Let the killing of pigeons begin

No I don’t want to kill the greens or the reds or the blues. Those are useful to sustain – even if a bit on the expensive side – to keep us amused and give me and a few other columnists enough fodder, and thought, to keep these articles going. So where was I going thought-wise?

Oh, yes, killing. Let’s give the poor suffering hunters a big break. In fact, my idea will definitely keep them going for so long they won’t even need to vote. Wait a second, if you are a hunter I think you should be stripped of a vote immediately.

That’s it, I do hereby declare and declaim that if you have a hunter’s licence or if you look like a hunter then, sorry, you will not be given any voting doc by the police. And if this will result in more visits to the doc for mental aberration, wait and read on. I have your perfect solution.

What am I on about, I hear you ask, while all hunters are dejectedly preparing their guns to blow my brains and guts out. Take it easy, Rome wasn’t built in a day and our roads take a few centuries to get ready, so why all the hurry? I take long to get to any point and if you don’t like it, the hunt is off.

Here’s the deal for the hunters’ turn to be ubertrigger-happy and not fall foul of our law, the EU and the ever-resourceful BirdLife.

Let’s give all these suffering hunters some joy and ask them to roam all over Valletta, Sliema and wherever there are pigeons in squares, plazas or dark alleys and to open fire on them, them being the pigeons. My, how they go and multiply.

Kill the vermin. Exterminate them. Have no mercy. Anyone nabbing 100 pigeons will get a presidential pardon for all his previous heinous crimes and will be allowed to vote once in our local council elections. Anyone killing 1,000 will become mayor of Għargħur and honorary life president of the St Ubert Hunting and Conservation Society of Maligned Men and Women. And anyone killing 5,000 becomes president for life of Lampedusa.

My act of gratitude to all hunters will rid them of all their mental suffering and anguish. And we poor, coffee-imbibers and pasti-lovers can enjoy our food and pastizzi in peace and not be troubled by flying rats who infest our streets with their filth and their horrid, fetid droppings which soil and spoil cars, suits, bald patches and houses and monuments.

For anyone who does not like such killing fields, I can only say one thing. Years ago, some intelligent, more humane, being than me had asked, and I think planned, a nationwide campaign to give a contraceptive pill to all pigeons. This is serious and I promise I am not having you on.

Some tree-hugging, pigeon-fancier had protested feverishly about such uncouth behaviour towards our flying fiends. The Vatican had obviously overheard these protestations and immediately sent a Wikileaked document to whoever was Prime Minister of the day.

Said document said that the Pope had heard of this pill-popping stratagem and immediately, and unequivocally, declared it as inhuman and inpigeonesque. Pigeons were meant to multiply and keep us company while we walk or sip coffee till we fly to our celestial perch.

Maybe the translation into German or Polish of “pigeon” strangely included doves that do look uncannily like pigeons. Pray, are they the same? Or maybe the worry was that once pills and contraceptives would be allowed, even if in relation to pigeons and pests, they felt it was but one little step before all Maltese, and Gozitan, people themselves would be given these infernal, anti-baby pills. Just as from divorce we move to same sex-marriage and such-like heinous stuff, our Vatican minders desperately wanted to look after us and keep us from any future harm. So bring out the hunters. Prime their guns. We are on to some more good old fun and gore.

vc@victorcalleja.com