Two weeks in the sun

Perhapsto make up for our rather drab climate at home we Brits, writes Sue Grossey,have always had an eye for a tropical paradise, and our fourteen BritishOverseas Territories (the crumb-sized remnants of Empire) are predominantlywarm rather than chilly. Bermuda – our first port of call this month – wasclaimed for the king in 1610 (a terrible storm in the area was mentioned byShakespeare in The Tempest in the same year and refers to the “still-vex’dBermoothes”). We took a little longer to get our hands on the Turks and CaicosIslands; the French handed them over in 1783. Beyond tourism – those sandybeaches, exotic drinks and balmy temperatures are mighty attractive – neitherjurisdiction has much in the way of natural resources, and both have turned inrecent years to financial services to fill the public coffers. This has been,to put it mildly, a mixed blessing.