Target the ‘Gang of Four’

When you think about it, this country can’t really have many problems. Not that we’re immune from the insanity of the world, of course, but, overall, we’re not getting it too badly in the neck, at least thus far.

Let me explain why this is the case, so that I can be shouted and screamed at on Super One next Monday too.

While in Rome and London and in many capitals of Europe, students and others are out on the streets every so often slagging off the government, the establishment and anyone who gets within egg-chuck range, here we have one single student asking the minister responsible for transport to do something that shouldn’t be repeated in a medium such as this and she creates a furore tantamount to that which would have followed an assassination attempt.

And said young lady was getting a bit hot under her well-rehearsed collar because she had missed a lecture, which is moderately puzzling since, in my day, missing a lecture was hardly likely to worry me. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against ministers being told where to get off (to put it euphemistically) but let’s get things into perspective, shall we? This wasn’t an Emily Pankhurst, 2011 edition.

Not that the transport system is the best thing since sliced bread, to be honest, though since I haven’t used it (for the last 30 years or so) I’m not really in a position to comment. This doesn’t seem to have deterred all the worthies who were interviewed a few days ago: the common factor seemed to be that they don’t use the system themselves but they’ve been told it’s bad. Fair enough, and Minister Austin Gatt seems to have kicked some backsides and got some changes introduced, about which we’ll know, success-wise, when they start working.

Apparently, last Monday, while I was having a rather good meal with good friends at Ferretti in Birżebbuġa, the Brothers Grim(a) were jumping up and down and having all manner of paroxysms about the state of broadcasting and the media. There was much banging and frothing at the mouth, I’m told, which considering I was also brought into the picture, is music to my ears because I work on the principle that if I’m annoying a certain type of individual, I must be doing something right.

Calm down chaps, you’ll do yourself a mischief, quite apart from looking a bit foolish. Do you really think that you’re impressing anyone except the shallow and easily-impressed with your antics?

It’s ironic that while certain (unsavoury) elements of the media saw fit to dedicate themselves to the issues that have taken up the first couple of paragraphs of this week’s masterpiece, the country was being shown a degree of respect by the international community that should make us prouder to be Maltese.

One can only presume that in their quest to eradicate Bondì + and anything connected with Where’s Everybody? from our screens, the Brothers Grim(a) and their acolytes watched aforesaid Bondì + last Tuesday. I watched and I can understand why their collective blood pressure must have gone ballistic, again.

Not because of anything Lou Bondì did or because he showed himself to be a broadcaster that Joe Grima can only dream about being but simply because the Prime Minister was excellent and Dr Gatt was very good. In an environment where anything that shows the government in a good light is, by definition, politically motivated, the result of spin by the “Gang of Four” and generally despicable, rage and invective must have followed as surely as night follows day.

Let’s not make any bones about it: the Libyan crisis was handled by the Prime Minister and his team in a way that has given the country credibility in the parts of the world that matter. Give some thought, in your heart, to the degree to which this credibility would have been achieved had there been someone else at the helm. I don’t mean Joseph Muscat, who is untried as a leader of the country and, therefore, it would be unfair to put him up against the Prime Minister. I mean his team.

Do any of them, without naming names as they are sensitive souls and I wouldn’t wish to cause them pain (this, of course, does not stop the Brothers Grim(a) or their acolytes from spewing names of people who aren’t in the room with them), have the credentials to expect anyone to think they would have stood up and been counted?

No, they don’t. The people who are still intimately and emphatically connected with the Labour Party go too far back with Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya to have been able to handle the problem.

So you can see why Labour’s apologists and accommodators have taken it upon themselves to try to intimidate the “Gang of Four” to shut up, because we seem to have this knack of getting to the places to which other beers don’t get. And just for general information, while on the subject of the “Gang of Four”, we’ve taken to meeting in Room 7 in the basement of Castille because the new telephone tapping equipment takes up a bit more room than we thought.

On to more serious matters. I had mentioned the place a few months ago, but 22Four in Qala deserves a reprise and if you are a carnivore the Platter tad-Dutch is the one for you.

The downpour of biblical proportions we had last Saturday didn’t put a damper on the opera-goers, who were treated to a very enjoyable Tosca at the Aurora Opera House. The amount of voluntary work to put on a single performance is enough in itself to elicit high praise but when the performance is of such high quality hats must be raised.

imbocca@gmail.com

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