Idol chatter

I could only shake my head in utter disbelief as I read of the lenient sentences meted out to parents (I use the term loosely) who had treated their children so savagely - and also the way the items were reported.

I cannot believe, either, how all the other adults who came into contact with the three children involved in the two different cases failed to notice that anything was amiss for so long.

This is an indictment on all those who are in duty bound - before God, not before man - to report even suspected abuse, but who silence their consciences and fail to do so lest they "become involved" citing what they call 'potential repercussions' - something they are already, being a witness to this inhuman behaviour.

A child does not become encrusted with dirt after just one missed bath; a child does not suffer year after year of sexual abuse without leaving an intangible alert-effect upon the instincts of at least one person who comes into daily contact with her.

As for the newsscript writers and newscasters and news commentators who fell over themselves to see who would provide the most lurid details in connection with these two cases, I say: shame on you. I ask the inevitable question; would you have been so quick off the mark if the children had been your own? Would you have given that many details, such that we may immediately pinpoint the victims?

Perhaps it is also time to employ the equivalent of a moderator before allowing SMSes to flow across the screen during programmes. Not only because the majority could do with proofreading and editing, but also because of some of the expressions used.

This week we actually saw the vernacular for "serves him right", with reference to a very bad accident which, for a hair's breadth, could have been far worse.

It would seem that Sylvana Cristina is finding her job as head of news at PBS far more onerous than when she worked in the 101 newsroom; I take it that is why she didn't find the time to answer a simple e-mail.

One of the newscasters of Super One has the remarkable propensity for mangling the language, practically in every bulletin, that cannot go unremarked; this week she gave us l-ahhar kelma hija tieghu. What's wrong with kelmtu tholl u torbot?

Trying to emulate her, others came up with abbuz eccessiv (as if there may ever be another type), and tliet min-nies, and the medical condition quaintly known as "siribial palsy".

In jest, several Sicilian stations keep broadcasting clips of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi leaving a television studio when he, who had likened himself to Jesus Christ and Napoleon (and, to boot, described himself as taller than the latter), thought he was being needlessly rankled.

It has to be the Striscia people who spliced together a compilation of countless other strips of film showing other politicians behaving likewise. They had a missing link, though: the incident where a particular mayor had scooted out of a studio because he surmised, perhaps correctly, that the audience would get at him after they had done the same with another public official.

And not to be outdone, French President Jacques Chirac stormed out of a business meeting last week - because a speech was made in English, rather than French. There's a moral in that for all those of us who switch to English to accommodate Maltese people who use the vernacular badly because, as they say, they do not "know Maltese properly" (sic).

And the good (?) news is that the Broadcasting Authority will be conducting the television audience survey again, in the hopefully foreseeable future.

Each of us knows what he watches, and what he listens to, so basically it makes no difference to me whether programme A is top of the list, because unless I already watch it, I will not give in to the herd instinct.

This, of course, apart from the fact that television and radio stations appear to vie with one another to present fare that would attract a wider band of listenership or viewership in a particular period that, wonder of wonders, turns out to have been survey week when the stats are published.

In any case, we are invited to tell the Authority where our expectations lie with regard to what we get to watch; and our submissions are to reach the BA by Friday, April 7.

Given that the NSO carries out the survey with five to ten daily telephone calls, made to establish the popularity of TV and radio stations, there isn't anything to stop someone from calling anyone else and claiming to be carrying out a survey. In the past, I used to receive several calls like these myself, but since I intimated that I would include the words "forthcoming survey" in this column, I have never been contacted again.

Surveys have always been a haven for the mathematics jockeys, whatever the topic under scrutiny. And we all know how statistics are like a lamppost - used for support as well as illumination.

But is it possible that no Maltese bimbo/model/young lady was deemed 'good enough' to appear in Fabrizio Faniello's Eurovision video? Maltasong chairman Robert Abela had been quoted as saying that whether or not a video would be shot depended ultimately on the genre of the song; a statement I found bereft of substances. The advertorials flogging collections of golden oldies, and parallel programmes on radio stations, give the lie to the statement that "no one would play the video of a ballad".

Unfortunately, there are still handfuls of people on the media who refuse to admit they have fluffed, and use anzi to correct a mistake, rather as if Mr Axisa were somehow "better" than Mr Axiaq. Others insert eh, ehe, emm, and other monosyllabic repetitions several times over; imagine what it would be like trying to use an e-mail address that had several m's inserted haphazardly between the other letters.

Ghandek kompjuter, Sinjura? Ghandi t-tifel... now isn't a child like that a clever clogs!