THE RAVAGES OF INFLATION.
Contributed by Charles Cabeldu
"Well, have you thought about the question I asked you?" This is my nearest and dearest talking.
Now that sort of question in the Cabeldu household is trouble. Or to be more precise DOUBLE TROUBLE! First trouble why is it that God's greatest creation always presumes we males can read their minds or understand their own peculiar method of conversation. What question? Time has taught me that one does not waffle on hoping for a clue, that is a certain non-starter.
With unerring accuracy the shaft files "You don't remember the question." "You don't listen to a single word I say." Second trouble when you have discovered what the question is there is one thing which is inevitable, you don't know the answer!
It so transpires that the "question in question" was the relative cost of property In Guernsey and Jersey on which question you may recall my total humiliation at having my considered reasoning on this subject destroyed in toto.
Now any sane, unthinking, unfeeling, normal male would have admitted defeat without engaging battle., but you do remember the slight madness which afflicts me. So much so, I most foolishly tried desperately to salvage some of my inadequate feelings of smug, male, chauvinistic superiority.
"My dear, I have given further consideration to your question and have consulted the experts who, after several investigations conducted at high bureaucratic level, seem unable to offer any reason whatsoever. "
"So much for the experts, " so said the lady and master In her house. "Try this for size. The cost of a house is site; wages; materials and profit. If site, wages and materials are the same in both islands, It does not require a Mensa brain to find out why property is so much more expensive in Jersey. "
"Well, my dear, your original hypothesis is—"
"None of that high falutin' waffle with me." The interruption came with the sharpness of a mongoose applying the coup de grace to a would be aggressive reptile. "Every time the States of Jersey raises the amount house buyers can borrow so do builders prices jump to the same figure."
"Well, I'm not so sure—"
"Then you jolly well find out," came the whipcrack reply, " and don't you dare argue with me until you've got something sensible to say."