I.M. Beck - quote unquote

It used to plague the Empire. The Irish Question, that is, and of late, the Irish Answer, or the uncertainty thereof, has been plaguing the New Empire, the European Union. In their usual laidback to the point of being horizontal manner, the Micks languidly and without fanfare sorted it all out, ambling out two by two to vote for an expanded EU and a future free from the contortions and exhaustions through which the Eurocrats would have had to put themselves had the vote been no.

In retrospect, which is always 20/20, this was pretty much a foregone conclusion. Why the whole of Europe seemed to be worried that an eminently sensible bunch like the Irish (and I say this with a regular golf partner coming from the Republic) who had recognised that the EU was rather a good notion, would be dumb enough to let internal politics ruin said good notion for everyone else, was rather a stupid question, viewed backwards.

There was, of course, another pretty good reason why the folk from the green and pleasant and damp land were obviously going to vote in favour of the Union.

Anyone who has been following Maltese politics knows what this reason was. Yes, you there at the back, waving her hand as if she needs a pass to visit the facilities? You have the reason ready to hand, do you?

Yes, that's right, once The Movement for National Awakening (well, I can't give it its real title, the editor wouldn't countenance smutty jokes at this time of the morning) and the Council for National Isolationism had drawn themselves up to their full height (such as it is) and decided to throw their considerable (or should that have had an "in" stuck on the front - I'll let the syntactical experts have fun with that one) weight behind the No Faction in Eire, it was pretty much a given that the Yes vote would have to prevail.

I mean, think about it. There you are, a common or garden Irish citizen, going about your business in Cork or Spittoon or wherever, and you come across this chappie from Malta, wherever that is to be sure, asking you, nay imploring you, to vote no in the referendum so his own country would be kept out of a European Union that has, to be sure and all, transformed Ireland into, let's face it, something of a good place to be.

If only to save this poor misguided soul from the folly of his own misguidedness, you'd vote yes, while directing the dear man to the nearest pub so that he can have a restorative.

And there's another small lesson to be learnt from the Irish, even if they probably didn't mean to teach it to us. That's apart from the lesson that internal politics should not impinge on whether or not you vote in favour of the Union (i.e., if you get a parking ticket in the week before the referendum, that is no reason to vote no).

No, the other small lesson is that Mr Dom Mintoff and Dr KMB and all the other has-beens (if not never-wasses) of Maltese politics should be given their rightful place in history. The place that virtually every politician occupies, especially those who think they still have a place on the local stage, that place being just about nowhere.

Only very few politicians rise above this. Dr Borg Olivier, who achieved actual independence, has been recognised, now even by the MLP (not without a small dose of hypocrisy on their part) as having made a contribution to our real history and the current incumbent, once we take our place in Europe, will have his own small page in the tome, but the rest of them, alas, will be given short shrift (almost as short as Doctor Alfred Sant's government) and treated in much the same way as the Irish treated them.

With sublime indifference.

Welcome

In my neck of the woods in town, where I seem to spend more time than I do at home, we have been graced with the presence, to stay, of none other than the Minister of Justice and Local Councils, who shall no doubt liven up the area no end.

They're famed for their wild all-night parties, they are at the ministry, and Strait Street will never be the same again.

We are particularly honoured to have among us some super-beings, of course, people who are so special that they can't be allowed to park their cars more than three steps from the ministry door, lest they are summoned to some extra super duper special mission to which they have to present themselves within the minute. Us mere mortals have to be thankful that we can park somewhere, anywhere.

While on the subject, memo to Valletta mayor - there's one single parking bay with white paint in Strait Street. Is this a mistake or have your rude mechanicals run out of the yellow stuff?

I jest, wearily. Parking is such a horrendous problem anywhere on this rock that losing three or four more spaces means nothing in the larger scheme of things.

I must congrtulate the people concerned on the conversion they did at the ministry: without too much fuss or delay, they seem to have done a good job, at least from what us plebs can see through the door.

Just a small point: the flag of the Republic should be taken down at sunset and raised again the morning after. At 6.15 on Thursday, when I was wending my bemused way to the office to tap out this week's dose of wit and humour, wondering why I do it, it was dark and the flag was hanging.

Okey dokey

An item in the news caught my eye. Apparently, road designers are going to be updated about the reasons for traffic accidents. But do they really need to be told why we have traffic accidents?

Apart from being, on average, the worst drivers I have come across in years of driving thousands of miles over at least three continents?

We have so many road accidents because we have so many lousy, disgusting, badly built, badly maintained roads.

