Vexed Bermoothes

Predictably, Bermuda’s attempt to flip the bird to the Queen on our new banknotes has flown awry.

“To provide a sense of national pride” the new notes brightly feature local flora and fauna … except the bird that is a centrepiece of many of the notes is not the orange-billed Bermuda Longtail.  According to Bermudian audobon luminary David Wingate, the banknote features a different red-billed bird found in the West Indies and Pacific … and not generally found near Bermuda.

Maybe they should have chosen the Cahow instead.  A true Bermuda bird.  Flaps around all night, sleeps all day.  Makes a lot of noise.  Never can find him when you need him.  Feels threatened by all those expat birds stealing his nesting sites. Claims he would’ve voted for Obama (but Ewart has his doubts).  OK, I digress…

The faux pas is reminiscent of the hallucinogenic Tourism ad campaign under Renee Webb that used stock photographs of a beach in Hawaii instead of our famous local sands (scroll down in link).  They say a camel is a horse designed by a committee.  It seems that whenever a government committee decides to get creative in portraying Bermuda, we get a depiction of somewhere else!

Maybe they should have put some Boobys on the money.  That would have been a better joke.