meanness. And this being Christmas -- season of peace, goodwill, carols and more awful ties, if it's anything like last year -- I feel obliged to tell you it's not true. Sensible, prudent and practical, yes. But grasping and parsimonious, never. Well, not often, anyway. So as an antidote to foul slanders spread mostly by our English neighbours, I've decided to list my modest proposals for Christmas presents for the entire population of Bermuda.

Generous to a fault, or what? And first on my list, though it pains me to say it (although not as much as being rear-ended by a motorcycle-driving maniac) is a copy of the UK's Highway Code for every road user. I've only been on the Island a few weeks -- and I've been stunned by the culture of courtesy I've encountered. Everybody says `good morning' -- sometimes even in the afternoon, but it's the thought that counts, that's what I say. But put these same mild-mannered, polite Bermudians on a motorbike or behind the wheel of a car and they give us all some idea of what Atilla the Hun would have been like if he'd discovered the internal combustion engine. Scooters, as far as I was concerned before my arrival in this island Paradise, were brightly-coloured little things kids wearing shorts stood on with one foot and pushed along with another. But I've found they're really brightly-coloured little things with engines capable of near-suicidal speeds which much older kids -- oddly, still wearing shorts -- are apparently using to practice for the day they get a pilot's licence and can become real Kamikazes. And I'm not immune. One of the oddities of Bermuda is that they drive on the same side of the road as the UK, use the same road signs and mostly the same road markings. I've driven a car for years and I'm not bad at it. Lots of practice, you see. On motorways, even, where the legal speed limit is 70 mph, the practical one is 85 mph and the maximum is how late you're running for work. But I can't drive a car in Bermuda without taking a test -- I am, however, apparently fit to take to the roads on a highly-tuned sewing machine with wheels at either end and no test more stringent than a quick limb count (Four, if anyone's interested). And, as anyone who's ever been unfortunate enough to be driving behind me could tell you, that really is a bit optimistic. Next on my list is a free session with a colour consultant for what seems to be every chap over 40 on the Island. You know. Some woman positively dripping with jewellry and immaculately coiffed hair who gushes: "You're autumn, I just know it.'' Or perhaps more worryingly for the sometimes distressingly conservative Bermudian middle-aged man, some chap positively dripping with jewellry and immaculately coiffed hair who gushes. For I've seen more unpleasant colours in jackets and shorts in my few short weeks in Bermuda than I've spotted since I suffered from teenage acne.

Virulent green pink or red jackets -- the colours, I imagine, of secret superbugs lurking in an underground lab in a maximum security US Defence, sorry, Defense Department, installation -- are teamed with shorts in every pastel shade the demented tailors of Bermuda can devise. The overall effect is truly.......interesting. If you want to beat the drugs problem, start with the tailors. They must be on something. Not that I've got anything against shorts.

May even invest in a pair myself. When in Rome, wear Giorgio Armani, that's my view. And after all, I'm the representative of a nation where men habitually wear skirts, so I'm in no position to criticise. But gentlemen, please. A little more of the dark blues and greys and less of the pastel pinks, please.

And for the ladies, modesty drapes for motorbikes. You know, the sort of thing Victorians used to put on piano legs in case they inflamed all sorts of lusts and took their minds off the serious business of colouring the map of the world pink, ripping off everybody and expecting them to be grateful for it.

Mini-skirts were not designed for motorbikes, I've noticed. Only in passing, I hasten to add. But mini-skirts and motorbikes won't be doing the road accident statistics any good, either, I'll be bound. But you do have a better eye for colour than the men, I'll give you that. For the children of Bermuda, I'm undecided. Probably nothing. I mean, they live on an island with more sunshine a week than I saw in the average year, a high standard of living and where the streets, on the whole, are still safe. They even get scooters as soon as they're old enough. Spoilt enough already, if you ask me. And last, but definitely not least, for our Governor, a new hat. A solar topee festooned with feathers is decidedly Imperial, but not really appropriate for Great Britain's current role in world affairs. A baseball cap is culturally inappropriate, a bowler hat too mundane and a fright wig is perhaps a little light-hearted for Her Brittanic Majesty's rep in Bermuda. What with various independence referendum-related matters refusing to go away and the odd staffing problem, I think I'd give him a construction site-style hard hat. But he can keep the goose feathers. It is Christmas, after all.