Black to basics

"Nice photographers" are what Liz Hurley calls those members of the press who alter her photos to make her look, well, sleeker.

The results of their airbrushing techniques were evident in the photos for which she posed, wearing her own swimwear range designs for Mango.

However, at the launch proper in Madrid, she wore a knee-length pink dress.

All this comes in the aftermath of talks about 'best practice guidelines' which could potentially forbid publications from retouching photos. However, Cindi Leive, president of the American Society of Magazine Editors and editor of Glamour, was quoted as saying that given the technology available for digitally manipulating shots, such a move would be unrealistic, although "... readers should never be misled about what they're looking at..."

But it takes the Striscia La Notizia gang (Canale 5) to catch Il Cavaliere (Silvio Berlusconi) standing on his toes in a collective photo-shoot.

Meanwhile, some people insist on the unvarnished truth to get away with unpleasant things.

The memorial to motor racing legend Peter Brock, who died in a rally car accident in 2006, will be so "true to life" that the Holden 1984 VK Commodore on which his effigy stands will portray a Marlboro advertisement.

And Loose Women host Carol McGiffin, Radio 4 presenter Libby Purves and former Esquire magazine editor Peter Howarth, all of whom insisted that Page 3 was an anachronism, were labelled "killjoys".

It never seems to amuse me how certain issues that are so fashionable one week die the death the one after.

Last week, I was inundated with suggestions to view the ESC Malta Website, where someone had decided to parade a hypothesis and fiction as fact. Inevitably, people who did not sign their names to what they wrote were rude and abusive; the moderator, if there is one, was apparently having time off.

Most Net viewers have taken a liking to the performing couple Jean Claude Micallef and Louise Tedesco; but that is not a reason for their 'having' to appear together each time one of them is asked to host an event.

Predictably, therefore, now that it has become known that Ms Tedesco was going to present a contest, partnered by other people and not Mr Micallef, all hell broke loose - against the co-presenter and Mr Micallef himself, for "refusing" the gig, according to gossip.

Just for the record, I asked him whether this was true - and he told me that he had not been approached to host this or another happening.

I've said it before and I will say it again - it only takes a few calls to friends-of-friends to discover someone's e-mail or telephone number; and so I heartily wish that before going to print (even if it's just on a silly message board) people would verify whether what they will be saying is true.

It is strange that the person(s) who provided the information did not choose to amplify it further, or give a follow-up. This makes me suspect that the bait was cast on purpose by someone wanting to obfuscate the issue.

PBS, for some reason best known to the administration, has decided to replace Montage with its inferior replication Mixage. The attempt to bask in the reflected glory of the original, alas, as failed. It can - indeed it must - get better as it goes along.

So far, so mediocre, however. It appears to be a compilation of items that did not make it to the main news bulletins, lumped together incoherently in what could well be a radio magazine programme format.

Indeed, I was reminded of a series on Campus FM, now transferring to Radju Malta, where people come to tell us about the new DVD they have just placed on the market, and how nice and useful and important it is, in the hope that we will purchase it. Or singers-turned-disc jockeys who play their own records. Or...

Gone is the idea of soft news; no effort at all has been made to include interesting visuals, fun editing, and creative research. It is bereft of the chatty local spots that one had come to expect of this type of programme.

When I was a child, I took part in several of Laurence Mizzi's radio programmes, and some of Eve Daly's television ones. Even back then, I always thought that Broadcasting House looked for all the world like a cardboard box with the flaps opened; something that might have been constructed from Lego bricks and whitewashed.

Now I find that it had been hailed as a 'marvellous example of Sixties architecture'.

The mind boggles. And, with apologies to Freddie Mercury, it seems that this other one will not bite the dust - at least not just yet - because the hands of fate have been tied good and proper with a roll of red tape.

Apparently, the fact that it is plug ugly does not warrant its being pulled down.

And in the actual plans for the reutilisation of the site, there is no provision for the façade being kept, the building redesigned from behind, and a whole underground warren leading to the buildings down Guardamangia Hill being used.

I recognised the tune... but the word had me baffled. Finally I realised that in a pathetic effort to 'sound English', the child was pronouncing 'tomorrow' as chew-marra.

Meanwhile, the newscaster kept referring to Penny-Sylvania, and the expression 'is serious about' was translated - of course - as hu serju fuq.

television@timesofmalta.com