And so to bed...

On Facebook, I regularly finish each day with a nod to the diary of Samuel Pepy, followed by a quote. Here is a selection from the past month:

And so to bed... quote for tonight is from L.M. Montgomery:

Spring had come once more to Green Gables-the beautiful, capricious Canadian spring, lingering along through April and may in a succession of sweet, fresh, chilly days, with pink sunsets and miracles of resurrection and growth.

The maples in Lover's Lane were red-budded and little curly ferns pushed up around the Dryad's Bubble. Away in the barrens, behind Mr. Silas Sloane's place, the mayflowers blossomed out, pink and white stars of sweetness under their brown leaves. All the school girls and boys had one golden afternoon gathering them, coming home in the clear, echoing twilight with arms and baskets full of flowery spoil.


And so to bed... quote for tonight is from Mary Oliver:

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

And so to bed... quote for tonight is from Martin Luther King:

The great problem facing modern man is that, that the means by which we live, have outdistanced the spiritual ends for which we live. So we find ourselves caught in a messed-up world.

We haven’t learned how to be just and honest and kind and true and loving. And that is the basis of our problem. The real problem is that through our scientific genius we’ve made of the world a neighbourhood, but through our moral and spiritual genius we’ve failed to make of it a brotherhood.

We’ve left a lot of precious values behind; we’ve lost a lot of precious values. And if we are to go forward, if we are to make this a better world in which to live, we’ve got to go back. We’ve got to rediscover these precious values that we’ve left behind.

And so to bed... quote for tonight is from Rachel Barenblat:

It's one thing to climb the mountain. It's another thing entirely to really be present at the top -- or to really be present along the journey up or down. Anyone who meditates has probably noticed how hard it is to be in the moment. It's human nature to get caught up in the past or the future, to become so conscious of remembered wounds or joys (or anticipated ones) that we miss the now.

And so to bed... quote for tonight is from Martin Luther King:

I have been to the mountaintop. … I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

And so to bed... quote for tonight is from Lailah Gifty Akita:

The fullness of existence is the experience of joy and sorrow, good times and dark times, pain and healing.

And so to bed... quote for tonight is from Maya Angelou:

Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.

Temporary Building at Beauport for Restoration Work

I originally posted this as "unplanned building at Beauport", mainly because there was a planning application (see details below) which was withdrawn.

I've since been informed that " the buildings are temporary site sherds built on scaffolding" and are there for restoration work on existing buildings. This is from a trustworthy source, and I apologise for the mistake, which was made mainly because there did not seem to be any public details of that restoration, and to the distant eye, it does look like some kind of development.

I'm leaving the photos up, so that anyone who also thinks there is a development taking place, will be able to read that there is not, and what is really happening. It is good that the new owner is undertaking restoration work.

In fact, Chris on Facebook says:

"This was reply from planning ..... Just checked it out with Historic Environment Team and Compliance. It is just for a site cabin as one of the buildings are being restored. The application was withdrawn so nothing approved. They've had daily checks from our team so we're comfortable everything is within the rules."

Planning Application Withdrawn.

The building on the site is temporary, as stated above, and nothing to do with the planning application, which was withdrawn.

The planning application, as the JEP reported, was made by the new owners, but after objection, they decided to withdraw it.

Details of the story can be read here:
http://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2016/02/08/owners-of-luxury-house-make-bid-for-infinity-pool-and-bar-area/

Five objections, including concerns about noise and light pollution, were been registered on the Planning Department’s website, including one from the National Trust for Jersey which stated:

"It appears to the Trust that although this land has had some development in the past it appears to be partly garden. discreet steps and small areas of paving. The proposed plans would be a considerable encroachment into the CNP and urbanises what appears to be still a wild hillside‘ "

"No elevations are provided but the Tmst is concerned that there is a possibility the proposed development will be seen from La Cotte, Ouaisine and Beauport Bay.The proposed changes would seriously affect the character of the CNP in this area."

However, as stated, the application was withdrawn, and the current buildings on the site are for much needed restoration work on the existing building, and are only temporary.

The Original Levellers

Gerrard Winstanley and The Levellers

"Was the earth made to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live at ease, and for them to bag and barn up the treasures of the Earth from others, that these may beg or starve in a fruitful land; or was it made to preserve all her children?" (Gerrard Winstanley)

The Levellers are coming to the Jersey Folklore Festival

They are a Folk-rock band, and the festival has more to do with folk music than with folklore. So don’t expect any sayings from the Levellers of folk and history! So who were the original levellers?

The Levellers were early Christian radicals whose ideas helped to shape the American and French revolutions, and inspired generations of socialists. Along with the Diggers, they promoted a fairer more equal society.

I first came across them in the writings of Tony Benn, who has this to say about them:

“The issues raised in the historic conflict between Charles I, resting his claim to govern Britain on the divine right of kings, and Parliament - representing, however imperfectly, a demand for the wider sharing of power - concerned the use and abuse of state power, the right of the governed to a say in their government, and the nature of political freedom.”

“The Levellers grew out of this conflict. They represented the aspirations of working people who suffered under the persecution of kings, landowners and the priestly class, and they spoke for those who experienced the hardships of poverty and deprivation. They developed and campaigned, first with Cromwell and then against him, for a political and constitutional settlement of the civil war which would embody principles of political freedom, anticipating by a century and a half the ideas of the American and French revolutions.”

Tony Benn is an interesting socialist because while much of the roots of English socialism came from Marx and Communism, there was a strand which did not. Orwell saw this plainly, and himself forged a blueprint for a democratic socialism opposed to Communism, which he saw in practice led to dictatorship and suppression of anyone who spoke against the State.

Benn also sought to find roots for his socialism not in Marx but in the early English traditions, and in particular in the “Levellers” and “Diggers”, groups with what was then seen as a radical agenda, giving expression in the aftermath of the English Civil War.

The Levellers took their own roots from the Bible, which they applied not merely to a private religious domain, but saw as a universal ideal. As one pamphlet stated:

“The relation of Master and Servant has no ground in the New Testament; in Christ there is neither bond nor free... The common people have been kept under blindness and ignorance, and have remained servants and slaves to the nobility and gentry...”

The Digger leader, Gerard Winstanley, wrote in his pamphlet The True Levellers' Standard Advanced, published on April 26th 1649. This quotation shows how they looked back at the creation stories of the Old Testament, and made them their own:

“In the beginning of Time, the great Creator, Reason, made the Earth to be a Common Treasury, to preserve Beasts, Birds, Fishes and Man, the Lord that was to govern this Creation; for Man had Domination given to him, over the Beasts, Birds and Fishes; but not one word was spoken in the beginning, that one branch of mankind should rule over another ... And that Earth that is within this Creation made a Common Storehouse for all, is bought and sold, and kept in the hands of a few, whereby the great Creator is mightily dishonoured...”

But by 1650 the Levellers' movement had been effectively crushed.

They were not complete democrats (they didn't advocate universal suffrage for servants or women), but in the striving for a more equal society, they made a very English contribution to later socialism.

And while we might not go as far as they do with their disregard for money, we can also take note of a society in which money is made very much into an idol, where bankers and traders who nearly brought economic ruin go free, and not only go free, but start once again their same old ways of a bonus culture that is still out of control, without proper safeguards.

"Money must not any longer....be the great god that hedges in some and hedges out others, for money is but part of the Earth; and after our work of the Earthly Community is advanced, we must make use of gold or silver as we do of other metals but not to buy or sell."

That was signed by Gerrard Winstanley and 44 others in "A Declaration from the Poor Oppressed People of England Directed to all that Call Themselves or are Called Lords of Manors"

Church and State

For today, a piece from 1985 in “The Pilot”, written by Michael Halliwell, Rector of St Brelade, as part of his Parish notes.

It is interesting to note that the revised Canon Law didn’t get on the statute books until 14 March 2012, rather later than envisaged. Changes are in progress with the Law Officers to further change it, as it currently states:

“Nothing in this Canon shall make it lawful for a woman to be consecrated to the office of bishop.”

The General Synod voted in July 2014 in the UK to allow women to become Bishops, and the first woman Bishop, Libby Lane, was consecrated in January 2015. It will be interesting to see how many more have there are before they have the same rights under Jersey Canon Law.

It is true that “in Parochial appointments, which are nowadays frequently advertised, the laity today play their full part in the selection of their incumbent”, but I don’t know how much. The appointment process for at least one Parish recently, when the popular Ministre Desservant (whom the Parishioners were clearly happy with) was effectively turned down by the ecclesiastical hierarchy, suggests that there is still a long way to go.

Michael Halliwell himself wrote: “When I first came to St Brelade I introduced a Parochial Church Council, but until this has legal status, any successor of mine in office could easily disband it, or only use it when it suited him, and he would be perfectly entitled to do so.”

