(P)ROOFING PUDDINGS

So, after all the screeching and caterwauling, the Piano Project has been approved, causing all manner of expressions of distaste and woeful resignation. The MEPA Board, with the exception of the Labour representative, who seems to have been ploughing something of a lone furrow, not even managing to get anyone to second his motion to put off the decision, approved and there's an end to it.

It's not entirely clear if Mr Galdes wanted to put off the decision for another sixty-odd years or whether it was merely for a few hours or days.

Perhaps he was trying to accommodate Ms Astrid Vella who, after being so conspicuous in her opposition to the project (having pulled a u-ie from her position of a year ago) seems to have been unable to attend. She may have had a good reason for not being there, or she may have been simply desirous of not being around to see her dream of another St John's Co-Cathedral debacle unfolding before our eyes, but the fact remains that she wasn't there.

Not that the objectors, such as they were, didn't fight the good fight and squawk the good squawk and in fact, they seem to have gone on doing just that, because just this morning (I'm writing this on Friday) there was a long letter in The Times asking the Government to re-consider. It would appear that the author didn't notice that the fight is over, as my friend KZT has gracefully conceded on his Facebook page.

I was mightily amused by one of the comments that appeared below one of the stories that reported the triumph of good sense over hysteria. The commentator, whose name I couldn't be fagged to dig up, bemoaned the defeat of democracy by the approval of the project.

This is astounding.

Quite apart from the fact that the so-called spokespersons for the majority, even if they were in absentia when push came to shove, were basing their credentials on on-line surveys, the value of which in political punditry is debatable at best (and that's an understatement) what a ludicrous notion this is, that projects such as this should be decided on the basis of what the great unwashed want.

At least, I'm assuming that it is the great unwashed that the people who say they are representing the majority have in mind.

If not, say if they mean the majority of artistes or of people of a cultural bent, then they're being elitist and snobbish in the extreme: which might be why Mr Galdes, Labour's man on MEPA, threw in his lot with that lot, given that Labour is trying to make itself the honey-bunch of the luvvies and their media hacks.

But getting back to the really hilarious notion that artistic endeavours should be determined by the will of the majority, think on this, if you would be so kind.

The Sistine Chapel would have ended up with a nice sunset, with a few pretty birds chucked in for good measure, and the Parthenon would have been laid out with a couple of gazebos in the middle, for when the Greeks wanted to have a kebab and retsina blow out. The Arc de Triomphe would have been constructed to the side of the square, so as not to obstruct the traffic, and Venus de Milo would have been forced to don a tasteful pinny, the mores of the time being what they were.

And the Centre Pompidou would have ended up an aluminium clad monolith, lest the sensitive eyes of the citizenry were to spy the pipeworks and airconditioning ducts.

No artist (and I left out the "e" purposely) would accept to have the quality and content of his or her work dictated to by anyone, let alone a bunch of ill-qualified dilettantes who haven't even taken the trouble to analyse the project.

If these dilettantes had used their brains rather than their reactive organs, stupid remarks about roof-less theatres, taken up now by no less a journalistic luminary than maltastar.com, would have been avoided. It's not a roof-less theatre, get it into your thick skulls why don't you?, it's an open area that can be used as a performance space, as it's been for many decades now, with the added advantage that Renzo Piano is going to lend his name and stellar reputation to it.

But I forget: according to the nay-sayers, amongst whom luckily the MEPA Board (with the exception of Mr Galdes) are not included, Piano, along with Cameron Macintosh (who will excuse me if I used the wrong spelling) and Din l-Art Helwa are fools and knaves, as no doubt will I also be categorised, because they don't kow-tow to the self-aggrandised and the self-appointed.

I will enjoy attending performances when the project is finished, as I have even in its make-shift manifestation, and I'll enjoy it even more when I spot the objectors, who will have their evening spoilt wondering whether I'm going to lay a few "I told you so"s on their heads.

I won't, I'm not that sort.