Panorama finals destined to decline

THE EDITOR: Attendance at Panorama finals is now destined to continue its logical decline, and at an accelerating rate. The festiveness, once its hallmark, is fading, and fading fast. For this we must thank some singularly dubious application of criteria in judging steelband performances for Panorama 2004. When the brilliant but bland is rewarded so lavishly as to imply utter mediocrity of at least one band generally deemed as clearly superior, then it is obvious for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for bland Panorama attributable to statistically significant lapses in scoring. It tolls the knell for the demise of an event that was once as spectacular as it was joyous — The Spirit of Carnival. Twelve points? On with the dirge! And off to the all-inclusive do we wend our merry way!

GAVINO
HERNANDEZ
Port-of-Spain