On the Dot

• Whose bright idea was it at Go in Psaila Street, Birkirkara, to make customers paying their bills queue with those requiring services. Settling a bill takes just a few minutes whereas enquiring or applying for services takes much longer. Even if five counters are all occupied by persons requesting a service the one wanting to pay a bill has to wait for much longer than is generally required. Why should one call more than once simply to pay a bill? Also, why are the printed fiscal receipts fading so quickly? A receipt should be kept as proof of payment.

Callous

• Persons who have been convicted of cruelty to animals will only be able to turn over a new leaf in exceptional circumstances. If they are living on the breadline, with hardly enough money to feed their families, it is not realistic to believe they will be able to offer their pets all the home comforts, including visits to a vet when these become essential. Is it time to set down some rules?

Compounds

• Too many incidents are happening while people are under the influence of drink and most of them go unreported because people do not want to be saddled with blots on their conduct certificates and having to unravel the red tape that goes with filing reports. It is blatantly obvious that, in certain public places and private functions, people are being allowed to drink to excess.

Conveyance

• University Rector Juanito Camilleri told University students to “find themselves” during their time at the hallowed halls of the highest institute of learning in the land. One would have thought that the students could do this all the better going to and coming from their seat of learning, given the routes taken by Arriva transport vehicles. The time at the University could then be put towards reading for degrees.

Cruelty

• Some people with warped minds have turned into animal feeders but only so that they can lace the food they offer with things that will harm the animals that ingest them. It is up to each of us to report any suspicious activity. It’s already enough that even genuine feeders get a bad rap because of those who do not clean up uneaten food.

Cacophony

• Why is it that some playing fields are still being taken over by bands of noisy people, some of them adults ostensibly taking their children “to the swings”? Some people who would like to use the amenities feel threatened when they pluck up enough courage to go because it is as if certain people own the equipment.

Currency

• Why is it that the Inland Revenue Department is not issuing receipts for payments of income tax settlements? People would appreciate this for their records.

Couriers

• Two fare stages for Arriva buses, Aħmar, have been placed almost opposite one another at Canon Road, Sta Venera. The one indicating a route to Paola is on a tiny island pavement where people are relatively safe from traffic. The other is situated in between two lines of parked cars, without a pavement, in a slop where rainwater flows down at great volume. How about constructing some kind of raised platform?

Changes

• One notes that University and Junior College students are not getting to lectures on time because bus timetables are not being adhered to. Bus 106 stops at Mater Dei Hospital, where the driver alights to take charge of another bus. It has become habitual to see students using the Mater Dei grounds as a shortcut. It has come to the point where, even if they have a four-hour break between clutches of lectures, students dare not go home just in case the service lets them down. Consequences would be not being allowed to sit for examinations and losing explanations and hand-outs of notes.

Caring

• John Dalli, European Commissioner for Health, is pleased that the European Commission’s anti-smoking campaign Ex-Smokers Are Unstoppable appears to be achieving great success. However, until cigarettes keep being sold singly, albeit illegal, from certain outlets, the campaign will always have escape routes for those who cannot afford the steep prices for whole packets.

Communication

• In Britain, the Conservative Party Conference 2011 indicated that doctors from overseas must speak English or be banned from practising in the national health service there. This despite the fact that translation services are available. There must be a lesson there, somewhere.

Costs

• It seems that even when one does not have to wait in a pharmacy clinic because the doctor is not seeing patients and one is told to go straight in, the clinic charges (sometimes €4) are levied nonetheless. This is daylight robbery. Does the Consumer Protection Department have a say in this?

Chances

• Why is it that some outlets treat their vans and trucks as an extension of their shops? Be they household goods, plants, fruit or vegetables, sometimes the vehicles are virtually itinerant showrooms because the merchandise is spread around them too. This means that they take up parking space and create unfair competition.

Clever

• Once upon a time, there was someone who thought it was possible to change the course of the flow of groundwater, albeit by a few metres, by artificial means. Today, the equivalent is changing the location of the Tritons Fountain, by about the same distance, rather as if those who put it where it is in the first place had plan and elevation illustrations out of kilter.