Pamela shows up.

 

Imagine my shock. I’m tightening some halyards when I hear, ‘Dick!!’

Bugger me it’s Pamela Anderson! We’ve been friends for years. Ever since yoga classes.

‘What are you doing here Pamela?’

‘Visiting friends Dick. I was in London so I thought I’d stop off here.’

‘Great to see you again. What were you doing in London?’

‘Trying to help Julian Assange. He’s stuck in the Ecuadorean Embassy and I took him a food parcel.  I felt….’

‘You WHAT!!??!!’

Oh no.

‘This is my friend Oscar Pamela. You’ll have to excuse him.’

‘You were helping that little pervert! He’s a rapist you know. Get in bed with a guy like that and he'll slip you one without asking. And he's a traitor!! He should be shot.’

Oscar seems determined to embarrass me.

‘You’ll have to excuse Oscar, Pamela.' I say, 'He’s liberal in some ways, conservative in others.’

‘I think we’re all a bit like that these days Dick,’ says Pamela, ‘Don’t worry. I’m used to it.’

Seems there’s no getting away from politics. But Oscar really is an arsehole. He shouldn’t be talking to Pamela like that. I was hoping to ask her about Julian Assange but that would just be trouble. Alternatively we could all go for a drink somewhere and talk about time and space.

Pamela sized up the situation and said she had to be off.  She let me take a few snaps but I had to promise not to put them on the blog. I told her we were headed to the Grenadines and she told me to say hi to Felix. I told her that might be a bit difficult because he’s dead. She was sorry to hear that and we both agreed people are dropping like flies lately. Prince, Bowie, Cohen it’s been quite a year.

You've all heard of Felix haven't you? No? He was a writer. One of the founders of OZ. Made a fortune in the magazine business. Built a house on Mustique. Before she left Pamela presented me with one of Felix's poems in which he shows a keen appreciation of the Windward Islands vernacular. Here it is....

"Pass Me De Banana Wine"

Dem politicians on de take,
An' what dey take be mine,
De pack o' dem be sham an' fake,
Dey vex me wid de belly-ache
- Pass me de banana wine.

Me loss' de crop, no rum, no bread,
De fruit die on de vine,
De 'elicopter spray dem dead
To keep us we from bein' fed
- Pass me de banana wine.

De wife she gone, she run away,
Me read de note she sign.
She say me make too lickle pay,
Play too much domino all day
- Pass me de banana wine.

Dey say dey lock me in de jail
Where sun don' never shine,
Me got nobody go me bail,
De food be bad, de water stale
- Pass me de banana wine.

Me ax de warden for a drink,
Dey give me turpentine,
Nobody love me now, I t'ink,
I standin' on the very brink
- Pass me de banana wine.

And here are some notes on the poem by Felix himself....

The people of St. Vincent & the Grenadines do not spell 'the' as 'de', nor do they spell 'they' as 'dey' nor 'them' as 'dem' nor 'ask' as 'ax'. But that is how most Vincentians pronounce them and I have spelt them as such as an aide-mémoire for reading aloud. Substitution of 'me' for 'I' is widespread in the Caribbean as is the inversion of words in certain phrases. The word 'vex' is common, although virtually extinct in British 'received' English. Politicians are widely held to be corrupt, so that even honest reformers are often tarred with their predecessors' brush. The US helicopters which regularly come to spray the mountain marijuana fields cause great damage to fruit crops and are universally detested as an invasion of national sovereignty. 'Banana wine' is slang for a pesticide used by banana farmers to clear away weeds and harmful insects from crops. It is also drunk as a cheap, hideously painful form of suicide. My thanks to Yolande, Webb, Jennifer and Baba at Mandalay House, Mustique, for the idea for this poem and for correcting my vernacular usage.