On Friday, we broke a long-standing resolution to forego the populist pleasures of Xarabank.
Not to put too fine a point on it, whenever I've watched even a few minutes of it (not that on Friday we watched much more than that) I've been struck by the tedious ineptitude of its presenter, the shallowness and crass vulgarity of many (not all) of the participants and the singular unattractiveness of the audience, there obviously for the freebies and the second-hand frisson of being on telly.
Oh, and for being able to shout and bray and cackle and generally drag things down to the lowest common denominator, something television in the Xarabank genre does so well. They deserve Gieh ir-Repubblika for their contribution to the national IQ.
We were persuaded on Friday to switch to TVM because the discussion was - we thought - about culture. This was because Prof. Vicki Ann Cremona was on the panel and she is a thoughtful lady whose views on the way our country is approaching cultural wasteland status deserve listening to and supporting.
We shouldn't have bothered. On the evidence, the tumbleweed is blowing through the landscape already.
Cremona was up against that Jason Micallef character, who chairs the V-18 Foundation and whose ideas about culture, well, let's be charitable and say that they don't seem to extend beyond cheap and tawdry boxed-up souvenirs for people who visit Valletta and the ex-Man Utd's manager's biography.
In any case, I'm not entirely sure why Prof Cremona was there: the discussion soon plummeted to the depths of discussing, live on air, why Ms Mary Spiteri was left out of the production of that nonpareil musical masterpiece Gensna, which by being put on reminds us that under Labour, Malta is regressing to the Eighties at the speed of light.
Let's not have any guff, incidentally, about this show being something of artistic or auditory merit, please: the clips shown were enough to confirm that it should be consigned, and confined, to the MLP scrap-book and left there to gather dust.
The debate reminded me of a couple of ladies of the night (the ones that used to work in the street that Jason Micallef wants to turn into Paceville) squabbling over the affections of a drunken sailor and his wallet.
I suppose that the timing of the production, just before the anniversary of the date the British left the country because their lease ran out and they didn't want to renew it, was serendipitous for that reason. Students of the extent to which Labour has lived up to its meritocracy promises could use it as a microcosmic object lesson, too.
Equally apt was scheduling Brian May and his duet-session with a starlet from the musicals to just after March 31st, schmaltz to evoke ersatz.
A once-was rock star, a second-line co-star, playing some old favourites by candle-light (which is what his website seems to be promising) and billed as a headline event, will no doubt attract and invigorate the Great and the Good, duly booted and suited, all fired up after having commemorated the end of the lease agreement the weekend before, but it won't be rock, Jim, at least not as we know it.
It can only be hoped that, along with public interest, the money won't have run out by the time the fiftieth anniversary of Independence, the only day actually worth celebrating, rolls around to being commemorated. Probably not (the money, I mean) because there will still be Republic Day for Labour to preen to, so someone will have to make sure there's some funds left.
Maybe Mary Spiteri will be able to croon "Little Child" from the Palace Roof, not quite on the twenty-second anniversary of her Eurovision participation, as part of the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of joining the EU, the fiftieth anniversary of Independence, the fortieth anniversary of the change from monarchy to presidency and the one about the lease running out, thirty five years ago next weekend.