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I don’t like this time of year. It’s cold and damp. The festive Christmas lights have all come down. The sad, discarded Christmas trees lie by the side of the road. It’s all very depressing. And then I read the paper and it gets worse.

HSBC wants to build a seven-story monolith on Front Street. I don’t quite know how the Cabinet is going to profit by allowing this, but I’m pretty sure they are. Megabanks and megaships equal megabucks for someone.

The redevelopment of the Club Med site is still not approved. Perhaps the developers are not familiar with the ‘customary’ 15 per cent gratuity currently in place in ‘New Bermuda’. Personally, I think that would be a great site for a casino. I can’t think of any other reason for people to go to St. George’s at night and you’d finally be assured of finding a ride home at the ‘Rebecca Middleton Memorial Taxi Stand’.

And speaking of gambling, I see computerized, island-wide bingo games have been given the okay by Government, but slot machines are still Verboten. They can’t hide behind church fund raising on this — they must be getting a cut here as well.

Then those greedy b*****ds at the Salvation Army have the temerity to ask for money to repair Government’s dilapidated homeless shelter. The nerve! Anyone would think they were a charity or something. I think the Minister has the right idea putting the operation of the shelter out to tender. The Salvation Army has been lining its pockets for too long with this little cash cow. You can tell by their extravagant lifestyle: Flashy cars, new luxury homes, overseas travel. B*****ds! Don’t they know that no-one outside of the PLP is allowed to profit personally from Government spending?

And now Hooters Airways wants to have a regular service to Bermuda. That’ll really put some ‘Pop & Sizzle’ into things, assuming of course that they get past the picket lines. As far as the local church lobby is concerned, they might as well be called ‘Air Jezebel’ or ‘Sodom and GommorAir’. Not so much ‘Jet Blue’ as ‘Jet Blue Movies’. To be honest, I enjoy ‘Hooters’ as much as the next guy (I go just for the food of course), but I kind of want a more serious attitude when I’m at 30,000 feet. And I can only imagine what they use as ‘personal flotation devices’.

Then I read that someone wants to start a new political party. Apparently the plan is to take race out of politics by replacing the UBP. I just don’t understand how that makes any kind of sense. Remove the only integrated party we have while ignoring the monochrome ruling party that routinely promotes racial divisiveness? That’s like trying to remove drugs from your neighbourhood by killing the recovering addict, but leaving the pusher in business.

And then Wayne Furbert is chosen ‘unanimously’ to replace Grant Gibbons as leader of the UBP. I guess jumping isn’t the only thing white men can’t do. Admittedly, Grant is from the Al Gore school of personality, but I tend to prefer substance over style.

Come to think of it, the UBP has quite a history of ‘competent but dull’ leaders — ‘Gibbons, Gibbons & Saul’ might have been great financial advisors but they were never what you’d call ‘inspirational’. Anyway, the deed is done and time will tell if ‘Wayne’s World’ is actually an improvement.[[In-content Ad]]

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