When I am in pain, things that I would normally ignore tend to annoy me. My pain emanates from Argentina's embarrassing defeat of the Germans last weekend and these terrible back spasms I have been experiencing. The former has eased significantly, especially since the Germans got dumped by Spain this week. However, the back spasms have been sticking around like a stalker girlfriend; I just can't seem to shake them.

So, during the week of suffering, some things have been really annoying me. Like this underground anti-Yendi Phillipps thing in the Miss Jamaica Universe contest. Okay, so she won Miss Jamaica World and did pretty well at the Miss World contest and she decides to give the Miss Universe thing a spin. Why shouldn't she? She has more experience now since her Miss Jamaica World venture; that stint in South Africa surely would have done her a world of good and she is with one of the fastest men in history. Asafa is a lucky guy and this has nothing to do with Gay or Bolt.

So, even though the Miss Jamaica Universe thing was as low-keyed as Dudus during the state of emergency, people all over were asking if I thought it was fair that she entered and subsequently won the contest. I didn't respond to any of the questions and after a while they became quite annoying because then the same questions started to pop up on my Facebook page. My thing is so what if she wants to enter the competition and so what if she wins? It's her right and apparently there are no rules to prevent her from doing so. Clearly, the other contestants weren't up to muster. If they had been, there would be no need for the conversation at all.

This crab-in-a-barrel mentality has no place in this country if we intend to move forward. Just because someone is shining, doesn't mean that he or she is denying someone an opportunity to rise. If you enter a beauty contest and lose, maybe it just means that you are not beautiful enough, not bright enough or both. It doesn't necessarily mean that people are conspiring against you. And maybe if your friends feel otherwise maybe you need to consider the company you keep. Misery does love company and some ugly girls hang out with pretty girls and live vicariously them and that's just sad.

Leave the woman alone. She is smart and beautiful and clearly has the best shot of bringing a beauty crown back to Jamaica. After all, we do like to win and if she does, more power to her. Stop all the hating, please. It's small-minded and totally ridiculous.

The other thing that bugged me this week started out as a joke on the Ity and Fancy Cat show. In a segment of the show, Fancy Cat went on to the streets to see if Jamaicans knew how to sing the lyrics to the song Life in English. You know make 'Mi life soon sort out' sound like 'I will soon be able to sort my life out'.

Of course, it was funny at first but after a while it really annoyed me how 'dark' our people are. It was very embarrassing because it is one thing not to know the international language of business but it takes a certain level of stupidity to believe that to say something in English means adding a United States or English accent to Patois.

Why is it annoying? Well, think about it. If we can't speak English and we all know how bad speaking Patois with a foreign accent sounds, how in God's name are we going to move forward in this country when the very people who would make up a large portion of the workforce are unable to effectively communicate with people who they want to spend money here in this country? Ah boy.

There is something else that really annoys me and this is whether I am ill or not. It's downright irritating how impotent the leaders of the Caribbean are. The individual territories coming together to form a union in North America in what we know as the United States and the European Union are right there as examples of how many countries can work together for a common goal, why do we feel we have to reinvent the wheel here in the region to make CARICOM work? I suppose, stupid is as stupid does.

That's going to need an entire column to sort out.

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