I.M. Beck - quote unquote

The oeuvre "Who is Evelyn Costa?" was not one through which I had to plough at the coal-face of Sixth Form toil, as I didn't do my English A-Level here (I'm not even sure Renaissance Man had given birth to it yet in those far off mists of time, anyway) but I'm having to experience a question involving Doctor Alfred Sant now, so I'm making up for having missed the experience, with interest.

From ubiquity to inanity, from in-yer-face all the time to where the "eck is e", from can't get him out of my mind to Doctor Alfred Sant, never mind, the dear fellow has plummeted to depths of virtual anonymity.

Why has he done this, one asks? Well, this one asks, as most other columnists seem to have accepted the onset of the Silly Season even though it's not even summer yet. In fact, we're still in the spring of a new Nationalist government, if you'll excuse the facile crack.

Well, to my mind it's pretty obvious that Doctor Alfred Sant has deliberately taken a step back into the shadows, working on the principle that "far from eye, far from mind", if you'll allow me to misappropriate an idiom from Maltese and bastardise it. When you're re-branding yourself, because you're well past your sell-by date and the market has rejected you consistently, you don't leave the old version on the shelf to remind people what you were and what they didn't like.

No, you fade away, only to rise like a Phoenix, suitably book-ended and with a shiny new smirk on your face, having got rid of prior embarrassments with a swift decisiveness that would have been shocking had this not been all part of the game called politics, where people's sensibilities and concepts of loyalty to one's supporters play second fiddle to the overriding imperative, holding onto power at all costs.

I could just as easily have titled this piece of this week's bit of fun "Where is Eman(wel) Cuschieri?", who has faded away with a completeness comparable to an ice-cube in the middle of the Sahara on August 15. The rumours abound as to the dear fellow's future, which I hope is prosperous for him and one is to hope that he might be given the chance, on a comedy show or something, perhaps on the lines of Robin Hood (wink) to state his case once and for all. It might be fun, for example, if that Xarabank-wannabe show were to put him on as a sort of oracle, expounding the same sort of rubbish he used to produce on a daily basis, with a straight face.

Pray and pay

I was having a bit of a channel-surf last Monday and I came across, on what seems to be aspiring to God's Own Channel (Smash TV) a talk show run by a gentlemen by the name of Sid Roth. I don't think he's related to Philip Roth, author of that superb work Portnoy's Complaint.

This chap was sat sitting there, interviewing a lady of similar religious inclination (they were both Jews who had found a version of Christianity, a fact of which much is made on his website) and the female of the duo was telling us all how she had been cured of "environmental sickness" by having a load of people pray over and that. Leaving aside the fact that a quick search on the Net finds little by way of serious medical information about her alleged condition, I suppose a bit of a promo for prayer is not all that bad and you must be wondering why I am even bothering to mention this.

The kicker comes in when you access the web-site to which you are directed with more than a little insistence while watching. Here the emphasis moves from what prayer can do for you to what you can do for Sid, or more precisely, his bank account.

A few choice titbits will illustrate. It is said that one should "Pray for Messianic Vision's finances. Ask God for wisdom as we review decisions in our budgeting, financial planning, and fund-raising. Pray the Lord open new avenues of financial provision. We are expecting a supernatural wealth exchange." Yeah, from you to him, that's how.

You are enjoined to go on to "Pray for God's blessing of health and strength upon Sid Roth as he continues to recover from hip replacement surgery. Pray for in-creased endurance, mobility, and agility." Sid, one reads, is believing God (don't blame me, that's what he wrote) for a miraculous new hip, enabling him (presumably Sid) to move freely through airport security stations as he travels for the gospel's sake. Sid, we learn, continues to ask God for the gift of supernatural compassion" and he (Sid, not God) wants us to "Please pray for Sid's work and consider becoming Mishpochah".

Apparently, Mishpochah is a Hebrew word that means "family". It is also Sid's name for the special people who support Messianic Vision with their prayers and gifts of $25 or more per month. As Mishpochah you will receive, Sid goes on, their "cassette of the month" which might be an unusual Jewish testimony, insight into Bible prophecy, or an uplifting teaching on how to overcome. He also wants you to have his Mishpochah mug, royal blue in colour, with "Mishpochah" in white.

Sid believes this will be a special tool to start conversations about how you became part of the family of God as well as part of his family.

And pay him for the privilege, of course.

Shipping it out

While on the subject of religious sects making money out of innocent folk who believe the rubbish piled onto them by cable stations that can't afford decent programming so they take what is given to them for free, a crack made by Lou Bondì during the show on which you had the inestimable pleasure of seeing me in the flesh should give people who were sticking up for the MV Doulos some pause for thought.

There is reason to think that these guys are part of the 700 Club, an organisation in the States that is having a good long look taken at the way it is running its operations and the way it disposes of the dosh it gets.

Combined with the obvious enjoyment the crew gets out of cruising around the high seas, subsidised by people who throw their money at them all the time, one starts to wonder whether this isn't a bit of jolly time being had by all, if you see what I mean.

If you watched the programme, you will have noticed that I was having some trouble taking a concrete position on whether the tub full of books (mainly remaindered books from what I could gather) should have been allowed to trade here. This was because it is not such an easy position to take: unjustified dumping of tat onto the market obviously should not be allowed but whether the legal mechanism that prevents this is any good and whether this particular exercise was actually unjustified dumping is not so obvious. Of course, the instant judges of all things on the face of the earth had all passed judgment, but that is the way of things. I, on the other hand, have always been a bit uneasy about people telling me what to do all the time.

So I hummed and I hawed, as Lou pointed out rather less than charitably.

Being a scholar and a gentleman, of course, he made up for it by providing copious amounts of the fruit of the grape at the Four Seasons, where I was able to have good gossip with him and a side-kick as well as with the singularly inaptly nicknamed RTK Beast.

It's a sign of the times that we could sit and discuss the trials and tribulations of the 1970s and 1980s, when I and the side-kick were very much on opposite of the picket lines, without resorting to the tactics that were used on us (and not on the side-kick) at the time. The RTK Beast (again, I have to underline the inappropriateness of this moniker) seemed hardly to believe, at times, the way students were treated.

Theatrical apologies

For some reason, my short review of the Revue came out more than touch garbled last week.

Chris Dingli, as redoubtable a player as his colleagues, went completely and utterly AWOL from my short paean of praise and Isabelle Warrington, whose speech on the wonders that constitute Zebbug and the gullibility of her workaholic (willing or not) husband was sublime in its Swieqi-speak, was given just a throwaway "honourable mention", which was certainly not my original intention.

These things sometimes happen, especially when deadlines loom and all that. Sorry.

And thanks to whoever thought it would be a good wheeze to import Ridiculismus from the Edinburgh Fringe. Their excellent performance of The Exhibitionists was not exactly elegant, refined, Victorian theatre but it had the audience in stitches all the way through. Well, most of the audience, anyway, I could detect a few grimaces when the grosser bits came on, but it was all good filthy fun.

bocca@waldonet.net.mt