The Corn, blond Ceres’ bounty of the Spring, Will drain the glebe of nourishment, to grow Its beard and plumy awns for idle show, Leaving its proper fruit unfed; And so in vain self-pampering, The Tree uprears his too luxuriant head. – La Fontaine – Ne Quid Nimis
PLATFORM: WELL, FOLKS, we are gathered here early tonight to take care of business. You hear the Opposition giving us licks; we could take them.
They had their chance for 14 years and did nothing. Nothing. Now finding fault because we doing something. Something. Don’t mind the long talk about the deficit, we will deal with that in due course, in due course.
The fact of the matter is that we have not laid off one person despite the hard times. Spain has 21 per cent unemployment.
Voice: I don’t wuk wid the Gov’ment but I get laid off widout a cent. Wuh ’bout de private secta?
Platform: Tell that to Sir Roy.
Other platform speaker: Don’t pay he any mind, talk yuh talk, man.
Platform: I know what I am doing. I might be slow, but I have a responsibility to the people. As I was saying, we have not laid off one single, solitary person, in spite of the fact that little Barbados is caught up like all others in this recession.
Voice: Da is wuh yu say, but I is 68 ’ears ole, I retire an’ put all my retirement pension in somet’in’ call Flexible Annuity, an’ now I flex out, can’ even buy flour to mek bre’d. Tell we ’bout da.
Platform: Aristotle said that “we do not give judgement in the same way when aggrieved and when pleased”.
Look it up! (The Art Of Rhetoric).
Voice: Who is he, a Trinidad fisherman? Given what appeared in the Daily Nation, you t’ink the Trinidadians gine gi’ dem own people TT$25 000 an gi’ we BDS$25 000, nearly twice as much?
Platform: Our Cabinet is studying the report.
Voice: An’ wuh kinda gas yuh gine put in the Special Purpose Vehicle. Far as I concern, um outto gas already. My fren’ De Wile Cute say that the Canadian banks in’ gine buy dem bonds, according to he, “backed by ephemeral real estate expectations”.
Platform: As I was saying, the Government has not laid off even one worker . . . yet.
Voice: But yuh gi’ we a dubble w’ammy by tecking way we allowances an’ increasing the VAT.
Platform: We suppose to cut staff an sen’ home people? We would beg, borrow or anything to ensure that we do not send home man or woman.
Voice: Even if yuh brek the National Insurance an’ de Central Bank an rachet up off-budjet de’ts?
Platform: I Intend to take on the opposition; beat he at ’e oan game.
Voice: Not all o’ wunnah charges cud be justified, legally speaking; an wuh ’bout the marina bisnis? Yuh know my mout in’ got nuh cova.
Platform: (turning) You recognize that fellow dat doing de talking?
Other Platform speaker: (sotte voce) Man, why you don’t tell that man to wait till he trough put and bubble in it?
Platform: You can’t tell him so. What I would say is that we have not laid off one single man or beast. I do not understand; if I did not extract all the money from people’s pocket, how would we be able to control imports? I mean when we talk about people, tell me where we must cut – the secretary or the road cleaner?
Voice: When he ain’t using anthypophora, he confusing we with enthymeme – he ain’t for real. We only want he to gi’ we back we money and we will find solutions.
280 000 heads better than 30.
Another voice: Man le’ we lef dis meeting and go and hear dah woman Mia down de road. I tired uh spin doctors, here or on television. You think La Fontaine, writing in the second half of the 17th century, could have predicted our circumstance? “Drain the glebe of nourishment . . . leaving its proper fruit unfed”!
• Harry Russell is a banker.
