On the dot...

This photograph was taken at the main crossroad of Republic Street, in Victoria last week. The driver chose to put on stickers at the back with the words "Little person on board" and "Don't drive too close you might hurt me!" Yet, the otherwise diligent motorist allows a girl to kneel on the back seat with her face just a few centimetres from the glass of the rear hatch!

Jazz Blues

It has been reported that the jazz festival will move to Lascaris Wharf. Have the authorities considered that Boffa Hospital, in Floriana, is right over the area? What measures will be taken to ensure the patients are not inconvenienced?

Stone Walled...

The threat of prison sentences hangs over those who do not pay fines or are caught pilfering electricity. This means that Corradino Correctional Facility will soon be bursting at the seams if these are actuated; and then there will be no option but to slap those committing more heinous crimes with suspended sentences.

... Boxed In

People have lost all hope that the telephone booths converted to take internet connections will ever be in working order again. So the least that can be done is return them to their original function, that is, normal or garden phone boxes where one may have a decent conversation without interruptions - to a certain extent.

Sunny Side

The ATM machine serving the Fleur-de-Lys branch of Bank of Valletta is sited in a very inappropriate place. The queues usually have to stand right in front of the entrance to a shop a few inches away. Moreover, clients have to stand in direct sunlight while using the machine, and this means the screen is not clear enough to see unless it is shaded with one's hands.

Tax Freed

The idea behind eco-tax was to stop establishments doling out countless plastic bags to customers. Unfortunately, someone came up with the idea of introducing bags with smaller dimensions than would have rendered them taxable. This means that now, shop-owners hand out two bags, rather than one - and, of course, these have more surface area, and mass, than the larger one.

Doctors' Orders

Plans are in the offing for nursing officers to be able to gauge the blood pressure of clients attending area clinics; the project has been put on hold until suitable equipment is localised. The health service could have gone higher, faster and further by offering doctors working in the private sector more reasonable rates to join the public health service on a part-time basis.

Lights Out

The European Commission ever with an eye on safety is to adopt the no-mercury home thermometers and measures of safety for cigarette lighters policies in the near future. One wonders whether there is a cut-off date, since it is obvious that there are literally thousands of these six-for-a-lira lighters in stock.

Pay Packets

Following the Bank of Valletta mobile telephone top-up scheme, Maltanet has launched its Always-on internet broadband top-up card system, which will enable people to purchase virtual time without even leaving the house. One hopes Onvol, and other service providers, will follow this lead. After all, in the end, they will surely gain from this move.

Two Weights

The process to issue a Lm400,000 contract for the renovation of the Bulebel industrial estate and to build childcare facilities within its precincts has been suspended. This happened because one of the bidders filed an objection. Ironically however, the Park and Ride system has still not been thoroughly finalised - and yet works have already started on it. Why the difference between the two undertakings?

Water Tablet

The Cumnija waste water treatment plant will be dumping 7,400 cubic metres of water in Malta until the re-use policy is approved. Could this policy not have been given the fast-forward treatment, so that what is going to waste might at least have been used as third class water?

Seeing Cents

The National Euro Changeover Committee has published guidelines about how the changeover is to be effected, and what measures are to be taken to ensure that rounding up is done fairly and squarely. The process, called smoothing, highlights the fact that rounding off is only to be done through using the fixed rate to six significant figures, viz. Lm0.429300. How many outlets that already take the euro are actually doing this?

On Air

There still prevails the annoying habit of presenters interrupting or talking over records as if they were more important than their albeit recorded "guests". They do this, they say, to stop anyone recording the songs and not paying performers' rights. The internet has made this statement obsolete, and them, rude.

Disappearing Act

Whatever happened to the statue of St Paul which was a treasured landmark overlooking St Paul Square, in Hamrun? Was permission granted for its removal? The new premises which replaced the older building could have provided a place for it. The people of Hamrun want it back where it belongs.