What the Cards Foretell

One of the biggest stitch-ups since Dr Frankenstein picked up a needle and thread is under way.

As Finance Minister and Premier, Mac started with a good basic hand ( in numerous pies). Add to those cards one former and one present Financial Secretary that Mac had up his sleeve all the while and it's going to take big cards to beat him.

 FCO bluffing with one queen in their hand isn't likely to call him, although the Queen up their sleeve could still come into play.

Just to be sure of winning Mac is discarding his only diamond, Dan, in the expectation of picking up a joker - they stand for anything - giving Mac a royal flush.

With all the high cards for financial control and regulation in his hand Mac can take the entire pot ...

CAL Denies low flying incident

Rumours of another CAL low flying incident were brushed aside by a CAL spokesperson earlier today.

"Yah got nah proof", they said.

Is that so ...

I'll have what the man on the floor's drinking..

Next week is an odd one, what with there being two Thanksgiving Days - one on the 26th and another on the 27th when Mr Jack leaves. (You know I'm really gonna miss taking cheap shots at  Mr Jack once he's gone.)

Here's a tip to Ezzard about the next drunken tyrant arriving to stand on his neck - one Duncan Taylor by name - Duncan Taylor is a brand of Scotch. Yes the man has an entire whisky making business named after him, or vice versa: make of that what you will.

No hard feelings Jack but don't 'Haste ye back!".

Gentlemen charge and raise your glasses. 

Here's to cheating, stealing, fighting, and drinking.
If you cheat, may you cheat death
If you steal, may you steal a woman's heart.
If you fight, may you fight for a brother
And if you drink, may you drink with me.

This is It!

Sales for Governor Jacko's farewell tour haven't lived up to expectations -  according to Gerbil Cantilever, virtual unknown local event promoter,  it's been a disaster

The Lions' Centre venue, which hosts most major events on Grand Cayman, has been dropped from the farewell tour - "It would have been more like the Lions' Den anyway", quipped Gerbil. "Once the Governor discovered he was top billing to fight Killa Whittaker he pulled out."

The open air Farmers' Market venue was also scrapped, "Too much ammunition lying around, what was he thinking!"  The Concert Cruise has been cancelled too, "The  Nautilus was booked solid all that week".

"What we are down to is the Governor moonwalking across the tarmac to his plane in front of a baying mob cheering throng. Oh, and the rumours he has changed his features to avoid detection are false. That picture is all down to his niece whiling away the time with her crayons and some old photos on a wet afternoon last week."

Shock Headlines

Dart to build cruise berths! What are the odds!


Pope probably a Catholic!  He was saying Hail Marys, using rosary beads and everything says eyewitness.

Bear excrement found at Yellowstone! We tell people, Don't feed the bears ... now this happens, fumes Ranger.

Holding out for a Hero

Where have all the good men gone

And where are all the gods?

Where's the street-wise Hercules

To fight the rising odds?

Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?

Late at night I toss and turn and dream
of what I need

I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night
He's gotta be strong
And he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight

I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure
And it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life *

... Sorry he ain't coming.  His back got put out picking up other peoples trash. His face got put out by Rollover.

I'd fly down from the Fortress of  Ineptitude myself if it could do any good but my super-powers are critically impaired in the presence of Brown Metabolite, which is locally abundant.
 
Sooner or later people are going to have to rat out their neighbours to get the guns off the streets, no ex-pat cop is going take a bullet for Cayman. At a maximum $1,000 reward from Crimestoppers no Caymanian is willing to be a Bulletstopper either.

Unless praying for a hero is the official gun crime strategy put some real money on the table - serious money signifies serious intent. How about $50,000 upwards?

-----------------------
* Thanks Bonnie - I owe you a drink - bottle of gargle OK?

Sobering Thoughts

Was it Governor Alan Scott or was it Governor Michael Gore who was 'drunk on parade' -  it had to be one or the other if Ezzard Miller, is to be believed - OK I could stop the post right there but let's humour him.

