A Surplus of the Obvious
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The ISO 14000 Compliant Boneless Goat Roti
Fri Oct. 12, 2007 —
Like many people who are not involved in engineering or related fields, I am not as familiar with ISO standards as I might be otherwise. I occasionally see references to this or that ISO number on a product, or in technical documentation, or even, bafflingly, written on the side of a building in black characters several feet high. There was a time when, in my ignorance, I attributed such cryptic tagging to cabalistic behaviour, further evidence that a far-reaching conspiracy lurks just outside of my field of vision, that the physical world is slowly being infiltrated and altered beneath the surface, and that when finally the veil is lifted the vast difference between what once appeared and what now is will be imperceptible to the untrained eye.
As I have grown older, though, I have adopted a more casual “let them rule the world if they wish” attitude. Paradoxically, the more relaxed my attitude becomes, the more I find my thoughts turning to the societal benefits of the adoption of universal standards. While I cherish my individuality, I could certainly benefit from the adoption of ISO standards for socks, for example. Although like anyone with a modicum of foresight I always buy the same socks, I find that with repeated laundering my socks tend to deteriorate at markedly different rates, and what should be a simple procedure, to wit, picking two matching socks to wear in the morning, becomes quite a time-consuming, and often frustrating, logistical exercise.
A few weeks back I found myself craving a roti. I had a vivid memory of a delicious chicken and spinach roti that I ate once, and sought to re-live the experience as I suspected I was in the vicinity of the establishment from which I had purchased the roti that I remembered.
Inquiries were made, and my companion and I were directed not to the origin of that particular roti, but to a nearby restaurant whose fare was, we were assured, far superior. Perhaps I am too gullible; it’s possible that our ersatz restaurant guide was secretly in the employ of the new roti emporium. But the odds were slim, and in the absence of such a conflict of interest, what could our advisor possibly have to gain by thwarting my ambition?
Well, by design or accident, the roti that I ate that day bore not even a fleeting resemblance to my platonic roti. It tasted more East Indian than West Indian, and while I would be among the last people to disparage East Indian cuisine, suffered from a surfeit of tomato, and the sauce was further characterised by an excess of capsicum. It was at that moment that I realized the potential benefit of the ISO standard roti. Perhaps not a single roti standard, but an ISO West Indian roti, an ISO East Indian roti, ISO chicken, goat, boneless and boneful rotis – an entire category devoted to rotis in the updated ISO schedule. Uniformity, you see, is not the objective; merely consistency within a taxonomy.
When I found myself in an almost identical situation, precisely one week after that disappointing incident, I chose not to seek counsel from strangers, but instead pointed myself in the direction of the roti shop that I remembered, and walked for a solid 40 minutes only to find it closed on that day.
As a result, further to my suggestion regarding the ISO roti standard, I would like to propose that all retail establishments append a number between 0 and 127 to their names, corresponding to a binary representation of their days of operation, where the first digit represents Sunday. Bacchus Roti would be designated by the number 31, or 0011111, indicating that they are closed on Sunday and Monday.