On the Dot...

A supermarket in Blacktail Street, corner with the main road in St Paul's Bay, discards empty boxes and other assorted rubbish by a vending machine outside the building. A bus stop sign is situated some 15 metres away. The owner excuses his behaviour by claiming the rubbish is on private land, which is not the point at all.

Care Takers

With the arrival of cooler weather, bingo nights and fund-raising coffee mornings are set to start again. Who will see to it that the very few public places where these are held, are left in a better state than they were before the groups descended on them? Here, obviously, no employed staff exists as there is in establishments where these activities are also held. How about enforcing the fines due for offences against the Litter Act?

Heir-Craft?

The new offices at the Malta International Airport are definitely not the aesthetic backdrop with which to greet incoming tourists. The departure lounge, with its much lower ceiling, looks like a latter-day catacomb. What is the point of paying good money for an architect's plans, when the resultant building is obscured by additional constructions, and the whole design thrown out of kilter? The MEPA must have been taken in by the grandiose, yet misleading, word embellishments included somewhere in the application.

Kept At Bay

The decision to put up a 'bus stop' sign at the very edge of the vantage point in Xlendi, commanding spectacular views of the majestic cliffs of Gozo, was utterly impractical and irresponsible. This has apparently given carte blanche to coaches to park in upper St Simon Street, and to all those establishments wishing to avail themselves of a captive audience for their advertising placards and signposts.

Paradise Lost

The area known as Il-Banju, just below the pedestrian area square in Bugibba, used to be a safe haven for parents with small children, who could play on the pier and bathe in the relatively shallow enclosed pool and just outside it. With the advent of the operators of the Romantika and Adventure Islands cruises, all this has changed. These large speedboats wend their way in between the bathers in order to berth. It is a very dangerous practice, and one that ought to be stopped.

Rainy Daze

The devastating rains that submerged several cities in Europe, if nothing, ought to galvanise the local authorities into action. What would happen if torrential rains struck unexpectedly? Will the ducts, canals and ditches that have not seen a good clearing throughout summer make the place one destructive flooding nightmare? Areas such as Msida, Qormi, and other low-lying areas, as well as the police headquarters area, are due for serious problems.

Round and About

At times, one wonders why public consultations about plans for specific areas are held. Suggestions by the public with regards to the area at the south entrance to Mellieha were largely ignored, without any explanation being forthcoming. The narrowing of the busy way to Triq il-Qortin, opposite the Belleview Restaurant and just by a petrol station to boot, to the width of two cars, is unwise, verging on the irrational.

Name is Mud

One episode of rain was enough to indicate how much worse the problem of the stinking sludge deposit in the Salini canals has become since the beginning of summer. The sooner the whole area is dredged, the sooner the stench will start to evaporate. One thing, they say, leads to another, and the owners of those miserable shacks will perhaps be encouraged to replace them.

Doctors' Ardour

A quiet revolution has been taking place, unseen, in some sections of St Luke's Hospital, where employees in understaffed sections are trying to execute miracles, and sometimes succeeding. The cath. clinic, the ENT and orthopaedic departments, and the children's outpatients have all been singled out for praise in recent days. One hopes that, with a full complement of doctors and nurses, the situation will at long last become even better.

Beach Cleaning

Now that the removal of illegal boathouses and other constructions has started in earnest, all eyes are on particular patches of land that have been taken over by those who think they are above the law. One such expropriated area lies immediately beneath the Mediterranean Conference Centre, between the bocci pitch and the fort across the road from Evans Laboratories. These ramshackle buildings appear to have become permanent fixtures, if not actually residences, of those who have gradually added bits and bobs to them over the years until the area became a miniature housing estate.

In the dark

Between the bus stop near the former Torpedo depot and Msida church there are six lamp-posts, each with three lights, to guide strollers walking by the sea. But it is still pitch dark at night, and has been so for months, because none of the lights works, in spite of countless reports about the situation.

Road holes

The stretch of road forming a corner between St Andrew Street and Mgr Innocent Zammit Street in Msida is like an obstacle track. Motorists would appreciate a levelling off of what can only be described as a moonscape.

Hot air

Surely it is illegal for anyone, in this case a Melita Street, Valletta business establishment, to direct a strong jet of hot air into pedestrians' faces from a street grating, or from any other source, for that matter. The thing feels unhealthy and must be so.

Snail's pace

One side of the Mtarfa bypass was closed to traffic some time last January for workers to build a boundary wall alongside it. The bypass is about two kilometres long, the work is still going on, and the road is still closed to traffic.

Sign Quirks

Transport Ministry staff responsible for traffic signage should be sent on a basics course. In Kola Xara Street, Rabat, they have put up two signs, each indicating "no waiting" and school times. One has been put up just round the corner from St Dominic Square, and therefore likely to be missed by all drivers. The other, near the school, was put up just one metre beyond a "Canon" advertising sign - which completely obscures the traffic sign from motorists' view.