Miller ...... said that he too had “experienced the arrogance, disdain and condescension of Her Majesty’s representatives in Cabinet.” He described one as coming to cabinet “in a drunken stupor and drooling over cabinet papers”. 

Cayman News Services (CNS)

"Drooling over cabinet papers" ... who would have thought politics could be that exciting ;-)  Cor! look at the size of those amendments! 

Miller was only ever an EXCO (Cabinet) member during the governorship of Scott,  bar a few weeks of Gore's birdwatching holiday in Cayman just ahead of the 1992 election when Ezzard lost his seat. Maybe people thought he'd become drunk with power?

Looks like Governor Scott is being fingered here and he did own two little dogs exactly like the ones on the whisky bottle label. How much proof do you need - 75% proof - 100% proof - over-proof?

Governor Scott is rumoured to have told Miller at their first meeting to 'take the stairs' and not the lift in The Glasshouse but then Ezzard probably started that rumour too.

Miller's visceral hatred of the English probably has deeper roots than a casual slight by a governor - whatever - it is the engine of his politics and comes out dressed up as a high principled call for independence.

Now we know the present Governor (whose origin is Scottish not English btw)  is wrong about nearly everything but not when he says that people who think there is no corruption in the Cayman Islands are deluded.


Ezzard responded to this by asking for evidence - where  do we start? It has become a way of life and is the cancer killing Cayman from within but people like Ezzard want to live undisturbed in their fantasy world populated entirely by heroes.

The trick is to convince voters that this blinkered vision is, in fact, a foresight of a magical future free of outside interference. Tell it to the IRS!

Governor's Leaving Presentation

So much to do and so little time to do it - that's always the way when you're fixing to leave. The Governor is certainly going to be busy during his last few days in paradise.

Seals washed up in Cayman

Sorry that heading contains typos - it should read "Seales washed up in Cayman?".

The travails of CNN Publisher of no fixed abode, Desmond Seales, continue as the authorities move him along from one spot to another as if he were a common vagrant.

There does seem to be a coordinated effort to reduce Desmond's publishing activities to hawking a single-page xeroxed newsletter on street corners - like the mendacious mendicant (look them up) some say he always was.

Desmond is nothing if not a survivor but his enemies are gathering.

This time around there may be no circus owner wanting to splash out on a performing Seales to bark, clap his fins noisily and spellbind an audience by juggling anything his  latest ringmaster throws to him.

Too many troubles coming at once this time perhaps - even Desmond can only keep so many balls in the air at once.

Nobody's Business - an all purpose Gordon Barlow post.

Since the landlord locked Cayman Net News out of their offices at the Alissta Towers building* earlier this week they have had to make do and mend to get an edition out.

However, Friday rolls around and there is no Gordon Barlow column so I created an all-purpose, emergency look-alike one for people getting the heebie-jeebies, cold turkey and similar withdrawal symptoms.

Have you noticed how it's impossible to get your head sewn back on at the Hospital these days? I bet that wouldn't happen if you were a bloodline Caymanian.

The Cayman Islands, for all of it's claims to be a living and breathing modern democracy ... serious human-rights challenges ... afraid of losing their jobs ... treated like some mad zealot ... threatened to pull his company’s advertising ... xenophobia ... cronyism ... systematic exploitation.

FCO has in fact abandoned the ideal of “good governance” ...  perfidious Albion ... our London masters  ... British Empire ... narrow UK interests ... MI5 ... Eurobank scandal ... MI6 ... kangaroo courts ... MI7 .... cold weather ... warm beer ... M25 ... Pommie Bastards!

When I was interviewed on a Radio Cayman programme ... the ethnic-cleansing exercise known as the Rollover ... never been asked back ... Rotary never asked me back either ... not just state employees ... usual suspects.

As for the wretched immigrant workers ... systematic exploitation ... “Protector of Immigrants”  ... 20,000 ethnic Caymanians .. 30,000 migrants ... 40,000 immigrants ...  50,000 immigrants ... tensions rising ... resentment ... tribal bloodlines ... Caymanians promoted to top positions regardless  ... ignorance no obstacle to advancement ... one sugar please and then string some corks onto my new hat.

