Mintoff's jacket

There used to be a story going around - possibly apocryphal but, knowing the old man, probably not - that if you went to see Dom Mintoff wearing a jacket and tie you were yelled at, and if you didn't wear a jacket you were yelled at anyway for failing to show respect. This must have made your common or garden civil servant, a genus that values self-preservation above all else, despair, though driving people to despair was hardly an attribute of which Mr Mintoff was bereft.

Oh well, as long as Dr CMJ's been to see him, his place in history is assured.

Well, the same sort of thing happened to me recently: I penned a blog that sought to be relatively uncritical of everything MLP, to explain where I'm coming from, if you like, and what happened? I got called boring and told I needn't have bothered.

OK, so I won't.

Power to the people

On everyone's lips is the price of oil and its consequences on our lives. More precisely, on every lil'elf's lips is the refrain, more properly whine, "see what voting PN gets you, you moronic voter, you".

Exactly what do these people expect the government to do? From Dr CMJ down to the most insignificant of the elves, they're all at it, with varying styles but all spouting the same guff: Gonzi (and to show how humorous they are, sometimes "gonzipn") has to do something about it and why didn't he tell us about this before the elections?

Well, what in blue blazes do they expect Dr Gonzi to do? The rest of the world is running around like a headless chicken, twitching to Opec's tune, so why do they expect Dr Gonzi's mob to be any different? It's not as if Maltese governments have a track record of influencing the movers and shakers of the world much.

Naturally, this is no excuse for the government not doing everything it can to alleviate the problem but, quite frankly, what the blinking hell can be done, really? Throw money at it? Big whoop, that's our money anyway.

And as for this naïve, nay simpletonistic (invented a word for you, there) question "why didn't they tell us this before the election?" I can mention a few other things we weren't told before the election. For instance, why were we not told that gravity sucks, unless we're in outer space? I demand to know.

Why were we not told that the earth goes around the sun (from the tone of some sections of the media, you'd think the earth goes round Dr CMJ's rear whence the sun shines)? Why were we not told that when you drop the toast, the butter side always hits the Axminster? Why, if I might be allowed a question myself, do we always have to be asked this really, really stupid question all the time: "Why didn't Dr Gonzi say this before the election"?

Read my lips: Because he isn't a total fool, that's why. It is his aim in life, from a partisan political standpoint, to win elections and anyone who wants to win elections isn't going to go around preaching gloom and doom.

Same applies for the other story that Labour keeps on trundling out: the JPO saga. Just what did Labour's finest expect, that Alfred Sant's muck-raking be given a free ride? And what do they expect now, that a one-seat majority be kicked in the teeth, just because Dr Sant stamps his little foot and harps on about JPO, even though better legal minds than his have said their piece?

Get real and stop insulting our intelligence.

Bis pliss bliss

No restaurant reviews this week, because we went to old haunts and there's a limit to how many times I'm going to tell you they're good. If they weren't, we wouldn't go to Oleander and Porto Vecchio repeatedly, I'm not dumb.

We did, though, as we've been doing often, go to the Victoria International Arts Festival, organised by the San Ġorġ Basilica crowd, and a pretty fine fest it is too. Already looking forward to next year, and I hope they prevail on Joanna Camilleri, a pianist previously unknown to me (which means nothing, since I'm not exactly among the world's most knowledgeable in this field)(or any other, as I'm sure all the lil'elves will delight in pointing out, were they not in the main shorn of wit and a lightness of touch), to perform again.

She was, quite simply put, superb, deeply impressing everyone from my young nephew to the most venerable member of the audience.

A suggestion

Next week there's the Gay Pride March, to which I won't be going, partly because Paceville is not my scene, especially on a Saturday night, and partly because I hope my support for individual rights, in whatever context, is clear enough that I don't need to be seen on the scene.

May I suggest that the organisers don't rely on the certain habitués of Paceville, who generally wear a uniform of sorts, to smile sweetly at them and ease their passage?

Tolerance and respect for diversity are not the most common of traits among these quasi-Neanderthals.

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