I.M. Beck - quote unquote

People have been writing in to the papers, mainly to the other one in English, pontificating about how Daphne Caruana Galizia had got all personal about the rightists, particularly about the rightist without the face like a bus, Ms Arlette Baldacchino, and how really very uncouth this was.

What these people don't get is that this is personal and when fights get personal, niceties like being polite about people and sparing their finer feelings go out of the window. And it's not personal because the Revolting Radical Rabid Rightists set fire to Ms Caruana Galizia's home, either. To start with, Ms Baldacchino, from all the evidence, is not one of the people who procured themselves half a dozen old tyres and a number of plastic bottles, filled them with petrol, carried them a few hundred yards up a hill from a country lane, laid them against the doors of the house not five yards from occupied bedrooms and lit them.

So it's not personal because of this.

It's personal because people like Ms Baldacchino, and certain of the low-lifes who scribble on the website she moderates (if that isn't something of an misnomer, I don't know what it - moderation in this instance tends to mean removing anything that is harmful to the bigots' point of view) have been insulting and denigrating Ms Caruana Galizia and anyone else who does not agree with them for month upon month. We've been threatened with hanging, quite apart from anything else, by none other than the hero of the horrid faction, Norman Lowell, and his descriptions of the physical and mental attributes of all of us have been - to be charitable - reminiscent of the playground or the gutter.

You see, dear readers, when smug little pip-squeaks like Baldacchino, Lowell, Seychell, Mercieqa, Attard and their ilk continually pour insult upon insult and then, to add irritation to aggravation, put on some sort of holier than thou mien to try and look acceptable to the wider audience, well, the temptation to retaliate in kind becomes irresistible.

This is why I don't think Ms Caruana Galizia went over the top when she dumped on Ms Baldacchino and the rest of that sorry crowd. They had it coming, in spades and then some, because they have put themselves in the public arena and dipped their own toes into the river of invective that flows around us whenever we say or write something that people don't like. This is why I was happy to publicise that website last week, the one which bandied about some pretty scurrilous stuff about Norman Lowell and his supporters. I've no idea if there's even one iota of truth in the pages of the site, but I do know that most of Norman Lowell's ideas themselves don't contain one iota of credibility and he - believe it or not - cites freedom of expression as the justification for expressing them.

Now those advocating hate-promotion can have something of an idea what it feels like to have your name and reputation made mud, all in the name of freedom of expression.

True enough

One comment I particularly liked last week was the one about how no Sacred Heart girl would have written the way Ms Caruana Galizia had written about Ms Baldacchino. That may be true - and hopefully it is (since I married an old Sacred Heart girl) (she wasn't old at the time, but you know what I mean) - but then, neither would a Sacred Heart girl, one hopes, associate with low-life scum who preach hatred and division.

Frankly, the sin of one non-Sacred Heart girl (what is the collective noun for Sacred Heart girls, one wonders?) is rendered as nothing compared to the sin of the other.

And while on the subject of what other people have written about whom, Mr Anthony Gatt of Sliema, writing in this very paper the Thursday before last, augured that I am now in a better position to appreciate the effects of the weekly dose of drivel I myself produce on readers of The Times.

Mr Gatt produced this fine piece of logical reasoning in the context of my remarking that a piece on It-Torca had had the effect, so mealy mouthed and sanctimonious was it, of almost making me lose my breakfast. Really, I am lost for words. Not really, but it's a fine phrase to use.

If Mr Gatt, clearly cursed by a poorly balanced disposition and a delicate digestion, finds my column prone to cause him to hurl his breakfast then he is free not to read it. His absence from among those who love me will be more than compensated for by the far greater number who come up to me, sometimes un-introduced, to say they enjoy this stuff. This recognition is made even sweeter when it is accompanied by exhortations to keep on fighting the bigots: but enough of me.

Over the top?

Far be it from me to seek to affect the deliberations of those who must be called Honourable, and such they are, but don't you think that the motion calling on Minister Austin Gatt to resign is just a touch OTT?

I mean, Dr Gatt will be among the first to admit that he could never have harboured the delusion that when he grows up he would be made an ambassador, sent abroad to be diplomatic for his country, but surely his remark about it being pretty darn obvious that the government's motion to transfer Maltacom formally to the new boys would pass was hardly the stuff of which resignations are made?

The proponent of the motion, Mr Joe Mizzi, is second to none in his zeal to ensure that the House is respected, to the extent that he calls a close to the proceedings whenever there aren't enough Honourable Ladies and Gentlemen around to show such respect, but I can't help wondering whether this time around, he's been just a bit too keen to call for respect.

