Feel free to film your children

Reading the other day that Ms Martins appears to have shown an abundance of common sense — something else that not all our pinstripes seem to be blessed with — in making clear that there is nothing in the Data Protection Law which prevents parents taking photographs or videos of their offspring at things like school nativity plays, I wondered which jobsworth issued what appears to have been a ban in the first place.

No doubt there are others who share my view that this particular piece of legislation — something else slavishly copied from our neighbours to the north, and as such not dissimilar to what over there is now frequently referred to as the Yuman Rites Law — was never enacted for some of the things that blinkered jobsworths hide behind.

So terrified have some of that lot in the Big House, not to mention their hired help, become over making decisions that have a fraction of a chance of being challenged that they would prefer citing data protection or your good old yuman rites to making a decision that might actually assist the punter who pays the wages.

As the late Vernon Tomes used to say — and I’m told that those on the annual dinner dance circuit got used to it — there are three great lies: I’ll love you just as much in the morning, there’s a cheque in the post, and I’m from the States, I’m here to help you.

Herself has just leaned over my shoulder and read this on the computer screen. She remarked as she did so that I should consider the possibility that the ruling — about not videoing or photographing children at school nativity plays and the like — was introduced for very good reasons.

That’s as maybe, but there’s a world of difference between a proud parent or grandparent taking snaps for the family album at a nursery school — a place where, for heaven’s sake, they are or should be known to the staff — and the sort of weirdos who hide behind bushes in Coronation Park with a 2 ft telephoto lens pointed in the direction of the paddling pool.

TALKING of a telephoto lens reminds me of an old acquaintance of mine — long since departed to that huge Calvados tasting shed in the sky — who had more scenic views of the popular Island bays than did the firms who do picture postcards.

This was in the days when you put film in cameras — Herself has got one of the digital sort, and for the life of me I can’t understand how it works — and then sent or took them to be developed and printed. As an aside, how many years (or months) will it be before people give you a funny look when you say films need developing and printing, just as I get funny looks when I say the words ‘wireless’, ‘gramophone needles’ and ‘black and white television pictures’?

Anyhow, I happened to be round at his place when the postman arrived with what were obviously pictures which had been developed and printed. Knowing of his interest, I asked to see his latest snapshots and, somewhat shamefacedly, he opened the packet, only to reveal close-up shots of every young woman sunbathing topless on the beaches he’d visited.

As I told him, while he hurriedly put them back in the packet before his version of Herself saw what he was up to, I really don’t know why you bother. Once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them both.

I WAS interested to read about Simon Crowcroft’s idea for a fountain on the Queen’s Road roundabout, and even more interested to read the response of Transport and Technical Services. Leaving aside the bit about there being no funds to install a fountain of that magnitude — stock answer, that one, usually on the rare occasions when data protection and yuman rites don’t apply — this ’roundabouts should not have any obstructions to visibility’ excuse has me puzzled.

Part of the problem with roundabouts is that those who should be looking to their right — because it is those coming from that direction who have right of way — are actually looking everywhere but there. Putting an attractive ‘obstruction’ which will actually block their view of all but what is essential to road safety might be beneficial. The trouble is that practical views like this don’t show up on computers and drawing-boards.

AND finally . . . Now that we’ve had the first round of the elections, it seems clear that the move for change didn’t come off. That said, there was enough to be read into the results to warn the Big House hierarchy that they had better get their act together during the next three years.

Young Ian Le Marquand — well, he really doesn’t look old enough to be out without his mum — did well, and it didn’t surprise me that his was the largest majority in percentage terms since these elections began 60 years ago.

But the fact remains that he and St Peter Procureur du Bien Public John Refault are the only new faces, although that will almost certainly change when we vote in the election for 29 Deputies.

Not surprisingly, the move to switch to CET was heavily defeated. Scaremongering clearly played a part, which is why referenda are a dangerous political tool.