I.M. Beck - quote unquote

This week's column promised to write itself from quite early on and my only pause for thought was going to be to consider with which bit I should lead.

The events of Tuesday night, however, made that issue redundant. No one who writes the sort of thing I write for the reason I write it can do anything but express solidarity with Saviour Balzan, after his front door was torched by some filthy snivelling cowards.

I don't always see eye-to-eye with Saviour and we've crossed swords, I hope amicably, on a number of occasions. On balance, as I've written before, he's one of the good guys and even if this weren't the case, the attack on him deserves the contempt everyone with even a single decent bone in one's body feels for the scum that perpetrated it.

I hope Mr David Muscat from Mosta feels a warm glow in his heart: a columnist, nay an editor, has been attacked by a revolting bad element. It's not only the Jesuits that are getting it in the neck now.

At the movies

I am moved to issue an edict: anyone with even a tiny piece of self-respect should trot along to the movies as soon as The Da Vinci Code movie comes out and spend a couple of quid to show the arrogant fundamentalists precisely where they're expected to get off.

I can't say I wasn't very pleasantly surprised at the mature position taken by the Church in putting a stop to its being used by the fundamentalists. According to the Church authorities, the novel and the movie contain fundamental inaccuracies and a counter-position is to be published in due course, but there's no need for a fatwa or anything like that, presumably because it's accepted by people with a brain that people have a brain.

Mr Vince Marshall, on the other hand, sees the work of Satan in the Curia's rather moderate position. I am no expert on Satan and all his works, as Mr Marshall evidently thinks he is, so far be it from me to comment, but a glance at his website will give anyone who wants to waste a few minutes of his time ample evidence with which to judge him (Mr Marshall, not Satan) and all his works.

It's instructive that some of the people who have come out publicly with statements that give support to Mr Marshall's somewhat extreme position (now there's an understatement) are none other than those champions of liberalism and free thinking, Mr Philip Beattie and Mr Ederico Micallef Figallo. I was going to mention Mr Martin Degiorgio but I thought I'd spare him the risk of swallowing his pastizzi the wrong way and choking, as I hear he almost did when he last spotted his name in this column.

It's hardly surprising that people with these frames of mind come out with boycotts and bans and such like attacks on the freedom of people to make up their own mind. People like this know what's best for everyone all the time and - forsooth - they are the only ones who can read a work of fiction and watch a movie and understand that it's not bible truth (well, Mr Marshall actually manages to identify the objectionable bits of a book without reading them, so as to skip them, but that's just plain scary).

You, on the other hand, haven't the brains to distinguish between a movie and the truth, so Mr Beattie and Mr Marshall think you mustn't watch the movie.

The irony of the whole thing clearly escapes them: when Muslim fundamentalists came over all nasty about those rather poor cartoons, the revolting right started preaching about primitive reactions to free expression.

Need I say more?

Actually, yes, I do. Will anyone, ex-Satanist, current cardinal, would-be fascist dictator, ayatollah or whatever kindly take it on board, once and for all, that no one tells me and anyone like what to think and what to read, see or hear.

Clear?

Yellow cards

He does have a nerve, doesn't he? Doctor Alfred Sant, I mean, survivor extraordinaire and Leader of the Opposition. Either that or he really does think he can fool all of the people all of the time.

I mean to say, you have to have a nerve, and then some, to be him and stand up and deliver five, no less, warnings to the government.

His first yellow card was in connection with the employment sector, and he waved it at the PM so that he (the PM) will sit up and take notice that he should do something. Precisely what it is the PM should do was not elucidated upon, of course, because that would have meant that Doctor Alfred Sant was committing himself.

The next yellow card (in any other game, a second card means you're out) was in connection with the utility rates. Clearly an adherent of the good old Socialist philosophy that there is such a thing as a free lunch, especially if it wins you votes, Doctor Alfred Sant delivered himself of an edict that the PM should do something about it. This time, the "something" was to try a spot of speculation or, as it is less vulgarly called, hedging. Trust an economist to come up with that one.

Yellow card number three was to do with pension reform, an area to which the Labour Party has contributed in no small measure. In fact, the only contribution the MLP made was to make a right royal dog's dinner of the social security situation when we had the pleasure of being governed by said MLP, but nary a constructive comment was made when pension was being discussed.

Sure and it's easy being in the opposition, isn't is now?

And so we come to warning number four, prettily decked in yet another shade of yellow. This time around, it's the euro and the conversion thereto. Now this is something that Doctor Alfred Sant should have tackled with a modicum of circumspection, because a small slip between one key and another button of his calculator and he ends up with egg on his youthful face.

And, Murphy being what he will always be, so we did get a slip. Apparently, the dear chap went out to buy something electronic, as boys will, and he did a quick sum in his head, converting the lira price into a euro price.

Thing is, he used the official rate while the retailer, who is still allowed to, used a different rate, which he wouldn't have been allowed to do if dual pricing according to law had been introduced, which is what the government was getting a yellow card about in the first place. The net result was that the prices didn't compute and Doctor Alfred Sant got his sound-bite.

Pity the sound-bite bit back, though.

The final yellow card, which really should have been red by now, was the one by means of which the horrid Nationalists were warned off monkeying around with the electoral districts.

Coming from a Labour politician, this was indeed richness beyond the dreams of avarice. It was during Labour's time that Rabat had been part of the same electoral district as Birzebbuga, and further comment is, as they say, superfluous.

Comrades, untie

The jolly old GWU is having a bit of a torrid time of it, just at the moment. It can't be much fun, seeing a hefty hunk of erstwhile members giving you the thumbs down, but when you have albatrosses to carry around, you have to expect these things.

Just to add discomfort to awkwardness, the knight appointed to stand up for these guys was none other than the one to whom the GWU owes more than a simple debt of gratitude - Dr George Abela gave them sterling service over the years, only to be repaid with a pointed elbow.

It was only coincidental that the elbow came not so long after Dr Abela had severed ties with another pillar of the workers' movement and its leader.

Just as long as the union can make noises about union unity whenever it likes, things will be OK, though.

Pursuing it leisurely

Anyone who only reads me for the eating advice has got good value for money this week as over the long weekend, for various reasons, we had occasion to feed ourselves too well, but you're not here to hear about the intestinal discomfort that overindulgence in the good things in life brings. Not unless you're a certain doctor from Ta' Xbiex who loves to hear about my ills and blame me for them - no apology from him yet and not from Mr Muscat, either.

In the order of indulgence, then, we had a very nice dinner a deux (me and 'er indoors, that is) at the Radisson up the CHOGM highway. You don't hurry the good things in life and they're generally worth waiting for, as this dinner was. Excellent service, too.

Friday evening saw us re-visiting Dagostino, in Valletta, for a good meal and then on Monday we were up further north at Bonitos, in Xlendi, for celebratory feeding.

And just to have run through a good variety, we also had a very decent take-away pizza from Amigos, in Dingli Circus.