- WINSTON SILL0/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
High Commissioner of Trinidad and Tobago Dennis Francis (left) shares pleasantries with US Ambassador Brenda LaGrange Johnson and Chinese Ambassador Zhao Zhenyu at recent diplomats reception.
Chester Francis-Jackson, Contributor
OKAY, SO was it president elect and Prime Minister in waiting, Dr. Peter Phillips, as the intelligentsia and the social elite would have preferred, or was it madam president elect and Prime Minister in waiting Mrs. Portia Simpson Miller, as the polloi and the under class were clamouring for?
Well, this column was put to bed before the actual results of the hotly contested PNP presidential elections were announced, but that did not prevent the hopefuls and or would-be handlers from planning champagne victory parties. Many planned champagne soirees there were last evening, in anticipation of victory and they will continue into this week, so wait for it! Anyway sweethearts, the partying continues!
HOMEWARD BOUND
High Commissioner to Kingston, HE High Commissioner to Trinidad Dennis Francis of Trinidad and Tobago and Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, is all set to return home after a near six-year stint here.
Already his colleagues and many a friends are packing the social calendar with many events to be hosted in his honour. During his stint here he was not only a social staple along the halls and boulevards of high society but also along the corridors of power. He proved a rather charming raconteur who endeared himself to many a fellow guest in his many appearances across the length and breadth of Jamaica.
The invites are pouring in, and snob-society, as well as members of the diplomatic and consular corps are all gearing up for an orgy of farewell functions. But wait, the mother of all farewell doos, dubbed a "Tropical Escape" is all set to take high society by storm!
And still speaking of things diplomatic, she was considered a hard act to follow, and there were many who wondered just how formidable a successor for former US Ambassador HE Sue Cobb would be?
Well worry no more as her successor, HE Ambassador Brenda LaGrange Johnson, is proving equal to the task and proving quite a social hit as she makes the rounds on her diplomatic sojourn here.
A style maven of couture order and not unlike her predecessor, Ambassador LaGrange Johnson is a close family friend of the President George Bush and wife Laura, but also fabulously wealthy. Since her arrival, she and hubby Howard Johnson have wasted absolutely no time in getting in the swing of things here!
Talk about connected? Pumpkins, they do not come any more so than Ambassador LaGrange -Johnson and hubby as her bedside rolodex is said to contain the straight lines of the US President and a number of his Cabinet people as well as the name of anybody who's any body in the world of high-finance and social-dom in the continental USA.
By now you should all know that one of Montego Bay's leading international charity events, the annual Sugar Cane Ball hosted at the swanky Round Hill property, was staged two weekends ago. Honeys, there were a number of international jet-setters and social gad-flies in attendance, but it was Ambassador LaGrange Johnson and hubby Howard who were the darlings of the events!
The buzz is they were as charming as they were charmed, and they were completely at home in the grand setting and even grander company of some fabulous East and West Coast socialites, Hollywood stars and the international moneyed set who all jetted in for the extravaganza.
Toastmaster and fundraiser/organiser-in-chief, Josef Forstmayer was no less fabulous as he used all his charm to raise every penny possible from the moneyed crowd in attendance for the society's many charitable causes in western Jamaica. It was one social humdinger!
And, Gordon 'Butch' Stewart, is not the only big-wig who has placed his intended Port Antonio development on hold for the moment due to the lack of infrastructural development. The buzz is that the same is true of a number of Port Antonio projects, as the roadways into the parish are simply and horribly atrocious!
And 'insultingly vulgar', is the word used to describe the roadways in neighbouring St. Mary, causing a number of projects to be placed on hold as well, but alas, we pray and press on.