As far as I can ascertain, Jersey still does not have the equivalent of the Parochial Church Councils (Powers) Measure 1956, and while most Jersey Parish Churches have a PCC, this still has no legal status. It is another example of how Jersey has lagged behind the UK.

Two years before penning this piece for the Pilot, Michael Halliwell himself found himself in the unlikely situation of peacemaker when St Brelade’s Parish was divided over Constable Len Downer’s treatment of a Rating Officer, Donald Lucas, which had in fact ended in the Royal Court. This can be read here:

http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2013/10/healing-divided-parish.html

Church and State.
By Michael Halliwell

Writing in The Times last month, Clifford Longley, the religious correspondent, expressed the view that the Church of England was "straining at the bonds of State". He pointed to what he called the Church's "new role as a public critic of Government", but he overlooked the fact that, historically, this is no new role; distinguished churchmen, from Ambrose, to Becket, and Bonnhoeffer have found themselves at odds with government on matters of principle. However, Clifford Longley goes on to point to other aspects of the tie between Church and State which are irksome to today's Church.

Let's be clear that relations between Church and State will never be easy. Christianity took its origins in a highly explosive situation in which one man, Jesus Christ, challenged the religious establishment on fundamental points of faith and practice, and that religious establishment called in the State to its aid, on the pretext that Jesus' actions were a threat to the State, and had him executed on the charge that (amongst other things) he was "not a friend of Caesar."

The State will always have, and rightly so, a say in the demands and influence that religion has on its members; it would be failing in its duty if it did not. What has been disputable in history, is the type and extent of that influence. At the Reformation, the State, through Henry VIII, took a controlling hand in the life of the Church of England, and matters of doctrine, liturgy and major appointments were taken into the hands of the Crown.

After World War I, a movement was set in train to give the laity outside parliament a greater say in the life of their Church. Church Councils were established in England and the ancient office of Churchwarden was exercised in partnership with elected representatives of the worshipping congregation.

After the Second World War the Church acquired a say in making major appointments, and when a bishopric falls vacant, a Vacancy in See Committee is now set up to consider names to be put to the Sovereign. Though the Crown makes the final appointment, the Church has a say in the names to be considered. Likewise, in Parochial appointments, which are nowadays frequently advertised, the laity today play their full part in the selection of their incumbent.

At the Reformation the situation in Jersey was very chaotic, and ministers who spoke French but were not episcopally ordained, were appointed to Jersey Rectories. It is not therefore surprising that the Crown took a firm hand in the making of appointments, and was certainly not obliged in law to consult anyone. It so came about that Jersey, which, in so many matters retained its independence, came firmly under the heel of the Crown as regards its church iife. A situation which had been fluid, not to say chaotic, was settled with the codification of Jersey's Canon Law in 1623.

These Canons remain the law under which our Church life is to be run until this day. Just after World War II, and again in the sixties, attempts were made to revise our Canon Law, and the Legislation Committee of Deanery Synod has been charged with looking into this matter again. The process will of necessity be a slow one, but it looks likely that, within the next decade, the relationship between Church and State in this Island will be modified in such a manner as to give the whole Church a proper say in ordering its life.

Fading into the Limelight

My father recently spent some time in hospital with a broken shoulder, and is now convalescing. I had such a bad cough this year that I coughed up blood.  All signs of age, and the inexorable passage of time. 

I was also listening to a "British Invaders" podcast on Wallace and Grommit, and hearing of the praise lavished - rightly - on Peter Sallis for his part in bringing Wallace to life, made me think of him in "Last of the Summer Wine", also about old age and retirement, and his autobiography, and how my old Armada paperback is falling apart. That all fed into this poem.

Fading into the Limelight

I remember the title of a personal account
By Peter Sallis, who did in his life amount
Perhaps little as the great actors go
But still I always enjoyed him so
His own story, "Fading into the limelight"
Told as with age, he began to lose sight
I remember “The Last of the Summer Wine”
A glory of old age, of how the endings fine
That we all have, but hang on there to last
Even when the flag is lowering to half mast
Feeling creaky, eyesight going, hearing loss
The rolling stone now stopped, gathers moss
I see my father, remember him in his prime
But that was many years ago, and now time
Steals away the years, leaving frailty and faith
Strength and fitness becoming like a wraith
A ghost of what was, and I see that in myself
Becoming like a musty old book on the shelf
Once a bright Armada paperback, a story told
An exciting adventure with Daleks bold
But now this body of mine is wearing thin
I can no longer run the good race and win
The pages loose, the glue is drying out
The bathroom tiling has been losing grout
But do I rage against the dying of the light?
Not as long as I can scribble on and write
For therein lies my joy, words are magic
Not supernatural, not illusion or trick
But a portal into other times and places
At the endings, these are still life’s graces
And none of us knows the hour or time
The bell tolling, the alarm clock, the chime
At midnight, for the hour is already late
And Ariadne still weaves a web of fate

George d'la Forge: Funeral Address by Abbe Marcel Lelegard

George F. Le Feuvre ((29/9/1891 - 27/10/1984) was born and grew up in St Ouen but when his parents emigrated to Canada, taking the family with them, he stayed behind, meeting up again with his brothers only on the battlefields of the First World War.

After the war he joined his family and they eventually moved to America, where he rose to a high position with the Ford Motor Company. He never forgot his home or his native language, however, and when he took early retirement in 1946 he returned for a holiday and in later life spent each year living partly in America, partly in the Island and the remainder travelling the world.

In all he wrote about 900 articles for the Jersey Evening Post and was a regular contributor to the Société Bulletin.

I came across this funeral address which in “The Pilot" in 1984:

“God has Been Good to Me”

Translation of the address given by the Abbe Marcel Lelegard, of the Abbey of La Lucerne, Normandy, at the service in memory, and of thanksgiving for the life, of Mr. George Francis Le Feuvre ("George d'La Forge") at St. George's Church, St. Ouen, Jersey on Saturday, November 17th 1984

“L'Bouan Dgieu a 'te bouan pouor me “

This sentence, so often heard from the mouth of Maitre George Le Feuvre, may serve as a guide to our thoughts today and help us to give thanks with him in spirit for his long and wonderful life.

God was good to him in that he was born in Jersey at a time when it was an island still remarkably distinct and enriched with a proud history, strong ancestral traditions and a marvellous language which he learnt in infancy and which, to the end of his days, was that of his thoughts and of the profound reflections that sprang from his fertile mind.

God was good to him in that he was born to a family of limited means whose philosophy was work, duty and honour. The spirit of mutual aid, deeply imbued with Christian faith and charity, embraced everything - one's being and one's whole life.

To quote from the publisher's note to `Jerri Jadis' (selections published by Le Don Balleine from Mr Le Feuvre's contributions to the `Jersey Evening Post'):

`The author's family experienced difficult times and the hard and meagre life of the Jersey countryside before the First World War. However, there was a pleasant natural environment and, as well, a strong religious faith, pride in one's home, an independence of character full of vigour and, above all that, families and neighbours were closely knit one to the other,'

God was good to him in adopting him as His child on the day of his baptism in this Church of St George 93 years ago this very day.

In reading `Jerri Jadis', `Histouaithes et Gens d'Jerri' (another collection of George Le Feuvre's writings published by Le Don Balleine) and a host of the Lettres du Bouanhomme George, one appreciates to what extent the life of his family during his childhood, marked as it was by morning and evening prayer, unfolded under God's gaze.

It was only from the age of seven that he began to learn English. French he had already heard at the services at St George's Church conducted by the Rev John Pepin (Rector), but George Le Feuvre then still only spoke Jerriais.

After having worked in the office of Mr Charles William Binet (a well-known solicitor and Methodist lay-preacher) he became a Commis Vicomte (now known as Viscount Substitute). However, he took the first opportunity he had to leave to fight in France during the First World War, having joined the artillery.

In 1958 the two of us had occasion to visit certain of the battlefields on which he had known the horrors of war. His experience did not prevent him saying, `God has been good to me, for here I am. I came through'.

There, one day on the eastern front, he was to meet up with three of his brothers, Frank, who had stayed behind with him in Jersey, but also two younger ones, who left in 1901 for Canada with their father and mother to earn their living in Gaspe.

It was during the war, in 1916, that he married a French lady from Dinard, Marguerite, whom he adored but who was taken from him by the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, leaving him with a very young daughter, Reine, brought up by her grandmother.

After the war, in November, 1919, Maitre George, having returned to civilian life, left for Canada in order to see his parents again and to get to know his brothers and sisters born there after 1901. He looked for work and found it at first in Ottawa, then in the United States. By sheer hard work and with much determination and courage, he rose by degrees in a naval construction company to become one of the directors. For these achievements he accorded deep gratitude to the Lord God had been good to him.

It was in the years 1947 to 1950 that I had the good fortune to make his acquaintance at Vinchelez, St Ouen, at the home of our mutual friend, Dr Frank Le Maistre. I was charmed by his so engaging personality and I can say that for 35 years we were bound by a deep and full friendship, witness to which are the dozens of letters received from him in that so fine, so rich, so colourful Jerriais that he wrote so wonderfully well.

