I.M. Beck - quote unquote

The "Ivan Attard" to whom I referred last week is a moderately revolting racist and I don't even know if he is really called Ivan or even if his surname is Attard. If he is called this, then his friends know who he is and how racist he is, just as the friends of every other, genuine, Ivan Attard presumably know that their mates are not moderately revolting racists.

I am pointing this out because last week I received a slightly concerned e-mail from a gentleman whose real name is Ivan Attard and who was worried because some people thought he was the "Ivan Attard" to whom I was referring.

I am pleased to confirm that the one I was referring to is not the ex-basketball player.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

Horn blowing

I'm not about to lock horns with Saviour Attard, because in the first place, neither of us is adorned with this particular allegorical attribute and because, in the second place, I don't much like battling with the guy because, as I've had occasion to write on occasion, he generally ends up on the positive side whenever I'm presumptuous enough to weigh the merits and demerits of my opinion-writing colleagues. Even if I don't agree with everything he writes and even if, almost every Sunday, I find myself wondering why I bother with MaltaToday, which seems never to have anything positive to say about anything. But, then, I think that about all the Sunday papers.

This having been writ, though, I have to ask that the dear fellow does a bit of research into the real meaning of the phrase "conflict of interest" and - in the peace of his own mind and conscience - think on the question as to whether it really applies in my regard.

Enough said.

Of snakes and leaders

Did you really think I was going to let that one go past? Come on, I'm not that insensitive to the charms of the well-turned pun.

Now, you will recall that when there was that fight allegedly going on within the higher echelons of the Malta Labour Party, its esteemed leader Doctor Alfred Sant had had a bit of a rant about snakes in the grass or in the bosom of the Labour family or wherever it was that he had got it into his head that snakes had lodged themselves.

He was talking about leaks and the leakers thereof, about stories that were being spread among the media that was not fully adoring of the jolly old MLP and its bosses. I seem to recall that Doctor Alfred Sant was more than slightly forceful about scotching the serpent and whatnot.

That episode had died down, at least so it appeared to from the outside looking in. I have no idea what went on within the hallowed walls of the MLP HQ - I am not privy to what goes on in there and I don't give much credence to what is reported in the Nationalist press about what goes on. I give as much credence to that as I give to what the Labour press reports about what goes on in the PN HQ.

But verily and thus it came to pass that the snake raised its horrible head again, this time in the form of a forceful speech by Dr Michael Falzon, handily recorded and sent out on the Net (internet, not Nat Net) by the chaps at Malta Today. I've known Dr Falzon for quite a number of years and I've never heard him making such a heartfelt speech.

Leaving aside his attacks on MaltaToday, which is quite capable of defending itself, I was struck not only by the strength of Dr Falzon's emotion but also by the way he roundly and emphatically called the episode during which the snake first raised its head a "frame up".

Not to put too fine a point on it, he was alleging what is virtually a criminal act, to go with the ones he has just asked the Commissioner of Police to investigate, on the part of people unknown (to us outsiders, anyway) within his party. Someone tried to frame someone, the latter someone being the someone who the former someone had referred to as a snake. If you follow me.

The thing is, while names were not named and pictures not drawn, those of us on the outside are sorely tempted to put one snake together with another snake and conclude that - even because there can't be that many snakes in the grass - it is not entirely unreasonable for a connection to be made between he who evoked the snake the first time and the allegations of frame-up being made now, the second time the spectre of the snake was being raised.

But that can't be right, because Doctor Alfred Sant, to whom Dr Falzon was heard swearing undying fealty on the broadcast bit, was the first one to mention the snake and I'm told that Doctor Alfred Sant was clapping Dr Falzon's remarks. So the frame-up must have been perpetrated by someone else, however, much the Nasty Nats would have loved it to be Doctor Alfred Sant.

Caged things

I went to see Il-Gagga last Saturday at the excellent movie house at St James. My first reaction was to intone a slightly cynical "and that's 75 minutes of my life I won't be getting back", but then I reflected somewhat and made myself look at the movie in context - the context being that this was a completely amateur effort by complete amateurs labouring under the strictures of studentship.

That doesn't excuse the lousy sub-titling, of course, because a grasp of language is (or, more precisely, used to be) a sine qua non for entry into the University, but it certainly excuses what would otherwise be sketchy production values and marginally satisfactory acting. Looking back on the film, it was evocative of the little I remember of its time, its time being the 1960s and the inward-looking, clergy-riddled country that was Malta.

It also provided me with some insight into where Doctor Alfred Sant had got his ludicrous argument about the majority and the result of the EU referendum - it was used by his nemesis, Dom Mintoff, back in the 1960s in connection with the Independence referendum.

Now, I wonder where Doctor Alfred Sant got the idea to use it again?

Hunting and hawking

Did you see the inane arguments put forward by the people who think that the government was wrong to put a stop to spring hunting? "Just because of a few law breakers, everyone got hurt, it's like banning cars because some people drive badly" goes this particular refrain, sung, it will not surprise you to learn, by folk for whom everything done by this government is bad.

The thing is, the reason why spring hunting was brought to a screeching halt, hopefully for ever (fat chance), is not just the blatant defiance of the law relating to what type of bird can be killed for kicks. The bird-killing fraternity has annoyed the rest of us - the vast majority - by its apparent lawlessness and its arrogant assumption that we're all going to jump to its tune. Well, lads, sorry, this time you went too far.

And while on the subject of majorities and what have you, do the Monti hawkers really think that by cluttering up City Gate even more than it's cluttered up already and by demanding to be allowed to continue to clutter up Merchants Street they're gaining anyone's sympathy, apart from the few thousands for whom anything the government does is bad?

Oh, and while I'm about it, could you please stop trying to tug at my heart strings about not being able to earn a crust? To start with, St James' Ditch is fine on a Sunday, so what's wrong with it now? What's the problem with setting up there for a couple of weeks? And to be going on with, you can't be feeling the pinch all that much if you can afford not to set up your stalls, even under protest.

Singing a song

Let's have less of it about Eurovision, once and for all, shall we? What the heck were people thinking, turning the airport into a scrum to welcome back a loser? Sure, Olivia Lewis did her best and all that, I'm sure, and there probably was a negative block vote (for Heaven's sake, there was a block vote to get Zimbabwe, of all miscreant nations, made Chair of something important, there's not going to be a block vote about a song contest?) but the fact remains that she was trounced and there's an end to it.

As there should be an end to the waste of our national resources, financial and time-based, on this flipping farce, once and for all.

Who danced?

I was asked, nicely, to put in a good word for a play that's going to be put on at the MITP in Valletta next weekend, so I will. Here's a good word for Whodancedit?

Seriously, all the "big" productions employ the services of big names (oh, you know what I mean) to tease your interest, so there's no reason why I shouldn't help out a smaller outfit. Give it a try, the up and coming stage needs all the help it can get in this country, because otherwise we'll just get boring Whitehall farces all the time.

After, you can have a glass or two at Il-Legligin, which we did last week and enjoyed ourselves.

imbocca@gmail.com