Discrimination is written into the Immigration Law  ... “just following orders”
.. born-and-bred Caymanians ... severe tensions ... moderate Caymanians wringing their hands ... ethnic Caymanians ... tribalist Constitution ... crony Board members.

How ignorant it is to blame foreign visitors to our Islands for the sins of their forebears ...  Gallipoli all over again ... look at what they've done to Mel Gibson ... whingeing Poms ... call yourself a Governor?  

Which is why we need independent MLAs ... electing mere populists ... politics of vanity ... money frittered away on empire-building ... time after time ... pandering to the prejudices of their fellow-ethnics ... waste and more waste ... solid gold paperweights ... how much for a beer! ... Governor stands idly by ... Pommie Bastards!

I leave you with this uplifting insight from a seasoned political commentator

 “Politics, as a practice, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.”

_______________________

* Desmond if you're reading - I heard about this guy 'Evans' (possibly not his real name) who can open the door to Alissta Towers and the door of your old office any time you like.

Operation Suntan

I can't believe I heard it right ... Bridger got $500,000

$500,000!

$500,000!!



He should get five years for impersonating a police officer.

Jack couldn't organize an indecent assault in a whorehouse.

Things that make you go Hmmm!

So come November 6th there will be another President Bush in office.

Third time lucky?

Filthy Rich

"Read my lips: No - new - taxes!"

Remember that?

The outcome this time will be the same as it was then.

Kurt and Alden have returned from the naughty step with some awkward budget questions but MacEnomics has already taken hold.

MacEnomics seeks to discover and employ economic synergies that exist between the Public and Private sectors (ie. Dart and Mac respectively) freeing each to do what they do best - turn a mutual profit.

Under an early MacEnomics initiative the government will wash its hands of the Sewage System and flush with cash spend the pennies on some different crap.

Once the sewage is in private hands, so to speak, there will almost certainly be a move to a 'Pay Per Dump' pricing model (it was going to be called 'Price Per Movement' but PPM is a dirty word just now).

Demonstrating the holistic and synergistic nature of MacEnomics government initiatives will provide more bottoms for the privatized sewage system, building a dock for mega-cruisers hauling mega-ass and continuing polices that result in high immigrant worker numbers etc.


It is also well known that nervous people visit the toilet more often so policies will be put in place to keep people constantly agitated. Who would have thought gun crime could have an economic upside? And taxing business owners based on their business rental costs is an additional strain for people already holding on by their fingertips - inevitably they will have to let go.

Civil Servants on the other hand will be expected, in the interests of efficiency, to use the toilet before they leave for work in the morning and hold it until they get home in the evening. All staff toilets will be locked until 09:30 and after 16:30. Can you imagine the injection of extra tension into the evening rush hour that will cause? Even in a roomy automatic it's nigh on impossible to drive with your legs crossed.

At Northward Jail the cosseting will stop. The cheapest toilet paper available will become standard issue and the Simpson's Protocol will apply to toilet breaks - a brief interlude with 'itchy and scratchy' and then back to the main feature.

Bottom line: I'm not against making *ssholes pay their way - so long as it's the right *ssholes.

Going Backwards

Like many long suspected, Operation Tempura turned out to be a total con. The smart people on marlroad.com (and me) figured it all out in fine detail months and months ago and saw the recent Lyndon Martin trial confirm our beliefs. Tempura was worse than a waste of  money because nothing has improved and much has been damaged.

It takes a big man to admit he was wrong ... so the Governor doesn't.

I read a comment elsewhere that, for the last few two decades, each successive Governor of the Cayman Islands has been worse than the last - and I have to agree. Each has brought their lifetime of inexperience and imposed it on Cayman. They do what they know - but they don't seem to know what they do and impede the proper development of Cayman.

Anyone could perform at these standards if that is all that's required - even I could do this stuff and I'm a Chartered Idiot.

