On the Dot...

Recently, a Keep Clear sign was repainted in Triq id-Dejqa, Zabbar, corner with Triq il-Kbira. However, it is useless due to the fact that some cars are permanently parked there, except for rare exceptions. The local council must see to it Keep Clear means just that, keep clear.

Spin Over

The gurus that be, whether at Castille or Pietà, have given a new twist to spinning. For how can otherwise anybody steep so low as to insult the people by saying the government had the people's mandate to retain spring hunting? If that were so, the government certainly does not have the people it deserves.

Bus Talk

An EU project called Across Limits consists, inter alia, in stickers attached to the inside of buses such that one can compare and learn sample phrases of Maltese, English and Italian through seeing them printed side by side. Unfortunately, even the title slogan Learning By Moving has the wrong adverb. And fi xhin titlaq is definitely not correct Maltese.

Sun Days

During summer, the Health Promotion Department launches campaigns to remind us about protecting ourselves against UV rays. In winter, however, this campaign appears to die the death. Given that in a Mediterranean climate like ours, the sun is a constant menace one wonders whether it ought to be carried through all times.

Gate Ways

On February 20, 2003, then Infrastructure Minister Francis Zammit Dimech visited the second phase of the upgrading of the bus terminus at City Gate, Valletta. The final phase was supposed to have started immediately after the EU referendum; however, people still await their preferred mode of transport in the sun or rain, without any form of shelter save the little offered by the shops on the pavements.

Smoke Signals

It is ironic and disgraceful to note that people think they can get away with smoking at the entrance of the Emergency Department in hospital. They do this in order to be able to hear names as they are called out. Yet, the tiniest draught that occurs in the tunnel-like entrance blows the smoke straight into the waiting room, the doors of which are usually kept open.

Penny Wise

One notes there are no toilets in the Emergency Ward itself. People often spend a very long time there. Getting off the stretcher-beds to use the toilet in the reception area is very difficult, when one is in constant pain. It is also difficult to make the journey should one need to use the card phones there.

Barking Mad

A number of dogs are being kept on a roof of a residence in Fleur-de-Lys Junction, Sta Venera. Despite the fact that it is cruel, the owner might find that muzzling the animals makes for better relations with all the people of the neighbourhood. Working residents need their sleep.

ICE Warm

More than six months ago, Civil Protection Department head Peter Cordina urged mobile phone users to store their next of kin number in their phones' memory, under the acronym "ICE" - in case of emergency. This idea needs further promotion, because it would seem that not everybody has heard about it.

Nobody's Land?

Is it the beginning of a corbelled stone hut? Is it a partly-dismantled rubble wall? Is it a makeshift hunter's hide? Whatever it is, the piles of precariously-balanced stones in the Halland Hotel valley are out of place, and ruining its intrinsic beauty. They must be removed forthwith.

Film Stripe

The good news is that the Valletta Walkabout Tour entitled Movie Moments is set to take tourists around the World Heritage capital city rather as if they were looking from behind the lens of a film camera. Alas, while film directors can bleach out the "noise", tour leaders can't.

Time Again

It would seem that timetables at PBS are still there to be followed only optionally, if push comes to shove. One tiny incident that amply illustrates this was the delayed broadcast of the so-called 11 p.m. news bulletin to accommodate a particular programme.

Part Timers

It would seem that the Data Protection Act is working well - too well. The databases of government departments are a prime example of this, especially when it comes to the Inland Revenue Department, and the Social Services Department, and the Public Registry. Why is it that when a death is registered at the latter, the former two are not immediately informed, and keep on sending correspondence the bereaved could have done without?

Port Deformed

Port operations have been deformed but not reformed, it seems. The promised reform remains elusive. Could the government inform the people whether it had a popular mandate to carry out such reform? And what has been holding it up?

onthedot@timesofmalta.com