THERE’S no hiding it until the last paragraph or anything clever like that . . . this is the last Saturday column I shall be writing.

So the first thing I need to do is apologise to the man who came up to me in town last Saturday and told me how much he enjoyed the column. I know I should have said something about the fact that I wouldn’t be doing it any more, but it was so nice to receive the compliment and bask in the moment without going into the whys and wherefores of stopping the writing.

Actually the reason for stopping is very simple — it has already been six years since the first of these weekly ponderings hit a page, and sometimes after that length of time a little nagging doubt creeps in. You feel that perhaps you have said all this before — or that, in fact, two months ago, you said the exact opposite. The latter is not always as bad a thing as it sounds, given that new information can and should change an opinion anyway, but it is, nevertheless, a fear.

One of the other things about being a columnist is the expectation of sarcastic comments and (some will find this hard to believe) the thought of upsetting people or ruining their weekend. Yes, yes, I should have a thicker skin, and so should they, and they may deserve it . . . but it still doesn’t always feel righteous and justified when you are the one dishing it out. In fact people who believe that they are always right should not say anything about anyone ever. But that is a completely different topic.

I feel that having written this column for more than five years there should be something wise to impart about the world and the way we find it.

You know, something about what I have learned and what has changed. Or a little informed insight about the future.

Actually, those of you who are convinced that I am a tad too blonde won’t be expecting any such thing, but I would have to ask why you are still reading unless it is simply to make yourself angry. In which case, please find something more creative to do with your time — you’ll find that you’ll laugh more.

Anyway, all that I really appear to have learned is a confirmation of something that lots of people have known for a very long time. People — all of us, not some random selection of others at whom we can laugh from a distance — are really strange.

We all get wound up by different things, and some of those things are a complete amazement to those for whom that subject holds no real sway but are merely a curiosity.

It is quite amazing what people get wound up about. Over the years, a particular fav-ourite has been anything to do with cars.

It always, always hits the button.

About four years ago I wrote a piece about the stupidity of owning a 4×4 in Jersey.

After all this time, people still remember that and feel the need to apologise for their car, justify it to me or simply tell me that I’m wrong. All of which is fine, but why so touchy about the cars?

We are almost as bad about parking — in fact I am worse about parking because it actually affects my daily life. But anyone who has a car gets wound up about traffic and parking — other people’s, naturally.

Perhaps it is a territorial thing. We are no longer allowed to pee in little circles around bits of land we want to occupy, but we can put our cars there.

Personally, I think the former would make parking in Sand Street on a Saturday a bit less humdrum, but I can see that there would also be distinct disadvantages.

Which, sort of, brings me to the other thing that really, really seems to wind Jersey folk up into a state of agitation. And that is dog poo.

Yes, it really is disgusting to tread in it, and it is a daily hazard on some streets of St Helier, but I am not always sure that this is in direct proportion to the amount people seem to write about its appearances.
But perhaps traffic, cars and poo are perennial irritants because they are an easy target for a general sense of powerlessness in the face of other people’s behaviour.

You can never find the person who has parked badly, and it’s fairly bad form to run down the road after someone lugging a fistful of faeces, so, instead, we tell other people about it through gritted teeth and get it out of our systems.

I suppose the danger for my friends now is that instead of writing about the things that have got my goat I shall feel the need to tell them personally about them.

Finally, let me mount a small defence of journalists. None of them is part of an establishment conspiracy, and it is laughable to suggest that a group of professionals who disagree with each other as much as hacks do, and whose raison d’être is to find out what people don’t want to say, are lining up to cover up the actions of a small elite.

To be quite honest — and apart from the inherent slur on their professionalism — it would suggest a level of co-ordinated action requiring a level of intercommunication that is beyond our reach.
You would also have to ask yourself why they would bother.

This really does bring me to the thing I have learned — there had to be one — and that is that very, very few people do a bad job on purpose. Even fewer would do so with the intention of malice.

So often, if not always, what you are dealing with is at worst a mistake or just the fact that you don’t agree with someone. In both cases, I find that trying to be less angry helps.