Bermuda has dropped into Hester's mailbox. And -- amid all the backslapping and congratulations on a job well done -- your eagle-eyed columnist noticed just the tiniest boo-boo in the introduction from Premier Jennifer Smith .

The intro said: "We have exhaustibly sought to rebuild national pride...'' -- when I think they might perhaps have meant "inexhaustibly'' or "exhaustively''. The late, great Siggy Freud may have been able to make something out of that -- but Hester, motivated as always by kindness, forbears to do so.

On another note, have the powers that be in the PLP noticed that one of the items in its 500-day report made front page news yesterday for free . In fact, her newsroom pals would like her to pass on that at any time the PLP wants to pass on some news, its MPs can just pick up a phone or have one of their highly-paid PR people send a release over to Par-la-Ville Road; that's what the Gazette is here for, and furthermore, Hester's sure taxpayers would prefer free publicity to the tens of thousands of bucks Government apparently spent on its 60,000 glossy photo albums.

Hester couldn't help but notice even Mid-Ocean News columnist and long-time labour man Alvin Williams thinks that following the communications fiascos over the ferries, East End Primary and CURE, its high time the PLP "made more comments and fewer no comments'' to the media. She particularly liked his bold warning: "If (the PLP believes that since it won such a huge political mandate...) that is the case then perhaps it needs to be reminded that the political graveyard is filled with political parties that thought that they could ignore the judgment of the court of public opinion.'' Sage advice indeed! While one of our biggest resorts is busy selling off the entire contents of its 400-odd rooms -- we are told to make way for a complete makeover by the new operators -- Hester hears another of our big hotels in the process of changing hands may soon be doing the same thing! But rumour has it that the man who's buying the Sonesta Beach Hotel from Aetna has no such plans to make over the aging resort. She hears he wants to eventually turn it into some kind of vacation condos and plans to demolish some of the buildings -- which have prized panoramic ocean views -- is not out of the realm of possibility. In fact, an executive at James Dwyer's New Jersey real estate firm (which already owns White Sands Hotel) confirmed to this newspaper a month ago that while they will continue to operate the resort as is for the time being, but "down the road we might have different plans''.

The return of news veteran Chris Lodge to his beloved VSB must be an, um, marriage made in heaven! Hester hears the Reid Street news outfit is now calling itself "VSB Action News!'' and answering the phones "VSB Action Central!'' (although the only action Lodge seemed to have taken, thus far, was wandering down to the news agent to buy a copy of this newspaper and then regurgitating its headlines).

Along with that though, ads are running telling Bermuda it's part of the VSB newsroom and to give them a call with any hot stories. The revamp and return of Lodge also means Hester's favourite newshound Bryan Darby will be able to spend more time again giving tours -- in his admiral's hat -- at his beloved Dockyard.

And by the way, Hester wonders if Lodge's departure from Government Non-Information Services had anything to do with his new fiancee being a former UBP spin doctor, she of course being none other that VSB's no-nonsense part-timer Angie Gonzalves . Hester hears the happy media couple are to wed very soon and wishes them well.

" Regis Philbin (Reeg) was the one who needed all of his lifelines last Thursday because the answer he gave to one of the `fastest finger' qualifying questions was wrong on three counts. He specifically asked competitors on Hester's current favourite TV show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire'' to list four entertainment personalities in the order they were knighted by the current Queen. Hester's readers know Royalty is a subject dear to her heart so it was with dismay she heard Reeg announce the alleged correct sequence was Alfred Hitchcock, Laurence Olivier, Paul McCartney and Sean Connery.

In actual fact, the Queen never knighted Laurence Olivier. Her father, King George VI did in 1947. And even if the show argued that `knighting' is generic Americanese for all titles awarded in the British honours system -- which it isn't -- the answer was wrong for two other reasons.

The Queen did make Laurence Olivier a life peer, the first actor to be so honoured, whereupon he assumed the title Lord Olivier. But that was in 1970, fully ten years before Hitch became an honorary Knight of the British Empire -- so the order the show gave was still wrong.

And if you want to be really pedantic, Hitch was not actually knighted by the Queen. Although he was born in Britain, he took out American citizenship.

Americans cannot accept foreign titles so his KBE was in the way of a courtesy from Buckingham Palace, not a full-blown honour. Hitch no more became `Sir' Alfred in 1980 than General Powell became `Sir Colin' when he received an honorary knighthood following the Gulf War. And Hester's not alone in her thinking, she hears film buff and Mid Ocean editor Tim Hodgson was so infuriated by the blunder he fired off an e-mail to the show's producers.

Hester's told TH's miffed he hasn't heard a word back yet even though he reminded them the chap who allegedly got the question right went on to win half a million of their dollars! Along with all the paper mail she gets from readers, Hester now welcomes e-mails -- to be held in strict confidence -- at dearhester yhotmail.com