Do you find, as I do, the inane comments about the PM being indecisive about the date of the election to be supremely irritating?
Apart from being supremely irritating, the people making these cracks are betraying their almost lascivious hunger for power. Anyone who is gasping for it so vehemently clearly is not fit for it - power, I mean. In another context, not many moons ago, an aspirant for high office had made said aspiration so nakedly and painfully obvious that the general response was that, by the way the aspiration was enunciated, the enunciator was confirming that there was a significant deficit in the "fit for office" department.
The same, sadly, is true of the opposition, if they can be graced with this descriptor, since, in a political sense, the opposition is supposed to offer a viable alternative and this lot haven't even begun to make it clear what it is they're offering, so staccato and bewildering has their manufacture of vote-grabbing gimmicks been. Cutting surcharges, removing income tax, increasing local council spending, sorting out tourism (why, precisely?) and promoting the manufacturing industry are just some notions that spring to mind, all of which have been sprung on us (and, from what I hear, on the MLP itself) without even an inkling of how they're going to be achieved and how they're going to be paid for - all I know is, the money has to come from somewhere and you've got one guess where.
Why is the PM being called indecisive, then? He never gave anyone any reason to think the election was going to be held any time soon - it's been a puerile ploy of the opposition, ever since they've been in opposition (which is since the beginning of time, it sometimes feels like, though the horrid excesses of when Labour were in government are not that far below the surface, in reality) to start rumours that an election was going to be called sooner rather than later. I'm not too clear in my mind what they think they're going to achieve with this, other than confirming their hunger for the keys to Castille.
Perhaps they're taking a leaf out of the Nationalists' book, when in 1998 rumours of an election were rife - the thing is, the MLP were unfit to govern at the time and they proved it when Dr Sant went to the country over a flippin yacht marina, of all things, and got spanked. Does the Labour machine really think that little episode out of history is going to repeat itself?
Equally irritating is the way certain columnists have been pontificating about when the PM is going to pull the plug, blow the whistle, turn the switch, raise the boom or whatever. These are generally the same bunch of people who have something of an inflated opinion of their erudition, and when their prophecies fail to materialise, it's the PM who is indecisive and not them who are inaccurate.
The most irritating of all, though, is the way Dr Sant has hauled himself onto a pretty lofty horse and inflicted a dose of sanctimony on us. It is scandalous, he tries to impress on us, that the PM should be keeping his cards so close to his chest. Quite apart from the fact that it is the PM's prerogative to do so, just how naïve does Dr Sant think we are? What does he expect us to believe that the PM should do - call an election just to salve Dr Sant's thirst for the slightest of slight chances at getting back into power?
He'll call it when he's good and ready to call it, and there's an end to the story. Can we stop hearing about it, now? Just as I'd like to stop hearing about whether Prodi said that or this or t'other, for that matter, from Casa, Busuttil and Cassola, incidentally.
Flowering power
Sometimes, you should stop and smell the roses. Other times, you should stop and take a look around you. Then think about the comments your friends, the ones that make up the chattering classes, with their ladies who lunch and gentlemen who trade - comments about how "the Nationalists have been there too long, we need a change" and other such knee-jerks.
Yes, I know that blinking Regional Road Bridge isn't ready yet, I know there's more development going on than is really good for us and I know that there's plenty that could be done better.
But when the rummy and tennis players witter on about needing a change, do they appreciate the fundamental changes we've had and who was responsible for them?
Forget about the change from quasi-totalitarianism to real democracy - and forget about which is the greater affront to Malta, signing a treaty on December 13 or threatening to suspend human rights in favour of jobs - that was too long ago. Concentrate instead on the seismic change to the economy that has happened over the last few years: SmartCity, Lufthansa Technik and all the rest and remember who pulled these little coups off - certainly not people with the mentality that drove away investors in the old days with collectivist demands about employing the unemployable. Does the word Motorola ring any bells?
And then we have these incessant whinges about corruption. Without even a trace of irony, the examples used to illustrate the theory that Malta is rife with corruption are examples that illustrate, in truth, that corruption, when shown to exist, is prosecuted. The shock-horror throw-up-your hands in astonishment poses struck by people like Dr Sant and his acolytes, lapped up by the prattling proles, are prompted by news of cases that are public precisely because someone is having his collar felt.
I'm not naïve, people are corrupt - they're human. But equally, I'm not completely stupid (take that back, you at the back) - not so long ago, it was unheard of for people to be prosecuted for corruption because they were protected by the people that mattered, by the minister's driver and his cousin three times removed.
Perhaps it might be just a bit too soon for a change, come to think of it, because many of the people who should have changed in order to be eligible to talk about having a change haven't, actually, changed all that much themselves.
If you follow me, which you will if you re-read that paragraph slowly - run your finger along the line if need be.
Random fun
Sometimes, you happen across an event that gives such simple pleasure, that works so well, that you feel that things aren't all that bad. A couple of Sundays ago, 'Er indoors and I were wending our way towards the cinema in Victoria, hoping that there was something on worth watching.
There wasn't, but on the square known as It-Tokk there was a band stand onto which were climbing a bunch of bandsmen from Nadur and they launched themselves very competently into a series of tunes, ranging from Verdi to Abba and points in between. Combined with a rather tasty pizza from Jubilee, the evening was enjoyable in the extreme.
Doing my duty by you as I must, and exhorting you at the same time to read other bits of this blinking column (some day, I'll write gibberish except for this paragraph and see who notices - and no cracks about that not being any different from usual, either) we tried out a joint by the name of L-Arzella in Marsalforn, having heard good things about it.
The good things were justified, I'm pleased to say and we had a good meal at a good price.
Last weekend was something of a horsey one, by which mildly inane crack the more erudite amongst you will have twigged that we went to Equus, the Peter Schaffer play that explores the mind and its foibles. It's a challenging piece, and it was very competently played - a minor niggle involves the delivery of the lines, which to my ear was slightly too fast, but I have to remind myself, to be fair, that our theatre plays itself out on an amateur stage and allowances have to be made.
Nosh was taken afterwards at Trattoria Palazz, where we hoovered down copious amounts of pasta and wine (not always separately) and, as always, enjoyed ourselves tremendously.
My weekend then took a nose-dive, as I had to travel to The Hague for a relatively pointless work-related reason - it took me 12 hours, door to door, because I had to schlep through that most miserable of miserable transit points, London Thiefrow. Something in the order of 75 minutes waiting for some silly twerp to clear our stand and then another 75 minutes to get through interconnection security (where my toothpaste and small pen-knife - the latter left on a key chain entirely by accident - were not picked up) did very little to enhance the glamour of jet travel.
Irony, or what
George W. Bush has just told the Pakistani President that he needs to take off his uniform because he can't be the head of the military and the President at the same time.
This from the Commander-in-Chief of the United States: Who writes this stuff for him, for Pete's sake?