BENITO MUSSOLINI told the world he was going to get Italian trains to run on time, and that he would drain the Pontine Marshes. To his great credit that unfortunate Fascist bull-frog did both.

Although the Italians were not very good at winning wars, they have other considerable virtues. They can sing beautifully, even better than the Welsh, and they have the knack of building beautiful things. But they are not all that good when it comes to machinery. Italian cars are superbly designed, though they do not always work very well. The most beautiful transatlantic liner ever built was built in Italy. Unfortunately, it caught fire and sank.

But let me get back to the subject of making trains run on time. We have got a similar challenge in Jamaica. Our own Phillip Paulwell has undertaken to make our postal services run on time, and if he can do this he will, in one respect at least, out-perform Benito Mussolini.

We must, however, be fair to our present postal services. They are run at present as a very benevolent welfare organisation, for the only thing that can reasonably account for our present snail mail is that our postal employees are deliberately recruited from those who are gravely physically handicapped, and are forced to travel in wheelchairs, or with wooden legs. There can be no other reason for this when, as we all know, it takes up to two weeks to deliver a letter from Kingston to Half Way Tree.

Challenge

The challenge to the good Mr. Paulwell is therefore to galvanise our postal services into meeting a 24-hour deadline on a money-back basis. Quite clearly Mr. Paulwell will have to learn to live dangerously, for the chances are that with such a money-back guarantee, we shall all end up with a fortune in cash and no letters. This will not necessarily precipitate a financial crisis, for it will give our postal crooks ample time to extract money before the empty envelopes are finally delivered.

Nevertheless, we all know that Mr. Paulwell is a man of great efficiency, and has, if he will pardon my expression, ants in his pants. It is true, of course, that in his recent contest with Cable and Wireless he was slowed up a bit by gargantuan resistance, and can hardly be blamed for that.

We have every reason therefore to hope that the good Mr. Paulwell will not only succeed in getting our letters promptly delivered, but will also succeed in inducing institutions like JAMPRO, and the Trade Board to lessen their well-known fascination with red tape. Comes to that, he might even be able to persuade our public servants to give us value for money, and to encourage the Governor of the Bank of Jamaica to accept a salary that is not necessarily a starvation wage of half of $9 million a year.

A bright idea has just occurred to me. Why not send Derick Latibeau-diere to run the post office and put the postmaster general into the Bank of Jamaica? On that money-back guarantee the Bank of Jamaica might make a fortune.

The prostate

My colleague Errol Miller is the most gentle and tolerant man. He avoids abrasiveness, but gives his readers solid and useful information.

He has recently been giving some useful information about the prostate. Very many years ago I took a cough mixture containing an ancient Chinese drug called ephedrine. It is tremendously effective in clearing the nose. Unfortunately, in a very small minority of males (I was one of them) ephedrine has the effect of closing down ones prostate like certain financial institutions close down on bank holidays. Ephedrine cleared my nose, but closed down my prostate for a day. I bawled for murder, and for my doctor, a splendid man who told me to calm down and the effect of ephedrine would soon go away. It did, but I mention this because Mr. Miller, and others writing upon the subject of the prostate, should beware of ephedrine.

I am glad to say that at the age of 86, the only anxiety I have concerning my prostate is that sometimes I have to exercise a little patience. At my age I no longer worry about prostate or lung cancer, but quite obviously I shall soon have to die of something. My fond hope is that I shall die of laughter about the antics of the Governor of the Bank of Jamaica, Derick Latibeaudiere, and the Minister of Finance Dr. Omar Davies.

Nonetheless, my colleague Mr. Miller tells us that a drug called Beta-something will help aged gentlemen if their prostate tends to slow them down a bit. This is a very useful piece of information, but my current doctor is a woman, and therefore has no prostate problems. The drug mentioned by Mr. Miller is not available in Jamaica. I gather, however, that reasonable substitutes are available. I am grateful for this information, for unlike Mr. Miller I am an impatient man, and if I am delayed too long, I am glad to know, that I, and perhaps Mr. Miller himself, will have ready help available.

I cannot, of course, deal with the subject of prostate cancer. I am, however, told by a well known and very knowledgeable urologist that the male tendency to wild promiscuity tends to encourage a wide selection of weird viruses. Cervical cancer usually comes about for the same reason.

Soap opera

Alex in the Financial Gleaner has been entertaining us by writing a soap opera. I would prefer it if my colleague described it as a soap farce.

The latest bit of fun comes to us by courtesy of Dr. Wesley Hughes. Apart from his basic salary of $3.5 million he enjoys a mortgage of $3.2 million at three per cent. Next comes an allowance of $58,591 for Dr. Hughes' helper and gardener; and $23,715 for day-care allowance, whatever that is. He also gets $510,298 which he got apparently for doing without leave.

What is even better is that he benefits from a clause that he "shall be entitled to participate in all other benefits, both present and future, not specifically referred to herein, which are receivable by the permanent staff of the bank". This, I suppose can be described as the "blank cheque" clause.

God knows what other allowances will be coming up for the benefit of our industrious fat cats. How about a half a million dollar allowance for picking one's nose?

I do not know how to describe the fat cats of the public sector. I am, of course, tempted to recommend that they all draw a special deodorant allowance to neutralise the offensive odour which is pervading our financial affairs. I could write a great deal more about the fat cats, but as I have no wish to be sued for libel, I am simply holding my nose, and hoping for the best.

Street people

Here we come to another unpleasant odour, and another strange situation. It seems that the banishment of the street people was not a single incident, but a series of incidents carried out at various times. It appears that every time that there was an important public occasion an assortment of people were responsible for concealing the street people from the public eye. If these unfortunates had been well and carefully treated, one would have no complaint, but it seems that they were just tucked away somewhere to get them out of sight.

The investigation currently taking place in an effort to assign responsibility is going to be long and complicated if it is possible at all; for I suspect that pretty well every Tom, Dick and Harry had a hand in keeping the street people out of sight without any regard for their welfare. Our fat cats on one hand, and our street people on the other, comprise a quite extraordinary commentary upon our social affairs. How about putting our street people into the Bank of Jamaica, and our fat cats out into the streets?