Last week's column on Jersey produced a bumper mailbag on various topics. Highlights:

l Several e-mails arrived in response to there being no adjective for Jersey people. People from France are French; (some) people from Bermuda are Bermudians; but people from Jersey are people from Jersey. They are not Jerseian, Jerseyesque or Jerseygasque. My brother suggested that those who spend part of the year in Jersey might be called Jersey-ish.

An American reader e-mailed to say that people from New Jersey are called Jerseyites. Another reader sent me to a web page that listed nicknames instead. It wasn't quite what I wanted, but it was interesting. Just as Bermudians are nicknamed Onions, Jersey people are called toads by Guernsey people, who call themselves donkeys.

The Channel Island of Sark has about six people on it, and they have the most nicknames. The nicknames relate to one's parish, and include: spitters, frogs, cockchafers, pure-blooded-donkeys, ants, beetles, drones, ray fish and the siftings. They are not, however, called Sarkers, Starkers or anything else: there is no adjective for Sark either.

Enough of that. Kindly note that I did not make a dirty joke out of cockchafers.

• A reader wrote to ask: "What percentage of the worker's pay cheque goes to Government in Jersey/ What is their import duty, etc.?" I hadn't gotten into that because I was on holiday, but here's what I found out, or didn't:

Income tax in Jersey is 20 percent. The Bailiwick is moving towards making it the tax on all income, with no exceptions or allowances. Add in social insurance and all the other ways in which governments take your money (for your own good), and I would guess that the average Jersey pay cheque loses about a third before it reaches the payee (remember when Bermuda pay cheques were 100 cents on the dollar? Halcyon days).

On import duties, Jersey applies the common external tariff of the European Union (EU); there are no tariff barriers between Jersey and the rest of the EU. I spent some hours on the web trying to find the EU tariff, and failed.

I would like to point out that Britain should immediately leave the EU. The UK signed up for a common economic market, but with the Lisbon Treaty, has devolved most of its powers to govern itself unto Brussels.

It's not clear in my mind when the EU will declare Bermuda entirely out of order and have the place sunk under a butter mountain, but it will happen. Britain has been utterly marginalised and is a minor northern corner of an unwieldy giant country ruled by France and Germany. Bermuda is thus an outlying territory of a small, mostly ignored, bankrupt country in the north of Europe somewhere. Bad luck.

• A gent kicked in from the blogosphere. That's where someone writes a letter about you to his e-pals, and publishes it online. The comments appeared on a website called bermudasucks. That's just rude, but this is the 1990s and anything goes. The website appears, at a glance, to be a site for local dissidents and unhappy foreigners, all pseudonymic. Disclosure: some people there said very nice things about me.

I toyed with posting my response on my fridge, which is just like the blogosphere, in that it's electronic, it accepts messages, and no one ever sees them. Yes, I know, bloggers are people too. I must close this section of the debate by quoting Samuel Johnson: "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." He meant to exclude my correspondents, obviously.

The blogger was referring to my thoughts on Bermuda's relatively tiny retail sector (turns out Jersey services the other Channel Islands, and its visitors go shopping, which ours don't). He wrote that I had failed "to see it from a global perspective".

"Simply put," he continued, "Protectionism is bad in an era of globalisation. The legacy of protectionism is a dumbing-down and lowering of standards. Can you imagine anywhere else in the world that expects the person entering the shop to issue the "good morning" greeting first, or be snubbed by the staff because they are rude? No, that is uniquely Bermudian and set up a whole negative feedback cycle which has killed that particular 'service' industry.

"Add to that the elitist attitude that thinks people should be willing to pay more for the privilege of buying goods on the Island (after a generation of bilking rich international business) and you get exactly what you see on Front Street. Retail that doesn't work for either the local population or the visitors.

"Simple math. Just look at it from the perspective of the world, not from the island."

OK, well, good luck. I take the view that the 60:40 rule has, net net, protected Bermudians. It's hard to envisage a Bermuda that lacked such protection. Any big global company could buy the entire place and rename it Staples Bermudaland or BermudACE or some such.

Maybe the Island is too expensive to buy completely today. But it wouldn't have been in 1950. Without 60:40, American International Group (AIG) could have bought the entire place, renamed it American International Country (AIC) and by now it would probably own the other countries too.

And, by the way, my fridge has food in it. In the blogosphere, no one can hear you eat.

• Which brings us to a very sad letter indeed.

"There is definitely something odd where the noticeable absence of people of colour in Jersey is concerned," a reader wrote. "I for one would be curious to know why.

"Having travelled extensively around the world, Jersey was the first place where, as a person of colour, I was made to feel out of place.

"During a visit in 2002, I recall walking along the main street in St. Helier and seeing traffic slowed to a halt as drivers peered out of their windows to take a good look at me. For a second, I thought I had landed on Mars or Jupiter.

"My trip to Jersey was business-related, so much of my days was spent indoors. After hours, I visited a few restaurants where the stares from patrons intensified. There was an awful experience when this one chap who sat across from our table was overheard saying something to the effect of 'monkey go home'.

"As a Jamaican, I am proud to have been raised with an open heart towards people from diverse cultures and background. It is refreshing that Jamaica's coat of arms bears the words 'Out of many, one people', words that echo our national motto based on our multi-racial roots.

"Both Bermuda and Jersey could learn something from the unifying theme of inclusiveness."

No blockhead, that reader.

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Follow-ups: It took 17 days to install the Broadband at my UK flat. TV Licensing read the column - everyone reads the Gazette - and tried to be nice. They lack the power to break into your house, they advised me, so I say just don't answer the doorbell until armed police arrive. In response to their unexpected kindness to me, I gracefully pointed out that TV Licensing are the natural successors to the Gestapo. Fearless with truth, I am. They'll start pestering me again in a year.