses because they were not “in the mood”. However, a recent study (commissioned by TJL, not yet released) shows that a staggering 71.37% of all women are frequently exhausted to the point where it significantly diminishes their libido! The percentage is even higher amongst single mothers and professional women. If this is the case, why aren’t there any performance enhancers for the Jamaican woman who needs a little “extra edge”?

Well, in the spirit of innovation and public service (for which thingsjamaicanslove.com is so well known), we’ve come up with some product ideas for performance enhancers specially designed for women that we think could fill this gap in the market. We’ve also provided some suggested taglines to help in the marketing effort:

Imagine it, groups of testosterone-pumping, shot-gun-toting, men; disappearing into the country side, weekends at a time; lost to the mosquito-infused, male-bonding ritual known as Bird Bush. My beloved husband, as it happens, is a member of one of these groups.

As a "transplant" who didn’t grow up in Jamaica but in England (the “Mother Country”), the ironic tradition of bird shooting is lost on me. Ironic because it’s a tradition courtesy of our colonial forefathers, a tradition whose Jamaican history stems back many centuries. In 1937, when Jamaica’s oldest gun club, PWD, was born, the tradition took on a mind all of its own. And now, this tradition has made its way into the heart of many Jamaican men, who wait in anticipation for the opening morning, and the start of another season.

Now, having recently witnessed the whole production myself (yes…I finally got the invite…woo hoo!), let me break it down for you: