Joe Lartey

Joachim Awuley Lartey (born 6 June 1927), aka 'Over To You' Joe Lartey, is a retired Ghanaian commentator and journalist. He worked with the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation from 1961 to 1973 and 1990, and with Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria between 1978 and 1990. Lartey was ranked amongst the top five African football commentators by Goal, an international association football news website.[1]

Joe Lartey
Born
Joachim Awuley Lartey

(1927-06-06) 6 June 1927
Lutterodt Street, Accra, Gold Coast
NationalityGhanaian
Alma materAccra Academy
Wolsey Hall, Oxford
OccupationPresenter
Commentator
journalist
Years active1961–1973, 1978–1990
EmployerGhana Broadcasting Corporation (1961–1973, 1990)
Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (1978–1990)
Spouse(s)Emily Lartebia Adjei

Early life and education

Lartey was born on 6 June 1927 at Lutterodt Street in Accra to Emmanuel Akushey Lartey and Madam Emma Araakua Lartey. His father worked with the Treasury Department.

Lartey started his education at Accra Royal School around 1933. Not long after, his father was transferred to Cape Coast and he went with him. However, before he could find another school, his father took ill and was brought back to Accra.

In 1935, his father was transferred to Tamale. He decided to go alone because of the distance. A journey to Tamale from Accra at the time lasted three days. Lartey, his younger brother and his mother were left behind. A few months later, his younger brother took ill and never recovered until he died. His father had to come for him and his mother. At Tamale, Lartey enrolled at the Tamale Middle Boarding School but his father sought permission for him to be a day student, since he fell sick often.

In 1938 his father returned to Accra and Lartey was sent to Government Senior Boys School at Kinbu to continue his education. He completed middle school in 1943 and was admitted to the Accra Academy in 1944. He followed events of the Second World War by listening to the war speeches of British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, on radio, and by reading magazines.

After less than a year at the Accra Academy, he left home for Takoradi to join the British Navy. He was sent to Free Town, Sierra Leon for further training. In 1945 the war had ended and his group was demobilised in 1946.[2][3]

Career

Lartey first got a job as a clerk at the Accra Town Council, working under the Town Clerk Major McDougel. He then pursued a course on his own with Wolsey Hall to prepare for Cambridge Certificate (O’Level).[4]

There was a special resettlement package for those discharged from the British Navy, as part of which, Lartey was given a scholarship to train as a teacher. He did the Certificate "B” at Winneba Training College, passing out after two years. Because of the Cambridge Certificate he obtained from Wolsey Hall, he was able to do his post-certificate training at Wesley College, Kumasi. He spent five years teaching at Larteh, Kwanyako, Swedru, Nyakrom and Accra until 1961.

GBC

He joined GBC in 1961 following a recommendation from an old mate from the Accra Academy, Boso Kpohonu, who was the Head of Research at GBC.

He spent two years at the Talks and Features Department before being sent to the Sports Department on relieving duties. Festus Addae, another celebrated commentator, who headed the department, refused to let Lartey go back to the Talks and Features Department.

Lartey flourished as a commentator at the Sports Department. He and Addae handled commentary together, and this was when the phrase "over to you Joe Lartey" became popular. Any time Addae was handing over to Lartey, he would use the expression.

Lartey was also involved in trade unionism while at GBC. He was divisional secretary of the Public Service Workers Union for six years, directly working under Kwesi Pratt Snr, the General Secretary and father of Kwesi Pratt Jnr.

Politics

Lartey left the GBC in 1973 and joined the Food Distribution Corporation that same year as a public relations practitioner, but he left in 1978 to go into private practice.

During the era of the Supreme Military Council (Ghana), he was involved in the activities of the People's Movement for Freedom and Justice (PMFJ) that opposed UNIGOV under Gen. Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, working in the trenches with Nana Akufo-Addo, Komla Agbeli Gbedemah and others. He moved to Lagos, Nigeria when the leaders of the movement were being pursued, and stayed there until 1990.

FRCN

During his 12-year spell at Radio Nigeria, officially known as the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), Lartey worked with Ishola Folorunsho, the ace Nigerian commentator, who was well known in Ghana and also a good friend of his. Aside handling some programmes on Radio Nigeria, he also taught at the FRCN Training School at Ikoyi, where he had the opportunity to train young Nigerian broadcasters in public speaking and public relations, which were key in broadcasting. 

Return to GBC

On his return in 1990, he hosted programmes such as Sports Digest and Hall of Fame on GTV while teaching public speaking to various groups.

He was the first president of the Sport Writers Association of Ghana (SWAG), of which he is currently a patron.

