Hector has heard of lazy but a Pembroke pet owner spotted out on North Shore Road recently really took the biscuit. The young man in question was “walking” his black Labrador while riding his motorcycle. The dog appeared to be enjoying the exercise as it trotted gaily along beside the scooter, which sped up and slowed down every few yards, presumably in order to add a bit of variety to the night-time workout. But Hector can’t believe the practice is safe — especially since neither the canine nor the clueless rider were wearing a helmet.Minister for Cultural Affairs Wayne Perinchief brought a smile to Hector’s face during the unrelenting tedium of the budget debate in the House. It had dawned on the 65-year-old that day at a luncheon for seniors that he was in fact a member of that group himself. “I recognised most of them. Some of them are my contemporaries. My old girlfriends were waving at me,” confessed Mr. Perinchief, before checking: “Was that too much information Madam Speaker?”

It was unclear what Madam Speaker made of it all, but he continued with ‘the world according to Wayne” nonetheless. “Reciprocity is the key to every relationship,” mused Mr.P, explaining that he knows this from experience — he’s been divorced twice.There seems to be something about Bermuda which attracts bad travel writing. Hector has already told you about the USATODAY columnist who opened with the statement Bermuda odd because it had a beach season in summer and it wasn’t part of the Caribbean or Bahamas. Now it seems the Chicago Tribune is in a fight to the death with their national rival to construct the worst opening sentence in an article on Bermuda. Robert Cross came up with the gripping: “Three of the four roofs above our heads were made of slate and painted white. My wife, Juju, and I ran around for a week, sampling places to stay, and most had in common those white slate roofs.The exception? I’m not sure what material they used on it, but the thing managed to stay put during 40-knot winds one dark and stormy night.”

Really? For some reason Hector was not tempted to read on. Indeed, he was too busy scrambling to get on the phone to get a job with the Chicago Tribune which is clearly keen to get its less linguistically gifted scribes out of the office where they can do so much damage and instead let them loose on expensive foreign jollies. Hector, who has been known to pen the odd duff piece, is looking forward to visiting Hawaii and writing about their plumbing system.Hector doesn’t really know where to start with Derrick Burgess’<$> increasingly ludicrous attempt to muzzle foreigners from speaking out about politics — not that many have had the desire to get involved, let’s be honest. Leave aside his own Premier’s youthful predilection for rabble rousing in America and the fact that so many of the PLP elite have married foreigners (hope those spouses know their place and keep quiet at the dinner table) and the fact that the BIU, the union he headed, was formed, in no small part, through the efforts of Trinidadian Dr. E. F. Gordon, Hector wonders where it will all end.

In mass merchandising it seems. One entrepreneur with an eye for the ironic is now marketing muzzled expat t-shirts and mugs at www.cafepress.com/whinyinbermuda. The advertising blurb says: “Every Government crackdown deserves its own T-shirt.” Hector will drink to that — in a new mug of course.