station not being able to show any moving footage of Saturday's ADT Bermuda 10-K road race.

Several months ago, VSB had told organisers that, in an effort to reduce traffic on the course, it would not put a camera crew on the road to follow the race.

Instead, VSB had assumed it would be able to use footage being shot by the US cable sports network ESPN, just as it did during last year's Omega Gold Cup yacht racing.

Despite the good relationship between the two organisations, though, VSB's assumption proved ill-founded.

When VSB approached ESPN after the race, the local station was told that contractual obligations meant that the local station could not have ESPN's footage of the race.

As a result, VSB's visual coverage of one of the biggest events on Bermuda's road racing calendar was reduced to a still pictures which it had taken itself.

VSB sports journalist Rich Lathan said: "It's extremely disappointing. But it's just one of those things that did not work out in our favour. Nobody is to blame.'' *** St. George's North MP Phillip Smith was not amused to read a story in last week's Business Diary about the cartoon of him which Holmes Williams and Purvey general manager John Bento had commissioned and paid to have printed in The Royal Gazette .

"As far as I can see, the whole thing was done in poor taste,'' said Mr.

Smith. "I really think Mr. Bento has missed the point.'' Mr. Bento's cartoon was his way of responding to comments from Mr. Smith that firms like HWP had a duty to service goods which people had bought abroad.

Apart from the cartoon, which depicted Mr. Smith telephoning the US to ask for a technician to be flown to Bermuda to repair a broken product, Mr. Smith objected to hints that he been politicking by attacking HWP on television.

"I was expressing the views of the public and not my personal views,'' said Mr. Smith. "Mr. Bento was off target in that respect if he thinks I did it for political coverage.'' He added: "I think Mr. Bento's cartoon was in poor taste. I was rather surprised and shocked when I saw it.

"I had intended to ignore the cartoon and forget about it but when I read the Business Diary and some of his sarcastic comments, I felt I had to say something.'' *** Something interesting happened on the business media front last week. On Friday, an article appeared in the Bermuda Sun contradicting part of a story which had appeared in the previous day's Royal Gazette .

The articles concerned the activities of two Bermuda-based insurance-related companies which have fallen on harder times over the last few months -- Paumanock Insurance and its underwriter, Anchor Underwriting Managers.

On Thursday, the Business section of this newspaper, while correctly revealing that Anchor was to shed about a dozen jobs, also reported that some in the industry believed that Anchor would not be given Paumanock's run-off business.

Attempts to clarify the situation with Mr. Robin Spencer-Arscott, the local head of both companies, proved unsuccessful when he failed to return a telephone call.

The next day, the Bermuda Sun ran a story -- based entirely on an interview with Mr. Spencer-Arscott -- stating that Anchor had actually won the contract to run-off Paumanock.

The article quoted Mr. Spencer-Arscott as saying: "Contrary to reports, I'm happy to say that we'll be handling the Paumanock run off.'' Contrary, that is, to a report which he was given every opportunity to comment on before it went to print. For whatever reason, it was an opportunity Mr.

Spencer-Arscott declined to take.