Paradise

So we're in a kind of paradise, a long windswept beach with nobody much around, you look out of the hotel room and look at the waves, and then stare at what passes for a road, and think this is the kind of place they should make vintage cars compulsory. They said to us, Guernsey is like Jersey, but quieter. That's fine, I can look at waves for hours.

But there is also something of a Mike Davis 'evil paradise' about it (look up his book). For one they don't grow tomatoes here anymore (despite ideal climate) the place is littered with derelict glasshouses, they don't breed many Guernsey cows either (nomatter what CountryFile might say) they don't need to, because what they have is the Financial Industries. Bankers strut around St Peter's Port like the Nazi's used to in their uniforms (oh you'd be blessed to be a Nazi stationed here, you'd not believe your luck- this or the Eastern Front?) There are '184' investment companies here said the helpful pub landlord- 'just around the corner' in a new replica, anonymous quarter of St Peter's Port whose only visibility is the brass plaques on the plate glass doors. The reason is straightforward, this where the 0.1% of the population make their 13% of our total wealth (in the old day's 1% made 8% or thereabouts).

It's interesting to snoop around a bit, Julie feels all Woodward and Bernstein. But this is all strictly legal, you just have to know how to do it or know the right people in the City of London who know how to do it. For all I know they are doing it for me.

But there you go, just like paradise (beware of imitations).