I used to have time for "The Crow". I saw him as a well educated free thinking liberal with an interest in culture. That profile, like it or loath it, is useful in a parliament where the average IQ and grasp of political and economic theory is at best limited. But of late I've started to feel like he's loosing his edge, as if he's grown comfortably into those matching leather habitat sofa's he so keenly displays within his inner sanctum. It's as if he's slowly, by stealth, turning into the very thing he set out to overcome. A comfortably numb constable. This latest missive is all PC'd up to the eye balls and lacks proper research, understanding or committment to the actual needs of the portuguese community living and working in St. Helier. Its also smacks a bit of magic wand waving - there there, you have your street, now run along, we've done our bit.
I asked Rosa in my local corner shop what she thought about the re-naming of James Street. I asked her if it filled her with a sense of belonging or if it made her bristle with civic pride - a fulfilled citizen at one with the society in which she works 12 hours a day, sometimes 7 days a week. She laughed, as she always does at my stupid questions, but admitted she knew nothing of this act of government in the name of her birthplace. But she did ask me this, "Does it mean I get to have a day off to spend with my kids?".
