Television

When our forefathers (foremothers?) came up with the recipes for kwarezimal and karamelli they did it with a lopsided view to having sweetmeats for Lent without breaking the rule about not including dairy produce.

It came as a surprise, therefore, that in one of the umpteen cookery demonstrations that appear on various stations, one of the chefs gave a "traditional" recipe that included eggs.

"Television is bad for you," and no one knows this more than Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano; the Sicilian town of Corleone will celebrate April 11 as Liberation Day and name a street for the event. One of the reasons Toto Riina's successor was caught was that arrangements had been made for an illicit electricity supply to be directed to the farmhouse where he was hidden... so that he could watch television in comfort.

Meanwhile, the British Press reported that a woman's television had been left on for at least since early 2003; Joyce Vincent's skeletal remains were found surrounded by unopened Christmas presents, as reported last week by the UK's Press Association.

Maltese stations are keener to tell us about what Tom Cruise did on the Oprah Winfrey show, and what he intended to do with the placenta after Katie Homes gave birth to Suri (either "princess" in Hebrew, and a pet name for Sarah, or "red rose" in Persian) and what Scientology demands of puerperal women. But our newscasters didn't pick up the bit that the daughter's name also means "pickpocket" in Japanese.

I also noted that they failed to notice that Osama Bin Laden has finally managed to win an award - he has been classified as the eighth "unsexiest man in the world". (Since you asked, Brad Pitt placed 100th).

Since when is the premise that someone is innocent until proved guilty been overturned? Our reporters had a whale of a time broadcasting the name of a particular teacher involved in a ruckus in a school where all the teachers know not to park their cars nearer than two streets from it. This could have been, in part, to show that sometimes, the boot is on the other foot when it comes to "injury on duty", to use a term out of context.

I can never understand how our stations prioritise items; the brakes of one bus don't hold and the resulting accident leaves a terrible toll; this makes news. Yet when another bus is burned to a hulk and all the passengers would have got out alive - it is treated as a none-event. I would say that the people who compile the bulletins use the same feeds and sources, since they are on short time and cannot be bothered to spread their nets further.

This week the British Press was more concerned about how one of John Lennon's school exercise books had been sold at auction for £126,500. This was the one containing the illustration of Lewis Carroll's poem The Walrus and the Carpenter, which was later to inspire him to pen the Beatles' 1967 song I Am the Walrus.

On Thursday, viewers with colour-blindness could easily have mistaken John Demanuele (118, PBS) as part of the décor. That is why, perhaps, at intervals we kept hearing what sounded like someone practising the xylophone.

I still think that all radio presenters, and not those of some radio stations only, at least (on television it would be too obvious) should have a computer they can actually use in the studio with them. This is not (just) so that listeners can e-mail their comments and requests and problems in 'real time', but because it would allow the said presenters and their expert guests to research whatever it is that would be uncertain about [or even sure, yet mistaken].

This week, this would have solved whether Hagar Qim predates the Pyramids; or whether the Milan Duomo is indeed the largest Catholic cathedral, and whether Artemis had other "duties" besides being a Guardian of the Hunt and Fertility, and whether an egg that is put away in a cupboard for a long time solidifies or becomes apparently empty.

Unfortunately, people still tend to quote what they see, hear, and read on the Media as mostly true; that is why all of us must be very, very careful about what we write and say.

Just for the record, the California Supreme Court, however, in a recent sexual harassment case, has recently ruled that vulgarity is not just acceptable but necessary in the workplace. The plaintiff was Amaani Lyle, 32, who insisted that blatantly sexual remarks in Friends' pre-production meetings were offensive to women; she lost the case because, basically, in a show that actually had such a backdrop, this kind of crude language was as close to necessary as did not matter.

Meanwhile, this is your composite motor-mouth disc-jockey-cum-commentator from "gewwa" the best radio station on the island. After that instrumental song from Mollin Rouge, here's something from the group "Pulis". Later we will be playing something from the album akustiku ta'...Jekk trid issallabni Sinjura, go ahead, do. I play diski meqjusa bhala evergreen allura ma jmutu qatt.

Every time I zap to a different station, it seems that there's someone suggesting a Maltese name for the Ramblers Association - indeed I am under the impression that even people who left it because of its English label did not suggest one in the vernacular. For my money, they could do worse than go for the good old "initials" trick, since MMM would neatly ensconce the words mixjiet, mawriet and Maltin.

Last Sunday evening I couldn't help noticing how many times Chen Vella (Radju Malta) asked listeners to txtmsg the reply to a very easy question. Had the phone lines been open, all those who knew it was the lovely Julie Pomorsky who had won last year's Ghanja tal-Poplu could also have had a chance to phone in. As it was, up to the time the programme ended, no one had called.

At this juncture, all that's left for one to do is hare off with the SUV for a four-wheel "alliance", having purchased a "non-allergic mattress", for use with the outdoor "man-ities" at the Kennedy Grove Camping Site, not forgetting the cockle spaniel. Little wonder that Alternattiva hi kurjuza...