Some English idioms are more well-worn than others, thinks Diogenes Fernando. Such as ‘strike while the iron’s hot’, ‘don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’, ‘money talks’ and, last but not least, ‘there are suckers born every minute’.
That said, ‘do as you would be done by’ should read ‘do as you will be done by’, ie, kick the buggers in the groin before they kick you in the teeth. And ignorance is not bliss if it means not knowing that loan-shark Boris ‘The Bite’ Fernando is up to no good, and not for the first time.
On this occasion he’s trying to persuade Aunts Harmonium and Euphonium to combine the former’s bootleg arrack with the latter’s home-brewed Eau de Cologne to concoct a COVID ‘miracle cure’ from which he, The Bite, would handsomely profit while staying safely under the radar. This would-be example of entrepreneurial free-enterprise was prompted by what the UK’s Sun newspaper headlined: “Mayhem as 12,000 flock to carpenter’s [Sri Lanka] home after he claims to have miracle ‘COVID curing’ syrup revealed to him by God.
The top-selling tabloid reported that “huge lines formed as more than 12,000 people queued outside his house in the Kegalle district after he announced he would distribute free samples of the so-called medicine”. “The self-proclaimed holy man reportedly told the crowd: ‘This preparation will not only cure COVID-19, but after you take this once, you will never contract the virus’. “The ‘miracle’ syrup, known as ‘Dammika Peniya’, became even more popular after the Health Minister consumed it live on TV.”
On the one hand, Diogenes is open-mouthed in admiration for the man’s sheer audacity, which seemingly combines saintly good intentions with the cynicism of John D Rockefeller, the original robber baron who believed that “nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people”. On the other hand, he has no particular wish to see his two favourite aunts, themselves not the sharpest knives in the drawer, get caught up in such a scam, no matter how loudly the money talks. Striking while the iron’s hot is all very well, but they might get badly burned when the sparks fly, and gift horses have teeth that really can bite your arm off.
Apart from that, and the fact that such skulduggery might not escape the notice of the fraud squad, what happens when true believers buy the ‘miracle cure’ for elderly loved ones who then not only catch COVID but die from it? They might be his favourite aunts, but he wouldn’t want them hiding out in his house until the smoke clears. Meanwhile, as we previously reported, Diogenes recently had a spirited discussion with Uncle Testosterone over the morality of profiting from disaster. In the case of the Kegalle ‘miracle cure’, this includes exploiting the credulity of simple-minded country folk. As a thrusting young entrepreneur, Diogenes is broadly in favour, since ‘entrepreneurial free-enterprise’ demands that enterprising entrepreneurs should be free to create the wealth of nations unhindered by moral scruples. And if some people are dumb enough to believe snake-oil salesmen, he reasons, who’s fault is that?
Legend has it that American showman Phineas Barnum, of Barnum and Bailey Circus fame, first coined the expression ‘there are suckers born every minute’. If indeed there are, thinks Diogenes, at the end of the day, and when all is said and done, it might as well be me who profits from them.