I.M. Beck - quote unquote

It's unusual that the writing of Gavin Gulia makes me do a double-take, but he caused me one last week. He penned a pretty long piece about immigration and the failure of the bods who run the EU to do much about it, with which I am pretty much at one with him. The ineptitude of bureaucracies ever to get anything done is notorious and why anyone expects the Super-Bureaucracy to be any better is difficult to comprehend.

Naturally, Dr Gulia, with an eye to the main chance, the main chance being the inescapable fact that we will be going to the polls sooner or later, didn't fail to make the best of the whole thing from a partisan point of view, by making as many points as possible designed to please the jolly old voter. Here, while I am not as one with him, being of the humble opinion that certain things should be kept out of the party-political arena (fat chance in Malta in 2007) I suppose I can understand him.

What I can't understand, however, is the way too many people let certain things slip, betraying attitudes that are a bit too revealing, perhaps.

The dear fellow, at one juncture in his treatise on the vexed subject, used the phrase "the pro migrant media". This is what caused my double-take: getting at the EU and the Mandarins thereof is all very well, in fact it should be compulsory for all of us to keep that particular genus on its toes, but what is this about "pro migrant media", pray? This is the language of divisiveness, the rhetoric of quasi-racism - I, for one, do not form part of the "pro migrant media", there is no pro migrant media.

What there is, is anti-racist scum media: that's why Daphne Caruana Galizia and Saviour Balzan, to name but two honoured members of the media who form part of that number, got a reaction from said racist scum last summer. What there is, is media that is pro, if you want to call it that, treating migrants (legal, illegal, irregular, black, white, brown, pink, polka-dotted or striped) like the human beings that they are, rather than as inanimate problems. What there is, is media that doesn't demonstrate racist traits or pander to the racists traits of its consumers.

At least, that last is what there should be, but if you take Dr Gulia's phrase to its logical conclusion, that last is exactly what there must be: media which is anti-migrant, for if there is pro migrant media, working on the assumption that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, the one necessarily implies the other.

Sadly, this is true even in the context we are looking at. Last summer, and even this summer, a significant portion of the media, many times in houses which traditionally are supposed to demonstrate a heightened sensitivity for the plight of the less-advantaged (l-orizzont and it-Torca, not to beat about the bush) tackled the immigration problem from an angle that betrayed incipient intolerance and insensitivity. This is not to say that the editorial policy of either of those papers is even remotely racist - perish the thought - but let me put it this way, the way certain stories were angled and the way certain comments were made certainly did nothing that would have caused Dr Gulia to lump them amongst what he called the "pro migrant media".

So, young Dr Gulia, do be careful when you let slip phrases like "pro migrant media" because you might find yourself elevated to the ranks of the less than inspired when talking about immigrants. I don't think you meant anything by it, but nor did Joe Sammut when he put his foot into it with his separate buses crack, and look where that got him.

What power

I see that a certain George Mangion, who writes in Malta Today, was a touch irked because the cops asked him to trot along to have a chat with them. Apparently, their eye seems to have been caught, as was mine, by the allegations made by our hero about the plethora of corruption and money-laundering cases that infests legal and judicial circles.

Mr Mangion, it seems, is labouring under the impression that my taking the mickey out of him in connection with his use of the word "plethora" was perhaps instrumental in his being inconvenienced by having to have a chat with the boys in blue.

For those of you with a short memory, I had wondered out loud (at least that's what I seem to remember) about whether Mr Mangion actually knew what the word meant, because his indiscriminate lumping of the whole legal and judicial class into one laundry bag by his bandying-about of said word was ever so slightly hysterical, to put it mildly. It was also insulting of the legal and judicial class, but that's something with which some other Johnny with a Hat will deal.

