Snow use

At a time when, at least television-wise, the words Christmas and cliché (they even sound similar!) are interchangeable, it makes sense to go for something that is all of the former but none of the latter.

The special Christmas edition of Meander will air tomorrow at 11.15 p.m. It is imperative viewing, because one of the features will show the making of a Bambin tax-Xemgha, and a feature about icons from Greece.

Personalities as guests will be harpist Anne Marie Camilleri Podestà, tenor Andrew Sapiano and Fr Charles Vella. Exhibitions by Kenneth Zammit Tabona and Liliana Fleri Soler, the Neapolitan crib at the Wignacourt Museum in Rabat, and the latest publications from Midsea Books will also be featured. The repeat of Meander goes out on Saturdays at 11.30 a.m.

Just for the record, a Taste of Meander now airs on Thursday and Friday just before the eight o'clock news, and features five minutes of art and culture. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays after the 11 p.m. news bulletin, there are two minutes of Where-and-When information about art events

Even better news is that as from January, Meander will air at 10.30 p.m., i.e. before the news rather than after; in this way, this excellent programme will hopefully garner a wider audience. Although I still think it ought to be broadcast in prime time, instead of rather less worthy specimens.

There will also be a Christmas special of Haddiehor (Net TV) from 10.30 a.m. to noon. The subject, Assisi, is of course the place that everyone knows was the birthplace of St Francis. Most of us know smatterings of his story, mostly through the Franco Zeffirelli film Brother Sun, Sister Moon, where Graham Faulkner played the saint.

Tomorrow, however, we will get the real skinny; the Crucifix at San Damiano; the illness and imprisonment of St Francis, Greccio, and what "support My Church" really meant.

That takes care of tomorrow; you will either have to learn how to operate a VCR, or zap.

Something that is totally different, in the way of being light-hearted and fun, is One's Sitta Gewwa. I am told that the six people who will share the 'house' (actually a part of the building of One in Marsa) namely, Melanie, Christine, Alison, Rennie, Charlie and Joe - were all volunteers, yet this word was qualified by 'sort of'.

They will be there from Tuesday till Saturday, and the emphasis will not be specifically on fund-raising, but more on fun.

Meanwhile, adverts are going out nineteen to the dozen asking us to help out in l-Istrina. Yet some people who used to be on the address book of volunteers have not been asked to participate this year. Is this what is meant by the phrase "new and improved", then?

The reason diehard listeners from other stations tune in to Lilian Maistre's programme, making it Number One over and over again, is that it's so good. So why is the Friday edition being aborted in favour of more advertorial material than already suffuses the airwaves?

On the PBS Website, the new Programme Statement of Intent has just been published, and of course that means I can put forward my suggestion for a new children's programme - although new, here, is only a hyped-up adjective.

"My" ideal programme would be a television version of a combination of Zmeraldi and Cama Cama. No silly disguises; no false bonhomie; no product placements; no small talk. Just common sense, hours of research and worthwhile viewing that treat children as consumers rather than foils or worse, inanimate objects.

How often does the Broadcast Authority collectively sit through the multitude of advertisements for tat, featuring the same foreign people over and over again, who have had resounding success with whatever it is that is being advertised?

There is one wannabe Lothario who tells us that his new body has garnered him "not one, but two girlfriends"; but he does not inform us whether either knows about the other. Meanwhile, One Star Hotel adverts run neatly into the sit-com itself, wit the only indication that these are bumphs being an ITV logo at the corner of the screen, and a caption telling us how to purchase the set.

There is an advertisement where the qualities of a particular brand of toothpaste are extolled in Cyrillic scrip. Meanwhile, we know that several animal welfare societies have condemned the breeding of Persian cats such that their face is practically flat - this is mainly because they will then find it difficult to eat, since food gets up their nostrils. Is that why the said cats, in the advertisement for cat food, are pictured alongside the slogan "it is not the volume [they eat] that counts, but the quality".

A series of advertisements for a clothing store has taken bilingualism to a new low; the spiel goes something like "huma hot item fil-mument..." in each sentence, enough to stop one from the tradition of izzomm laqgha mal-familja.

One advertisement I have not seen for sometime had a girl and her tiger cub drink milk that had been flavoured with chocolate powder. The animal grows up immediately, and becomes a beautiful tiger - but the girl remains a child. Moreover, the chap whose shopping list reads "grapes and milk" is not really at ease with them.

And on Friday morning, in the One Radio 6.45 a.m. news bulletin, despite this being the seventh book in the Harry Potter saga, the newscaster referred to J.K. Rowling umpteen times as a male author.

However, the prize for ridiculousness goes to Dr Gawdenz Bilocca, LL.D. In one scene, having taken a vacuum flask of coffee laced with a sleeping potion (don't ask, it was all part of a ruse to get him into someone's bed) to the Warden while wearing his pyjamas and nightcap, in the next scene he suddenly appears wearing a suit.

If such little heed is paid to continuity, the mind boggles as to how much attention is given to other, more important, issues.