I was going to start by going into grumpy old man mode and having a whine about – with due respect to celebrities such as the Prime Minister’s wife’s husband and that Times of Malta journalist’s current boyfriend – the spectacle people are making of themselves having a cool shower in the middle of August in the middle of the Mediterranean.

Most of my whine was going to be about how, quite clearly, many people have no idea what this blinking craze is really all about, that it involves making a donation, not just a video (whatever the production values used) and also raising people’s awareness about the disease against which funds are being raised.

But, frankly, most of what needed to be said, pro and con, has been said and all that’s left is for me to say that I haven’t been challenged and that I won’t take any notice if I am. It’s not that it’s not a good cause, for sure it is, but it’s not the only one, by a long shot, and I refuse to be bullied, even for a good cause.

So that ship’s sailed, thankfully.

For a moment, it crossed my mind that the Prime Minister’s crack about “doing something” about internet shopping might have been grist for my mill.

The current economic troubles can only be the fault of GonziPN because Joseph Muscat can do absolutely no wrong

I remember when he was grubbing about for every vote he could hoover up (successfully, as it happens) he had dropped a very large hint to an assembly of assorted shopkeepers that he was going to address their gripe in this regard.

At the time, I had dismissed the notion out of hand, because even Joseph Muscat wouldn’t be dumb enough to try to interfere with the ’net. It seems, however, that there are moves afoot to hold him to his word (naive as the thought of holding a politician to his pre-election word might be).

Even now, I can’t see Muscat trying to drag us down into the pit that is North Korean-style internet control, for all that his political DNA makes him prone to thinking that this is a very good wheeze.

Can you imagine Dom Mintoff, back in the day, beaming fondly upon the internet, he didn’t even tolerate foreign newspapers?

So that’s not a story, either.

Despite the fact that on one morning last week, the headline news on this paper’s portal concerned the death of Richard Attenborough (fair enough) two (no less) ice-bucket stories, one story concerning the price of carrying Mġarr’s statue and one about a drunken babe cavorting to the displeasure of assorted fundamentalists, there are real issues that should concern us more than enough to allow buckets of cold water to be dumped on the feel-good feeling that Labour’s media is hell-bent on deluding us exists.

Hence my headline, nothing to do with the ice-bucket farce.

Another thing with which I won’t be concerning myself, incidentally, is the coup d’etat (so called) being fomented within the Curia. Many columnists have found themselves exercised greatly by the prospect that a ‘palace revolution’ is in progress within the hallowed halls of the Church Organised, though for the life of me, I can’t see why.

After all, the Church has studiously kept itself away from taking much of a position about anything (except for the divorce issue) so, in effect, to my mind it has rendered itself irrelevant to secular life.

So why, one wonders, are so many column inches being devoted to the internal squabbles?

It’s not as if anyone takes much notice of the Church, really, love for your fellow man and respect for his rights are conspicuous by their absence despite what Christianity teaches.

It also crossed my mind that the silly season might have been a good time to have a bit of a muse about the way Labour-inclined response-commenters tend to get personal as soon as you write something that ruffles their feathers. If you dare to even imply that their idols’ choice of footwear favours clay, you will be the subject of personal insult, barbed invective and all manner of imprecation.

What these poor inadequates don’t seem to twig is that their chosen mode of ‘argument’ reflects more on them than on us, the objects of their hatred, and only gives right thinking folk more reason to disassociate themselves from them and their party. But these poor souls are unimportant, in the greater scheme of things.

Let’s worry, instead, about matters of somewhat more concrete pith and moment.

Perhaps some economist of substance, preferably one not paid peanuts to be a monkey, could concatenate the sharp reduction in direct foreign investment, the sharp rise in public sector employment, the sudden deflation in the RPI and the gradual expansion of the deficit and see where that gets us.

Naturally, all of this is the fault of the Gonzi government, which persisted in trying to run the country in the teeth of the storm that was gathering, the erudite Franco Debono and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and their wise warnings notwithstanding.

Lawrence Gonzi’s handling of the economy, on a par with his fumbling of international affairs (compare his with deftness of touch George ‘Peanuts’ Vella displays) was such as to bring us to the very brink of disaster and it is only the valiant efforts of Muscat and his monkey-on-a-string that have kept our heads above water.

Just to avoid a libel case, let me explain that the reference to monkeys comes from the happy coincidence of Edward Scicluna lamenting the (pea)nutty level of his remuneration and Vella, international affairs analyst of, erm, international repute, employing the peanuts and monkeys theory of monetary compensation.

So, the current economic troubles, that are of a serious nature, can only be the fault of GonziPN, because Muscat can do absolutely no wrong.

It is Gonzi’s fault that foreign investment has taken a down turn, clearly. It was Gonzi, evidently, who authorised engagement of all those poster boys and girls over the year and a bit that has gone by since Michelle Muscat’s husband gambolled up the stairs to Castille to make the best of it.

It is Gonzi who has fiddled in the background to make the deficit look negative, despite Scicluna putting aside his peanuts and deploying his large brain to avoid this happening.

It is Gonzi’s fault, quite obviously, that Muscat’s messing around with the market has led to that reduction in the retail price index, also referred to as deflation by economists whose diet is not exclusively peanuts.

Economic policies that led to the expansion of the private sector under Nationalist governments are now, through no fault of Muscat’s, poor lamb, leading to the dreaded spectre of redundancy looming over many places of work, including places where Muscat was spotted beaming munificently. Gonzi’s fault, obviously.

It will also be placed at Gonzi’s door that the infrastructure is starting to creak badly, with nationwide power cuts, leading to the great unwashed having to pass the time playing games of ‘Spot the Konrad’ or figuring out how to spread €25 (twenty five whole euros, mark you) around a full freezer’s worth of rotten food.

It’s a small thing, when taken in context, but it must also be Gonzi’s fault that Gozo Channel, very often in the news in his time, was reported recently to be procuring fuel from a supplier whose prices are a darn sight higher than others’.

I’ve no idea why this is the case, maybe the higher priced stuff is so excellent that it makes the ferries skim over the waves and get from port to port in a twinkling of Minister Anton Refalo’s eye, even if they have to turn back half way across to pick him up.

Whatever, it’s all Gonzi’s fault and anyone who says differently is a liar, a knave and an idiot.

imbocca@gmail.com

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

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.