A rose by any other name...

By Bumpy Walker

Before the age of the internet.  In a time before email had made its universal penetration.  It was the era before social media when Mark Zuckerberg was still at his exclusive school. It was the period when books were physical entities, music had yet to transition online, and newspapers were in the newsprint.

A newly minted service engineer (me) was dispatched to an oil rig, drilling the Ravenspurn field for a now forgotten small energy company (which would be taken over by a larger multinational, which then in turn got swallowed by an even larger company).  The Engineer with battered pilot’s case filled with manuals, a couple book and a bundle of newspapers embarked onto a “hell-icopter” sent to this tiny spec of metal in the middle of the grey southern North Sea.

As I waited for the “Doghouse” to scream my job title over the public address system, I found shelter from the Southern North Sea wind and rain in the logging cabin which was liberally decorated with semi-nude female pin ups (to date the cultural context).  After introducing myself, one of the operators, a mud logger  made me a “companionly” cup of instant coffee. I sat down to sip this evil brew and broke out the UK edition of the “Weekly Gleaner.”   This caught the eye of one of the operators who expressed his surprise with an expletive.

It turns out the logging crew were on a mission to read through all the James Bond books.  The author, in his usual condescending manner, mentioned “The Daily Gleaner” and scathingly described it as having an unusual editorial policy!  They had assumed it was as fictional as the protagonist, not one of the greatest newspapers in the world.  

Shakespeare was Wrong!  

Earlier this week I went to the United Oil and Gas Website to see what the fuss about the Jamaican oil “discovery” was about.  To my chagrin I discovered that all the identified prospects in the Morant section of the offshore block are named after the schoolboy fantasies of James Bond creator: Moneypenny, Jaws, Blofeld, Moonraker, Goldeneye, Thunderball.  

Names are important. They are cultural indicators. Social markers, if you will. A rose by any other name may be just as sweet but imagine if some colonial administrator had changed Morant Bay to Von Ketelhodt Bay to honor Maximillian Von Ketelhodt man who ordered the firing on the ancestors in 1865 in front of the Morant Bay Court house. This is not so far-fetched: Lake Eyre, a seasonal lake in Australia is named to honour the memory of Governor Edward John Eyre who oversaw the massacre of innocents in 1865.  No doubt part of the meagre readership will dismiss and disparage this idea as mere puffery. I disagree!

Don’t mention his name!

This feels like a lack of confidence in self; catering to an illusion that Bond is better than any Jamaican cultural markers. The explanation will no doubt be international marketing.  Stuff and nonsense! The Norwegians named many of their oil fields after their mythical characters; gods even. It is painful enough to have an international airport named after an apologist of colonialism, a fan of imperialism. To now have these potential wealth creators named, after his fictional creations seems lazy and catering for others.  

Most Jamaicans are more impressed with Merlene Ottey than any of the cinematic Moneypenny’s.    As for naming a prospect after a fictional criminal mastermind Blofeld, it is as equally distasteful as naming it after one of our home-grown real-life warlord.(A Don by any other name) As for Jaws, a fictional badman is as unacceptable as it would be to use Copper, Tingle,  Rhygin or any other “Shotta”.

Frankly, it would be better to name each prospect after a member of the current cabinet.  That is contrary to the “Fidelista” ideal of not naming public monuments after living political leaders.  That is still better than celebrating the creations of a person who saw us as less than.  Read the description he has in the original edition of Dr No as he describes the ethnic mix of ones like our national treasure and public educator Wayne Chen. It makes one vomit!

Give the ladies their flowers or better still their hydrocarbon field!

This is a relatively painless process to rename. It need not be a long, laborious, politically divisive process like constitutional reform.  The Australians even compromised on the Lake Eyre name, adding the more musical original Aboriginal Australian name of Kati Thanda to neutralize the colonial anti-hero.

Here’s my suggestion on how to rename these prospective fields. Look to our female athletes for names of these unproven economic game changers.  Merlene is the ideal. A real living Jamaican heroine (with cheek bones!) not a fictional Moneypenny, who pales in comparison besides the glorious Jamaican bronze queen (and my first crush!). Then rename the rest of the prospective hydrocarbon fields from the cohorts of our female athletic heroes:   Clayton (twofer), Shanicka, Tapper, Shericka, VCB, Shelly-Ann.    This will at least express that the nation values their contribution to our narrative.  A gesture, yes but an acknowledgement that those from the working class have great value.  It would give a signal that building careers through work, self-belief, sacrifice, self-denial is a possibility and deserves honor.  In the current atmosphere where athletes feel hard done by, why not make this small acknowledgement of them.  It is painless!

Bumpy Walker: Has read most of the James Bond novels, for the sex not the politics! 

Doghouse: a small, often steel-sided structure on the drill rig floor from where the driller controls the actual drilling operation.

Mudlogger: a professional in the oil and gas industry who monitors and analyzes drilling operations, specifically focusing on the drilling mud and rock cuttings.