Mr. Dudley Proctor, the store owner, has announced that his novel store, popular with tourists and local hotels, will close at the end of the month.

He did not even have the consolation of boosted sales of Union Jacks, that would have seemed inevitable during the recent Royal visit.

Attempts to seal a contract with Government to supply flags came to nothing.

He sold a mere 50 flags, and at severely knocked down prices. "I took a beating,'' lamented Mr. Proctor.

The West End Development Corporation has told Mr. Proctor his lease is up, even though his rent payments have not been in arrears, and his business is not flagging.

The Corporation said it was "not prepared to have any discussions about tenants and landlords disclosed to the media'', but commercial development manager Mr. Ed Williams said the business was closing down of its own accord.

Not true, according to Mr. Proctor, a former Police sergeant, who insisted he wants to stay on another year.

Even two interviews with the Premier, Sir John Swan, have failed to win him a reprieve, and the store space will be taken by a genealogist, said Mr.

Proctor.

* * * BUC BERMUDA HOME, the best-kept business secret of late, was due to be unleashed on the unwitting public via Bermuda's media at midday last Monday.

Promptly assembled were an august collection of Bank of Bermuda executives, including president Mr. Donald Lines and senior vice president Mr. Arthur Haycock, and also LPG's president Mr. David Gutteridge, all glowing with pride.

After a 15 minutes wait for the TV and radio crews to arrive, Mr. Lines signalled that the press conference should be given to a lone Royal Gazette business journalist.

At the end of a fairly exhaustive interview behind closed doors, the reporter swapped seats with a TV journalist, who was told the story a second time.

Still no sign of the radio crew.

One can only imagine Mr. Lines' frustration at reiterating for a third time, when the radio people eventually turned up, that Bermuda Home was not to be his "third career'', after retiring from the bank.

* * * BUC THOSE smiling tellers greeting you at the bank may be hiding their insecurity about their branch's lack of security.

A US architectural firm found in a survey that US bankers worried about the plate glass windows and open layouts in modern branches leaving them vulnerable to robbers.

Fortunately in Bermuda, the tellers are not so nervous. Ms Charline Asphall, manager of retail banking at the Bank of Bermuda, said staff were confident about security measures undertaken by the bank -- and after all the risks were not so high.

Mr. Stephen Todd, senior manager of retail banking at the Bank of Butterfield, said the bank hadn't recently questioned tellers about their feeling relating to security, but was adamant that the bank always ensured it had high industry standards.

In the poll of more than 100 bankers in the US, 96 percent said safety and privacy were their biggest concerns about the design of their banks.

* * * SUR LOOKING for a big pay raise? The Pacific Rim leads the industrialised world in projected salary increases, according to a recent survey of more than 4,000 employers in 19 countries.

The US consulting firm who conducted the survey said executives in Hong Kong and Thailand could expect pay hikes of around 11.5 percent this year.

Executives in Malaysia could expect raises of 8.5 percent and in Singapore seven percent.

The countries with the lowest executive pay increases were projected to be Canada, with a 2.5 percent rise, and Switzerland, with 2.6 percent. US executives can expect a 4.4 percent increase.