Re-entry was hard…a switched plane in Piarco caused the customary cussing and the tired retort to the tannoy: “They would not do this to anyone else but Guyanese, dem eyes pass us…” Then turbulence over the gradually muddying waters, combined with the surliest flying waitresses, slapping packaged cornbread onto the trays, more eye pass …they would not do that to ….
And finally to watch as the acting President, and acting top cop greet the plane – all actors in this tragic comic play. Even this jester to a dwindling Court of Reason.
And does this absurd ritual, this handing over of power, happen in other countries, accompanied with a tedious siren-whining hurtling to and from the airport? This pretence at urgency? Is it really necessary?
That said it is reassuring to see that like a good soap opera, the same characters are still behaving badly. The plot has hardly progressed. Comforting not to have missed very much, City Hall still broke, a chopper here, two choppers there, Fineman and the other fleas nowhere to be found, and strangely becoming mere minor characters, wandering minstrels. How deftly we can decipher the new news, glean the “story behind it” squeezing it into our personal conspiracy theories. Because making sense of it all is everything, even if it’s complete bull.
So to the parliament playhouse featuring the latest tribulations of Speaker Ramkarran and this time Ashni Singh “otherwise a brilliant scholar” and “a gentleman”. Errr, how about “a lackey”?
This latest episode coming after Cement Rohee said he would take the matter with Ramkarran to court…Palm Court, shows what, exactly? A party fighting among itself because the opposition is not around? Or a fine and healthy example of the separation of powers? Take your pick.
So too, the tragic waste of all that Polar Beer rapidly approaching its expiry date in a Broad St bond while the people cry out for quenching….(In the words of Ronald Reagan, “Mr Sattaur Tear down that Customs Seal!) Then last week the sudden intervention of the president into a case involving a company whose sister firm’s directors are before the court on insurance fraud and where former ministers are put out to pasture. Undoubtedly a principled stand by El Presidente. Take your pick.
So too, the purchase of the Bell helicopters. Who knows if they are a good purchase. Many have become sudden experts. But as it has been for many years now, all, repeat all criticism of this government’s decisions, all questions no matter how reasonable are “silly”, plain silly, just silly, silly.
Commander Worst claims to be “alarmed and deeply concerned” by the questions…. Perhaps the people are alarmed and deeply concerned at his comical gun leaking, bad driving, self torturing army.
Meanwhile the government remains obsessed with rising food prices. This alarm is not so much about local food prices of course, but regionally and internationally. Locally they are still taxing a lot of food and clothing… the luxuries.
So now the nation has become united over food production…farmers are exhorted to Grow More, all housewives must plant a kitchen garden. Ramsammy says Guyanese eat too much – a great way to reduce demand and prices. Shame the gluttonous people.
The Chronic has been transformed into a Farmer’s Almanac where we can learn about ‘a pure strain of supermale tilapia…that have two ‘Y’ sex chromosomes instead of the normal ‘XY’.” The equivalent of the village ram.
The army is now deep into pig *!*^ with 46 hybrid boars imported from Suriname to start mating with the GDF sows. It’s all part of what we are led to believe, by Acting Chief-of-Staff of the GDF, Colonel Bruce Lovell is one of the main goals of the GDF – to contribute to the economic development of Guyana. Add that to the services of GDF Inc. Arms Merchants to the Country.
And great news in the agriculture sector the impregnation of a black belly sheep with the eggs of a British Texel sheep, was a resounding success …(Are those white lab coats really necessary?)
Naturally the more sheep the better…Carolyn Rodrigues was made the new Minister of Amerindian Foreign Affairs and was snapped with the other Bharrat Babes, the Harem of Hair Extensions. Could someone just say what many are thinking: this former Ambassador to Nowhere, this Foreign Policy Expert on Nothing, this Graduate in Non-international Relations, has absolutely zero experience for this particular job… and that this was some pathetic ploy to solidify the Amerindian vote…There, how hard was that?
Wait… it’s an example of how the PPP recognizes the contributions of women. Amerindian women, no less. Sorry.
Saturday we woke up in a cold sweat, a raging heat that strangely made us want to shake our legs compulsively, to create amateurish plays, design childish posters, write bad calypso lyrics. Fearful for our long term health we drove to the doctor dancing in our seat; arrived in the waiting room, picked up that day’s Chronic, and realized it was just a case of “Carifesta Fever catching on”. Could someone please immediately quarantine Frank Anthony?
Finally the return of the advertisements to Stabroek News is a shocking disappointment. For one whole year everyone could complain about how this government was attacking press freedom, and then out of nowhere reason and good sense prevails….Oh…hold on….breaking news, CN Sharma is off the air. The world’s most dangerous talk show host. After all he did threaten that if he became president he would electrocute the whole of Guyana. The government turned a blind eye to that…but surely this was the last straw. A threat to the Comrade Leader not by him of course, but by some illiterate housewife…still to be identified let alone arrested for this entirely plausible threat.
This of course will cause huge problems. All those people who were planning to die in the next four months now have to make other arrangements, because one does not really die until one has been on Sharma’s death announcements. He’s like a terrestrial St Peter…Instead for the next four months everyone will enter a kind of tele-purgatory.
So Grandpa fight that cancer! Auntie keep your heart going just for a few more thousand beats and you too can die to the sounds of “Candle in the Wind” or “Whether you go to churches, whether you go to masjid…peace and love my darling”.
Meanwhile the letter writers, the press, the lawyers, civil society (all those who for years have ridiculed and dismissed Sharma as a buffoon) are now ecstatic: there’s a brand new cause to exploit. Yes what a relief! This government is indeed the dictatorship they desperately want it to be! Now everyone play your parts.