Another one who would never be made an ambassador, though he is one in the soccer context, is Dr Joe Mifsud, currently off doing his duty watching the World Cup. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

It's true that as president of the Malta Football Association, he is not beholden to any minister of the republic, but, on reflection, I think even he might bring himself to admit, in his heart of hearts if not out loud, that his reaction to Minister Dolores Cristina's more than justified criticism, levelled against the MFA for allowing a convicted paedophile to carry on working in a place where children were coming and going, was hardly dignified and appropriate. Precisely what possessed whoever it was who took that particularly stupid decision will probably never be known but to turn around and say that he doesn't answer to the minister about it was hardly Dr Mifsud's finest hour, one really must say, with all due respect, of course.

Rocking on

I wasn't going to the Sting concert but at the last minute she changed my mind and I have to say I'm glad I obeyed she who must be (work it out).

I was a bit reluctant, originally, because Sting in his tree-hugging manifestation always struck me as being a betrayal of his rocker roots, and he had been in danger of becoming an irritating New Ager, but his set last Tuesday put him right back where he belongs.

There was a danger of his putting a damper on things every time he started to sing in the first third of the show, because he kept interrupting the rock beat being laid down by the superb men he had with him, but he redeemed himself with a rendition of A Day In The Life that was nothing short of magnificent and he went on to soar from there.

We were in the cheap area (I was going to write "seats" but there weren't any) and from now on, I'll be jumping with the common masses (who said that, but not, in which play?) because it's the only way to go to a rock concert and I'll only be going to rock concerts. This was a rock star performing a darn good show, as opposed to a bunch of technically perfect musicians pretending to be rock stars. The Ozzie Pink Floyd last year didn't move me and now I know why. That was cabaret, this was rock.

Beach nosh

I can't for the life of me remember if we ate out on Saturday evening - I suspect we didn't or, if we did, it was un-memorable, but on Sunday, we lunched.

Boy, did we lunch - wisely and too well, as the old phrase goes, perhaps not exactly like that. We went to Tignè Beach, where Christopher and Antida (if their names aren't those, they will forgive me, they know how much wine was ingested) serve up particularly good portions of home-cooked food.

When I say "good" I mean good as in good sized and good as in good tasting, of course. And when I say "home-cooked", I don't mean opening a couple of tins of beans and spam, either. I was asked by quite a few regulars not to publicise the place, since they don't want their back yard cluttered up (is Nimbyism particularly prevalent in Sliema?) but I have to show my appreciation for a fine Sunday lunch.

To flop around

By the time you read this, you will have seen pictures of the demo a desultory clump of anti-non-whites had in Valletta. They were abusing the flag by draping themselves and their credo in it, while they were about it.

There were, what, a couple of hundred of them? Even if there had been a couple of thousand, they would have impressed me not one whit: I'm more impressed by the few people, among whom I was proud to be, who gave the thumbs down to the racists on Monday evening. As it is, it's about time for Messrs Degiorgio and Beattie to re-think their function in the world, because very few people seem to think they have one in a political context.

The finest sight of all, though, was that of Norman Lowell and his side-kicks, walking just a few yards behind the little ANR clump. I can't figure out whether this particular bunch of losers think they're a cut above the other bigots or whether they're embarrassed to be seen with them, but darn, they looked silly. No doubt the party line will now be that they don't need crowds, because they're the elite. Oh well, they can strut up and down all they like but they are - and clearly will remain - a small minority.

At the end of the day, this is a civilised country and a few of their ilk aren't going to change it.

Tailing off

Last week's little web-link was well received, so I thought I'd let you have another one. In this, you are regaled, at the beginning, with the sight and sound, no less, of Mr Martin Degiorgio talking about "bleck Efricans", which tends to bring him out in his true colours, if you'll forgive the little quip. Here it is http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/video/2006/05/ 19/VI2006051901077.html and there's no need for a disclaimer here, as it's the Washington Post, no less.

And, yes, I did go to see The Da Vinci Code and, for the life of me, I couldn't see what the zealots have been banging on about all these weeks. It's a bit "James Bond for the Sudoko generation" and somewhat over-long, but it's an adequate movie, though no more. It certainly is no threat to anyone's faith and Opus Dei get off lightly, the baddies being characterised as an evil offshoot of that branch of the Vatican machine. Given the fuss made by the bigots, I thought there'd be priests standing by to hear confession, a bit like the ambulance men stood by when The Exorcist was screened in the 1970s, but it was such anodyne fare that cloistered nuns could have made an outing of it.

bocca@waldonet.net.mt