Brief encounter with the worst and the best of human nature

Just like hundreds of others, I was in the metropolis when the skies opened and the wet stuff came down in absolute torrents – just as it always seems to do as soon as the head lad from the Waterworks Company decides to tell us that we’re running low on water.

Having traipsed around every other shop in town for what seemed like a fortnight with Herself – she armed with one of her lists and me trying to look interested – I told her I was going out into the street for a bit of fresh air and would meet her in half an hour for something to eat and drink.

I managed to find shelter in front of a large shop window – somewhere where I knew I wouldn’t be in the way – and watched a young woman who I happen to know walk no more than about 60 or 70 yards pushing her young daughter in what Herself keeps on telling me is no longer a pushchair but a buggy. During that short distance I reckon she stopped no fewer than half a dozen times in order to avoid someone emerging from shops without looking and armed with those weapons of mass destruction, otherwise known as umbrellas.

So, I know it was raining and I know many people are always in a hurry but it was also mightily inconsiderate and my young friend wasn’t the only one nearly maimed by this thoughtlessness. Even when people were actually struck there were those who ploughed on regardless, and it just appeared to me to be a little sad that we’ve now reached the stage where common courtesy doesn’t seem to matter any more.

A few minutes later I went to meet Herself at the café in Marks & Spencer and, being early, got myself a table and a coffee and settled down for one of my quiet ten minutes – a rarity indeed in the middle of a town the principal motivation in which seems to be speed and greed. It was during that short interval that my faith in the goodness of my fellow men and women was restored.

The café is self-service and, for those getting on in years, trying to cope with a tray of food and drink in addition to the shopping basket, handbag and walking stick is often just a little too much to attempt. In such cases the staff were absolutely brilliant and not only helped people by carrying their food but often found them tables as well.

It was a huge contrast to what I’d seen in the street just a few minutes earlier and I’m pleased to say that this display of old-fashioned good manners appeared to be much appreciated by those on the receiving end. And just to spike the guns of the cynics who will suggest some ulterior motive on my part, to the best of my knowledge I don’t know anyone who works at this particular establishment.

I had to smile the other evening as I was reading the Jersey Gazette notice regarding applications to the Planning Department – I still think of them as the jolly old IDC (although there wasn’t a great deal to be jolly about with some of their decisions) – which I always peruse in case someone wants to build a few dozen flats in the small field opposite Chez Clement.

No doubt some pinstripe or other will correct me if I’m wrong but I’ve always understood that retrospective applications are put in when the work has been done and it’s suddenly dawned on the property owner (or he or she has received a gentle nudge from the department) that an application is needed.

Given the complexity of the laws and regulations which increasingly govern our every move other than breathing – whatever happened to the promise made by Uncle Reg Jeune when he was prime minister that the frontiers of over-regulation were going to be rolled back – I have every sympathy with ordinary folk who suddenly find that they need planning consent to put a new padlock on the door of their garden shed.

That said, my sympathy wanes somewhat when – as I saw last week – the applicant making the retrospective application was the States of Jersey’s Housing Department. I’d have thought that, given the amount of property for which they have responsibility, if anyone should have known what needs consent and what doesn’t it would be them. Perhaps whoever is responsible has just got off the gravy train from Gatwick and is still settling in. Either that or they were busy reading the latest civil service handbook outlining how best to get the most satisfaction – in terms of a five or six figure golden goodbye – from their employment.

Having already given one seasonal bouquet to some very helpful staff can I lob another couple in the general direction of St John Constable Philip Rondel and Prime Minister Ian Gorst. Thankfully, they are both blessed with a bit of common sense, which means that their decisive action over yet another potentially expensive yellow banana fiasco means a saving of taxpayers money.

One would have thought that enough of a lesson had been learned over that particular logo – I always liked the description given by a fellow crapaud; ‘it looked like something a dog had left on the pavement’ – but it seems not.

I don’t have a problem with in-house competitions for civil servants. I just wish they’d organise some with the objective of saving money, rather than spending it.

And finally,

Christmas will be done and dusted by the time the next column appears. Presents and pleasantries will have been exchanged in abundance and, in my household at least, a couple or three glasses of Calvados will have been carefully consumed. With that in mind, Happy Christmas.