THIS WEEK I FELT like a mosquito in a nudist camp: I knew what I had to do but I did not know where to start. Should I write about the pigeon suspected of being a “spy” for the Pakistani authorities?
The Times Of India story is that a 14-year-old Indian boy became suspicious of the bird when he saw a stamped message in Urdu (a language common to both India and Pakistan) on the bird’s tail feathers. It read, “Tehsil Shakargarh, district Narowal”, along with a string of numbers. The pigeon had landed on the home of Ramesh Chandra, a local barber, on Wednesday evening in Manwal village, which is four kilometres from the border with Pakistan. The son of the barber took the bird to the nearest policeman who then took the bird to a veterinary hospital in Pathankot in Punjab for further inspection. The bird was X-rayed and then kept in custody.
The police superintendent in charge of the pigeon said: “This is a rare instance of a bird from Pakistan being spotted here. We have caught a few spies here. The area is sensitive, given its proximity to Jammu (a Pakistan city near the Indian border), where infiltration is quite common.”
This is not the first time that a bird has been caught in the middle of an international dispute. In 2008, Iranian authorities arrested two pigeons for spying on a nuclear facility and a stork was detained for two years by Egyptian authorities after it was spotted with a mysterious device attached to its feathers that was not an incubator. It has been suggested that the spy agencies should send out their pigeons with woodpeckers who, by knocking on the right door, would ensure the messages don’t fall into the wrong hands.
Then there is the story of the woman who was sent to jail for noisy sex. Gemma Wale, of Small Heath in Birmingham, was given a two-week prison sentence after a civil court judge concluded that she had breached the order by screaming and shouting while having sex at a level of noise that annoyed a neighbour. Judge Emma Kelly concluded that Wale had breached an antisocial behaviour order. She said Birmingham city council took legal action after a neighbour complained. Kelly said the antisocial behaviour order had barred Wale from making loud sex noises and from causing nuisance by playing loud music, shouting, swearing, making banging noises, stamping and slamming doors.
The judge concluded that she had also breached the order by arguing with her boyfriend, swearing at a neighbour, “banging around the house” and “running around in the property”. She imposed separate two-week jail terms on Wale for each breach but said all terms would run concurrently. Kelly said another judge had imposed an antisocial behaviour order in January. She said she had analysed allegations that the order had been breached at a hearing in May.
The judge indicated that Wale lived in a property owned by Birmingham Council and said she had heard evidence from a council housing officer and one of Wale’s neighbours. Kelly said a neighbour had complained that at about 5 a.m. on 29 January that paragraph 3 of the order had been breached. “Gemma started screaming and shouting while having sex, which woke us up,” said the neighbour. “This lasted ten minutes.” The judge concluded: “I am satisfied that during the course of the early hours of 29 January 2015, at around 5 a.m., the defendant was guilty of screaming and shouting whilst having sex at a level of noise which caused nuisance or annoyance to (a neighbour).” Anyhow, Gemma had a wale of a time wailing and who knows how she will celebrate her release from jail?
The third option is Jack, the never-ending story of the great political Warner-be. There is a Facebook cartoon with Jack Warner in a cell wearing the characteristic orange-coloured “jumpsuit” that is the prison uniform in the United States. The caption is, “Orange is the new Jack.” Then when Jack threatens that “the gloves are off”, the response was, “That is so they could put on the handcuffs easier”. Even when Jack said, after a night in prison, that the ordeal had made him stronger, the cynical response was, “If one night in prison make him stronger, if he finish his sentence in the US he will be Superman.”
There is no doubt that the Jack Warner and FIFA story is the big event of the week and that it has brought increasing notoriety to Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean as a whole. Now there is a report that next month’s CARICOM summit is going to focus, among other things, on the FIFA scandal. Unfortunately, given the Interpol “Red Notice” and being on the wanted list, Jack will be unable to attend to give them a lesson in “best practices”. When it comes to hitting the road, Jack has to watch his asphalt.
• Tony Deyal was last seen reading this “Reddit” rhyme: “Little Jack Warner/ Sat in the corner/ A finger in every pie./ He stuck in his thumb/ And pulled out a bung/ And said, ‘Let’s all go to Dubai!’”
