When we guffaw, we could make the gods smile and laugh with us.

It is probably why we believe God is a Trini.

When, however, Holder guffaws (as he did in the Bond movie) it is not with that same sense of innocence of a true Trini, who is just tickled pink over some sidewalk inanity, but as in the movie, it is something diabolic.

All skin teeth are not all grin teeth seems so true in his case.

For now, which one of us who having read his interview in the Express with BC Pires could ever again wish to be identified with him?

It has been said that it is simple to be great; it has also been said that it is greater to be simple.

Holder obviously missed the second part of that profound observation.

Pires often comes across in his writing with a superior air, but I tell you in this instance he near made sainthood, just by remaining civil and keeping his patience.

Having read what transpired in that interview, Pires would easily have benefitted from that part of the law that deals with extenuating and mitigating circumstances, if he had chosen to lose his temper.

For, honestly, while he was wondering if the great one would have cracked him with his cane, one felt it would have been a more just outcome if he (Pires) had lost his cool, snatched away the cane and in 007 style cracked his nemesis a few, sending him scattering like dust in the wind.

In all my years of reading I have never come across someone who evoked such unprovoked obnoxiousness as Holder did in that interview.

When he might have smiled (condescendingly even), he chose instead to bare his fangs like Dracula; he snarled and growled at the simplest questions that required the simplest, straightforward answers.

It must be concluded that Holder is obviously too superior, god-like, to treat with any courtesy or decency a local journalist, from a local newspaper.

One wonders though, if he treats with the same disdain, scorn, that he treated BC, journalists from, say, the New York Times or Newsweek etc.?

When we come across as some kind of medieval ogre as Holder did, then more than ever one realises how blessed we are to have in our midst a statesman and gentleman like Derek Walcott, who is St. Lucian-born but acknowledges TnT as his home.

Could anyone imagine the Noble Prize winning poet displaying such crassness, such ugliness, in any situation?

And as we mention the great poet, it is obvious that Holder hates to hear even the name Derek Walcott.

One suspects that if BC had repeated Walcott’s name just one more time his worst fears would have come to pass.

We would have been reading of him posthumously.

The truth is, Walcott’s greatness allows him the extravagance to make a fire hydrant or hubcap out of beings like Holder.

The other truth is he is just too much of a gentleman to reduce himself to such a Neanderthal act ... even if the occasion demands it.

And as for VS Naipaul, whose name also came up, he would likely refuse on the grounds that it would be the waste of a good thing.

Nothing provides us with a better contrast than that which exists between men and monsters than the record breaking performance of one Brian Lara.

Lara showed his greatness, his class, not only on the field of play, but afterwards, after the game, with everybody gushing about how well he handled the post match interviews; how gracious and gentlemanly; in short, how Trini to the bone he was.

And, indeed, achievement really has nothing to do with greatness, unless it shines with the aura of humility and plain decency, and all those other noble qualities we look for in our exemplars, in our icons.

The irony of it all is that Holder was here to receive from us an honourary doctorate for his achievements.

I wonder if those responsible for the conferring of the doctorate on him are still pleased with that choice, after reading the interview with him.

Question to them: With the illumination of hindsight, would we call that a good choice, and would we do it all over again, if we had to?

The great ones are never those whose hearts are made of stone, but rather those we describe as having hearts of gold; and from whose mouth issue forth milk and honey. Not bee stings and serpentine venom.

The verdict: UWI, take back the honourary degree that you conferred on Geoffrey Holder and give it to one of us i.e. give it to Brian Lara.

He is the one who embodies all the criteria of true greatness.

Ask BC.