IT’S not a bad old place at times, this rock, and it’s no wonder to find all sorts of people pitchin’ up to live yer what weren’t born in the back of a local barn or sprung screamin’ at the General. In fact Jersey has a long history of attractin’ wealthy foreign tarps with an interest in coastal walks, black butter and prehistoric burial sites. We call them tax exiles.

One of the most famous of these was Charles II who fled yer in 1646 for fear of havin’ his head fully taxed from his shoulders bah the Puritans. Then there was that Victor Hugo chap thet wrote plays ’n sold warn; he fled yer in 1852 havin’ naffed off Napolean. (Rumour has it thet Hugo came up with the name for Les Miserables wharlst listenin’ to the local radio phone-in. Says so yer on this Thickipedia thing ah got open.)

More recently we’ve had that author Biggins fellow, cricketeer Ian Woosey and thet Mainsail fella with the moustache that used to win all the car racin’ on the tele. And let’s not forget the chap what invented the Black and Decker workbench; he lives yer too. Gets into his house by turnin’ a lever what opens up an entrance on the roof, apparently.

Not that everyone wants to live yer, marnd. The odd few do it the other way rand, and, havin’ been privileged with a Jersey passport, desard to bugger off somewhere else altogether. Take thet fella we got dahn the village fer instance. Refused to pay last year’s Branchage farn and pegged it to London instead, the silly sod. Not sure if he’s comin’ beck but they’re abaht to remove his hedge altogether so he’d best mek ’is marnd up. Man just ain’t a man with ’is bush clipped off!