Last Monday, Alfred Sant addressed a press conference, telling the world (well, Malta) that he's back at the helm, poised to lead the MLP into the elections. He and his advisers also gave a blow-by-blow (snip-by-stitch, I suppose would be a better description) account of his recent travails at the hands of the medics.
From a purely human perspective, I'm glad the chap's well enough to get back onto his bike and into his saddle. From a columnist's perspective, I'm equally glad, since we can now go back to business as usual, that is to say acting as if it was open season on Dr Sant, the politician. The heat in the kitchen can now be switched back on, there having been a pause while repairs were carried out.
The thing is, of course, that even now I'm moderately reluctant to start again as if nothing had happened. Something has, in fact, happened, for all the eagerness of Dr Sant's side-kicks to give us all the impression that it's business as usual. Dr Sant had a major operation and it's pretty darn clear, from his appearance, that it was no walk in the park. That is no reflection on him: You don't undergo abdominal surgery and trot out for a swift game of footy (not unless you're a Premiership player, anyway).
So if I start laying into him, I'm worried I'll be seen by y'all as a heartless swine who delights in kicking a man when he's down, which I certainly wouldn't want, not least because I don't kick men when they're down, unless they're centre-forwards who have just put one past me.
This having been said, you might ask, why not go into "business as usual" mode, since the MLP clearly has?
Well, far be it from me to comment on the MLP's internal politics, but I have this sneaky feeling that Cap'n Bob getting back onto the bridge has more to do with Cap'n Bob's mates repelling boarders rather than anything much else. Why else would there be all this rush and all this eagerness to give the impression that Dr Sant is A-OK and all that?
It can't be for the electorate's sake, after all. Said electorate can be pretty dumb (so much for my democratic credentials) but, come on, no one is going to be affected one way or the other, either by the MLP machine's spin on Dr Sant's superhuman attributes or by the reverse. What people will be voting for, eventually, is what is on offer by the parties and their leaders - which party is fitter than the other to lead the country for the next five years.
One mildly amusing aspect of this whole thing was that on the same day that Dr Sant gave us all the gory details, his No. 1 side-kick, Jason Micallef, was on Bondiplus heaping oodles of opprobrium on Daphne Caruana Galizia's pate because she had dared talk about the elephant in the room.
Mrs Caruana Galizia's entirely reasonable point was that, given that the physical fitness of a party leader is of some passing news value, this convention that people shouldn't write about it was, not to put too fine a point on it, ridiculous.
She made her point more forcefully than that, as is her wont, and I am informed that Mr Micallef was equally, if not more, vociferous, descending, as is, unfortunately, many exponents of the MLP's vision's wont, to personal characterisations in a manner that used to be called un-Parliamentary, back in the day when this meant something.
In other words, just in case the preceding paragraph was less than clear, he was insulting, as many people are when reacting to columnists.
Move along please
Had it not been for the fact that the head of Executive Security or whatever the outfit that tried to protect the Juve players from the attentions of their fans calls itself, not gone onto X-FM to talk about it, I wouldn't have written about the S&H's little contretemps at Ta' Qali on the same night that the Old Lady was mugged by those upstarts from Valletta.
It was a relatively minor incident, for all that Ben was mightily (and quite reasonably) annoyed about was that he was almost prevented from doing his job by some rather large gentlemen who seemed to think that they have the right to use force to make people obey them. There's a rather good pic of the episode in The Times and you can see for yourself that it seems to have taken quite a few "securities" (there are other descriptions one can give to these gentlemen, but let's leave it at that) to shift the brat.
Just for the record: Even if the hallowed turf of Ta' Qali had been stepped on with my son's size 10s and even if he had disobeyed lawful instructions, the security goons had no right to use force, not even minimal force. These people are not above the law, even though it seems they think they can act as if they are. What they should have done, which was what Ben suggested they do, was call the real cops to enforce the law.
But enough of all that, because I wasn't going to write about it anyway: What provoked this little aside into matters familial was the rest of the interview with the head security bod.
He demonstrated a significant shortness of patience with the fans who were besieging the players, making it crystal clear to anyone who was listening that he, and presumably his band of brothers, had got very, very annoyed with the fans' antics.
A small point, my dear fellow: If you want to act as celebrity minders, do please try to take on board that celebrities are celebrities because, duh, people celebrate them. I know this is perhaps something of an esoteric concept to take on board, but do try.
M'lady Di
I tend to listen to English radio through the worldwide super interweb, since I enjoy talk radio and there's precious little talk on local radio that is not an insult to your intelligence. This means that I've noted that the current inquest on the death of Princess Diana has been exercising the English media for weeks now.
I've always found Mr Fayed's obsession that she, and his son, had been murdered by the Establishment to be ludicrous but having it revisited now, so many years after the accident that killed them both, brings the stupidity of the whole sorry affair into much sharper focus.
What is astounding, though, is how the continued whining and bleating of this wealthy gentleman has resulted in yet another inquest being held. Anyone with a fifth of a brain can see that, given the way the accident happened, it couldn't have been the result of anything but excessive speed. The only third parties that could take any blame are the paparazzi, but precisely why the objects of their attention couldn't have disregarded them and proceeded serenely on their way, instead of blazing off into a wall, is beyond me.
Clearly, such is the propensity of the media to encourage the wildest conspiracy theories that even serious institutions have to kow-tow to the fantasists. Truly, you can fool all of the people some of the time: The problem is that it is becoming increasingly obvious that you can fool most of the people most of the time.
Val baby
Many, many things move Valerie Borg to put her thoughts down on paper and it's pleasing that this is so, as we the people can thereby assess what it is that makes MLP local councillors tick.
The latest inconsequentiality to get Ms Borg's dander up was a headline in The Independent just after the New Year, when the traditional cute pics of the first babies to see the light of day in the new year were placed under a headline which referred to that other important event, the fact that we're now part of the eurozone.
Now we all know that people of Ms Borg's ilk are mortally offended by anything that is euro-connected but was this any reason for her to start thundering and fulminating about the headline, calling it "disgusting" and characterising it as politicisation of child-birth?
You have to forgive her, I suppose, since she clearly takes inspiration from the KMBs and the Priviteras of this world.
Food foibles
I'm back on that confounded no-carb diet and I have to say that, after a fashion, it is working. I'm not exactly sylph-like (that will be the day, I hear you say) but some slight improvement has been noted. For the uninitiated, this no-carb kick means you can have a fry-up for brekky (no toast or muffins, though) a mozzarella, parma and tomato salad for lunch and then whatever your significant other can cook up from Mona's tome for dinner.
Or you can go for a kebab (no chips or pita) which we did from a new joint in Victoria, round the corner from Arkadia. The quality was good and the atmosphere smart in its context but the service needs tweaking in the speed department. To be fair, they'd been open for mere days and this was their first crowded Sunday.
On a radically different plane, we renewed our acquaintance with Tmun Victoria on Friday, celebrating some friends' feat in getting to 25 years without killing each other. I am pleased to be able to report that it was a superb meal, even without the carbs.
The other advantage of going without pizza and its relatives is that you can eat pretty much as much steak as you like, which is what we did on Saturday, at Aztek in Xagħra Square. I hadn't been before but I will again, not least because of the really good service. The steak was excellent, too.