Hector, like most people, is battling the bulge after one too many mince pies over his extended festive period. Since he is somewhat in denial over this he would therefore like to commend the honesty of one young man overheard in the street.

“Hey, did you lose weight?” asked a female acquaintance as they passed in central Hamilton.

“No,” replied the young man in a rueful tone. “I just bought bigger clothes.”Speaking of embarrassing admissions — one big burly and very male lawyer had a confession to make in court as to why he did not have his diary at hand to fix a court date.

“I changed bags, you see,” he explained to Magistrate Khamisi Tokunbo.

Quick as a flash Mr. Tokunbo — who does not strike Hector as the type to carry a man-bag himself — batted back: “I thought only women had that problem?”

The shame-faced lawyer looked like he was making a mental note to buy a BlackBerry.Hector has long suspected that the tough guys at Bermuda Regiment are really teddy bears at heart — and now he has the proof. A female Gazette hack heading to a press conference at Warwick Camp recently came off her scooter in the rain and arrived at Regiment headquarters a little shaken up. Although she was late, the friendly Regiment people offered to stall the start of the briefing so she could nip to the toilet, wipe away her tears and generally sort herself out. Once the press conference got under way, the bedraggled and bruised reporter was sure that Public Safety Minister David Burch, himself a former Regiment Commanding Officer, delivered his statement in a slightly less stern manner than usual. He even managed a small smile in her direction at one point. Maj. Wayne Smith, meanwhile, was kindness itself, offering a friendly hug, a cup of coffee and, after the proceedings were over, a check-up from a waiting Regiment medic. The reporter was mortified at the attention and beat a hasty retreat before the young soldier could check her for road rash. But Hector applauds the gallant actions of the Regiment folk. The recent glut of stories about Bermudians Against the Draft clearly hasn’t affected their gentlemanly credentials one jot.It seems the somewhat desperate journalists at ZBM uncovered a new way to get breaking news — asking for it on air. On the night that former UBP chairwoman>Gwyneth Rawlins <$>announced her resignation hacks across the Island were burning up the phone lines trying to find anyone who would comment on the allegations of racism within the UBP.

After announcing the resignation and moving on to another story journalist Gary Moren$>reappeared on television screens across the nation and said: “If Wayne Furbert Gwyneth Rawlins <$>are out there watching this broadcast please call our newsroom.”

Clearly, the politicians were busy watching the VSB broadcast as Mr. Moreno did not appear back on the scene with an update that evening.Hector was doing his usual Google trawl after punching in ‘Bermuda’ and came across this confusing opening paragraph on the USATODAY website. Under a column entitled The Golfer’s World, Larry Olmsted writes: “Bermuda is an odd place, not part of the Caribbean or Bahamas, and while thought of as a warm weather beach island, it sits at the same latitude as the Carolinas and enjoys peak beach season in the summer.” Hector thinks USATODAY is a bit of an odd place, letting through a bizarre opening like that. One wonders why not being part of the Caribbean or Bahamas marks out a country as being ‘odd’ — surely most countries aren’t ‘if we do the math’ and Hector is puzzled why Mr. Olmsted feels the need to distinguish between the Caribbean and the Bahamas. Isn’t the latter part of the former? And finally wouldn’t most countries have their peak beach season in the summer? All very — as Mr. Olmsted would say — odd.Despite fireman occasionally totalling $400,000 firetrucks things are thankfully relatively quiet down at Bermuda’s airport and excitement is hard to come by. Which is perhaps what prompted the bigwigs at the airport to send out a breathless media alert about the arrival of a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet. Photographers were invited to rush down take pictures of the aircraft which apparently is “licensed to Transaero Airlines, a subsidiary of the Russian airline Aeroflot,” and was due to land for refuelling. The heads-up carried on: “This airplane is licensed by the Bermuda Dept. of Civil Aviation (DCA) and only rarely do these planes actually land in Bermuda.” All of which left Hector thinking that the lack of a railroad in Bermuda must have left a lot of would-be trainspotters looking to the skies for their mechanical related jollies.