A phantom email. A mystery letter. Obeah envelopes. St Patrick's Day at the Manatt enquiry was straight out of Alice in Wonderland.

Perhaps the strangest turn was the reaction to the reply from Manatt to a letter sent by Attorney General Dorothy Lightbourne. Now, considering this entire thing is basically an enquiry into Manatt's role in the Christopher 'Dudus' Coke extradition, you would think all parties would be interested in anything the firm had to say. But the objection to the reading of this reply by Oliver Smith, Solicitor General Douglas Leys' lawyer, was supported by K.D. Knight.

Bob Nesta Marley is by far the most famous figure Jamaican music has ever produced. Mention Jamaica, and foreigners who scarcely know in which hemisphere the country is located will cry in recognition, 'Bob Marley!' Millions of people the world over know of reggae only because of him, and have never heard of another Jamaican musician. It's a truly unique fame, covering all corners of the Earth, surpassing in universality the adulation accorded to other rock martyrs like Elvis Presley and John Lennon.

Question: Will Jamaica ever experience a people-power revolution à la Tunisia and Egypt?

Answer: Yes, when hell freezes over.

Since the first in 1944, Jamaica has held 13 universal adult suffrage general elections. Six of these were won by the party in power, six by the opposition, and in 1949, the incumbent party won the most seats but lost the popular vote. There have been no assassinations, coups, or revolutions. Not once has the legitimacy of an elected government ever been challenged. Post-World War II, no country on the planet can boast a better democratic scorecard.

Enquiry, shamquiry. That was pretty much the initial attitude of the general public towards the ongoing Manatt-Dudus commission. Not only have we grown accustomed to enquiries costing taxpayers lots of money and producing nothing of value, but the relentless press coverage of the Manatt saga over the past year left most people utterly sick of the topic.

The early stumblings suggested a grand 'business-as-usual' waste of time. But the fitful stops and starts began to curiously coalesce into rather interesting courtroom theatre, and what started out as a tedious joke is becoming a pretty good advertisement for Jamaican democracy. Chairman Emile George left the gates a bit hesitantly, but has settled into a firm non-partisan stride, quickly quashing the constant efforts to politicise the proceedings.

In the seven months since Christopher 'Dudus' Coke was extradited and his Tivoli stronghold dismantled, the homicide rate has plummeted by 35 per cent. No doubt, the uncompromising manner in which police now deal with persons of interest has contributed to the decline.

While Commissioner Owen Ellington's aggressive targeting of corrupt cops, and the efforts to improve police and community relations, seem to be bearing fruit. Jamaica remains one of the most murderous countries on earth.

(This is an excerpt from the book Jamaica Fi Real: Beauty, Vibes and Culture).

The best proof that all points of view are given free rein in Jamaica are the contrasting outlooks of two doyens of local journalism, Wilmot 'Mutty' Perkins and John Maxwell. While Maxwell remains a more or less unreformed leftist, Perkins has become somewhat of a right-wing anarchist. Ask the two former friends anything, and you are likely to get completely contradictory answers.

Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller is clever enough not to make specific promises.

One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

This is an extract from 'Jamaica Fi Real: Beauty, Vibes and Culture' by Kevin O'Brien Chang. Published by Ian Randle Publishers, available at the end of this month.

Though they had a common grandmother, Alexander Bustamante and Norman Manley were very different. Bustamante was a rough and ready man of the people with little formal education, and made no major mark on the world until he had passed 50. For Manley, achievement of excellence was the norm. He was an outstanding high-school athlete, Rhodes scholar, decorated First World War-military hero, prize man of Gray's Inn, acknowledged as the Caribbean's finest legal mind and the first Jamaican to appear before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

In september 2007, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) triumphed in a contested general-election victory for the first time since 1980, and tasted real political power for the first time since 1989. You would think that droughts of such durations would make Labourites wary of falling into the same traps that kept them so long in the wilderness. But recent events make you wonder.