My old granny used to say that facetious was one of the words containing all five vowels in their correct order. I say that because Herself has just looked over my shoulder and told me that I’m being far too facetious but after the absolutely farcical events last week concerning Senator Gorst playing musical chairs with Senator Ozouf’s political career – in order to save his own – who’d begrudge me the use of that expression.
Indeed, as the ‘is Ozouf still walking the corridors of power or isn’t he’ farce unfolded, greeted by all the thinkers and drinkers down at the pub (along with many others) with jaw-dropping incredulity, I was reminded throughout of Jeremy Thorpe’s famous saying when in July 1962 Harold Macmillan suddenly sacked half his cabinet. Paraphrasing the biblical quotation, the then Liberal Party leader observed that ‘greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his life’.
It really begs the question as to what the great statesmen and women who brought so much to Island life in the generation which followed the German Occupation – not least the dignity their offices merited – would have thought of the antics of the present day political pygmies who now occupy the red leather seats in the Big House. Not a great deal, I would have thought. Indeed, I am not at all sure that any of the present crop emerges with an enhanced reputation.
EVER since I once experienced a quite mild reaction, but nonetheless a little worrying one, to some medication the quack had prescribed for something or other, the occupants of Chez Clement have made it their business to read the explanatory leaflets which are a standard part of what the pharmacist hands over, although experience has taught us to exercise a bit of common sense and a measure of caution before getting on the blower to the doctor’s surgery.
I was reminded of that when reading the other week that the medical profession seem to be concerned that these leaflets focus too much on the negative aspects of the possible side effects and not enough on the positive side of the good the medication will do for the condition for which it was been prescribed.
It’s actually not a bad observation because, if my own experience is anything to go by, I admit that I went through a phase of getting pretty close to imagining that I was suffering all manner of side effects. It took some very effective explanations from my young and very sensible doctor of what would happen if I didn’t take the pills to get me out of that frame of mind once and for all.
WHILE I join with many others in offering congratulations to all Island residents who are on the receiving end of a gong from the Queen, I can’t help thinking that the temptation on the part of some of that lot in the Big House to use Mark Boleat in some capacity or other now that he has become Sir Mark will be almost impossible to resist.
I know I’m only a simple country boy but I’d have thought that with an election looming our elected representatives might consider a moratorium on using outside consultants and a greater emphasis on making use of the very expensive expertise we already have on the payroll would not be an unwelcome move in the eyes of a long suffering electorate. By all accounts, it’s high time some of them started earning their corn, not to mention their lottery-winning size pension pots.
And finally… A bouquet this week to the driver of one of the many buses which pick up school pupils from the Island’s secondary schools and take the little darlings home. On one of last week’s really hot days this driver not only provided refreshingly cold bottles of water but told his charges that they could stand in a shaded part of the bus until they were ready to roll.
