My pardner James, whose identity I must assiduously protect, since he is the only Aboud on the entire Supreme Court bench, used to crack me up with his very affectionate impersonations of his old Syrian-Lebanese grand uncles, who, like most new arrivals anywhere, learned English as a second language as adults in Trinidad, and spoke not so much the Queen's English as Trini-English with a pronounced Queen Street accent. In his young life, James attended weddings and other joyful extended family gatherings at which one of his wizened uncles would take it upon himself to speak. Invariably, James fondly recalled, they began with what they thought was the standard opening of an important speech, but with their own special spin on delivery: "Lady and gentleman," they said, "it give me great pressure to give a dress to such extinguish company on such a suspicious occasion."
James' warm recollection of his uncles' speeches came to mind last Friday, while driving around Trinidad in my special-rate rented car, the special rate of which is so fixed because of such attractions as having no spare tyre, that special form of air-conditioning which only works on cool days and a radio with one crackly speaker permanently stuck on one station. As luck would have it-whether my good and his bad, or vice versa-my special-rate car (more accurately a "special" car, along the lines of special children) happened to be stuck on a station covering the launch of Minister of Sports Anil Roberts' campaign for the political leadership of the Congress of the People. I regret I did not hear Anil's speech because I think he's very clever and has cut a half-decent public profile as Minister of Sport, apart from the Nicki Minaj hip hop concert fiasco-which, admittedly, is like saying that former US President George Dubya Bush had a sound foreign policy, except for the war in Iraq. (Another pardner, Scotty, coined an accurate phrase: he speaks, not of "the war" but of " the war crime" in Iraq.)
I did hear a couple of other speeches, though, which reminded me so much of James' uncles that I began taping them on the digital recorder I always have in my bag, "should in case" (as James' uncles or Anil's supporters might say) I bounce up a surprise Trini or 'Bago to D Bone. What follows is the gist of two of the speeches introducing Anil; you will have to make up your minds whether they served him and/or his cause well. I wish him the best, on a personal level, because I do think he starts from a good place; but, then, I thought that of former Senator Mary King, too, and she is the cleverest person I know in public life; and look where she ended up. Here, then, are my versions of the speeches. I have spelled out the closest English words I can find to match the recorded pronunciation; which last word, had it been said by one of the speakers, I would have had to write as "pro nonksy ay shun."
Now I understand that many of us in Trinidad have learned to speak English words using a grammatical structure from another language (leading us, eg, on the hot days my special car air-conditioners can't cope with, to literal English translations from the Spanish or French, that "it making hot"). What I don't understand is why we think a flurry of clichés held together by catchphrases add up to a speech. And so, without further ado, or, as might have been said at Anil's campaign launch, last week, without furry lack-a-do, I give you, first, a man, and, after he, a next man, neither of who doesn't have no need for introspection. Almost every word reproduced here below was either spoken or pronounced as written:
"I speaking of a diner Mick young man with a ability to energise, mobilise and inspire people to have a vision of the few chair, where we must go, and have the skill to copper rate and collar berate with udders, boat inside and outside deportee, for the advancement of deportee, and well qualify, and so it give me pleasure to say our Anil Roberts is the best choice for leadership of deportee. He has done many things boat inside and outside his port fool you. With him, we will not be neglected and forgotten. We must reckon eyes we must work with renewed vigour until the turd of July, to converse. Wit and persuade. All party members that. Anil is the best candy date for the pose."
And the next man:
"I sore leadership in Anil when there was no leadership issue and Mr Roberts said, 'I am going to fight for leadership!' That showed guts. We have to debunk that fact that we were a knife-and-fork party. It was a political mamaguy that stuck. I am a grassroot person and Mr Anil Roberts will make sure that the COP will be accepted by all in this country. From today, the COP will be a grassroots party led by a grassroots person, and we have to fight that major fact, and the only person who could take us into the nooks and crannies of T&T is Anil Roberts. We want stability, yes, but stability is not weakness, and to fit that description, the person to lead with the ability to stabilise, is Anil Roberts, who will lead all classes of all people!" As lanyap, I contemplated reporting-which is to say, repeating, simply typing out what was said-a next speaker, who was introduce as a man who is in two zee as tick; but, even for me, it became difficult to separate the reality from the pappyshow.
BC Pires is a man who needs no introduction to the
hot little reds from Accounts who might be
mistaken for a hot mini roti, a conchs, not a strimps.
Read more of his writing at www.BCraw.com