IT MIGHT be salutary first of all to realise that in 1900 computers hadn't been invented. We were accordingly saved an enormous amount of hysteria and nonsense which eventually plagued us 100 years later.

By 1950 mere adding machines had begun to take the form of what assorted geniuses described as computers, and by 1999 these geniuses and wonderful machines had achieved, believe it or not, a booboo. They failed to tell the difference between 1900 and the year 2000. This can be described as one of the greatest non-events in history, and the year of glitches and simple carelessness had began. The mistake could have been corrected by a child of six had the great minds managed to grasp one single and simple mathematical principle.

So we were stuck with the year 2000, and suffering all kinds of imaginary ills and crises, and we were talking constantly about a creature called Y2K. Of course it didn't seem to occur to anyone that Y2K doesn't exist. It's simply the year 2000 with no need to get the slightest bit perturbed about it.

The reason for this is that the new millennium which emerges in the year 2001 is not about to end for another 100, by the end of which we will all be dead and gone. By the end of it I have no doubt the computers will be able to make their calculation without at the same time making booboos. But I don't suppose it really matters. At the end of the next century I'm sure that people will find a lot of other things to worry about.

Real problems

Let's now go back a bit to the recently homeless and mentally challenged people of Montego Bay. A big fuss was justifiably made and in the end nothing more was ever heard of it, and the Prime Minister lapsed into silence.

And soon after that, the poor deranged Michael Gayle was brutally and savagely killed.

I rather suspect that nothing much more will be heard of that either. But in addition to tragic matters, we now have to cope with folly and extravagance, and important people in the Government will soon be composing the most ingenious excuses for finding that what we thought were scandalously high salaries were after all nothing more than fairly routine gratuities and pensions. After all what's $9 million or so for a man as important as Derick Latibeaudiere, or any other in the public service who has become so well attuned to riches.

In Jamaica today we must take all these matters in our stride, for when push comes to the slightest little shove who the hell cares? The large armies of poor have become well used to their predicament and the much smaller armies of the rich know very well on which side their bread is buttered.

Soft drinks

What are known as soft drinks are mostly sugar and water with a bit of colouring or flavouring. Two of the best known, Coca Cola, and Pepsi Cola are aerated and contain a small amount of caffeine which is a mild stimulant.

None of them have any food value, unless of course you want to include some sugar. Currently there is a soft drink called Sunny Delight which looks and tastes like orange juice. In fact it contains only five per cent of some kind of fruit juice. The rest is water, sugar, vegetable oil, starch, and two chemicals called carboxy-methyl cellulose and potassium sorbate. It also contains a small quantity of a substance called beta carotene.

This soft drink is quite harmless, unless somebody drinks a great deal of it, in which case it has the unfortunate result of turning the drinker a bright shade of yellow. Millions of dollars are spent on these virtually useless soft drinks, one of the most popular of which, as I have already pointed out, is the synthetic orange juice known as Sunny Delight, which is made by Procter and Gamble. The only thing that can usefully be said about Sunny Delight is that it is a fraud on consumers. But then so are a large number of soft drinks.

Unpronounceable

Senator Aloun Ndombet-Assamba is an admirable and handsome woman, and she is justifiably concerned about the lack of decent values in our society.

In Jamaica today we are awash with the vulgarity, and semi-literacy which we call popular music. When we think of musicians and song writers like Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, and Noel Coward, we realise the vacuum of ability and good taste which now exists.

But I have a problem with the lady Senator. I am home and dry when it comes to Aloun, or Assamba, but how does one pronounce Ndombet? I suppose that when you have to leave off a vowel you just have to make a swallowing noise. It would have been much easier had that charming lady been simply called something like Mary Smith.