Pull a card; any card. Don’t let me see it; don’t show me!
Well, was it the three of hearts? No? Ace of diamonds? No? Seven of clubs? No? Aahhh! Don’t worry about it. Forget it! I am no card magician; don’t know much magic at all.
Oh, I can make a match disappear – and reappear elsewhere. Tried the vanishing act on a woman a few times; but I could never get it to work. I admit; I am lousy at magic. I think that goes for most of us.
It is going to take more than sleight of hand, conjuring and mystery to get us through this new year. This 2012 will demand of us more sacrifice, forbearance, prudence and stickability. There is simply no place for magic.
Forget the loud-mouthed and melodramatic triumvirate on night radio who “guarantee” listeners release and relief from money-emptiness, lovesickness, heartburn, acid reflux, migraine, arthritis, lumbago, elephantiasis and AIDS, sealing it all with a phial of holy oil available most Thursdays. Only work offers any assurance of money; the lovelorn should see a psychiatrist or write Dear Christine; and the ill should see a registered doctor.
Magic in the name of Christ doesn’t cut it.
Let us stop telling Prime Minister Freundel Stuart what he must do. At worst, if the goodly gentleman doesn’t yet know, he could expect another attempt at a putsch – coup is a dirty word – this time from minds more intelligent.
At least, Mr Stuart doesn’t have to worry about Chris Sinckler. The Minister of Finance never ever again wishes to be Prime Minister.
At best, the real Prime Minister will do what he must in his way; and if we are truly committed to forbearance in 2012, we will all be good for it.
Mr Stuart’s job is to manage the country; ours is to tell him how well he did, in the circumstances, on election day 2013. Let’s stop anticipating the Prime Minister’s every word and deed, and be governed.
All of this talk about cost of living, cost of living driving me mad, making me sad – all this talk ’bout cost of living (apologies, Gabby)!
I don’t grasp how people can accept that prices are going up everywhere else, but think there ought to be no rise whatever in Barbados. Truth be told, no one anywhere is overly comfortable with the spiralling costs of food and utilities. We are yet to get from the Barbados Light & Power Co. a straight, clear, sensible explanation of its high charges. Maybe it has relied too heavily on magic.
Let’s face it: we will be as challenged as any other country by the cost of living in 2012. And, financial prudence – by our Government and our people – will take precedence over conjuring when it comes to our hard work, wages, food and drink, and clothing.
I am not one into New Year resolutions. You require magic to carry out most of them – and you know where illusions, at best, take you: nowhere! But I have one dream.
I wish English could become more standard in 2012.
I will forgive the Jamaican reggae artists, uniting on TV against domestic violence on women, and pushing HIV/AIDS awareness. Being indecipherable is their genre.
It cannot be so for our Barbadian broadcasters-cum-deejays. There is too much gibberish on community radio. Because broadcasters-cum-deejays mangle the English language with impunity, call-in listeners think it kosher to speak in the tongue of green verbs, mispronunciations and malapropisms – sometimes defended by people (who do not speak it) under the guise of the dubious “nation language”.
Somebody in authority needs to put the stopper on this shameless lot of English language enemies.
Maybe the Anglican Church can pull itself up by its bootstraps and get the country reading again, as it spearheaded it in the 1950s and 1960s. Afternoon Sunday School back then was good for reading.
More urgently, Bishop Dr John Holder could organize for our broadcasters-cum-deejays a crash course in English usage – or maybe just the crash! Left to their own devices, these deejays will just be here and there – mostly there.
Perhaps Charles Harding could get them to abseil off the church tower turrets; drive the fear of God in them.
It might not come to any resolution; but it could fulfil a dream – mine!
