LAST WEEK, in either their wisdom or their cups, the mayor of Port of Spain and his partners-in-creativity renamed Queen Street to mark the 40th anniversary of Janelle “Penny” Commissiong, being crowned Miss Universe, sparking the kind of utterly meaningless debate Trinidadians love: we pontificate at a length far in excess of the actual worth of the thing being quarrelled about; no one ever turns a page in a dictionary when they could turn a phrase in a rumshop; and, no matter how the “debate” ends, everyone can claim to have been right all along.

For retaining the original street name while inserting the new one, the Mayor and City Council get my vote for the Neatest Attempted Sidestep of the Year. Had they simply renamed Queen Street as “Penny Lane” - which this Beatles fan would have supported I Wanna Hold Your Hands-Down - the historians and the cultural activists would have come to blows, the way they did over renaming King George V Park as Nelson Mandela Park.

Nevertheless, everyone and his dog still weighed in, but only one person got the approach right: my pardner, Gregory Wight, whose letters to the editor, on the days they appear, are often the best thing in the paper. The old Gregors hit the nail on the head when he suggested that Duke Street could be used to honour the calypsonian Kelvin Pope by being renamed ‘The Mighty Duke Street’ and a local cricketer could be similarly recognized by “Prince Bartholomew Street”.

Now, I’d had the same idea independently myself - you can see why I always liked his writing - and my reaction, when I saw Gregors’ letter was that he had not gone far enough.

So I’m going to go too far now.

Here, then, are my suggestions for giving existing street names in Port of Spain a little push to make them suitable to honour - no, we’d better say, ‘recognize’ - deserving people.

There is even scope for giving due recognition to specific officeholders and whole groups of people who really need it. For example, shouldn’t that street off the Savannah between the Catholic archbishop’s residence and Roomoor really be called, ‘The Sitting (Idly) Minister of Works Flood Street’? And isn’t that road linking Colville & French Streets just crying out to be renamed, ‘Every Hypocritical Pentecostal Pastor Who Doth Protest Too Much Buller Street’? And, with a small change to to a more phonetic spelling, another Newtown road could highlight the plight of ‘The LGBT are the New Black People to be Picked On Street’.

The prime minister could be recognized through ‘Soon, Whatever the Emergency, Albion TV Grinning Dr Keith Rowley Street’ and the leader of the opposition surely deserves the ‘Kamla Persad-Bissessar Victoria’s Secret Square’. After his public ill fortune of the publicly botched appointment of the former chief magistrate as almost-a-judge, Chief Justice Archie surely would be happy with ‘Ivor Run Out of Lucknow Street’ or ‘Hear, Nuh, Mankind Really Need a Firetrucking Bush Bath Street’. The former chief magistrate/near judge herself would love to be remembered, probably, as ‘Marcia Ayers-Caesar Get a Jerry Street’. Attorney-General Faris Al-Rawi wouldn’t want a street name for himself, although the man David Rudder christened online as ‘Strongy’ would surely be pleased with ‘Checking Myself in the Mirror to See I Am Real Fitt Street’, but he surely wouldn’t object to his children having their first names inserted somewhere along the Powder Magazine Road. (The last UNC A-G, already nicknamed, in certain uncertain quarters, ‘Show Me Your Hand-Anand-Anand’, would get ‘I Have Five Audi, Ten BMW & 20 Prada Street’.)

Marlene MacDonald, who holds the distinction of having earned a Cabinet minister’s paycheque for an appointment on a Friday she was fired from before she could get to work on the Monday, would get ‘Nothing is Black & White, It’s All Gray to Me Street’. Her ‘plus-one’ at President’s House for the ministerial swearing-in that made the prime minister himself swear black & blue, would get‘Damian, Burkie Is the Omen, Too, Street’.

The leader of the Hindu Society for Old Men Sexually Molesting Small Children would be particularly appropriately remembered through the road leading to the national stadium if it were the ‘Sat Maharaj Fitzblackman Drive’.

The former botched bloody 1990 coup attempt leader, naturally, would get ‘Abu Back-Back & Get Off Scott-Free Street’ - though there are very many contenders perhaps more deserving of that place on the street map, including the former-and-perhaps-future CEO of CL Financial and everyone involved in any form of criminal enterprise. If there were no initial ‘C’ in it, there would also be a lot of contenders to pin their own names on Charlotte Street, especially at Carnival time.

Gary Hector & jointpop, Nigel Rojas & the Orange Sky and anyone unpatriotic enough to write real songs instead of shouting out-of-tune inane soca lyrics over a dreadful computer-generated “riddim” would be permanent residents of ‘Man, I Can’t Stanmore Avenue’, along with all the vagrants doing real work, instead of thieving from the Great House of Cards.

For myself, I can’t hardly wait until we can rename that street leaving the Savannah and leading to Richmond Street & Tragarete Road corner as ‘Firetrucking-Done-with-Donald Trump Street’.

BC Pires lives on Mourn the Loss of Cocoa & Principles Road but works on the Long, Circular & Firetrucking Pointless one