I WAS born in 1977 – way, way too late for the golden years of journalism. I had hopes, though, dreams of unmarked envelopes containing fabulous leaked documents, meetings in smoky back rooms, images of running into the Editor’s office an hour after deadline with some awesome story and hearing him rush out yelling:‘Stop the press!’

Alas, it was not to be. I’ve had some good stories, a few good leaks here and there, but a lot of the romantic ideas I had about the job have faded away unfulfilled.

First off, leaks don’t come in unmarked envelopes any more; they come by e-mail. And that sucks, because it takes at least half of the drama out of it. However good the story is, you’re basically sitting in front of a computer. And that’s not fun, ever.

Secondly, almost no-one smokes any more – and even if they did, they wouldn’t be allowed to do so indoors. Besides, the ones who do don’t seem to have any stories. At least, they don’t give them to me, the miserable swine.

But over the last fortnight I’ve had occasion to run into the boss’s office twice with stories way past the final, final, final deadline for that day’s paper that ended up on the front page. I’ve even had the unusual experience of being on the receiving end of a phone call from a politician who had just been arrested and had been allowed to give someone a ring.

So, to Senators Stuart Syvret and Jim Perchard: thank you. You made my day.
The first story, obviously, was Senator Syvret’s arrest. To use one of his favourite words, I’m a bit, well, conflicted over this.

It’s hard to feel all that much sympathy for him, or to understand his shock at the arrest when he a) published a confidential police report on his blog, b) told the police he had done it, c) decided the ‘vile rag’ (that’s this newspaper, by the way) was not so vile as first thought and got his lawyer to e-mail us about it, then called us from police HQ, then held a press conference outside for the rest of the media (whom I thought he didn’t like much either).

From then on, it went pretty much to type for the Senator – a threatened civil action here, a criminal complaint there, assertions that neither can be dealt with because everyone’s conflicted over here, and back there some strange musings about who might be behind it all.

All that said: here’s the conflicted bit. Boring as my e-mail inbox may be, I don’t really like the idea of the police, or anyone else, rummaging through it without a warrant. And I really don’t like the idea of anyone going through e-mails, work diaries or pads and being able to see whom I’ve been talking to, when I’ve been talking to them, and what about.

If the police really have taken confidential notes of Senator Syvret’s conversations with constituents and done anything with them, then that’s unforgivable. I can’t imagine they would, because of the Data Protection Law that sparked the investigation that sparked the arrest that sparked the story, but it’s really not the kind of thing that I would want to happen to me.

Not that there would be any reason to do that, officers, OK? Seriously. Nothing to see here…

ON to Senator Perchard, whose resignation announcement was timed, apparently deliberately, to reach the JEP after the deadline. Hard-working dynamic professionals that we are, we got it in anyway. So there.

Now the word is that the Senator might be planning to stand again. That would have been a perfect move around a month ago, but not an original one – Senator Philip Ozouf once did the same thing to get Senator Ted Vibert off his Planning Committee.
But now, I’m not so sure.

Waiting until a no-confidence motion is lodged to quit smacks of opportunism, and the ‘unreserved’ apology he gave the States over swearing at Senator Syvret and telling him to ‘slit his wrists’ won him few friends because it was full of reservations and attempts to justify his actions.

It would put Chief Minister Terry Le Sueur in an interesting position, though. He didn’t want Senator Perchard on the Council of Ministers (he nominated Senator Paul Routier for the job, unsuccessfully) but he gave him his total backing over the self-harm row and paid tribute to his work in a statement not long after the Senator quit.

It will be interesting to see who he nominates: Senator Routier is in the frame, and there’s talk about two other Members with a background in healthcare showing more than a passing interest.

Finally, whereas Senator Perchard’s timing may be dodgy: mine is impeccable. I’ve got two weeks off, and I’m missing not one, but two States sittings – including three navel-gazing extravaganzas about changing Question Time and splitting up the Environment Department, and an all-day Public Accounts Committee hearing. Pretty good going, if I do say so myself.