IT is time to retire poor old Mark Twain from his unsolicited position as spokesman in chief for Bermuda's tourism industry.

His overused, overworked remark "You can go to heaven if you want to ? I'd druther stay right here in Bermuda" has been routinely used in Department of Tourism ads for decades and seems to be the centrepiece of the current marketing campaign.

It also turns up in all sorts of magazine articles on Bermuda, no matter if the subject to hand is our golf courses, scuba diving or even the off-shore industries based on our island (Bermuda's principal attractions to Mark Twain certainly did not include its tax environment).

And just last week Premier Alex Scott appropriated Mark Twain's comment and included it in his opening remarks during his visit to Washington, DC.

The fact is that to apply this comment to modern Bermuda is about as misleading as using generic photographs of Hawaii and the Seychelles in advertisements promoting the island's beaches.

The Bermuda that Mark Twain celebrated has not existed for decades now. He wrote that line in a letter to a friend in 1907 when Bermuda was indeed another world ? not, as it is now, an adjunct of the modern world with all of the problems that plague every other Western country.

If Twain could return to Bermuda today, he would have one hell of a shock. I do not think he would recognise the island he so loved. Everything that he feted about the island is gone. Twain's earthbound substitute for heaven more closely resembles an overcrowded, overpriced outpost of hell these days.

The following is an extract from the same letter containing his now famous quotation, a pen sketch of a mid-Atlantic Eden: "Bermuda is a happy little paradise. The spectacle of an entire nation grovelling in contentment is an infuriating thing . . . In Bermuda I find no rush, no hurry, no money-getting frenzy, no fretting, no complaining, no fussing and quarrelling, no telegrams, no daily newspapers, no railroads, no tramways, no subways, no trolleys, no Tammany, no Republican Party, no Democratic Party, no graft, no office-seeking, no elections, no legislature for sale, no tramps, no noise, no lectures, no riots, no murderers, no fires, no burglaries, no follies but church and I don't go there, hardly a dog, seldom a cat, only one steam-whistle, not a saloon, nobody drunk. The spirit of this place is serenity repose, contentment, tranquillity . . . You go to heaven if you want to ? I'd druther stay here."

We could add to Twain's long catalogue of what he found so appealing about turn-of-the-century Bermuda. There were no condominiums, no overbuilding, no ugly and intrusive architectural styles, no polarising debates on Independence, no outreach to dictatorial regimes in the Caribbean, no radio talk shows, no industrial disputes, no imported insurance and reinsurance salesmen passing themselves off as an aristocratic elite.

I truly wish that before people selectively use quotations, they would read them in the proper contexts. But that's probably a forlorn hope. In this push-button age of cable and satellite television systems, few people have the patience to read the authors of classic literature and inform themselves of the conditions of the times they were writing about.

Doubtless the fact there were no cinemas (or television or videos or DVDs) at the time Twain visited Bermuda also served to make the island a more alluring place. In those days everybody read and found the activity to be immensely profitable and enjoyable. A few of us still do. But we are being rapidly outnumbered by those who only take pleasure in reading the television guide.

UCH is in the news with respect to affordable housing for Bermudians, and as ever this Government likes to take the grandstand, announcing all sorts of major, environmentally and socially detrimental and, in some instances, hair-brained projects supposed to benefit those most in need.

One cannot fail to agree wholeheartedly with the urgent need for affordable housing. Many of the entrenched social ills in Bermuda are rooted in the perpetual cycle of needing more money to live decently, in other words this is one of the progenitors of crime in those without strong moral convictions.

I am one of the blessed Bermudians with a good education, career and my own roof over my head, but I cannot help feeling compassion for those who need to live in cramped quarters, and most of all for the children, with no space, privacy, or parental guidance to give them the necessary social skills to succeed. (It does not take a village, or a nation to raise a child, or even a whole stack of cash, merely two loving parents, with time, maturity and will to nurture their child.)

Through your medium, I should like to pose a direct question to the Housing and Home Affairs Ministers:

What are they doing about ruthless real estate agents and their unscrupulous lawyers, who help frankly not-so-desirable non-Bermudians circumvent the law (via the use of tricky trusts) to buy houses / cottages in areas and ARV brackets clearly set aside only for Bermudian purchasers?

I have the perfect example in my neighbourhood. Several years ago, right under the noses of a newly-elected PLP Government, a to all intents and purposes self-employed non-Bermudian, with no family ties to Bermuda purchased the run-down cottage adjacent to us for around $200,000 (perhaps less).

He was introduced to us as the new owner, and indeed boasted of this fact to others. He shelled out cash, paying top dollar for mostly second-rate builders, tilers and carpenters almost all of who did their work during unsocial hours and at weekends.

End result: a villa on the waterfront of a remote protected bay, where he can keep his super-duper fast pleasure boats, have an 'office', for his 'international company', with only one local employee (him!), have another address for his own four-wheeled vehicle, so that his wife can also own a separate car when she is on the island, guest accommodation for overseas visitors and extended family, etc.

There is little doubt that Bermuda thrives on foreign investment, and we must all be gracious to our guests; however, this man and his wife, in their arrogant disdain for the spirit of our local laws ? if not the letter ? are nonetheless utterly convinced they are doing Bermuda a favour.

I do not agree. They are a burden on the infrastructure and environment in terms of the number of dwellings they own and maintain vacant, vehicles they own and run (two large cars, at least one scooter, three boats), their use of our low ARV residential property to enable conspicuous consumption at an affordable price, overpayment for services (which results in increased prices for locals requiring work) and tax avoidance.

I must pay heavily for the pleasure of sustaining a local business, and now face increased payroll tax and increases in every other area.

That is OK if it benefits my fellow Bermudian, but I fail to understand why this 'cuckoo' nestles his 'office' and holiday apartment in our area, in the full and secure knowledge that he can thumb his nose at all of us, and the poor souls packed into Housing Corporation houses (they can never hope to own) within spitting distance of his little gold mine.

He is in open breach of several of our local laws. I hardly think he can be ignorant of them, indeed the name and address of his 'international company' of one is in the local telephone book.

Why does he feel so secure? Who did he have to pay off? Perhaps the Ministers would kindly answer these questions.