Do As I Say Not As I Do.

I have written before about my fascination with the way people will do the hard thing of following a logic to its conclusion only to not apply the logic to themselves or their own behaviour. Barbados is not unique (one cannot be VERY unique), but it gives better examples because I am living there. All of this adds colour to life, but is still curious.

We have discussions about xenophobia, where commentators deny that it exists in the island, and then they lambaste people for being foreigners or for 'not being like us'. Pass the dictionary, Mavis.

You hear opining about 'we are for free speech and free expression...let all tongues speak and all hands write', yet the only speech and expressions that are tolerated (meaning that which is usually accepted with gracious commentary) is that which is in line with the accepted view. Where's that red pencil, Charlie?

You have calls for people to act as adults and not like children, then you spot pettiness that only has its place amongst the under 10s. In my case, I noticed that another Bajan blog has done a 'you're not my friend anymore' and removed a link to my blog (I still retain a link to theirs because it's a blog that may interest other readers and sharing is caring). So after a 'why cant we just all get along?' ditty was followed by 'pack up your Georgie bundle and go long', we get 'we go cut you loose'. This has to have a lot of tee-hee to it, as it suggests that curious people were actually linking through to my blog. Weasels! So, now, Sherlock, do you think there are enough literate and intelligent people who can find my blog without the 'magic key'? Do I hear a 'Duh'? Mummy, can I have my hankie, please?

I wonder if Barbados is the land that time forgot. Bless 'em. Now that they have a pop star everything that she does is under scrutiny.Problem is, everything she does seems to be out in the open and hard to avoid. Who needs to scrutinize? Now, she has gonna topless inna magazini italiana (Vogue). Showing alla offa her bodi. Then we heara alla about her private bizniz witha Christopher Brown and the paparazzi are having a field day again. Did he beat her? He says he cannot remember. Does that suggest that he did it often and therefore it is all a blur? What did he say to Larry King? "When I hear about the police reports, I don't know what to think," Brown told CNN's Larry King, in a programme to be broadcast on Wednesday (2 September). "That's not who I am as a person. It's like crazy to me." (See Guardian report.) So, it was wrongful charges, CB? C'mon, dudester. Do betta! But, it's in keeping with foolishness. The country's PM had named Ms. Fenty as an ambassador for youth and culture some 18 months ago, with diplomatic passport to boot (or is that booty? or now even boots?), and now all are stuck with that. THE role model? People like to show prudery but when it comes to one of yer own who is so pretty and nice, let prudery take a back seat. Where are my worry beads, Stavros? Cover your eyes, children.

The new school year has begun and already the hem line ruler is out. I know that when the next incident is reported of bad behaviour by school children on buses the first matter will be to separate those whose hemlines were too short and whose trousers were below their waist. That way, we can focus on the bad apples, as we know that the correctly dressed children are paragons of virtue and should be left to go home and get on with their homework while someone finds a tamarind switch to beat the living daylights out of the miscreants. Cleavdon Brathwaite what's taking so long to cut that switch? Tschoupse!

I'm going to meet a Bajan of no mean intelligence later this morning. We are going to head into deep cultural territory and knock each other out about what to do with West Indies cricket. I want to scrap the regional entity, he wants to rebuild it. But, I will ask him if he sees these Bajanery things differently. He has had the mixed (or is it mis-?) fortune of living in h-America for a while, in that Caribbean melting pot of Brooklyn. I know that when I meet him he will not give me the h-American treatment: he will know that I am not from from Jamaica, Queens, New York, or from the skiing village of Jamaica, Vermont (maybe we will need to capture the place and make it our cool runaway). I may have to dust off my skis and head there this winter. I can read the headlines now: 'Jamaican comes from Jamaica to Jamaica. Whatcha make of that?'