On the Dot

• Whenever it rains, horse-drawn cab drivers protect themselves by wearing mackintoshes and hoods. The animals, however, are made to plod on in the rain; only a few of them are seen with their back covered with a sheet of tarpaulin. Surely, this is another case of animal cruelty?

Dirty

• Whenever it rains, the lower streets of Guardamangia flow with water so murky it is practically liquid mud in which all manner of rubbish is caught. This happens because the dirty water from areas further uphill collects what was not swept off the streets.

Disease

• The national colorectal screening programme will begin come October. It is envisaged that 28,000 people between the ages of 60 and 64 will be tested every two years. As in the case of the breast screening programme, there is no mention of priorities being given to those who have had parents, siblings or children who died of the disease.

Delays

• On Sunday mornings, it takes almost an hour to get to Rabat from Santa Venera. This is unfair on people who find it necessary to use their private car on weekdays to get to work but would like to use public transport on weekends.

Dumping

• When it comes to loads of debris being taken away from building sites, one thing remains constant. Some truck owners try to cut the number of journeys necessary by overloading their carriers. This creates loads that are too bulky, or too high, to be covered properly. The irony is that while wardens are seen booking cars parked on yellow lines, such trucks pass by with impunity.

Debt

• Following the furore created by the fake electricity bill that was actually a flier for a comedy show, people appear to have missed one of the main points of the story. Did the company involved use an address list it drew up based on the telephone directory or was it a list acquired from a specific source?

Dread

• The work in renovating the retaining walls of the buildings around the Fleur-de-Lys roundabout continues. And so does the danger in which the workmen carry out their job. Blocks of stone are still being fed into the vertical saw with bare hands. No type of safety equipment such as goggles, shoes or gloves, is being worn.

Deafening

• The more summer approaches, the more people are encouraged to patronise their favourite watering-holes, which, of course, include political clubs. In order to attract customers, some of these lay claim to the pavements outside their premises and this entails turning on the sound loud enough for it to be heard by those in the open air – and half the neighbourhood. This is unfair on those who are ill or need to sleep.

Defying

• It would be a good idea for policemen on the beat to pop their heads inside shops every so often to make their presence felt. This is likely to discourage people from even thinking about engaging in pickpocketing, shop­lifting or even smoking.

Definitions

• Foreign students who reside with Maltese families while they ostensibly learn English are supposed to be their guests. So why is it that some of them are seen eating packed lunches when they ought to be seated at a family meal? It would be interesting to find out whether different associations have different rules for host families.

Distractions

• Drivers of public transport, school buses and taxis are supposed to be aware that they are responsible for the lives of their passengers as well as their own. Yet, they allow themselves to be distracted by taking or making calls on mobile phones while in transit. That hands-free telephony also takes away some of the attention that must be wholly given to the road is not something everyone realises.

Disregard

• Anyone from the relevant authorities is asked to stand at the deathtrap zebra crossing in Canon Road, adjacent to the Bank of Valletta headquarters, in Santa Venera. The white lines are barely visible to cars coming uphill and the Belisha beacons have been out of order for months now. Therefore, it usually happens that drivers of cars going downhill, having stopped, get annoyed waiting for anything up to 10 cars from the other side waiting to do so, and drive on without notice.

Determination

• When the Walking Bus scheme was instituted, in order that groups of children from the same area walk to school together rather than use transport, it was touted as an environmentally-friendly way of teaching children how to go green. Sadly, like many other initiatives, it has fallen by the wayside.

Difference

• One rarely sees employees standing near the main door of their offices sipping coffee. The reason for this is obvious; they would be accused of wasting their employer’s time and stealing his money. And, yet, it has become accepted praxis for smokers to spend the occasional five minutes outside, not to poison their colleagues with second-hand smoke. Is this logical?

Danger

• A huge roll of electricity cable has been attached to the wall of the state school in Ġuże Pace Street, Ħamrun. The sooner it is used, or removed, the better because the dead weight cannot be doing the wall any good.

Duties

• The typically Maltese obsession with “cleaning the clean” means that most households use a huge amount of chemicals that are not needed, especially since, in some cases, items ordinarily found in larders would suffice. Surely this warrants an awareness campaign by the Department of Health, similar to that about smoking?