Let's hope the new Governor represents an evolutionary advance not a throwback - enough is going backwards already.

... and before you ask Madam, third man in from the right - that's a Glock in his hand.

Mistaken Identity?

UK expats of a certain age will recall a long running BBC children's program known as Crackerjack! hosted in its later years  by The Krankies, a Scottish husband and wife duo Jeanette and Ian, that featured the diminutive Jeanette dressed up as naughty schoolboy "Wee Jimmy Krankie".

Wee Jimmy is an anarchic, cheeky, mischievous scamp, always getting into scrapes but somehow never quite getting found out. Physically the role can be demanding and a couple of years back Jeanette had a serious accident while playing Jack in "Jack and the Beanstalk"  fracturing her skull and breaking her collar bone and ribs. She went somewhere warm and quiet to recuperate.

Having set the scene let us proceed to the scurrilous rumours ...

The Doppleganger Rumour:
Wee Jimmy Krankie has been Governor of the Cayman Islands these last four years! Far fetched? Yes ... but it does explain a lot.

The Stunt Double Rumour:
On retirement from public office (ex)Governor Jack will take up the role of stunt double for Wee  Jimmy Krankie over the 2009 Christmas pantomime season  in a production of Jack and the Beanstalk.

Giving more credibility to this rumour is the uncanny match of attributes possessed by Jack that would suit him for the role of Jimmy -  Scottish brogue, diminutive stature and recent pantomime experience in "Ali Bridger and the 40 Thieves"

All we really have to go on is this picture and a possible code word or password on the reverse "Fan-Dabi-Dozi".



Next time you meet Jack try and slip the word "Fan-Dabi-Dozi" into the converation and watch his reaction.

Last Year's Model

According to the Compass, The Miss Cayman 2009 competition is cancelled and  Miss Cayman 2008's reign will continue.

When Cayman has to make do with last years model things are getting serious.

If government can't afford a new Miss Cayman can it afford its  Cash for Clunkers programs like the Governor's Salary?

Monkey Business

See no evil. Speak no Evil. Hear no Evil.

Sound advice as a rule - but you can't run a successful newspaper like that.

The original three wise monkeys, from 17th century Japan, were Mizaru, who saw no evil, Kikazaru who heard no evil and Iwazaru who spoke no evil.

Closer in time and nearer to home three unwise monkeys Dezzaru, Lyndzaru and Evanzaru have been getting up to monkey business in Cayman. A lot of important people from the governor down have made pratfalls on  the banana skins these three left lying about the place. Still, these saucy simian 'saboteurs' weren't the adults here were they?

Yessuh,  dem make a monkey out of de Man ... who mistook some rather juvenile chest beating displays for serious threats to the entire community.

Passing the Buck

Two lawyers are having lunch in a restaurant when armed robbers burst in. As the robbers start taking money and valuables from the other customers one lawyer presses something into the other's hand under the table.

Without looking down, the second lawyers whispers, "What's that?"

"That's the $100 I owe you".

That's the way the new private finance initiative is going to work for Cayman - everybody looses out except the crooks but by manipulating the timing of repayments the smart people loose no more than they stood to loose anyway.

Maybe the smart people don't loose at all in the long run, what if the crooks from the story get caught and the lawyer who borrowed ends up representing them ... on legal aid.

Lord how the money goes round - until it runs out, which is has.

The word "tax" is not to be used in polite company on Cayman; the expression "live within your means" is akin to profanity too. Civil Servants seem to have become a protected species - though Mac's attitude to whistling ducks leaves the worth of protected status open to doubt.

No pain no gain. The central issues of how Cayman will control public expenditure and repay borrowing have been daintily stepped over like a sleeping drunk and the focus has shifted to who it will borrow from in a bid to continue to live beyond its means.

Hopefully the financial backer for this "Borrow your way out of debt" strategy will be a fool, from whose money we can soon part him, and not a rogue.

