The 'Ramblings' Year in Review
Stabroek News
January 1, 2005
The Wednesday Ramblings team of archivists has decided that as a column of record they have a solemn duty to compile a review of the year's events.
On January 14 we covered the Miss Universe/Guyana pageant 2056 which was another repeat of the Clash of Champions stretching all the way back to 2003: Olive Gopaul, grandmother of 14, took on Odessa Phillips - both in wheelchairs. Special guest Miss Trinidad Wendy Fitzwilliam was flown in by medivac plane having recently been fitted with a pacemaker. The final question proved crucial "Do you think plastic or metal hips are best?" Olive's false teeth almost popped out when she won the crown.
On January 21 Wednesday Ramblings' investigative department unveiled phone records that indicate that on a number of occasions a death squad accused had telephoned Minister Saturdayeow Sawh (as Sharma likes to call him), sometimes late at night at his residence as part of a covert campaign to push local dairy production and target black-tea drinkers.
WR was reliably informed that Sawh directed a wide network of members who would drive around in canters; rush into people's homes, identify themselves as part of the Dairy Squad Unit and hand out cartons of local milk. At times, they would demand all the powdered milk in the home, slash open the sachets and dash the contents in the nearest trench.
We also noted that founder of the new ARC party, Eddie Da Silva at the official launch said "he is not willing to reveal the names of the other members of the ARC because he is afraid they may be victimised."
We still do not know who the other members are and now wonder if Mr Da Silva has a multiple personality complex.
In February just in time for Mash we unveiled our calypso called "Calypsos are so So So". Here is a snippet (Feel free to sing along):
"Modern calypso songs are so lame
It must be to do with the brain drain
Always attacking so and so minister
For doing stuff dey say is sinister
Everything seems to rhyme with the
vowel 'e'
like adultr'y, unity and equality,
or road safety, the bauxite industry
and let's not forget bad melody...
That's why we say Stop de Calypsos
Yes Stop de Calypsos,
Dem stale with nothing to say
Like a neighbour who won't go away
Yes Stop de Calypsos
And how can you be witty
Preaching correct ethnicity
While cleaning up the city
Making vacuous comments about
national unity
Preaching tolerance for those with HIV
Then make fun of a man called Titi
While going on stage and whining
your beetee
That's why we say Stop de Calypsos
Yes Stop de Calypsos..."
(We did not win)
In February we gave a preview of "The Man with the Complex Syntax" a previously undiscovered novel by Ian Fleming. Here is an excerpt:
"Fruit punch, shaken not stirred," Agent Ramjattan 007 told the Pegasus poolside waitress. "And hold the little umbrella." He surveyed her topography as if it were a landmark legal argument by Lord Denning, twisted his bow tie 14 degrees anti-clockwise and scanned the large crowd around the bar.
Ramjattan was waiting for Monsieur Clementier, the maverick, easily riled agent de chef of that dastardly mastermind Docteur Dejeuner, the old French communist turned conniving Permanent Secretary of a Cabinet in charge of a state seemingly bent on defying the international community...
"Working on a Friday night?" came a voice, slow and sticky as putrid molasses. "All work and no play makes you a dull boy...".
"Pleased to meet you...My name is Ramjattan... Khemraj Ramjattan." He felt momentarily awkward. No matter how many times he practised that in front of the mirror it still sounded corny.
"Hi, I'm Dixie..." said a very badly disguised Minister Jenni West, deep agent for the clandestine PPP. Ramjattan decided to play along although he did help "Dixie" adjust her blonde wig and remove her false eyelash from her cheek.
They chose her as the Bond girl? He thought. It was going to be a long night."
Gay nudists plan invasion
In February we broke a true story about a group of gay nudists who plan an invasion of Guyana. The investigative unit delved deep and uncovered an organisation called Nasalam led by founder William Uriel Andros whose goal is to create some kind of eco-anarchic state in Guyana.
Blame it all on the Atlantean crystal, the one rescued from the lost city of Atlantis. Apparently in 1981 "there began a remarkable series of visions concerning a crystal and the opportunity it represented to establish a society unlike any other on the planet. And apparently Guyana is where this will all begin including some "same-sex erotic massage that is a part of the interpersonal bonding."
We recommended to the government that they post immigration officers at all ports of entry and hold anyone wearing kaftans and/or Birkenstock sandals or possibly carrying a large throbbing crystal.
Our outdoor unit also gave extensive coverage to the "best ever" Mash parade with several interesting floats. There was the Ministry of Trade with Mr Nadir heading it dressed as a blindfolded chicken. The banner read "Chicken Galore but not for the poor in 2004."
