Red tapers struck down

Dullards we are, one and all. Too busy we are crying and whinging about being choked by red tape that we fail to see small victories and rejoice in them. I refer to a notice in the back pages of the Penguin News of a few weeks ago informing us that we may now import a number of types of fruit without the need for the tedium of a pile of documentation, albeit with a few conditions.

For anyone returning from Chile, this has to be welcome news - if even for a few lemons for the G&T. Indeed for anyone who fears that we are drowning in rules and regulations, this must be something that gives the will to carry on, the strength to see another day through. How could we have let such an event pass with a mere mention in a government information notice? Poor, very poor.

Even Gavin Short, in his adjournment speech, chose to wave garlic at the impending fangs of bureaucracy rather than to hold aloft this small hope that we shall not be crushed by the red tapers. Perhaps a damning condemnation that he is indeed one of us - blind and too quick to complain.

He might have skipped across to Chile and bought 5kg of fruit just to bang it on the table in remonstration of those who like their rules and regulations. He might even have offered an apple to The Speaker, saying "Sir, you will taste no sweeter fruit. It has been brought to these Islands free from the poison of bureaucracy". But alas there were no such remonstrations and The Speaker didn't have his apple.

It seems we were all too caught up in drinking bitter whine, perhaps we've come to prefer the taste, that we missed the chance to sip from the cup of sweet victory. And now the event has passed I'm left to complain that I missed it - bitter whine does indeed have a strong grip...