And here I must pay tribute in your name to all his qualities, not only to those of the brilliant writer that gained him Le Prix Litteraire du Cotentin in 1974 but also, and above all, to the militant action of defender of the Jersey language who, together with the remarkable Dr Frank Le Maistre, fought with tenacity for the survival of Jerriais as a spoken and living language.

If, nowadays, this language is taught to young people of Jersey and to adults at evening classes, it is pre-eminently to the fervour and to the action of these two men that we owe it.

George Le Feuvre was also a much-travelled man. I was fortunate enough to accompany him on a three-week visit to Scandinavia. There I learnt to know him better still and I was able to gauge the strength and depth of his Christian faith.

I was able to put my finger on his profound attachment to the Church - the Anglican Church of which he asserted with fervour its catholicity, in effect upheld in the Nicene and Athanasian creeds recited in its liturgy. He was greatly attached to its apostolic nature and had at heart a rapprochement with the Roman Catholic Church so that one day there will be the unity that Christ wishes, realized by His chosen means; In the depth of his feeling for the Church he accorded great importance to the rites of the liturgy, to the perfection of the chants. He was a fervent Christian, diligent in receiving the Body and Blood of remembrance at Holy Communion.

‘He who eats my Body and drinks my Blood', said the Lord, 'shall live in me and I in him. He shall have ever-lasting life and I shall raise him up on the last day'.

"The `how' of the Resurrection, evoked by St Paul in the magnificent chapter 15 of his First Epistle to the Corinthians, remains a mystery to us, our faith. It was the certainty of Maitre George - it was also his faith.

In that, too, God was good to him. May he be received in His light and in His glory for eternity. Amen."

Translator’s note: The literal rendering of 'L Bouan Dgieu a 'te bouan pouor me " should really be "God has been good for me "but it was decided to use 'to’ as more befitting the English idiom.

Money Laundering Using Trust and Company Service Providers

The document “Money Laundering Using Trust and Company Service Providers” from the Financial Action Task Force has some interesting case studies of how money is laundered.

It should be noted that they are not saying that Trusts are necessarily a bad thing; in fact they say that:

“Trust and Company Service Providers (TCSPs) play a key role in the global economy as financial intermediaries, providing an important link between financial institutions and many of their customers. They provide often invaluable assistance to clients in the management of their financial affairs and can therefore significantly impact transactional flows through the financial system.”

Bearer Shares

Mention of these have featured a lot in the recent Mossack Fonseca data breach. They work like a £5 note, a “promise to pay the bearer”, where the bearer is whosoever happens to be holding them. Hence they lend themselves to money laundering, and a number of jurisdictions, including Jersey, do not permit companies to be formed with bearer shareholdings. Here is the case study by FATF:

Case: Concealment of beneficial ownership information through use of bearer shares

As a result of a drug importation investigation, approximately USD 1.73 million was restrained in combined assets from residential property and bank accounts. These assets were located in four countries in various regions. Significant assets restrained involved two offshore companies incorporated in Country A. Investigators also seized original bearer shares of three offshore companies and original articles of incorporation.

The investigation revealed that one of the suspects used the services of a lawyer from Country B to design a money laundering scheme that included the incorporation of offshore companies with bearer shares. The lawyer hired the services of a management company in Country C, who in turn used the services of a company in Country A to incorporate bearer share companies in Country A.

There was no requirement to register the names of the shareholders at the corporate registry office, company head office or anywhere else. The only names that appeared were the original incorporators of the company in Country A, who then forwarded the bearer shares and articles of incorporation to the Country B management company.

The management company then forwarded the original bearer shares and articles of incorporation to the lawyer, who in turn handed them over to his client. The files held by the management company only contained the names of the nominee directors, nominee administrators and the directions given by the Country B lawyer who acted on behalf of the suspect shareholder.

The use of bearer shares companies and professional intermediaries in this investigation almost offered absolute anonymity to the person in possession of the bearer shares and is clearly a powerful tool to conceal proceeds of crime.

If investigators had not seized the bearer shares in the possession of the suspect, it would have been impossible to determine the owner of these companies and ultimately to identify and restrain their assets as proceeds of crime. In this case, the offshore companies held significant assets alleged to be the proceeds of crime - bank accounts in Country C, and residential property in Country B and Country D

Beneficial Ownership

Some jurisdictions like Jersey require identification of the ultimate beneficial owners of an entity which must be disclosed to the regulatory authorities. That is not the case in the USA, and states like Delaware provide services that are ripe for money laundering, because there is no requirement in the U.S. for the identification of beneficial ownership at the time of incorporation. When a call is made to close “tax havens”, it is often islands like the Crown Dependencies that are thought of, whereas in fact states like Delaware are still far less well regulated.

Case: Registration process that does not require identification of beneficial ownership

In 2002, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) (through its legacy agency U.S. Customs) received a request for assistance from a foreign customs service concerning alleged customs fraud with respect to the importation of various kinds of used trailers, semi-trailers, container-transporters, and transport vehicles equipped with supplemental cranes.

The foreign customs service alleged that the invoices and customs entry documents undervalued the actual cost of the vehicles, and misrepresented the country of origin of the merchandise. The customs entry documents and accompanying invoices identified a US-based company in Washington DC as the exporter of the vehicles.

As a result of the foreign request, ICE was asked to interview company officers located in Washington, DC, in an attempt to determine the origin of the suspected fraudulent invoices. The investigation revealed that the suspect company was incorporated in the District of Columbia and the Registered Agent was a Washington, DC “corporate registration agency.”

The President of this corporate registration agency was interviewed and told agents that his company “provides assistance to mostly foreign companies with U.S. export documentation, and serves as a U.S. incorporation agent.” He went on to advise that his company had been requested by a corporate registration agency from Delaware to assist in filing the District of Columbia incorporation papers on behalf of the suspect company. He advised that approximately 60% of his business was referrals from the Delaware corporate registration agency. The agents were told that no documents relating to the suspect company were maintained by his registration agency and they should contact the Delaware registration agency for those documents.

Agents contacted the Delaware registration agency and were told the suspect company was “ordered and paid for” by a foreign corporation registration agent. The agents were told that if they wanted additional information, they would have to contact the foreign corporate registration agency located in an offshore jurisdiction. According to its website, the foreign corporate registration agency provides advisory, management, and administrative services relating to offshore companies.

Because there is no requirement in the U.S. for the identification of beneficial ownership at the time of incorporation, the ICE investigation was unable to obtain the information that the foreign customs authorities had requested.

Case: Inadequate beneficial ownership information requirements

Acting on information from the foreign Central Bank and STR from an Austrian Bank, the Austrian FIU conducted enquiries into suspected cases of tax evasion and money laundering being carried out by foreign banks with correspondent relationships with banks in Austria. The STR related to transactions by the foreign banks involving different offshore companies amounting to about USD 45 000 000. The A-FIU analysed the transactions relating to the correspondent banking accounts and tried to link these transactions with a predicate offence. The A-FIU also made requests to several FIUs in other jurisdictions.

The responses received from these foreign FIUs, and also the A-FIU's own investigations, confirmed that the transactions involved approximately 72 offshore companies (as sender and receiver) but no information regarding the beneficial owner or the registration country of the different offshore companies involved was able to be obtained. The A-FIU were able to establish and trace the existence of only six offshore companies (receiver of the money) and made requests for further information. However unfortunately the only information available was that the companies were registered but the work regarding the due diligence and the real beneficial owners was done in another jurisdiction by lawyer companies.

Shell companies

Shell companies are especially vehicles made for corruption. Shell companies that cannot be traced back to their real owners are one of the most common means for laundering money, giving and receiving bribes, busting sanctions, evading taxes, and financing terrorism. The Book “Global Shell Games” gives the methods and results of testing how much checking of companies goes on, and how robust the compliance regime is. The results are surprising:

“The Dodgy Shopping Count for tax havens is 25.2, which is in fact much higher than the score for rich, developed countries at 7.8 – meaning it is more than three times harder to obtain an untraceable shell company in tax havens than in developed countries.”

“Some of the top-ranked countries in the world are tax havens such as Jersey, the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas, while some developed countries like the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and the United States rank near the bottom of the list. It is easier to obtain an untraceable shell company from incorporation services (though not law firms) in the United States than in any other country save Kenya.”

Case: Use of shell companies to facilitate corrupt payments

An operational business goes through a TCSP with the objective of getting control (via a fiduciary/trust contract) of a shell company domiciled under European law, giving it the appearance of being operational. The objective is to pay the shell company a compensation for fictitious consulting services. This fee is then paid by the TCSP, on behalf of the shell company, to a third person who in turn is responsible for bribing a public official who grants access to a public exchange to the above-mentioned operational business. This corruption can be done with or without the knowledge of the TCSP.

