I.M. Beck - quote unquote

It's that time of the year, when the telly stations start putting together their programming for the up-coming high season, when the evenings start to draw in and the family unit reconstitutes itself around the box, the high jinks of summer having come to an end.

Well, that's the general idea, anyway - it doesn't actually affect me all that much because I don't watch telly much. That's not to say that I don't have the television on most of the time, but what I do is watch dvds of decent stuff (you know the sort of thing I mean, 24 and such, the real intellectual fare)

What I certainly don't watch are locally produced programmes - and that's not because I'm some sort of intellectual snob who doesn't drink Maltese wine, either. I don't watch most locally produced stuff because, frankly, it's mainly dreadful. Whether it's tear jerking pseudo-reality rubbish or parish-hall level comedy which seems to rely mainly on the inherent incapacities of the protagonists, be they intellectual, physical or physiognomic, in order to drag a laugh out of an audience the producers clearly imagine to be just as severely limited as the script-writers, it's mostly balderdash.

So I could hardly fail to be amused by the great furore that was created when the producers of the cream of the crop, Tista' Tkun Int, announced in tones which you would be forgiven for thinking should have been reserved for the coming of the apocalypse, that they were pulling out of PBS for the coming season.

I think they thought that this announcement would bring about paroxysms of mass wailing and gnashing of teeth, when the news penetrated the consciousness of the great unwashed that the image of Rachel the Divine, May Her Name and Prowess be Forever Venerated, would no more be beaming across the airwaves while she tried to figure out which camera to look at. No more would human misery and suffering be paraded in front of the glazed eyes of the thousands upon thousands who, in their heart of hearts, hoped that it could, indeed, be them who would be dragged onto the set, their innermost troubles exposed to the gawping hordes.

What tripe, with or without onions. Tista' Tkun Int deserves accolades for one thing and one thing only: it is a perfect example of how to have a good idea and milk it for maximum benefit, squeezing the lemon till the pips squeak. No doubt some pedant will tell me that you don't do that to lemons or something, but you see my point: I take my hat off to Ms Vella, who has managed to convince Malta that she is a cross between Princess Diana, Mother Teresa and Madonna, while making herself a very decent crust of bread in the process, thank you very much. Looked at in the cold light of day, her show (because that's the best thing you can call it) is a relatively cynical, though pretty harmless, piece of exploitation, playing on the sentiments of the sort of people who love to read about other people's troubles in the tabloids.

All I can say is, good for her, someone had a good idea, showed her how to make money out of it and she grabbed the opportunity with both hands. That's the sort of entrepreneurial spirit that makes the world go round.

But less of the tears and ruffled feathers, ay, now that the band-wagon has hit a rut or two, would you be so kind?

Give it to me, it's mine

Another of the less attractive instincts that programmes like Tista' Tkun Int cater for is the "something for nothing" attitude that permeates humanity. You can see this sort of attitude in the way people do their level best to rake in all they can off the public purse, exploiting every single wrinkle in the Social Security system and the Public Housing system and their own place of work (if they bother to work at all, of course) to maximise the take for themselves and hang the rest of society.

A couple of people gave us an even clearer vision of the avariciousness that runs through certain types of folk recently. In KullHadd over the last couple of weeks, electronically echoed in Maltastar.com, some female with the name of Benna has been whining and moaning and whinging and creating all manner of fuss because some tawdry ring she won (presumably by exercising no skill greater than dialling a number) wasn't worth what she seems to have decided the programme makers concerned had promised it was worth. Our heroine has resorted to a legal beagle, threatening to sue the programme makers for the balance if they don't cough up.

In return, the programme makers (no-one has told us which programme this was - everyone seems scared of getting sued by the producers, who apparently don't subscribe to the notion that all publicity is good publicity) have said that they never said the ring was worth anything near as much that Benna is saying they said it was and so on and so forth.

Oh, and there's another bloke who has started chuntering about how he wants the kitchen suite that he was promised and how he wants it sooner, rather than later.

Don't these people have lives?

The song sung

I had no idea that I was opening a Pandora's Box of such magnitude - or maybe it's because it's summertime and the living's easy (honourable mention for the first one to tell me who sung that one first or ... no, perhaps not, after all)

I asked, with my tongue rather firmly in my cheek, who it was who had sung a song telling us all about people talking with words with no meaning and people listening like sheep and other evocative references, mainly in order to poke a bit of fun at Dr Sant and his interminable spouting of platitudes designed to please the peasantry (audit of Mater Dei, for Pete's sake -whatever next? Is he going to claim the credit for the project eventually, or something? Hang on, that might not be such a far-fetched idea - he kicked out VAT only to bring it back in under another name, after all).

And, verily, the flood-gates opened. The first e-mail in was from one Ann Gingell Littlejohn, who gave me the Tremoloes (and no, there is no correct spelling for it) closely followed by one Charlie Winter, who mentioned the fact that a certain F. Valli Esq. was involved but failed to tell me that Mr Valli had, actually, crooned the ditty with less than spectacular success. Blasting in from left field, Godwin Micallef told me it was sung by The Kings from Holland, which tells me that he was too quick to end his Google session, while Les Carbonaro from Canada, with a perfect answer, (this column ranges far and wide, to be sure) was followed by Trevor Schembri and Marion Sanders (from the distant of slopes of Xaghra, no less) with equally good answers.

The prize for managing to fritter way valuable time in the most pointless of ways must, of course, go to one Padovani, Ivan of that ilk, who texted me, for Heaven's sake, the lyrics to the whole song, while Albert Bernard, Chris Brugnano and Ronald Cauchi also contributed to the sum of human knowledge, to a greater or lesser extent.

In the meantime, Revel Barker, from 'oop North, gave me a mild telling off for not knowing the difference between a hub and a port-of-call (which is true, taking my cracks last week about Sant at face value) while Mario Pace found the time to tell me that the plural of gas is not gasses but gases, which I suppose I should have known.

Nourishment for the inner man

You have, cultured folk that you are, been trotting dutifully along to the offerings being made as part of the Malta Arts Festival, being put on in various places around Valletta.

As always, there's something for everyone, though by the time you read this most of the stuff will have been performed - high praise, as always, is due not only to the artistes but to the organisers, who manage to put together an event that spans over a wide spectrum of time, place and content.

Invidious as it is to single out any single event, might I suggest you go to the Museum of Fine Arts to take a look at Anton Calleja's exhibition?

And for the outer man

As I have had occasion to write before, it's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. We've sampled some more places for you, one a re-visit, another a newbie and the third and fourth simple locales but worth a try for all that.

The re-visit, first, was to Bonito's in Xlendi, which confirmed that quality resides there, in spades. The newbie was the Gazebo Restaurant at the Hilton, where Mona's recommendation paid off and we had a rather decent dining experience.

The two simple locales were Maxokk, the baker/pizza/ftira provider in Nadur, which has gone up-market to a degree (I remember those ftajjar at 15c, man) but still worth the trouble of having to go there at 10 to book your share for 1.30 and a joint in Xaghra, Taz-Zajbra, where we dropped by last Sunday after experiencing the peculiar Ggantija Live thing put on by the Xaghra Local Council (I wasn't there long enough to be able to comment in detail - suffice it to say that I doubt that a brilliant time was had by every single person that turned up)