Satiricus has already confessed that he’s a cricket fanatic. The English call people like him ‘cricket tragics’. Satiricus supposed the “tragic” was meant for people like him: he doted on a team that hadn’t won anything significant in 20 years. He wasn’t sure whether the fatal flaw that defined the tragedy was in him or the WI team. What he knew was it couldn’t be with the WICB – those worthies that included stalwarts like Hunte and Hillaire, cricketing giants all, were without blemish. “Is what kinda doltishness with dis…
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A snake in the grass
Satiricus wondered how you go about nominating somebody for sainthood. He’d heard that the Catholic Bishops of the region were having a meeting in Guyana and he figured they could see this living saint in action. Beatification would be a cinch! And a boost for the region on top of everything. Satiricus, of course, had Ram Jhaat Tan in mind. How could Naipaul say the WI never produced anything? We mightn’t be able to produce a plastic bucket. So what? We’re doing all right producing men with simple living and…
Read MoreCake Shop Politics
Satiricus has never forgotten his humble beginnings. How could he? He’s actually never moved very far up the social ladder, if the truth be told. He remembered his mother sending him over to the cake shop down the street whenever they ran out of luxuries like rice and flour. The cake shop owner Goat Head Hanso, young Satiricus soon figured out, wasn’t too far up the ladder himself. He’d often run out of items with alarming (to Satiricus’ household) frequency. Seemed that Goat Head’s supplier, Massa Jimbo from the public…
Read MoreThe Vanguard Party
Satiricus got a jolt earlier this week. He’s been scanning the newspapers and – lo and behold – he saw the KFC describing itself as the “Vanguard Party”! A wave of warm nostalgia washed over Satiricus. It seemed like just yesterday that Forbes was boasting about his Vanguard party – the PNC – leaving Cheddi’s presumably backward and ‘bourgeoisie’ PPP in the dust. At long last, the masses would have revolutionary leadership leading them on the yellow brick road! Satiricus practiced clenching his fist and thrusting it into the air.…
Read MoreShake it, babu!
Satiricus is no prude. After all, he is a Caribbean man. Growing up on a staple of double-entendre calypsos like Sparrow’s “Mr Benwood Dick” and wining down at Mash how could he be? But he’d been thinking that maybe things were getting out of hand with this new backballing. Now this had nothing to do with Satiricus’ inability to find a ‘backball’ partner: his wife had told him in no uncertain terms that he was ‘too damn old!” But here was Bench Cack complaining that Minister Eastford had offended him…
Read MoreBudget Times
Budget times are taxing times. So Satiricus wasn’t visiting the back street dives today. Satiricus cannot be faulted for being a bit on edge. It’s not that he had to submit his taxes. It was having to cover the interminable debates in Parliament. But after listening to the opposition in the debate, he was wondering whether paying taxes was a good or bad thing. Before this budget, Satiricus had thought that your views as to whether taxes were good or bad would depend upon which of the two segments of…
Read MoreFinance Whizzes
Satiricus is a complete dunce when it comes to finance and economics. Thank god for men like Greenbridge from APANU and Suspenders from TRYING-A-TING. These men could count up all those numbers in the budget right in their heads. Just thinking about it made Satiricus dizzy. Their talk in the Muckraker about how the NIS was going down the drain made him even dizzier. Now Satiricus wasn’t ready to hang up his pen, but hey! He had to worry what was down the road, right? “Who talking about NIS?!!” Suresh…
Read MoreLand of Milk and Honey
Satiricus might not be the brightest bulb around but he knows a good proposition when he sees one. He’s with the Opposition on their stand on the budget. But he thinks they should be demanding more. Satiricus knows the government were pikers to raise the exemption to Gy$ 50,000 per month from the Gy$ 5000 it was in 1992. Why did APANU/ KFC limit their demand to Gy$ 100,000? Satiricus was of the firm opinion that Guyanese shouldn’t pay any income tax. “Yuh right!” Cappo supported Satiricus enthusiastically. “Why me…
Read MorePeople power: Many dictators
Satiricus is happy. He is happy that APANU has rejected Pressie’s claim that the opposition was a ‘dictator of one’ in Parliament. How dare he?! The voice of the people is the voice of God, wasn’t it? And the people had spoken. The people had given APANU/KFC 33 seats in Parliament. APANU/AFC was not like the PPPEE – they were not fooling around. The people had given APANU/KFC power in Parliament. They were a dictatorship of 33, not 1! To paraphrase Rodney, it was “People’s power! Many dictators!” “Well, the…
Read MoreA tale of two saints
Satiricus was in awe. He could not believe that such men still walked on earth. Satiricus was talking about Ram Jhaat Tan and the Naga Man. Who else? The finance minister had talked for three hours about the budget. Thousands of items were mentioned, but these two noble souls honed right into the most important one: forcing the people in Linden to pay the same rate for electricity as the rest of Guyana! Oh! That cruel, heartless Ashanee and PPPEE! How could they? Only Ram Jhaat Tan and The Naga…
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