OW many of us get the perennial chore of Christmas shopping completed by Halloween? Not a lot of us. But I do know one fellow who is wise enough to avoid the hassle the rest of us go through by choosing his gifts on his travels throughout the year so he can actually sit back and enjoy this season.

And then there's another friend who begins his entirely local shopping shortly slightly before lunch on Christmas Eve with a drink at one of the many bars in town. He then wanders out and buys a gift, goes to the next bar for another toddy and lurches out to buy another gift. And so on. Both of these friends' presents are wonderful to receive.

If you're like me, my thoughts of "what to give whom" become more and more indecisive each year, until the only decision I've made is that I can procrastinate no longer. Telling myself that this is the season to be jolly and to extend goodwill to all men, it's time to join all those fellow beings who have almost no idea what to look for in their desperate and panicked search for the perfect gift.

And I know, and I think you know, that the "perfect gift" requires some originality of thought (socks, unless decorated with a portrait of your teenager's favourite rapper, will not cut it) and obtaining this gift should preferably be done with minimum discomfort to yourself.

Well, I have an idea for you. Instead of fighting through the crowds and having to restore your spirits at the nearest bar, try a visit to any one of the art galleries in town.

You can be guaranteed a welcome whether you are a serious shopper or just there to enjoy the calm. I was recently asked how much it cost to see "the show" at a local art gallery, and I'm not sure how widespread this misapprehension is, but all our galleries are free of charge, including the National Gallery, which hasn't charged an admission fee for the past two years.

You will not be met with an icy, more-knowledgeable-than-thou stare as you wander into a gallery. Our local curators are young enthusiasts who realise how important it is for their galleries to be not only user-friendly, but also how important it is for art to be accessible to everyone.

Most of us enjoy music of one form or another, and shop for the artists we prefer to hear. Expand that enjoyment of art to the visual arts and a whole realm of new and valuable experience is available. and and almost all of them are now showing exquisite pieces of art that would make mouth-watering gifts.

By now you may be muttering that the "sock" option is far less expensive than anything you can get at a gallery. Not so. Quite apart from their exhibitions of original art, all the galleries have "shops" within them where prints, posters, photographs, jewellery, or really unusual and temptingly off-beat objects are available at a much lower cost. If you choose to splurge on original art, you are unlikely to regret it.

Long after those socks are beyond darning, your family or friends will still be enjoying that piece you gave them this Christmas. We're not talking simply of paintings here, but prints, posters, jewellery, bronzes, glass, pottery and many other crafts that our local artists have mastered. Especially for Christmas, there are new exhibits showing at all the galleries.

The New Heritage House Gallery has just begun its annual exhibition of , and The Windjammer Gallery's show has been open for two weeks. As their titles imply, the paintings exhibited are all small in size, and although you'd need a fairly hefty budget to give everyone on your list a painting for Christmas, these little gems are reasonably priced.

Don't miss out on a visit to City Hall's Society of Arts show across the road from Heritage House, where its new show opened this weekend. As well as paintings in all sizes and prices, there are some really tempting three-dimensional works on display.

Try to visit Masterworks' gallery where the new show also opened this past week, and also take a look at its small but fascinating museum.

The Bermuda Arts Centre at Dockyard opened its show, called earlier this month. Just as excellent in quality as the last three shows the BACD has put on, you may well come away from this one feeling you've tasted some of the absolutely delicious fruit found hanging over a neighbour's wall; not exactly sinful ? more of a naughty exercise ? but with an appreciation of how good "forbidden" can be.

Seen through the eyes of several artists, sinning is diverse, colourful, and a great deal of fun. Very well worth making the fairly long journey, for most of us, in order simply to enjoy not just the show, but also its other gallery and resident artists' studios, and a shop full of a huge variety of goodies with a range of price-tags.

I do not mean to ignore the beautiful prints many photographers sell through these galleries or, for instance, the textiles, glass, ceramics and other crafts that are made in Bermuda and can all be found in the Dockyard area.

If we want any and all the arts to flourish in Bermuda, we cannot simply talk about it, but must begin to take a real interest, appreciate the quality of what our artists have to offer, and then actually buy it. We are lucky to have as many different artists as there are tastes, but we will only be able to continue this enjoyment and (even more valuably) pass it on to our children if we keep these galleries and artists flourishing with our patronage.

