Yesterday week, our sister paper reported that the Malta Communications Authority was 'looking into' (quotation marks mine) complaints about the blocking of free-to-air television channels during sports transmissions.

One hopes that this state of affairs will not last until the awards for Champions League and, perhaps, for the World Cup too, are given, when if the MCA will return a 'guilty as charged' verdict for Melita Cable and Multiplus, the judgment would be less than useless.

The question begs itself: does Melita Cable pay the companies, the television stations of which it relays? Should we pay our television licenses, for that matter, if we never watch PBS?

Last monday afternoon the gremlins were walking along the corridors of Radju Malta (Television House, actually, but who's quibbling?).

First the BBC news was cut off mid-sentence for the children's programme. Then the Cama Cama for Tuesday went out instead of the one for that day; and even this was cut off abruptly so that Gloria Mizzi's afternoon information slot could go out.

I understand that these days, procuring a copy of a programme is not as easy as it used to be (one only had to say 'please' nicely); therefore, all those kids who record Cama Cama now have a gap-toothed smile, so to speak (the whole Tuesday programme went out on the eponymous day).

There was a time when it was the duty announcer's job to see that this kind of mish-mash on the Station of the Nation would not happen; I believe this post has been eliminated as part of the cost-cutting exercises... thus giving yet another meaning to the phrase 'quality time vs quantity time' so beloved of parent craft educators.

Meanwhile, one is hard put to decide which would be the better option: 90 Minuta banali-zi, as opposed to Siegha Muzika Count-3, and whether the second part of the country known as Arabja ought to be taken as Sawdija or Sawdita. A meal of Óut tal-qoxra (seafood) is just the ticket here, served with insalajjet, perhaps.

Then there was the newscaster who sought to be funny at the expense of the people behind a particular Carnival float by alluding to the tragedy that had befallen the eponymous Titanic. Is this the best he can do?

And then there's the hostess who has this particular knack of practically leaning over her guests to make her point, and the newsscript writers who can never decide whether the Ministry for (many portfolios and) it takes care of Informatika or Informazzjoni.

Comparisons are odious - so don't say anything. Just look at the Enchanted Castle on Education 22, and then at the one on Rai Tre. To compare Dr Sci-Tech with Backyard Science would be fission chips.

Just because PBS has published an advert in the classifieds, asking for sales executives, it does not mean that this has occurred because advertisements on radio have practically all disappeared, and that is why we hear so many bumphs for other programmes within programmes that are being broadcast.

A little old lady who delights in statistics - indeed she gets The Sunday Times so that she has enough material for her week's pie-charts - said that 12 months ago there used to be a minimum of 50 a day, and now, she says, there are never more than two dozen. Wryly, she said that it must be one of her pet topics, i.e. the obituaries that are trying to push the truck uphill.

Actually, and I quote, the post of sales executives calls for highly motivated, energetic individuals with strong negotiation and customer care skills (and) initiative and creativity (and) ability to handle pressure and work against set targets (and) communication and interpersonal skills... This, one hopes, includes replying to letters and/or e-mails and/or telegrams and/pr faxes, as per common courtesy.

Four people sit huddled around a small table; the backs of the chairs to the left and right of the screen touch the light blue and red curtain, respectively, as the quartet converses about this and that - mostly politics, which to a certain extent explains the hues.

However, I do wish that Smash Television would be a mite less claustrophobic in its stage management department.

This week's Star Advice comes from a string of it, given to a lady "who does not eat meat". 'Ah, but that's bad. How else will you get your iron? You really need to eat red meat, for its iron content.'

According to the Vegan Society, iron is present in many typically vegan foodstuffs, including grains, nuts and leafy green vegetables, albeit the iron in these sources is in a less easily absorbed form.

The society quotes research to show that iron deficiency is no more prevalent in vegans that in the general population.

Another below-the-belt hit was made by someone who said that a rival product to the one being advertised ghandu mill-asbestos. What, exactly, does this mean? Does it contain asbestos fibres? Is the product intrinsically weak because it contains short fibres rather than long ones?

The consensus with a group of youths discussing television on Teen Trouble (Net) was that Amici, MTV and Grande Fratello were just about the only things worth watching on television; local stations were inundated with teleshopping marathons.

A couple of the more forward teens said that the 'money' and 'friends-of-friends' syndromes helped some people get into television, anyway. They forgot to mention how children's programmes were for the most part sponsored by firms that rely on brand recognition, and associated tricks of the trade for clinching sales.

And after several photos had shown Britney Spears driving her sport utility vehicle in Malibu, California, with her four-month-old son perched on her lap rather than strapped into a car seat on the back seat, the singer tried to reverse the bad publicity this gave her.

When some students from Our Lady of Mount Carmel School of New Orleans sat down to breakfast with City Councilman Jay Batt, thinking they were there to discuss the effects of Katrina, in walked Spears... whose publicist made sure that the event was later talked about on Good Morning, America.

Last Tuesday it was Dr Alfred Sant's birthday - and seconds after announcing this, one disc jockey played Waterloo, which one hopes was a lapsus.