This week, the OECD confirmed its credentials as a deeply fascist organisation, with the publication of its "Common principles and standards on propriety, integrity and transparency" that the staff of the unelected body hopes to enforce on an unwilling world.

These are the first few words of principle number 4: "Tax evasion and avoidance are harmful to society as a whole..." Here are some undisputed definitions the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) has chosen to ignore: * Tax evasion is cheating by breaking the law. It is paying less tax than one is legally obliged to pay.

* Tax avoidance is minimising one's tax liability in accordance with the law. It is paying every cent that the law demands, but no more.

They are as similar as murdering someone and thinking about murdering someone. The continued attack on small nations by organisations such as the OECD is a deliberate attempt on the part of its members, the so-called civilised countries, to equate any activity of which its dominant members, Germany and France, disapprove, with criminal activity, even if it is not criminal.

That kind of behaviour should itself be criminal.

* * *

I must be going soft. I have nice things to say about BTC. It seems to me that in the past few years, more or less co-terminously with the appointment of Sheila Lines as CEO, the service offered to customers by BTC has improved out of all recognition. Generally speaking, my phone works. In context, that's an extraordinary statement.

In my case, the improvement is due in part to the hard work of a man called Carlington, who has become a friend over the years, as he always dutifully drives out to see me whenever the phone breaks down. It's safe to say he's been to my apartment more often than anyone else alive. I haven't seen him for quite some time, though, and that's a compliment.

There is one area of BTC's services that could use some improvement. In Britain this week, a scandal has arisen over journalists illegally hacking into people's voicemail boxes. It's not that difficult to do in Bermuda, if you're in the mood, and I would greatly doubt that it's illegal, since BTC all but invites you do it.

Its voicemail answering service is now BTC's weakest product. It only works sometimes, and this week wasn't one of those times. It cuts callers off in mid-message or simply loses the messages it does take. Plus - and this drives me to distraction - if you call to retrieve your messages from a number that also uses the message service, you can listen to messages left for the number you're dialling from, but not your own messages.

So, for example, if I'm at my office or staying at a fabulous hotel on the Island, and I call to collect my messages, I can't get them, since my office and the hotels I stay in also use the BTC voicemail. What I can get, without needing to know a code number or anything else, is the messages left for the number I'm dialling from. That's useless to me.

As annoying as this is, it's a small thing, compared to reliable service. So, congratulations, BTC.

As I started to write this, on Thursday morning, all the Cablevision channels that I pay to receive were off the air. It's cable - ie the signal comes down a wire. There was no signal, I'm betting, because someone was too lazy to adjust a setting somewhere, or some such "technical difficulty".

Later on Thursday, the channels came back, with the exception of BBC World, the only one I wanted to watch. That took almost all day to be resurrected. At night, channels not working is the norm. The picture freezes up or just disappears. The words "No Signal" appear at the top of the screen, or a box appears, telling Cablevision what to do to fix it, but they've all gone home.

At 2am, I suppose, it's understandable. Why would they worry about their customers after 5pm? On Thursday, they didn't appear to be worrying about them during business hours.

I would have called to report the outages, but I've tried that. Cablevision people relentlessly refuse to listen, and assume that something must be wrong at your house. They send men to help, a few days later, even though the system-wide fault has usually been fixed by then. If Cablevision gave credit for the lengthy periods when its signal isn't working, that would be better. They don't.

Indeed, they become very rude when you suggest it. The company remains, by a country mile, the most hated of all Bermuda companies.

There. Saying all that nice stuff about BTC was eating into me. Balance restored.

* * *

I have no comment to make on the Uighur affair, other than this: it would be helpful if we could all agree what to call these fellows. The preferred pronunciation is "Wee-gurrs", although a spokesman for the Chinese Government this week called them "Ree-gurrs". They are definitely not, as a chap from London I was talking to this week called them, Chinese "Uruguays".

* * *

The following appeared in the online edition of this newspaper on Thursday, after a chap lost his cool in the Senate and used language unbecoming.

"Mr. Cross, of Hamilton Parish, was then ushered out of the senate by Sen. Marc Bean, the clerk of the senate and the Police officer on duty. Body indent. As soon as he was dragged out of the room, CID officers ran up the steps of the Cabinet to arrest him." Soon afterwards, one imagines, his body became even more indented.