The night of the 300 breakfasts

300 breakfasts

It would be, they decided, an international conference. Not just your boring old global summit, but something more, their first since independence. The subject wouldn’t matter much; there was no shortage of experts willing to travel anywhere to lecture anyone in return for per diem and expenses, and the chance to bore an audience witless; nor was there a paucity of weighty issues to be deliberated upon and subjected to lengthy resolutions. The main thing was to host their very own talkathon. This would demonstrate to the world, or such of it with time to notice, their full entry into the comity of nations (lovely term) and that they weren’t such a backward lot after all. It might also, if they did their sums right, encourage aid bureaucracies to squeeze their plates of meat under the door. And, if they turned out to be only half as bright as they thought they were, their own loyal subjects, particularly those dim or misguided enough to have formed an opposition, might at last realise that if their rulers could handle an international nosh with style, then running home affairs the same way would be a piece of coconut.

Plans were laid

So plans were laid, and more or less completed, depending on your point of view. There would be a conference venue, accommodation for all in a nearby hotel, transport to and fro, agendas and working

papers (another lovely term), cocktail parties, lunches and dinners.

There would be someone-important-to-open-the-conference as well as someone-just-about-as-important to close it. Between these two highlights, the promoters hoped, knowledge of such profundity would flow from the minds of the experts to those of the ordinary delegates garden variety public servants mostly as to cause the latter to swoon, or at least stagger, in awe at the show of erudition to which

they would by privileged.

Delegates converged from overseas, their travels financed, in part, through the generosity of a distantly-based regional organisation anxious to prove that it was still loved, or needed, by doling out funds for what it could be convinced were worthy causes.

Day one went pretty well according to plan. Sir somebody-or-other got up, said his bit and was politely applauded before being carted off.

Delegates then rose one by one and, in speeches of varying tedium, outlined their countries’ opinions on whatever it was the conference was being held for.

By day two eager-eyed organisers were detecting slight, yet unmistakable, signs of a certain drift in attention and attendance. For example, not all delegates had turned up for the morning session.

Although a certain sickie-ratio could statistically be assumed in a gathering of this size, it was rumored over the morning coffee cups

that some absentees had been sighted souvenir-hunting in a nearby

village.

Insubordination

By day three insubordination was in the open. The local bookshop enhanced its business in paperbacks which had replaced working papers in light-reading popularity, while contraband copies of the then banned Playboy were being passed around with draft resolutions. Recollections of revelries of the night before had superseded agenda items as the main topic of discussion. Particularly poignant was the experience of one who had awakened if that’s the word to use that morning to discern dimly, through a green fog shrouding his vision, stabbing pains alternating between his temple and his liver, and a palate reminiscent of the encrusted droppings of generations of noddy birds, snuggled beside him under the covers what was subsequently confirmed as being a 1.5 metre totem-pole arrangement of carved crocodiles being devoured by pterodactyls and similar horrors. The unfortunate fellow, in the state he was in, on tentative exploration, perhaps understandably, jumped to the conclu sion that he had been seduced the night before by a not particularly pulchritudinous representative of the local talent who had, apparently, passed away rapturously beside him in the night. He was still shaking visibly at lunchtime.

The experts never lost heart, however. Hour after epic hour they stoically lectured their diminishing audience on the most important issues to confront humankind since their previous conference. With amazing seriousness, in answer to a provocation from the floor, one expert expounded on problems associated with combining imperial tools and metric screws. Much mirth followed in the bar that evening as simple delegates dreamed up even more preposterous questions with which to set up the experts again.

On day four, the organisers scored a try by producing a comely lass fluent in one of the oriental languages. This facility was required to translate a message from a delegate who had insisted that if it were not so delivered, his very important country might take umbrage. The problem to date had been that this delegate neither spoke nor understood a word of any tongue recognisable to the gathering, or vice visa, and had so far sat uncomprehendingly through three days of proceedings. His attempts to explain his predicament by sounds and gesticulations assumed the beginnings of a bad Tai-Kwan-Do movie.

At any rate his speech, when at length translated and delivered to the by now curious throng, bore no resemblance to any topic even vaguely relevant to the business in hand, and it was concluded, not without more mirth, that the poor lad had got off his plane at the wrong country and had just trotted along to the first conference he could find.

