A Lloyd's List article reports that the Bahamas Prime Minister, Hubert Ingraham, says that some cruise lines are actually pressuring individual countries to abandon the plan.

Several of the 13 countries in the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) have yet to raise their tax to the $10 limit, while others were offering discounts for bulk business.

It was lobbying from the cruise companies last year that stopped Jamaica from raising its passenger head tax to $15. It will now be phased in over four years.

Bahamas is the main destination on the CARICOM cruise route and has already moved its tax up to $15, ignoring the protests.

Maybe they knew they could get away with it, considering its non-Caribbean, distant cousin, Bermuda had a passenger head tax of $60! *** CON Government and business leaders fly to New Orleans this week for the 32nd annual Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS) Conference. The Bermuda delegation may be a part of a record number of attendees this year.

By the end of March, 4,133 people had registered to attend, compared to 3,934 who were registered at the same time last year.

The actual attendance record was set in Boston in 1990, with 4,662.

There will be more exhibitors than ever before. Some 340 companies will have exhibits in 610 booths.

RIMS exhibits manager, Ms Christine Zahn said: "The increased number of exhibitors at the conference this year is directly related to the expanded role and responsibility of risk managers in their jobs.'' *** BUC Mr. Ray Madeiros has spent the last week in Florida, the first week of his retirement. He just sold Ray's Cycles on Middle Road, Southampton to Oleander Cycles for more than a million dollars, a business he built from nothing.

His retirement comes at age 60, after 25-years in the business.

His first thought was to meet his grand-daughter in Florida, because she was visiting with her family from England.

Mr. Madeiros, the former cycle livery owner, already knows what he will do in retirement. "I want to do some serious fishing,'' the passionate deep sea angler told us.

His other passion is flying. He has been a glider pilot for 10 years. He said that he is ready to go to Vermont to get back to it.

*** BUC It's costing more to get a few chuckles. No kidding! The Cost of Laughing Index, put out annually by humour consultants Malcolm Kushner & Associates of Santa Cruz, Calif., rose 4.4 percent in the past 12 months. The index has 16 "leading humour indicators,'' including admission to comedy clubs in 10 US cities; wholesale prices of rubber chickens, Groucho glasses and arrow-through-the-head gags; an issue of Mad Magazine; singing telegrams; and the fee for writing a TV sitcom. The most noted jump was the minimum fee for sitcom writing, which rose to $10,414 per half-hour show from $9,966.

*** NJ Financial service companies topped the Better Business Bureau's list of most-inquired-about businesses in the New York metropolitan area in 1993. The home improvement industry was second, followed by moving and storage; modeling and talent agencies; and consumer electronics. The New York BBB, which is one of the United States' largest, said last year it was contacted by more than 180,000 consumers wanting to know if a company was reliable before doing business with them.