Hector is not sure what the lady who announced the start of Sunday night's Movie on the Beach had been up to before the film — but it certainly sounded like she'd been having fun.

"Good evening ladies and gentleman" she spluttered over the booming tannoy — before dissolving into fits of laughter. The audience raised a collective eyebrow as she continued to giggle, stumble over her words and generally make an almighty hash of the intro.

It took her a good five minutes to announce the name of the movie — "Moonstruck" — and thank everyone from the Department of Tourism to the people who were due to sweep up the litter afterwards. The conclusion of her epic spiel raised an even bigger round of applause than the romantic end of the movie.

While Hector fully understands Ewart Brown's battle to reduce the long queuing times at the Airport taxi rank — something which hardly exudes 'pop and sizzle' for Bermuda's hard-won visitors — he feels the good doctor needs to get a grip on his own department before pointing the finger at others.

As far as Hector is concerned, the only improvements in efficiency at TCD under the Doc's reign has been the issuing of tickets explaining how long you will have to wait. Hector's pal endured two such tortuous visits this week. In the first he was told he would be waiting an estimated 53 minutes before he took the last seat in the packed waiting room. Even this depressing synopsis proved overly optimistic as he sat through a wait of one hour and 40 minutes. In the second visit the frustrated motorist was given an ETA of 30 minutes to fume at Government inefficiency — which of course ended up being a 50-minute wait.

To make matters worse the tickets give little indication of how near you are to the joy of handing Government yet more of your cash. If you have 38 and number 29 is being served you are not nine slots away from escaping Nightmare in North Street. No, just as it begins to click nearer your number and your crushed hopes once again begin to rise the display board will open up another sequence as they start calling for lucky number 402 to scurry over to the counter. And after moving through the early 400s they will begin a third set before moving back to the 30s.

Hector wonders why Government, which still employs the largest section of the Island's workforce, despite some misleading recent figures to the contrary, can't seem to increase its efficiency despite its ever increasing numbers. It is time to put GPS locators on each of its workers to find out where they are when they are not manning the counters?

Waiting at the Government Administration Building has also got a lot grimmer. Hector wants to know which civil servant has confiscated the sweet dispenser from the ground floor lobby in the Parliament Street HQ. Having to deal with bureaucracy can at times leave a bitter taste in the mouth, so having three coin-operated dispensers with M&Ms and other treats always seemed a good idea.

So imagine Hector's dismay, having saved up a handful of quarters to buy some supplies before traipsing up and down the various floors of the bureaucratic citadel, only to discover the sweet dispensers had been replaced by — of all things — a shoe polishing machine. Now where's the fun in that?

Hector hears of a recent visitor to the Island from the Northeast of England who — despite hailing from the seaside city of Sunderland — seemed somewhat bemused by Bermuda's beautiful coastline.

To be fair to the 23-year-old lady, she had never worn a bikini before, never sunbathed on a beach before and had never been out on a boat. But the question she posed while frolicking at the Wyndham Bermuda Resort and Spa was still somewhat unusual.

As she dug her toes into the sand and looked out at the waves gently rippling into the rocky cove which frames the hotel's private beach, she asked her companion: "Is that the sea?" Hector realises that it's grim up North in the UK and that the North Sea is a far cry from the Atlantic Ocean but he shudders to think just how different to Bermuda it must be.

While Police seem to spend enormous amount of time blaming the public for not solving crimes for them so Hector is heartened to find there is one they did manage to sort out this week all on their own — the insidious scourge of attractive young women skinny dipping. When two such sexy anarchists opted to cap off their evening by taking a quick naked swim off their boat in the St. George's Harbour six police officers quickly showed up and arrested them for breaking the law. Amazing how when it comes to arresting naked 20-something-year-olds the Police come out in full force. Hector was only surprised they didn't call for reinforcements. Strangely it is left to Hector to trumpet this achievement as there was no mention of this on the daily Police report. Hector thinks wider appreciation of such antics would do wonders for their recruitment drive. He also ponders about the sanity of whoever reported this dastardly crime.

"People shouldn't seek political office," proclaimed Mark Pettingill, as he was unveiled as a UBP candidate before the 2003 election. "It should seek you...." Fast forward three years, and with an election defeat under his expensive belt, the attorney is heading back on the campaign trail — armed with a strangely familiar message.

"I have always been of the view that in this country, especially, one should not seek political position, that it should really seek you," he trumpeted at a press conference on Tuesday, when he was confirmed as an Opposition candidate for Warwick West. Politics appears to have found him a second time — although bearing in mind some of the strikingly snappy suits and flamboyant shoes the defence lawyer regularly dons in court, Hector feels he would be pretty hard to miss.