Fate accompli

A week is a long time in politics – and so it is, also, at the Gasan showrooms. Their Super Value Week advertisement has been running for months now.

This, however, could have been part of a strategy to attract people’s attention – as was the headline screaming ‘Attività Omosesswali Fi Strada Stretta’.

However, those who were expecting a Notte Rosa discovered that it referred to a two-part instalment of Bijografiji (TVM, Thursdays 9.45 p.m.). The first part was broadcast on October 7, and the second part on October 14, and both were brilliantly compiled. The first episode is available on demand, with, hopefully, the others following soon.

• The coverage of the Chilean miners’ ordeal was covered relatively blandly locally; we were given statistics and information, but very little trivia.

It is those minute details that are not gossip, but beef up a story and obviate the need for repetition and padding. Zapping the airwaves, we could gather that NASA experts had slapped an alcohol and smoking ban on the miners – but allowed nicotine patches to be dropped to ease of cravings.

The incident inevitably gave those of us who love punning a ‘field’ day. Ore-deal, rock and a hard place, shifting the blame, that sinking feeling, winch-inducing, moving mountains... I am sure everyone is glad I didn’t get to cover this happening.

The best coverage by far that I saw was done by Sky News. They had a wall of screens, each one dedicated to one of the miners, and addenda from behind the scenes, and much more.

The station also asked, and replied to, the question about what would happen should something similar happen down at one of the four large-scale deep coal mines (or the smaller private mines) in the UK.

I tossed this comment at a couple of newscasters, and they told me that in Malta “a lack of resources” precludes any such extensive coverage of international affairs, since on-the-spot relayed reports are not always possible; “...and anyway, Malta was not directly involved, was it?” one of them asked me, as if this settled the matter.

For all that, Maltese viewers were not exactly thrilled at the way Malta Week in Brussels was covered on local television, so the aforementioned comment was merely a case of a bad workman quarrelling with his tools.

Some disc jockeys felt they were showing solidarity with the miners by playing songs like I’m Proud To Be A Coal Miner’s Daughter – “He shovel [sic]coal to make a poor man’s dollar” ( Loretta Lynn); and Big John – “...And 20 men scrambled from a would-be grave...” (Johnny Cash).

Fortunately, they stopped short of spinning the Bee Gee’s New York Mining Disaster 1941, which contains the words “or have they given up and all gone home to bed...”

There is a whole list of songs the topic of which is mining disasters, such as The Kingston Trio’s Coal Tattoo and Greg MacPherson’s Company Store, which also show the darker side of mining – but one cannot expect our broadcasters to be aware of them all.

• A lot more has to be said before something is done about the final decision regarding the Song For Europe festival.

Following the brouhaha that arose last week, it will be next week before UKAM members will be invited to PBS in order to “clear up some issues”. The word is, however, that the meetings will be held on a personal basis, possibly to avoid the ruckus that obtained last time.

For all that, it would seem there are people involved in the local music scene who would want the participation of foreigners – either as composers, singers or dancers/ backing singers.

• All together now: ‘Television is bad for you.’

The journal Brain Research has confirmed that physical fitness builds smarter brains.

MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) was used to measure the relative size of specific structures in the brains of 49 children, all nine or 10 years old. The part of the brain that plays an important part in memory and learning (the hippocampus) was up to 12 per cent larger in the children who were physically fit, and these performed better on a relational memory, spatial reasoning and other cognitive tasks tests, than children who were not as physically fit.

Incidentally, previous research in has shown that exercise can increase the size of the hippocampus in older adults (and animals).

The full title of the report, should anyone want to research it further, is ‘A neuro-imaging investigation of the association between aerobic fitness, hippocampal volume, and memory performance in preadolescent children’.

So ‘get your skates on’ is good for the body, mind, and soul.

• ‘Hemm bżonn li nkunu konxji ta’ kemm għandna lingwa sabiħa.’ With broadcasters like the one who said that to endorse and eulogise the vernacular, who needs anyone to degrade and denigrate it?

It is pathetic to see the amount of errors that are still rife on television programmes. Some presenters justify the fact that they cannot be bothered to proofread and edit SMS comments transmitted over the character generator ‘because there are so many of them’.

But this excuse does not hold water when the mistakes appear during news bulletins, recipe ingredient charts or even titles of programmes.

• Some time ago, I had a difference of opinion with Jason Micallef. He said that Xarabank was “an institution”; I said it was “a habit”.

So far, only One has dared challenge this ‘established pattern’; yet it would be nice to see some women on John Bundy’s panels.

television@timesofmalta.com