I.M. Beck - quote unquote

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees has honoured Maltese lawyer Katrine Camilleri with the annual Nansen Refugee Award. It is a significant honour for her, obviously. For those of you with a short memory, Dr Camilleri was the victim of an arson attack on her car and home, when unidentified thugs decided that she should be taught a lesson for something and never mind that two young children were also in the house at the time.

What the lesson was for is not something that can be identified beyond reasonable doubt but I, for one, am morally convinced that the cowards who carried out the attack were racists whose IQ is exceeded even by that of an amoeba. You will recall that at about the same time, the Jesuits themselves were attacked, as were a number of journalists and columnists who had expressed the idea that racism in Malta had become a blot on our national character.

Nothing much has changed since then, except for the distinct lowering of the public profile previously displayed by certain icons of the ridiculous right. Perhaps the fact that the police had decided to charge said icons as a consequence of their racist slurs had something to do with the retreat. Be that as it may be, they're still there, skulking under their rocks in the fetid damp of their prejudices.

So it was particularly gratifying to see that a Maltese has been honoured for her work on behalf of refugees: it makes a change from the image we sometimes get lumbered with, rightly or wrongly.

Funny one

At the other end of the scale, Malta has been represented at a meeting of the Ridiculous Right in England by that rather peculiar chap, Lowell.

I was going to write "at the other end of the evolutionary scale", but that would have meant that Mr Lowell was nothing more than a single-cell organism, which would be a bit unfair and I don't mean on other single-cell organisms, either.

I therefore limited myself to writing that Mr Lowell's stand-up comedy act at Montrose Hall, or wherever the heck it was, and is, was at the other end of the scale purely in humanitarian and social terms.

For some reason or other, someone who uses an e-mail address that implies that the e-mail comes from Mr Lowell thought it would be useful to send me the link that allowed me to watch a shabbily filmed video of his address to what sounded like a roomful of inebriated Brit rednecks. I watched about 20 minutes of this strange performance and it was enlightening, to say the least.

In the first place, Mr Lowell seemed to be afflicted with a variant of St Vitus's Dance, because he kept moving from side to side, as if he was on the deck of a rolling ship.

In the second place, it seems that the dear fellow still espouses philosophies that range from slightly strange to outright bizarre. The disturbing thing is that his audience, such as it may have been (you never get to see it) was either cackling or sitting there in what could only have been total bemusement. References to Europids, High Politics, Kaffirs and the "Coming Imperium" came thick and fast, with every racist sally being greeted with guffaws from the yobs making up the audience.

Mr Lowell, it was apparent from the video, was feeling very pleased with himself all through his performance - indeed, on a number of occasions he broke out into what can only be described as smug giggles, when he made a point which he and the like-minded "gentlemen" who were listening to him found hilarious, though for the life of me I can't remember anything that was remotely funny in the stuff that was spewing out of his mouth.

Naturally, the main planks of his arguments involved domination by White Males (women can occupy themselves with producing little white males and cooking for the heroes of the Imperium) the expulsion of anyone whose complexion is darker than pure white (one wonders where that would leave Mr Lowell himself, who ain't no Aryan blonde) and the barter of food for oil after the walls are built.

According to our hero, incidentally, "they" haven't decided whether to contest the up-coming elections, even though "their" ideas are, according to Mr Lowell, gaining ground.

I suppose the Genius at the helm of the Imperium is weighing up the competition - or maybe he's toying with the idea of offering AzzNazz an olive-branch of friendship, in order that they might govern in coalition come the day.

What a nightmare that would be: Norman Lowell and that other lot running this country. I might even have to emigrate.

Silly one

Would you believe that only two people noticed my absolutely stupid howler last week? According to your geographically challenged columnist, penguins come from the North Pole when everyone and her sister knows that, actually, you moron Beck, they come from the South Pole. I was, perhaps, thinking of Eskimos or Polar Bears. I really have no excuse, Lionel Coates and Mike Wagstaff, other than the fact that I was writing the column while England were actually playing something that looked like football, which we all know is quite a rare phenomenon these days. I don't have the same sort of excuse this week, though, because I'm watching Man U dispassionately, as opposed to the frustration of watching Chelsea on Tuesday. How many flippin' posts can you hit, scrape past and outright miss in one match, for the sake of all that's beautiful?

An interesting post scriptum was added to one of the e-mails upbraiding me, quite rightly, whereby I was exhorted to keep reminding that Licari chap (who seems desperate to have a drink with me, which sentiment I can't say I reciprocate all that much) that the basic principles of the French Revolution, liberty, equality and fraternity apply irrespective of skin-colour or place of origin.

No doubt that last paragraph will prompt another lengthy epistle picking me apart, which I will again ignore.

Boring one

It is quite clear that the Malta Labour Party doesn't have the benefit of the input of an experienced spin-doctor at the moment. It is equally clear that no-one has read, or even had read to him, the fable of the little boy who cried wolf.

Hasn't anyone, at all, within the echelons of the MLP policy-making apparatus, noticed that they're getting boring, with multiple "o"s? According to the MLP mouth-pieces, everything is bad, getting worse (if it isn't already so bad as to be incapable of getting any worse) and generally speaking, the country is merrily on the way to hell in a hand-basket, all of this being, obviously, the fault of the government and, in particular, the Prime Minister.

If it's a delay in paving a street somewhere, if it's a failed light-bulb, if it's too hot, if it's too humid, it's all the government's fault and the Malta Labour Party, led by none other than Alfred Sant himself, is there, poised and ready to take over the helm, thereby to guide the good ship Malta into an amalgam of Valhalla, Elysium and Paradise (70 virgins optional).

Bad one

The assorted bird-killers who are entitled to roam the land again don't seem to be satisfied with what it is they're allowed to kill and the times during which they're allowed to do it - they're going after protected species again.

What is it about these people? I know it's not all of them who have the IQ of that amoeba I wrote about further up, heck some of them even know the difference between a Polar Bear and a penguin (though whether they'd take a pot-shot at either of them is questionable) but you'd have thought they'd have learnt their lesson last season, wouldn't you? Or are they labouring (and you can see the pun there, can't you?) under the delusion that, with elections just round the corner, give or take, this time around they can get away with murder? Some free electoral advice to the minister, then: shut down the hunters and, on balance, you'll gain rather than lose, if the feedback I'm getting is anything to go by.

Tasty one

And this week I'm going to have to disappoint the people who think that this column starts from this end, because we didn't go anywhere to stuff our faces on your behalf. This is not to say that we didn't stuff our faces, only that I can't really write about it, because it was a family thing and you can't get a reservation for that sort of thing.

Actually, you probably wouldn't be able to find the place, either, because I had to go to Google Earth to figure out where to turn off the Zebbug Road, though I needn't have worried because the aroma of roasting beast was enough to guide me in even without a map.

So you'll have to take your own chances this week without a vade mecum from yours truly - good luck. On the other hand, just browse back over the archives, there're plenty of hints to be had, though if you go to Nadur, do try out Anthony's, which I hear is under new management, and let me know what it's like. And if my information is wrong, let me know too.

imbocca@gmail.com