Roamer's column

I wish sub-editors would blue-pencil the word 'adjourn' when the proper translation is clearly 'update' as in, for example (there have been many others): "Changes... demand that the GWU adjourn itself..." Some may be tempted to remark that it would indeed be helpful were the GWU to decide to go on permanent adjournment, but that is another matter and altogether more debatable.

That the union needs to update its methods, its attitudes, its awareness, its understanding of solidarity which the social doctrine of the Church sees as a "firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good", its intellectual approach to problems that crop up from time to time, few are in doubt. Among those few is the secretary-general of the GWU who can still find it within himself to declare publicly that he is "prepared to chain himself to Castille" (some say he should. These add that two decades ago students did not make any such declaration but went ahead and did it).

It is one of Mr Zarb's less intelligent notions that he is compelled to act in a confrontational manner because governments led by the Nationalist Party are endemically confrontational. He would dearly love not to be but what is a man to do? Well, for one thing, he could stop being so suspicious of change and development. For another he should break free of the time-warp within which he has imprisoned himself. For yet another he should stop making the government's day by threatening actions that immediately place him on the wrong side of public opinion (vide MAM and the PTA).

This does not mean that Mr Zarb's chimes are discordant to the ears of the more militant of his members. It is more that the ways of militancy no longer meet the needs of modern trade unionism. This is being recognised at various levels of the GWU itself, including senior echelons. These look back on a string of moral and psychological defeats suffered by the union, be it in the matter of VAT or the EU, because the electorate noticed that stand taken by the union had more than a touch of the ol' days when the union sacrificed its integrity and opted for statutory fusion with the Malta Labour Party in government. That the union is experiencing a decline in its membership comes as no surprise.

The simple truth, which seems to escape Mr Zarb, is that times are a-changing. Old habits of production, the altered face of the Maltese economy, new challenges that we avoided for one reason or another, sometimes good sometimes not so good, fresh approaches to the creation of wealth, a burgeoning services structure - all these require the adoption of new methods in negotiations between labour and management, labour and the public sector.

The belief that one joined the labour force as a dockyard worker and left it 40, 50 years later as a dockyard worker, the assumption of a sinecure in employment be it private or public no longer holds good. The concept of a reactive union is passé. The idea of a call to arms at the drop of a hat finds no response with the electorate. The need for fresh beginnings within the GWU, where a struggle for its soul is in progress and should be won by that element in the union which acknowledges the depth of that need, is crucial for its future - one unencumbered by political luggage or outdated approaches.

Jerusalem? Not quite

There are two people I would not like to meet on a dark night (well, more than two, but at this moment in time two will do). The first is the thought of turning a corner and coming face to face with Tony Zarb on his nightly jog, or being confronted by the sun-soaked Shane Warne, nose tipped with white cream and lips similarly protected yelling out what used to be "How's that?" in the old days (the question is asked of an umpire who has to decide whether a batsman was out - caught, bowled, caught and bowled, stumped, run out, leg before wicket, all these a part of the rich tapestry of cricket's lexicon). The schoolboy's "How's that" became in adulthood "Howzat" with the emphasis on zat. Uttered by Warne, the question now sounds like a triumphant battle-cry or the last terrified sound of an unfortunate victim being thrown out of a 15-storey window by some scaled one-eye monster: "Haaaaaaaaaargh".

And last Thursday, as we drooped beneath the weight of a humidity that brought many of us to our knees, we heard Warne call out "Haaaaaaaaa!" six times when he captured the first England wicket (Trescothick) and the home team had reached 82; when he bowled out Vaughan at 102, Bell at 104, Pietersen at 131 and the extraordinary Strauss at 297.

According to cricket buffs, Warne delivers leg-spins like nobody in cricket has ever done and if you watch his run-up, delivery, and follow the ball spinning like mad outside the leg wicket before it cuts in wickedly behind the batsman's bat you must be inclined to agree. When this happens there is that ear-splitting Haaaaaaaaaargh as Warne dares the umpire to indicate anything other than the hapless batsman is well and truly "out". Not only. The man continues his bowling run and is brought to a halt only by fellow fielders congratulating him; and all the while this brute of a genius is still chanting his Haaaaaaaaaargh howl and wearing a Haaaaaaaaaargh scowl.

It was George Bernard Shaw who remarked: "The English are not a very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity". Anybody who has ever had the almost spiritual pleasure of watching cricket being played on a village green will know what he meant. The smell of summer-dewy grass, eleven fielders in white, some with a white jersey over their cricket trousers, spread out tactically on the green, two batsmen receiving cunning off-spins, Yorkers, bumpers or plain sizzlers, the sound of ball on willow. Time is suspended. There is a slice of heaven about the atmosphere, gentle, peaceful stuff. "Cricket", I read in yesterday's Telegraph, "civilises people and makes good gentlemen". If only the author of those words had not been Robert Mugabe.

