A Limey In Bermuda

Nomenclature

As you may have noticed, I've renamed this blog. 'Latest News' may have been accurate but it didn't really shed any light on me or my reasons for writing this. 'A Limey In Bermuda' not only says something about me,...

The Great Upgrade Scam

Installed Office 2003 on my PC at home last night. I never used Office XP, so I was upgrading from Office 2000; at one point I let myself get quite excited about all the innovations I'd see. But at first...

24, Season Three

The third season of 24 premiered this evening. At last, I thought, something worth watching on American TV. Well, maybe. It's three years after the events of season 2 and the characters have undergone a number of changes, none of...

Short Shrift

Plenty for Bermudians to get upset about today. It started with a full page ad in People magazine for a TV show on the Learning Channel. The ad featured a photgraph of a gentleman wearing a pair of Bermuda shorts,...

Windfall

HSBC has just announced that it's going to buy the Bank of Bermuda for $1.3 billion. If they approve the deal, shareholders will receive $45 per share. A lot of Bermudians are going to be upset that one of their...

It's The Plane Fare, Stupid

So Grant Gibbons, leader of Bermuda's opposition UBP party, thinks the Bermuda government is giving up on tourism, does he (Plan for new town draws critics' fire, Royal Gazette, 27 October 2003)? The political parties in Bermuda are strangely obsessed...

Dark, But Not So Sooty

If I thought living in a sub-tropical paradise meant I'd still be leaving the office in the light in winter I was wrong. Like much of the rest of the northern hemisphere, our clocks went back this weekend. When I...

Dreaming of the Royal Gazette

Today I caught a glimpse of the blog I aspire to be. Big White Guy is the blog of an expat living in Hong Kong, detailing his observations on life there. So very similar to the kind of thing I...

Thai Curtains

Spent a substantial part of the weekend hanging our new curtains in the living and dining rooms. Christ, what a struggle that was. Seven windows, two brackets per window, three screws per bracket equals 42 holes that had to be...

Kill Bill, Volume 1

Quentin Tarantino has finally lost it. As the opening credits somewhat egotistically proclaim, this is the fourth movie from director Quentin Tarantino, following his earlier cult hits Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994) and Jackie Brown (1997). The six year...

What The...?

Does anyone have a clue what this pig-ugly plastic pipe contraption in our neighbour's garden could possibly be for? We've been staring at it out our kitchen window for weeks now and still have no idea. Click on the image...

Planting Our Cedar

It's an old tradition in Bermuda that when two people get married they're given a cedar tree to plant, a cutting of which is placed atop the cake on their wedding day. This morning we finally got around to planting...

Dude, Where's My Country?

I want to like Michael Moore. I really do. He's funny and merciless when it comes to exposing the stupidity of some facets of the American way of life. But he's also about as left-wing as they come, and there...

Wedding Video

Just finished watching the video of our wedding after picking it up from Larry, our videographer earlier today. Mandy was less than enthusiastic about watching it at first - she wasn't big on the idea of a video in the...

We'll Always Have Paris

If you think living outside the US has allowed you to escape the 9/11-induced homeland security hysteria currently gripping the country, think again (Business vs Bush, The Economist, 16 October 2003): From August 1st, almost all [visitors to the US]...

Let's Get A Legal Opinion On That

After the failure of the UN Security Council to pass a motion criticising Israel's construction of its 'security fence' (due to - what else? - the US veto), it was nice to see the General Assembly get one through (UN...

House Proud

Another spurt of activity on the house. After months of searching, this weekend we finally found a couch. We had actually gone to town to look for a sideboard for our new china and crystal, a task complicated by my...

DSL Heaven

Finally got DSL working last night - but I've no idea how. Took the new modem home with me on Friday night, but when I tried it out I had exactly the same problem as with the previous one. After...

DSL Hell

Setting up broadband is never easy. After we received a bill of $142 from our ISP for our 56k dialup service last month, I finally decided that unmetered 256k broadband at $139 per month was worth it. Even though we...

Direct Debit, Damnit

Here's another thing I miss from the UK: direct debit. The ability to tell all my utility and credit card companies not to bother me each month but to just take payment for my bill directly from my bank account....

Charge of the Tight Brigade

One thing that occasionally drives me nuts about living here is all the extra charges you have to pay for things that you don't in the UK. Here's some of the worst. 1. Bank charges. The most insidious. $3 per...

Five Weddings and a Honeymoon

This weekend, Mandy and I went on honeymoon to New Jersey. It was our first trip abroad since getting married, and my first trip from Bermuda to somewhere other than London. The occassion was the marriage of one of Mandy's...

Autumn Arrives

It seems the gorgeous weather that blessed our wedding two weeks ago may have been the last of the summer. For the last two weeks the clear blue skies and sweltering heat have been replaced by cloud, rain and a...

Heaven and Hell

The Causeway finally reopened today - both to two-way traffic and at night. There have been rumours that this was imminent for the last couple of days, but it was still a pleasant surprise as I rounded the corner of...

War Without End

There are times when living on an island in the middle of a large ocean, cut off from the rest of the world, can be very refreshing. If you want to hear international news here, you've generally got to go...

Small Island

One of the first rules any expat arriving in Bermuda is told is to be careful who you show your irritation to (or sleep with) - she could just turn out to be your boss' wife. Yesterday I came dangerously...

Back to the Grind

Yesterday was my first day back at work after the wedding. After such a fun week with all our friends, and a fantastic day on Saturday, to have to return to the daily grind so quickly, most of our friends...