Freeze flames

A couple of youths I know were promised a summer job in catering. When a phone call was made to confirm transport arrangements, they were told that the recruitment was off because they had not attended a food handling course - which they had not been told about.

In one of Jasper Carrott's books, Sweet and Sour Labrador, an incident is related about a megabucks sheikh who wanted a racetrack for his stallions. So he had one built - right across the greater part of a golf course, which ironically made the grass on the sandy course out of bounds.

An acquaintance of mine once arbitrarily decided that my children must join hers in a particular activity. When I politely declined her invitation, she got her husband to talk to mine so in order that I be convinced.

These three incidents came to mind when I read the letter by the Acting Director of Information in last Sunday's paper. Ironically, although I was told that the case "was not supposed to have gone as far up" as a Director in the Education Division, it was, within a week, referred to the DOI.

It is fascinating to note that only one of my three letters - the one in which I said I did not require an interview (explanations follow) - was alluded to. Nothing was said about whether the original floppy disc, the hard copy and the covering letter, and the second letter, have been unearthed, and whether any of the people I mentioned have corroborated my story, as indeed they must, since it is the unadulterated truth.

Of course I did not want - or need - an interview; this for several reasons. What I had to say, I said in the letter, which got to the intended person much sooner than the interview would have transpired. If my work had been filed, all he would have had to do was ask for it to be brought to him, and then refer it to the appropriate section for necessary action.

Although my name, rather than a by-line, appears on this column, I was not given the 'press handout' that advertised the meeting about new proposals by anyone. This further points to the need for separate, constantly updated mailing lists, which I always stress.

Furthermore, I submitted my suggestion after seeing an invitation onscreen; in the second call for applications, there was nothing to the effect that if one had not heard anything, one ought to apply again.

Was it too much to suppose that my work, together with the "few" that had been submitted the first time around, was still being considered, and that there were so few applications (according to Stephen Florian, "many more people applied to be presenters than submitted suggestions") that the call had to go out again?

Unlike what happens in mathematics, two negatives, let alone three, never make a positive; all that would have been necessary, after at least a perfunctory check, and therefore not on a Sunday afternoon, was: i) a short call to inform me that my work was nowhere to be found; ii) who would be held accountable for this; and iii) what they had to say about it.

Last Sunday, when I asked Charlot Bonnici whether he would talk to those involved personally, he demurred. From this I realised that part of the unenviable job description of this person includes putting right the damage wrought by his predecessors, although he was not even on the E22 staff when it happened, and trying to cover up for them. This is definitely unfair on him and others in similar circumstance elsewhere.

I still do not know what happened to my work - I still have not received any acknowledgement to at least the final one of my three letters. I still have not received an apology for the shabby way the clerk typist treated me. I rest my case.

As for the question of repeats - they are much better than dead air, or as near enough to that as does not matter. And, for all I know, there may be children who enjoy zapping from Owkej on PBS to Owkej on E22 on Tuesday mornings.

It is high time that business establishments willing to be featured on E22, pay for the privilege. So, consequently, there would be more money to spend on the station.

Fascinated, I zapped on and off from the absurd, interminable World Bikini Queen Contest (Super One, Sunday night) by Catwalk Productions, to see whether, by the end of the caboodle, things would improve - they did not. This was not (merely) because the girls sought to compensate for their short legs with high heels, pathetically trying on the Naomi Sashay, and dismally failing.

The sound throughout the event was atrocious, and so you can imagine how this further garbled DJ Gianni's diction. One of the things that did come out loud and clear, however, was his profanity, uttered in an effort to drum up enthusiasm, about the lack of (male) response to the announcement that there was to be a bikini parade.

For this fleshfest there were girls from several countries - Malta, the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, and so forth. There was also a stripling, although alas not a mermaid, from the Baltic Sea, and a country called Balaton. For some reason, a few of the girls (they don't deserve the name young ladies) had sashes that proclaimed them to be representing specific regions - Warsaw, Central Lowlands - rather than whole nations.

The way the girls were filmed was unfair, too. The choreographer came up with the idea that they should stand back to back; so for one of each couple, every time, it was impossible to match the face with the name on the sash since they did not appear simultaneously.

Besides, the fonts used on the sashes were not the same - and this had nothing to do with how many letters it contained; "Gibraltar" was writ large, but "Belgium" was much smaller.

There were so many secondary titles to be won that, by the end of the show, most of the contestants had been awarded what looked like a gigantic pottery plate. All to the tune of the same foreign record, playing incessantly. We have enough local talent, and then some, to cover an evening's entertainment.

The credits on the character generator put the icing on the cake, by telling us that the whole shebang was migjub likhom (sic) by such-and-so...

Did you ever notice how presenters often have a knack of using higher chairs than their guests, as a subtly psychological gesture? One instance where this doesn't happen is in the Sahhtek l-Ewwel slots on PBS, where the interviews are video-conference style, and the interviewees are placed on a slightly higher level than the presenters.

Incidentally, last week all those who had not realised that the present series is yet another repeat were surprised, last Saturday, to hear the words Illum l-ahhar jum tas-sena... (Today is the last day of the year...)