Sore ayes

In this household there are - at least - five alarm clocks with different chimes. The general idea behind this initiative, born as a Lateral Thinking flash in the pan, originally was that the person who would have set one of them would recognise it, and get a move on towards whatever would have been his objective.

As could have been expected, however, the "sound effects" theory frequently falls flat on its face, and it often takes someone else, calling out that person's name and the request to deactivate it, to do the trick.

So it is with the programmes that the audio-visual media throws at us; what is chucked at us because it is supposed to ring our bells, alas, often does not work like that.

I am told it is a clause writ large in PBS (and probably those of other stations too) contracts that repeats of programmes, not against payment, either on radio or television, are par for the course. Therefore it is a foregone conclusion that as part of its cost-cutting exercise, this summer PBS will be taking the utmost advantage of this. But apart from that, there is one thing I fail to understand; if a person has been tried and found wanting, i.e. will not be re-engaged for the schedule following the one made up mostly of repeats, how is it that his programmes are worth repeating?

I have been given a copy of the new PBS and Rainbow Productions schedules, about which I shall comment later, but one was not forthcoming from Media.Link. I would have thought that sending a new schedule to all media critics on the island, whether or not they sign their work, without their having to ask for it, would have been par for the course.

One particular disc jockey had summarily said that his place would be taken by "someone else" - unspecified! - and yet, up to last Friday, it was not. It is somewhat creepy to hear the voice of a person who said that his programme was being discontinued - just as it is eerie hearing people being interviewed as part of a series, not simply as a tribute when they are recently deceased. Performing rights are monies due only when records are played.

Moreover, it is utterly absurd to have a programme directed towards people on the beach when the Department of Health Promotion is specifically warning us to keep out of the sun at least between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.

Despite other means of communication, television and radio continue to tie for pole position - if such pairing were possible - in the public's attention.

This was brought home to me since, for the few weeks since I was a guest on Gorg Peresso's programme Naqra, Nitfa, Tikka, I have been inundated with phonecalls, e-mails and, as the song Rhinestone Cowboy has it, "letters from people I don't even know", about certain issues.

And nothing is more certain than death - and, maybe, taxes - this week imbued with a World Cup flavour. Several (foreign) news bulletins included the story of how in Mogadishu, Somalia, radical Islamic militia fighters in central Somalia, intent on disrupting a (banned) broadcast of the Germany vs Italy World Cup football match, shot and killed two people, a girl and the owner of the cinema where the screening was being held, after the crowd of mostly teenagers disobeyed the order to disperse.

Then there was the somewhat lighter story about how far Santiago Montoya, the equivalent of the Commissioner of Inland Revenue in Buenos Aires province, Argentina, is going to curb tax evasion, which reaches $1 billion every year.

Apart from sending letters to spouses of evaders and leaving messages on people's cellular telephones, there have been other sch(l)ock tactics. In one of these, a man owing taxes in the region of 6,100 pesos had his plasma big-screen television taken away; two days before Argentina played Germany in the World Cup - or is it European Cup? - quarterfinals.

Two things, this week, were pointed out to me in no uncertain manner.

I have often had cause to complain about the deadpan faces of PBS newscasters, and the fact that when they proffer a joke, it is only a feeble, politically immaculate one. This, apparently, is a tacit part and parcel of what is stipulated in their job description. The person who told me this also said, with a wry smile, that it is assumed that Media.Link and Rainbow Productions balance ('cancel' more likely, I interrupted) one another out.

It seems that a good number of summer television hours will be filled with repeats. This is not, as one would have thought, simply to fill in airtime, but to give people a chance to catch up with bits and bobs, or indeed whole series, they would have missed, having had no time for the box.

One series that does deserve a repeat is Rakkonti, produced by Sandro Mangion, built on the assertion that people blessed with longevity have a tale to tell. This is Mr Mangion's swan song, so to speak, on local television, produced before he left for pastures new. It was being screened on Super One on Wednesdays at 11 p.m., which of course was too late for some, albeit it was repeated on Thursdays at 10 a.m.

The last programme in the series, the executive producer of which was Norman Hamilton with exquisite filming and editing by Enigma Productions, will feature Dr Charles J. Boffa, dental surgeon and historian.

The interview - more of a chat between friends, including Josette Grech-Hamilton, actually - recalls the Cottonera area during the war, in between other reminiscences. Inevitably, the memory of the pilgrimages with the statue of the Immaculate Conception, and the titular painting of the parish church of Cospicua, will feature.

Dr Boffa, incidentally, also found time to explore and document our archipelago's "rocks": Comino, Filfla and Il-Gebla tal-General.

Summer is also, by-the-by, an opportunity to catch up with the episodes you missed of Ghada Jisbah Ukoll, on Saturdays right after the 8 p.m. news bulletin on TVM.