Curriedflavouredflipproductions

The bottom line is:

"By the rivers of Ancient Babylon with its famous hanging gardens, she rarely released her inhabitants. Once you are in, you are trapped for life"

Ok I have a confession. Allow me to explain. I am still in Primary school in the middle of the 80s, Thatchers Britain. The Space shuttle was in her early days, Freddie Laker with his no frills flights had just gone bust. No Ayia Napa, or Ibiza, no mobile phones, no walkmans or I-pods, no internet, no satellite tv unlike america, no reality TV shows, 4 channels on government TV.
VHS video tapes, 33" and 45" Vinyl and cassettes was the main music medium, CD's was just coming in. Atari games console was the ultimate gift. A time when we were so proud when our home computers (mine was a Commodore Vic 20) had a maximum of memory 5Kb.

Where did I live? Babylon! I am talking about London, UK.
A serious melting pot of people of all languages tribes and tongues. If you wanted to hear a foreign language, or see culture and diversity, come to London. It was not a trouble free existence. We had reminders about freeing Nelson Mandela in South Africa, feed the world campaign to feed the starving in Ethiopia. Like all major cities, the boundaries of ‘the haves’ and ‘the have nots’ were rife.

I enjoyed school. My tranquillity was punctuated by the Tottenham and Brixton riots and being frequently stopped by the police who would ask me strange questions.

Life was not totally devoid of technology. Forget MP3s and 'YouTube', we did have the ubiquitous double cassettes decks. We competed against one another by seeing who could produce the best mix cassette of RnB, Roots and Rock Steady and Reggae by taping directly off the radio on Sundays. When you listened to singers such as Aswad, Tipper Irie "Police Officer don't give me producer" and Musical Youth "Pass the Dutchie" they echoed the frustration of black people, including the Rastas who felt that we were permanently condemned to "Babylon".

It was not all doom and gloom.

London occasionally had thick fogs, something we hardly see today. When the weather was poor, we walked to school. We did not have days off school when it snowed. And boy it religiously snowed back then.
So imagine my shock when this young beautiful black women presented the weather! She was the first to do so on mainstream TV. It was love at first sight! Her name was Rianna

Rianna Scipio presenting the weather:



Rianna Scipio interview by Totalite de Femmes





Wow, she was my 'Toni Braxton'. My first secret goddess and girlfriend. At the time I did not understand what a crush was, but I could not wait for her next weather bulletin at the weekends. I would be glued to the TV soaking up every word.

Of course we had famous afro-american black women such as Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin, Oprah was just starting out in the states, however, I am not talking about these great women. I am referring to Rianna. She was the sunshine in my life.
If I had my own TV channel today, she would still be on television presenting whatever she wanted. My TV channel would have alot of mature women of whatever background. Despite the technological advances, what beats me is why mature women are not on TV today. Are they all hiding? Have they all retired? Anyway, growing up, I may have been stuck near the River Thames in Babylon, but, with women like Rianna, I certainly was not going to be complaining : )

Check out this film entitled "Babylon". Which was filmed around where I grew up in South East London. (Please be mindful of some of the language, I do not intend to offend.)



I have to add another classic dedicated to all the survivors of the 80s.