I.M. Beck quote unquote

On Sunday evening, my mobile was buzzing to itself contentedly, with messages of good cheer and felicitations coming in at the speed of light. Which is something of a statement of the flippin' obvious, when you think about it, since an sms message travels on beams of light.

Doesn't it?

Yes, I know it doesn't - I was just underlining how technologically illiterate I am though, compared with some of my colleagues, I am a techno-maven of the greatest order of magnitude. But then, some of these twerps think that Mr Norman Lowell is a great man, which defines their intellectual capacities.

Getting back to Sunday evening, the reason why my mobile was doing an imitation of a particularly contented bee was, of course, that Manchester United, probably the best club side in the world up to last year, had beaten the best club side in the world, the team that still leads them by 10 points. Man U fans come back at me with "yes but we have a game in hand", which for the footbally-challenged (no, the word doesn't exist) means that if they win the game that they've played less than Chelsea, they will only be seven points adrift.

Magnanimous gentleman that I am, I let them enjoy the thought that they're possibly only seven points behind Chelsea for a few moments, before asking them which three teams they think will beat Chelsea, even assuming Man U manage to win all the rest of their games. The more honest among them pause and then grin sheepishly. The less honest, especially if there are some Arsenal supporters within earshot (those that haven't hidden themselves away in shame, that is) say that apart from themselves (that is Man U) there's Arsenal and Liverpool to go.

This is where I try to stop myself from being too rude and restrict myself to a simple grin - rolling about on the floor laughing my elbow off doesn't quite do much for my dignity, you see.

Quite apart from all this hilarity, I hope you watched the game last Sunday, if you like football at all. It was English soccer at its best, which means it was soccer at its best and though Chelsea should, really, have won, Man U rose to the occasion splendidly. Hats off to them and to the astuteness of their manager, who I suspect put Keane up to the job of slagging off his mates and getting them fired up for the game.

Pathetic

I'm not talking about the letters last Wednesday, which I shall ignore - I'm talking about Mr Norman Lowell's performance on Realtà last Tuesday.

I know I had said I wouldn't be getting at the nasty little racists again for some time, due to the fact that I had bored myself (so imagine how much I've bored you) and I'm not, actually, getting at the nasty little racists now, either, because their Supreme Hero, the one who is actually referred to as Sir Norman by one of the less coherent scribblers on that website, convinced me that I have no need whatsoever to take the mickey out of them anymore.

This is because Mr Lowell's performance was such as to prove, if proof were needed, that the Radical Racist Rightist Revolvers (revolvers as in being revolting, that is) are, generally speaking, pretty pathetic when it comes to putting together political arguments or making their case.

Let me explain for why and wherefore I put this thesis before you.

Mr Lowell was invited by Brian Harnsford, who puts together this Realtà programme on Smash TV, to have a bit of a chin-wag with Fr Mark Montebello. I don't think much of the programme as an example of vibrant televisual entertainment and Mr Harnsford is no Michael Parkinson or David Frost but what the heck, it's his programme and he can give space to any racist he likes - it's his risk.

Nor do I necessarily agree with Fr Montebello's position on many issues, though I think he has a good heart and tries to do good, even to the extent of trying to debate in a civilised manner with Mr Lowell.

Said Mr Lowell, however, proved to anyone with an ounce of brain sloshing around in his skull that, not to put too fine a point on it, the Revolting Radical Rightist Racists couldn't argue their way out of a wet paper bag. Opening the proceedings by having a bit of a gleeful gloat about the riots happening in France and moving on to telling us - without a shred of evidence, of course - that little white girls go out of the house in fear of their virtue in England (because they will be raped by Asiatics, if my memory serves), the pompous one carried on doing more harm to his cause than I ever could by spouting the most amazing amount of twaddle I've ever heard about racial mixing and the dangers of Europidean purity being compromised by the invasion of black, browns and other untermensch.

He concluded by having a jolly good rant about capitalism, having set the stage for this particular piece of nonsense by exhibiting his delusions about Imperium Europa for all to see.

Verily, I don't need to keep looking under the stone and exposing the wriggling rightists and their peculiarities for you - their head honcho does it all on his own. This is not to say that we don't have a problem with racists and the poison they keep spreading, just as it would be irresponsible to ignore the fact that a continued influx of people itself is a problem for a country with limited space and resources, but with people like Lowell at the head, it can't be that long before the body implodes, especially if pedants like Mr Philip Beattie keep sniping at it from the smug and smarmy pseudo-Catholic sidelines.

Blasted health

Last weekend, we went to the Manoel, where King Lear was strutting his stuff and feeling the serpents' bite, said serpents being his awful daughters, Goneril and Regan, whose spite and venom was more than a match for Cordelia's loving honesty. I had done Lear for A-Level back in Sixth Form and it was a tough match even then, when the jolly old grey matter was at its peak.

Now that the grey stuff has gone the way of all flesh and sagged somewhat, Lear v Beck ended in a win for the royal one - the Bard's intellect thrashed mine for six and a bit and then some. It was an excellent performance, though, albeit a long one (and this was a slimmed down version) and the house was well filled.

Post-theatre prandials were ingested at the Buko, the Manoel's own eatery, now under new management. The sharp influx of punters at 10.30 and points later overwhelmed the staff just a touch, but the grace and good humour with which the very enjoyable food was (eventually) served more than made up for the delay in getting knives and forks to work. I think we'll be back, sooner rather than later, to give the operation a good try out at a more civilised hour of the evening.

Just to carry on with the non-cultural weekend theme, Sunday evening took us back to Birgu and Del Borgo, into where we managed to shoe-horn ourselves. The range of things edible has been expanded since our last visit and there's plenty more on the menu to tempt you, along with the usual selection of fermented vine-fruit juice and the service was good, too. The house was packed, so if you're thinking of going there any evening soon, you should call ahead.

Scurrilous rumours about the culinary demise of Christopher at Ambrosia are decidedly exaggerated, I am happy to report. On Tuesday, I was summoned thereanent (long legal word, like tortfeasor, both of which get a squiggly red line courtesy of Microsoft Word TM) for a lunchtime meeting (good excuse) and the food and service were just as they always have been, viz. and to wit (more legalese) superb.

Er wot?

Just for a change, this week we'll finish with a dig at Doctor Alfred Sant, why don't we, kiddies? I know, this annoys many of my many detractors, who think I shouldn't get at the poor fellow, but hey, it's my column and I'll cry if I want to.

The Man Who Would Be Prime Minister, Lord luv'us, pronounced to all and sundry that so far as he was concerned, the EU's rules and regulations would be twisted, turned inside out and generally made to resemble a herniated bowl of spaghetti, just so long as jobs were protected and generated.

For a Labour man through and through to make such pronouncements is not, as we all know, all that surprising - we should be thankful that he didn't have human rights in his sights - but wasn't Doctor Alfred Sant's dictum yet another instance of his taking aim at his own foot and having a tug on the trigger?

I mean to say, we all know he got creamed in the last general elections partly (and only partly) because he kept insisting that the EU and Malta were not made for each other. So why was Doctor Alfred Sant, last week on Xarabank, doing his level best to remind us all of this most faulty of faux pas?

Does he want to be PM or not?

Notice, I did not ask if we want him to be PM or not - that's an entirely different question.

bocca@waldonet.net.mt