A Limey In Bermuda

Night Of The Pumpkin

I've just carved my first pumpkin. It's something I've been wanting to do for years, but until tonight I never quite managed to get around to it. Halloween isn't celebrated in the UK like it is in the US or...

2004 Throne Speech In A Nutshell

The Throne Speech is now available on the Government Portal. Here it is, in a nutshell: Housing Construction of 2-, 3- and 4-bedroom manufacturered emergency homes. Renovation of derelict and vacant premises. Phased renovation of existing housing owned by Government...

The Fruits Of Labour

The first part of the the Premier's speech on the Social Agenda on Monday night went largely unreported in the press. However, it was significant in that it laid out for the first time what the PLP believes its major...

Shadow Play

Wednesday's announcement by the UBP of the creation of a shadow portfolio of Race Relations and Economic Opportunity is a masterstroke - both of vision and of political strategy. Politically, this bold move is likely to ignite a vociferous debate...

Speech

I'd like to thank acting PLP party spokesman, Senator Walter Roban, for sending me the full text of the speech on the Social Agenda that Premier Alex Scott gave on Monday evening. For the benefit of anyone who wasn't there,...

No Positives

Poor Alex Scott must have been aggrieved to find that his “significant statement” on the Social Agenda that opened last night’s annual PLP conference wasn’t the top story on the front page of this morning’s Royal Gazette. Instead the paper...

I'll Have The Salmonella Please

Airline food's bad at the best of times, but if you're soon to hop on a British Airways flight to or from Bermuda, right now you have more reason to worry than most. ...Dozens of passengers and several crew fell...

Getting Serious About Safety

In last week's poll I asked you to vote for up to three measures that you felt would do most to improve safety on Bermuda's roads. Of the ten ideas suggested, five attracted significantly more votes than the rest. The...

Schoolyard Politics

For a supposed master of spin, sometimes the Premier has a funny way of putting things. Consider the comment he made at a press conference on Friday while talking about independence: "If I’m the Premier and I become Prime Minister,...

Common Denominator

The Bermuda Sun is clearly trying to emulate its British namesake. On the front page of last Friday's edition we were greeted by a huge picture of local model Alexis Wolffe as a lead-in to a story about a new...

Allowances and Expenses

The allowances and expenses claimed by British MPs have just been made public for the first time, ahead of changes to the UK's Freedom of Information Act in January. The story got me wondering about how good Bermuda is in...

Zzzzzzz...

Will the UBP table a motion of no confidence in the Government when the House of Assembly finally reconvenes next week? And will anyone care if they do? PLP Senator Walter Roban was right when he said that there’s no...

Lunch And Learn

The St. George's Foundation would like to hear from anyone interested in attending one of their special lunches (provided by sponsors such as the Bank of Bermuda) to learn about what the organisation is doing to develop St. George's for...

Boobies

Bermuda is soon to get its first erotic website, sugarandspicemodels.com, featuring photographs of scantily-clad Island girls by local photographer Antwan Albouy. There's disappointingly little to see there right now, with many parts of the site inaccessible or marked as "under...

Burning The Budget

Education Minister Terry Lister is obviously worried that he's not going to spend his budget for the year. On Friday the Government took out another full page ad in the Royal Gazette (page 39), this time to print, in full,...

Moving The Docks

Last week's poll asked if you agreed that the docks should be moved from Front Street and if so, where you thought would be the best alternative location. Of the 82 votes cast, only 21% thought the docks should stay...

Naive Deception

On 1 September, Premier Alex Scott had this to say about the delays that would be introduced by the Government's decision to terminate the contract of ProActive to build the new senior secondary school at Berkeley. "If we are out...

Bringing History To Life

The new World Heritage Visitor Centre currently under construction in St. George’s will not be just another under-funded museum. That was the message delivered to attendees at a special luncheon of the St. George’s Foundation today, sponsored by the Bank...

My Fellow Non-Americans...

If, like me, you have strong opinions on who you'd like to see in the White House after next month's US Presidential Election but, like me, you're not actually an American citizen with a vote, help is now at hand....

Girt Axpactations

Nahw, look hur. Vat’s all dis nahwnsense dat Hodgson garrl’s bin chopsin bout us Bermewjans needin allocution lassuns? Bye, dat makes me vext! She axpact arrywun to tawk de same? Look at dem Limey byes an all tha diffrent vays...

Our Torpid Taxis

As I lay back on my picnic blanket at the Bermuda Music Festival on Thursday evening, trying to block out “comedian” Earthquake and wondering if we were ever going to hear any more music, I found myself thinking of the...

Bermuda's Phoney War

For eight months after the European Allies declared war on Nazi Germany on September 3rd 1939, neither side launched a significant attack and there was little fighting. All that Europe’s citizens could do was to wait uneasily for the inevitable...

Referendum, Please!

Last week's poll asked what you thought would be the best mechanism for deciding whether Bermuda should go independent. Of the 102 votes cast, 83% were in favour of a referendum; only 11% thought the issue should be decided by...

In Denial

I'm flabbergasted by the reaction of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to the Iraq Survey Group's verdict that Iraq did not possess any WMD at the time of its invasion last year. Mr. Blair had...

A Racial Time Bomb?

At a lunch of Hamilton Rotarians yesterday, Sandys Middle School principal Melyvn Bassett raised some hard questions about the development of a two-tier education system in Bermuda. In some respects Bermuda is no different to many other Western countries in...

Caught In The Flashlight

A tree frog freezes on a screen window, the fibre mesh briefly turned to steely wires by the camera's flash.

Cars, Cameras, Action!

Following a rash of recent accidents on Bermuda’s roads, which have resulted in death, injury and traffic chaos, Shadow Transport Minister Jamahl Simmons is calling for more traffic police to deter speeding motorists. I’ve lost count of the number of...

The Greening Of Hamilton

Hamilton may be a generally pretty place, but it’s not without its spots of ugliness. The public bathroom at the entrance to Par-la-Ville Park, which was demolished last week, was one such spot. While some may be sad to see...

Attitude Control

Here's another idea for fostering national unity: each night, VSB and ZBM could broadcast a stirring rendition of Hail to Bermuda before the evening news. Oh OK, maybe not.

Goodthink

There’s far too much negativity in our society today, so I’m pleased to learn that the Bermuda Hospitals Board (BHB) wants to rename St. Brendan’s psychiatric hospital to something that suggests wellness rather than illness while eliminating that awful word...