Heart and solo

We are sorry if we have offended the sensibilities of anyone", said the spokesman for Madame Tussaud's. The hoo-ha was, of course, their publicist stunt of a Nativity crib in which Prince Philip, Tony Blair and George Bush masqueraded as the Three Magi. And that's nothing; floating above Victoria and David Beckham (fortunately the Babe was an anonymous figurine) as the Holy Couple was Kylie Minogue as an airy-fairy angel.

I always thought the aforementioned celebrities were two-dimensional plastic; now it seems that they are three-dimensional waxworks.

This venture was, in a phrase taken from a local craftsman, assolutament malandata; a Vatican spokesman said it was "in poor taste" whereas the Coalition of Evangelical Groups was "...not impressed... with this type of exploitation..."

This is the kind of item one finds in the foreign news, which is only given a brief mention, unusually with regard to the first part, in local bulletins.

Other items never make it; last week, I was shocked to hear how, in Colombia, a woman in her eighth month of pregnancy was abducted, had her baby delivered by Caesarean section and then kidnapped.

Miraculously, although left for dead in the woods, she survived to tell the tale - and was ironically suspected of foul play by some members of her local police force. She has since been reunited with her child.

All we get in Malta on PBS is an itinerary of who did what and when - and Super One and Net pull out all the stops if someone from "the other side" is found guilty of any wrongdoing whatsoever - from being found guilty of slander to theft of electrical current, and any other peccadillo in between.

Some time ago I read one of those four-inch books I love so much, which described, in part, the Inquisition tortures of air, fire, and water, which were chiefly used to make non-Catholics recant their 'heretical' views and convert.

This week's Bondi+ dealt with the grisly goings-on at the Inquisitor's Palace in Vittoriosa. Enlightening, for sure, but was it really necessary to present such grisly documentation in this series? I expect this was done so that the programme itself may never be typecast.

These days several families ironically opt to omit the Crib and other items with a religious feel in their home decorations for Christmas. Children got the brunt of this in some interviews on Education 22; to adults who were watching, some of the questions were loaded.

It could be, after all, that the children were not being put in a spot; it could have been just the inept way in which questions were worded. No wonder, sometimes, the children fidget and squirm in their seats.

Incidentally, I wish children who say 'Marsascala' (fejn toqghod?) and 'seven' (kemm ghandek zmien?) would be gently corrected. And Sahha would sound so much nicer than the current drawn-out Caw.

I wish that all the educators who present programmes on the Education Channel engage the brains before opening their mouths. Whether or not they are being paid (and then enough) for their services is neither here nor there; the fact that they choose to do it means that they have to do it properly.

I have only one complaint to make about the Mental Health Awareness slot in Elizir (Super One, Tuesday evenings). It's too short - and it goes out too late. Angela Agius is in top form in her new - or rather, extended - career following her departure from PBS. Hers is another magazine programme, but the similarity stops at the genre.

To give further details would spoil it for all those new viewers who are going to make time for it on Tuesday; but I cannot resist saying that Lara is one of those rare naturals whom the camera loves.

Another programme that has a lot going for it is the one with the punned, and deserving, title Exquiseat (TVM, Wednesdays).

A chef takes over a 'real' kitchen and creates wonders it is a pity to eat. Although the idea has been copied from other foreign shows, it has been given a typically Maltese touch and belies all those "don't try this at home" caveats of certain chefs who try to put one off.

And while on the subject of catering... this week, in an advertorial that involves showing off assorted paraphernalia, and the results obtained therewith, there actually were flies hovering around the food.

Rarely do recipes that appear onscreen have Maltese fonts; and certain cooks compound the felony by forgetting that we do have a word for certain ingredients, including semolina, mushrooms and parsley, in the vernacular. Not to be outdone, for that matter, in a Maltese programme on Education 22 we kept hearing the word "greengrocer" instead of "tal-haxix" in his job description, on Thursday.

Nail extensions, dirty nails, and jewellery all harbour germs; people who are supposed to know this crack eggs, push back straggling locks, and do other unmentionable things, before presenting us with their finished opus, onscreen. One shudders to think what they do in the privacy of their restaurant kitchens. Chef! Help! one is tempted to shout.