The times are a-changing. BBC Radio Guernsey has recently dropped the 'Radio' from its name to reflect its 'multimedia' status (mostly because many people now listen online - not a seismic shift exactly but it's a great start). The Guernsey Press's archives are now available, so you can find out all about great historic u-turns. They are even on the verge of figuring out what a blog is. Soon, Rock Candy will be launched (apparently some kind of contributor-written online magazine - could be great, could be awful, we'll find out soon...) And WhyGuernsey, home of the new Guernsey enlightenment, have seen the light themselves and made their forums readable by guests and therefore, more importantly, indexable by Google.
We can now get stacks of local factomation online which just a couple of years ago would have involved making a trip to the Priaulx Library. People from outside the island wanting to get a snapshot of Guernsey life have it all laid out for them in full gory detail.
But if everyone from the traditional media down to the casual WhyGuernsey mud-slinger is embracing the Internet, why is the States of Guernsey's website so abysmal?
Just three weeks ago or so, the Treasury dropped a leaflet on everyone's doormat explaining how the new 'tax on real property' system will work. Some people who have opted out of junk mailings won't receive it, and some people who are affected might own property in Guernsey but live overseas, so they won't have one either.
Still, that's no biggie because they can get the information from the States website, can't then? Well, maybe some enterprising reader of this post can let me have the URL in a comment, but I can't find it anywhere, either by navigating the site (a maze of twisty passages all alike if ever I saw one), or by using the site search.
I've also been told that the Government Business Plan is there somewhere, but I can't find that either, despite being told by various politicians that this is a document of fundamental importance and the subject of the July States debate.
How can we expect Guernsey to have a presence on the international stage when the island's flagship official website is such a joke? Why aren't the politicians who fret about public apathy doing something about this?
The site urgently needs professional attention. Aside from publishing the Billets, what's there at the moment achieves very little more than paying lip-service to the notion that the States ought to have a website.
Sure, replacing it is going to cost money - but a little investment could go a long way in reducing civil servant time spent handling questions which could easily be answered online. And what price to ensure that the casual Google searcher gets Guernsey facts from the elected government, and not Guernsey mud from WhyGuernsey?
Saturday, 14 July 2007
Friday, 22 June 2007
Pressing issues
On page 2 the Press today laments the poor turn-out at last night's public meeting on the new tax on real property system being introduced in January. Of course it's lucky that those of us who couldn't find time to turn up can rely on the Press to send their most senior political reporting staff to cover these events.
Or did they? The article is headlined with a thoroughly negative (and wholly unrepresentative) quote allegedly made at the meeting by Chief Minister Mike Torode. This comes as a surprise since Mike Torode wasn't even present. It probably comes as a particular surprise for Lyndon Trott, who is in charge of implementing the new system, chaired the meeting and made the remarks in question, but isn't mentioned in the article at all!
Update (23/06): A correction appeared in today's Press, but interestingly the online edition of the original article has the mistake erased.
Or did they? The article is headlined with a thoroughly negative (and wholly unrepresentative) quote allegedly made at the meeting by Chief Minister Mike Torode. This comes as a surprise since Mike Torode wasn't even present. It probably comes as a particular surprise for Lyndon Trott, who is in charge of implementing the new system, chaired the meeting and made the remarks in question, but isn't mentioned in the article at all!
Update (23/06): A correction appeared in today's Press, but interestingly the online edition of the original article has the mistake erased.
Thursday, 21 June 2007
Remarqueeble
Oh yes, the continuing saga of the market terrace (or 'in front of HMV' as it is more commonly known).
Many words have been expended in the Press and on BBCRadio Guernsey on the matter, mostly about whether this is an eyesore which the Environment Department should be cracking down on.
But looking back through the pages of the Press, before the marquee appeared, you wonder what happened to other plans for this area. Back in July 2006, John Silvester, the States head of estates, said:
"The potential for Market Square and terrace overlooking the Town Church will be considerable for all sorts of events: the world is your oyster. It gives Culture and Leisure the opportunity to do all sorts of things."
And as recently as March 2007, reporter Nick Mollet interviewed Brett Allen, Director of McAulay. The article assured that "plans were at an advanced stage for a 'local market' on Church Square terrace, to run on Fridays and Saturdays."
Street entertainment and a weekly local market are sadly lacking in Town at the moment, and the community-minded intentions of the States and McCaulay to subsidise these activities was highly welcome. But since taxpayers entrusted this space to their care, the purpose for which it has been used has fallen drastically short of expectations.
Renting out the space without appropriate permission was bad enough. But will the States and McAulay be held to account for selling out on their promises for how this space would be used?
Many words have been expended in the Press and on BBC
But looking back through the pages of the Press, before the marquee appeared, you wonder what happened to other plans for this area. Back in July 2006, John Silvester, the States head of estates, said:
"The potential for Market Square and terrace overlooking the Town Church will be considerable for all sorts of events: the world is your oyster. It gives Culture and Leisure the opportunity to do all sorts of things."
