sitting in the House of Assembly ploughing through a pile of paperwork.

When asked by the curious bystander what he was doing the MP replied: "I'm sending out this copy of Paula Cox's speech to constituents,'' pointing to a mountain of envelopes he had already sealed.

And just so recipients weren't in the dark about from whence the speech came, the earnest Mr. B had thoughtfully slapped his address label on the front of each copy. Or so he thought. At that moment he looked closely at the label only to find the company had given him the wrong ones.

As he ruefully remarked: "It would be interesting to know how many people are wondering why they have been sent this speech by some woman from New Jersey.'' Some of Hester's computer boffin acquaintances have let it be known how ironic it is that Minister of Telecommunications Renee Webb is faster than most Internet connections.

In fact Ms Webb is rumoured to have recently remarked: "I want fast connections on the Internet superhighway -- heck, let's make it all highways.'' It seems that the Accountant General Anthony Richardson is getting a bit behind the times. In a letter sent out last month to the Island's pensioners (no, Hester was not one of the recipients) concerning Government dental insurance, Mr. Richardson wrote: "For interested persons, we would request that you have your completed enrolment forms returned to the Accountant General's department by November 17, 2000 . Our target date for implementation of this plan is January 1, 2000 .'' Hester had her knuckles well and truly rapped following her comments about service at the Southampton Princess Hotel during the recent PLP annual do.

Another letter that dropped into her in-tray was from hotel manager Alan Trew who kindly pointed out that the reason his wine waiters didn't start pouring the grape juice until the third course was because they were specifically instructed to by the banquet organisers "who contracted for one-and-a-half glasses of wine to be served with the meal''.

Perhaps Madam Premier didn't want the party to go with quite so much swing this year. Or maybe she just realised that her favourite champers wasn't included on the wine list.

And all this talk of constitutional change seems to have also given the PLP a few headaches with their maths. A recent ad placed by the party in the Sunshine News mentioned that the Parliamentary Election Act was passed in 1963 "thereby legislating inequity in Parliament only 27 years ago''.

Surely they mean 37 years ago? And these same people want to mess about with the number of MPs we have representing us? Let's just hope they put some fresh batteries in their calculators before they get down to some serious number-crunching.

Only in Bermuda Part I A group of about a dozen schoolchildren were having a tour of The Gazette 's office earlier this week and were put under the charge of one already-far-too-busy sub-editor.

With the enthusiastic would-be hacks assembled around his monitor, the put-upon sub proceeded to run through a news story with the group in an attempt to show them what the job entailed.

The sub thought everything was going smoothly until he realised that the `oohs' and `aahs' of enthusiasm were not for his journalistic prowess.

Unfortunately, the story that he had called up concerned a drink-driver appearing in court -- and the guilty party just so happened to be the class's former teacher.

Only in Bermuda Part II Conversation overheard in a grocery store queue.

First male: `Hey, bird, I bumped into your ex the other night.' Second male: `Yeah, which ex is that then?' First male: `That would be the ex who's the mother of your daughter.' Second male: `Oh yeah, that ex.' Younger readers might be keen to know that frequent Bermuda visitor Darius Rucker , who, I'm reliably informed, is lead singer with top US band `Hootie and the Blowfish' (where do today's musicians get the names of their groups from?) is to get married to his lovely fiancee Beth Leonard somewhere on the Island in the near future.

Unfortunately Hester cannot reveal the date or venue for the bash lest it scuttle the chances of her invite arriving in the Post, but remember you heard it here first.