This Week’s Dream

Most pubs in Bermuda have two TVs, one for cricket and one for baseball. In recent decades, American cultural (1)_____ over this little archipelago in the western Atlantic has been strong, but it remains a British Overseas Territory — the oldest of all. Bermuda is oldfashioned, democratic and very friendly — (2)_____ the eye of any stranger in the street and they’ll smile and say hello.

The island was known (3)_____ the Spanish but still uninhabited in 1609, when Sir George Somers ran aground on a sandbank in a storm and (4)_____ it for the Crown. The “pretty” town of St George’s, which he founded, is the oldest English (5)_____ in the New World.

Pink is the island’s “defining colour”. It’s a popular shade for the neatly pressed Bermuda shorts (6)_____ by some locals (usually with a jacket and a tie). Many of the island’s bungalows are pink, its buses are pink — and so are its beaches, (7)_____ to grains of coral in the sand. (8)_____ Bermuda’s other natural wonders are Crystal Cave — a cavern complex with stalagmites and stalactites — and its rich bird’s life: like Prospero’s isle, “(9)_____ of noises, sounds and sweet airs”, Bermuda “thrums to the sound of birdsong(10)_____ dawn and twilight”.