THE pantomime season is nearly upon us … but in some places it has already started.

Many light years away in a far different galaxy, very different to this, 22 of the most powerful men in the planet Zog had to make an important decision; one which could change the fortunes of tens of thousands of the men, women and who lived upon that other world. Billions would be affected.

Simply, who would host the 20018 Games, the game called Slivotitch.
For this was Zog’s most popular past-time; a foot-pass game created by the Onglotarians, whose motherland had devised the sport and had last hosted the World Cup in 19066.

And the Onglotarians themselves had decided to bid for it. So, too, had the two nations of Flib and Flam, who could boast some of the best Slivotitch players in the world).

The low-lying country, Dum’bar’dam, had also made a bid while a fifth country, Grimskikorsikov, were also contenders for this, the game that the turkey lord, Bernado el’ Matthews had pronounced ‘bootiful’.

The decision-making process would not be easy, particularly as the leader of the 22 had fallen out in the past with the Onglotarians whose free press had denounced some of his friends and fellow committee members as toutyhands and crookybacks.

While their aged leader, Zib-Zob, didn’t like free press, of any kind, calling it ‘the scum of the Zog’, he nevertheless said nice things about their representatives, including their chief minister, Darkblak-hair; their most famous Slivotitch player, Drongo Tattoo; and their willing king-in-waiting. But then Zib-Zob only said what the Onglatarians wanted to hear when any of them was less than a knadger’s goat’s whisker away from him . . .

Meanwhile, the world waited the announcement with bated breath as hundreds of reporters, media men and the leaders of nations, huddled excitedly close at the Slivotitch mansion, in Heidiholand (which had been chosen as their main home for tax purposes) . . . That is hundreds of people, with the exception of one. For the King of Grimskikorsikov, Nutkin, appeared to know the result already, and would only come for a victory celebration.

Well, it came to pass, rather quicker than most expected, that the Slivotitch World Cup went to Grimskikosikov; which pleased King Nutkin and his subjects even when the Onglotarians free press (and bid team) bleated that this was ‘wrong, wrong, WRONG’.

‘But why?’ Nutkin asked, as he called his guards to stand, menacingly, around his throne. ‘Didn’t we win the bid both fair and square?’
‘No,’ said the Onglotarians (in surprisingly high-pitched voices).
‘We were cheated! We offered the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth!’

‘Tut tut,’ King Nutkin replied, before adding: ‘Surely truth, too, can be bought; for don’t you know that everything – yes, everything (and King Nutkin’s voice then dropped, with acres of hidden intent), simply everything, has a price?’

Education, Sport and Culture minister James Read is currently in the throes of recognising just how difficult his job has become.

Told by the States to cut his budget, he looked first to do so by taking some public money out of private education. ‘Think again, Mr Read,’ he has been told, in no uncertain terms.

Meanwhile, he has also been trying to trim the sport budget, announcing that by deducting £160,000 it could, paradoxically, be good news for all sports clubs.
For he wants to create a ‘Sports Foundation’, one that both he and Deputy Andrew Green, Assistant Minister for Sport, maintain will give private enterprise the chance to invest in Island sports to such an extent that £160,000 could be eclipsed by the amount they put in. I have written about this before but feel it is worth writing about again for two reasons.

First, because earlier this week – immediately before he returned from England’s bid to host the 2018 Football World Cup – Prime Minister David Cameron approved the decision, made by his Education Minister, Michael Gove, that they would scrap the country’s 450 School Sports Partnerships (SSPs), a Labour initiative introduced in 2000, designed to get more children involved in sport.

So incensed are the people of South Tyneside, where SSP provides 18,000 pupils with regular exercise through specialist in-school coaching and the organising of extra-curricular activities, that on Tuesday four Tyneside pupils presented a petition signed by 8,500 people from the area, every one of them opposed to the cut.

Another 19 districts are also handing in their own petitions, pointing out how effective the sport/schools initiative currently is, now, and how effective it can be in the poorer parts of England in years to come. At the moment the British government are pledged to fund the scheme by up to £162m … quite a tidy sum, though it could be noted as a sideline that some £15m was spent on a bid for the World Cup football that was, apparently, always going to fail.

Anyway, the second reason for mentioning Deputy Read’s decision to speak so warmly of a ‘Sports Foundation’ comes following an e-mail to me by Maureen Jordan, mother of arguably our most talented female golfer, Olivia Jordan-Higgins, who last week failed by just three strokes to qualify as a pro on the European tour.

This is part of Maureen’s e-mail to me: ‘Olivia . . . is very disappointed but is very upbeat about the experience. She has a lot of information to share with me, but the main issue was not having a caddie; she now realizes that was a big mistake.

‘Unfortunately, a caddie’s costs are out of our league at the moment and, to be fair, Olivia felt fairly happy to manage without. She now feels that was wrong.
‘Her brother caddied in Florida (a great combination) but that cost me approximately £1,000 in travel, accommodation, hire car and sustenance …with no payment for job done!’

Mrs Jordan didn’t send this e-mail for publication. However, rather reluctantly, she agreed to my including it in this comment piece because, as I pointed out to her, if one of the Island’s best golfers has to rely on her mother to help her sporting career … what chance is there that any other promising 22-year-old individual in any other sport, will attract money from a ‘Sports Foundation’, no manner how grand-eloquent the title it might be given sound?

The Island’s netballers won’t know it but, on Monday or Tuesday nights, if the weather’s bad but not quite bad enough to stop their sport from going ahead, I think of them.

For I know just how cold and miserable it can be to play up at Les Quennevais, even when you love your sport.

So, for the last two weeks in particular I’ve thought about them, because so many outdoor sports have been cancelled because of such appalling weather.
And while I don’t want to speed my life away, I can’t wait for netball to go indoors, to Les Ormes, in 2011 just as I am delighted that Dominion are backing Jersey netball to the tune of £204,000 over a six-year period.

My only other current wish for netball is that within the next few years other Island club sides, rather than Convent and St Clement, will challenge in the league. At the time of writing Convent A have a 13-point cushion (over their B team) at the top of Division I of the Dominion Winter Netball League. Which is good news for them, but bad news for other teams. And makes me wonder just how hard some of Jersey’s senior players are being pushed, to up their game to an even higher (national) standard if there is one runaway team – and then the rest.

Having learnt to spell Mariana Agathangelou, I thought there were no names in Jersey I couldn’t cope with. That is, until Sunday night when I was at Haute Vallée, watching two games in the Insurance Volleyball Corporation League and coach Peter Cadiou gave me the women’s team sheet, beginning with Dominika Izdevski, Karolina Zablocka and Ilona Szymczyk. ‘But it hasn’t even got a vowel in it!’ I said of Ilona’s surname. ‘Hadn’t noticed that before,’ said Peter. ‘But now you mention it, no it hasn’t.’