And as recently as March 2007, reporter Nick Mollet interviewed Brett Allen, Director of McAulay. The article assured that "plans were at an advanced stage for a 'local market' on Church Square terrace, to run on Fridays and Saturdays."
Street entertainment and a weekly local market are sadly lacking in Town at the moment, and the community-minded intentions of the States and McCaulay to subsidise these activities was highly welcome. But since taxpayers entrusted this space to their care, the purpose for which it has been used has fallen drastically short of expectations.
Renting out the space without appropriate permission was bad enough. But will the States and McAulay be held to account for selling out on their promises for how this space would be used?
Friday, 8 June 2007
If recycling is the answer, what is the question?
The news is that there's a big hole in the ground at Mont Cuet. In 2015 or thereabouts, it's not just going to be full, it's going to be a big hill made of rubbish.
The response the States has made to this, and the response that the media seem to be concentrating their attention on, is how much of this stuff we can recycle. We now have a target to recycle 50% of our waste by 2010 - that's an awful lot when I think about the occasional carrier bag I recycle compared with the 40 litre bin sacks I give the bin men.
The Education Department has done its bit by launching a web site (which I can't find...) and teaching programme devoted to extolling the virtues of recycling - the theory being that if parents won't recycle on their own, then perhaps their dewy-eyed children can guilt them into doing it. In the words of said children, interviewed on Radio Guernsey earlier this week, recycling is basically morally right and 'makes the world a tidy place', whilst not recycling is generally evil.
That's hopelessly naive of course, but then they are only children emerging from their first indoctrination into the received wisdom about recycling. On the other hand, we also had Martin Ozanne insisting that recycling will help us 'stop burning up the atmosphere'.
It's comments like this last one which give off bad smells, suggesting there might be something rotten at the core of a debate which is going on amongst deputies more worried about an election in 2008 than they are about a missed target in 2010 or an overflowing tip in 2015.
What's going to sink the recycling target is that much of the burden of the cost of recycling falls on those who chose to recycle, and the States shows no inclination of alleviating this problem by, for example, offering island-wide kerbside collection.
For businesses, there is absolutely nil incentive to recycle when it's cheaper for them just to send the stuff to the tip. And how could they recycle if they wanted to? Window repairers, for example, cannot recycle old glass, simply because it won't fit through the holes in the green bins.
But then why do we have this 50% target anyway? At the root of this target seems to be the fallacy which the island's schoolchildren are being indoctrinated with: That recycling is an inherently good thing, an end in itself in fact.
Recycling is only one of the three Rs - reduce, reuse and recycle - and the last one at that. What are we doing about the first two? How are we persuading Marks and Spencer to stop wrapping every individual steak in a foil and plastic tray with extra cardboard wrapping? How do I get my jam jar back to the manufacturer so he can put more jam in it? Why are we still churning out millions of non-recyclable milk cartons every year, instead of using our much-vaunted milk distribution network to issue re-usable bottles? Why do supermarkets insist on issuing plastic bags at the checkouts?
The evidence that recycling is going to save the environment just isn't there. We do not have any foreseeable shortage of the raw materials to make paper or glass or even aluminium, but we do have shortages of the fresh water, energy and labour it takes to recycle them. And recycling most certainly will not stop the atmosphere from burning up, especially if we all have to individually drive to and from the recycling bins to do it!
If we are really serious about the three Rs, and prologing the life of Mont Cuet, then we need policies to tackle all three, not just recycling. The answer is sensible recycling and reuse schemes, which have proven environmental benefit. And these should be funded by increasing tipping charges (again) and, critically, charging individuals, households and businesses according to the volume of refuse they leave on the kerb.
Sadly this means replacing the warm fuzzy feeling of pointless recycling with a grim future of wheelie bins and bigger rubbish bills. But we really want to save the planet, right?
The response the States has made to this, and the response that the media seem to be concentrating their attention on, is how much of this stuff we can recycle. We now have a target to recycle 50% of our waste by 2010 - that's an awful lot when I think about the occasional carrier bag I recycle compared with the 40 litre bin sacks I give the bin men.
The Education Department has done its bit by launching a web site (which I can't find...) and teaching programme devoted to extolling the virtues of recycling - the theory being that if parents won't recycle on their own, then perhaps their dewy-eyed children can guilt them into doing it. In the words of said children, interviewed on Radio Guernsey earlier this week, recycling is basically morally right and 'makes the world a tidy place', whilst not recycling is generally evil.
That's hopelessly naive of course, but then they are only children emerging from their first indoctrination into the received wisdom about recycling. On the other hand, we also had Martin Ozanne insisting that recycling will help us 'stop burning up the atmosphere'.