Then there was Minister Kowlessar dressed up as a puppet with the strings being pulled by the IMF, the IDB, the World Bank and President Jagdeo. The Ministry of Home Affairs came down Church St in a huge convoy of SUVs with shiny rims and tinted glass. Some of them have their heads out of the windows and appear to be wearing masks. Their banner read. "Extra judicial killings will soar in 2004."
Other banners were for the Ministry of Agriculture: "More front-page shots of Sawh in 2004." and the Ministry of Foreign Trade. "Visa still stuck in red tape in 2008."
In March we previewed this year's Oscar nominations. Among the highlights was Dejeuner sur L'herbe:
"From France comes the quirky comedy, Dejeuner sur L'Herbe translated as "Luncheon on the Grass". A tale of two middle-aged bored Parisien bureaucrats who call themselves the High Representatives. They skip important constructive dialogue meetings to go picnicking in the Bois de Boulogne with naked ladies. Their failure to take their work seriously leads to chaos for a small South American country.
Starring the Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau of Guyana, Dr Rogeur Dejeuner and Monsieur Lance Carberry."
Ancient Chinese menu
Also in March, following the discovery of exported corn in a Chinese restaurant by health inspectors we enjoyed an extraordinary meal at the Not Thriving Chinese Restaurant.
"For appetisers we ordered spring rolls. They were from the spring of 1343 under the late Yuan Dynasty but tasted amazingly fresh...
Among the main courses was General Tso's Chicken named after the great General Tso (1812-1885). What was more amazing is that this was the general's actual pet chicken, called Ding Ling. He had carried it around in a basket on his horse for 14 years while ruthlessly crushing the Taiping Rebellion...
The meal was going so well and got even better when the Shuan Niu Rou (Mongolian Beef Fire Pot) was uncovered. The waiter assured us this was the genuine article smuggled across three continents in the underwear of a former shepherd. Fragrant. Pungent.
It was time for some Smoked Duck. The waiter assured us this duck had been smoking at least two packs a day up to last week before giving up and going on the nicotine patch..."
And next week the circus came to town and stayed and stayed. Hear how the ringmaster announced the performers: "Witness Fearless Freddie being fired from a loose cannon 300-ft over the Big Top to land in another libel suit...
"You'll be mesmerised by Master Magician 'The Amazing Rekha,' able to sign a blizzard of 86 remigrant letters in one month without detecting a SINGLE forged document!
"You'll giggle and guffaw at the one and only 'Supremo Contortionist', Dr Luncheon as he twists the English language into breathtakingly complex sentences squeezing out all meaning."
A nightmare critique of "I have a dream"
In March we also covered Robert Persaud's line by line analysis of a Robert Corbin's speech. The ever accessible Persaud later sent us some other criticisms of speeches from years past, including Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" that begins:
"Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice."
Persaud noted: "Reverend King is being politically dishonest to trumpet this emancipation as some special feat unique to America. The slaves in Guyana won their freedom several decades before that of Reverend King's colleagues and the PPP played an integral part in that process."
King: "Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality..."
Persaud: "This is the same lie being peddled by the extremist lunatic fringe of the society: We demand that Reverend King show clear evidence of the police brutality he is so quick to raise. His charges are baseless and self-serving and show a man so desperate for power he is willing to drag the good name of the police through the dirt many of whom have lost their lives at the hands of criminal elements."
Ramjattan turns Rooskie
In April, we featured a Russian short story that was apropos of the shooting death of Chowtie, bandit and PPP member. Here is a short excerpt:
"The buzzer rang and Ivan Vasil'ev Ramjattan leaned from the window of his office just off Gagarin-Mikhaylovsky Square. It was a cold November day and the icy Caribbean winds swirled around the little town.
"Who is calling on me so early?" he wondered disturbing him from his green tea and cherry blintz breakfast. Anything to clear the blur of last night's party at Freedom House in celebration of further debt relief. The Stolichnaya had flowed and the finest Osetra caviar, flown in from the Caspian Sea was served on cassava bread. How gaily he had danced with Comrade Gayla Sviatoslavova Teixeira. All the old men of the party had applauded. There was no doubt his star was rising despite what he conceded were bouts of intemperance. It was in his Berbician/Siberian blood, where as a child he had chopped wood and herded the goats of Cheddi Iakovlevich Jagan.
But one thing was nagging at his mind this morning. As he was leaving the party he remembered passing Comrade Oleg Mikhailovich Ramotar on the stairway. Their eyes had met and he saw a flicker of distrust, a questioning of his loyalty. "You are quite the man of the moment, Comrade Ramjattan," Ramotar declared, "and very busy too. My colleagues say you have been carousing in Young St lately."
Ramjattan had wisely let this slight pass. The General Secretary was not a man to cross sabres with."
In May we also brought new figures from the census which indicated several disturbing trends.
