Just a yellow card for Harry Houdini

I must confess that I have a sneaking admiration for the boy, not least because he appears not only to have faced down Bill Ogley – and my friends among the pinstripes who inhabit Cyril Le Marquand House tell me that would have taken some doing – but also because at long last this place seems to have found a politician who doesn’t say ‘how high?’ when civil servants earning five times his pay packet tell him to jump.

I wrote a few weeks ago that Don Filleul wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea when he was in politics – he used to say that the best committee was a committee of one – and much the same can be said of Senator Ozouf, who seems to ruffle feathers as frequently as the rest of us draw breath.

But say what you like, both of them were and are doers rather than talkers, although Philip Ozouf on occasions speaks at such a rate of knots that people of my age would suggest that he was probably vaccinated with a gramophone needle. As an aside, for those readers young enough not to know what a gramophone needle is, might I suggest that you look it up on the mini-juke boxes attached permanently to your ears. I’m told that the new all-singing, all-dancing versions can answer every question bar what tonight’s winning National Lottery numbers are.

But back to the lad on the penitent stool and I’m actually pleased that Prime Minister Ian Gorst had the wisdom to decide that on this occasion he was not going to join others among our elected representatives and put the boot in. In doing so, however, he seems to have set down a marker regarding future behaviour. Whether that will send the paying bloodhounds back into their kennels for a while only time will tell.

In the meantime, those who are baying for blood would do well to remember that – traditionally at least – those bringing successful votes of no confidence are usually expected to either offer their services to replace the ousted minister or at least nominate someone else willing to do the job. Whether either of these choices will provide the long-suffering public of this small community – fed up as we are with politicians spending more time point scoring than they appear to do governing – with someone as able and hard working as Philip Ozouf, for all his faults, is something I doubt very much.

NO sooner is the football season over – with all its nail biting climaxes – than it starts again, this time with European national teams pitting their wits and skills against each other in front of crowds reportedly more interested in racist and thuggish behaviour in the stands than what’s happening on the pitch.

I read the other day that the 76-year-old FIFA president Sepp Blatter wants to get rid of penalty shootouts and given his track record there’s more than an outside chance that he will get his silly way once again.

Apart from the fact that such dramas at the end of drawn matches are the only part of football that Herself takes the slightest interest in, I was interested to learn that Mr Blatter seems to think that the game ‘loses its essence as a team sport’ with penalty shootouts.

Such statements really beg the question as to whether this most powerful man in world football actually watches matches or speaks to those among the great unwashed who do – at considerable cost to themselves via ticket price and satellite television subscriptions.

I can think of little which illustrates the essence of football as a team sport more than the prospect of each member of a team scoring from the penalty spot – and a recent play-off final went on until the goalkeepers faced each other.

Perhaps Mr Blatter would be better employed sorting out allegations of corruption in the higher echelons of his sport’s administration, as well as doing something about the foul and abusive language directed at matches officials every time a player disagrees with them. Those are the bits about football which real fans abhor – not penalty shootouts, which seem to me to be one of the fairest ways of getting a result.

FROM time to time Island businesses get their fair share of stick in this column, usually because I’m far from happy with what seems to be a relentless quest for more and more in the way of profit. On the other side of the coin – and sometimes even I acknowledge that the other side exists – I have nothing but praise for the public spirited generosity of the Jersey Pottery and de Gruchy’s who are putting on a free informal buffet in King Street on Monday afternoon.

It reminds me of the days when businesses in that particular neck of the woods – and elsewhere – seemed to spare no expense in filling their shop windows with colourful displays commemorating such events – the Coronation in 1953 and the Royal Visit of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh four years later spring to mind – seemingly without a thought for how much business it would attract.

On a lighter side, and I genuinely hope I cause no offence, Herself and I were recently dinner guests of a couple who a few years ago celebrated their 25 years together with a moving and enjoyable civil partnership ceremony. As we arrived they laughingly showed us their Diamond Jubilee gifts to each other – matching tea towels bearing the slogan ’60 years a Queen’.

And finally . . . I look forward to Auditor-General Chris Swinson’s report on the profits made by the construction industry when the £27million-worth of new social housing developments have been completed, as does every taxpayer.