I.M. Beck

What is it with the Net at the moment? It seems to slow down, die, flutter about a bit, die again and then reconnect, sometimes within minutes other times within hours. It's not the local suppliers who seem to be at fault but the international connection. Having a look at Datastream's site is not particularly helpful, as there is no information, so all you can do is re-boot and hope, unless you noticed that it was the international connection before re-booting, thereby saving yourself the utter boredome of watching Bill Gates' latest effort at frustrating the world go through its paces.

Come on, people, get your act together and tell us why this is happening. And no guff about netiquette and people downloading megagillions of bytes, please.

Pre-pre-plan

He's back from Libya with a good idea, he wants us to think. Not George W, who probably thinks Libya is a Province of Iwrack, and not Arnie, the other cow-poke with an attitude, who probably thinks Libya is the setting for Terminator XXII.3.

No, the hero of whom I discourse is none other than Doctor Alfred Sant, who in his weekly PR column penned the immortal words that "There needs to be a pre-plan followed by a realistic plan document that aims to reactivate new investment, cut waste, make the government more effective, give a new boost to tourism, protect the environment in ways that make sense in Malta not in Brussels, ensure that state education is more responsive to the needs of families".

As he had the good sense to point out, that is very much a tall order. In his column he went on in much the same vein, subtly telling the industry and tourism lobbyists that he had told them so, even while in the same breath telling them that he wasn't telling them so.

In fact, Doctor Alfred Sant's column was full of it. The best of good sense, I mean (what did you think I meant?). Of course we need to plan. We even need to pre-plan. I would go so far as to say that we need to pre-pre-plan, in order to come up with a plan that plans for the implementation of the pre-planning stage of the plan.

What we really need is a committee set up that would spawn multifarious sub-committees which would then coalesce into one enormous committee that would then report back to the original committee, which would in turn transmogrify itself into a plenary session that would come up with a plan of how to create a plan.

On the other hand, we could just turn everything over to Doctor Alfred Sant, who would apply principles of advanced management learnt at his Alma Mater, Huvverd, and stick them into his spread-sheet, confident in the knowledge that all he has to do is press reset and start again if things go wrong.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that there's anything wrong with planning and preparing to plan and planning to prepare and then actually getting a plan together, but isn't it about time that people, including the lobbyists, stopped making platitudinal statements such as "The government needs to do something about it" and instead defined what "it" is?

Speaking for myself, I'd prefer it if the government left things alone and stopped monkeying about with the nuts and bolts of the economy. I happen to be one of those who think that the private sector can do things better and that the government should restrict itself to making sure that the people who need help get it.

Sadly, over the years interventionism and meddling has become the order of the day, starting with Dom Mintoff's micro-managerial style (to go with his microscopic acumen in management skills, I suppose) right up to the present, when, for the last 15 years or so, the current lot have carried on as to the manner born.

It now falls to the lot of John Dalli and Austin Gatt to unravel the mess and try to separate State from Commerce and get things viable. I don't envy them, especially as every move they take will be characterised as an attack on some sacred cow or other.

Oh well, they can console themselves that they don't have to separate state from Church at the same time.

This is something

Fine, let's take the argument a step further and accept that it's time that the government did something.

For instance, how about taking a monolithic public enterprise and shoving it, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century, making it a viable entity?

Now that would be something, wouldn't it?

Well, it would be if the government were to be allowed to do it, but is it realistic to expect that this will happen? Will the Dockyard be reformed and will the country be saved many, many millions, or will the defenders of the worker rise up in their glorious majesty and smite the aggressor tooth and nail, vanquishing for good any thoughts of salvation?

I dunno, there is something of a breeze of change, a mere will'o'the wisp, but somehow, I doubt that this is the something for which we are waiting.

Wouldn't it be something if that other suppurating sore on the body financial, Public Broadcasting Services Ltd, were to have some effective balm applied to it? It sure would be, I suspect you're saying, especially when you remember that the other stations give more for much, much less.

But will it be the something so anticipated by all? Again, I have some nagging doubts.

The list could go on and on and you would do well, dear reader, to give some consideration to your own position. For instance, if you are a Gozo Channel user, you will no doubt have had your hackles raised by the slash and burn tactics used on the timetable recently. I mean to say, why should you have to wait for a more logical time for a ferry to sail (say, when it's fuller than at the time which is convenient for you) rather than drive up and have the crew cast off?

And why shouldn't you have free - and pretty good - medical services, even if you can afford to pay for your own?

And why shouldn't your plasterer and drain unblocker register himself as unemployed and get paid benefits, so long as he charges you less than he would were he to be all koshered up?

When Mr Dalli produces his rabbits out of the hat come November and sticks his hands (both of them) into your pocket, no doubt you will have a jolly old moan and whine. When you do, just bear in mind that that little something (taxing you and me) is, in point of fact, something, which is what everybody keeps saying the government should do.

To be honest, I'm not going to enjoy it either, but unlike some people, I won't be sticking pins into effigies of the finance minister, because I know that - like unblocking drains - his is a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

If other people had done their job over the years and if more people would do their duty now, perhaps we wouldn't need the government to do something.

Perhaps we would, of course, Mr Murphy and his Law being what they are.

Dumped in the skip

I enjoy Raphael Vassallo's news from the land of the skip of a Wednesday. He is very right, this week, in addressing the way the clergymen who allegedly molested kids under their charge have been treated. Indeed, they should have been taken to court under arrest, as many others accused of lesser crimes sometimes are, though I suppose the fact that they have been charged at all is an improvement on the under-the-carpet and yo-ho-ho attitude that might otherwise have prevailed.

While on the subject of skips and the contents thereof, I did see that shameful piece of broadcasting last week when Toni Abela thought it would be a good wheeze to parade Norman Lowell as a suitable subject for a laugh, but at the time I thought Mr Lowell's revolting points of view should not even be given the compliment of being mentioned in polite company.

However, bullfighting and bear baiting is never fun to watch if you have even a single humanitarian bone in your body, even if, as in this case, the animal has little to commend itself to the cause of humanity and I have to protest at the depths to which the programme dragged itself.

What was worrying, as well, was the volume of messages that condemned Mr Lowell for using a mish-mash of English and Italian. It was worrying because the people who sent the messages were missing the wood for the trees: it was Mr Lowell's message that was condemnable not the language he used.

The fact that, as is the fashion, the SMSs were grossly mis-spelt also gives cause for concern, but that's another story altogether.

Mensanian advice

Note has been taken of Mr Martin Baron's letter last week and, to boot, the interview he had in some other rag.

All I can say is that the dear chap should heed the old adage: when in a hole, the best thing to do is stop digging.

It doesn't take an IQ in the Mensa category to figure that out, I would have thought.

The pedant rules

I am informed that it was Bart Simpson's revered direct male ancestor who utterer the immortal "Duh".

Never let it be said that I do not accept corrections.

bocca@waldonet.net.mt