itsy bitsy teeny weeny polka dot bikini. The cheeky chap -- mistaken at first for a woman -- had caused quite a stir when he swaggered down Reid Street in broad daylight wearing nothing but a string bikini. Flushed woman shoppers watched in horror at the most un-Bermudian display of skin, some of them scrambling for their cellphones to summon the cops.

For the record, Hester sees absolutely nothing wrong with a man in a thong.

But as the manhunt continued in earnest, Hester's sources tell her he escaped into the Captain's Lounge where he later changed clothes on the barman's advice. Apparently he was part of a raucous, well-heeled bachelor party who'd chartered a plane down for the day. The best man made a deal that he would walk down Reid Street in a tiny red polka dot bikini and pop into a pub to see if he could get a drink. Well, he did get served, but not until after the bartender told him he couldn't walk around Bermuda that way! The unlikely figure of UBP MP Allan Marshall was heard to take up the mantle of women's rights in the House of Assembly.

Now rarely is Hester without a social engagement on a Friday, but due to entirely unforeseen circumstances, she actually found herself with nothing better to do than tune in to radio coverage of Parliament where she heard Mr.

Marshall attack Government for not including gender in the CURE regulations.

Mr. Marshall declared it was disgraceful that the Human Rights Commission receives complaints mostly about women being sacked when they fell pregnant.

The shadow Government Services minister was in full flight decrying the "scandal'' of Government not addressing the issue when a PLP wit roared: "You go girl!''.

The shrinking Department of Public Prosecutions is apparently going to extreme lengths to boost morale and garner some positive publicity in the Press. This one takes the cake though! Not only is the DPP Khamisi Tokunbo busy running a contest for the best mission statement, while Prosecutor Larry Mussenden is tasked with coming up with fun morale-boosting events for the legal eagles and their families to attend, but the entire office was summoned to the conference room recently for a cake cutting ceremony in honour of The Royal Gazette .

Hester's newsroom colleague Karen Smith , after conducting an interview with the DPP, was made to take centre stage to cut into a whopping specially-made white cake complete with purple icing and the words "Royal Gazette Dinosaurs'' (huh!), along with two toy dinosaurs (apparently they think we're still in the dark ages). OK, the laugh was on The Gazette , but Hester hopes the lads don't think they can have their cake and eat it too. And she wonders whether, if a male reporter had shown up for the interview, would our gentlemen public prosecutors have made him do the same thing...

Hester -- and a lot of teachers and parents -- will be waiting with bated breath to see if embattled Education Minister Milton Scott will actually show on The People's Talk Show this afternoon as Everest DaCosta's scheduled guest.

If he does, poor Milton will be squirming in his seat as he's sure to face a barrage of fiery questions from fed-up school teachers and parents, who have been calling up de Silver Fox lately to demand he be removed as Minister and replaced with former schoolmaster and PLP backbencher Dale Butler , who currently has his hands full as Little Venice Group's PR and training boss.

Mr. Butler, by the way, has no shortage of ideas to overhaul public education, such as get rid of teachers who don't have "the fire burning within'', give kids paperback bestsellers to read as part of the curriculum and make principals take a more hands-on approach.

Speaking of flustered talk show guests, our Premier Jennifer Smith apparently didn't take kindly to being put on the spot during a recent guest appearance on VSB's Night Talk. Host Ceola Wilson and several callers asked the Premier some pretty pointed questions on the Island's drug problem, especially the dealing going on on Court Street in broad daylight.

The Premier responded so defensively that Ms Wilson couldn't get a word in as she tried to ask some follow up questions. But just-as-fiesty Ms Wilson refused to give in, continuing to try and ask Ms Smith questions under the glare of the ever-present Colonel David Burch . So riled up was the Premier in the end that she exclaimed, "Don't interrupt me!'' Ms Smith went on to tell Ms Wilson and callers "my minister is listening'' and would address some of their concerns. But Ms Wilson had the last word when the next day she announced on the radio news she had put a call in to Labour Minister Paula Cox to see if she had been listening to the show and been briefed. Alas, Ms Wilson revealed, Ms Cox had been nowhere near a radio and knew nothing of the issues.

As a footnote, Hester thinks this newspaper's former Editor David L. White owes Ms Wilson a sincere apology for implying in an interview with the SUNshine tabloid last week that the veteran newscaster was pro-PLP, which was why she was the only journalist the Premier was apparently willing to be interviewed by. Ah well, after this Night Talk, he may feel differently.

It seems VSB DJ Peter Lewis is even less enamoured of The Royal Gazette's down market rival than Hester. In a recent review of the weekend papers he began reading the SUNshine's front page story. "A Front Street store is...ahhhh I can't read this. Anyway I'm sure it's all very interesting. ..'' Hester, always with an eye for a making a buck or two, has been delighted this week with the soaring price at last of her Bank of Bermuda shares. Apparently the bank is delighted as well with the surge. But on Monday Hester thought Christmas had really come early when the BSX reported a market capitalisation -- the value of the bank -- as being $8.4 billion. Unfortunately, Hester discovered the next day, it was a typo and the bank is still worth about $615 million.