The book “Shell Games” gives other examples:

“In December 2009 a plane searched in Bangkok was found to be carrying North Korean arms bound for Iran, in violation of international sanctions. The plane had been leased by a New Zealand shell company, but there was no information on the individual who controlled the company.”

“Corrupt Russian tax officials used shell companies from Cyprus and the British Virgin Islands to steal hundreds of millions of dollars in a case that led to the imprisonment and death of Russian whistle-blower Sergei Magnitsky.”

Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout was convicted in November 2011 of conspiracy to provide aid to a terrorist organization. Bout’s illicit activities were crucially dependent on a network of shell companies in Texas, Delaware, Florida, and elsewhere around the globe.”

And finally....

It is worth noting that the US state of Delaware probably has the worst record when it comes to lack of accountability, and beneficial owner registers. But amazingly one hears very little of this from Jeremy Corbin and Vince Cable. Can it be that it is easier to pick on Crown Dependencies - regardless of their regulation - than to ask America to put its house in order?

A guide by Harvard Business Services Inc, called "Asset Protection for Non-Resident Aliens", says this:

What do the best-informed international business owners know? Delaware is better than off-shore!

Single-member Delaware LLCs are "disregarded entities" according to IRS regulations, which means they have no U.S. income tax and no reporting due. (In some cases, it is advisable to use the combination of a Delaware LLC and another entity, such as a Delaware corporation, or a UK Limited Company to gain specific tax advantages. Check with your attorney or financial advisor.

To our many international customers, confidentiality is important. Many of our customers select single-member Delaware LLCs as one component of their asset protection strategy. The Delaware LLC provides this confidentiality that most international jurisdictions do not offer.

As a Delaware registered agent, Harvard Business Services, Inc. is not required to keep any information on the beneficial owner, and the state of Delaware does not require that the beneficial owner's identity be disclosed.

Owners of real estate in international locations have a range of options to shelter their ownership including holding the title/deed in the name of a Delaware LLC. The structure has the flexibility to account for estate planning issues as well as asset protection.

As the Daily Mail comments:

"Experts have now revealed the reason for the low number of people involved might be because shell companies are being formed under authorities' noses in Wyoming, Delaware or Nevada - meaning Americans do not need to go to Panama."

The Institute of Tax and Economic Policy notes the lack of regulations requiring beneficial owners to be checked and held in a central registry. In a 2015 report, it stated:

"While no U.S. state requires disclosure of beneficial ownership information for business entity formation, Delaware is one of the easiest jurisdictions in the world to set up an untraceable shell company. Setting up a company in Delaware requires less information than signing up for a library card."

"At the federal level, Congress could and should pass legislation requiring states to require beneficial ownership information from businesses. The Incorporation Transparency and Law Enforcement Act, which would mandate that states require the name and address of each beneficial owner of a company at the time of incorporation and after any change in ownership, has been proposed in the last several Congresses but has never come to a vote in either chamber. "

Sport in Jersey in the 1960s: Surfing

I have put below, from "Jersey Topic", in 1966, an article on surfing which shows how it was a major sport and tourism attraction in the mid-1960s.

The wesbite http://surfsverige.se/index.php/artiklar/658-surfing-in-jersey is also worth a view. It notes how:

"The Island Surf School of Jersey was set up in 1923 by Nigel Oxenden, who learnt to surf in South Africa, Australia and Hawaii. It was arguably Europe’s oldest surf club and although it no longer exists, surfing has kept its base around the Watersplash in St Ouen’s Bay where the club was originally started."

Jeremy Oxenden who is Nigel's grandson, also has a good Q&A with vintage photos here:
http://mypaipoboards.org/interviews/JeremyOxenden/JeremyOxenden_2011-0822.shtml

More history of surfing in Jersey is here:
http://jerzzy.co.uk/history-surfing-jersey/

It notes that: "During the 1990’s Jersey as an Island struggled to keep up with the emerging European surfing nations."

However perhaps while not as high profile as the past, now that other nations have got in on the act, some international competitions are still held. The Jersey Open Surfing Championships were held at St Ouen's Bay on Saturday 10th of October 2015 in clean one to three foot waves generated by ex hurricane Joaquin. And while local surfer Ben Skinner is currently the only Island athlete who comes high in international competitions across the world, he can claim to have been number two in the world in 2013. Jersey is still there!

Jersey Topic 1966: Surfing

Surfing is booming in Jersey. The sport that is weeping the world is here to stay. Started in 1958 by South African Life Guards, surfing progressed rather quietly until the introduction of the light-weight, highly manoeuvrable Malibu board five years ago.

Now surfboards are not an uncommon sight in the Island and the once quiet bay of St. Ouen is fast becoming the home of British surf riding.

Surfing takes place throughout the year. However, the welcome visitor should be warned to check his temperature charts, because for at least eight months of the year wet suits are very necessary.

The winter surf brings out the true enthusiast and often the surf is excellent and glassy. The warm current of the Gulf Stream keeps the water warm enough to surf without wet suits from the late spring until the end of October. It is from August until December that surf is at its best in Jersey and swells of six to ten feet are possible.

The birthplace of surf riding was at the Watersplash, and it is in front of this night spot that the best surfing is possible. Fanned by an East wind, a good swell can be whipped into offering the surfer one of the best shore breaks in the world.

Naturally, with the number of riders on the increase, the old hands are tending to spread their wings and seek new surf spots around the coast. La Corbiere will no doubt become popular with the more adventurous, and late last summer an exciting new wave was found a mile away from the Watersplash. Affectionately called "secret" it is quite the finest spot in St. Ouen holding a first-class beautifully-shaped wave.

Without doubt the credit for the fantastic popularity of the sport must go to the Jersey Surfboard Club, whose contests have thrilled thousands.

The first Championship contest was held in 1963, from which Gordon Burgis came out the well-deserved winner, and was subsequently invited to represent Great Britain at the 1st World Surfboard Titles held at Manly, Australia.

The summer of 1964 saw for the first time national titles competed for at St. Ouen, and last year the National and International Titles of Great Britain were organised by the club. The top riders in Britain and Europe competed for the titles and it was unfortunate that "on shore" winds ruined what had promised to be an excellent two day event. In spite of dreadful conditions, a tremendous performance by Rodney Sumpter acquired for him not only the National Title, but also the International.

This August, the club are once again staging the National and International Titles. Rodney Sumpter will be back from his home in Australia to defend his titles, and the best riders from the U.K. and the Channel Islands are eager to demonstrate their improved form.

Adding flavour to the championship will be the International event. First class Australian riders will be competing together with American and French surfers, eager to wrench the crown from young Rodney Sumpter. Given the right conditions the contest will prove to be a first-rate sporting spectacle.

Unfortunately, neither the Surf Club nor their sponsors can organise the weather.

The promotion of contests, the showing of spectacular surf movies, and the arrival of surfing magazines, have all helped to improve the overall standard of our best riders, but it was undoubtedly last year's contest that gave riders the necessary fillip to improve style and the enthusiasts who have braved the winter temperatures have improved tremendously. Competition to in the honour as top local rider is keen and the present holder, Steve Harewood, is being hard-pressed by much improved David Mead. Ian Harewood, recently home after four years in Australia, will also to giving his brother a strong challenge.

The proximity of Jersey to the French Coast enables local riders to match their prowess and ability against the waves of Biarritz. Biarritz is quite rightly described as possessing some of the finest surf beaches in the world, and local riders are frequent visitors, tasting the thrill of riding a crisp ten foot 'La Barre' nave or the excitement of an 18 foot day at famous Guethary. Strong ties of friendship exist between French and Jersey surfers and French surfers are regular visitors to our shores.

To the outsiders, surfers must appear a peculiar bunch, chasing along the length of St. Ouen's Bay, cars laden with surfboards in search of waves. What is it about surfing then, which produces the utter involvement of people? Like motor-racing and skiing, excitement is at the base of it.

Taking off at the top of a green wall of water and the experience of the sudden stomach churning descent down the face, produces a tremendous thrill. The sport demands versatility and control, control of the board to avoid the tons of water which crash down when a wave break

The penalty for a single mistake can be a painful "wipe out"-what happens when the wave traps the rider, burying him for seconds in the foaming water. Recent years have seen the development of a modern style of riding known as "hot dogging." a spectacular style which concentrates on fast slides across the face of the wave, rapid: turns, and cutbacks, and a host of riding stances.

By "walking" toward, the front of his board, the rider can accelerate his speed - experts have developed this into a critical "hanging ten"-when the rider actually speeds across the wave with his ten toes hanging over the nose of his surfboard.

Surfing then, offers the rider the chance of excitement, a chance to put himself closer to the limit of his ability, to match his skill and knowledge against the sea.

So what has Mossack got under its Panama Hat?

So what has Mossack got under its Panama Hat?

