Sunday morning: the newscaster on Radio 101 refers, at least three times, to Magistrate (Abigail) Lofaro as a male; and from there, it continued downhill all the way until, probably, this very moment, including the news from Malta "and" from the University Campus as advertised on Monday morning on Campus FM.

This is a left-handed compliment; this station provides the majority of the better programmes around, including those on television. We can even catch up with a selection from PBS and VOM archives; recycling at its best.

Come to think of it, even the major foreign-owned companies have been known to recycle (rehash) ideas in order to produce series. First, for instance, there was Manimal, who had the power to turn himself into three different animals at will, in order to make use of their powers (flight, speed, and acute senses).

Then came Quantum Leap, in which the main character travelled through the fourth dimension, always as a different character, in order to 'fix' his (i.e. that of his character) current circumstance through a fey mixture of déjà-vu and naiveté. Chameleon followed, where the hero blended effortlessly (on the lines of Catch Me If You Can) into any scenario, righting wrongs. The latest to join the foray is Sentinel, the eponymous hero of which is an American (of course) cop with - you guessed it, supersonic senses. And so we come full circle.

Although not quite. Somewhere in between came Nikita, who was sent on special assignments, usually involving murder and mayhem, in return for jumping jail, and her latter-day doppelgänger Alias, sporting a flaming red nylon hairdo that really doesn't do a thing for her cat-burglar's get-up.

Come to think of it, Hyacinth Bucket's long-suffering husband Richard bears the same pained expression on his face, as Pinu's wife Goma used to before he passed away. Plus ca change, they say.

If push comes to shove, perhaps more stations could adopt a mix-and-match attitude; unless they think the drivel they are churning out actually makes sense. This would mean that more people will get to know about, for example, what happened when God kitted Himself up as a monsignor before reverting to his 501s.

I waited and waited, but in all the news bulletins I heard, not one local station picked up an item broadcast on RAIDue's news bulletin at 10.30 on Monday morning, in which Malta and American warships were mentioned in connection with 24 youths missing from Zennara in Libya. Even a flat statement of denial from whichever entity is responsible to negate such rumours would have been enough.

When I was still in primary school I got my first taste of what it was like to be 'on the media' by scripting some thoughts for a Rediffusion programme; I told no one, and so I was both embarrassed and thrilled when one of my teachers asked whether the work was mine. Given half a chance, many Maltese children indicate that they have it in them too.

So come on, Education 22; surely you can do better than invite kids to tag their pets along to a tacky, cluttered studio. For example, the kids who did those lovely geometrical and string paintings shown on Omnibus could have been invited to the studio, and let loose with the paints. Why not pick a panel of kids and present them with video clips (Stole, by Kelly Rowland, and other catchy tunes) as the start of a discussion?

It's difficult having kids in a studio, when they are not a captive audience clapping on cue, perhaps especially so if you've been surrounded by them all morning. But for starters, you can think about treating your young viewers to better things than the faces you make at the camera. Just for the record: Bill and Ben and Captain Pugwash were already around in my day... haven't they aged well? So what if the Italian stations are trying to resurrect the Smurfs?

Speaking of children's programmes: this week, Andrea Cassar (Minibugz, Net Television) was seen trying to wrestle a bone out of the programme's pet dog, who appears to have taken it in good sport. These antics must be accompanied by a don't-try-this-yourself warning, since similar behaviour in different circumstances could be dangerous. After all, Andrea has become something of a heroine in the eyes of her legion of followers, and just as they try to emulate her clothes and mannerisms, they will also copy her behaviour.

For the last time my daughter tried to pet a poodle that didn't know her, she was bitten in the face.

A friend of mine who makes the occasional appearance on television told me a little anecdote I tried hard to disbelieve. Amazingly, she never gets any feedback from viewers/listeners of particular radio and television stations, but she is inundated with mail and phone calls when she is a guest on others. Somehow, I don't think it's because nobody listens to or watches the former.

It appears to me that some presenters think they are doing people a favour by inviting them to appear on shows; actually, it's the other way around, because otherwise, the programmes would have to go on air "starring" as it were, only one talking head. And I think there are only a few people in Malta who could manage that satisfactorily.

By the way, Dvorak, Falcon, Romano and Gerusalemm are not pronounced like that; the plural form of bahnan is not bhahen, but bhanan. And may I gently suggest to Education 22 to spell-check the title on the notice for the City and Guilds, May-June 2003 sessions?