Melville Cooke

What is the difference between the wise and the fool?

When the wise live and die, likewise the fool.

A man is just a man.

- Garnett Silk (died 1994)

I did not ever think that George Bush, the current White House incompetent, oops, incumbent, and I would ever see eye to eye on matters of speech, but if politics makes strange bedfellows then irreverence (even unintentional) makes even stranger mates.

So when he addressed Pope Benedict XVI as 'sir' instead of His Holiness at the Vatican City on Saturday, June 9, he and I were, like the disciples, in one accord (not the car, not the car) for once. Of course, I doubt that this was a deliberate act on his part; in fact, I doubt that he deliberates very much.But his slip of the tongue was, for once, uncommonly sensible.

I do not know what is so holy about the Pope, the pontiff of one particular sect of Christianity, that he should be called His Holiness. And I refer not necessarily to the particular individual holding the office at any point, but to the title bestowed on the office itself. Similarly, I do not know what is so worthy of worship about the Mayor of Kingston that he should be called His Worship.

Too many titles

OK, maybe because I have a problem with religion titles that have overtones of genuflection and chalices (not the one Peter Tosh invited all to puff in Buckingham Palace) rub me the wrong way, whether they are applied to overtly religious offices or not.

But then, maybe not, because the Prime Minister of Jamaica's title, The Most Honourable, does grate on me as well. Not just The Honourable, mind you, but The Most Honourable. And, to top that, the Governor-General's title is His Excellency The Most Honourable. It just does not get any better.

Hmm. Maybe it could. There may just be a His Munificence The Most Honourable. Just maybe somewhere in a clap-hand church where the pastor is top dog of all those lovely lassies in the heat of salvation there is someone who has taken that one. There are titles and titles and titles around, in a land where only the minority is entitled to dignity.

Of course, there must be many people holding these titles that many times are longer than the person's actual name who are actually deserving of extreme respect. A man is just a man and a woman is just a woman.

And I take issue with someone being given a title based on the office they hold. If they were unpleasant, unethical persons before, they do not automatically become 'holy' and 'excellent' and 'honorable' when they slip on the robes, by fare, fear (or fair) means.

We go to such lengths to emphasise by title that some people are different. And, in the end, it does not matter, because the people who make toilet paper know we are all asses anyway. Some bigger, some smaller, but still asses.

Bad balls

I just had to read Tony Becca's cricket column 'From the Boundary' on Tuesday. How could I pass by an article entitled 'The balls simply are no good'? For those who missed it, it ended with a bang:

"The balls were not changed because they were lost, and they were not changed because the batsmen hit them so powerfully that they changed shape. The balls were changed because the stitching was destroyed, because they opened up at the seam and because they were torn down the sides.

In fact, they are such an embarrassment that there is no need to ask anyone his opinion of them.

They should be replaced as soon as possible."

And the ladies may just say it is not because the pitch is too tough.