Mossack is a Panama-based law firm whose services include incorporating companies in offshore jurisdictions such as the British Virgin Islands. It administers offshore firms for a yearly fee. Other services include wealth management.

The OECD Supplementary Report on Panama reported:

“The 2014 Supplementary Report concluded that six of the ten essential elements were in place. Two of the essential elements were determined to be “not in place”. These were the availability of ownership and identity information (Element A.1); and the availability of accounting records (Element A.2).”

“One essential element related to Panama’s network of information exchange mechanisms with all relevant partners (Element C.2) was determined to be “in place but certain aspects of the legal implementation of the element needed improvement”.

“Another essential element concerning Panama’s ability to provide information in a timely manner (Element C.5) involves practical issues that will be assessed at a later stage.”

And it notes that:

“Panama has enacted new legislation to strengthen its anti-money laundering (AML) framework. Under the new AML legislation, resident agents are required to hold detailed records of their clients, including those of final beneficiaries. These measures help to ensure the availability of identity and ownership information on companies and private foundations. However, it appears that resident agents are not required to hold information on all shareholders and beneficiaries, but just on the natural persons that have the final control on the legal entities for whom they are acting as resident agents.”

“With respect to companies, a regulation to the new AML legislation clarified that resident agents are required to identify and verify the identity of final beneficiaries holding 25% or more of the shares of the legal entity. In any event, the new obligation imposed by the amended Commercial Code on all legal entities to keep updated share registers for nominal shares, subject to penalties for non-compliance, is sufficient to ensure the availability of ownership information with respect to shareholders where nominal shares are concerned”

But there are problems where trusts and foundations are concerned:

“Accounting requirements are not in place in Panama for entities other than companies and partnerships that carry on business in Panama. In addition, the Panamanian law does not specify the type of records and minimum retention period related to accounting documents pertaining to trusts and foundations”

It also noted that the Trust Law and Foundations Law were silent on the type of records required to be kept and their retention period, and recommended that these requirements be clarified to ensure that reliable accounting records are maintained for a five year period. This has been improved since but the report did note that:

“Foundation incorporation documents that do not contain the founder’s identity information cannot be notarised, and this is an essential requirement in order for the foundation to formally and legally exist. However, identity information about the beneficiaries is not included in the Public Registry.”

With regard to companies, there are two forms of companies in Panama: Sociedades Anónimas

(SAs or corporations) and Sociedades de Responsabilidad Limitada (SRLs).

Both SAs and SRLs are required to have a resident agent. The names and addresses of the owners of an SRL must be published in the Public Registry But SAs are the most commonly used anamanian companies by both resident and foreign investor

SAs are created by public deed which must be registered in the Public Registry. They must have a resident agent at all times who must be a lawyer admitted to practice in Panama

Panama has anti-money laundering legislation, and this has been tightened since the OECD made their initial review. These require look through on legal persons. A natural person is a human being, but holdings can be held by a trust, foundation or another company. The law states that: “in the event that the final beneficiary is a legal person, due diligence will prolong until getting to know the natural person that is the owner or controller.”

But what is not clear is how close the Panamanian regulator monitors how well this is done. In Jersey, the Financial Services Commission can seem very heavy handed, but by contrast, the Panamanian authority seems more lax.

The JFSC conducts continual and detailed reviews of compliance with the law, going into firms, examining records in detail, and making recommendations for any weakness in process or data, and will continue to ensure it is satisfied that any rectification of weakness in a regulated company are fixed. There are large sanction lists of individuals which must be checked against final beneficial owners, and any trading with these would lead to prosecution. It is not clear that the Panamanian regulator does this.

The leaked records comprise more than 11 million documents - emails, bank accounts and client records – which represent the inner workings of Mossack Fonseca for nearly forty years, from 1977 to December 2015 . They reveal the offshore holdings of individuals and companies from more than 200 countries and territories. And they suggest that the Panamanian oversight is not robust enough in its monitoring and investigation of companies like Mossack,.

As the Irish Times reported:

“They recount example after example of ethical and legal wrongdoing by some clients and provide evidence of a firm happy to act as a gatekeeper to the secrets of its clients, even those who turn out to be crooks, members of the Mafia, drug dealers, corrupt politicians and tax evaders.”

And it is interesting to note how increased regulation led to changes in the inner workings of the company Back in 1987, Mossack Fonseca made its first big move to establish a branch in the British Virgin Islands, which a few years before had passed a law that made it easy to set up offshore companies without public disclosure of owners and directors. Bearer shares in BVI companies were also a good way of keeping anonymity and have featured heavily in the reports.

When shares are bought and sold, a registered shareholder name is included on share certificate details. Bearer shares bypass this by not including the name of the holder on a physical share certificate. Incidentally, the issue of bearer shares is not permitted in Jersey companies.

But when the British Virgin Islands cracked down on bearer shares in 2005 , as the Irish Times notes, Mossack Fonseca moved that particular business to Panama. In other words, as centres of operations like BVI became better regulated, and required more compliance, Mossack seems to have shifted to jurisdictions that were less fussy.

As the Guardian reports, “over a decade, more than 600 official law enforcement requests from the BVI Financial Investigation Agency (FIA) shows that in multiple cases Mossack Fonseca had no idea for whom it was acting. Performance improved in 2015. A name was given in response to all but one of about 90 request”

The Guardian sees the BVI as been licensing the firm even though it knew it was not fulfilling its legal obligations, but it could be seen from the increased compliance with requests that the BVI was strengthening its control.

There are different narratives here, the Irish Times taking the view that a more robust compliance regime lead to Mossack leaving BVI, the Guardian seeing BVI as still being involved, despite itself reporting the rather contradictory fact that performance with requests had improved.

What we don’t know, which is standard in cases like this, is what kind of rectification programme was put in place to correct past deficiencies, and what timetable was set out to do so. Until that information is forthcoming, it is difficult to know how good the BVI regulation has been.

But there are loopholes in legislation. Mossack Fonseca often appears not to have stored information on beneficial owners. Instead it used a loophole in the legislation that allows company agents to rely on an “introducer” to carry out due diligence.

Yet it must have been having some impact, because if all jurisdictions were regulated alike, Mossack would not have started moving business away from BVI as the pressure on requests became more insistent. The Irish Times notes that Mossack began moving from BVI to Panama and Anguilla and Samoa as a result of increasingly stringent BVI regulation.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports this “As you are aware, we have been deliberately stalling the proposals from OECD countries to enter into Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEA)," the chief executive of the Samoa International Finance Authority, Erna Vaai, wrote to the Panama firm in June 2007.

And it noted that “While Samoa eventually signed the TIEA with Australia in 2009, in practice Australian information requests to Samoa can take more than three years to process.”

Of course we saw something similar with the French blacklisting of Jersey for delays over TIEAs which was only rectified when legislation was amended to ensure that there would not be extensive delays in the process.

The Irish Times also notes that the fall-out could be extensive:

“Although many of the operations could be deemed legal, which has been admitted by the ICIJ itself, the potential tax-evasion dealings are bound to have serious political ramifications across continents.”

Charity Event: How Well Do You Know St.Aubin?

St Aubin’s Residents Association promote a Charity Walk with a difference.
How Well Do You Know St.Aubin ?

The St.Aubin Resident’s Association is organising a Treasure Trail for individuals or all the family that will involve a mile and a half walk around the village finding answers to questions about current and historical facts concerning the fascinating history of St.Aubin. Some answers you may know immediately, but for the majority you will have to search for clues on the roadside.

To take part on the afternoon of Saturday April 9th visit the Parish Hall in St Aubin between 1.45 and 2.15 and collect your questionnaire and road map. Your trail will involve a walk up the High Street to the top and then down to the seafront and back to the village. Continue around the harbour as you proceed along The Bulwarks, around past The Somerville Hotel, down Market Hill and back to the Parish Hall. The walk is expected to take about one and half hours.

You can take part as an individual, with friends or with the family, and after an afternoon of fun and exercise tea, coffee, soft drinks and cakes will be provided for all participants, with prizes for the best scoring team, and a surprise for all children taking part .There is a participation fee of £5 for adults and £1 for children (under 12), with all proceeds going to local charities.

You can confirm your place in advance by e-mailing sonyalavery@gmail.com or you can purchase tickets on the day at the parish hall. Know more about St.Aubin and join the Trail !

For further information call Bob Jones on 07797 729112 .

The Easter People

From "The Pilot" , the Jersey Anglican Church Magazine, of 1985, comes this piece. In November the Bishop of Winchester made his final official visit to the Channel Islands. Here is Bishop John's final sermon in the Channel Islands delivered at St. Stephen's Church, Guernsey, on Friday, 9th November.

The Easter People
by Bishop John V Taylor

Nearly ten years ago I took as the text of my sermon at the Enthronement Service in Winchester Cathedral the first announcement of the Resurrection as it is recorded in St Matthew's Gospel: "He is going on before you into Galilee, there you will see him, as he told you. " I said then that the importance of this story lies in the contrast between Jerusalem and Galilee.

