What is wrong with the people? They cannot follow the simplest of instructions! Last week Dr Ramsammy new Health Czar gave explicit orders that July was No Suicide Month. And what happens? Two people knock themselves off in the first three days. Such insubordination and selfishness that they would put their own feelings ahead of the poor minister's programme. At this rate Ramsammy will kill himself from despair on August 1st.

In olden days these types of selfish people would have been put up against a wall and shot for such behaviour. As it is the minister should strongly recommend disinterring the bodies and sending them to sit in the waiting room of the Georgetown Public Hospital where they will surely go unnoticed for a week or two.

Now good citizens, remember only 19 more days before you can kill yourselves. Surely you can hold on and make the good doctor's programme a success. What could be so important in your insignificant lives that cannot wait two weeks? How long have you been waiting for a house lot or your papers to go abroad? Come August you can do what the hell you like just don't screw up the Minister's efforts.

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Throw out the conductor

A number of reports have been made to this column about the Guyana Police Band and its tendency to play flat at public recitals. This was apparent At the recent inauguration of the President in the national oven called the Umana Yana. The phenomenon of playing off key is not unusual to this particular police band and this column is glad to report that a consultant was brought in a number of months ago to 1) do a thorough review of the activities and structures of the police band 2) draw up a list of recommendations 3)oversee implementation of these recommendations. The cost to the government for Stage 1 was budgeted after estimates by an outside auditor at US$1.2M but this was subsidized on a 80/20% basis by a UK grant programme called WACWOM standing for What A Complete Waste Of Money.

Be that as it may, the teacher Dr Haicham Riporff from the Royal College of Music observed in his 72 page review, written allegro that the conductor of the band was past the age of retirement and that a number of ranks were finding it hard to follow his shaky hand signals. This had led to a breakdown of communications amongst the members and a subsequent decline in morale. In addition a new section of buglers had been added in the late eighties to beef up the brass section and these players had refused to follow any directions from the podium. In effect they were rogue elements that were giving the band a bad name. Dr Riporff noted that the majority of the band members were diligent and played on key despite lacking the most basic resources. One saxophonist had lost the F flat key on his instrument and had resorted to sticking his big toe in the offending hole. Members complained that refreshments were not to the standards of yesteryear and said they played best on Chinese food. So there were a lot of deficiencies contributing to the systemic flat note representations. But Dr Ripoff made only one simple recommendation. Replace the conductor and don't let the band play at his retirement party.

********************************* A Nestle Rolo Bar Day

It is time to wade into the great Ice Cream Debate that has been raging in the letter pages. In fact there are very few more important things to discuss at the moment. Budgets, poverty reduction, pale in comparison to the fundamental right of all human beings to good ice cream.

Now this might be slightly controversial and may engender mail bags of letters, but simply put the government must immediately drop all tariffs on Nestle ice cream and instead institute a subsidy that makes it affordable for every family in Guyana. No longer must citizens suffer the tyranny of the local ice cream barons who take our money and give us frozen milk. Many people believe that local ice cream is somehow the best in the world but these are persons yet to eat a Rolo bar from Nestle. This thing is better than ... yes you know what ...street protests. The Day the ice cream barons can produce a chocolate ice cream which contains little pieces of toffee and chocolate scattered around like wild flowers, then They can have all the tariffs they want.

Ah! If only the whole country could celebrate Rolo Bar Day what a happy happy people we would all be. No more suicides, strikes, fires, or budget debates. One big happy family eating ice cream. What would be the cost to the government? Surely not more than what they spend on Dr Luncheon's car.

Milosevic...cute and likeable?

No matter what a rogue you might be, someone in this world always loves you. Case in point Slobodan Milosevic whose wife called him "cute and likeable" as he languished in a Dutch prison on war crimes last week. She herself has a less attractive nickname "Red Witch" which is actually not as bad as the mispronunciation of his name when someone called him "Mullato Bitch!"

Anyway her strange love that endureth all atrocities calls to mind other great admirations over the years. Eva Braun just loved Adolf's little moustache although it did tickle her somewhat. It was so sweet especially with a coating of milk. As for his hair she loved the way he would flick it off his forehead during his five hour speeches. All that banging on the podium and talking about Den Juden? Oh it was just Adolf letting off steam.... and his ingrown toe nails used to bother him so much.

So with Pol Pot that lovable little Cambodian man. Ok! So that agrarian thing didn't work out so well and a few million Cambodians starved to death but through it all he still went home every night and checked his daughter's homework. Go figure. And he would take his family out every Sunday for tours through the killing fields. The natives were weak but they still managed to give him a friendly wave as the black sedan sped by. They realised his intentions were noble.