Meantime better add another storey to one of the new government buildings for the section that is going to deal with PFI tendering and compliance issues and the entourage of lawyers, accountants and consultants that attend it.

Can you tell a Wopper from a Mac?

Desperate times call for desperate measures - but there never seems to be a desperate time handy when you could use one to cut a few corners.



Lacking a Reichstag to burn down Big Mac and his Small Fry's have been rubbing sticks together and blowing hard to create smoke. Financial Secretary Kenneth "Trust Me" Jefferson has provided tinder via a financial crisis in government and there is now a small blaze started.



You see because of the appalling state of financial reporting by Government bodies, five years behind in most cases, we have to take the word of the FS whether the CI Government is solvent or otherwise.



In March, according to the FS, government was farting through silk but a few weeks later it was headed for Skid Row - without the figures who's going to prove him wrong?



Though they were unable to basically do their jobs and get the Civil Service to produce proper accounts for the last five years Mac doesn't seem to hold this against George McCarthy, the Financial Secretary who evangelized for Government's new and failed accounting system and Jefferson who succeeded him when McCarthy was made Chief Secretary.



I guess if they are nice to him he owes it to be nice to them. Same church too probably. In any event Mac's prayers have been answered - this crisis is a political godsend.

Who knows, the phrase "Cayman's first Minister of Finance" could be floating around too.


All manner of things will be justified by the financial crisis and being able to turn it on and off with a nod to Jefferson is icing on the cake.

Is it just me or does anyone else see the return to the days of the political three way split? "You run politics, we run business, the Governor goes birdwatching".

Now that's what I call a Big Mac

Another PR coup for the Ministry of Truth

If there truly was no such thing as bad publicity we wouldn't have PR departments tagging along like pilot fish cleaning the teeth of the shark after a kill.

I see PR as a necessary evil, with very little emphasis on the word necessary, so it was sweet to see government's sub-prime PR department deal cack-handedly with an issue concerning themselves.

The Caymanian Compass submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request for disclosure of how much public money is paid as remuneration to the CI Government's official pill-sweetener at the Ministry of Truth (or to use approved official titles the Chief information Officer at Government Information Services)

The GIS line is that the salary of its CIO is a private matter. Hmmm.

How do the salaries of government jobs, which have to be publicly advertised along with other key job details, become 'personal & private information' once somebody has been appointed to said job?

GIS's shroud-waving, citing, 'privacy' and 'civil service morale' as serious concerns, seems misguided at best. Why try to obscure something that should already be in the public domain? Assuming that the job was correctly advertised.

GIS is like an old mutt ready to bury everything a bit smelly that it comes across but maybe this reaction isn't classic GIS. Could there be another reason for the secrecy?

Once possibility is that actual remuneration received and the advertised salary could be two quite different figures if extra payments are made outside of government's official salary scales.

If the cap fits ...

Been some criticism of McKeewa's threads over at the CNS bulletin boards ... They sayin' his suit's too baggy an' he need a new one.

I know where he can import something that's a better fit - and the hat to go with it.

Yessuh! He'll look the cat's pajama's taking the salute as the flag is lowered and the sun sets over 'Yes Man Central' (the building formally know as the the Legislative Assembly).

... if this garb becomes standard government issue it's going to confuse the hell out of any Cuban Rafters drifting onto the shores of the Cayman Islands.

Flirting (that's cleaning it up) with Finance

So ... Madoff the Ponzi Pirate got 150 years for cooking the books - a smart lawyer will probably get that down to 100.

If he enters an organ donor program I'd like his Gall.

Word on the street is Madoff bought his accounting software at the same place the CI government bought theirs - Abacus Abe's Approximate Accounting .

I was cleaning the toilets there one time and landed a job in Accounts. Gate crashed the interviews.

I'd eavesdropped on the other candidates and each one was asked the same thing at the end of the interview,

"What is 2 + 2?".

Most answered 4, some optimists came up with 5 and some pessimists 3.


When they'd all gone me and my bucket entered the room. Very handy thang that ol' crap bucket - kept many a conversation addressed to me short and polite.

