On the Dot...

Ladies visiting the toilets near the waiting room at the emergency section, St Luke's Hospital, should know they will need someone to watch the door while they are inside. The locks have been missing for a very long time. One hopes this and other shortcomings are not due to the pending migration to Mater Dei Hospital.

Working Hours

At what time is staff at government departments supposed to start replying to phone calls or seeing the public? On one recent occasion, the number 2596 7100, corresponding to the Treasury Pensions Section, was only answered at 8.17am, after the call had fallen through several times, having rung for many times. Staff are extremely cordial when they finally pick up the phone but people cannot afford to spend time and money like this.

No Choice

The slogan at the back of a delivery truck spewing black smoke as it sped up Glormu Cassar Avenue, in Valletta, Friday morning, read Good Choice. One-third up the slope, its driver threw a cigarette butt out of the window. Bad choice, more like it!

Official Speak

The ordinary wo/man in the street must forever wonder when hearing that so many people step down for "personal reasons". What exactly is meant by "personal reasons"? Why can't people stand up and be counted, as Sonia Camilleri did?

Easy Ride

Would it be expecting too much were Park and Ride van drivers to park alongside the kerbs to make it easier for passengers to get on and off the vans? At times, people with mobility problems are finding it very difficult to ascend and alight due to the height of the van's boarding step from the ground.

Big Print

Swieqi and Ibrag residents are very irked at whoever is responsible, in the local council, for giving orders for the painting in metre-large letters of the word Garage in front of garages. This looks gaudy and messy; surely a double yellow line is more than sufficient?

Yellow Box

Moreover, in the same general area, there appears to be a certain attitude towards "Reserved" parking bays. A particular residence in Triq il-Keffa has acquired one and another such sign, removed upon the express orders of the ADT, has been willy-nilly repainted, just up the road from Il Mercato. This apparent free for all is unfair.

Tea Bagged

A leading firm of tea importers is offering a teapot, milk jug, sugar bowl and a cup and saucer to whoever manages to amass 800 points in the gift scheme. At two points per 40 tea bags, simple mathematics indicate one has to purchase no fewer than 16,000 tea bags to qualify. At a mean daily consumption of two cups of tea, seeing that there is only one cup in the package, a person living alone would take just under 22 years to qualify!

Seeing Green

The Italian auto research body Centro Studi Promoter forecast 2007 car sales in Italy could rise by 12 per cent to a record high due to tax incentives to scrap old cars. Topping the charts in Europe in terms of the oldest cars/vans on our roads, the government could do much worse than take this on for some consideration, before it is presented as a cut and dried solution from other quarters.

Stamp Duty

It has been reported that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spent Lm14,593.24 in stationery. One hopes not 1c of this was spent unnecessarily on postage stamps; sending e-mails requires less time and effort, and, all in all, costs less. Apart from that, snail mail must use paper, another no-no where the environment is concerned. One therefore wonders whether each and every e-mail is being printed out on gilded paper for posterity.

Green Sleeves

Another awesome sum was the Tourism Ministry's Lm3,245.97 for hiring plants and trees. Is it possible it would not have been more profitable to actually purchase the plants, at least, if not the trees? These could have been nurtured by the staff and re-used on different occasions, and, meanwhile, embellish the offices and clean the air when they were "off official duties".

Stone Cold

Robbing Peter to pay Paul is the proverb that comes to mind when one witnesses the wanton destruction of the Mdina Cathedral parvis, so soon after the expense lavished on it last year. Given the extent of the damage, it will have to be repaved at substantial cost. Who will foot the bill?

Dog Misery

Another dog appears to be creating a misery for people in its neighbourhood. This one resides - in a manner of speaking, for it is usually kept in the balcony - in a house in Mosta. This particular dog is not silenced with a muzzle; when not barking, it growls at passers by and cars, and indeed anything that moves.

Like Oxygen

It is both a pity and a downright shame that after the hype surrounding the installation of a hyperbaric unit in the Gozo General Hospital, the system is still idle. The diving community, and probably all taxpayers, cannot understand why this has been allowed to happen. The Ministry for Gozo must really see to it that this unit is made operational without further delay.

onthedot@timesofmalta.com