I.M. Beck - quote unquote

Saturday saw us battling to park at the sharp end of town, to be able to go to the Voices concert.

As usual, it was an epic performance. Perhaps it is fair to say that the music suffered by the very size of the thing, but to say that is to miss the point entirely. The way the event has developed, you are supposed to sit there and enjoy the tunes, happy that your money is winging its way to the right pockets. When you watch a super-tanker move majestically past, you don't compare it to a racing yacht, you look on in awe.

The Voices Experience was typified by the way the longest, loudest and most emotional applause was reserved for the chairman of the committee, the late Mr Louis Naudi.

Run away, run away

Yes, I know I've used that headline before, as attentive readers will have noticed (an honourable mention for the reader who sends in the first e-mail telling me which movie it's from) but Doctor Alfred Sant's less than heroic performance as part of or in front of the Public Accounts Committee of the House moved me to use it again.

Of course, when I say "heroic performance", I am guilty of a touch of hyperbole. Gross exaggeration, even. Not to put too fine a point on it, I was spouting a load of old rubbish, since the dear fellow, having spent most of the preceding four or five aeons (it felt like) bugging everyone about a scandal here, a scandal there, a scandal flipping well everywhere, didn't feel that it might be a wheeze to step up and do right by the PAC and give them the benefit of his financial expertise. Or tell them what he knew, as opposed to that of which he was morally convinced.

Now there's a phrase that hasn't been used for some time by Doctor Alfred Sant, if my memory serves. I wonder why?

I also wonder why said Doctor Alfred Sant failed to put in appearance on one side or another of the committee table. I doubt it was modesty on his part, some seemly reticence in not wanting to show off his indubitably brilliant grasp of the more esoteric aspects of property valuation and accounting. Such as how depreciation is accounted for in respect of Malta House in Piccadilly, for example.

I don't suppose that Doctor Alfred Sant was particularly worried about having to cross verbal swords with anyone, either. After all, when referring to Dr Tonio Borg during some audience with the massed ranks of the terminally confused that make up his faithful, Doctor Alfred Sant was dismissive in the extreme, snapping his fingers (figuratively) in frustration as forgetting the minister's name, going "Oh, what's his name, that one, the minister", so I have no doubts as to the levels of his self regard.

And it's not because the PAC met at some unearthly hour, an hour at which the God-fearing are safely tucked up at home, that Doctor Alfred Sant declined to attend.

Since no reason for his absence was given, one has to assume that he had no good reason for failing to appear, as was his duty, if not his right.

When I was at school, a few years ago, we had an expression in the playground for people who didn't stand up to be counted.

I won, I won

After the PAC finished its deliberations, predictably Doctor Alfred Sant found his voice again and came out with all guns blazing, trumpeting unto the world that he had been vindicated.

His reason for saying - nay, braying - this was that it had been confirmed that the professionals chosen to ensure that the deal was properly done were chosen by Richard Cachia Caruana. Quite apart from the fact that the opposite had been confirmed, what the heck does that have to do with anything, even if it were true, which it apparently wasn't? Is it Doctor Alfred Sant's moral conviction that being acquainted with, a friend of, a second-cousin thrice removed of or otherwise not a mortal enemy of someone disqualifies professionals from giving services that they are eminently qualified to give and being paid the market rate for this? Is this moral conviction of Doctor Alfred Sant a result of his having to have consorted with so many people of mediocre stature, so mediocre that the only way they could rise to the level of their more competent colleagues was by toeing the party line? Is it a question of measuring others with someone else's yardstick?

And then there was the other earth-shattering discovery that Doctor Alfred Sant claims to have made, that Mr Cachia Caruana was involved in the choice of the blinking building. It's such a scandal that, isn't it? The Head of Delegation (or whatever title it is that the bloke holds) was involved in choosing the building out of which the delegation would operate. Involved, mark you, not uniquely responsible for or solely implicated in or anything like that.

