I write this week from Jersey, in the Channel Islands. Jersey is a fellow member of the offshore community, one of the last outposts of the mediaeval empire of the Duke of Normandy. A British dependency, Jersey earns its living from a mix of international business, tourism and agriculture.

The curse of the place for a Bermuda-type person is that it's impossible to keep from comparing Jersey to the Somers Isles. The most startling difference is the lack of people of colour. I have seen just seven blacks in three days out and about. I cannot think of another place I've been where the population is so completely non-diverse: a handful of Filipinos and other Asians, but otherwise almost everyone is lilywhite. It can't be policy, so what can it be?

Jersey is physically about twice the size of Bermuda, with a population a little over 90,000. There is but one town of any size, St. Helier, and a great deal of utterly enchanting countryside. In the north, steep cliffs and cute little harbours make the views out to sea spectacular. Jersey is a lovely place.

Of similarities, there are many. Friendly people. Cars with five-digit number plates (prefixed by J and now up to six numbers in some cases, which Bermuda will surely reach before too long). Low unemployment. Pleasant sea breezes. King Street. Queen Street. Low taxation. The overpowering sense of being somewhere special. Jersey, geographically, is to the UK somewhat as Bermuda is to the US: near, and yet so far.

The biggest difference other than the lack of diversity is the size of Jersey's retail sector. It's enormous by any yardstick, but compared to Bermuda's, it's incomprehensibly huge. The logic of this has rattled me all week. The centre of St. Helier has lots of giant department stores, at least two Boots the chemists, clothes shops galore, dozens of restaurants, including MacDonald's and all the world's cuisine - more or less everything you could want to buy is available here. Broadband, at eight megs, for $20 a month, for a start. Read that and weep.

GDP is about the same as Bermuda's, hovering above $5 billion. That means that total spending power is about the same. Yet where we have the Cooper family struggling on as the Island's only major department store, Jersey has a dozen big stores. Where we have Italian restaurants that cost a fortune, dining out here is affordable and offers a fantastically wider choice.

It crossed my mind that Jersey, being British but only sort of, has no 60:40 ownership rule. Thus Marks and Spencers, for example, is able to sell goods at UK prices, and remit its earnings to the home office in London. Bermuda's virtually extinct retail sector would fit, in its entirety, into any one of many retail streets here.

I don't get it. Bermudians spend like drunken sailors, yet the retail sector is morose. Channel Islanders (there is no adjective for people from Jersey, weirdly) must do the same, and their retail sector is way larger than would be the case in any comparably-sized town in the US or UK. If you can explain this to me, please do (crombie@northrock.bm).

Real estate is as insanely expensive in Jersey as it is in Bermuda. In good measure, what Bermuda people think of as a minimum, in terms of property, Jersey people think of as a maximum.

Apartments and condos are popular, with about a third of the population living in or near St. Helier, resulting in glorious wide-open spaces that Bermuda hasn't had in 50 years. Traffic on Jersey's roads is as bad as Bermuda's, or worse. Schools appear not to be an issue, to judge by the one newspaper, the Jersey Evening Post. I would say that Bermuda outperforms Jersey in terms of sports and, undoubtedly, self-regard.

Like Bermuda, Jersey has undergone massive change in the past 40 years (I was last here in 1966). St. Helier is dogged by cranes, as Hamilton has been, but it has been able to dovetail its commercial buildings with retail in a way that Bermuda cannot. The modern disease of development, grabbing every dollar whether you need it or not, is barely destroying Jersey at all, unlike Bermuda, which, on one level, is turning into something rather nearer the Island of Dr. Moreau than the Isles of Rest.

For balance, I should point out that I had a long chat with a gentleman of late middle age, who assured me that Jersey has been completely ruined by development and is now a horrible place, with the exception, he said, of the west side. That part of the island is an absolute delight. It looks like Ferry Reach did before DHL wrecked it: neat and tidy, and forgotten.

It is wildly expensive to fly here, and only marginally less so to travel by ferry, as we did. My brother and his wife accompanied me. This was supposed to be a fact-finding trip, but the factee cancelled out. We had booked non-refundable hotel rooms and ferry tickets, so we are having what I believe is known as a holiday, or vacation. It's a weird experience. You don't do anything except roam around and stuff your face, for days on end. Can't see why it's so popular.

We're at a fine hotel for a tiny fraction of its Bermuda-equivalent price. The room is standard British: i.e. there isn't enough space to swing a dead cat. I have stubbed most of my sensitive parts on the modern, angular furniture several times.

Along with retail and the lack of diversity, one other fact has struck me forcibly. Jersey has very few bald men, by which I mean younger men who aren't bald but who swan about looking like cancer victims. That, and the ubiquitous sense of humour, are enormously refreshing.

Contact Roger Crombie at crombie@northrock.bm