BECAUSE folks know that I am in one of my jotting spurts, they sometimes provide me with gratuitous information, usually of a political nature, which I suppose they hope I will run with. I speak of mostly uncheckable (by me at any rate) pieces of information.
For instance, there’s the one about the several ghost employees whose names were on the City Council pay sheet, and who had been receiving regular monthly wages, but who wisely failed to materialise once the present Mayoralty’s paymasters took over in 2016. Hence one of the very welcome sources of income for current officials to fund some of the good work they are seen to be doing now. Then there was the revelation of who “Stephen Lester Prescott”, the voluminous, or should I say rather, the prolific SLP contributor to this newspaper, really is. Everyone seems to know that one. Do you? Now, one can’t, of course, vouch for the accuracy of these bits of info.
I also learnt around the same time that the consultant engineer who designed the big, ugly, costly, gaping boo-boo in the Gardens which was expected to alleviate the flooding in the city and which didn’t, but instead created new flooding elsewhere in its vicinity (e.g. the Methodist school), was the very same consultant engineer chosen for the St Jude’s project. You know, the one who came and went, mostly went. And I thought to myself, well, well, well, no wonder we can’t move forward as we should, because in certain hands, the more we supposedly move forward, the ‘behinder’ we get.
Now, from a late, but nonetheless first-hand perspective, I recently came across a statement by a Dr Matthews, on the St Jude’s fiasco. I thought it to be such a well-structured, thoughtful bit of writing, sane, full of clarity, very measured in its approach, and immediately taking me back to the evening of anything but that, when one of my friends called and said, “I know you aren’t goggling, but please turn to so and so channel right now,” which I obediently did. I’m certain you, readers, know well the evening to which I refer. It was when one witnessed on the tube a group of very, very, very, very, oh so irate professionals and others in their audience, holding forth in opposition to the current administration’s earlier shared possible plans for the aforementioned institution. Man, it was aggro personified in session! Remember? I was initially prepared to take the protagonists at face value, despite their over-the-top language and decibels, till my growing suspicions later turned out to be well-founded and altogether justified. So, read on, won’t you?
Please tell me you noticed, too. I surely did, but then again I am well known for my pedantic nature. (And I pause here to explain that when I say I am a pedant, I refer to its denotation in the sense of one who is overly concerned with detail). So, yes, I am a pedant, and many of my friends aren’t, so they see the overall picture while I notice, fuss over, and get bogged down in the details or, as some might say, the little things – which by the way aren’t always so little, I promise. (Incidentally, I could write a whole thesis on the pros and cons of that affliction).
But moving on… back to the charade, um, the performance. The good lady (see how nice I am!) doctor-presenter at the mike, not once, not twice, but I believe three times, in attempting to name her group, i.e. the St Lucia Medical and Dental Association, shouted at the top of her lungs (or so it seemed), something like, “So, we need you to follow us, the St Lucia Lay, the St Lucia Medical and Dental Association.” “Are you ready to march with the St Lucia Lay, the St Lucia Medical and Dental Association?” Again, not once, not twice, but thrice. Go on. Roll the tape. Notice the very slightest of pregnant pauses as she self-corrects without missing a beat, without batting an eyelid. Admirable, I daresay. But a big fat Freudian slip if ever there was one! And so, if she hadn’t lost me before, she certainly lost me then. I know – big deal, huh?