A Limey In Bermuda

Remembering slavery

French President Jacques Chirac today announced that France will hold an annual day of remembrance for the victims of slavery. It will be observed on 10 May, the anniversary of the day in 2001 on which France passed a law...

Caption competition #36 winners

The Bermuda Onion Edition of the LiB caption competition is now over. The winners were: First: Smoking Gun - Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, Onions are from Uranus. Bermuda truly is another world. Second: Rossini - Picture...

Caption competition #36

This week's caption competition is doing unnatural things with garden vegetables. Photoshop entries are also welcomed and should be emailed to me. Winners will be announced on Sunday. Part of the OTB Caption Jam.

New Shadow Cabinet announced

Opposition leader Wayne Furbert has announced his new Shadow Cabinet. The new lineup is as follows: Education - Neville Darrell Environment - Cole Simons Finance - Patricia Gordon Pamplin (formerly held by Dr. Grant Gibbons) Housing - Senator Kim Swan...

Faith, not science

Think that the intelligent design zealots are confined to the US? Think again. A recent survey in the UK asked respondents what they thought best described the origin and development of life. 48% said evolution, 39% said creationism or intelligent...

Living Values vs. Ashay

The Living Values character education programme that has been piloted at three primary schools appears to have been a big success. According to Education Minister Terry Lister, student office referrals dropped by 80% within the first year. Moreover, parents and...

Changing behaviour on the roads

Dr. Christopher Johnson was introduced as the new chairman of the Road Safety Council yesterday. Will he be able to make Bermuda's roads safer? Some of the things that he said were encouraging. He wants us to start looking at...

1000

Hard as it is for me to believe, this is the 1000th post on A Limey In Bermuda. As such, if you'll forgive my indulgence, I'd like to take the opportunity to look back on some of my favourites from...

Rotten apples

I'm having problems with my iPod. Again. Worse, my warranty expired nine days ago. This is the third iPod that my wife and I have had in the last two years. It's also the third that has developed problems within...

Caption competition #35 winners

The Wayne Furbert Edition of the LiB caption competition is now over. Photo by Leah Furbert, courtesy of the Bermuda Sun The winners were: First: hotspur - Put her round the back, Gibbo. And when you've done that give her...

Wayne Furbert replies

Here's the response of Opposition Leader Wayne Furbert to the letter than Denis Pitcher sent to him yesterday. Dear Mr. Pitcher, I am truly grateful for the opportunity to address the concerns raised by you. I have also been greatly...

Caption competition #35

This week's caption competition finds Wayne Furbert, the UBP's new leader, meeting and greeting on Court Street. Photo by Leah Furbert, courtesy of the Bermuda Sun Photoshop entries are also welcomed and should be emailed to me. Winners will be...

An open letter to Wayne Furbert

Mr. Furbert, I would like to offer my congratulations on your recent appointment as leader of the UBP. As a young Bermudian who is quickly becoming politically active, I would hope that you could take a moment out of your...

The service paradox

An anonymous reader wonders why, since Bermudians are generally polite and conscious of the needs of others, there are so many complaints about poor service. He asks: "If there’s one service, public or private, that we’d like to see transformed,...

Contributing to LiB

Last year I announced that I was looking for guest bloggers to start writing for this site. It was an attempt to foster local writing talent, provide more material for discussion, and relieve me of some of the burden of...

The ABCs of politics

I was listening to Khalid Wasi on the radio last night, talking some more about his new political party, the All Bermuda Congress (ABC). By the end I had no better idea what the ABC stands for than I did...

Losing focus

Bermudians for Referendum (BFR) started out as a group with an admirably clear aim: to have the independence debate settled by a referendum instead of a general election. They persuaded 14,008 voters, 47.5% of those who voted in the last...

Losing business to Cayman

HedgeWeek is reporting that Bermuda has lost a number of hedge funds to the Cayman Islands because of their compliance with the EU's Savings Tax Directive: Not only are the vast majority of Cayman funds not affected by the directive,...

The UBP's new leader

With the elevation of Wayne Furbert to the leadership of the UBP, the party has an opportunity to reinvent itself. However it's going to require strong, decisive leadership from Mr. Furbert and if mishandled may actually lend credence to the...

