On the Dot

■ Certain establishments assume that, in order to get people interested in their wares or services, they must include pictures of visually attractive and, usually, female models. They also assume, as a corollary, that the less the amount of clothing worn the more successful the advertising campaign will be. Some of the billboards extant would not be out of place in a men’s magazine.

Macabre

■ The fall of the Libyan regime is giving rise to yet another e-mail scam. The writers claim they will be murdered by the new government and that they have $10 million in a security company in Spain. The hook is that they are “looking for business representative to help us secure the fund and invest them pending (sic) when everything is normal...” The offer of 30 per cent of the total is the bait which, they hope, will lure people into subscribing to their con.

Mystery

■ A bus stop installed in St Paul Street, Naxxar a couple of months ago to accommodate Arriva commuters is deceiving car drivers into parking on the bus bay since the parking slots have been left as is with no specific road markings indicating not to park there. Wardens materialise out of thin air and slap fines on unsuspecting motorists. A white box on the edge of the same corner also looks like a parking slot and, similarly, fools people into being fined. What is Transport Malta going to do about it?

Marks

■ One may have noted that the Transport Malta clocks at bus termini do not show the correct time. Is there a problem with Arriva taking them over, seeing that the company made so much beef about how timetables were going to be kept to the second?

Meandering

■ About 80 per cent of Arriva’s services have been recalibrated, redesigned or amended. This practically means that any other company that was not selected might have been in a position to offer a service based on the old routes, which would not have required such a drastic rethink.

Marketing

■ It is good to note that more farmers’ markets are to open in the coming months to allow more people the luxury of obtaining fresh produce at good prices. Ironically, just out of the immediate area of the market at Ta’ Qali, dozens of other trading posts are set up offering all manner of products. Will a flea market be allowed to happen each time a new farmers’ market is set up?

Mobility

■ It is good to note that Go has yet again partnered with the Foundation for Information Technology Accessibility to donate mobile telephony credit for this year and the next. One hopes other companies in different sectors will provide the foundation that will better the quality of life of its members.

Maze

■ In the general area behind St Philip’s Hospital, in Sta Venera, are several narrow paths that lead to and from Msida as well as, eventually, to other areas. The way they are set out, branching out from one another, and the fact that vegetation is allowed to grow such that one cannot keep to the extreme left of one’s chosen path, makes for quite a few near misses. Something must be done to remedy the situation.

Markers

■ The broken drain cover at the edge of the pavement of Kappillan Mifsud Square, in Ħamrun, has already been referred to in a previous column. Whenever rain falls, the hole fills with water and people do not realise that stepping on it is a bad idea. The result has been yet another twisted ankle.

Medication

■ When the diabetes awareness campaign was launched in Gozo last September far fewer than the expected number of people turned up to have their blood glucose levels tested. Seeing that the incidence of this condition has been put at 1:10 in the Maltese islands, this could be indicative of three things: either apathy, or not enough is known about the downside of diabetes or a little of both.

Mediums

■ A man charged with importing cocaine was given an eight-year prison sentence and fined €23,000. Is it possible that this man, a foreigner, be made to work for a part of his keep at the expense of the state or that he be extradited to serve the sentence in his own country of domicile, thus not being a further burden on Malta?

Miserable

■ In cases when people are granted bail on personal guarantees, it must be pointed out that any monies placed as surety in court will have to come out of that family’s savings, if any. Otherwise, the money will have to be borrowed, with interest accruing until it is paid back – a process that is likely to take years. This effectively means that the person’s whole family is being punished for the misdemeanours of one member. This is totally illogical.

Motion

■ Why is it that people in charge of building or renovation projects assume they own the whole area where the project is taking place? Skips are placed just under pavements, taking up precious parking space, scaffolding blocks access to pedestrians and debris is not cleared up each day when the workers knock off. Is there no kind of law governing this type of effrontery?

Mirrored

■ The monstrous buildings in Birkirkara belonging to the Malta Information Technology Agency (Mita) look for all the world as if an ocean liner has been carried into the centre of the island on a tsunami. If such entities cause such eyesores and get away with it, why is the Malta Environment and Planning Authority so harsh on someone who merely wants to enlarge a window on his own property?