Good morning everyone
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It
is about time the law against using mobile phones while driving was
actually enforced on our roads.
42 drivers
using mobile phones at the wheel were caught on the first day of a
police crackdown in Dorset as tougher penalties came into force.
Yesterday,
Tuesday,
(yet another) moron using his mobile tried to undertake me on a
roundabout after he found himself in the "left turn" lane
on the approach. Pity there were no police around at the time. The
same moron was still using the phone while tailgating me minutes
later.
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Philip
Green, agrees to pay "up to" £363 million into the BHS
Pension fund, which is just over half (but only just) of the sum he
took in dividends and other payments from BHS before selling the
company for £1.
The
bottom line of course is that Green has "got away with it"
as he looks certain to retain his title (though not in my book) he
keeps his yachts, helicopters and fleet of luxury limousines, his
luxury apartments and his substantial bank balances. Whether or not
all or even some of these assets are in his wife's name is
immaterial, not necessarily in law but certainly in equity. The
19,000 BHS pensioners will be marginally better off, the 11,000
people who lost their jobs will probably shake their heads in
disbelief while Green and his wife will no doubt pour themselves
another glass of Dom Perignon 1934, gaze out from their luxury yacht
and laugh all the way back to the bank.
Green
and his wife have done nothing illegal but if there were any justice
and equity in this world of unacceptable capitalism, they would both
be staring at the grey painted walls of a prison cell.
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Richard
Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax (known as Richard Drax), the MP
for South Dorset, says that "the
House of Lords appear hell-bent on thwarting the will of the people."
This dramatic and hysterical piece appearing in Drax's Dorset Echo
column
this week is of course complete nonsense.
The
House of Lords amendment, guaranteeing the rights of EU citizens in
the UK as part of Brexit Bill, is not " thwarting the will of
the people". The reality is that the amendment quite rightly and
properly, seeks to give Europeans who in many cases have been living
and working in the United Kingdom for some years, contributing to the
British economy, paying taxes and filling important and useful roles
in society, a guarantee of their rights following Brexit.
The
complete argument may be found at
http://new-agenda2012.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/the-house-of-lords-are-not-thwarting.html.
(copy and paste link)
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A
large question mark hangs in my mind regarding the new television
serial "SS GB". Wooden acting and contrived story lines
which seem quite
different
to the book that I read some years ago. It always seems that books
are
invariably better than their
screen adaptations
on television or cinema. I also watched "Prime Suspect 1973"
this week. The young Jane Tennison
is not quite credible and again the contrived connection between
watching an attempted mugging from the top of a bus, a mastermind
prisoner planning a robbery, another prisoner (the husband of the
mugging victim) offering an alternative target for the robbery all
became a tadd confusing. I shall pass on the new and last chapter of
"Broadchurch" as we again had to resort to subtitles to
follow the alleged plot
and the dialogue of the main character.
We shall see how these serials develop over the next few weeks, if I
can endure them that long.
Meanwhile,
back in Jersey, it seems that the
number of holidaymakers visiting the Island in 2016 was the highest
it has been for five years,
at least according to tourist
body’s chief executive, Keith Beecham,
interviewed in the Jersey Evening Post. Only when looking at the
figures
a little more closely, does the picture become clearer. The
number of staying holiday visitors from the UK increased by seven per
cent from the mainland and from Germany by six per cent,(counting
working people making return visits each week as "visitors"),
while those from France declined by six per cent and from Guernsey by
22 per cent.
However,
the total amount spent by visitors in 2016 dropped by £15 million to
£228 million,
and
the total number of visitors fell by 26,000 to 692,000.
You can always rely on Tourism and States government to provide the
right statistics.
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| Keith Beecham |
Dandara,
the well know island property developer and builder, will acquire the
former Total Sport and surrounding buildings at Beaumont, if plans
are given the go-ahead to build sixty nine
flats on the site.
Beaumont has the most famous "filter in turn" roundabout on
the whole island. Congestion there and on the approach roads
particularly in the summer, sometimes backing up into St Aubin, or up
to the Le Vieux Beaumont Cannon and even back onto Victoria Avenue
(another filter in turn problem spot) has frustrated locals and
tourists alike for many years. The prospect of another development in
that area can only exacerbate the problem
unless the development plans include transport and traffic solutions.
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| Beaumont Jersey |
The
weather (particularly in Dorset it seems) remains predictably
unpredictable. Louise Leer
and
Stav
Danaos
on
national television weather and Holly Green together with David
Braine on BBC Spotlight,
regular cover all options in the certainty that at least one
combination in their meteorological forecast will be right (rather
like the truism that a clock which is wrong will be right twice every
day). This week we have had rain, warm sun, fog, sleet, wind and
frost and that was just on Tuesday !
Have
a nice week.
John
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