Trinidad - a highlights package

I finally dragged myself away from the beach and arrived at the Commonwealth conference in Trinidad on Wednesday. It was, if I’m being honest, about as much fun as IMPORTANT PEOPLE blathering on about IMPORTANT ISSUES, and most of it was way over my head

As well as speeches and presentations there was a series of round table discussions at square, triangular and hexagonal tables. The main talking points were the financial crisis and climate change. And how are we going to deal with them? Simple. We have produced a 14 million page document which will be printed off and delivered by aeroplane to every single Commonwealth citizen. Funded by all the member governments, this should not only leave a carbon footprint the size of Belgium, but could bankrupt some of the smaller, poorer countries and use up a shitload of paper. Take that, rainforest!

Still, all of our hot air on climate change and the environment will be a useful primer for the Copenhagen lip service gathering next month. I fully expect that this event will come to a grizzly end a lot quicker than the politicians expect it to.

Speaking of carbon footprints, all of my own travelling has trampled its size nine all over the globe lately, but it’s OK cos I have grown a bit of basil in my window box in East Lambeth.

Away from the real problems of the world I was horrified to read, as I lay on the beach, comments by the Witchfinder-General Sandy Burnham-Drownham about the NHS being the government’s preferred supplier of umbrellas for medical reasons, eg. to those with an allergy to rainwater. Once I had looked up the word “preferred” in my dictionary (Oxford English, naturally) I got quite angry. What about the umbrella sector?

This coupled with another attack on the brolly sector by the unions, which included a spelling mistake (you’d never catch me lazily getting someone’s name wrong in my blog) means that we face a real threat from those who say public sector good – brolly sector bad.

Luckily, I had some light relief on Thursday night as I was able to catch up with some of my cousins, who live their life in limerick form.

One, the first Bishop of Calcutta
Was known as a bit of a nutter
He got all divine
On communion wine
And smeared all the wafers with butter

Next day, I was forced to go to Tobago for a day trip. I protested that I had already been there but to no avail and I was frogmarched by police out of the hotel and onto the boat at some ungodly hour.

There was much excitement on Friday night when Queen arrived. Some people think it a travesty that Brian May continues to flog this bloated pomp rock horse post-Mercury but they did a stirring version of Fat Bottomed Girls and the assembled dignitaries were shaking a shoe with aplomb.

But now it is time to come home. There is much important stuff to be done. Christmas is fast approaching and the BUBB Christmas party needs some thought. After all, my arse won’t photocopy itself.