It's comments like this last one which give off bad smells, suggesting there might be something rotten at the core of a debate which is going on amongst deputies more worried about an election in 2008 than they are about a missed target in 2010 or an overflowing tip in 2015.
What's going to sink the recycling target is that much of the burden of the cost of recycling falls on those who chose to recycle, and the States shows no inclination of alleviating this problem by, for example, offering island-wide kerbside collection.
For businesses, there is absolutely nil incentive to recycle when it's cheaper for them just to send the stuff to the tip. And how could they recycle if they wanted to? Window repairers, for example, cannot recycle old glass, simply because it won't fit through the holes in the green bins.
But then why do we have this 50% target anyway? At the root of this target seems to be the fallacy which the island's schoolchildren are being indoctrinated with: That recycling is an inherently good thing, an end in itself in fact.
Recycling is only one of the three Rs - reduce, reuse and recycle - and the last one at that. What are we doing about the first two? How are we persuading Marks and Spencer to stop wrapping every individual steak in a foil and plastic tray with extra cardboard wrapping? How do I get my jam jar back to the manufacturer so he can put more jam in it? Why are we still churning out millions of non-recyclable milk cartons every year, instead of using our much-vaunted milk distribution network to issue re-usable bottles? Why do supermarkets insist on issuing plastic bags at the checkouts?
The evidence that recycling is going to save the environment just isn't there. We do not have any foreseeable shortage of the raw materials to make paper or glass or even aluminium, but we do have shortages of the fresh water, energy and labour it takes to recycle them. And recycling most certainly will not stop the atmosphere from burning up, especially if we all have to individually drive to and from the recycling bins to do it!
If we are really serious about the three Rs, and prologing the life of Mont Cuet, then we need policies to tackle all three, not just recycling. The answer is sensible recycling and reuse schemes, which have proven environmental benefit. And these should be funded by increasing tipping charges (again) and, critically, charging individuals, households and businesses according to the volume of refuse they leave on the kerb.
Sadly this means replacing the warm fuzzy feeling of pointless recycling with a grim future of wheelie bins and bigger rubbish bills. But we really want to save the planet, right?
Wednesday, 6 June 2007
Press oops
I've been pretty busy of late, hence unable to post here. There are currently a couple of bouquet garnis of contention simmering in the stock pot of my mind, but hey, who am I kidding, nobody reads this anyway!
Still, for the time being, here's a nice little quote from the Reverend Kevin Northover, proof-read by the Guernsey Press:
Ding-dong indeed!
Still, for the time being, here's a nice little quote from the Reverend Kevin Northover, proof-read by the Guernsey Press:
Ding-dong indeed!
Tuesday, 22 May 2007
The MySpace Generation
Somehow I suspect that the MySpace Generation is in charge of the Ladies' College's Wikipedia page.
Friday, 18 May 2007
Property prices wiggling a little bit
Trumpet, fanfare, front page splash, property prices are dropping. Or, to be precise (which of course the Press isn't), the median local market price dropped this quarter compared to last.
So, is this the bubble bursting, or just an excuse for the usual hysterics?
Let's forget for the moment that comparing the houses sold one quarter with those sold in the following quarter is not comparing like with like (after all, they are different houses).
Let's forget that the average conveyance value only reflects the value of houses which are actually changing hands.
Let's forget that the median price always tends to be a round number - by the nature of medians, one extra property sale either side of the median could cause the 'average' price to leap £5,000 (or, er, 1.7%...)
Let's forget all that. The answer to the question is on page 2 of the report in question. Over the six years since 2001, the median local market price has fallen seven times. This quarter it has fallen a mere 1.7%, but in Q1 2002 it fell by 11.1%, and it fell by 7.1% over two quarters in 2005. All during six years of relentlessly rising prices.
So the last six times the quarterly median fell, it was just a statistical wiggle each time. But for the Press, this is it, this 1.7% is the tip of the iceberg, time for the sub-editors to get out the big fat hysterical headline pen. Maybe it's a quiet news day...
So, is this the bubble bursting, or just an excuse for the usual hysterics?
Let's forget for the moment that comparing the houses sold one quarter with those sold in the following quarter is not comparing like with like (after all, they are different houses).
Let's forget that the average conveyance value only reflects the value of houses which are actually changing hands.
Let's forget that the median price always tends to be a round number - by the nature of medians, one extra property sale either side of the median could cause the 'average' price to leap £5,000 (or, er, 1.7%...)
Let's forget all that. The answer to the question is on page 2 of the report in question. Over the six years since 2001, the median local market price has fallen seven times. This quarter it has fallen a mere 1.7%, but in Q1 2002 it fell by 11.1%, and it fell by 7.1% over two quarters in 2005. All during six years of relentlessly rising prices.
So the last six times the quarterly median fell, it was just a statistical wiggle each time. But for the Press, this is it, this 1.7% is the tip of the iceberg, time for the sub-editors to get out the big fat hysterical headline pen. Maybe it's a quiet news day...
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