Dear Sir,

The Premier has had to apologise to the taxpayers of Bermuda for allowing himself and Jamahl Simmons to be duped into handing over $800,000 to a person of dubious character.

Despite what he says, we have to wonder how much research was really done into this person.

That was not the only mistake; had Messrs Burt and Simmons done even a little bit of research, they would have discovered that Bermuda once had a recording studio called Bermudasound.

It was a state-of-the-art facility at the time and was built to record advertising for the local market and “for international stars to come and record here”.

It failed, and to my knowledge the only star who recorded part of an album here was Keith Richards.

In the modern digital age when anyone can record in their own bedroom and stream online, and when many artists have their own studios at home or have access to them all over the world, it is pretty obvious that the chance of a recording studio being a success in Bermuda is zero.

So it was all pie in the sky from the start.

ALAN GAMBLE

Warwick