Cricket, luv'ly cricket

Test cricket used to be a larger version of the game played on every village green in England. In the Forties and Fifties, watching a Test match was like watching Wimbledon. The crowd was very quiet so as not to disturb the concentration of the players. This was the era of Bradman and Washbrooke, Hutton and Lindwall, Australian and English greats who eventually gave way to some magnificent West Indian greats (only Worrell comes to mind). It was the supporters of the West Indian and other non-white Commonwealth teams that introduced the novelty of noise and spontaneity from the grandstands - and suddenly there was the jingle "cricket luv'ly cricket". Supporters no longer applauded with a polite clap but with the collective voice of song and thunder. To which Wayne now adds his Haaaaaaaaaargh!

In this the final of the series between England and Australia for the Ashes, the English decided that a bit of spirituality cannot harm England's chances. All over the country they joined voices and belted out William Blake's hymn Jerusalem, asking, wistfully, whether "those feet in ancient time" did "walk upon England's mountains green?/ And was the Holy Lamb of God/On England's pleasant pastures seen"? And waiting, waiting "Till we have built Jerusalem/In England's green and pleasant land".

On the first day, with 373 runs tucked under its belt, England caught sight of Jerusalem as in a mirror darkly. On the second day the prospect diminished substantially as the Australians established a first-wicket partnership of 112 that was still standing when bad light stopped play. The Jerusalem grins on Skynews and BBC reporters were nowhere in sight by the end of Friday. I hope England, which gave cricket to the world, wins, but if the team loses will there be the odious rancour that followed the English soccer side's debacle? I hope not.

No Jerusalem sought in soccer; none seen

There is far less religiosity in the soccer camp (rugby is another matter) where the England XI stunned Englishmen and delighted Irishmen by going down 1-0 to Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland who? Whoever NI is, all hell broke loose. In the centre of that hell the England manager, Swede Sven-Goran Eriksson was being roasted alive by the British press and by public opinion, and re-roasted in case any part of him had been left underdone. This could not have done his sex life much good.

If only Eriksson had introduced some religiosity into the whole shambles. If only he had known by heart what is quoted as being, surprisingly, Princess Diana's favourite hymn. He could have recited it with patriotic fervour at his first press conference and perhaps melted the hardest heart in the room.

I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above,
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love:
the love that asks no question
(a bit of a wobble here, of course, because the press was there to do just that)
the love that stands the test...

How he would have wowed them, but he did not. Instead he defiantly declared that he would not be resigning - and hands on heart who of you would tear up a four-year contract worth £4 million a year until 2008? "Will I quit if we don't (win the next two games?)" he asked, rhetorically it turned out. "We are going to win and that's that".

I don't know. Michael Owen got it right, I think. The players, all of them, bore a collective responsibility for the disaster. "We didn't perform well enough" and "It was a poor performance and it wasn't good enough". Can hardly be fairer than that. Cynics may be tempted to remark that the striker was trying to save his skin, brown-nosing his way to remain in Svengali's good books. But he looked honest enough (he always does) when he was saying all that, honest and sincere and very rich.

Nor did Mr Annan...

...show any sign of detecting in Paul Volcker's commission's investigation of the United Nation's Oil-for-Food programme and scandal a reason for tendering his resignation. Unlike the head of that programme, Benon Sevan, who was discovered to have had his palms greased by the Iraqis, the hands of Kofi Annan, if not those of his son, emerged clean from that investigation.

Kojo concealed from his father his relationship with a company that had won a substantial UN contract under the programme. The final report of the Volcker commission will be naming companies and contractors who were involved in what came to be known as oil-for-food. This will provide quite a few blushes around the world.

It was the press - and not the liberal wing of it, either - that highlighted the scandal which led to the setting up of the Volcker commission. Had the press not done so, Mr Sevan would still be enjoying the fruits of his labour and Kojo Annan would not have been the embarrassment one assumes he has become to his father. There are many more in the secretariat who are involved to some degree or other.

The commission seems to have been remarkably even-handed. Atrociously handled though oil-for-food was by the secretariat headed by Mr Annan, the Security Council itself comes in for quite a bit of caning. If the secretariat turned out to be thoroughly incompetent, the Security Council's reservation of the right to block any transactions required by Iraq did not help to create an administrative body capable of running the programme efficiently. Indeed, it contributed to an artificial division of non-transparent responsibility between the secretariat, which was lamentably not up to the job anyway, and the council. That smuggling went on, for example, was apparently well known to the council.

The report also highlights the more than interesting fact that Russia, China and France were selected by Iraq for the receipt of oil contracts running into billions of dollars in the hope that these countries would help Iraq get sanctions lifted. They were, in short, doing very well, thank you.

This may explain the position adopted by these countries, France most vociferously, when it came to the crunch. Where oil is concerned it seems that nations of disparate cultures and economies look upon the black gold with equal reverence and greed. Reading the liberal press you could be forgiven to think that this is true only of the United States and that everybody but the United States is squeaky clean. Not true, mes amis, not true.