Shock, horror. Gob-smacking, toe-curling, breath-taking revelations have been made. An asset has been transferred from one side of the national balance sheet to the other, with the assistance of highly respected professionals and after the asset was examined every which way from Sunday by anyone who had an interest in so doing.

Unless Doctor Alfred Sant has anything concrete to say about this by now totally flogged to death horse, he'd better clam up, lest his political credibility ebbs to even lower levels than heretofore.

Make an Opera

There's a phrase in Maltese (ghamilt opra) which is used when someone makes a pig's high tea out of something, especially if said someone has a bit of a smug look on his face. My headline makes a bit of a reference to that phrase, you will have guessed by now, and it also refers to this notion that the government seems to have got into its collective noggin that the old Opera House site is a good place to have a new Parliament building built. Might I be allowed, with all due respect, to make another suggestion? One that might save the national exchequer a few millions, while we're about it.

Why not clean up the ruins, turf out the traders from below stairs and give them somewhere else to earn their living (which is what's going to happen anyway) and turn the site into a memorial for the war dead? It needn't be a sterile memorial, of course, with a bit of imagination it can be turned into a highly adaptable performance space, an inspirational adjunct to the facilities at the St James Cavalier.

Without wishing to betray any disrespect towards our Honourable Members, the last thing we need is an even bigger talking-shop from whence they can carry out their democratic function. The current arrangement, historically significant as it is, is a perfectly acceptable repository for the litres and litres of warm-to-hot air that are expelled in the process of the carrying out of said function.

Without wishing to betray any disrespect, either, to one of our national treasures, I have to ask whether Richard England is the only architect of merit ever produced by this country? His style is well known, and one would be forgiven for humbly pointing out that, just maybe, it might not quite be the thing, as it were.

Fun in the house

As is my wont, I listen to debates in the House on the car radio when negotiating from Point A to Point B.

Fun and games can usually be had during PQ Time, especially now that some of the Honourables have taken to giving a hint as to what Question No. 148585 is all about. The Supplementaries are even more fertile pastures for some fun, especially when the interlocutor tends towards the barked bellow rather than the subtle purr.

Some ministers are better than other ministers when it comes to fielding the demands for information, especially when the demands come from left field (and I'm not talking about the political angle, either) and I have to say that when the dulcet tones of Minister Dolores Cristina waft out of my speakers, I am generally confident that she will pluck anything shot at her out of the air with the confidence of a world class goalkeeper.

With humour, too.

Sometimes, even Homer nods and Mr Leo Brincat, last Tuesday, slipped slightly from his usually lofty standards of debate and thoughtfulness.

Speaking on the Adjournment, he closed his comments by referring to that disgraceful traffic junction on the Regional Road, the one that people of my generation still call the Gas Tank Roundabout.

It is disgraceful because it is a horrendously planned junction, with traffic lights winking on and off with gay abandon, stranding cars with their derrieres poking out into the traffic flow.

It is not, however, disgraceful for the reason that Mr Brincat said it was. He was bemoaning the fact that the traffic lights had been out of order for days, the evidence being that they were busy blinking amber.

The thing is, as I'm sure Mr Brincat has ruefully noticed by now, that they weren't out of order - they had been switched to do just that in order to see if the junction couldn't be made to work better, and the Transport Authority had been careful to tell everyone about this.

I'm pretty sure the junction is working better without traffic lights: It certainly couldn't be working any worse.

Broadcast news

The chairman of PBS has resigned and been duly thanked for his services. One wonders, did the thanks include consideration of the very nicely strengthened financial position of the company which I hear compares very, very favourably with its own position last year?

And was the budget for the year ahead also a subject of effusive thanks? One hears that the footing on which the company has been placed is significantly sound and it will be much much less of a burden on us all next year.

Town bound nosh

Last Sunday, we went to the movies in Valletta. A veil shall be cast over the movie, which was less than inspiring but we had a pretty good plate of pasta at Il-Kapitali, which has the virtue of being one of the few places to remain open of a Sunday evening.

Good prices too.

bocca@waldonet.net.mt