Progressive and moderate

Just when you thought it was safe to come out, just when you thought that Edwin Vassallo and Beppe Fenech Adami's views on matters moral were just minor blips, along comes a leading Labour politician, Adrian Vassallo, no less.

I've known Dr Vassallo since we were both at the University back in the 1970s. He was known then by his friends by the diminutive of his surname, just as I was known by the contraction of mine (see, told you it had nothing to do with my shape) and he was an affable type, pretty much, who wielded a darn fine billiard cue.

Since then, we've lost contact, more or less, he having become a busy and successful GP and I, well, you know all about me, I'm an open book and that which you don't know, you'll probably find out when they publish the answers to the parliamentary questions Mr Gino Cauchi thought it was in the national interest to ask about me. For which I thank him, of course, since the answers will have been testament to much about me that I can't boast about, my innate reticence being what it is.

But to get back to the Hon. Dr Adrian Vassallo (Lab.). Apparently, this worthy gentleman thinks he'd rather emigrate to Iran, there to riot in the streets in favour of ensuring that the moral values he holds in such high esteem are rammed down the throats of the rest of us, unwilling to adopt Talibanic tenets as we may be.

Because, you see, according to Dr Vassallo, the police have to dedicate their valuable time to raiding hotels and other doss houses on these fair isles to make sure that they're not, horror of shocking horrors, transmitting porn to consenting adults in the privacy of their paid-for rooms.

Apparently, the good doctor hasn't heard of the internet and the facility with which you can log onto dontcomeherevassallo.com and view adults (and other beings) doing things to each other which not even the fevered imagination of the Morality Police, even with their obsession over what the rest of us get up to in their rooms (or, more likely, in their fantasies), can conjure up.

This is a member of the Progressive and Moderate Movement we're talking about here, folks. He sits on the opposition benches in Parliament and, according to him, is utterly disinterested in what the shadow minister for culture says: he's against women showing their naughty bits and there's an end to it.

And the police will have to get off their behinds and do something about it, too, because Dr Vassallo has made sure that the minister responsible for the cops has been sensitised to this impending cataclysm.

What cataclysm, I hear you ask. Well, according to Dr Vassallo, there's a straight and unequivocal causal link between pornography and paedophilia, which, in turn, leads straight (not passing Go and not collecting £200) to children killing and raping each other "like in the UK".

Now I don't know when the last time you went to the UK was, but I was there last month and I sincerely don't remember walking out of Heathrow to the cab stand and tripping over assorted kids banging - or even banging at - each other. Perhaps Dr Vassallo, like that famous beer, reaches places other folk don't reach.

And there I was thinking that that other leading light of the Movement of Progressive Moderates (what is it about the (so-called) Left, they have to have these oxymoronic titles, like Democratic Republic of the Congo?), the mayor of Luqa was a strange cookie, with his obsession with covering up street art lest His Holiness, in between naps in his Popemobile, gets the notion that someone was waving an enormous watchma'call it at him.

I know, I know, some of the other lot are no less regressive and extreme when it comes to the bedroom and associated gymnastics, especially when the gymnastics doesn't involve one of each gender but at least they don't go around trying to persuade the genuine moderates or progressives that they're anything but hide-bound, antediluvian conservatives.

Unlike Joseph Muscat's bunch, who'd love to be all things to all men, but who are coming over increasingly like a bunch of opportunistic chancers who wouldn't know a policy if it was served up to them with water-cress all around it.

Now, a direction to those of you who like decent food, very decently served. The combined vicissitudes of tendering processes and the appeals associated therewith, together with this unreasonable attitude on the part of the EU that funds are to be spent when they're supposed to be spent, has meant that the road to Xlendi has been turned into something of a trial.

Which means that Ping's Dining has been somewhat isolate.

Which means that you, yes you, there, the one that only reads this bit, are morally obliged to find your way there (it's not difficult, go to Xlendi and follow the yellow signs) and support the nice people there.

It's not a hardship because their food is really very good. I know, I went there last week.

imbocca@gmail.com

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