Eliminating monsters

In my blog titled Plagueing Houses I explained why I won’t be writing about divorce any further: for those of you who couldn’t be bothered, or don’t know how, to surf over, essentially I’m sick of both sides of the (so-called) debate and I’ll be darned if I’m going to give them any more free coverage.

For the record, I’ll be voting “yes”, unless something really spectacularly hare-brained is done by the pro-divorce lobby to push me over onto the “I couldn’t be bothered” side or, even worse, to the side of religious fundamentalism.

I was going to write, this week, about how wonderful if it is to see that monstrosity called “City Gate” (called that in the same insular vein that Dom Mintoff chose to adopt when removing any reference to history in our place names) being pulled down. Lest anyone thinks I’m blaming Mr Mintoff for the monstrosity, it was erected by the Nationalists in the 1960s, if memory serves, in order to pander to the Carnival enthusiasts whose floats couldn’t get through the historic gate.

Removing that carbuncle has created, I’ve been told, traffic chaos in Valletta, but since I do the environmentally friendly (and fun) thing of using a (motor) bike, I didn’t notice. I did notice, on riding in, that the traffic seemed to be flowing pretty normally, but that will no doubt be because I am incapable of seeing anything wrong in what the government does.

The driven route into town is going to be permanent, of course, and time will tell if it’s going to work – what would help is having someone direct the traffic at the St Mark’s Street entrance, since people in cars, whose brains seem to switch off at the same time the ignition key is turned, don’t seem to understand what a red light means.

There was, unsurprisingly, a measure of whining about the fact that the City Gate Project has finally broken ground. It would be unsurprising if the idea of having a referendum about whether to move the Triton Fountain took flight, along with a petition to have the third column from the left in the demolished theatre declared a national treasure. The world over, having a Renzo Piano-designed site is considered a privilege, here the Labour Party makes snide remarks about roofless theatres, sucking up to the delicate sensibilities of the people who still pretend not to have understood that no one is, actually, proposing a roofless theatre but simply an open performance space.

You’d think it was being proposed that the Manoel Theatre is de-roofed.

While looking at the online papers to obtain some inspiration, I came across a thoughtful interview by Ariadne Massa with Fr Patrick Magro, St Aloysius’ College’s Rector. In measured and reasonable tones, a wide range of subjects was discussed, including obviously the shameful episode when the Jesuits had a number of cars torched, many feel in retribution by racist scum for their work with refugees.

This clearly prompted this comment, which I quote verbatim: “Ms Louise Vella May 2nd, 06:52. In a two-page interview Fr Magro did not inform us why the Jesuits do not put at the service of illegal immigrants their premises such as Mount St Joseph, Mosta and Manresa House in Gozo. (See page 455 of the Malta Telephone Directory under Jesuits Fathers).”

What is it that inspires this person to spew such unattractive sentiments before seven in the morning on a Monday? Along with some of the other usual suspects, Ms Vella (I take her name at face value) is always to be found contributing negatively and with racist overtones to any piece that discusses or even simply refers to immigration or refugees.

Is she, if it is really a “she”, so consumed by such a deep dislike of her fellow man that she lets no opportunity go past to prove that Christianity in Malta is an endangered religion?

The big news story last week, unless by the end of the evening on which I’m writing this Schalke have completed two-thirds of ManU’s failure to win anything this year, is the capture and “you have the right to a fair – bang, bang – oops, too late” of Osam bin Laden, now among the fishes.

No sooner had Barack Obama announced to the world that a cancer had been excised that the conspiracy theories started to bounce around. Personally, I can’t imagine that with so many people involved, even the government of the United States, which does tend to give the impression that it thinks it can fool all of the people all of the time, would risk trying to pull a fast one, so I take it as a given that the thug is dead.

Was what appears to have been the summary execution of bin Laden justified? In the cold light of day, I am against the death penalty, especially without the benefit of a fair trial, but bearing in mind that there are thousands who have died by bin Laden’s sword, summarily wielded at them without mercy, I think in this instance, the depth of moral justification more than sufficiently balances theses which propose the idea that the Americans pushed their weight around a bit too much.

Just to finish on a light note, we had an enjoyable weekend, lengthened by taking the opportunity to watch the Royal Wedding, enlivened as it was by the distinctly watchable maid of honour. We had a great rock’n’roll night and early morning at Żeppi’s on Saturday, followed by a most enjoyable celebratory lunch, the cause thereof being the anniversary of ’Er Indoors’ coming among us.

imbocca@gmail.com

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