counterpart David Allen for the failure of the TWA flight from St. Louis are harsh.

Mr. Dodwell claimed in yesterday's newspaper that the flight was being pulled because Mr. Allen was more interested in road shows and entertainment than in building relationships with the Island's tourism partners.

He also said that the flight was inadequately promoted in the Midwest hub, a point which is more the point.

In truth, the TWA flight was always a risky and uncertain venture, albeit one which was worth trying because the potential pay off -- new markets for visitors from the Midwest and West Coast -- was huge.

Mr. Dodwell is right in stating that a lack of promotion for the new flight was at fault. Clearly, Bermuda needed high visibility to launch a flight in virgin territory and it does not take long to spend $250,000. What is not clear is whether spending $500,000 or $1 million would have made a difference.

Mr. Allen claims the Country made money out of the flight. Some $250,00 was spent on marketing, with abut $150,000 recouped in taxes while visitor spending would have made the rest back.

But TWA clearly felt the flight was not viable, and with reports that the number of passenger being in the single digits, that is hardly surprising.

It is impossible to tell if Mr. Allen was solely responsible for the failure of TWA and it seems unfair to lay all the blame at his feet. Nor should Mr.

Allen feel discouraged from pursuing flights from elsewhere, including Miami as suggested by Mr. Dodwell.

Bermuda must keep on trying and experimenting with new markets and new ideas to revive tourism.

BEWARE OF SCAMS EDT Beware of scams A great deal of attention has been focused on pyramid schemes and other forms of get-rich-schemes in recent months, including the recent accusation that executives at the Bank of Bermuda's Cayman branch may have been involved in a "cash for titles'' scheme which cost investors millions of dollars.

There have been accusations that criticisms of these schemes are efforts to prevent black Bermudians from accumulating wealth.

Nothing could be further from the truth. There seem to be more of these schemes than ever and P.T. Barnum's axiom that a sucker is born every day still holds true.

Today, the fact that these schemes are available on the Internet and via e-mail makes them more pervasive, even when the scams themselves are as old as the hills.

The important thing to remember is that if an offer seems too good to be true it probably is.