Jerusalem is the stronghold of traditional faith and orthodox worship, everything that most of us mean by "the Church". The Risen Christ does indeed meet us there in prayer and sacrament, fellowship and festival.

But the Lord intends us to experience the fulness of Easter outside the routine life of the Church. Galilee is the world of work, the commerical arena, the centre of radical politics. When the living Christ meets us there, we can be sure that something utterly new has happened, and Resurrection is not just an item in the Creed but a startling fact of experience.

In my last word to you in the Islands I want to return to St Matthew's account of the Resurrection. The closing words of that Gospel contain the four "alls" - the complete and universal range of the claims of the Risen Christ. All authority in heaven and on earth tells us that his claims are not restricted to the spiritual sphere but encompass the whole earthly realm of business and nationhood, society and politics. All nations are equally the scene in which we can expect to find disciples; so human response to Jesus Christ is not restricted to one culture or history or religion. All the commands which Christ himself has given are to be laid upon us and all other disciples; so we are not free to pick and choose, nor to mould his Kingdom to suit our preferences. All the days are going to be transformed by his abiding Presence; in the bad days as well as the good ones, in all periods of history, in all our varying moods, we may know Emmanuel, God with us.

The supreme responsibility of the Christian is to bear witness to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. When the apostles were looking for someone to fill the gap made by the defection and suicide of poor Judas Iscariot, they looked for someone who could "become with us a witness to his resurrection. "

That is the true basis and the true meaning of anything we can call "the apostolic tradition". It is to enter into the apostles' experience of the Resurrection, in order to join in the apostles' proclamation of the Resurrection. That is the inheritance and the task which we are asked to take into our weak human hands - "With us to become a witness to his Resurrection."

Those apostles had passed through the deepest despair and the most unbearable sense of guilt that any people have suffered.

During all that time when the Lord Jesus was going in and out among them, they had seen how perfectly he had lived out his vision of love and truth, and with what child-like trust he had reliedon God. If his terrible cry of betrayal from the cross was really the last word and all the rest was silence, then this world has neither justice nor meaning. 

But to the hopelessness and anger and loss of faith in those apostles was added an appalling burden of shame. They had abandoned their leader in cowardice. When God lets you down you can ease your pain with rage, but when it is you who have let God down there is no alleviation.

Now no-one who has fallen so deep in bitterness and guilt can recover confidence or a sense of direction without years of struggle. Yet within a few days, those apostles were more certain, more radiantly committed than they had ever been before. Nothing could have lifted them from such a depth to such a height except an overwhelming encounter with all that they thought they had lost.

They knew God was to be trusted because the one thing that could reverse the tragedy of Jesus' crucifixion and heaven's dreadful silence had happened. They knew they were forgiven because they had met the one person who could forgive them whom they had never expected to see again. It was as though they themselves had died and come to life again.

The resurrection of Jesus had given them a kind of resurrection of their own. And that is the evidence of Easter even today. When people see those who have been lifted out of a wreckage of disillusionment and guilt into a sure and certain hope. not by a slow and partial recovery, but in a sudden release that may not necessarily come in religious terms at all, then they cannot deny that some glorious Lord of life is at work. They take knowledge of them that they have been with Jesus.

When the present Pope spoke in North America he said, "We are the Easter people and our song is Alleluia. " Never forget that you are an Easter people called to become witnesses of his resurrection. When you bring children or adults for baptism into the dying and rising of Christ, and when you partake in Bread and Wine of the presence of one who has died and is alive for evermore, remember that you are accepting for your own affairs and decisions in the world the eternal pattern of life through death, constantly laying life down, letting something go, in the faith that fuller richer life will follow for yourself or for someone else.

When you are trying to help others in perplexity or trouble, especially the young or the parents of the young, remember you are on the side of life and that God is more concerned that his children should be fully alive than that they should be religious. So in your church life build up the religion that makes people more aware and sensitive and brings them to life, but set your face as Jesus did against the religion that deadens the hearts and the minds of people. When you share in the Church's concern for human society as a spokesman for the Kingdom of God's righteousness, remember that you are the messengers of hopefulness.

In a world of sceptical manipulation keep on affirming that human nature can be changed, and that the future of our nation and our world is not being made by us nor marred by us but is coming to meet us from the hand of God. And, when you meet to discuss the maintenance and mission of your local Church, remember that the tradition of which you are the guardian is not a village pond of stagnant water but a bubbling spring of newness of life, a new wine that will always break the old wineskins generation after generation, and you are guardians of the wine, not the skins. The Church remains true to its past by moving forward, because it is the servant of him who says "Behold, I am making all things new. "

But no-one can become a witness of his resurrection simply by attending to his outward acts and attitudes. Just as the Easter fire can be lit only from the Paschal candle, so a convincing witness to the resurrection can be generated only from contact with the Risen One himself. The serious Christian must take time in whatever way has the greatest reality for him, to keep up that never-ending pursuit of yearning grateful love which St Paul described. "That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellow-ship of his sufferings. Not that I have already attained but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. "

Songs of the Spring

Songs of the Spring

Spring is coming, now does the sun
Emerge from Winter, now to run
Across the sky, shines on the shore
And bring out daffodils once more

By night, Jove shines, a king of kings
And glory to the night sky brings
Hence shall come the moon to meet
We stand in wonder at his feet

The morning star, we now behold
Venus shining bright as gold
Bringer of love and peace not sword
And Saturn too, that ancient lord

The patterns in the stars they said
Both rule the heart and rule the head
Before the warming sun shall rise
The faintest glow of Venus lies

The aurora blazing, lights so long
As if in light, the sweetest song
Their dancing patterns shall proclaim
All blessings on the sick and lame

The Aten rises, shines and rains
Breaks of night those darkling chains
After night, and slumber’s rest
The sunshine makes us feel so blessed

The sunlight brings a healing power
Between the times of April shower
Rejoice, we say, rejoice and boast
Of sunlight on our rocky coast

Let all the birds now rise and bring
Dawning joy, as now they sing
And fly aloft, with songs again
Bring to end, Winter’s amen

The wheel turns, change day by day
The known and unknown worlds obey,
The moon by night, by day the sun
The threads of fate, the pattern spun

Changes in Dog Laws

A Ministerial consultation entitled “Paws for Thought” takes place on this morning at 9 am at Parish Halls across Jersey which will affect many dog owners.  This comes in the wake of statutory changes which require dogs to be on leads on beaches from 1st April during the day.

The proposals from Economic Development Minister, Senator Lyndon Farnham, would become part of the Policing of Dogs (Jersey) Law, Sect0 12a, para 8,  night and safety provisions if they are approved by the States. A proposition has been lodged for later in the year.

The proposals would require all owners of black dogs to have them painted using a specially formulated non-toxic white paint developed by the Chinese Farad Soli Ploy Corporation. The purpose of this is to increase road safety by allowing dogs with darker fur to be seen more easily at night. . It is hoped this will boost trade links with China. A spokesman for the company said: "Zhè shì yīgè xiàohuà"

Dogs would be required to have small white circles painted on their fur.  The States will be appointing a new inspector who would carry out spot inspections to ensure compliance with the law.

However, opposition has come from the States back benches, where the proposal has been loudly condemned as another dotty step towards State control and conformism. They expressed the suspicion that the law had only been put forward because of pressure from paint shops hoping to increase trade which has been patchy of late. They say the Minister should be put in the dog house. The Minister says in reply that someone has to take the lead.

An opposition Facebook group has been set up called Barking Mad In Jersey.

Scent of The Roses

During Easter week, while I'm taking some holiday, I'm putting poems rather than regular blog postings. This is a piece of nostalgia, for no particular reason other than I heard a song of hers the other day.

Scent of The Roses

I remember Mary O’Hara at the Albert Hall
On my cassette tape, I never saw her there
Back in the days when Paul Hogan said Y’All
And Wogan was on TV, with fairly long hair

Her husband died young, she became a nun
And lost was her music, magic harp playing
Wrote Scent of the Roses, her life was done
And we mourned her, as she left to be praying

In summers so fine, the past was so bright
The beaches so full, the sea full of swimmers
And a heavenly harp, painting music of light
A last concert playing, a sunset that glimmers

But she came back again, a Harp on the Willow,
Yet it is past I remember, her music aglow.

Heartsease

During Easter week, while I'm taking some holiday, I'm putting poems rather than regular blog postings. This one is a different way of looking at a familiar parable.

