I’m flattered; not even when I was Beck was I read by luminaries such as May, Brian of that ilk. He must have read me last Saturday, in between limbering up for his candlelit croon-fest with La Ellis and having his piccy taken with assorted rock nuts, because how else would he have known that the right thinking among us abhor hunting? I mean, it’s not as if the Prime Minister’s office had seen fit to brief him to fly the kite that the government was, in its heart of hearts, actually against hunting and could he please say something to signal this?

What a storm May kicked up: no less as big-wig than the chairman of the Malta Tourism Authority reared up to a majestic height to tut-tut sternly that we’re not a British colony anymore and how dare this jumped up twerp dare to tell us what to do in our country?

The massed ranks of oxymoronic hunters and assorted bird-conservers also got very hot under the collar, inviting May not to walk in the country, lest his mop of grey is mistaken for permitted prey and sent to Kingdom Come – not in so many words, of course, they’re all law-abiding souls at heart.

Of such fine stuff is freedom of expression made in this country, now that Labour is in town and running the show, you can say what you like as long as it’s music to their ears and no one else’s. If you don’t believe me, take note of current MEP Marlene Mizzi’s ludicrous questions to the European Commission about whether the Nationalists are, in a democracy, allowed to, erm, oppose the government.

Consider also MEP-aspirant anti-EU campaigner hero of the Mediterranean Swiss, Alfred “the Partnership Won” Sant and his oh-so-democratic dictum about how, having been trounced, the Nationalists should now shut up.

You can say what you like as long as it’s music to their ears

I wonder how that other MEP-aspirant feels now, not Joseph Cuschieri, who's not bowed out after all (make your mind up, why don't you?), the one who thinks he's such a trend-setter and favourite of the forward thinking and progressive. It is of Cyrus Engerer that I muse, the chap who is so liberal and down with the youths that he thought it would be a good wheeze to snuggle up with the hunters.

It’s been an interesting week, what with one of the Republic’s better ministers demonstrating, beyond a shadow of doubt, why ministers and people of that calibre should always be driven, rather than drive.

What price Labour in the Opposition’s constant carping and whining back in the day about ministers using their drivers all the time now, eh? See why you should have used your driver, Owen Bonnici? You can’t afford to be involved in a fender- (or knee-cap) bender, because the cops will get all coy about telling us all about it.

And that’s to say nothing of the other people involved getting bashful about having to argue the toss with a minister of State.

We then had that strange episode over the weekend, resulting in the Prime Minister being literally, rather than only figuratively, being kept in the dark: you shouldn’t laugh, obviously, but the situation does lend itself to silly jokes, truth be told. You can imagine assorted ministers wondering whether now wasn’t the time to slip some bad news into the Cabinet papers, such as how it’s costing us way more than it used to in order to keep the buses on the road. As long as Joe Mizzi thinking it’s a victory for the government to have only two bidders (the third is, sensibly enough from their point of view, for Gozo only), well, that’s all right then.

You’ll have noticed that I didn’t discourse much about the reshuffle. This is mainly because, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter which king, knave or joker is taking care of what portfolio; they’re all just a bunch of cards in a pack, dealt in a hand to determine our fate and fortune.

An interesting story is developing as I write: Godfrey Farrugia’s e-mail to the media seems to have gone AWOL and no-one knows quite what’s what.

I mean (forgive me) it’s not as if the Prime Minister is waiting to press the “seen” button (oh come on, it’s quite a good crack, really) because it wasn’t dependent on him having read the e-mail for it to carry on wending its merry way to the ladies and gentlemen of the press.

So where is it? Farrugia says, and he must be right on this, that it left his Outbox, which means it set off on its journey along the interweb superhighway.

Now it’s pretty clear that the first gateway an e-mail from a gov.mt account must negotiate is that rather imposing one administered by Mita. I don’t use this outfit’s network much, except when I’m in court and I have to press that pesky “agree” button when I try to check out what DCG is saying (again, freedom of expression, forsooth) but I’m morally convinced that it’s not beyond their technological prowess to divert e-mails such as Farrugia’s down a virtual dark alley and thrash it to within an inch of its life.

All I can say is, if you’re seeing a blank page instead of this week’s masterpiece, well, it’s 1984 all over again.

Serendipity is such a nice thing: I was wondering how to work a reference to 30 years into these paragraphs and up it popped all on its own. According to Astrid Vella, the re-engineering of Mepa has taken us back 30 years.

Note her choice of words: back 30 years, meaning that over these 30 years, we’ve actually come forward, given that you don’t go back unless you’re somewhere forward of where you were.

It might be that I’m getting a bit long in the tooth and having memory dropouts but I’m pretty sure I recall the fiery one getting all uppity and screeching imprecations at the Nationalist government about the way it had let the environment suffer all manner of indignities. It now appears, miraculously, that things weren’t all that bad, after all.

About 30 years and more ago, I remember going to a rather cheerful, but ever so slightly down and dirty, bar called the Commando Bar, in Mellieħa. The place has undergone something of a metamorphosis since then, though it has remained in the family, and it’s now called the Commando Restaurant.

We had dinner there last Thursday and, without exaggeration, the six of us proclaimed it one of the best meals we’ve had, anywhere, any time. The food, the service, the (horrid word) ambience combined to make it so, and the Blonde (remember her?) not known for her lapses into indecorum, pronounced my desert orgasmic.

Lunch on Sunday was taken at Il Gabbiano in Marsalforn and, again, we were favoured with a fine meal, well served.

Intellectual nourishment was catered for by the Requiem at the Xagħra Basilica on Sunday night, when the National Orchestra and the Scuola Cantorum regaled those present with ;la competent performance.

Might I be permitted to address a few words to the guys who were engaged to take photos of the occasion?

Read my lips, guys: modern cameras allow you to switch that irritating focus-ok beep off. Do you understand that? You will not be struck from the roll of snappers if you make your cameras silent - you can even reduce the shutter-click, if you have the slightest idea what you’re doing, or you can use non-SLR cameras of a quality that surpasses your mean skills.

Oh, and you don’t have to take 15 shots from the same angle of the same choir just because they’re singing a different bit: your photos do not have sound coming out of them.

imbocca@gmail.com

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/author/20

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