My three children were born at the St Joseph Hospital which was a godsend for us in the north. We became good friends with the nuns. One day Sister Christine turned up at our farm with a newly arrived sister from Germany.
I had just finished spreading loads of raw cow’s manure on the field and the house smelled to high heaven. This was mucho embarrassing and I hastened to apologize to our guests.
To my surprise, the German nun was in the gallery sucking up great lungfuls of odour. “Iss vunderful!” she exclaimed, “just like back home. And so good for you!”
Well, if someone could thusly enthuse about cow poop, I realized there and then that many of our cherished beliefs may be just a matter of perspective. So today let’s question some of them and knock their backsides for six.
For instance, the fittest, flattest, abs-ripped Bajan men around would have to be Sir Cow Williams and Mac Fingall. And what are their secrets? Sir Cow is a red meat, beef-steak man. Mac is strictly “bacon”. What say you, health experts?
Okay, I favour hanging and the cat. And used to reject Amnesty International’s nonsense about cruel and unusual punishment. Until recently when 65 year-old former Liberian president Charles Taylor was sentenced to 50 years for war crimes. To be spent in a British jail.
Lord have mercy! To lock up a man is one thing; to make him eat English food for the rest of his life, that is worse than cruel and unusual punishment. I only hope that if Bush and Blair get convicted for the half million deaths now attributed to the Iraq war, they will serve it in an African prison. They have a special delicacy over there called “foto”, so I’m told.
Similarly I am against domestic violence. But after watching a recent Morning Barbados show, I do declare that if a working man came home to find his wife had prepared “tofu” for dinner, I couldn’t blame him for taking corrective measures. Check http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg2JDmDOSDI.
So what else might we be wrong about? Signing. We sign all sorts of documents daily. Every download on the Internet has pages of conditions which we sign. And never read. And everybody knows that.
Are you telling me that if clause 432 in one of these agreements says that in five years I must give them all my worldly possessions, I am legally bound to do so?
That is foolishness. After the recent CCJ ruling, Robert Morris opined that our leaders will have to be careful about what they sign on to. That too is foolishness.
I am hereby proposing that no one be held accountable for any document, treaty or convention over three lines long which he may sign, since in reality signing in today’s world means about as much as “have a nice day”. And any judge who rules otherwise should be made to eat English food.
What about the relevance of our costly university in 2013? Let’s be honest. Students are going to university to get letters behind their names. These won’t get them employment nowadays since they don’t guarantee that the graduate can handle a job or even write a grammatically correct sentence.
On the other hand, they could spend two weeks on the Internet and become proficient in any subject, qualified even to correct their doctor. Employers want certified job experience, not degrees and attitude. University money could be much better spent on real education.
By the way, Sir George Alleyne says the university has started a project to deal with homo “rights”. One wonders if there will be a degree course. In which case, students going to classes in “Bot” (as Botany is usually called) should be warned not to end up in “Bot-Bot”.
Don’t take anything for granted, my friends. Even our much-haloed democracy is a joke. The Maurice Bishop-led Grenada revolution was an eye-opener as to what Caribbean governments could achieve. Read all about it.
Finally, owner wanted for medium-sized black castrated male dog who fled onto our farm during a recent thunderstorm. He has a line of hair missing down his back.
Also I want to contact the gentleman with experience in the underground caves of Barbados. My number is 422-9083.
• Richard Hoad is a farmer and social commentator.
