Saved from our own 'Boaty McBoatface'

THE EDITOR: With regard to the recent outcry raised on the unveiling of our republic's updated coat of arms, I have sat on the sidelines long enough and I believe the time is now right for me to share my two cents.

To begin, I would like to acknowledge the work of the very talented artist Gillian Bishop. As one of our very own, she is as deserving of the brief as she is of the credit and kudos that she is entitled to.

To be called upon to build upon the work of the legendary Carlisle Chang would have been daunting enough for most, if not all of her contemporaries.

But to open oneself up to the criticism of a nation of experts has surely moved the task from being Herculean in nature to Sisyphean: a thankless and unending labour at best. Who would have thought that there were so many graphic designers and art critics in our number?

As the old saying goes, you can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time. To wit, when was the last time we got everyone in this country to agree, unreservedly, to anything? If there's one thing that we are not short of here in TT, it's opinions.

The suggestions therefore that the redesign should have been done as part of a national competition, and/or that the final design be the subject of a national poll, both border on the absurd.

Human nature, being what it is, would have reduced either suggestion to an unseemly, never-ending farce. I am immediately reminded of a public vote conducted in 2016 by the National Environment Research Council of Great Britain for the naming of its then new £200 million polar research vessel. At the end of that process, an overwhelming majority of Britons thought that there was no better name for the ship than Boaty McBoatface.

From my experience, chaos is the natural result of any attempt at group think or management by committee. It's what happens when too many cooks get into the kitchen: the broth inevitably gets spoiled.

We should therefore be grateful to the Cabinet for having spared us the ignominy of our own national Boaty McBoatface moment. Or at the very least, the embarrassment of a long, drawn-out and expensive process that invites criticism regardless of the outcome.

In any event, it is only a matter of time until the memories of this episode of our national soap opera becomes as "invisible" as three ships hidden in plain sight.

G ELIAS

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