Who else could get 150 normally strait-laced insurance businessmen up on their feet singing a Crawley-composed song to the theme of Wagner's stirring Ride of the Vulkaries (popularised by the helicopter/beach scene in the movie Apocalypse Now), as Sphere Drake's local boss did at the end of his speech which marked the closing of the inaugural Bermuda Insurance Symposium.

After posthumously appointing German composer Richard Wagner as the alternative risk transfer market's official composer, Crawley proceeded to teach what remaining delegates had stayed behind (about one-third of total attendees) the words of "The Ride of the ART Marketeers'', a song he wrote as a tribute to the alternative risk transfer market. And he urged listeners to bellow it out at full voice as "you ride your horses'' and "fly your hang-gliders''.

Undeterred by a plethora of faxes which amounted virtually to hate mail from his former boss Mark Hardy, who sent them all over the Island, Crawley kept his composure and delivered a 45-minute speech extolling the virtues of the pioneers of change in the ART insurance world which was interspersed with musical excerpts from Wagner -- a combination of music and talk which Crawley said he had wanted to marry into a speech for some time.

So, for those of you who don't know the words of the song, or for delegates who have already forgotten them, here they are again, in full. For those of you who can't remember the tune, each line of the song must be sung to a noise that sounds vaguely like the humming of "Barm, bar-a barm, barm''.

The Ride of the ART Marketeers "We've pledged our assurance, Whether Insurance Or Reinsurance We're State of the ART We challenged convention Built our retention Proudly we mention We're State of the ART We broke with tradition Some called it sedition We have a mission We're State of the ART Our assets keep growing Our profits are glowing Our anthem bestowing On State of the ART'' Copyright, J. Crawley and R. Wagner.

* * * BUC PROFUSE apologies to readers for a glaring error in last week's Business Diary which has been pointed out by members of Bermuda's international business elite.

It seems that the Diary seriously underestimated the value to Centre Re co-founders Steven Gluckstern and Michael Palm of their executive compensation in relation to newly-formed Zurich Reinsurance Centre Holdings.

ZRC's prospectus had pointed out that Gluckstern and Palm's Centre Re stock options and stock appreciation rights would increase or decrease by about $569,000 and $486,000, respectively, for every one dollar fluctuation in the share price of ZRC.

The base price that this this flucutation is measured against, however, is actually $20, not the $35 price that the Diary had believed.

So with ZRC's stock trading at $32.50 by Friday afternoon, Gluckstern would have been looking at a paper gain of $6.83 million, instead of a potential loss of over $1 million, as reported last week.

Likewise, Palm stood to benefit to the tune of $5.83 million, while ZRC director Laurence Cheng's potential gain was just over $1 million. * * * EAT A PARTING shot which is too good not to be put into print. At a recent Paget Lions golf tournament dinner at Belmont Hotel and Golf Club, a guest asked a waiter whether there was a wine list. "Yes,'' said the waiter, with no hint of humour. "You can have red or white.''