Rested and refreshed

It's great to be back. My holiday from 'commentary' in your Financial Gleaner has been refreshing.

The notion of a holiday from writing a column is difficult for some to understand. After all, the guy merely sits at his computer and types, or talks, depending on the level and quality of his technology.

It's an easy thing to do; right? Wrong! There are so many motivations governing one's desire and commitment in writing an op-ed column.

First, there is the time constraint - The Gleaner submission deadline and that's real.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, there is the word limit. Indeed, one of my late and unreservedly trusted friends for whose intellect and understanding of Jamaican polity and society I had the greatest regard, chided me for actually writing a column in the popular press - that was many years ago.

His reason was that I could never hope to truly get across and cover sometimes complex ideas and issues in 750 words. As a result, he opined, I'd always be under attack from those unable to fill in blanks the word limit would inevitably force me to generate. Then he argued, you know our Caribbean politicians are thin-skinned. Their egos hurt easily, so even when you might be seeking to assist with new ideas or a new way to consider a problem, they shall take it as a personal attack. His final point was: the tribal view shall prevail and you will be branded a propagandist.

My responses were altogether short and I think, to the point. I mentioned the pithy statement of Richard Feynman, the Manhattan Project (US World War II atomic bomb development) and Nobel Prize-winning physicist who maintained that if one really knew one's subject, one should be able to "explain it to the cleaning lady".

My other response could perhaps be characterised as potentially presumptuous: what of public education, shouldn't we offer considered views to people who may not have had the chance at higher education we had? Or who may not have the time available to contemplate thorny issues, or do not have the experiences we've encountered in life?

To this, he argued, though I always doubted he believed it himself, that these notions were pie in the sky! Anyway, I am back and hoping you missed me.

I took some time to travel around Jamaica and must tell you the new highways seem to be very well constructed, making travel across the parts of the country they serve less time-consuming. Yet, I must avoid it if I want the Old Harbour fish-and-bammy experience. You know, on my first ever pass through Old Harbour while at Mona, I was convinced I had encountered a new 'breed' of dog. This breed was distinct not for anything to do with their coat, colour, physical appearance, capacity for retrieving, scent perception or herding sheep.

These animals were unique rather, for the way they handled fish bones with a skill I thought exclusively reserved for creatures of the sea. Should anyone have attempted to throw a fish bone to my Belgian or German Shepherds I would have had a fit. Not so for them.

One thing though, we must work on our signage. Not the beautiful ones that have words like "Trespassers will be Persecuted", or "SOUPIES Fish Café - Yes SAH!"

The ones that are missing: like how does one get to Savanna-la-Mar; which way to turn. For a partly tourism-centred destination, this is unsustainable since not even Kingston and St Andrew-based Jamaicans know their way around 'country'!

Next week, I shall comment on the interesting development in corporate financial recovery and finance arrangements after meltdown - the proposed Black Sand bid for the Lascelles group, now part of the holdings compulsorily acquired by the Trinidad and Tobago government after the CL Financial implosion.

Apparently not enough has been learnt from Jamaica's travails with its mid-1996 domestic financial services meltdown.

With pending or ongoing litigation, significant assets of the CL Financial group may fall on the block for less than a calypso king's soca song.

wilbe65@yahoo.com