Heartsease

Wild flowers, in the hedgerow growing
Spring born, seeds blown in the wind
The invisible sower, the spirit sowing
Scatters the seed widely and thinned

Hard rocky ground, hard to take root
Stones of pain here, on thin soil of earth
Sometimes so hard, the despair is acute
But seed can take hold, come as rebirth

Weeds choking, breathless, why is it so?
The question we ask, the answer to seek
Nature a mystery, that we do not know
Sometimes seed is so tired and weak

But never lose hope, and never despair
The seeds of hope will cast out all fear

Echoes

During Easter week, while I'm taking some holiday, I'm putting poems rather than regular blog postings. The posting of today looks both at the recent storms, and at the Easter story, drawing out one as an echo of the other.

Echoes

Three trees, bare bones, sway without leaf

Standing on the hillside, bending in wind

The darkness, the gale, the rain, the grief

Rocks gleam wet, like a skull that has grinned

A landslide, gaping bank, hollow torn apart

Storm ripping asunder, so tearing the land

Leaving devastation, and a weeping heart

High seas wiping away the castles in sand

We sit, tell tales on the shore of the sea

Of fishing, of full nets, of calm after storm

And high on the hillside, is one broken tree

Clean sand on the beach, washed to transform

Morning has broken, give thanks for the dawn

Time for new hope, in the sunlight reborn

The Oncoming Storm

This week, as a break from my regular blog, while I'm taking some holidays, I will be posting poems. This is a dark poem, occasioned both by the violent storm and the devastating bombing in Pakistan.

The Oncoming Storm

The wind is risen, clouds conquering the sun
Death comes like the storm, mighty Jove has won
Fury in his anger, tears rock and stone away
And across the world, in explosions bodies lay

Sorrow meets joy, children taken to the tomb
Playground turned to horror, all is fear and gloom
The storm is rising, strong, hymns of hate to sing
Broken bodies, wounded, death again to sting

Where is hope, where innocent lose their life
And murderers crow in victory at their strife
And the sound of those weeping for lost love
Are echoes of violence in the storm above

Simon Whom He Surnamed Peter - Part 13

For the next weeks, my Sunday postings will be a transcript of the book "Simon Whom He Surnamed Peter" by the Jersey historian, the Reverend G.R. Bailleine (1873 – 1966).

Most of Balleine's books are either currently in print - as for example his History of Jersey - or online in the form of PDF versions. This book is not, so this is something different. As well as being a Jersey historian, Balleine was also a priest in the Church of England, and Ministre Deservant at St Brelade's Church for a time.

It is interesting to see how Balleine tries to make sense of the resurrection appearances. There is a known phenomena, probably psychological, which he describes of a dead person being seen by someone alive, although care has to be taken to sift this, as sometimes memories can be mistaken - we know much more about the way in which memory is not like a fixed tape recording, but malleable, and falsifiable - one case of a judge and reporter being a case when memory went seriously astray. But none of these experiences involve more than one individual, something which Balleine fails to mention.

But Balleine does mention the countless messianic movements which die with their messiahs, which itself shows something strange at work: we know the disciples scattered, and that fits the pattern. But the emergence of the Christian movement afterwards is unexpected. And he also shows - from an apocryphal gospel - how relatively subdued the resurrection stories are. He might also have mentioned the Gospel of Peter, which actually has a description of the resurrection, and what appears to be a walking cross!

There are two oddities in the resurrection narratives not mentioned in Balleine's attempt to understand the resurrection appearances, one of which was done very well in the BBC series "The Passion", and that is that most of the stories are not about seeing and recognising someone dead, which is what the psychic research anecdotes give us, but about seeing and not recognising someone well known to the disciples.

There is this strange veil of ignorance, and in fiction, perhaps the best analogy can be seen when Gandalf returns from the dead, and the companions see an old man in white, but do not recognise him until he uses causes Legolas arrow in flight to catch fire, and suddenly they see him for their old friend again. He has returned, but he has changed, and it is only when he does something recognisable from his past, that the veil is lifted, something also seen most strongly in the Emmaeus story with the breaking of bread.

The other peculiarity (noted by NT Wright) is that the gospels are littered with references to past prophecy fulfiled, allusions or quotations from the Hebrew scriptures, up until the crucifixion, but the resurrection narratives have none of these. It is as if there is something new taking place, and there are no conceptual tools for understanding it. It has gone beyond the prophecies.

While he discounts the idea of hallucination, Balleine comes down very strongly against the physicality of the resurrection stories and regards those aspects of them as later redactions caused by Jewish belief in a physical resurrection. And there may be something in that, especially in narratives which have holes in hands where nails are pierced. But that doesn't happen in all the stories - some of the stories - especially the lakeside cooking of fish in John - are simply naturalistic. I'm inclined to think that the stories are so strange that we still lack proper conceptual tools to understand them.

The Renaissance Of Hope
By G.R. Balleine

JESUS was dead, disgracefully dead. Apparently He had utterly failed. Like every other Messianic movement His seemed to have come to nothing. This always happened when a would-be Messiah died.

When Theudas was beheaded in A.D. 45, nothing more was heard of his four hundred disciples. In A.D. 54 an Egyptian Jew gathered several thousand followers, but, when Felix scattered them, they too left no trace behind. More successful, Bar-Cochba reigned for three years and struck coins as Prince of Israel; but, when he fell, his movement collapsed like a pricked bubble. The same seemed to be happening to the disciples of Jesus. We see two on Easter Sunday trudging home to Emmaus. `We hoped,' they said, `He would have redeemed Israel.' They implied, `We were wrong.'

Yet nothing in history is more certain than that the Movement suddenly took a new lease of life. In Jerusalem it made hundreds of converts. It spread from land to land. What was the explanation? The disciples answered that on Easter Day they had seen Jesus alive. `We were born anew,' wrote Peter, `to a living hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead.' If the resurrection of Jesus is a myth, who can explain the amazing resurrection of the Church?

Again, no one doubts that Sunday observance began in New Testament days. `On the first day of the week,' wrote Luke, `the disciples met for the Breaking of Bread.' Why the first day? To Jew and Gentile Sunday was an ordinary working day. The disciples had been trained from childhood to keep Saturday holy, and a habit like that is not easily broken. Something very soul-stirring must have happened on a Sunday. Christians had no doubt what it was. `We meet on Sunday,' wrote Justin, `because on that day Jesus rose from the dead.' If the Resurrection is a myth, what started Sunday observance?

Belief in the Resurrection shaped all the rest of Peter's life. So we must try to decide what really happened. The documentary evidence is strong. Paul's first Letter to Corinth, written only twenty-five years after the crucifixion, claims to be repeating what he had learnt in Jerusalem only seven years after the event: `I passed on to you what I myself was taught, that Christ died, was buried, and rose on the third day. He was seen by Kephas, then by the Twelve, then by over five hundred Brethren at once, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Later He appeared to James, then to all the Apostles. Finally He appeared to me.'

When we reach the Gospels, Mark fails us, for his last page is missing. (The last twelve verses in our Authorized Version are by a later hand.) He was, however, evidently leading up to an appearance in Galilee. Luke reports three appearances, `Matthew' two, and `John' four. Then there is the testimony of Acts, `He showed Himself alive after He suffered by many infallible proofs, and appeared during forty days.' Clearly the whole Early Church believed in the Easter appearances.

Can we explain this by the word `hallucination'? Did it seem so impossible that Jesus could be dead, that some imagined that they saw Him, and talked about it till others thought they saw Him too? Our eyes do trick us sometimes; but visions are not so easily produced by suggestion.

Early in the nineteenth century disciples of Joanna Southcott eagerly expected the coming of Shiloh, whom Jacob had foretold.'. To Turner, her successor, it was revealed that Shiloh would descend to earth on a certain day. A large London chapel was hired. Coaches brought Believers from the country. From midnight to midnight the crowded congregation prayed and watched. Every moment they expected him. If expectation could create visions, someone would have seen him. Seldom have enthusiasts gathered with more ardent faith. But nothing happened. Midnight struck a second time; and they dispersed bewildered. Suggestion is not as powerful as some suppose.

A decisive argument against hallucination is the disciples' frame of mind. No one had any hope of seeing Jesus alive. The women brought spices for His burial. The empty tomb only suggested grave-robbery. When some declared they had seen Him, `their words seemed as idle tales' to the Apostles. For a week Thomas refused to believe the evidence of his friends. Instead of a group of credulous dreamers imagining hopes to be facts, we see stolid, matter-of-fact peasants desperately hard to convince. Hallucination is no answer to the Easter riddle.

One type of evidence, however, may perhaps help. There are stories, that seem well authenticated, of people appearing to their friends after death. Lord Brougham, for example, who became Lord Chancellor, was a man of sceptical mind, accustomed to weigh evidence. As a boy he signed a compact with a friend, that the one who died first would, if possible, appear to the other. The friend went abroad. `For years,' wrote Brougham, `I had no communication with him, nor did anything recall him to my memory.' But one night he saw him in the room. Yet, when he spoke, the figure vanished. He at once entered this in his diary. Later he learnt that his friend had died that night in India. He told the story at the time, wrote an account of it, and repeated it later in his Autobiography.

