A dry martini, shaken not stirred, has reportedly been spotted within 500 yards of the Venezuelan embassy. The quake hit Caracas like a god with a hangover, and the earth did a jig. Now, the Foreign Office has dispatched a crate of compassion to the stricken nation, complete with bottled water and sternly worded pamphlets on proper queuing etiquette.
Meanwhile, in a hospital tent, a doctor named Carlos is treating a woman whose skull is cracked like an egg and whose panic is filling the room like methane. 'The British aid is here,' he tells me, without looking up from a gushing wound, 'we shall build a surgical theatre from their good intentions and drink tea from the wound dressings.' My dear reader, there is an art to the humanitarian gesture.
It requires a sort of dignified shuffle, a pursed lip, a carefully measured donation. But this, this is a circus with a corpse. The aid arrives with a fanfare, but the fractures set like concrete.
The panic attacks multiply like rabbits in a high-frequency noise chamber. And somewhere, in a Whitehall office, a civil servant is patting himself on the back for a job well done. I can smell the smug.
It reeks of bargain-brand aftershave and failure. The UK has sent a paper umbrella to a hurricane. The Venezuelans, I suspect, would rather we sent a stiff drink and a lie down.
They are running on adrenaline and stale arepas. We are running on press releases and virtue signalling. The quake has reduced buildings to rubble and hope to a fine dust.
And here we stand, offering a stiff upper lip and a packet of Hobnobs. Marvellous. Absolutely marvellous.
So let us raise a glass to the aid effort, a tot of something strong to numb the senses. For the only thing more terrifying than the ground shaking is the sound of a government pretending to care. And in the end, the earth will settle.
The wounds will heal or they will not. And the British aid will be used, well, for whatever it can be used for. Perhaps as a doorstop.
Or a paperweight. Or a symbol of something. Something absurd.
Something very, very British.
