Boom! Boom!

My uncle Lino idolises fireworks. He is absolutely besotted with them. His is a lifelong love-affair with exploding chemicals. I tell you, if our local pharmacy ever went up in smoke... Uncle Lino would demand a ringside seat.

He did once apply for a permit to build a fireworks factory of his own. He was refused, and frankly, this totally devastated him. Mind you, the fact that he applied to site it in Cordina's basement might just have affected the success - or otherwise - of his application. That, plus the fact that Uncle has been a chain-smoker all his life, which isn't too persuasive when applying for a licence to fiddle around with highly combustible compounds.

But, ever resourceful, Uncle Lino said: "Stuff 'em!" And set up his fireworks factory illegally. And who could blame him? I mean, if the authorities were too short-sighted to give him his head... So, Uncle set up shop in his garage... underneath a block of flats.

The neighbours ladmittedly weren't too thrilled, but as Uncle (philosophical to the last) said: "Stuff 'em!" And of course he won the argument hands down. The neighbours simply moved out. Well perhaps simply is not quite the right word. Actually they were bombed out, but that's just a detail. They left... and Uncle was established in what was left of his fireworks factory. A clandestine factory... but hey!

And it hasn't been plainsailing, oh no. Uncle has certainly had his ups and downs. Ups when he got blown onto the fifth floor of the block next door while assembling a petard with a fag on and during a coughing fit. And downs, when his store of high explosives in the basement went up... then down, as Uncle found himself scrambling out of the well.

And then there was the night of his first big display. It was billed as Benghajsa's most spectacular night ever. In fact, it turned out to be Benghajsa's most spectacular day. When Uncle was setting up his display he inadvertently chucked a fag-end into a pile of bombi. That scattered the traffic thereabouts, I can tell you.

Uncle loves the big bangs, the louder the better. He claims to have built the biggest and loudest bomba ever assembled. And I believe him. After he detonated it, at the Manikata festa two years ago, Malta was instantly added to the UN's list of nuclear powers. Uncle Lino was very proud of that.

Mind you, his devotion to detonation has taken its toll. But he's got over the various setbacks like a man. The most spectacular of these was the occasion... oh please excuse me, I still get the giggles when I think about it... It happened when his wife, Aunty Muriel, tried to get the barbecue going with a stick of TNT. Oh how we laughed... I think she's still up there somewhere.

But I don't want you to think Uncle Lino's pyrotechnics are just flash, bang, wallop! He does like the pretty ones as well. Obviously they don't give him quite the same buzz as when a petard blows a five-metre wide fissure in the earth's crust. But... as Uncle says: "They do bring in the punters".

Mind you, he always insists on one thing: After even the most spectacular multi-coloured starburst has snuffed out its last spark, there has to be one final earth-juddering bang, to sort of... round it off.

How does he do it, you may ask? How does he succeed year in, year out in coming up with new and inventive ways to perforate eardrums all over our islands? Search me, but he always does.

But Uncle's greatest asset is his generosity. Over the years he's passed his encyclopaedic knowledge of explosives on to... ooh, countless willing students, all eager to drink from Uncle's fountain of knowledge. The fact that none of them have survived to succeed Uncle is unfortunate. But then hey, if you play with fireworks, you sometimes get burned... to a crisp.

But Uncle's still around... at least most of him is. Carry on blasting!