The Earth hiccuped. A brutal, geological belch. And in the Philippines, where the tectonic plates are in a state of permanent marital discord, the ground turned traitor. At least 35 souls, we are told, have been returned to the dust from whence they came. The death toll, a number that will no doubt rise, is a grim, grey ledger entry in the Book of Human Suffering.
And where were the British rescue teams? Standing by. A phrase that could be the epitaph of the British establishment. 'Standing by.' Like a butler waiting for the bell. Like a nation perpetually 'ready' but never quite 'going.'
I can picture them now, these rescue teams. Clad in crisp, high-visibility jackets that shimmer with the unreal glow of a hi-vis dream. Their thermal imaging cameras are charged. Their sniffer dogs are sniffing the air for the scent of metaphysical approval. Their paperwork is in order. They are standing by. Stood up. Ready to go. But waiting for a call that might never come or come too late.
Meanwhile, in the rubble of a thousand shattered homes, the living dig with their hands. Their fingernails are splintered. Their eyes are wide with a terror that no training manual can equip you for. They do not have the luxury of standing by. They are standing in, standing in the midst of catastrophe, with nothing but the ferocious, irrational hope that perhaps, just perhaps, there is a heartbeat beneath the concrete.
Let us review the theatre of this 'response.' There will be press conferences. There will be sympathetic nods from ministers. There will be a debate on the floor of the House of Commons, where members of parliament will speak of 'robust coordination' and 'operational readiness.' There will be an official inquiry. The standing by will be scrutinised. The standing by will be deemed inadequate. Recommendations will be made for a faster, more agile form of standing by.
And the gin, my friends, the gin flows. It flows in the airport lounges of the reporters who are not there. It flows in the faculty bars of the seismologists who predicted this but were ignored. It flows in my own glass, as I write this from my flat in London, a city that has not had a proper earthquake since the invention of the umbrella.
I propose a new metric. Not GDP. Not the London Stock Exchange. The GST: the Global Standing-by Time. How long does it take for the world's richest nations to stop standing by and actually stand up? For the Philippines, the answer, today, is 'too long.' For the victims, it is an eternity.
But do not despair. The British rescue teams are standing by. Their torches are lit. Their prayers are muttered. Their sandwiches are packed. They are the very picture of readiness. And in that picture, framed with gilded colonial nostalgia and hung in the gallery of our national conscience, we see ourselves. A nation that specialises in being almost there. A people whose noblest quality is potential. We are standing by. Always standing by. Never quite arriving.
Now, if you will excuse me, I have a gin to finish. The ice cubes in my glass make a sound like tectonic plates grinding. They are reminding me that the earth moves. But for the British rescue teams, it seems, it does not move fast enough.
