Only asking

I have to ask, though I'm not sure why I should care, why the MLP leadership candidates are taking the trouble to visit everyone and her brother, along with everyone else and his sister, apparently as part of their campaign to get elected.

My question is based on the not unreasonable premise, as far as I am concerned, that very few MLP delegates occupy positions of responsibility in, say, the FOI or the Chamber of Commerce. This is not a reflection on the intellectual attributes of the delegates, just a statement of fact.

So why are the candidates schlepping from pillar to post, glad-handing any hand they can lay a hand on? Surely your common or garden delegate isn't going to be impressed because he sees George Abela hobnobbing with the president of the federation of whatever or because she clocks Ms Marie Louise Coleiro Preca schmoosing some other big-wig?

On the other hand, I suppose all of these meetings create yet another photo-op and sound-bite platform from which to utter yet another platitude of the type that are quoted with seemingly breathless enthusiasm on di-ve.com or maltastar.com or wherever.

You know the sort of thing I mean: "Joseph Muscat says..." followed by a statement of such blinding obviousness that all you can do, really, is resort to Homer's immortal "duuuh".

Being naïve again

While on the subject of disingenuousness, which we weren't, necessarily, I notice a letter by a clerical gentleman some time ago, the main theme of which was how the Church is being discriminated against by the media.

Apparently, that which had got the dear fellow's goat was the fact that when priests or nuns are found responsible for acts or omissions which are less than praiseworthy, they are fallen upon with glee by the media. The writer asked how come this was the case, when ordinary people don't have their crimes trumpeted to the four winds in the same manner.

I would have thought that the answer was obvious to the point of not needing to be given. It is true that "do as I say, not as I do" is a very fair comment to make, but, come on, does anyone, other than a particularly naïve commentator, think that a nun being abusive is of equal news value to a civilian doing the same thing?

This sort of naïvety is as ludicrous as that being demonstrated by the people who keep re-writing history. To read these people, which you can do if you have a look at the comments section of this paper, you'd think that Dom Mintoff was the saviour of Malta, the Labour Party the very epitome of democratic tolerance and all the rest of us rabid assassins bent on causing mayhem and chaos.

On food

Rich pickings for you this week, since for various reasons we ate out a bit more than normally the week before last and due to space considerations, this bit wasn't put in last Saturday. Hope you like the new lay-out, by the way.

On Thursday, She Who and her dutiful spouse partook of grilled dead cow at L-Ankra, on the right hand side of the hill leading up from Mġarr. My question "where can you get a decent steak in Gozo?" now has another answer to be added to the list of good places where this can be accomplished.

On Saturday, we went to Jeffrey's, in Għarb, where we hadn't been for many, many years. It is advertised as a place where you can get good home-style cooking and there is no reason to contradict this assertion - it was, in fact, good, home-style cooking, served by friendly people.

Then on Sunday, as we stayed up North for a bit longer than usual at this time of year, we went to XiXi's for a Chinese meal, which we enjoyed, for all that it was carb-free.

There you go, three places you could have tried while up in Gozo for the long weekend, while I was settling back to watch the second half, hoping Liverpool won't disgrace themselves by attacking the Chelsea groundstaff, which they didn't.

In the meantime, we did for those Geordie lads and are now poised to pip Man U at the post, if only Wigan will do us a favour.

It's not only in this fair land that we stuffed ourselves, too. We had a very enjoyable long weekend over to the West (in Tunisia) and a component part of said enjoyable long weekend was the rather good food and drink.

Lunch on our first day was had at Dar el Jeld, which we were told is one of the best nosheries in Tunis. It helps when you're being shown around by an expert in the field, of course. The restaurant is in the Medina and it is, not to put any fine point on it at all, a really special place. Seek it out when you're in the area, which you should be, as it's an excellent holiday.

We went to a stylish joint for lunch on our second day, Villa Didon (I'd invite our companions to correct me, as I'm not sure of the name), and the rest of our meals were had at our hotel down the coast in Mahdia, good home cooking and all.

imbocca@gmail.com, www.timesofmalta.com/blogs