THE SANKULAY KUNDA I SAW

BARELY ONE WEEK AFTER inaugurating the first and only bridge in the Central River Region, in which President Jammeh cut the ribbon thus landing his name in the history books. I traveled returned to this settlement that I had criss crossed several times during my his high shool days.

I'm also a native of the district, I grew up hearing fairy tales that a bridge is almost impossible to be built there; that a dragon had frustrated several attempts before.

The late Cherno Baldeh, Chief of Lower Fulladu West made frantic efforts in 1925 to connect Sankulay Kunda and Janjang Bureh - two communities that have long been separated by the river Gambia by putting phum palm sticks for passerby to walk to the other end.

Now during my recent trip there to capture a special feature for the Gambian television, I could not help but imagine how it was like many many years ago, when the passengers had to rely on a ferry to cross to the other side of the river.

Watch out for this special feature on Gambia Television on Saturday 24th July 2010 @ 21.00 hrs and Sunday 25 July @ 14.oo hrs.

Stadiums like this may be gathering dust for many years

With the FIFA World Cup in South Africa over, haven't you realised that we are missing something? Barbara Scott explains

I don't know whether this is officially recognised by medical experts but it definitely exists, in the UK anyway. The symptoms are usually only suffered by men and are as follows:

A general feeling of lethargy and discontent

A sense of loss

Turning on the TV and switching from channel to channel muttering that "There is nothing to watch!"

Not being able to find an excuse to get out of the house to 'Watch the game on the big screen (usually to be found in a bar somewhere!)

Missing your friends and the predictions pre-match and post mortems post-match

Flicking to the sports pages of the newspapers and finding only golf or motor racing

Realising that they have to talk to their wives again (or rather listen to them talking)

Ticking off the days on the calendar until the football season starts once again

This syndrome only lasts a few weeks because pretty soon the Premier League, Euro Championships and all the other 'friendly' games will be up and running. Once again the pundits will be giving their predictions and the praise and criticisms will come in equal measure. Oh football!! What would you men do without it?! Still, at least it keeps you out of mischief.

Barbara Scott

May be next time

Netherlands Coach Bert Van Marwijk Extremely Disappointed With Loss To Spain




Netherlands coach Bert Van Marwijk cannot hide his disappointment after losing the World Cup final 1-0 to Spain.

Van Marwijk believed that his side failed to capitalise on chances, and made too may errors.

"I am very disappointed. Three more minutes, and we would have made it," the coach said post-match to TuttoSport. "We could have done much better, but we lost in the crucial minutes.

"We came so close, and were very nervous. There were too many errors made, and we didn't take advantage of our opportunities. But the better side won in the end.

"I wanted to be World Champions.

"We were not scared to do well, but seeing how many people we have with yellow cards, we were aiming to get the match to a penalty shoot-out.

"The refereeing is a part of the match. I can see the joy in many people's face, but this is sport," he concluded.

Courtesy of Facebook.com/Goal

LOOKING AT THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE CRITICALLY

By Barbara Scott

I was amused by your piece about the complexity of the English language. I know only too well how confusing this is to someone who is learning English as a second language. It is not until you look at your own language through a foreigner's eyes that you realise why they say it is the hardest language to learn! Well, here is something else that might interest your readers. There is a very amusing and informative book written by a journalist called Lynne Truss called Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. As a writer and journalist, Truss realised how often improper punctuation can make all the difference to the sense of sentence. An example of this is the clue to the title of the book:

A panda walks into a bar. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why? Why are you behaving in this strange, un-panda-like fashion?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda walks towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

There are many more examples of how poor punctuation can alter the meaning of a sentence or passage completely. Also, the ubiquitous 'apostrophe' is one of my pet hates. There is a golden rule that I learned at school and that is to only put in an apostrophe if it is appropriate. ie: if it is a possesive noun (Barbara's book) or if it is to replace the letter i in an abbreviation (where's my book?). So many people use it as a plural as in a sign I saw recently in a shop window advertising a sale. It read ALL SHIRT'S HALF PRICE! Urrrrrrgh! How irritating is that, especially as it was in big red lettering in a very well known store! If in doubt leave it out is the best advice. Having worked for a newspaper I was always aware that if something was spelt or punctuated wrongly it was nearly always on the front page as a headline and in

72pt bold type!!!!

'Facah returns to India again'

How Good are you!

The English language is very difficult to understand, have you made any effort to decode the language? Lets try to intellectualise this forward.

You think English is easy???

Read to the end . . . a new twist

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce .

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present ..

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row .

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France . Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

PS. - Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick' ?


You lovers of the English language might enjoy this .
There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is 'UP.'

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ?
At a meeting, why does a topic come UP ?
Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report ?
We call UP our friends.
And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen.
We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.
At other times the little word has real special meaning.
People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.
To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.
A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP..
We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP !
To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary.
In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.
If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used.
It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.
When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP .
When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP...
When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.
When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP.

One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so........it is time to shut UP!
Now it's UP to you what you do with this email.

Peace

COME ON ENGLAND

Great expectations: This is what Rooney failed to against their match with Algeria

They say that a week is a long time in politics. Well, that can also be said for football as witnessed by the England fans so far in South Africa. Here in England we, like other countries, make heroes of our football stars. They can do no wrong, both on or off the field, as long as they are scoring goals. However, when they don't deliver the results we expect, as we have seen in both of the games they have played so far in the World Cup, we are ruthless in our condemnation of them. I am not a great football fan but I do have opinions on the events so far. I feel we should continue to give them our support regardless of whether they win or lose. Booing and vilifying them will not help them gain the confidence and direction they clearly need to win their next game on Wednesday. Yes, it is dissapointing and for those fans who paid a lot of money to travel to South Africa to watch them it must seem like a total waste of money and time, but no-one can guarantee who will win or lose. They haven't lost yet! I think they should all pick up their vuvuzelas and blow as hard as they can to cheer them on. Come on England, chins up, stiff upper lips, show them what you can really do when you put your minds to it!!

By Barbara Scott in the UK