You're not an art patron? Well, it's time to become one. And all you have to do is enjoy an art gallery and buy what you feel is the perfect gift to give to someone while at the same time giving yourself some pleasure , and giving back to the arts.

ARS GRATIA ARTIS

Southampton

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EADING the by Alvin Williams (, December 12) relating to Independence, I wondered how difficult it seems to get the actual truth of the supposed benefits of sovereignty ? as everyone agrees if it improves the quality of life it is certainly desirable.

One would need to be naive in the extreme to believe that ? in general terms ? those colonisers who went to foreign lands did so to improve the lot of the indigenous people. The history of imperialism is replete with horror stories of unthinkable tragedies too numerous to catalogue here.

What is of present concern is how did those countries fare on obtaining Independence?

Ignorance is based on what one believes, rather than what they know. Assumptions are fine, but when voiced without facts they become ignorance.

Mr. Williams considers Ian Smith, the Prime Minister of Rhodesia, a war criminal and a murderer of African people and while he may well be correct in his assessment, he offers no statistical evidence to validate his opinion. Interestingly, though, Mr. Williams makes no mention of Robert Mugabe, the current leader of Zimbabwe, and if in fact he would consider him a murderer and a war criminal also.

So let's see if I can offer some information that may prove helpful.

Mugabe did not win the last election legally. There were many examples of electoral fraud perpetrated by his ruling party/gang but I will cite one instance in particular. One rural voting polling station registered in excess of 300,000 votes for Mugabe, when in fact there was only 34,000 registered voters in the area.

Now to deal with the land issue.

There are 18 million hectares of farmland in Zimbabwe ? of which two million were owned by white farmers who did in fact produce 90 per cent of the country's food.

Though some statistics suggest that anywhere from 70 to 90 per cent of fertile farmland was owned by white farmers, this is a misleading statement. Virtually of the land in Zimbabwe has the potential of being very fertile and the reason the white farmers have such productive land is because they built dams to irrigate their crops and so are mostly unaffected by drought which has always been a common phenomenon in Africa.

It is unlikely that the two million hectares now being nationalised and redistributed among supposed "veterans" of Zimbabwe's war of Independence will make any appreciable difference to the country's current food problems when it is joined to the other 16 million hectares of unfertile, underutilised land. It seems Mugabe played the race card to create havoc and destroy the opposition, just as he did in the '80s when his army slaughtered 30,000 civilians in Matabeleland because they were opposing him and his tribal support base.

Before one gives support to Mugabe, remember the people who are really suffering are not the white farmers ? who have been offered land in other black African countries in return for bringing their expertise and investments ? but the 800,000 farm workers who have lived on those farms for generations and are now dying of starvation.

Black opposition party members have their daughters and wives raped to keep them in line. Millions of Zimbabweans who walked home as refugees from surrounding countries at the election to vote for change found their hopes for a peaceful end to the dictatorship dashed as Mugabe cut the number of polling stations in the urban areas by 80 per cent to ensure his opponents would wait in line for days ? and still not get a chance to vote.

There are six million black Zimbabweans plus eight million Africans in surrounding countries who are starving largely due to the fact that the commercial farmers in Zimbabwe used to export their surplus grain to them at reasonable prices, while Mugabe gives all the best and most luxurious farms to his wife and cronies.

After 15 years of rigid sanctions in the 1960s and '70s as the UK refused to grant Independence to the then breakaway colony of Rhodesia, its currency amazingly held at one for one with the dollar. Now it takes 55 to get one US dollar ? but that's not really true as in reality it takes 1,500 on the black market!

In addition to its political and economic problems, another tragedy is now playing itself out in Zimbabwe. This, of course, is the scourge of Aids, with up to one third of the population infected ? over three million people.The country receives $200 million in aid to fight the disease but it is not enough by far.

Of the 49 countries in the continent of Africa the then Rhodesia was the most successful in terms of infrastracture and economic stability, surpassing South Africa in many ways.

This was true also during the early days of the Mugabe government when Zimbabwe came into existence. But in recent years this country has fallen victim to the effects of greed and corruption and, as always, the innocent suffer the most.

This may be why so many countries fail after Independence. Sovereignty is not necessarily a solution to all of our problems: the concept of Independence remains a dilemma.

BILL COOK

Paget

PS: The real problem is man's inhumanity to man which crosses all boundaries it seems.