Salute to a Veteran

I had the privilege of attending the 98th Birthday party thrown for Emile Collins at the Town Hall this afternoon. He is physically somewhat bowed by age, but this remarkable and inspirational man's brain and wit remain as sharp as ever. He is well into his seventh decade of political activism, but he is still standing up to be counted at every opportunity, and standing behind those who campaign for Jersey's ordinary people. If I am lucky enough to still be alive and in my right mind at his age, I shall remember him, and owe it to his memory to keep on standing up for my beliefs and my fellow islanders, too. For now though, he is still a presence, not a memory, and still talks good sense on Jersey politics. Let us treasure him.
Check out Voice for Jersey blog if you don't know who I am on about; they currently have a good article on him running.

Ugh, It's .....!

It seems that the restrictions on exercising dogs on beaches are still not strict enough.

The other day my family and I were just leaving the sand at St Brelade's Bay, when one of my daughters pointed out a fine specimen of a dog, that had just arrived. However, after we had admired it for a few seconds, it squatted with an arched back. Its walker promptly came over, and I naively remarked “That's good – he is going to scoop it up.” Alas, I had sadly overestimated the man. Instead of removing the pollution, he dug it a couple of inches into the surface of the sand with a few deft sweeps of his shoe. And it did not occur to him that my shout of “That will be a nice surprise for some lucky kid, tomorrow!” might have been addressed to him.

So, if we have a situation where dog owners cannot tell prime family leisure beaches from giant litter trays, then we need to defend our beaches by not allowing our poor, confused cynophiles to bring their pets at all, at any time of day or night, or at least banishing them to a few remote locations that can be designated Dog Beaches and shunned by the rest of us.

The nature of dogs' metabolisms and digestions makes their droppings more harmful than those of other common domestic animals, as well as more disgusting. If dog owners will not respect their fellow humans of their own free will, then we must compel their respect by curtailing the freedoms that they abuse.