Big and little things

Nothing like the rim-bending, tyre-slashing, suspension re-arranging, radio station changing  thud of wheel in pothole to remind you that while big things are in train, some of the smaller things can suck you into reality more urgently than the stuff of compelling newspaper headline.

Your country can be stumbling mindlessly into a violent, seemingly bottomless, geo-political pit, but all that concerns you at that precise moment is the trench of deeply excavated asphalt that took masterly aim at rolling rubber.

Up to a few months ago, we nicknamed such rascals “Sinny” or “Row Hand”, but today we encounter “Johnny” or “Jewel Een” - in all their best-performing omnipresence.

There is one – a “Johnny” - along the Eastern Main Road at the traffic lights in Champs Fleurs that wins first prize. It recently claimed my left front tyre and rim, and the radio skipped channels from BBC World to the endless chatter of a local talk show discussing raisins and pastelles.

There is another beauty near T&TEC in Curepe. Nearby stands a strategically positioned tyre shop and three places of worship walking distance away. Beat that!

I invite readers to enter their own examples in the award for most outrageous neighbourhood or work location pothole. Give it a name.

You can also have the most energetic debates on the ability of guns to silence guns and the value of eliminating bothersome judicial time – both at your home or out at sea – and not match a cloudy night under an eternally expired streetlight – particularly within dangerous range of a “Johnny”.

True, T&TEC has come a long way since the blackout years, but faulty streetlights now more regularly join with criminals, potholes, and uneven pavements to make life just that more uncomfortable.

There can be sophisticated discussions regarding world economic outlook and investment grade national rankings. Who or what is to be blamed or credited. What caused all of this. Where in the dynamics of macro-economic circumstance reside small, brittle states.

Yet, uncut grass in the neighbourhood and unattended drains can produce a solitary mosquito equipped with arboviruses to make you seriously ill or kill you. Dengue, my friends, can blunt dramatic news on world commodity markets and render irrelevant the negative interface between domestic mismanagement and global financial credibility.

It can end careers and prematurely terminate elaborate criminal investigations. It can defy geography, advanced technology, and clever sleuthing via microscopic proboscises.

There is one theological view that mosquitoes were created as vegetarians but because of “The Fall of Man” began sucking the blood of animals and humans. That’s pretty big, important stuff - sufficient to silence Sunday pulpits on the question of modern-day genocide.

For now, Mosquitoes 2.0 is all that matters. An audit probably needs to be conducted to calculate the numbers. Just one small factor against the backdrop of major things … such as climate change.

Fresh from the failures of COP30 and the bother of climate science scepticism, emerge concerns about things such as “climate justice” and the “just transition” to a more limited fossil-free future.

Yes, T&T’s final version of our Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement – hifalutin stuff! – is moving us in the direction of biofuels and the renewables. Big things these.

Yet, WASA must move much faster to achieve “Water for All by 2000” (it’s not a typo, check your files). Much, much faster. Not for the neighbour to use more for “hosing down” the yard or for sweet men to wash their cars every single day of their lives.

But for the simple things like flushing the toilet, having a shower, cooking food, doing the dishes, washing clothes, and having a cold glass of water while sitting back tuned into a sport channel on cable …

Now, about cable television and internet … At one time, modern day “outages” were referred to as “blackouts.” Today, we have posh “outages” for “planned maintenance” and internet “outages” checked and double-checked in neighbourhood WhatsApp groups.

Don’t start on “noise pollution”, please. Not as in Gaza or Sudan or Ukraine. But as in every single night in some areas where there are no fireworks, but lots and lots of, well, harmful noise pollution. This is “Silence for All in 2025” done “Water for All” style.

Oh. Meanwhile, Brent crude oil futures hovered around $61.1 per barrel on Monday, near the lowest level in almost two months amid persistent concerns about oversupply, while investors monitored developments surrounding a new round of Ukraine peace negotiations.