AS my old granny used to say when talking about what they used to call ‘bad apples’, if you buy a dozen eggs and two of them are cracked, do you stop buying eggs?

I should add that although she will always be ancient to me, the age she must have been at my earliest memory of her (probably when I was four or five) is considerably lower than my age now, which made me sit up and think when it dawned on me.

For some reason – certainly not a logical one, that’s for sure – I thought about the old girl and that saying of hers when I was reading the comments of the general manager of the La Moye Hilton, otherwise known as prison governor Bill Millar, on the thorny question of prisoners on licence reoffending.

Although my often irreverent comments about the health farm without the carrot juice may contradict this, I actually have a lot of time for what Mr Millar and his staff are trying to achieve at La Moye.

As he said when commenting on a case involving two men released early, who went on to commit a serious assault on another man, out of 21 people released early and on licence last year (which meant that they had to abide by certain conditions, including a curfew), four were recalled to the prison.

Some may view that as a failure rate of almost one in five, but I prefer to view it as a success rate of over 80 per cent – a benchmark other government departments would be delighted to achieve for some of their equally chancy projects. After all, the prison authorities are on a hiding to nothing, particularly from people like me, if these things go pear-shaped, as they so easily could do.

Those people in the prison service who I know speak a lot now about education and rehabilitation, and while they (and probably everyone else other than those who worship at the altar of the late Lord Longford, who found it impossible to think anything bad about anyone) acknowledge that there are those who want no part of such programmes, there are others who do, and that makes it worthwhile. It’s a refreshing viewpoint and all credit to Mr Millar and his colleagues for holding it.

Besides, while they’re out on licence, we’re not paying for the room service and carrot juice, are we? As they say, Jerseymen are but Scots stripped of their generosity.

WHILE on the subject of being careful with money, I have to say that it is a virtue seldom associated with that lot in the Big House, not to mention their hired help. Indeed, much of the economic difficulty in which we found ourselves today can be attributed directly to an era of profligacy which would have horrified our forebears.

However, just to prove me wrong about our elected representatives being less than careful with our money, along comes Assistant Economic Development Minister Paul Routier with a suggestion that the £9,000 needed to return the geese sculpture Decollage to the vicinity of the Airport should not come out of public funds, but should be publicly funded – a small but important difference in wording which in essence means that he’s suggesting taking the hat (or begging bowl) round.

Much as I like the idea of asking for donations for all manner of things, on this occasion I support in its entirety the view expressed by Public Sculpture Trust chairman Ray Banks, who accurately described Senator Routier’s donation idea as ridiculous and an absolute cheek and also poured scorn on the Minister’s plan to place the sculpture on a traffic roundabout near the Airport.

As Mr Banks contended, such a location would be wrong, not least because it wouldn’t be accessible to the public and it could no longer serve as a ‘wishing well’ to the benefit of smaller charities.

Much as I understand Alan Holmes’s suggestion (he was the bloke who found Decollage in a field at St John while ambling between Grosnez and Bouley Bay) about sticking it in front of St Brelade’s Parish Hall at St Aubin, with happy memories of Aubin the Goose who used to patrol that patch, I very much fear that the mindless morons who have two sniffs of the cork from a bottle of vodka and then vandalise Harry Vardon’s statue at the other end of the Island would wreak havoc on a flock of bronze geese. After nicking the cash in the fountain, of course.

By way of an aside, Herself has just stopped and read the preceding paragraph over my shoulder. Her only observation about my warning of theft and vandalism was: ‘They’ll stop touching things like that if they’re plugged into the mains electricity.’
I doubt that she’d vote Liberal if we had party politics here.

No, as Ray Banks said, its proper place is inside, preferably in the location for which it was commissioned, and equally preferably on the non-travelling-public’s side of Rent-a-Grope Security Inc so that those like me who paid for it but don’t use aircraft can see it once in a while.

As for Paul Routier, one more idiotic idea like that and you’ll be more than qualified to be the next Chief Minister. And while I’m at it, your wonderful Economic Development department can find the cash to move it from where Alan Holmes discovered it to what has been described as ‘an undisclosed secure location’ – yet can’t find the funds to put it back where it belongs. You really do have a damned cheek.

And finally…All the nomination meetings are done and dusted, unopposed candidates already know what will put bread on the table and others know who they are up against. If I have a hope for this series of hustings meetings, it is that policies rather than personalities will be what make the headlines.