“You are blessed and high­ly favoured,” is the up­lift­ing mes­sage that award-win­ning gospel en­ter­tain­er Alyssa Joseph, 19, is shar­ing through her lat­est re­lease Fa­vor.

Ting-a-ling-a-ling, school bell a ring! Or maybe it’s just some­one try­ing to get Full Blown on the tele­phone. As we head in­to the sum­mer, or what T&T has re­cent­ly coined JA­VA (Ju­ly–Au­gust va­ca­tion), the lo­cal sib­ling duo have giv­en fans a taste of dance­hall style in their lat­est sin­gle No Stress, while pay­ing homage to a vet­er­an in the genre.

On a day when many mark Cor­pus Christi by plant­i­ng crops and re­con­nect­ing with na­ture, one busi­ness is trans­form­ing lo­cal­ly grown pro­duce in­to nu­tri­ent-packed bev­er­ages.

Few dish­es cap­ture the spir­it of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s beach cul­ture quite like bake and shark. Found most fa­mous­ly along the shores of Mara­cas Bay, this beloved street food com­bines crisp fried shark tucked in­side a fluffy fried “bake”, then lay­ered with an ar­ray of vi­brant sauces, chut­neys, and fresh top­pings.

This is the part­ner­ship be­tween Naven­dra Bhukhal and Aman­da Ram­lal-Bhukhal, the duo caus­ing a buzz in the South­land un­der the name Bumpy’s Bar­beque.

Pep­per sauce goes on al­most every­thing we eat in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and for some peo­ple, food with­out some spicy flavour is con­sid­ered sac­ri­lege, which is not a bad thing, be­cause pep­pers are an ex­cel­lent source of vi­t­a­mins A and C, fi­bre, folic acid and potas­si­um.

Long be­fore What­sApp calls, Zoom meet­ings, satel­lite tele­vi­sion or even the in­ter­net, a voice trav­elled through space from Trinidad and reached New York.

Ex­change Vil­lage Mud Mandir, al­so known as the Se­wala Mandir in Cou­va, ded­i­cat­ed to Lord Shi­va, is con­sid­ered to be the longest-oc­cu­pied tem­ple in the coun­try.

The songs of kiskadees, wild macaws and Trinidad mot­mots still drift through the qui­et com­mu­ni­ty of Buenos Ayres.

Man­u­al ther­a­py mas­sages are ben­e­fi­cial to ath­letes, as they are de­signed to help them man­age pain, en­hance their ath­let­ic per­for­mance and speed up re­cov­ery from in­juries. But it can be phys­i­cal­ly tax­ing on the ther­a­pists them­selves.

The Michael Jack­son biopic “Michael” con­tin­ues to pull in mas­sive crowds and top en­ter­tain­ment head­lines world­wide. And right now, it has got every­body talk­ing about vi­tili­go again.

Cough, con­sti­pa­tion and rash­es are the three com­mon mi­nor child­hood ill­ness­es in T&T. Di­ar­rhoea used to be promi­nent. In the past 25 years, con­sti­pa­tion has tak­en its place.