NOW, said Herself as she returned from another scavenging trip to de Gruchy’s sale rail with two of her mates, there’s a nice little piece you can write about this week.

The ‘now’ was uttered in a tone of voice which the male of the species will be extremely familiar with – the sort of tone which makes peace-loving blokes like me drop the fishing rod on the floor of The Shed and make as if she has my undivided attention – and so I listened.

After asking me what I thought of what she’d bought – saving pounds in the process, I was assured – and me nodding approvingly, despite wrongly identifying curtain material as something that I thought she was going to make a skirt out of, she finally got round to what the ‘now’ was about.

‘I went to the Post Office to get us some euros (we’re off to the happy climes of Normandy for a few days to see how this year’s Calvados trees are coming along) and they’re installing a cash machine that dispenses them,’ she said.

What she didn’t say was whether the machine was inside or outside the premises – not that it would make any difference to a couple of people with the sort of time we have on our hands, but it’s handier for those who can’t get into town during working hours – but nonetheless I had to agree, it is a good idea.

Herself was also right in that it is nice to write about a government entity using a bit of initiative that not only enhances its service to the public, but also makes a few quid into the bargain, always assuming, that is, that the few quid goes back into the taxpayers’ coffers rather than management bonuses.

AND now we skip along merrily from taxpayers’ money being properly invested with a reasonable expectation of a return to yet another tale of woe about public money being wasted.

Alan Holmes and his mate were taking a stroll along the north coast, from Grosnez to Bouley Bay, as you do –or at least as Mr Holmes and his mate clearly do – when they chanced upon an unusual-looking heap of metal.

A closer perusal of the object of their interest revealed that it was actually Decollage, a nine-foot bronze sculpture which once graced – and I really mean that, I thought it was superb – the all singing, all dancing Airport departure hall in which, as a result of making more space available so Mr WH Smith can charge 50% more for a packet of Polos than it costs where there is no captive audience, there’s scarcely room to swing a cat, as I remarked last week.

Decollage – which depicts geese taking off from water – is a lovely work of art, much admired by the travelling public, and particularly visitors, when it was in situ and I’d hazard a guess also that it was a nice little earner for charities with the loose change that used to be thrown in its water-filled base.

More importantly, as far as this bolshie little crapaud is concerned, it fulfilled the Clement Criteria for Works of Art in that I didn’t have to risk permanent injury to my neck – or any other part of my anatomy, for that matter – by having to look at it while standing on my head in order to work out what it was. That’s more than can be said for some of the expensive bits and pieces scattered about the place that the experts tell us are works of art, that’s for sure.

More to the point, it cost forty-five grand but I didn’t really begrudge that when looked at in the great scheme of things that used to be the departure hall before the experts – in all probability imported – started messing about with it.

Now we’re told that the great and the good who run the Airport have tried to offload it but the hospital didn’t want it and nor, it seems, does any other States department. I’m not surprised, given that the only place Health and Social Services could have put it was in front of the building and that’s full of cars belonging to the army of upper echelons management, I shouldn’t wonder.

A taxable payment in kind (they used to be called perks) I would hope.
Given that the boy Ozouf is appealing for ideas on how to save money, it seems to me that the only option would be to flog it. My garden at Chez Clement is too small, I’m afraid, but I’m sure there’s a planeload of wealthy immigrants ready to take off from Gatwick (or Geneva, come to that, in view of the tax clampdown in that neck of the woods), one of whom could be ‘persuaded’ to take the geese off our hands in exchange for a housing licence.
At half a million, it would be a snip.

While I’m on the subject of objects which appear valuable to us taxpayers but useless to that lot in the Big House and their hired help, many years ago – thankfully, there are those of us who remember but we are a diminishing number – they knocked down the prison in the appropriately named Newgate Street and shifted the non-paying guests to the salubrious surroundings of the La Moye Hilton, otherwise known as the health farm without the carrot juice.

During the demolition it was noticed that there was quite a quantity of valuable granite and this was carefully removed and taken to a ‘secret’ location – which half the Island knew about – to be stored pending its use, ostensibly to enhance the appearance of an appropriate government building about to be constructed.
What’s happened to that?

And finally…You really couldn’t make it up if you sat down and tried for a fortnight. We get gazumped on a building that was too damned expensive anyway and it’s cost us eight million quid for our trouble.