In a turn of events so remarkably British it might as well have involved a queue and a cup of tea, UK search and rescue crews have plucked a newborn infant from the wreckage of Caracas. Yes, a baby. A tiny, wrinkly, just-this-side-of-the-womb human, extracted from a collapsed building like a particularly emotional game of Jenga. The infant, reportedly found still attached to its mother who did not survive, has been airlifted to a field hospital where it is being assessed for future membership in the Conservative Party.
Let us pause to acknowledge the sheer cosmic absurdity of this moment. Here we have a nation, Venezuela, already a masterpiece of mismanagement, a cautionary tale about what happens when you let a man with a moustache and a dream run a country into the ground. Then nature, never one to miss a punchline, adds an earthquake. A 7.0 magnitude tremor that turned skyscrapers into matchsticks and now, into this: a rescue operation so precisely executed you’d think the UN had a training module for ‘Infant Retrieval from Geopolitical Nightmare’.
But naturally, it is the British who arrive. Not because we have a vested interest in Latin American stability, but because we have a pathological need to be seen doing good deeds in exotic locations. We are the universe’s unpaid interns, always turning up with a flask of tea and a stiff upper lip when reality goes pear-shaped. The rescue teams, composed of grizzled veterans of the Afghanistan sandpit and the Haiti rubble heap, performed their duties with the quiet efficiency of men who have seen things. They did not panic. They did not break for a cigarette. They simply dug, found a baby, and handed it over to a medic who probably looked like he had better things to do.
The infant, a girl I gather, is now in stable condition. I imagine she will grow up with a name like “Esperanza” or “Britannia”, a living monument to the chaos of her birth and the improbable intervention of a nation whose own public services are currently held together with string and goodwill. The irony is so thick you could spread it on toast. We can barely staff our own NHS, yet we have a dedicated team of baby-finders on standby for overseas disasters. It is the spirit of empire, repackaged as humanitarian aid, delivered with a side of colonial guilt and a receipt for the gin.
And yet, what can one do but applaud? The alternative is to sit back and let the entropy win. So raise a glass, preferably a tumbler of something cheap and Venezuelan, to the rescue crews. To the absurdity. To the infant who will now be haunted for life by the fact her first journey was in the arms of a stranger wearing a high-vis jacket. And let us hope that the relief effort continues with the same grim determination. Because if there is one thing Britain does well, it is turning tragedy into a spectator sport with a charitable donation link.
In related news, the death toll has risen to 132. But we have a baby. So there is that. The universe, in its infinite cruelty, always leaves a footnote of hope. And here it is, wrapped in a blanket, screaming about the injustice of it all. Welcome to the world, little one. It is a shambles, but the gin is decent.
