Who needs the insipid flying banana when we have our own aerodynamic superhero?

No sooner did the news break than the spin-offs started rotating faster then Superman’s metamorphosis from soberly dressed reporter to the tight-fitting Lycra all-in-one outift with underpants worn on the outside.

Our very own ‘aristo’, the Earl of Jersey, aka Will Villiers, a thespian himself, was first off the mark suggesting a website dedicated to superbeans. How long, I wonder, before the local souvenir market receives a welcome boost as Super Jerseyman T-shirts and underpants fly off the shelves along with Superman fudge, biscuits and black butter?

Cue a whole new industry as Mr Cavill’s acting career goes ballistic. In the heyday of Bergerac’s reign as the Island’s main meal ticket, tourists flocked to the rock to see where he lived and to gawp at the implausibly small faux-uPVC window shutters that adorned Charlie Hungerford’s mansion.

Bergerac actor John Nettles became the face of Tourism’s advertising campaigns, doing the usual round of fete openings and celebrity cricket and football matches while coach companies ran special tours taking in set locations.

Mr Cavill is probably a couple of years off being the man of the blockbuster moment, taking into account production times and suitable release dates to allow for the worldwide merchandise to be produced, so that should give the Island ample time to prepare to reap the benefits.

Who needs the insipid flying banana when we have our very own aerodynamic homegrown super hero – albeit one who wears tights? But, hey ho, saving the world wearing an item of ladies’ more intimate apparel has done nothing to dent either Superman’s appeal, or that of more traditional heroes like Robin Hood before him.

Imagine Tourism’s national advertising campaign two years hence: Superman lands in the middle of the pictorially enhanced wide-open expanses of St Ouen’s Bay having taken a record-breaking five minutes to push Condor’s wave piercer from Weymouth to the Island to extol the holidaymaking potential of his native soil before indulging in extreme sports at breakneck speed.

Then it’s a short flight to the Royal Jersey links, pausing for a nanosecond to blow away a blanket of thick fog from around the Airport, saving countless holidays plans. Posing on the first tee, with Mont Orgueil Castle ever so slightly out of focus in the background, he drives off to make a hole in one on the ninth at Carnoostie, so powerful is his grip and driving range.

Off he flies to the côtils above Gorey to pick the entire harvest in 55.45 seconds before taking a rest with a soupçon of wine tasting at La Mare before dining à la Michelin étoiles surrounded by a bevy of nubile local beauties.

Closing credits: setting sun, waves gently lapping the shore with the impressive hulk of Superman’s silhouette and the tagline: ‘Jersey with more superhours of sun than anywhere else in the British Isles.’ OK – don’t give up the day job, but you get my drift.

If the Island ever needed a superhero, it is now, to save us from those who occupy the Fortress of Solitude, which in our peculiar case is not located in the Arctic, under the Andes or in the depths of the Amazonian rainforest, but in the States Building.

Those who inhabit its cavernous, ornate chamber for days on end every fortnight or so are not inherently malevolent or a danger to mankind, but their curious activities, indecision and incomprehensible edicts and rulings are seriously undermining Islanders’ collective sanity.

Please, Mr Jersey Superman, could you do us all a favour? Next time our States Members are all securely ensconced inside, could you find a moment or two to pluck the Chamber from its foundations and carry it away and dump it on some far-flung location like one of the moons of Saturn?

If only superheroes existed in real life, I wouldn’t have wasted so many precious childhood hours in wardrobes convinced that one day I would strike lucky and open the magical door to a life of adventure as a queen of Narnia. The backs of these various items of household furniture stayed firm and I grew up to be a republican.

Comic book and cinematic superheroes are as far removed from the real thing as the States Members are from proper politicians.

MY mind turned to the subject of heroes last month when one of mine died at the age of 92. Dick Winters was the commanding officer of Easy Company of Band of Brothers TV series fame, which proved that the Americans did help us to win the Second World War.

Easy Company fought their way across Europe from D-Day via Holland and the Ardennes to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest. One of their many heroic actions, destroying German guns that were firing on Utah Beach, saved countless lives and is still taught today at West Point as a textbook assault.

Asked late in life by his grandson if he had been a hero in the war, the ever-modest former major replied: ‘No, but I served in a company of heroes.’

The brave men of Easy Company were real heroes – and without a single pair of tights between them.