In June the continuing oil crisis led the US Embassy to start its own drilling campaign:
Wednesday Ramblings' Business Department caught up with Chief Rig Engineer Roland Bullen, wearing a very dapper orange boiler suit, who told us it was early days. He said the seismic readings indicated some kind of deposit down there which might be oil or just a load of fossilised project documents from various government ministries. "So far we have gone down about 500 ft and all we have unearthed is a lot of @#$! We are now drilling sideways and believe we have struck oil under the Prime Minister's office." Bullen denied the US was undermining the government by its actions and said, "if we strike it big we will be sharing the proceeds with y'all."
Sharma celebrated 12 years on the air with a party and speech where he asked "Did you see me on the radio?"
We also ran another very unpopular Caption competition of Commissioner Felix, Gail Teixeira and the PM. But what was that thing in his hand? Among the entries were "Excuse me while I light my spliff"; Gail: "Remember Felix, you pass the Dutchie on the left-hand side"; Sam: Make it quick, Holder-Allen's on board"' and the winning entry: "Don't tell Floyd but I found this in his office"
The hysteria over the Reeaz Khan Affair was almost as consuming as the Banks take-over is now. But who remembers that? As part of our mission to bring perspective to such matters we arrived at some important lessons:
1. Apparently Barbados is theeeee place for a naughty weekend.
2. Don't ever mess with women's groups, they will %$#&! you up.
3. The unmentionable rag is still unmentionable
4. Spoon feeding Chinese food can be considered foreplay.
5. Don't accept rides from strangers then go out to dinner with them, sleep over and let your daughter start a highly dubious work/study programme and then accept money from your daughter's lover.
6. If the media had not focused on the case, the poor girl would have been living in the lap of luxury. Now she's in a corrections centre for juvenile delinquents. Thank God for that!
Bacchus questioned
The other big story of the year was ..... yes, you have forgotten that one too... the death of George Bacchus. Always one to pounce on breaking news we reported on June 30 that "a week after his brutal death, police have brought in George Bacchus for questioning about his allegations of a state-sponsored death squad.
A senior police official said the decision to call in the alleged informant was taken after much consideration and it is hoped that his testimony could lead to a break in the investigations. It demonstrated, said the official, that the police were taking Bacchus' allegations very seriously.
However, a source said Bacchus was not co-operating and had not said a word since he arrived at Brickdam. The source suggested this behaviour was typical and would cast further doubts on his credibility. Bacchus was not available for comment."
Always looking to expand readers' tastes in July we introduced cooking with cocaine with such specialities as stuffed snapper in molasses sauce. As well as this recipe:
"Finally we need to get a little appetiser, something small and discreet. And today we want to show you how to prepare "Egg balls a la export".
Please note I say for export, because these are rather different from those sold locally.
The secret to a good egg ball is the nature of the egg. You take the hard-boiled egg and cut it in two, very, very gently.
Take a spoon and scoop out the yolk. Now take about three tablespoons of whole wheat cocaine and very gently pour it into the hole. It's that simple.
Close up the egg and deep fry at 250 degrees for about ten minutes.
Then you wrap it up put the name of a relative on it and give it to some unwitting person on a flight to the US."
On August 18 a frightening hurricane hit town at about the same time US President Jimmy Carter arrived here for a visit. Here is part of our exclusive report: "By Wednesday afternoon, Hurricane Jimmy was spotted over Timehri but was still being categorised as a low-grade political storm. A six-line statement on being "responsive to the needs and aspirations of the people" caused only minor damage. But the storm gathered strength in the next 48 hours as it hovered over Georgetown until by 4 pm on Friday with its epi-centre over Le Meridien, Hurricane Jimmy completely destroyed the credibility of the two major political parties."
In the same week Minister Shadick who had already lashed out at Stabroek News over its uncovering of child neglect took a swipe at the world press "for its exposure of the suffering of millions of women and children in Darfur, Sudan."
Shadick argued that by identifying these refugee camps, the press was leaving the inhabitants vulnerable to attacks from the janjaweed militia who rely heavily on broadcasters such as CNN for information.
She accused the world press of being irresponsible and using the human catastrophe for one big photo opportunity. Shadick said it would have been far better if the plight of the million-odd refugees had been handled quietly by the government of Sudan."
Last chicken standing
Amid serious shortages of chicken we recounted how the sad events that led to the last chicken left in Guyana being killed in a shoot-out with police on the Linden highway. A bounty of $50,000 per pound had been put on his head.
He was among a gang of chickens who escaped two weeks ago from a Didco correctional facility...
Reports are that the last chicken was seen running along the highway at around 8.05 pm last night chased by a very hungry police Crack Unit who cornered him in a sandpit. He was told to put up his wings, but, according to a police statement, lunged at the officer before being shot. The ranks then decided to hold an immediate post-mortem that included plucking, gutting and finally barbequeing the fugitive on the spot to "ascertain the cause of death".