"Excuse me Sir but would you ask me that last question you asked all the other candidates?"
He eyed me up and down then shrugged, "OK. What is 2+2?"

"What would you like it to be?"

"You're hired"


And, thanks to the bucket, he didn't even need to ask if I minded getting my hands dirty...

Climate Change affecting Accountancy?

Poor Ken Jefferson (Financial Secretary) is in a bit of a stew. People thinkin', "His financial forecast as good as the weather forecast. And they bad".



The forecast for politics is usually windy and variable, blowing hot and cold alternately, question is: Have Ken's calculations been affected by climate change?


Change in the political climate that is.




Maybe there is a technical issue with the calculator Mr Jefferson bought from Kurt's office mart - always had some doubt myself about it being the right tool for the job.

Stormy weather ahead though, no doubt about that, and the chance of a man overboard.

Could be Ken


Which reminds me...

Which end a rope do you throw to a drowning accountant?

Both.

Don't ask ...

I have decided that I will not take up the role of Governor if I am formally asked to do so as I feel, like Ezzard Miller declining the job of chairing the Health Services Authority, that it would "detract away from (sic) my ambitions to serve the people ..."

On the same basis I am declining to walk the dog, dry the dishes or take the trash out. Bruises will doubtless follow but my people need me more.

Does this mean that Taliban Al will continue warming the HSA chair I wonder?

I can see economic benefits for that in these hard times. "You're not sick, God is testing you - now go away". A soft word turneth away wrath but a harsh one can save a lot of bucks.

As a gesture to political balance here is a picture of Chuckie digging fresh sand to throw in the eyes of the Bodden Town electorate.

Captain Underpants

Officer I've been robbed!

OK not robbed exactly but I am the victim of attempted Identity Theft. I'm Captain Underpants, the modest superhero who can't afford a costume so I just strip down to my manly under-garb in any handy phone booth when duty calls. (That's the story I'm sticking to anyway).

But what do I see in the headlines? The new UK Under-Secretary of State with responsibility for Overseas Territories at the FCO, Chris Bryant, is being proclaimed Captain Underpants.

According to Cayman News Services

Bryant was dubbed the “Captain Underpants MP” in the British press in 2003 after it emerged he had sent a photograph of himself wearing only underpants along with sexually explicit messages to a stranger through a gay dating website.

The image of Bryant showed him apparently taking a picture of himself in a bathroom mirror, wearing only a pair of Y-fronts. He later issued a pubic apology.

I hope I quoted that right.

Anyhoo ... back to the point - how to tell me from the usurper.

Chris is said to be 'openly Gay'. Well I'm pretty happy myself most of the time (but you don't see me swanking about it) so that wouldn't help you spot the imposter. But our uniforms are very different, see picture below, I'd say more has been splashed out on his costume and he is apparently less hard up than myself.

Knowing what you are up against is half the battle so I invoked one of my super powers - total invisibilty to anyone aged under 39 - and walked into the FCO to read his file.

I discovered that Chris was born in Cardiff, Wales and was influenced by a famous Cardiff personality, Dame Shirley Bassey. However his father wasn't keen on Chris wearing a cocktail dress while belting out dramatic ballads on stage but compromised and met him half way by suggesting he become an Anglican Church Minister instead.

This also enabled Chris to continue to enjoy singing, something he loved, especially songs from the big musicals. 'South Pacific' was a firm favourite, full of show stoppers like "There Is Nothing Like a Dame", "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair" and "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy". All those sailors too. Bliss.

Another clue to identity is to look for hallmark behaviour. For example, while it is customary to rise from one's seat to sing the British National Anthem, it is not customary to take a shallow bow and wave your hands graciously to the ensemble - unless you actually are the Queen the lyrics were intended to evoke. And I don't do that.

The clincher is that, while I leave messages scrawled in crayon on the back of old envelopes in the aftermath of my heroic activities, Chris uses a formal calling card - more Hallmark ™ behaviour? I've attached a copy.