Fever pitch

And so Max Plus is now a minus. It's not just that a station which has, of late, been giving episode upon episode of series upon series; my grouch is that Gwida had considered it finis long before the official fadeout date, i.e. last Monday.

When I had gone to the official launch of the new schedule, I had been, frankly, impressed by the dedication, verve and innate charm of Victor Formosa and Claudette Pace and the rest of the team.

The demise of all that Max+ stood for, apart from the station itself, is a sorry event for local television.

Now we have to make do with Il-Qaddis tal-lum hu San Barro-meo type of presentations, and more of the same, all suitable for boil-in-the-bag brains. And, meanwhile, I was under the impression that in Germany, precisely in Oberammergau, one does not do as the Romans do, but answers the telephone with a Ja? rather than with a Si?

The news (as in stale) divisions of sundry stations still regale us with such gems as in-numru tac-caccis when they mean the chassis number, and il-Belt ta' Nancy when they are not alluding to a female owner.

Unfortunately, some of us were brought up with the notion that the Mazuni are people who make a vow of secrecy and Allegiance to the Cause (inferring scratching a peer's back in the knowledge that he will, later, scratch yours) while standing on a crucifix placed face down... something akin to the Rosicrucian, perhaps, albeit in a different context.

Bondi+ made this brotherhood appear like some sort of sinister and malignant boys' club with secret handshakes, passwords, and rituals, some of the members of which are doddering old men who use their staff as a walking stick rather than as a Rod of Righteousness.

I cannot understand why some people - those who asked me to watch the second part of the "show" (I stopped watching the first part five minutes into the clip because the moving camera gave me motion sickness; the chequered floor gave me a migraine attack, and the noise the barcode makes set off my tinnitus) accused Lou Bondì of acting as a PRO for this society.

I thought the main idea behind devoting airtime to this theme was to make us aware that the rumours are, after all, true; freemasons are alive and kicking yet, and they are doing their knees-up in Malta too. These people, apparently, also subscribe to the hbieb tal-hbieb mentality; so what's new?

I was told that Lou Bondì insisted he would have outed any person in a public position who had taken part in the filmed ceremonials; either no one literally made the grade on the day the footage was shot, or else, ipso facto, the whole caboodle is more undercover than Undercover itself.

So now we know. Just as the Prime Minister was personally responsible for the eruption of Mount Etna, and even (the jury is still out) for the earthquakes that caused it, the Archbishop was to blame for the rainstorm that caused so much damage, and yet was described, by the way, as having holoq inkonvenjent by Radio 101.

It is amazing how people will interpret the news, and, for that matter, how different stations will interpret the news.

Take, for instance, newspaper reviews; some commentators choose to give their personal opinion; others are more objective while shying off anything remotely partisan. Others still let slip oblique comments, whereas others still skim over the headlines of the front and back pages without ever committing themselves.

In a vain (both senses) effort to be as trendy as Minibugs, the team at Education 22 decided to cover the panels in their studio with a cacophony of clowns. The design is too busy to go with the already cluttered studio.

Omnibus is not much better. When we watched it, on the menu was a pasta salad buffet. The table was of a height such that the cook - and I use the term loosely - had to bend almost double to combine the ingredients, with her hair falling all over her face; let's forget the dreaded sulphur ring in the boiled eggs, again, for the moment.

She had no cloth upon which to wipe her hands, and kept trying to work it off her fingers, possibly on the crumpled papers upon which the recipes were given. The jars and bottles were precariously positioned upon a table with only one leg to stand on - and sure enough, some of them fell off, and she made as if she had not noticed. The table was too small for the scrumptious feast prepared - and so the flatware was stacked underneath the chair, on the floor.

And so it went on, and on.

Perhaps these people, whose mission and career in life are to help us bring up our children a-right, could show some pity towards the camerapersons, and us, the viewers. They could, moreover, do worse than watch an omnibus edition of Big Bang! In order to realise that less is indeed more.

After a sodden quilt (heavier than a wet blanket) had put paid to the idea of a television station belonging to the church - a sort of TTK-cum-Il-Gensillum - we were led to expect a whole gamut of productions on different stations, and perhaps, the Gathering unto the Fold of Qalbinnies, Kurrenti, et al.

This did not transpire, and nor will it, apparently, in the immediate future, because "these things cost money" and "(wo)man power is short" and "there are other projects being currently given priority".

That having been said, I find the shorts on Italian television, brought to the public by different ministries, pithy and interesting; perhaps something could be done on these lines. There are already enough sports, it is true, to daub the coats of 102 Dalmatians and then some - but these would at least have something useful to impart, rather than regurgitated biased data and mendacities, ironically based upon the selfsame facts.