I.M. Beck - quote unquote

So they didn't hit the Lm1 million target. So the programme was full of people trying to make the viewers laugh by dressing up as women. Again. So the programme was, not to put too fine a point on it, dreadfully boring and repetitive. Again.

So the whole thing was an appeal to the crass materialism and low-brow standards of the average punter. Again.

So what?

A fine sum of money was collected and will be put to good use. Again.

If it weren't for the materialism and the unashamed tear-jerking, it wouldn't have been collected and that's all there is to it.

When this is the end that is the end, the means to achieve it are irrelevant and the carpers and the whiners can just shut the hell up, once and for all. They don't need to watch the programme (I didn't) and they don't have to donate (I did).

If people want to grumble and moan about television programmes, incidentally, why don't they shoot their outraged slings and arrows at the god-bothering programmes or the interminable shop-for-dross shows or the bordering-on-the-exploitative-it-could-be-you excuses that masquerade as television?

Fifty four channels of

Aficionados of one of the best bands ever will remember a lyric, in The Wall, by means of which the anti-hero bemoans the fact that there are 54 (or something in that ball-park) channels on the television, all of which bear a distinct resemblance to fertiliser.

Admittedly, he was singing about the States, where television has long since plummeted to depths unheard-of in the civilised world, but on Christmas evening, surfeited beyond human endurance by the ingestion of rich foods, I plonked myself in front of the box with the box on top and jabbed listlessly at the up button of the remote control.

Verily I say unto you, it was dross that was served up, un-mitigated dross at that.

I hasten to add that, unlike the whingers and groaners, I don't blame Melita Cable for this. It's not their fault that the programme makers of the world seem to have conspired to produce rubbish: a service provider can only provide the service and it's up to someone else to produce the content - it's like blaming waldostream because the internet is chock-full of inanities. In fact, we have one of the better cable services that I've ever come across, which is not to say that the programmes are any good; of course, they're not.

I am leaving out sports and the news from that sweeping generalisation: we get a darn good football coverage and the news channels are pretty good too. It's the rest of the stuff that comes out of the box that is dire.

Yes, I do know that there are other programmes being beamed from on-high with some decent content but they are not available legally in Malta, for reasons known only to the folk at Sky. Would you, the one over there in the corner, declaring that he wants better service and that he wants it now, be prepared to stump up more cash, even assuming that it was possible to get more channels?

No?

I thought not. Then stop bleating and go out and get yourself an illegal satellite system - only don't go about weeping when your cracked card is de-cracked and you have to slope off to the criminal who supplied you with the thing in the first place, cap in hand, hoping that he will be disposed to re-crack the card.

If you've been watching the media recently, you will have noticed that all manner of goodies are being promised by terrestrial digital transmitters and cable digital providers and all sorts of variations on the digital theme.

Big whoop, as my son is prone to intone when something impresses him not a lot.

Have you noticed that no one, with the exception of Melita, who have made it pretty clear that it will, pretty much, be more of the same, only clearer and with better sound, has actually told us what channels they will be pumping out for our delectation?

Why do I suspect that things will not improve all that much? Satellite aficionados, every so often, bend my ear about how marvellous it is to be able to access programming from the four corners of the world (a globe has corners, incidentally?) but when I press them as to what it is they can actually see, when the marvels of folk operas in Hungarian and glacier skiing from Iceland are exhausted, they tend to mumble stuff about movies and, erm, movies.

Movies I can get by renting them, when I have enough time to watch them.

Ah well, it will all come out in the wash, I suppose, and I will still be sticking to listening to the radio over the internet until someone gives me something worth watching.

What u-turn?

L-orizzont had a headline last Monday that caught my eye as I was wending my way in a desultory fashion towards town, to start catching up on work. Which I didn't, the delights of coffee and chat winning over the attractions of work.

Anyway, the headline said that the government had pulled a u-ee over the public holidays thing, according to none other than Mr Tony Zarb, head man down Workers' Memorial Building way.

I'm not one to crow (much) but you'll have to admit, if you followed my words of wisdom in other quarters, that I do have something of a right to say "I told you so".

Not that the government would do a u-turn, of course, because the u-turn actually exists only in Mr Zarb's mildly over-excited imagination but that recourse would have to be had to amending the public holidays legislation rather than the Employment & Industrial Relations Act.

Actually, the unions (all of them) handed the government this one on a plate when they got all hoity-toity about the EIRA being so almightily sacrosanct and pronouncing from on high that the government had better not dare to monkey with it.

Well, the jolly old government has proceeded to slake their thirst with a salty piece of gammon it has (loses something in the translation and my overseas readers will wonder, at this point, what the hell I'm on about) and the unions have - by trying to be cute - lost themselves the battle because they can't accuse the government now of fiddling with the law that they (the unions) hold so dear when it is in their interest to do so. The public, incidentally, just so the unions will know, will not necessarily be on their side, either, as I suspect that a bit of decisiveness on the government's part is going to go down well.

And when it comes to pulling u-turns at the moment, one would be forgiven for wondering whether the people at the FOI don't have a touch of whiplash at the moment. From taking a strong position about the need for something to be done to get the country back on its feet to allowing itself to be seen by everyone as siding with the GWU on the sanctity of collective agreements, the FOI seems to have done a 180 with almost unseemly speed.

I have something of a soft spot, I will confess, for the Malta Employers' Association, but even so it would have been less embarrassing for the private enterprise sector if the FOI had left the industrial relations game to be played by the people who know how to play it and not get suckered by the GWU into making a joint declaration that was such a statement of the flipping obvious that everyone thought that the FOI were saying much more than they actually said.

As it is, the casual observer, who doesn't know that saying that collective agreements should be respected is tantamount to saying that the earth is round, thinks that the FOI has taken the unions' side on the public holidays issue purely to avoid industrial unrest in the short term.

This is obviously not the case. Is it?

To clarify

It might have been the impending Christmas cheer or the effect of already undertaken such cheer, but my piece last time around about Simon Busuttil's politely letting the government know that maybe the new departure tax was just a touch illegal was taken somewhat amiss.

I wasn't trying to say that young SB was doing something wrong by commenting or anything like that, I was just trying to poke a touch of fun at the prissy folk who had objected to columnar comments about A Certain Criminal Case who weren't so worried that anyone had commented about a possible pending civil case.

Not a matter of vital national importance, you'll agree.

Have a good one

By the time you read this, you will have had a good one, I hope. A good introduction to the New Year, I mean, with hearty, well-cooked and well served food, good drinks and decent company.

Heaven forefend that you were stupid enough to go to some unconscionable establishment that sees New Year's Eve as the time to rook all and sundry out of their hard-earned cash. Like all our politicians, at least the ones who have been interviewed all over the place, I am sure you opted instead to spend quality time with your loved ones, forsaking the temptation to ingest the indeed never-ending buffet (I saw one advertised) or to prop up the open bar until you needed propping up yourself.

Whatever you did and however bad your hangover this morning, I hope you get the new year that you deserve in the New Year.

bocca@waldonet.net.mt