Similar stories critically tested are given in Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death by Frederick Myers, President of the Society for Psychical Research. For example, he tells how a choir-master saw his soloist coming up the stairs holding a sheet of music. He went to meet him, and he vanished. At once he told his household. Later he learnt that the singer had been killed that morning. Possibly his last thought was a wish to let his choirmaster know that he could not sing that night.

If in certain cases quite ordinary people can appear to their friends after death, is it unreasonable to think that Jesus may have done the same? Myers makes the sweeping statement, `I predict that in consequence of the new evidence all reasonable men a century hence will believe in the resurrection of Christ.'

But a different tradition was superimposed on these Easter appearances. To every Jew resurrection meant resurrection of flesh and bones. In 2 Maccabees a Jew boasts, as his bowels gush out through a wound, that God will give him back those bowels at the Resurrection. Paul contradicted this, `Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God'; `there is a physical body and a heavenly body'; `as we have borne the likeness of the earthy, we shall bear the likeness of the heavenly'. This teaching fits well with the Easter appearances, the passing through closed doors, the appearing and disappearing.

But into these stories crept the idea that the Risen Christ had a solid body, `Handle Me and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see I have.'

This belief in a corporal resurrection seemed endorsed by the empty tomb. The evidence for this is strong. All four Gospels record that on Sunday the women found the tomb that they visited empty. But two questions are possible: Did they go to the right tomb? They were Galileans in a strange city. They had watched the burial from a distance by fast fading light. Professor Macalister, Supervisor of the excavations of the Palestine Exploration Fund, says of the rock-hewn tombs round Jerusalem: `It is hardly an exaggeration to apply the adjective "honey-combed". The tombs are packed closely enough to make the identification of a particular one a matter of some difficulty.'

Or, if they went to the right tomb, had Joseph been there first? The Friday burial had been hurried, and the tomb chosen, `because it was close at hand'. The women did not arrive till Sunday. But on Saturday evening, when Sabbath ended, while the women were buying spices, Joseph and his servants may have moved the body to a more convenient resting-place. But, if either of these suggestions is true, when the Apostles proclaimed the Resurrection, why did not Annas confute them by opening the right tomb?

[If Joseph had removed the body, he may have re-dressed it more befittingly before reburial.]

The answer is simple. The Resurrection was not preached in Jerusalem till Pentecost. In Palestine fifty days after death a body would be unrecognizable. And Joseph may have shrunk from exposing his fellow-believers to ridicule, if on the main point he was convinced that they were right; the appearances proved that Jesus was alive.

But, if the bones of Jesus crumbled into dust in some unknown tomb, is the creed of Christendom a delusion? Not necessarily. To the disciples the empty tomb was a confirmation of their faith; but they did not base their belief on it. Paul did not even mention it, when recounting the proofs of the Resurrection.

It was the appearances that caused the Church to rise from the dead. Peter believed in the Resurrection, not because he had failed to find a dead Christ, but because he had seen a living one.

This long preamble has almost lost sight of Peter; but the evidence had to be tested. If the Resurrection was not real, Peter spent the rest of his life proclaiming a lie. But, if he did see Jesus alive after death, we can understand his eagerness to make this known.

What had he seen? Early on Easter morning he was roused by Mary of Magdala with the news, `They have taken the Master out of the tomb, and we know not where they have laid Him.' She fetched the Beloved Disciple too, and he and Peter ran to investigate. The younger man outran Peter, but paused at the mouth of the tomb. Peter characteristically went right in, and found the body gone, but the sheet and head-band left behind.' This merely mystified him. `He went back wondering what had happened.'

Then, before any other Apostle, Peter saw Jesus. Paul wrote, `He was seen by Kephas, then by the Twelve.' The disciples from Emmaus were told, `The Lord has really risen, and has appeared to Simon.' Paul merely says, `He was seen.' If any word was spoken, it is not recorded. Peter suddenly realized that Someone was in the room. To his amazement it was Jesus. His Master appeared, and then perhaps vanished.

That Sunday evening some of them met behind locked doors for supper. Peter was there and nine other Apostles, and `others who were with them'. Most of them had no hope of seeing Jesus. When some of the women declared they had seen Him, this seemed to most of them `mere nonsense'. But Peter convinced them that he had seen Him. Mary of Magdala said that He had spoken to her. Two, who had left for Emmaus, arrived, asserting that Jesus had joined them on the road. Then with a gasp they saw Him in the room. No door had opened, but He was there. They could see His scars. Their first reaction was terror; but `He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.' They remembered perhaps such texts as: `Thou wilt not leave My soul in Sheol.' `Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord.'

The Apostles stayed in Jerusalem all that Passover week; but one remained incredulous. Thomas had been absent from the Sunday supper, and he asked for tangible proof. `Nothing will convince me, unless I touch with my hand the wounds in His hands and side.' Peter and he probably had many an argument together. On the following Sunday, however, Thomas was with them. Again Jesus appeared, though the door was barred. He showed His hands and drew aside His robe, inviting Thomas to apply his test. But Thomas's doubts vanished. He cast himself adoringly at Christ's feet.

The scene now shifts to Galilee. `On the last Day of Unleavened Bread,' says the Gospel of Peter, `we, the disciples, went each to his own home.' In the North the appearances continued.

An Appendix to `John' describes one by the Lake of Galilee. The fishermen had resumed their trade. If Judas had decamped with the common purse, funds were perhaps running low. One morning Peter and six others, as they returned from fishing, saw Someone on the shore. The Beloved Disciple exclaimed, `It is the Lord,' and Peter sprang overboard, and waded ashore to greet Him. The others followed in the boat. All through their breakfast, Jesus remained visible; but `no one dared ask, Who art Thou? for they knew it was the Lord'.

As He moved away, Peter followed; and the Report says that thrice Jesus asked, `Do you love Me?' Thrice Peter reaffirmed his love; and three commissions were given him. `Feed My lambs'; `Shepherd My sheep'; `Feed My flock.' He was to be no longer merely a fisher of men, a recruiting agent, but a shepherd, guarding, guiding, and feeding the flock. Then came a veiled prophecy, that Peter would be crucified: `When you were young, you buckled your belt, and went wherever you wished. When you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will bind you, and take you where you do not wish.'

When he asked the fate of the Beloved Disciple, he received a gentle rebuff, `If I want him to stay till I return, is that your business?' This story shows what was remembered about Peter in the generation that followed his death, his many-sided pastoral work and his crucifixion.

`Matthew' records another Galilean appearance: `The Eleven went to the hill which Jesus had appointed. When they saw Him, they bowed to the ground; but some doubted.' The last words verify the story. No romancer would have pictured the Apostles as still in doubt. This may be the meeting of which Paul said, `He was seen by more than five hundred of the Brethren at once.' A lonely spot in the Galilean hills was the most likely place for so large a gathering. The resurrection rumours must have excited many Northern disciples. A word from the Eleven would collect them. They saw Him coming down the hill. If some doubted, it was but for a moment, for Paul implied that all were ready to declare they had seen Him.

There were possibly other Galilean appearances, for Acts says, `He showed Himself alive, being seen during forty days.' But Pentecost, the next Feast of Obligation, drew them back to Jerusalem. Ten days before the Feast Jesus appeared once more. He told them, `Wait in the city till you are clothed with power from on high.' Then He led them to the Mount of Olives. Here a wild hope seized them. Zechariah had foretold a dramatic coming of Messiah to that spot, `His feet shall stand on the Mount,' and then, after certain startling physical convulsions ('the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, and the land shall become a plain'), `the Lord shall be King over all the earth'. So they eagerly asked, `Is it today that You are going to restore the Kingdom to Israel?' He replied, `No one knows the dates which the Father has reserved for His own decision.'

Then He lifted His hands, and blessed them, and quietly disappeared; but, instead of fading away as on former occasions, He seemed to rise upwards, till a cloud hid Him from their sight. The quietness of this story helps to confirm its truth.

The Epistola Apostolorum (written about A.D. 150) shows how a myth-maker would have told it: `As He spoke, there came thunder and lightning and earthquake, and Heaven opened, and a glowing cloud appeared and carried Him up, and voices of many Angels sounded, exulting and singing His praise.'

As they walked back, Peter pondered on this new way of departure. He had a knack of recalling Old Testament texts, when faced with a puzzling problem. He remembered now a Psalmist's words, `Jehovah said to my lord, Sit at My Right Hand, till I make thy foes thy footstool.' To him this explained everything.

`God has taken Jesus,' he said, `to share His throne, till His hour of triumph arrives.' His friends accepted this theory, and `returned to Jerusalem with great joy'. And this is taken for granted in the rest of the New Testament, e.g. `He sat down at the Right Hand of the Majesty on High' (Heb. i. 3); `Seek those things that are above, where Christ sits at the Right Hand of God' (Col. iii. I). Hence they ceased to expect appearances, and they saw none.