I was told, with reference to last week’s piece about the collision case bike/car, that an appeal has been filed by the car driver because the biker is alleged to have been undertaking dangerously, a manoeuvre to which all of us have been known to resort, while laughing with restraint at the poor car drivers stuck in traffic.

I thought it would only be fair to let this be known, though my main point, that car drivers need to show respect for bikers, remains valid.

Also echoing from last week, you may have spotted me on the box again on Tuesday, while Chelsea were easing past Galatasaray. No, I wasn’t the under-employed ‘keeper up Chelsea’s end of the park, that was Peter Cech still, I was on Net, having a chat with a couple of MEP hopefuls, a pair of good blokes by the name of Kevin Cutajar, who has the added virtue of being from Xagħra, from the PN side, and Ivan Grixti, from the Labour Party side. I was the good-looking guy in the middle.

It was quite a civil discussion, though a couple of points made seem to have stuck to the fly-paper that has developed on the left side of what is laughingly referred to as my brain, the part where ideas for this column deposit themselves. It’s said that I. M. Beck had the same sort of method to his madness.

One of the points was made by Grixti, who was putting some thoughts forward in the context of the rise in the number of youths registering for employment referred to by the leader of the Opposition in a clip we had just had played for us.

According to Grixti, this rise was to be attributed to the fact that the Labour government with which we’re blessed is creating so much work that people are attracted to the idea of registering with the ETC for work.

Let’s follow the logic on this, shall we?

Youths registering for employment generally come from the ranks of those who are being spat out by the system at the end of their educational experience. This can be on graduation from Tal-Qroqq or Mcast or any of the other higher educational establishments that have been set up, incidentally by successive Nationalist governments (lest Labour tries to take credit for this too) or after finishing compulsory education at a younger age.

Youths registering for employment generally come from the ranks of those ending their educational experience

These people are not, as far as I can see, “attracted” to registering for employment by the vast range of employment opportunities available (taking it at face value that such opportunities exist, which is a leap in the dark at best). These people, in fact, register for employment because they have no choice but to do so because, in fact, they haven’t been able to find work within the aforementioned “vast range of employment opportunities” that the Labour government has – not – actually created.

Combined with the increasing frequency with which I keep hearing the words ‘redundancy’ and ‘downsizing’ in various contexts, this particular indicator is starting to show an economic trend that is worrying.

No doubt, I will now be accused of scaremongering, on the same lines as anyone who shows the slightest preoccupation at the fact that a hulking great gas tank will be floating around Marsaxlokk.

When you recall that our esteemed Prime Minister, when he was still a prime minister-aspirant, had shown not the slightest of qualms about evoking everyone’s natural fear of cancer by dubbing the power-station “a cancer factory” in the face of the fact that there was no evidence of this whatsoever, it’s a bit rich to be called a scaremonger now, especially when the Prime Minister himself counters suggestions that the gas-leviathan should be kept outside the port by saying that it might be hit by other ships when out there.

With due respect, Prime Minister, have you noticed the vast number of ships that are parked on Hurd’s Bank? None of them seem worried that some other ship is going to plough into them, so your smug riposte to Simon Busuttil’s suggestion on Xarabank was just that, smug superciliousness that is unworthy of a prime minister.

I didn’t watch the show, incidentally, as I was taking some time out in Sicily, where the food is sublime, but I’m told that it was something of a farce.

Don’t take my word for it, check out Noel Grima’s rather good piece that I link to on my Facebook page. I think Grima is hardly an apologist for the Nationalist Party, so his take on the subject might not be attacked by the Labour’s little weasels the way people like me are, not that this gives me anything approaching sleeplessness.

The problem facing Busuttil, when invited to take part in the sort of low-brow shout-fest that Xarabank has descended to (you’d have thought it couldn’t get any worse) is that if he refuses, as any self-respecting politician should, he will attract the sort of “yah, boo, what a cowardy, cowardy custard” epithets to which – for shame – our Prime Minister resorts whenever he gets the chance.

It seems that his great big majority has given Joseph Muscat the impression that he is the leader of a gang of the biggest, ugliest toughest kids in the schoolyard, meaning he can act out aspirations which he couldn’t even dream about when he was the age when all of us did this sort of thing.

After all, why else would he turn on Arnold Cassola, of all people, and warn him to be careful what he was saying? Or what, Arnold should have answered, presumably had he not been taken aback by the impertinence of the warning.

When I was a kid, and even now, being called a liar was one of the biggest insults, leading to fisticuffs and being shoved up against the wall with menaces.

Today, it seems that the word can be hurled around with impunity: Manwel Mallia is called a liar by all and sundry and the only reaction is for Busuttilhimself to be called a liar by the people who seem to think they are obliged to leap to Mallia’s defence.

Let’s be clear: Busuttil has been called a liar about issues that he has explained, time and time again, and his interlocutors have only been able to repeat the attack without substantiating it. Mallia, on the other hand, doesn’t appear to have been able to rebut the claims made in his regard and his only way out, other than resigning (fat chance) before he is reshuffled (equally fat chance) is to sue for libel.

Speaking for myself, if anyone attributes falsity to me (anyone important, I mean, I don’t include Labour’s little weasels in the list) I either call them a liar and invite them to sue me for libel or I sue them and all I am is a private citizen.

If I were a Cabinet minister being called a liar, can you imagine what I should do?

imbocca@gmail.com

www.timesofmalta.com/articles/author/20