Kiss and tale

“The following programme was made possible by a grant from your tax money. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

It is abundantly clear that the writers are trying to pad their sentences to make the word-count and show how clever they are- Tanja Cilia

Followers of Ziggy will instantly recognise the source of that quote. Yet it is not as shudder-inducing as “Minn kmieni filgħodu tibda’ tinduna kemm ħa jisbaħ malajr”, or Hillary Clinton announcing, during the speech at the Time 100 Gala, that she might run for president of Malta in 2016.

But the Quote of the Week Award goes to Joe Muto, erstwhile Fox Television mole, recently served with a search warrant: “I should have done something more innocuous, like hacked a dead girl’s phone and interfered with a police investigation.”

In the real world, deals are done involving advertising deals, programme sponsorships and corporate financial packages. This involves number-crunching and logistics involving time-bands, programming, markets, audiences and surveys… and also presenters.

This, in part, explains why certain companies prefer to purchase air time on a particular station – especially if they can call the shots because they are in a position powerful enough in the local scene to be able to dictate the day and time in which their product will be broadcast.

Inter alia, this gives them leverage when it comes to the ‘upfront’ advertising revenue, since their backers and suppliers would know that there is a captive audience, ready and waiting to be bombarded with inane tat, Chinese-torture style.

Like death and taxes, television (or its equivalent) will always be there. And it is a well-known fact that in Malta, many companies follow the advice of their advertising agencies; they hedge their bets by advertising ‘a little everywhere’.

Euro 2012, of course, gives added bargaining power to PBS – as the thousands of sound-bytes anticipate.

• I recently had quite the battle of words with a foreign production company, the CEO of which was insisting that Malta “was not good enough” for filming (“Bronze Age temples and good food do not make for ‘good television’”).

This chap has no idea that Malta was dubbed – and not by the Maltese – ‘Crossroads to the Civilisations’ and ‘Navel of the World’.

His abysmal level of general knowledge was evident when he said that “Malta is just like many European cities”.

The link http://cms.five.tv/shows/war-hero-in-my-family indicates another television company that knows the aforementioned statement is utter bunkum.

UK production house 360 Productions has joined the long, long list of those who have come to Malta to shoot adverts, episodes of series, documentaries and films.

Clients of this company include BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Four, BBC Worldwide, National Geographic Channel US and International, the Discovery Channel and the Open University. The filming in question, made possible with the assistance of the Malta Film Commission, was for Hero in My Family. The episode features John Rippon, father of Angela, a Royal Marine who served on board HMS Rodney and on HMS Newfoundland, who died on May 6, 2003.

Rippon had been present during the sinking of the Bismarck in the Atlantic, and sailed with the British Pacific Fleet, as well as in the Malta convoys; the 70th anniversary of Operation Pedestal is next August ( http://www.usmm.org/malta.html ).

The whole series is a Channel Five prime-time docu-series with 12 celebrities tracing an ancestor’s involvement in World War II.

• Speaking of films, at the risk of sounding like a cracked record, I must report that The Tal Qadi Stone (one of the oldest representations of the stars and moon in the Mediterranean), produced by Chris and Maurice Micallef has won an award.

This time it’s the Gold Remi Award in the History and Archaeology category in the 45th Houston Worldfest International Film Festival.

• Reading some book, film, and television critiques, it is abundantly clear that the writers are trying to pad their sentences to make the word-count and/or show how clever they are.

A little invective does not go amiss, either, since this is bound to raise a laugh at the person under the spotlight and garner praise for the scribes’ droll turn of phrase.

Most women would not give AA (sic) Gill a second glance, seeing that he looks like Michael Bolton’s uglier brother; but looksism is not the point at issue here.

Or is it? For in fact he chose to expound upon the looks – or lack of them – of Mary Beard, the mind behind Meet The Romans, the documentary about the Roman world she wrote and presented on BBC2, rather than research the topic thoroughly and tear apart, if necessary, her treatment of it.

Just for the record, Clare Balding, BBC broadcaster and sports commentator, had also been on the receiving end of this person’s malicious facetiousness, when he called her a “dyke on a bike”, eking out a sad pun from the name of her programme. This from someone who says his comments are not “sexist or beside the point”.

Gill had the nerve to suggest that Beard’s place was in The Undateables, a Channel 4 that followed the snags encountered by those who are considered aesthetically or otherwise different.

In a nutshell, Beard’s put-down with regard to this “odious little twit” was “too ugly for TV? No, I’m too brainy for men who fear clever women.” And probably those who think television ought to be eye-candy and football.

television@timesofmalta.com