MICHAEL BURKE

I do not like too much noise at night. Indeed, it is my view that blasting sound-boxes at night are bad for production since the workers of Jamaica are not able to get enough sleep because of the noise. But I cannot support what happened at La Roose in Spanish Town earlier this week.

The police were called in and someone said something about police not being able to go into some other areas and tell the people to turn down their music, which seems quite true to me. Unfortunately for the police involved, someone filmed the entire assault. Cameras are tiny these days and perhaps because of that, the police did not know that they were being filmed.

It was more than a week ago that I was in a conversation about how far technology has brought us in the area of telephones. Before 1989 when ICAS was introduced, to make a telephone call to anywhere outside of Jamaica, one had to go through an operator called the trunk operator. And before 1969, one had to go through a trunk operator to make a call from one parish to another.

The trunk operators were mostly women and there are many horror stories about some of them listening in on people's conversations and the trouble that such eavesdropping caused. And it is with this background that I give the following example to continue the theme that two wrongs do not make a right.

In 1982, I was employed by a well-known charity organisation. In those days I drove a Fiat 124 and one particular co-worker, a man, drove a VW. One week I saw him drive to work in a Toyota. "New car?" I asked. "No, is me wife car," he replied. He explained that his VW was in the garage for 'overhauling'.

The following Monday, I saw him walking to work. I inquired if his wife's Toyota was also in the garage. Nothing like that. Big quarrel "a yard" and his wife took back the car. He had made an overseas call through the trunk operator (as that was the only way to do so then) to a girlfriend and the operator listened in on the exchange and had told his wife all the details of the conversation.

As someone who professes Christianity, I could never support the idea of a married man having other women on the side, although it might be common practice. But that operator was doubly wrong for telling the man's wife about the overseas call.

According to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, the operator had sinned perhaps greater than the man who made the telephone call had. What sort of good did she plan to achieve by telling the man's wife about the overseas call? Or was it that she had her eyes set on the man who she would have gladly taken had her gossiping caused a divorce?

I recall suggesting to my colleague that the next time he spoke with his wife he should tell her that the trunk operator is not her friend, but a destroyer of families. He must have taken my advice because, before he got back his VW from the garage, he had his wife's car again. And I believe they are still together to this day.

My colleague wrote a letter to the Jamaica Telephone Company (as it then was) and if my memory serves me correctly, the operator was subsequently dismissed from her job, which served her right. Again, two wrongs do not make a right.

All the same, on a lighter note, because of the advances in technology, even certain jokes are obsolete. A man who intended to make a long distance call is reported to have picked up the telephone receiver, dialed 0 for "operator", and said: "Hello, Operator, I wish to make a long distance call, can you please tell me how far I should stay from the phone?"

I am grateful to Henry Fowler, founder and first principal of Priory School, for instilling in me the principle that "two wrongs do not make a right" almost 40 years ago. I attended two preparatory schools before I attended Jamaica College. One was St Theresa's in Vineyard Town and the other was Priory Prep on Hope Road.

ONE day at Priory, there was an incident after the last bell. Somewhere in most schoolyards, you will find a drum of white lime or tar, depending on what is used to mark out the playing-field for track or football. One boy kept kicking another boy's school bag. The boy whose bag was kicked threatened the other that if he kicked his bag again, he would pour white lime into the other boy's bag. And "so said so done", as the saying goes.

The other boy went straight to Mr Fowler and reported that white lime had been thrown into his bag. All of us who had been around were summoned. No one was punished but I heard the stern warning that Mr Fowler gave to the one who poured the white lime into the other's bag. "Two wrongs do not make a right." He further told us that had the lime got into his eyes it could have blinded him. And that lesson has stuck to this day.

The policemen at La Roose in Spanish Town apparently did not have the privilege of learning that lesson. And as a result they are now in serious trouble.

Trousers in Denim

Cream of the 'Crop'

Cheeky's World