I 'll start off by making a suggestion to the people who run the website that this resides on in addition to the paper version. Why don't you put in a permanent link to the column, so that all the moaners and groaners can just click on it and make their comments? Because of the way the link goes off the page when Sunday rolls around, the hassle of having to click onto a back issue to access the column prevents many people from droning on and on about whatever it would have been that annoyed them.
As a result, the reading public is deprived of the spectacle of various Lil'Elves feeling all hard done by because they imagine that they've had their contributions censored (or as one of them put it, censured) due to their being pro-MLP and/or anti-PN. They're paranoid that way, poor lambs, just as they've convinced themselves that I'm a nasty quasi-racist because I'm down on half the population (their statement not mine, and a patently ridiculous one at that).
The richness of this latter comment comes also from the fact that it was made by a gentleman on the left whose own comments in other areas render him particularly susceptible to a "look who's talking about racism" jibe.
It would be amazing, really, the way these people delude themselves so utterly, but when you remember that many of them still think Dom Mintoff is the best thing since sliced bread, you can understand why.
Super One Radio News, some day last week (I tuned in because I wasn't using my own car and couldn't listen to my usual talk-radio mp3) was gleefully recounting the number of endorsements from a multitude of sources for Joe Muscat's notion that 16-year olds are mature enough to vote. I'll not enter into that little argument again, suffice it to say that I'm not as one with him on this and I don't give a monkey's that certain - or even all - exponents of the PN are not against it.
The thing is, the people endorsing the young man were, generally speaking, mouthpieces of the European left, heaven help us, such as the Austrian Socialists and such-like. What a surprise, the fellow travellers sticking up for one of their number. Oh, and I almost forgot, there was also the Youth Movement of the General Workers' Union, whose endorsement was reported by Super One as if it was a joint declaration by His Holiness, the Chief Rabbi and the Head Imam, declaring that Christianity, Judaism and Islam were, actually, one and the same thing in essence.
What do you mean, you knew that?
Anyway, forget about simple things like achieving world peace - try to figure out what makes Joseph Muscat tick instead. No sooner had he come over all warm and fuzzy for the European social-engineers to swoon over, with this idea of hugging a hoodie - oops, sorry, I mean enfranchising 16-year olds - than he trotted out this moderately control-freaky idea that MLP MEPs have to toe the party line or else, the else being having a fine slapped on them which tops out at €15,000 (yep, that a €uro sign, with 1 and 5 and three 0s tacked on to it).
I mean to say, what the devil comes over this guy, sometimes? Not content with getting himself lumbered with Jason Micallef as general secretary (to say nothing of his two bookends) he goes and has his (or is that Alfred Sant's) choice for CEO leaked all over the place and then he comes up with, or allows his party to come up with, this not-to-put-too-fine-a-point-on-it piece of totalitarianistic (a word which Bill Gates' masterpiece insists does not exist) bullying.
Now, any MEP worth his salt being told "oi, stick to the party line or stick your hand into your pocket" should promptly extend two fingers in the time-honoured fashion in the general direction of the party and its leader that dreamt up the idea, but somehow, I doubt the current crop of MLP MEPs are much in the mood for dancing, so they're going to have to toe the line.
What price wholesale approval and endorsement from Dr Muscat's European colleagues now, ay? Will Super One News breathlessly and in tones of awe report on what the European Socialists have to say about one of their colleagues, ironically, threatening his own colleagues with a pretty hefty fine if they don't toe the line?
And it's not as if the MLP has had a clear and consistent policy about anything much over the years, after all.
It's nice, sometimes, to wear different hats. Three of the titfers that adorn my shiny bonce got me three rather nice meals last week, playing havoc with the jolly old diet.
One of them, lunch at the Excelsior, was good enough to move me to remark that if the chef wasn't such an ugly guy (I exaggerate for comedic effect) I'd consider marrying him.
On the same day, I was invited by the people at Dhalia for a good dinner in good company at one of the rather superb apartments they're putting up for sale at Portomaso, while the day after that, dinner was had at Quadro's at the Westin, where standards of service and food were, as they always have been, top-notch.
It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. I bet this last paragraph is probably the one which, truly speaking, annoyed the Lil'Elves the most.
imbocca@gmail.com, http://www.timesofmalta.com/blogs