Caption competition #34 winners

The Time Warp Edition of the LiB caption competition is now over. The winners were: First: Automatic - Hey, wanna play "Rock Paper Scissors"? Loser pays to clean up our bases when we leave! Second: Martin - Nixon: "Ted -...

Caption competition #34

This week's caption competition is going back in time, to a meeting between US President Richard Nixon and British Prime Minister Edward Heath at Bermuda's Government House in 1971. Photoshop entries are also welcomed and should be emailed to me....

Open mike: Same-sex marriages

Another chance to talk about a subject of your choice. First comment sets the topic for debate. If you ask a question, please give your own thoughts on the subject too, even if it's in a subsequent comment. And if...

Breeding for Bermuda

Ed Ball, general secretary of the Bermuda Public Services Union, is worried about Bermuda's ageing population. He's wondering whether Bermudian women will need to be asked to have more than one child in order to reverse the trend. For God's...

Too much impartiality is a bad thing

I always enjoy reading Tom Vesey’s columns in the Bermuda Sun. He has a knack for distilling issues to their essential components, and presenting them in a clear, common-sense manner with which it's almost impossible to disagree. This week, however,...

Illegal to annoy

The US has just passed a great new law that would have come in mighty handy here on LiB a couple of months ago: "Whoever...utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of...

60 at last

In Azeroth's Eastern Kingdoms, on the borders of the Burning Steppes and the Searing Gorge, is Blackrock Mountain. Surrounded by dragonkin and orcs, its molten interior teeming with the fearsome Dark Iron Dwarves, it's a hostile, unforgiving place where even...

The St. George’s mayoral election

The upcoming mayoral election in St. George’s looks like being a two-horse race between incumbent E. Michael Jones and bank manager Mariea Caisey. In what appears to be a concerted effort to get rid of Mr. Jones, the other likely...

Time to make GPS work

Several stories in the weekend papers illustrated the different attitudes in the taxi industry to the requirement that all taxis be fitted with a GPS system by 6 February. In the Royal Gazette, it was “Cabbies want more time” and...

Caption competition #33 winners

The Early Bird Edition of the LiB caption competition is now over. The winners were: First: Bulb - 1... 2... 3... peekaboo! Second: SmokingGun - "Hey it's Friday night, let's knock off and go find us some longtails......" Third: Yet...

Living in harmony

Alvin Williams makes some interesting points about racial integration in his column in this week’s Mid Ocean News. He argues that integration has been more about grafting black people into white society and points to examples of de facto segregation...

Caption competition #33

This week's caption competition is for the birds. Photoshop entries are also welcomed and should be emailed to me. Winners will be announced on Sunday. Part of the OTB Caption Jam.

Invisibility sounds good to me too

One of the best and the worst things about living in Bermuda is the lack of anonymity. After you’ve been living here for a while it becomes almost impossible to leave your house without running into someone you know. There...

Still a Smart idea

I'm amazed that Smart cars still haven't taken off in Bermuda. They're tiny, so they're cheap to licence. They're fuel-efficient, so they're cheap to run. They're made of fibreglass, so they don't rust. Their size makes them ideal for navigating...

Measuring the success of Buy Bermuda

Unsurprisingly, the Chamber of Commerce declared this year's Buy Bermuda campaign to have been a success. I'm curious to know on what basis they made that assessment. The evidence cited in that article - of "strong sales" at the Phoenix...

Congestion charging

Stockholm has become the latest city to introduce a congestion charge. For a seven-month trial period, drivers entering or exiting the city during the daytime will be charged between 10 ($1.30) and 20 kronor each time... The toll will remain...

Gestures of acknowledgement

I’m becoming increasingly frustrated with Bermuda’s obsession with race. A letter from Eva Hodgson in Friday’s Mid Ocean News helped me understand why. “Until there is less of a racial divide in our community other outstanding social issues cannot be...

2005 Captioner of the Year

It’s with great pleasure that I bring you the results of the first LiB Captioner of the Year Awards. These prestigious awards are presented to those who have demonstrated outstanding ability to provide amusing strap-lines to pictures of the great...

Caption competition #32 winners

It's time to turn the final page on this week's caption competition. The winners were: First: Adjustah - I do not like this Referend’am I do not like it The Man, I am I do not like what they say...