But to get back to Mr Mangion, it seems he thinks that the cops have nothing better to do with their time than loll about reading columns such as mine, waiting for me to poke some fun at the more pompous or ill-advised members of society, so they can then proceed to feel his or her collar. The fact that by his ill-judged outburst, he annoyed, very significantly, the enormous majority (I would say quasi-totality) of law-abiding legal beagles and robed eminences with his fatuous remarks seems to have escaped him totally - the reason why the cops took an interest in him is my little fun at his expense.

What power this column has, I never knew.

Incidentally, in the same piece where he bemoaned his misfortune at having to spend a few minutes of his valuable time telling the cops what he knew (more precisely didn't know) Mr Mangion made it clear that his allegations were nothing much more than hot air, which is what we all knew in the first place.

He should have kept the gasses trapped, then, or expelled them in the more usual, if less socially acceptable, fashion.

Competition time

I'd like to dedicate a song to Alfred Sant but I can't remember the title. An honourable mention, a prize worth more than all the riches of Croesus, to anyone who can tell me where the immortal phrase "Talking is cheap, People follow like sheep, Even though there is nowhere to go" is to be found.

I am under the impression that on its first outing, it was less than galactically successful, though on a subsequent foray into the world of pop, a smidgen more success was gained. Chapter and verse, please, on the e-mail below, and more brownie points will be obtained the more you tell me.

I will be dedicating the song, when I get to know what the darn thing is called, to Dr Sant, as I say, for his consistency in demonstrating that for our beloved politicians, the conviction that you can talk the voters into anything all the time is alive and kicking.

Why else would he, for instance, have made the remark that Labour believes that Malta can be a cruise-liner hub? What the heck else has the Grand Harbour developed into, may I ask, and what the heck else does it do, pray? Is it possible that he hasn't noticed those flipping great boats, disgorging hordes of day-trippers into the country, on a daily basis?

Leave those dogs alone

The sheer hysteria that attended on that story last week about how the SPCA is required to dispose of the carcasses of animals that have had to be put down was amazing to behold, with intrepid undercover reporting and clandestine filming of something, I am told, that is perfectly normal.

It is sad when family pets, when any animals, for that matter, have to be put down, and it is the SPCA's misfortune, in a sense, that it has to do this painful duty, but for people to turn around, whether as journalists with delusions of grandeur or, almost worse, letter-writers with delusions of wisdom, and lambaste the SPCA, which along with others, does sterling work, is ingratitude of the highest order.

Confirmed

It being summer, one tends to head North to cooler climes. OK, I'm exaggerating a little, the furthest we've got so far is Gozo (where it is, actually, a touch cooler) but while there, I did my duty by you and sampled some spots to which you can trot along to nourish yourself.

Apparently, while on the subject of nourishment, a faithful reader took my advice last week and was disappointed. I will, in the interests of your well-being, re-visit the place and report further.

This week, I am able to confirm what I, in one instance, and Moana (yes, the spelling is deliberate) in another, have already told you. Anthony's Wine Bar and Restaurant in Nadur is still a great place - we had a large plate of whitebait and chips there last week, lovely stuff. Take some mozzie spray along, and don't fail to notice the homage to petit moi that the owner has put up on his door.

We celebrated the S&H's birthday with lunch at whatever that place in Mgarr ix-Xini is called - the one that Mona (also correct spelling) was raving about a Sunday or so ago and, verily, it is a fantastic place. We're not talking décor here (although the view is fantastic) or service (there are limits to how quickly you can be served when the staff is just the family, though I infinitely prefer this to the "I am Jane and I will be your server today" school of thought) or, for that matter, mise en place (fancy way of saying the way the food is plated up and presented) but the overall experience, resulting from the sheer perfection of the quality of the food, the friendliness of the atmosphere and the location, is five-star - five Beck stars, anyway.

And, unless you go overboard with the wine (in quantity not quality, because the most expensive bottle I could see wasn't much more than eight quid (nineteen euros) or so) or with the food (don't order everything you see, though you'll want to) you won't be paying through the nose, as Mona and her rich friends apparently did.