The Guyana Chicken Rights Association has filed a protest into the killing along with the ACDA, African Chicken Development Association and the IAC, Indian Association of Chickens.
The chicken shortage has become so bad in recent weeks that KFC has been renamed KFCP, Kentucky Fried Canje Pheasant."
And in September we received a report that Guyanese customs officers based in Lethem yesterday held up a vanload of chickens trying to sneak into the country on a suicide mission. "The 500 chickens, said to be very lean and tasty, were found hiding under a routine shipment of cocaine and machine guns. A closer investigation found none of them had Brazilian passports. Their leader said they had heard there were job opportunities in Georgetown.
Commenting on the incident Minister Shadick said she was extremely concerned that this could be another case of TIP (Trafficking in Poultry) and assured she would do all she could to counter the practice."
Also in September saw the historic hearings into the Death Squad and the appearance of the Three Musketeers Commissioner Felix d'Artagnan, Commissioner Floyd Porthos and Chef de Crime Leon Aramis Trim.Here is an excerpt from the hearing:
Commissioner: Can any of you say if you know of the existence of a death squad formed to wipe out criminals?
Trim: We only know what we read in the newspapers... no hard information.
Felix: We are not sure.
McDonald: It is not conclusive.
Commissioner: So you mean to say that the three most senior officers in the force during the crime wave do not have any information about a death squad that the rest of the country is convinced exists, whose weapons were found and some of whose members were briefly detained?
Trim: Yes
Felix: Yes
McDonald: I don't have to answer that. I have served my country for 37 years.
In October the political affairs unit came out with Twelve blueprints to lasting political success. Among the strategies were:
"The Dolphin Doctrine
Declare you are strongly against any form of corruption and every official is accountable; demand accusers bring evidence of corruption while defending officials against "political" attacks; when evidence is brought, delay; then call for inquiry; when inquiry finds at a minimum misuse of official position, do nothing; have letter writers praise your administration for its transparency."
Later that month we sympathised with Auditor General Anand Goolsarran for undergoing the veiled threats of Dr Roger Luncheon during a heated phone conversation.
We recovered the transcripts of the conversation and selected a few of the juicier comments by the Cabinet Secretary which we have attempted to translate.
"Render your mind semi-conscious!" Translation: "Rest yourself!"
"Offspring of a member-less canine!" Translation: Son of a bitch:
Have the ability to fornicate singularly in a faraway equatorial country: Translation: "You can %$&* off back to Africa."
"Decompose slowly in biblical Hades!" Translation: Rot in hell
"You, offspring of dubious parentage!": Bastard!
"Your intention is to rent asunder my cranial contents!": "You want to hunt my head!"
"Please desist from initiating your ocular instruments to bypass my personage!" Translation: Don't take you eyes and pass me.
Osama speaks to Guyana
In November Guyana received a videotaped message from Osama bin Laden which some readers actually thought was real. Here are the highlights of his shocking speech:
"You, the Guyanese people, I talk to you today about the best way to avoid another catastrophe and about the infidel PPP and its aims...
For thirteen long years you have endured the lies coming out of the infidels' Freedom House and from the deceptive mouths of the Marxist propagandists. The cunning deconstructionist Dr Luncheon and his crony dolphin exporter Lumumba; Rohee the deceptively bearded crusader against free trade, stuck in an anti-colonial time warp; Satyadeow Sawh who is too busy rearing organic goats to watch over the nation's security. The reclusive Kowlessar (Hey, there have been more sightings of me!)...
I wonder about you Guyanese. Although we are ushering in the fourth year since the elections -it probably feels like the hundredth - my sympathies - Jagdeo is still exercising confusion and misleading you while taking frequent trips abroad for such frivolities as seeking his ancestors' village.
Oh people of Guyana wake up and realise your salvation lies in a man with vision, His Excellency Mayor Green whom I had the honour of meeting at a recent cocktail party in Seoul, South Korea. Follow his path and he will lead you to a moral and spiritual revival (his words, not mine). But stray and you will be damned to mountains of garbage the height of Tora Bora, floods up to your eyeballs and fireballs worthy of hell."
And finally by early December we previewed the HBO Mother of all Fights -Clifford Banks vs Anthony McAl, a bout that is still up in the air but that promises to be a classic.
As our own Larry Merchant put it: 'This is truly a watershed moment. Guyanese boxing has always been based on relationships first, before money. Deals are made at cocktail parties and everyone sits on everyone else's boards. Incestuous is how one commentator described it. But times change. Will this old boys' network hold or will it crumble in the face of a McAl onslaught?" Stay tuned.