Terrors and tortures on Thursdays

Jul 03, 2025 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News- Feeling a little rundown and jaded, there is a remedy available.  Growing tired of off-track betting and Quik Piks, relief is on the way.  Have an hour to spare, and in need of a quick picker-upper, I have just the prescription.

Thursday Afternoons at the Asylum, hosted by one Bharrat Jagdeo.  Remember him, that glorious son of Guyana, divine inspiration of the lost and lonely, and the PPP’s all-purpose handyman.  Dr. Jagdeo is versatile, volatile, and can strike with the venom of a reptile.  Me, I am smart; I stay away from people like Bhai Bharrat, make sure that I maintain a safe distance.  Welcome to the terrors and tortures of Thursday Afternoons with Bharrat Jagdeo at the controls.

Ah! Thursday Afternoons at the Asylum, with Bharrat ‘the Boomerang’ Jagdeo.  Oftentimes, his own head is in danger, which forces him to take evasive action.  Just dare to make an inquiry about oil, or his favourite Americans, Exxon.  Better still, ask him about his latest and greatest Guyana bedtime story.  It is the Wales Gas-to-Energy project.  The man is spending US$2 billion of Guyanese taxpayers’ money, but is still insisting that it is his secret.  I have heard that what happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas.

But this is Guyana, I remind everyone, where there is a parliament that dangles in the wind, a procurement body that is a corpse, and a casket-closing move by Big Bossman Bharrat on that Wales bait-and-switch business.  He is not going to speak about any of that until after the project is completed.  Heard right the first time: not until after elections, but until after the project is completed, whenever that is, if ever.

I always thought that a press conference was to provide information.  If there is no information, why call it a conference?  Why not substitute tirade or diatribe?  If certain questions cannot be tabled, then why attach the word ‘press’ to proceedings that resemble a lunatic convention, a séance, and a dog-and-pony show all put in a blender and given a good jolt of electricity?  Why go to the trouble of opening the doors to the press?  I think it is to exhibit to Guyana (and the foreign legion) how much of a terrorizer, torturer and Impaler he is.  The de facto president of Guyana is putting on a show every Thursday afternoon in what is now a stream of talk show rantings; endlessly cheap ones, ones without class or concern for the young children of Guyana.

I wonder what the younger children of ministers in the PPP Government and those of senior public servants think of Jagdeo’s Thursday Afternoons of Verbal Belligerence.  I know that they don’t teach those in the private schools of Guyana, certainly not, (god forbid), the American School.  Unfortunately, I cannot speak with authority on whether the abusive, aggressive, and oppressive are standard fare in public school quarters.

For those with a liking for the fine arts of psychological and occupational flagellation, then Thursday Afternoons at the Asylum with BJ is the place to be.  Me, I am into the spiritual.  My days of seeking out the latest in spicy comedy shows are over.  Still, as I tend to do, I give praise where such is due.  If the calling is for mindless entertainment, Jagdeo is the man of the hour.  Just say PNC, and he goes off his rocker, completely haywire.  When no one indulges him, he finds a way to drag the PNC into his hysterics and verbal ballistics.  While it is possible that Dr. Jagdeo may have had a dip or two in the Romance languages, he does exhibit some exposure to Vulgar Latin; hence, non sequiturs have become commonplace with him, of which the PNC is one.  Most appropriate, I believe: the commonplace in the hands of a common man.  Older Guyanese loved using common; they loved even more to apply it to certain men and women they held in a special regard.

For those in the information-seeking business, they need to get into another business.  Jagdeo’s Thursday Afternoon Talk Shows are the last place into which they should venture.  It has now degraded to one of those Times Square specials that the tourists and hicks like to patronize.  He knows what he is doing, of that let there be no mistake.  It is the old training from the Kremlin deep in Jagdeo’s genes, kicking into action.  All those who hail his elephantine memory know the man very well.  He still remembers those teachings from Moscow about the perils of the press.  Too free and it is a full cardiac condition.  Little to none of it, particularly independent sections, and everybody lives happily ever after.  Such are Jagdeo’s terrors and tortures on Thursdays.  He’s usually in fine form.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.) 

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• bedtime story, divine inspiration, Guyana, Quik Piks, Thursday Afternoons, Verbal Belligerence

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