IT WAS one of those dreary reunions where people who hate each other's guts gather to tuck into figurative Judas goats and sacrificial lambs.

The waitress asked how we'd found the grouper, and it was all I could do to tell her that I'd simply lifted the charred-to-embers circlet of aubergines, and there it was, nestling in its bed of boiled-to-viscosity rice, but just in time, I remembered that I wasn't deputising for Mona.

But this business of not going around with my press card on my lapel has its advantages. For instance, I can sidle up to two people deep in earnest conversation, and shamelessly eavesdrop upon conversations, hearing things that would never have been said in an interview; for it is well-known that some people will become more effusive if they know they have other listeners than the person they would have lapelled.

But what really fascinates me - and it's not just the actors and actresses who do it - is the duplicity obtaining when one is talking in confidence to a friend, or to a journalist off the record, and the public persona of someone, sometimes to the point of sycophancy, when interacting with a person whom they would just have demonised in private. Unfortunately, some of us can lip-read passably well.

Incidentally, I would gently remind certain people at PBS that the tiny button marked S, at the bottom, left-hand corner of the telephone apparatus, is there for a reason; you press it down hard if you don't want the caller (in this case, me), to hear what you are saying. And, besides, it's not done to get angry with someone, just because she complains that someone lifted a receiver and placed it back in its cradle without answering a call - twice. Subject closed.

WHAT'S with all the fuss about Desperate Housewives? The storylines are so clichéd that it takes a dead woman to narrate them. Incidentally, a recent feature in a British magazine reported that Teri Hatcher's daughter Emerson attends a school that is so anti-media that television might as well have never been invented. The seven-year-old apparently does not use computers either, although she does get to watch a film once a month. Deprived child? Media ploy? Who knows?

IT takes courage to act with a child, or with an animal. Yet although when Mark Doneo calls for Lights! Sound! Action! he really means it (especially the 'action' bit), he has created a story around a children's hospital; and so far, not one of them has let him down. But this scenario (watch the series on Thursdays, on Super One television) is only a tiny bit of the backdrop made up of expertly executed stunts and watertight editing.

Find out whether the 'Solitaire' of the title is the card game, the diamond, or the person who acts alone.

LAST Wednesday Education 22 launched the new schedule, indicating that it means business. No longer will viewers be faced with a blank screen and inane music; the timetable is chock-full of eclectic new programmes with an impressive line-up of presenters, old (!) and new.

Rather than providing merely repetitive, sometimes unfortunately inane, productions as often used to be the case, this venture is set to combine drive, dedication (let's not forget that most of these people have a day job requiring intense commitment), and didactics.

The excellent programmes that have already been introduced, such as E-News and 22AM, have been retained. Programmes to watch out for are Wara s-Swar tal-Kottonera, 4 fost il-Gimgha, Wicc Imb'wicc, EyeMalta and 22PM, but everyone, from the tinies to their great-grandparents, is catered for.

It is not for me (only) to pour scorn upon those people at PBS who did not fully appreciate jewels like Anna Bonanno and Joyce Guillaumier; but their loss was certainly E22's gain.

STATLER and Waldorf are the two codgers, in The Muppet Show, who rarely get out of their theatre box, who comment about operas (and life in general) being performed. They also have a column where, of course, they now take on films. It is rumoured that they will also be here, probably undercover, to report on certain events due to take place locally before the year is out.

Meanwhile, I am told that yes, SBS has improved a bit now. Before it used to be shorter, now it's always 30 minutes, because people were complaining. Now we watch it at 9 a.m. on Sundays; before it was 6 a.m., way too early.

Ironically, this e-mail comes at a time when there is (still) no Head of News at PBS, and despite the liberalisation of the airwaves, there are still people who think that Ray Charles directed Dances with Wolves.

For all that, last time I was listening to a singer introduce her piece. She said that although a tsunami is a terrible thing (understatement award indicated here), with the melody and words, it became somewhat less awful. Really, if you don't have the gift of the gab you may as well use a script. Although let it be said that not everyone who does, sticks to it.

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