However vexed the rest of us may be with the McDonald's Saga, Peter Woolcock has actually dedicated his latest volume of "Woppened'' cartoons not only to them, but to all those who would also inflict a similar brand of American consumerist culture on this tiny land.

As he notes in his dedication, "This book would not have been the same without them.'' Indeed it would not, and it hardly goes without saying that it is his wonderful line-up of Bermuda's leading political headliners (all toting quarter-pounders) which has been chosen for the cover of this year's eagerly awaited volume of cartoons featured over the past 12 months in The Royal Gazette .

Martyn Turner, the internationally syndicated cartoonist for the famous Irish Times, has written a gracious -- and hilarious -- introduction to the book.

And the title page reflection on cartoons comes from none less than Winston Churchill, who acknowledges that politicians not only get used to being caricatured but are "quite offended and downcast when the cartoons stop ...

They fear old age and obsolescence are creeping upon them .. .'' (This quote also gives our cartoonist an opportunity to include the great man himself in his gallery of rogues, this time puffing the ubiquitous cigar and clutching, of course, a drawing of Sir Winston puffing a cigar).

From then on, there is page after page of wonderful cartoons which uniquely sum up the headline-inducing events over the past year. These ranged from a shirt-sleeved Commissioner Coxall handing out bullet-proof vests to unpopular ministers as well as his hard-pressed Police, Minister Tim Smith and the "talking mike'', The Gang of Five who in many eyes, rapidly became The People's Five, increased airport landing fees (even for Father Christmas), falling tourism figures, and the "let yourself go'' ad campaign, decisions over Base Lands and Alex Scott's gripes over "glass ceilings'' and other social ills, to name but a few.

Because of the domination in the news of the McDonald's furore, Mr. Woolcock admits it has been more difficult, in this ninth year, to come up with a constantly satirical viewpoint.

He tells a story to illustrate his point: "In the mid-1930s, the famous cartoonist David Low was outside the League of Nations sketching the very pompous, top-hatted figures who were coming out in their frock-coats and high collars. Someone saw what he was doing and leaned over and said, `Henceforth, Mr. Low, I think a photograph will suffice.' That bears relevance to Bermuda today, because when you have characters and events that are lampooning themselves, the work of the satirist is being undercut by his subjects! So spare a thought for the poor satirist who is trying to squeeze humour out of something that's already crazy. On the surface,'' he adds, "it is funny, but if you scratch beneath the surface, it is really very sad -- a party tearing itself to pieces over a hamburger!'' Many see that, he writes on the back cover, as "the loophole through which would flood the cheap commercialism that would ultimately destroy Bermuda's image.'' He also believes that, especially since the death of Frederick Wade and the retirement of Ottiwell Simmons as president of the BIU during this past year, the glory days of "perfect'' faces (from the cartoonist's point of view) are gone.

"Even Jennifer Smith is becoming very glamorous and she has a different hairstyle every week -- which means her silhouette changes all the time! She doesn't even wear horn-rimmed glasses or smoke a cigar. She is an attractive woman -- and that's the kiss of death to a cartoonist. The present lot do not seem to have `life lines' etched on them yet. I would hesitate to call them faceless,'' he adds hurriedly, "but they are harder to draw than the `old guard' -- Jack Sharpe, Harry Vesey and so on -- used to be.'' Mr. Woolcock reflects that in "Woppened I'', Shadow Minister of Tourism David Allen was just about the youngest politician, "now he is one of the political patriarchs!'' One thing that never ceases to amaze him, he muses, is what actually tickles peoples' fancies. "Certain cartoons get cut out and sent to relatives overseas and, quite often, these are the ones that I didn't think were all that funny. As for this book, I have yet to have a consensus as to which ones are the funniest as everybody seems to have their own favourite. I guess that's good. As I think I've remarked before, I was held back from starting these cartoons for about two years through well-meaning Bermudians telling me that I was asking for trouble, since local people didn't have a sense of humour. Happily, that was proved quite wrong. Humour, I believe, is not so much an escape -- sleep is an escape -- as a relief, a safety valve.'' He notes that most foreign cartoonists reflect their own strong opinions, or else the thinking of the people who publish them. "I don't think it's my place to give opinions -- I am an observer. My brief is to reflect on events, giving them a slight farcical twist -- but then, as I've already said, what do you do when events themselves are approaching the farcical?'' Woolcock From Page 49 "We have come full circle in that respect. And it's not just Bermuda. In the old days, cartoonists such as Hogarth took delight in savagely pricking the balloons of stiff royalty, but when you have the current royals in the tabloids, there are no balloons left to prick, and the same could be said of a lot of events in this world. World events seem to be getting loonier and loonier! So how do you loonify lunatic events?'' Mr. Woolcock asked.

Most would agree that with "Woppened 9'', Peter Woolcock, as always, has more than succeeded.

Published by Aardvark Communications at $12.50, the cartoon annual is now on sale throughout the Island.

Peter Woolcock