Melville Cooke

The script could not have been worse for Asafa Powell. The day after Tyson Gay 'run him dung' to win the men's 100m World Championships medal, Veronica Campbell 'run dung' all and sundry to win the women's equivalent by, it would seem, literally a bra cup size.

The comparisons would have been inevitable, no matter the circumstances of the races; that Powell led, was chased, panicked by his own admission and was caught, but Campbell kept her nerve, dug deep to her 'toe pint' and finished like a runaway laden truck on Spur Tree Hill to take Jamaica's first gold medal at that level made them even more intense.

Credit Powell for honesty, though, as he said "I felt him (Gay) coming on, I started to panic and that slowed me down."

On the other hand, Campbell said that she was sure she had won, as she has a very strong finish.

Confidence, Marcus Garvey said, without it you are twice defeated in the race of life, but once you have it you have won even before the start.

It is bound to be, for some, a comparison that is narrowed down to gender and it would be facile to reduce the races to the components of what little boys and girls are supposed to be made of and that it is 'ooman time now', there is a case to be made for a representation of Jamaican gender trends. Not, however, in the way that might be initially expected, that more women are graduating from tertiary institutions blah blah blah, but what is expected of men.

'Deal wid de case'

We are expected to 'deal wid de case' with aplomb and even a dismissive ease, to rise to the occasion no matter the circumstances, without much in the way of assistance. And woe be unto he who falls short, whether that is in the sack or on the track.

I am extremely happy that Powell did not make any limp excuses, showing us that a man who is capable of near superhuman speed is very much human and has his doubts, just as are we all Jamaican men, those with and without Pajeros, those with and without firearms, those with and without 'bling' and bombast, those with andwithout lots of money, those with and without Viagra.

I had a good chuckle a few days ago as I heard Orville Taylor, on the Hotline talk show, giving a lady instructions on how to get a TVJ or CVM signal. She listened carefully as he told her to screw out the cable connection on the television and insert a wire, which would then become an antenna.

It was not the screwing and insertion that got me (frankly, those specific terms may have come from distorted memory, rather than what was actually said). It was the memories of rooftop antenna adjustments in the days before widespread cable television. Someone would be on the roof, turning the antenna, and those in the house would be shouting "likkle more so, arright, come back desso, yeah, yeah, hol it desso! No move y'nuh!".

It was something everyone with access to a television knew about and it was not so long ago. Yet, here in 2007, there is a lady on a national talk show, getting instructions on how to use her television in the absence of what seems to be now considered a utility, right up there with water and electricity.

How our concept of what constitutes a normal life has changed.

Still, it is the same hole, just a different use, and it would appear that some have forgotten the former purpose, while there are those who did not know it in the first place.