To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Sporting behaviour will breed all-round success
Share this:
Herself, having just sauntered past pretending not to look at what I have written, disagrees but, on the basis that today happens to be my one day of the month to be right, on this occasion I will prevail.
Given how much money our elected representatives and their hired help waste on things like writing the mindless gobbledegook I referred to recently, I am always heartened when I learn that they are shelling out for something I not only approve of but also that is of benefit to the community at large. The simple way in which to illustrate that point is that while the abolition of all duty on Calvados and its replacement with a large government funded subsidy might well be welcome news to me and others who benefit from its medicinal qualities, I’m not too sure what such a move would do for the wider community.
What heartened me was the decision to invest £4.5 million in sport over the next couple of years, with particular emphasis on youngsters and the forthcoming Island Games, which will be held here. Sadly, the politics of envy being what it is, there will already be those sharpening the proverbial pencils in preparation to complaining that their particular activity is not getting as much cash as others. That happened par excellence with the grant to the rugby fraternity, despite the fact that the national publicity through television coverage and visiting teams must be worth well in excess of what was shelled out.
The same can be said of the Island Games. The £4.5 million earmarked for all sport may well be recouped in full by the Island Games’ benefit to this small rock’s economy, and particularly so in the interest it creates among participants and spectators from the other communities taking part.
For a place like this, hosting such an event is worth its weight in gold and it is to the credit of those I have referred to frequently in this column – the nameless, faceless ones without whom it is unlikely that any meaningful sporting activity would take place.
Singing the praises of such people is appropriate this week, given the recent death – at a grand old age, it has to be said – of one of the nicest and best sporting administrators Jersey has ever known, Harry Rowe.
Harry’s home backed on to the FB Fields – I can’t recall whether he’d had a gate cut into the fencing which separated the sporting venue from adjacent properties but I strongly suspect he had – and I cannot recall either playing in or watching a cricket match down there, particularly in the limited overs evening league, without invariably spotting him chatting to someone near the boundary rope.
His quiet enthusiasm for all forms of sport was infectious and there must be scores of people of my age and younger who Harry had at some stage or other encouraged, and particularly so with his twin loves of football and cricket.
It might well have been those at the sharp end of the clubs Harry was associated with who walked away with the medals and trophies but I am sure they would agree that without him (and the scores of others like him in all sports and at all levels) precious little would have been achieved.
It is not difficult to salute people like Harry Rowe.
You’ve got to smile at some of the things some of the old lads in the pub come out with. There’s one who must be well into his 80s and he’s forever telling us that each time he looks in the mirror when he shaves in the morning he sees his father and thinks he’s getting old.
I got that feeling of déjà vu the other day when I saw (not for the first time, I know, but it always has the same effect) the photograph of Professor Andrew Le Sueur, following his appointment as a commissioner on the Jersey Law Commission.
I am likely to be shot down in flames if I’ve got the wrong bloke here but I have a feeling that if a bit of computer wizardry were employed to put a flat cap on the learned professor’s head it would produce the spitting image of the farmer who as close to 65 years ago as makes no difference caught me scrumping apples in his orchard.
You see, I have a feeling that Andrew is the son of George and Eileen Le Sueur – George being the brother of John (of IDC fame) and both George and John the sons of Clarrie – who, if the grey matter is still functioning, used to cultivate the most marvellous gardens at their Trinity farm.
Again, at the risk of getting shot down in flames, I rather fancy that it was Andrew, long before he set out on the academic path he now treads with such distinction, who at a hustings meeting when he was a Hautlieu student, took exception – and said so – to being described as a schoolboy.
No doubt someone will take pleasure in putting me right if I’ve got all this wrong and, that being the case, half of next week’s offering will take the form of at least one grovelling apology.
And finally,
Can someone please tell me why a pensioner can go into a pharmacy and, on asking for a packet of paracetamol, be asked what other medication she is taking, yet having refused to answer she is sold without question the same product at a nearby corner shop? Stupid or what?
Related