On the Dot...

Going down It-Telgha tal-Kirxa, in Balluta, on the left hand side, just before the back entrance to the Le Meridien Hotel, a valuable parking space is occupied by a skip. Three and four more are unnecessarily taken by the pavement, which, for some reason, widens just beyond the skip, for no apparent rhyme or reason.

Hands Free

Almost in every ribbon-cutting or plaque-unveiling ceremony, it has become the done thing for the person doing the honours to be left holding a pair of scissors, or a swathe of fabric, in his hands. Then, it suddenly occurs to someone that this is an undignified state of affairs, and these objects are whisked away. This is ridiculous.

Riding Roughshod

On Tuesday morning, at about 10 a.m., passers by were watching the female traffic warden on duty in St Joseph Road, Hamrun, carrying out her duties over-zealously. This is another situation where, as in Valletta, shop owners and their staff deserve their own reserved parking places.

Power Point

Tripped boilers, power surges, obsolete and new power stations; the rigmarole of reasons for power failures from Enemalta is well past its use-by date. What the people want is a reliable constant supply that does not damage household equipment, ruin food in freezers, and raise ire. Joining the European grid, where the nearest nation is Italy, would probably be money down the drain since this country has its own problems.

Wall Paper

Some time ago, a lot of noise was made about how the craftsmanship involved in the building of traditional rubble walls was being passed on to a new generation via a series of hands-on lessons. Rubble walls along the Rabat road were reconstructed, albeit with some tree trunks being built into them so as to avoid uprooting them. Yet, today, these walls have no upkeep whatsoever; very soon, they will need rebuilding.

Colour Coded

The idea behind new postcodes is to organise postage such that the destination of each item is instantly identifiable to those who know how it works. Yet, a reader reports that when he moved house recently, and availed himself of the mail-forwarding service, the Redirected Mail sticker had the old postcode upon it.

Tree Hug

In Patna, India, a Buddhist monk filed a criminal complaint against top officials of the Bodh Gaya temple in Bihar for cutting a branch off a sacred Bodhi tree there, grown from the original banyan tree under which Gautama Buddha attained enlightenment about 2,550 years ago. In Malta, things are done differently; trees are pruned, hacked, and uprooted willy-nilly, with no respect being shown either to the tree itself or to the people who have seen it grow from a sapling.

Stock Reply

Last week this column referred to the fact that one has to drive illegally over white lines to get out of the Stock Exchange area in Valletta. A similar situation obtains on the other side of the road, just as one leaves the Central Bank and walks towards the Office of the Prime Minister. The road is marked with double yellow lines; however, one can find cars parked on this stretch of road almost at all the times.

Paper Chase

What, exactly, are the laws pertaining to pollution in Malta? People seeking to earn money by posting flyers through letter boxes will still do so, even when it is obvious - also through the amount of flyers left uncollected from previous visits - that the place is unoccupied. People who do so ought to be fined for littering.

Feeling Drained

The street drain between Old Hospital Street and Merchants Street, in Valletta, is nearly brimming with sludge and other rubbish. Now is the time to clean it up. Other drains and gutters in Valletta also need to be cleaned before the residue can harden and become more difficult to remove.

onthedot@timesofmalta.com