Do the designers really need to be told that?

For instance, is the homicidally criminal fool who designed the road between the Lion Fountain in Floriana and Porte des Bombes still alive and will he be at the up-date? You know the stretch I mean, the one where the camber takes you and wraps you round strategically placed trees and poles.

Especially when wet.

Then there's the amazing idiot responsible for maintaining the road from San Pawl tat-Targa down to Burmarrad Valley. I know trucks use it, but there are other parts of the world where trucks travel and the road doesn't shake your car to its very foundation, threatening to bounce you off into the path of an oncoming madman with a full load of bricks.

I could go on and on and I could also be fair and say that there are glimmerings of hope that someone is trying to do something, but that would be silly.

A cure

I was struck down by the dreaded lurgy last Sunday and had to spend three days in bed (interrupted by visits to the bathroom, where I contemplated death). It wasn't something I ate, please be assured, although all the Christian Souls who enquired after my welfare assumed it was, because everyone else was fine.

When in the full bloom of health and battling with deadlines imposed from above, you tend to think that a couple of days' sick leave would be a nice thing. Think about it, lounging in bed, being waited on hand and foot by a devoted spouse, idly hopping from channel to channel of good, educational or entertaining stuff.

Well, you can forget the devoted spouse bit, for a start, they've got their own lives to lead and if you think you're dying, you can get right on and do it and stop fussing.

And you can forget decent television, to be going on with.

There's 50 channels of the stuff on cable (I haven't succumbed to the piracy and thievery of satellite, who wants another 300 channels of junk?) and during daylight hours, you'd be hard pressed to find anything other than the news channels and Discovery that puts out more than floss.

A few examples will demonstrate.

The locally produced channels, for starters, seem to be obsessed with very peculiar people selling the most amazingly tawdry merchandise for prices that should demonstrate to anyone with an ounce of sense that you can't get quality for peanuts. This never-ending parade of rubbish is punctuated with homely middle-aged bints spouting a never-ending stream of platitudes, a sort of queue at the grocer's live on air. Or pseudo-religious clap-trap delivered with American slick, telling people that they have Biblical Justification For Divorce or that everything is the fault of the ungodly who don't believe in George Bush, America, the Flag, the Bible and God, in that order.

And that's to say nothing of the Edward Spiteri Show, which even had one bemused old bat last week telling us how her daughter was suffering from a massive depression, thanks God (she didn't quite mean it that way, but that's what she said).

Naturally, one step lower into the circles of televisual hell are the Sicilian stations, about which nothing needs to be said other than they make Smash look like CBS.

The news channels are pretty much of a muchness, somewhat repetitive and the music channels the same, if you like that sort of stuff, and the movie channels are OK, if you like that sort of stuff (have I said that before, I'm still a bit delirous?) but you never know what's on because teletext is so user-hostile, if it works at all.

The prize for dross goes to UK Living, where you get a comedy about four sex-obsessed women (they're average age 64, so don't think they're even worth a look) and then talk shows about obese trailer trash females who have had their brother's wife's boyfriend's homosexual lover's cousin's brother's love-child and then seems surprised because the child looks like its uncle's dog.

Trouble, Cartoon Channel, Nickleodeon, Fox Kids and others blend into a multi-coloured blur as you bounce through the buttons, as do the Italian mainstream channels, where the presenters all seem to have perfect teeth and legs and hair (and they're only the men) and all seem to be talking about plenty and nothing.

There's good stuff: National Geographic is nifty, Travel and Discovery and Animal Channel (I think it's called) are superb but they all pall when you're laid up and I found that one of the best things you can do is put the radio onto BBC Radio 2 (wonders of Internet and an inventive offspring) turn the sound down on the box and channel hop until something catches your eye.

It's weird how even Jerry Springer looks intelligent when you can't hear him.

Ta muchly

Last Saturday, while I was mouthing imprecations to the gods and beating the ground with crooked sticks (playing golf) I was not to know that I had lost my keys.

That's my car key, my house key, my locker key and every other key required to get me anywhere, all my spare keys being in the car.

Yes, stupid, I know.

Now, I don't know if you know this, but a golf-course is a large place and when twilight's last gloaming is creeping up on it, a dark place too, so finding a bunch of keys is not a realistic option.

So when I found myself staring into the bowels of my golf-bag, key-less, you can imagine the relief when I repaired to the bar to make the usual optimistic enquiries and was told that my keys were there, waiting someone to claim them.

If the scholar and gentleman (or lady) who found them and did the decent thing is reading this, I owe you a drink or six.