MUCH as I admire acts of apology in appropriate circumstances – I mentioned the other week that when I get things wrong I refer to my apology as sitting on the penitent stool (Prime Minister Gordon Brown did much the same thing last week when he referred to himself as a penitent sinner), I must confess that I got a bit of a sinking feeling in my stomach the other day when I read of the comments of the Mayor of Bad Wurzach when speaking at a ceremony in the German town which involved various dignitaries from over here.

I have no doubt that Roland Bürkle was absolutely sincere when he said: ‘We beg for forgiveness from those who are with us today and who suffered under the reign of terror and ask for their friendship in the future.’

Mr Bürkle was referring to the deprivations suffered by those Island residents who more than 65 years ago were deported from Jersey and interned in a camp in that small German town until liberated by Allied forces.

I am aware that all of them must have suffered and indeed some of them did not live to return to their homes. I have no wish at all either to cause distress to those internees happily still with us and the families of those who died there or have subsequently passed away.

However, what caused that sinking feeling in my stomach was this increasingly popular notion that somehow the children and in some cases grandchildren of those even peripherally involved in acts committed either in wartime or in peacetime feel obliged to apologise for things done several generations previously.

Governments do it – we’ve all seen and heard politicians apologise for things as diverse as the African slave trade to the West Indies and the United States and more recently the Prime Minister of Australia carried out a similar act of contrition in relation to those young people who were sent from the British Isles to homes in what were then described as the dominions, many of whom suffered all manners of abuse at the hands of their adoptive parents.

Putting my head above the parapet and expecting it to be shot at by those for whom such acts of contrition are important (I put public outpourings of grief in the same category), can someone please tell me why this apology culture is necessary?

As I said, while I have no doubt Mr Bürkle’s comments were sincere, I don’t see why he should feel it necessary to beg forgiveness for an act which wasn’t even perpetrated by anyone from Bad Wurzach, let alone him or his forebears, but instead came about as an act of revenge ordered by the despot who ran his country until 65 years ago, Adolf Hitler.

Having got all that said, with my head well and truly above the parapet, I suppose it’s in for a penny, in for a pound.

Some time ago I received a fair amount of flak for having the temerity to criticise the data protection commissioner, Emma Martins, and – if the grey matter isn’t too addled by medicinal calvados – recall that I may well have described her as a bit of a loose cannon.

Actually, the description wasn’t one of my originals but the view of one of that lot in the Big House who spent a fortnight one afternoon – well, it seemed like a fortnight – sounding off when I bumped into him in The Square about all manner of things.

This time, Ms Martins has a bit of a bee in her bonnet about Google and that company’s decision to film or photograph every street and road in the Island. Well, if they’ve got nothing better to do with their resources than do that – and people all over the world (apparently) have nothing better to do with theirs than view the result of the labours – I feel a mite sorry for all of them.

Our commissioner seems to think that Island residents could be exposed to embarrassment and distress as a result of what is being done on the public highway. Sorting sock drawers is the phrase which springs immediately to mind or, as one of more than a hundred people who commented on the online version of this article said, hasn’t she any paper clips to make into a chain? Incidentally, virtually all of them seemed to question any need for her comments or involvement.

For heaven’s sake, we are talking about something that in a tourist resort such as Jersey is being done thousands of times every day during the summer – people taking pictures while they are on public land.

Quite apart from the aerial surveys which are commissioned every now and again by departments such as Planning, this newspaper frequently publishes photographs taken by its own photographers from the air and by all accounts they are informative and very well received by readers.

As to Ms Martins’s office not being informed of a perfectly proper and lawful action – apparently that’s her reason for not having had a chance to examine privacy laws (whatever they may be) – she seems to me to be moving from being a bit of a loose cannon towards being a substantial part of the Royal Artillery. Delusions of grandeur, or what?

For more years than I can remember, this place has suffered from a lack of political leadership. Perhaps now, before this nonsense gets picked up by the national media (thank goodness they’ve had Gordon Brown putting his foot in it or it might well have happened already) and we are made to look even more ridiculous than we are – if that’s possible – can someone please tell her to do something more useful?

And finally, I wonder if, when they do introduce their double-deckers, Connex will do what the old JMT used to do and cut branches back where they overhang but are still higher than the branchage requirement?