Waving in Gozo

A global anti-tobacco treaty promoted by WHO and called Framework Convention on Tobacco Control has been signed by more than 170 countries representing billions of people. It aims at curbing further the tobacco vice which in Malta alone kills close to 300 people per year - apart from the second-hand stale poison unwilling inhalers have to swallow. Smoking is really suicidal and homicidal. It also contributes to the draining of the economy through public medical expenses required by smokers and their victims. It is also surprising how some educators and parliamentarians ignore the sterling advice of the Health Promotion Unit and puff away giving a bad example.

Some psychologists associate smoking to the permanent sulking of adults who were severed too early from breastfeeding. Other interpretations of the smelly vice include the need of nervous people to do something with their fingers and hold something to their lips. The solution to this could be playing the flute.

Male smokers often think they are being macho by divulging to one and all that they are dependent on a kind of weed that produces several types of poisons. Smokers on beaches rarely realise they are poisoning the fresh sea-breeze with their polluting habit. A macho smoker associates smoking to nonchalance, cowboyism and poise. In reality, when a macho smoker is confronted by a tiny tobacco stick, he falls for it like a sucker. Then the fag becomes the macho and the smoker is the little cowardly boy.

Foreign culture in Malta

Diplomats usually take great pleasure and satisfaction out of the promotion of their culture in the country where they are serving. These do not always realise that locals striving to add foreign to local colour are indeed doing the foreign culture a great service. One thus does not easily comprehend the mentality of some diplomats who expect locals to collect funds for the promotion of a culture that is not theirs.

Private tattoo

When an event is advertised as entertaining to the public, the public should have maximum access to it. I recently was enticed to St George's Square in Valletta by newspaper info attracting attention to a grand military tattoo and other activities. On arrival I found out that seating had been made available mostly to the families of the Nordic performers - as I could guess by the shocks of slightly blonder hair than mine. Hundreds of people were left trying to peep from behind dark green netting. Tattoos and Co.'s maximum appreciation must be organised in a much larger square. Otherwise they remain largely private tattoos.

My little eye

It seems as if the state will increase the security of its citizens by installing more listening and viewing contraptions. This of course has its advantages. Through cameras installed in our bathrooms, Big Brother will know that our rolls have finished and promptly send an agent to provide us with a few emergency metres. Never has an ex-welfare state been so generous.

When the nation needs me

ANat friend who appreciates Gozo restaurants often comes across a minister whose love of cuisine is only second to the importance of state matters. The man tells his entourage that they must excuse him for occasionally removing himself from the table to discourse on capital decisions required of him to avoid astronomical repercussions on state progress. No sooner has he pronounced this than the mobile chimes are heard in Gozo and Malta.

The minister rushes away from the table risking to come back to a colder meal; but national matters definitely precede gastronomical ones. He looks very dashing and businesslike. He gestures and argues. With his mobile phone on his left ear, he gesticulates with his right hand. Then the phone is moved to the right ear and the left arm waves all over the place. Sometimes left ear and left arm work together in frantic disequilibrium and the phone is about to fall. At the end of the call the man comes back very satisfied though exhausted. The state has just had a narrow shave; the driver has been convinced in no uncertain terms and determination that he must immediately repair that puncture.

Ministerial popularity

A poll in this paper some time ago indicates that a staggering majority of Maltese, 88.67 per cent, wish to see a Cabinet reshuffle. This percentage may not be precise but it could not be too far from reality either, as the general feeling in the country points that way.

This poll cannot be totally unrelated to the fact that in Parliament only one minister out of five, Dolores Cristina, was prepared to divulge information on the amount of money spent by her ministry on hospitality meals and receptions. The other four ministers, defiantly refusing to bare their candy bills, said that the gathering of this info was time-consuming and unproductive. Which is not a compliment to the more transparent minister. Earlier popularity polls put Ms Cristina well before other ministers. It is not far-fetched to conclude that this journalistic pulse-feeling is inevitably related. Which brings to the fore a number of practical suggestions shoring the dwindling serenity of the population.

A reshuffle is thus badly needed and the PM should perhaps change places with Ms Cristina.

Pinball journalism

Sometimes journalists seem to gather information from one another. Correspondents may be to some extent justified in doing this but certainly not university qualified journalists who are supposed to gather info directly at source. I don't know many journalists who live together in a kibbutz but similarity between the interpretation of events makes one think that some opinion formers obtain their facts from kirxa (tripe) pies.

Reinforce your doors

You'd better watch out as the strategy group at Pietà has decided to embark on a membership offensive to bring back to the fold the lost sheep who vote for Alfred Sant in Radio 101 polls. This exercise will be half-baptised "membership blitz" in typical demi-Christian panzer stylistics. Party people will be knocking on our doors trying to convince us that the mess created itself like an unwanted big bang. You can either admit the joking blitzers parking their panzer in the Lm900 per parking rectangle in front of your door or else have one back on the government by installing a blitz-buster spy camera that spots crocodile tears from kilometres away.

The PN treasurer is even sending invitations to people to become members of the party. I too received one. Now do I look like the kind of person who gives a pandemic duck about PN membership and contribute money to a conservative capitalistic movement? Please stop California dreamin' dear Peter!

Fuel cocktails

The era of mixing kerosene and diesel is over since the government increased, sorry, adjusted upwards, the price of kerosene instead of catching the culprit mixers. Kerosene heating has thus become a luxury due to flimsy fuel-cocktail excuses. All kinds of fuel are experiencing astronomical skyward adjustments (oops, there goes my promotion to principal government linguistic groovy consultant). It won't be long before fuel is more expensive than whisky. Checks will then be made to catch drivers who add whisky to their diesel. New inquisitive cameras will be able to spot the dazed tiger in your tank.

Dr Licari teaches psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and geolinguistics at the Department of French of the University of Malta.