Miss World 08 - Anyone watched it?

I've absolutely lost track of these pageant-y things over the past year...

I barely caught the final build-up to the Miss Universe pageant - can't forget that Ms. U.S.A. spill - and now, I totally forgot about the Ms. World finals, which came off on Saturday morning in South Africa.

I was so out of the loop, that I was actually shocked when I heard that Ms. Trinidad & Tobago, Gabrielle Walcott was selected as the 2nd runner-up - I had forgot that we had a contestant in the pageant!

Ms. Russia, Kseniya Sukhinova, was selected as the winner, with Ms. India, Parvathay Omanakuttan, as the first runner-up.

By the by: anyone actually watched the show? I heard Ms. T&T botched the Q&A segment, and the gown seemed to be right out of the 1980's pageant circuit archive - unfortunate, because she is gorgeous.

Let me know how the show went down, people!

L.M.N. Harris.

Miss TnT 2008 Winners are in!

So the new pageant representatives were chosen by the judges tonight, with Gabrielle Walcott & Anya Ayong Chee emerging as Miss T&T/World and Miss T&T Universe respectively. Unfortunately, I can't say much about the actual pagent or the winners, because PC troubles kept me off the weblink till the point when the last contestant was doing a clumsy job of answering the final question. Anya was my pick from the start - the start for me being a few days ago, when I happened upon http://www.ctntworld.com/ and saw the delegates for this year's competition - and only because I found it quaint that she was a bit Asian. Gabrielle, who's also the winner of the People's Choice Award, was clearly the crowd favourite and did look quite good. The only thing that managed to annoy me in the few minutes I watched the stream, was the host and pageant company (Peter Elias and Company) rep Adrian Raymond, waxing warm about all sorts of behind-the-scenes memories and moments involving the girls. One or two comments for flavour is always welcomed, but too much is too much, right? All in all, the inclusion of CNMG into the pageant equation has seemed to work out for Elias & co., and the standard of the show did appear to be much higher this year, albeit very intimate and pared down. I wish Gabrielle and Anyna all the best with their respective competitions, and I'm looking forward to what's next for the girls as they go on to represent Trinidad & Tobago internationally...

L.M.N. Harris