Without a name, like the Cyclopes giants, we ignore the problem and look elsewhere.

Having a name makes all the difference in the world. Remember the story of Odysseus and Polyphemus?

In Homer’s epic, Odysseus lands on the island of Cyclopes during his journey home from the Trojan War. Tired and hungry, he finds a cave full of food provisions and together with his men he takes refuge there.

Now, this cave belongs to a giant, Polyphemus, who upon returning home blocks the entrance of the cave with a great stone and, by way of saying hello, eats two of Odysseus’ men. Next morning, the giant eats two more men before going out of the cave, imprisoning the men inside.

When the giant returns in the evening, Odysseus offers Polyphemus some superb wine given to him earlier on his journey. Slightly tipsy, the giant asks him his name. Odysseus answers: “Nobody”. “Very well Nobody, I’ll eat you last of all,” the giant replied.

Odysseus had meanwhile hardened a wooden stake in the fire and promptly drives it into Polyphemus’ eye.

Polyphemus starts shouting for help from his fellow giants: “Agrh! Nobody has hurt me!” His pleas are largely ignored: how can ‘nobody’ hurt you?

I thought of this story the other day as I was, yet again, stuck in traffic. I was listening to U2’s Where the streets have no name blaring on the radio and, stuck as I was behind a slow-moving bus, I realised that these days, our buses have no name. For an eternity we had the yellow xarabanks, which everyone used to complain about. Then we had the aquamarine Arriva, and everyone was up in arms at the inadequate service. And now? What do we have now?

We have buses of all shapes, colours and sizes. You can never tell which is a bus and which is a tourist coach or a school transport van: they are camouflaged.

The problems are worse than ever: the buses are smaller, they are more crowded, there is no adhering to the timetable, the air- conditioning does not work on most of them and we’re back to bully drivers.

All this means that people are simply using them less and less and taking the car more and more. Which, of course, results in all of us being stuck in traffic for hours on end each time we step in the car.

V18 is the best chance Malta will ever have to give a push to culture

Oddly though, we stopped complaining about public transport. We cannot find it in ourselves to complain because the present transport has no name and no identity.

Some have had their Arriva name scrubbed out, others have a generic ‘Malta public transport’ splashed somewhere, but the bulk have none.

Without a name, like the Cyclopes giants, we ignore the problem and look elsewhere.

• I spluttered in my breakfast on Thursday morning as I read the Times of Malta report that Mario Philip Azzopardi is, in all likelihood, to be made artistic director of the V-18, which is the team heading the creative organisation team to celebrate Valletta as the European Cultural Capital in 2018.

An artistic director, ideally, is someone who is widely respected in the international field of culture, as the aim is to lure to the city the best of creative opportunities. Which was why, originally, we had the internationally acclaimed conductor Wayne Marshall as artistic director. His contract was not renewed, because apparently he was too busy with his work to yield any fruitful results. So for many months we have been director-less, until now when Mr Azzopardi’s name popped up.

Now, I do not know Mr Azzopardi. He may be the nicest chaps of people out there, but every time he’s on television he irritates me. First off, because I happen to have a slight issue with people who insist on using their second names like they are still on the school bench.

Secondly, he likes to remind us a bit too much that he spent a couple of decades in Canada. “Ghax jien kont il-Kanada”; “Meta kont il-Kanada”; “il-Kanada tiela u nieżla”.

Most of all though, if we look at his CV – available to all on Wikipedia – is he the best man for the job? Apart from ‘partial filmography’ in Canada, his most popular video work seems to be the PL’s election video.

I worry because V-18 is the best chance Malta will ever have to give a push to culture and we simply need the best people in charge. What about Chris Gatt who in his years heading St James Cavalier has gained respect from all over the world? Or Sandro Zerafa, who’s a reference point for local and international musicians?

Let’s not forget that a year has passed in the V-18 preparations and there’s three more to go. This month, Jason Micallef will have to go to Brussels to give an account of what has been done so far. What will he say to them? “We decorated a square full of flowers”, “We got students to paint a mural”, “We had our name on the Notte Bianca billboards”?

At least he can announce the good news that he has finally recruited an artistic director “who lived in Canada for a while”.

krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @KrisChetcuti