We are knocking on the proverbial wood. The Jamaica leg of the Cricket World Cup has, so far, been running relatively smoothly, and the naysayers, who projected and perhaps hoped for chaos, are having to revise their tune. Hopefully, the organisation will continue to be decent and even improve.

In this generally good performance of the management of the tournament up to now, there is one group which we would like to highlight for special commendation: the police.

Indeed, it is not very often that there are too many good things to say about the constabulary in how they keep order at public events. We hope that this is not so much an exception as a turning point.

Cops on the streets in the vicinity of Sabina Park where the matches are being played have been firm in enforcing the rules of vehicular and pedestrian movement; and very important, they are courteous and helpful. The same applies to those who operated at the National Stadium and the National Heroes Park, from which there are shuttle services to Sabina Park.

Indeed, this attitude of decency and good behaviour and the absence of an inherent adversarial relationship between the public and the police was also apparent during the CWC opening ceremony last Sunday in Trelawny and during the pre-launch festivities in the parish capital of Falmouth.

It all has been refreshing with a good measure of satisfaction reflected in the widespread reaction from many who rate the start as world-class in standard. This high level of organisation should be maintained even beyond the World Cup.

What the behaviour of the past week has shown is that it is possible to shift cultures, but that it demands insistence and effort; there is something that must drive the change and someone to see it through. In this case, the ICC set its standards for the World Cup and we wanted to be among the hosts of the tournament.

So we have been abiding by the rules, which have included a certain approach to security. Then there is this matter of national pride, which we tend to dust off when visitors are around. On such occasions we lift performance.

Whatever, the motivation, we congratulate the police and hope they continue in this vein.

George John

Not too many Jamaicans may have known George John. He knew Jamaicans, in the big sense, and had a deep appreciation of the country.

George John was a Trinidadian journalist who died this week, aged 86. He was much more than that: George John was a West Indian and decent human being, a man of culture who, until his illness of recent times, remained youthful in his quest for life and knowledge.

George John worked for this newspaper as head of its bureau in Trinidad and Tobago at the start of the West Indies Federation and came to Kingston after its collapse. He came back in the 1990s to teach at the Caribbean Institute of Media and Communications at the Mona campus of the UWI and had subsequent stints at The Gleaner and The Observer.

He has edited newspapers in Trinidad and Tobago and Dominica and has contributed to others across the region. He wrote two books: one on Eric Williams for whom he was spokesman, and the other a memoir on his life as a journalist.

George John was good for journalism and he was good to journalists.