The acronym stands for “And who do you think you are?” - adding a “P” for “precisely” would have been over-kill.

The question is directed at a number of people, such that caught my eye on having a look around the news of late.

It was reported, for instance, that the programme Xarabank had called on the police to re-open an investigation into some crime or other that had been decided upon by the Courts.  Forgive me if I couldn’t be bothered to look up the incident in greater detail, but my point does not relate to the merits of the case itself but to the appalling level of self-aggrandisement that this blinking TV show exhibits.

Let’s be clear: we’re not talking here about something with the journalistic chops of “Panorama” or “Horizon”.   All “Xarabank” is, and this is giving it slightly more weight than it deserves, is a bun-fight for the gawping classes, the ones who stand around traffic accidents and have an opinion (this is for when they’re standing around virtually, also known as commenting on the news portals) about how and why it all happened, generally because someone was behaving in a manner that is not to their approval, whatever this may be.

During Xarabank, opinions are not expressed, they are shouted, usually over the efforts of someone who, misguidedly, is appearing on the show to try to inject a degree of knowledge and expertise into the proceedings.   And that’s the panel, insofar as the audience is concerned, when they’re not being whipped into applause by the floor-managers or chucked a few cold pastizzi, they hoot and holler and give a good imitation of a farmyard on a bad day. 

The show is presented in a haphazard and meandering manner, with its main presenter demonstrating a lack of broadcasting slickness that is excruciating to watch.  Whether this is because he is incapable or because, cannily and with an eye to the bottom-line, he has twigged what the audience wants and will keep wanting is irrelevant, the fact remains that, at least from what I have ever seen of it, this is junk-TV that panders to the lowest common denominator and makes no effort at all to raise the bar and get people thinking.

So for a programme like this to “demand” that any public authority does anything is hubris, it is pretentiousness and it is crass commercialism, because the request is obviously made within the context of being able to have a programme all about the case, put up for the delectation of the Great Unwashed, with the added cachet that they can tout the show by saying something on the lines of “and now, after WE demanded that the Police do their job, WE are bringing you the results of our impertinence, WE are your exclusive information providers”.

Jeremy Kyle eat your heart out, the Met won’t do what you ask, will they?

Remaining, to a very great degree, within the realm of mediocrity and bad TV, one reads how Mr Albert Marshall, on one of his sojourns here from Australia, his cultural home, has let it be known that he thinks that there are too many ‘artistic directors’ around and they should rationalise their efforts. 

Are we not blessed, to have such cultural mavens amongst us as Marshall (forgive me if the extra ‘l’ is, indeed, extra, again I couldn’t be bothered to check) and Mr Jason Micallef?   How else would we be favoured with a flower-show in 2014 to celebrate a 2018 event, with the added boon that the flower show came after a kiddies’ football tournament, both designed to raise our profile within the context of V-18?

Seriously, gentlemen, precisely who do you think you are, to go public with this sort of drivel? 

Just because this Government has raised you to - or permitted you to remain in, in Xarabank’s case - the public’s notice doesn’t mean you actually have the credentials to lay down any sort of rules.