The idea is born

In the wee hours of the next morning, after a tour of the town’s flesh pots on which the carousing and imbibing reached a level possibly bordering on the unwise, a gaggle of delegates stumbled back to the hotel determined to maintain their spirit of regional co operation with the aid of the bottle or two of duty-free remaining in their rooms. Lurching through the lobby, with no thought whatever to the consequences, one of this party liberated from the desk a hundred or so rectangular cards with donut holes at one end. These were, of course, breakfast cards you know the type you tick what you want, hang it outside your door, and at an ungodly hour, after the obligatory mix-up, a waiter delivers someone else’s breakfast, normally cold and congealed, to your room.

Well into the Black Label the finer points fell into place. With astounding concentration, considering their condition, and the help of a delegate list, the revellers undertook the task of planning breakfasts appropriate to their perceptions of individual needs. For instance a particulary obese delegate in need of a diet, would receive a glass of water and half a grapefruit, no more, while one much slighter, in need of several good feeds, would get them mixed grills, omelettes, loaves of toast, the works.

Now imaginations ran amok and fingers worked feverishly ticking off options. For our heroes were determined that all who had worked so hard towards achieving a successful conference, should begin their

final morning in substantial and satisfying manner. Their daunting task completed, a tippy-toed trip was made around corridors to substitute existing cards with new, improved versions.

At 6 a.m. the fun started. First to answer his door knock was confronted by the amazing sight of a veritable safari of waiters no less than five each bearing steaming, overloaded trays. They were followed closely by the drinks waiter and his trolley, conveying a not to-be-sneezed at bar of fine ales, wines and spirits, each quintupled.

Farther up the passage, and down, and down the stairs, and up, similar scenes were repeated as brigades of bellhops pounded on doors smiling at bleary guests. Great was the activity in the kitchens as assistant cooks rattled pans and used a month’s supply of eggs in an hour. As runners sped to ever-more-distant stores for extra bread, bacon and sausages, the demand for matinal comestibles raged, while guests who had been served thus far shrugged their shoulders and tucked in.

At 8 a.m. with inventories running dangerously low, an assistant manager attempted to bring order to a situation which he shrewdly judged, was not quite normal. To no avail. Guests who had still not had breakfast quite rightly insisted that they should. It is an eternal tribute to that particular hotel’s resilience that all its 100-odd guests received at least one breakfast that morning. Most got two, some three, and at least one, as we saw, got five. Except for one small group, of course. The perpetrators, in their care to ensure they missed nobody, overlooked themselves and became rather obvious in the crowd. At the time of writing it is believed that none has ever returned to that hotel, although I heard a rumor that one attempted to do so incognito years later.

Mullet Farms

The Tongan Fisheries Division is currently reviewing reports from an aquaculture team on the feasibility of farming mullet in Vava’u. The reports, prepared by experts from the Pacific Islands Development Program of the East-West Centre in Honolulu, cover most aspects of the proposal, inlcuding figures on world mullet culture, and on local Tongan fishing practices.

The same team has also completed a draft report on baitfish, milkfish and animal protein for Kiribati and these, too, are now being evaluated. The team is made up of Dr Roger Uwate of PIDP and Mr Peniasi Kunatuba, a senior fisheries officer seconded by the Government of Fiji.

Midpac Simplifies Fares

Travel agents worldwide complain about the complexity of air fares, both domestic and international. Whatever they recom mend, they say, some client will find a cheaper way of doing it.

Thus Honolulu and Sandwich Islands agents have welcomed the new fare schedule published by Mid Pacific Air. . . fares are lower and the schedule is simpler. “Basically we have only three fares,” said John Higgins, Mid Pacific’s president. “The new unrestricted full fare is $33.95 each way on any of our more than 130 flights daily. Then we have the Kama’aina Fare at $28.95, good for all seats on all flights, and availble to any resident of Hawaii, and a $19.95 Standby Fare.

Semu Hints At Comms

Western Samoa seems determined to proceed with establish ment of its own national university, and some political elements in the country now sound almost belligerent about it. Former Western Samoan Finance Minister, Mr Faasoo Semu, suggest ed recently that if Pacific neighbors Australia and New Zealand would not help with the project, then Samoa should turn to the communist giants for aid. He said he would ask the Chinese first, and if they wouldn’t help, he would ask the Russians.

Meanwhile at the existing Pacific regional university, the Univer sity of the South Pacific, headquartered in Suva, two pro-vice chancellors have been named. They are the head of the School of Education, Dr Robert Stewart, and the director of the Institute of Social and Administrative Studies, Mr Esekai Solofa. They will concentrate on the administration of the University in addition to their present duties. The appointments mean that the posts of Dean of Planning and Personnel and Dean of Academic Affairs will be abolished when the terms of the present holders run out.