"You have a reputation as a ladies' man," suggested his Grand Vizier. "Suppose we advertise a show with you courting 27 ladies one after the other in one fell swoop?"
"Piece of cake," said the sultan.
"Okay, show time is 8 p.m. on Friday. I'll send the girls at five to meet you."
So said, so done. Packed theatre, dim lights, soft music, the sultan in fine form. But after 14, he was obviously flagging. And two ladies later, he gave up.
With the crowd howling for its money back, the Vizier cornered the sultan backstage: "What the hell happened with you?"
"I don't know," sighed the sultan. "Everything went fine at rehearsal this afternoon."
Today, at the risk of a similar fate, I want to tackle Keith Laurie, Michael Cozier and the lovely Esther Come Lewwe Go Suckoo in one fell swoop. If I can.
Terms like "food crisis" are obviously relative. In Barbados my family could never be short of food with fish in the sea nearby, coconuts aplenty, land available for crops and livestock.
But I would starve in an Australian desert whereas an aborigine would flourish there on lizards, snakes and vermins.
At yet another level where the aborigine and I would starve, Keith Laurie would be in epicurian heaven. Keith feeds his sheep on paper. And many days he's obviously full of GAS – Giant African Snails. "Enlightened Barbadians", he says, should do the same and use snails in livestock feed.
So what's my beef? It's just this. I am a staunch advocate of livestock farming and meat-eating. Vegetables and fruit require spraying but livestock can produce top-quality food without recourse to toxic chemicals. My pasture here at Morgan Lewis, for instance, has never once been sprayed with anything since I took it over in 1977.
Over the years livestock products have taken a battering, wrongly on grounds of being not good for you, rightly on grounds of unhealthy practices – antibiotics in milk, hormones in beef and chicken, all sorts of by-products used as feed.
We don't need any more adverse publicity. Let us push clean, organic products. And not force animals to eat unnatural diets such as chicken litter, urea, abattoir by-products or snails.
There is more to food than chemical composition. It has to meet the standards of Bajan cultural acceptance. And snails do not. We don't want GAS in our food or in that of our animals.
Now Brother Cozier has offered me a plantation. And since he has gone public with this, perhaps he could tell us what Vaucluse would be worth cut up into real estate; and why Barbados Agricultural Management Company would refuse to lease a productive estate in a high rainfall area.
Coze reminds me of a fellow once taunting Ginger about what he would do with her. "Skip," she advised, "if you can't ride a horse, don't get in the saddle." In other words, what is Mr Cozier doing with a plantation he can't run? We know what Vaucluse yielded under Taboo Wood, Carl Norris and Elton Weekes.
Anyway, my wife is proposing a G-POOP fund – Get Plantocrats Out Of Poverty: "These poor plantation-owners whose estates aren't making money have to drive around in old jalopies or catch ZRs. Live in shacks. You wonder if they ever get a square meal." Cuddear!
Finally, La Suckoo. Sanka Price asked me to feature in June's Better Health. I agreed. I've been working every day including Sundays for over 30 years, no vacation. Only had three days' sick leave ever. No health problems that I know of. I must be doing something right.
Then he pointed out I'd be coming after Ms Suckoo, kinda the male answer. No problem. Until I saw her in the May edition. Wow! Full front stretch showing bosoms. Leg lift at right angles. Ben' down, gal. The works. Unfair competition at its worst.
"Unfair," my wife commented as she made me withdraw. "They highlighted all her best features but they would never show yours." Hava ben Voodik would agree. But like him my fell swoop hasn't worked out so I shall have to tackle the individuals in depth later on.*Richard Hoad is a farmer and social commentator.