I was never under any illusion that a) Jose’ Herrera was gasping to be appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Culture in the first place or that b) now that he’s been appointed, that he has the slightest inkling about how to go about being responsible for culture, even assuming he gives a rat’s ass about this aspect of his responsibilities.

My lack of any such illusion was confirmed, in spades, only yesterday when the news broke that his ideas for V-18 include a revamped Malta Fashion Week, making Valletta green and having an Under-17 Football Tournament. Coming hot on the heels of his Chairman’s sublime notion of turning Strait Street into the new Paceville, this news should have given the artistic community collective heart failure, though thus far, the Arty Farties seem to be un-moved by these travesties. So eager were some of them to encourage a change in national governance before the elections that I suppose they are reluctant now to pour opprobrium over the heads of these utterly useless stewards of the cultural landscape.

Seriously, though, Valletta, and the rest of the country (though perhaps Herrera and Micallef don’t actually understand this) are going to be under a spotlight in 2018, when the cultural world will be taking a gander at us and establishing the extent to which we’ve lived up to the proposals made when Valletta was awarded the honour of being European Capital of Culture for that year.

Do these two characters grasp the extent of the harm they’re going to cause our international image (such of it that will survive their boss’s prostitution of our citizenship, of course) with the ludicrous ideas they’re putting forward in the cultural context? I know Jason Micallef is seriously hampered by his cultural horizons, bound as they are by his rather strange notion that the biography of Man U’s ex-manager (I bet they’re crying for his memory right about now) and a village pageant constitute appropriate contextual parameters, but come on, a football tournament for kids trumpeted as part of the Government’s plans for V-18, you must be joking.

The sad thing is that these jokers aren’t, actually, joking. They seem to be hell-bent on dumbing down the cultural scene even more than it is already, as is proved beyond reasonable doubt by the way the people who were at the top have been dispensed with and substituted by people like, Heaven help us, Albert Marshal, when he isn’t on his hols down under. Bring on the clowns would probably be an appropriate motto for V-18, crueler tongues than mine might say.

Malta’s cultural community has been struck dumb, it seems, except for sporadic outbursts on Facebook.

When you note the deafening silence that met the unveiling of those horrendous maquettes of the statues that will commemorate Prof. de Marco, Dr Tabone and Dom Mintoff, you can only come to the conclusion that the self-respecting have given up, while the less self-respecting, those who wanted this bunch elected, have to shut up as otherwise they will prejudice their cozy little sinecures and the prospect of advancement and patronage. They should be screeching and flouncing all over the place, instead they’re busy being besotted with Joseph and Jose’ and the rest of the glitterati.

Oh well, as long as we have a cultural agreement with China, we’re fine, all that’s left is a Concordat with North Korea and we can rest easy.

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