The heat is on

Abnormally hot temperatures affect people in different ways. There are those who can afford to cope with the heat by fleeing it. There are those who refuse to move and in a cataleptic state insulate themselves in an air-conditioned cocoon which is both unhealthy and too boring for words. There are also those who just have to get on with whatever they do whether they like it or not because needs must; these represent the majority of us.

Many people have perforce succumbed to the exigencies of modern life by which we mean having to work like "billyho" for long hours in summer as well as winter hence leading the life of a headless chicken. There was a time when we were not so driven and half days in summer were taken as a matter of course. People lived slower, more civilised and sedate lives.

One went to the beach for hours on end armed with little more than a multi-coloured towel without the terror of developing melanoma or heat stroke. We were also not so paranoid about looking like beached whales either. We basked in the sun; cooling ourselves down with an occasional dip in clear blue sea that was devoid of sewage or jellyfish and then went home to cool off. After tea and hobz biz-zejt people sat on the parapett gossiping with the neighbours in the balmy evening breezes till it was time to retire.

Before air conditioning made long working hours in August a must, one woke up to one's working day at the crack of dawn knowing that by lunchtime one could have the rest of the day off relaxing in a darkened room for the obligatory post-prandial siesta. Life was slow and infinitely pleasant. Today, I find that coping with life is an energetic if not frenetic affair that fairly drains me; and I do not have a 9 to 5 job to dis-occupy my day either.

Pleasant summers are a thing of the past. People now have to work till they drop to pay so many bills. We are, practically from the moment we are born till the moment we are snugly six feet under, human money-pits. However much one tries not to be a money-pit, the cost of living, in the true sense of the word, daily becomes more prohibitive as we speak. This is partly because we have lost the art of being happy with the simple and inexpensive things in life and it is our own society that has made this impossible. Unheard of luxuries of yesteryear have become basic necessities and should there be a spate of power cuts as there was last week we are gripped by grim panic at the utter horror of enduring a couple of hours in which we will be unable to function normally; by which I mean no telly, no reading, no surfing on the internet, nothing except sitting in the romantic lamplight contemplating the stillness and lackadaisically competing with the cat, catching moths!

Despite the benefits of air conditioning, the heat still manages to affect one's judgment and heat rage is not an unknown phenomenon. The notable faux pas that the Mepa chairman made a couple of weeks ago by declaring that Mepa would be boycotting the FAA is a case in point. Walter Sullivan declaring that my article was an unfair generalisation of St Luke's Hospital's service when it was specific to the Emergency Department was another example as to how heat can cloud one's comprehension. If only the entire hospital were run with the same flair as the Cardiac Department that he mentioned and we would really have the best medical care in the world. It is no wonder that the specialist who runs the department has been chosen to star on these gynormous billboards that promise a veritable medical paradise when the whole shebang moves to Mater Dei Hospital some day in the near future.

The heat has also distorted the judgment of another well-known medical man who, with the establishment of an organisation like Eden, has given hope to many who hitherto had none at all. His latest venture, the creation of a political party of questionable and quixotic ideologies, has put the gentleman's real motives into sharp focus.

What is this all about? A political red herring? While the Eden Foundation was being set up, Josie Muscat was busy expanding his hospital empire; a venture as successful as the Eden one. Now we have this political party of dubious origin made up of Dr Muscat himself along with erstwhile Capua Hospital owner and businessman Angelo Xuereb and Philip Beattie, who has left the Right Wing party he was part of that claimed not to be a Right Wing party, but was.

The new party promises a bit of this and a bit of that to all and sundry including the hunters, which brings me to the largest group of people dramatically affected by the heat while compiling and forwarding their latest FKNK proposals. The mind-boggling prospect of having a hunting season that encompasses the entire period between August 20 and January 30 in addition to the privilege of shooting in the springtime (March 21 to June 20), and, wait for it; reducing the 200 metre limit for hunting away from residential areas, claiming that the country has got smaller, is utter insanity! The hunters will soon engulf all aspects of our daily life. One will only be free of gunshots ricocheting and reverberating in the countryside during February and July, the former is cold and miserable and the other is torpidly hot!

Maybe the theory of asking for the moon and getting a star may prevail, however such a proposal cannot but further irritate the majority of us.

If push comes to shove it is the man with the gun who has the upper hand. Our countryside is closed to all those who wish to enjoy it. I suppose that I would be petulant too if I was unable to go and paint gorgeous areas of Malta like Xaghra l-Hamra and Fomm ir-Rih because someone forbade me to take my paints and easel; the difference lies in the fact that I do not kill innocent birds and do not mind people walking near me while I work. So many places where one could walk in our childhood and youth have now become questionable and very dubious private property.

Possibly the hunters are right. We are completely overpopulated and Malta has indeed shrunk. There is little that we can do as beaches are declared unfit to swim in, jellyfish infested or reserved for thrashing tuna fish to grow in and pollute. More and more of our countryside is disappearing in a jungle of stone and concrete for the simple reason that the affluent must create their alternative places to enjoy a splash and a bit of fun so pools have mushroomed as have the proliferation of boats of all shapes and sizes that transform havens like the bays of Comino into the equivalent of parking on the Palace Square on a working day!

Thank goodness the government did finally see sense over Xaghra l-Hamra but if anyone thinks that just by granting that concession to the environmentalists will give the developers carte blanche to call in the bulldozers everywhere else you must be joking.

Red is not a colour that has proved to be a very lucky one for the get rich quick brigade. An attempt to destroy the ambience of Ramla l-Hamra has brought down the wrath of all NGOs big time and no matter how peevish and ill-natured the head of Mepa got about it, the fact remains that the proposal should never have been moved past dustbin stage. The minister himself has, rather Pilate-like, disassociated himself from Andrew Calleja's knee-jerk reaction; something he should have done with regard to Mepa a long time ago.

Incidentally, I hear that there is a lot of research going on about the very many empty properties in Valletta and what is being done (or not done) with them. Are the owners of these properties, including, I have been told, the government itself, holding on to them indefinitely for speculative purposes? I feel it high time that a colossal tax be levied on all vacant properties in our capital city. In that way we may finally eradicate the prevalent shabbiness that pervades it. It could be that you may think that it is now my turn to have my brains addled by the heat but I can assure you that this is the only way.