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In this month's column for Connect magazine, a secret business guru known only as 'The Fool' strays away from his usual "philistine leanings" and sets the stage for a tragedy in five acts, in fair Jersey where we lay our scene.
"When it comes to the Fool’s usual nonsense, you’d get more cultural enrichment from the merest sip of one of those tiny little yoghurt things people insist on drinking. However, and it may have taken over a generation, the English ‘A’ Level might finally have come in useful. Ye Gods indeed.
"Much like Shakespeare’s eponymous anti-hero, our own little hamlet seems to be having what we would term, in the modern vernacular, somewhat of a decision-making crisis. And, at least where the public’s cash and certain political reputations are concerned, a tragedy seems to be playing out before our eyes.
"To set the scene, with the population of the village (and presumably the attendant risks of biliousness, apoplexy, dropsy and demand for leeches) growing apace, a new hospital is apparently needed. The village elders however, having initially succeeded in finding sufficient groats down the back of the sofa to pay for it, seem to be struggling with finding a location that avoids threats of pitchforks, or some special interest group’s hair catching fire. And whilst they prevaricate, the bleeps from ye olde machine keeping the taxpayers’ money alive, get weaker and weaker.
"Despite the States having initially decided that the site of the existing hospital would be the most appropriate place to build, that, in the eyes of certain people, might not now be the case. Much like the UK’s inability to decide what shade of BREXIT it would like, suddenly, of apparent importance, are the views of that renowned group of planning, infrastructure, construction and environmental experts - the general public - who believe that either the People’s Park, the Waterfront, Overdale, or who knows, Grève De L’ecq barracks, would be a most appropriate site.
Pictured: After agreeing to build the new hospital on the current site, the States seem to be backtracking.
"The resulting miasma is a classic example of what people who know about these things call ‘analysis paralysis’, the state of over-thinking a situation so that, because of all of the possible consequences that might result from a certain course of action, a decision becomes impossible to make. This state of affairs is exacerbated when there are numerous parties and, potentially, personal consequences, involved – a continuing succession of Rosencrantzs and Guildensterns arriving at the door, proffering assistance at the behest of the recent usurper of the throne, Claudius, certainly don’t appear to be helping the situation.
"Straying further from this column’s usual philistine leanings, a quote from that renowned 18th century wit Voltaire actually offers the solution. ‘Perfect is the enemy of good.’ In other words, get the damn thing done and accept that there is no ideal outcome which will prevent people writing letters to the JEP, or demonstrating their idiocy on Facebook.
"Whilst time and money are the most immediate costs of this ongoing indecision, only a particularly ignorant or self-absorbed politician would be unaware of the growing contempt the public are beginning to feel for the succession of interferences in the process. Whilst certain members are no doubt emboldened by their recent successes at the ballot box, and with that long four-year term stretching out before them, some of them would be well advised to heed the outcome of that other of Shakespeare’s great tragedies, Julius Caesar. Et-tu John?"
You can read the Fool's column every month in Connect, here.
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