Mc Farlane Review

Oye! My post is late today(for those used to my early morning article) because I visited out sister aisle yesterday and only returned today. Somewhat sad at leaving beautiful Tobago I came home only to be assaulted by traffic and TSTT once again messing with my Internet!

The following review is from a regular blog reader who played with Brian Mc Farlane's "India":

Presentation:
Every Costume was crafted in a loving way, and for most part, really was a true representation of the drawings from the website and mas camp. 15 sections in total, all very colourful and wonderful.

My favourite section being the red turban section, as it looked wonderful. When we crossed at the Savannah, the display we created was so effective there were tears in many an eye, including Mr Mc farlane himself.

Registration:
I registered online. The only problem I had was that they did not send any confirmation email to me to say if I had been successful. It was quite easy to register, taking less than 5 minutes.

Collection:
Was chaos. They delayed collection twice, meaning a Southern masquerader would have had to make several trips only to be told that the collection time had changed. Costumes seemed not to be ready on time and it was as if when you went to collect, they were finishing off each costume as they went. The lines for collection were long and it took ages. There were no drinks, not even water, to be had and the mas camp was in a complete mess. In my opinion, they should have had collection somewhere else. As well as that, some costumes were not even ready by Monday and someone I know did not get their costume until Tuesday morning. No goody bags in site.

Monday:
Was good. We had 2 lengths of white fabric to drape ourselves in and that was about it. We were sprayed with red paint at the Savannah and all in all it was an enjoyable day.

Tuesday:
We had to be at the mas camp at 7am. This was a mistake, I could have slept for at least 2 more hours. The costumes were still being finished and there was glue for days. I was annoyed that there was no explanation given by anyone at the mas camp, we just had to wait. By 9am the drinks truck and breakfast turned up, which consisted of a cake and a cheese roll, and then at a little after 10am we made our way to Ariapita avenue via Murray Street, missing out Adam Smith square. We first headed downtown, with Surface being the band of choice for the 3rd year running. They did not do too bad,.DJ Cin was the dj, and we also had the Laventille rhythm section playing, so a good mix of music. The rain came before we crossed downtown, but it did not dampen our spirits. The problem I had crossing was that the truck stopped far from us, so I felt we crossed to little or no music, which was disappointing.

After that, we crossed Piccadilly Green and that was great fun, apart from the fact it took ages and we had to wait again for the band to catch up (about an hour), with no food or drinks. Speaking of which, the people on the drinks truck were ignorant. They did not really want to serve people, and later in the day, there was not anyone on the drinks truck to serve us. I had to shout at one of the people to get on the truck before people started getting angry.

As we got close to the Savannah we did not encounter much of a delay. The delay came at the Savannah when the band leader told us what to do, in terms of the presentation. And I must say that it was fabulous. We saw Boyie cross the Caribbean sea, into the Indian ocean to be welcomed…..etc.etc…

After that, it was getting dark and we made our way to what we thought was our last venue, Adam smith Square. There were so many people chipping with the band it felt very claustrophobic. I did not like that part but they soon left as we got further along. Eventually we stopped dead in our tracks, and we were back at the mas camp. 3 canal's "Goodmorning" started to play and when that got cut dead, we began to realise that our Carnival was indeed over, much too soon for my liking as I was looking forward to a longer jump up!