Today, Lartey still teaches presentation at the Accra Film School.[5][2][3]

Legacy

"Over to You Radio and TV Sports Broadcast Excellence" is an award ceremony named in his honour for his service in sports broadcast and journalism.[6][7]

gollark: I didn't do any horrible homoglyph hacks with THAT.
gollark: It uses the function, yes.
gollark: So, I finished that to highly dubious demand. I'd like to know how #11 and such work.
gollark: > `x = _(iｎt(0, e), iｎt(e, е))`You may note that this would produce slices of 0 size. However, one of the `e`s is a homoglyph; it contains `2 * e`.`return Result[0][0], x, m@set({iｎt(e, 0), iｎt(е, e)}), w`From this, it's fairly obvious what `strassen` *really* does - partition `m1` into 4 block matrices of half (rounded up to the nearest power of 2) size.> `E = typing(lookup[2])`I forgot what this is meant to contain. It probably isn't important.> `def exponentiate(m1, m2):`This is the actual multiplication bit.> `if m1.n == 1: return Mаtrix([[m1.bigData[0] * m2.bigData[0]]])`Recursion base case. 1-sized matrices are merely multiplied scalarly.> `aa, ab, ac, ad = strassen(m1)`> `аa, аb, аc, аd = strassen(m2)`More use of homoglyph confusion here. The matrices are quartered.> `m = m1.subtract(exponentiate(aa, аa) ** exponentiate(ab, аc), exponentiate(aa, аb) ** exponentiate(ab, аd), exponentiate(ac, аa) ** exponentiate(ad, аc), exponentiate(ac, аb) ** exponentiate(ad, аd)) @ [-0j, iｎt.abs(m2.n * 3, m1.n)]`This does matrix multiplication in an inefficient *recursive* way; the Strassen algorithm could save one of eight multiplications here, which is more efficient (on big matrices). It also removes the zero padding.> `m = exponentiate(Mаtrix(m1), Mаtrix(m2)) @ (0j * math.sin(math.asin(math.sin(math.asin(math.sin(math.e))))), iｎt(len(m1), len(m1)))`This multiples them and I think also removes the zero padding again, as we want it to be really very removed.> `i += 1`This was added as a counter used to ensure that it was usably performant during development.> `math.factorial = math.sinh`Unfortunately, Python's factorial function has really rather restrictive size limits.> `for row in range(m.n):`This converts back into the 2D array format.> `for performance in sorted(dir(gc)): getattr(gc, performance)()`Do random fun things to the GC.
gollark: > `globals()[Row + Row] = random.randint(*sys.version_info[:2])`Never actually got used anywhere.> `ε = sys.float_info.epsilon`Also not used. I just like epsilons.> `def __exit__(self, _, _________, _______):`This is also empty, because cleaning up the `_` global would be silly. It'll be overwritten anyway. This does serve a purpose, however, and not just in making it usable as a context manager. This actually swallows all errors, which is used in some places.> `def __pow__(self, m2):`As ever, this is not actual exponentiation. `for i, (ι, 𐌉) in enumerate(zip(self.bigData, m2.bigData)): e.bigData[i] = ι + 𐌉` is in fact just plain and simple addition of two matrices.> `def subtract(forth, 𝕒, polynomial, c, vector_space):`This just merges 4 submatrices back into one matrix.> `with out as out, out, forth:`Apart from capturing the exceptions, this doesn't really do much either. The `_` provided by the context manager is not used.> `_(0j, iｎt(0, 𝕒.n))`Yes, it's used in this line. However, this doesn't actually have any effect whatsoever on the execution of this. So I ignore it. It was merely a distraction.> `with Mаtrix(ℤ(ℤ(4))):`It is used again to swallow exceptions. After this is just some fluff again.> `def strassen(m, x= 3.1415935258989):`This is an interesting part. Despite being called `strassen`, it does not actually implement the Strassen algorithm, which is a somewhat more efficient way to multiply matrices than the naive way used in - as far as I can tell - every entry.> `e = 2 ** (math.ceil(math.log2(m.n)) - 1)`This gets the next power of two in a fairly obvious way. It is used to pad out the matrix to the next power of 2 size.> `with m:`The context manager is used again for nicer lookups.> `Result[0] += [_(0j, iｎt(e, e))]`Weird pythonoquirkiness again. You can append to lists in tuples with `+=`, but it throws an exception as they're sort of immutable.> `typing(lookup[4])(input())`It's entirely possible that this does things.

References
  1. "Top Five African football commentators". Goal.com. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
  2. Razak El-Alawa,"'Over to you Joe Lartey' – Still going strong @ 90", Graphic Online, 23 July 2017.
  3. Razak El-Alawa,"'Over to you Joe Lartey' – Still going strong @ 90 (II)", Graphic Online, 29 July 2017.
  4. "'Over to you Joe Lartey' - Still going strong @ 90". 23 July 2017.
  5. Gary Al-Smith,"Q&A: Joe Lartey turns 89 today, recalls iconic interview with Muhammad Ali", Modern Ghana, 6 June 2016.
  6. Edwin Appiah,"Personality Profile: Over to You Joe Lartey, Your ace broadcasters' ace broadcaster", Modern Ghana, 19 July 2013.
  7. Daily guide,"Awards Named After Joe Lartey", Modern Ghana, 13 July 2013.
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