This country’s leader saw fit to give more than a large shove to the interests of the band of brothers lobbying to be allowed to continue hunting in spring. Photo: Matthew MirabelliI’ve remarked on the ennui facing regular columnists at times, when you sit down and stare at the computer monitor and the blinking cursor clicks on and off, marking the seconds ticking down inexorably to your deadline. It’s probably nothing compared to the sinking feeling you experience on Saturday morning when you turn the page and come across this, but such is life, I suppose, there’s got to be something to fill in the space between the front page and the sports pages.
The deity that looks after us usually kicks in at this point and you start remembering all the bits and bobs of which you had made a mental note during the week, provided you hadn’t used them for your blog in the meantime. Or been scooped by a colleague on some other medium.
The No to spring hunting referendum has been and gone and been lost by the people in white hats, resulting in a situation where killing birds on the way to their breeding grounds remains allowed, uniquely, nonsensical, downright stupid as that may be. The result – eye-wateringly close as it was – made a number of people sit up and take notice.
Some from beyond our shores got all hot and bothered that we are still going to kill birds: hey, guys, on this many of us are at one with you but, you know, until such time as we come up with a better system than democracy, we’re stuck with this idea, especially since our country’s leader saw fit to give more than a large shove to the interests of the band of brothers lobbying to be allowed to continue.
Comments from within our shores were also made, some denigrating the country, and one part of it in particular, for not voting No. Speaking for myself, I’m not down on my country, even if a large chunk of its citizens does its best to embarrass us consistently, because there’s an infinitesimally smaller chunk that makes me proud to have striven for a No.
Other comments saw the formerly vociferous rouse themselves from the contemplation of nothing but their own navels to rain opprobrium down on the head of one of the SHout campaigners, more than slightly ad hominem.
Truth be told, I’m not enamoured of this individual’s style and attitude myself but, rather than blame him for at least trying, I think perhaps just maybe I should be asking myself if I shouldn’t have done the little I did differently.
But that’s with the benefit of hindsight, which is 20/20 at all times.
The result certainly gave Premier Joseph Muscat pause for thought, anyone who saw his address to the nation after the result was announced. Madly trying to reel back in his support for the hunting lobby, having gone out on a limb politically and in further defiance of his ‘green’ support base (a lobby itself that at least insofar as concerns the post-result environment was vociferous in its silence) he solemnly declared that the hunters had to really darn be careful from now in, this was their last chance to “get it right”.
He also made the point that the independent media should now take stock of its own position, which is a puzzling remark because it makes people like me wonder what he means by this. Are we expected to take this in the same spirit as the “last chance for hunters” message flagged by Premier Muscat?
Is Joseph Muscat going to clarify what he meant by his specific reference to the hunters needing to get it right?
Is he going to close the unlimited hunting season that is enjoyed by the commentators and column writers if they fail to take stock of their position and carry on sniping at assorted sacred cows regardless of the majority’s will?
For that matter, is he going to clarify what he meant by his specific reference to the hunters needing to get it right?
The conservationist bird killers, back in full triumphalist mode after their backing by a wafer-thin majority, expressed themselves in the sense that Premier Muscat should say what he means, pretending to be confused by what to most of us appeared to be a pretty clear warning.
Well, they might be living in cloud cuckoo land but the rest of us definitely aren’t: a zero tolerance environment should mean what it says on the tin. If there is the slightest breach of the rules, then the consequences should be draconian and Premier Muscat, as at 6am on Thursday last, hadn’t brought the axe down on the season, despite the law having been broken within less than 48 hours from the season starting.
So much for zero tolerance and last chances, you might say, but I certainly shouldn’t comment, lest I be directed to take stock of my position.
While in the process of stirring at the “Ungodly Hour Of ...” to write, having been occupied with a rather good pizza at AD 1565 at the Xara Palace in the evening when I normally knock this out, I was listening to Radio Five Live by courtesy of the awesome Interweb Superhighway.
A gentleman with a very slightly distinctive accent, one familiar to all our ears, was talking about the efforts being made to spread humanity on the troubled waters of the Mediterranean.
It was Brigadier Martin Xuereb speaking, the loss of whom to our armed forces (brought about by the application of the Tagħna Kollha u Biss philosophy that took hold after March 2013) was the distinct and distinguished gain of the Maritime Offshore Aid Station (Moas).
Xuereb’s words were humbling: all (all?) Moas does, he told the world through the BBC, was strive to bring humanity and compassion to a situation where human beings are reduced to numerical problems and where the death of hundreds in horrific circumstances becomes just another news item. It’s people like him that make proud to be Maltese.
In the meantime, urbane thugs like that Ukip specimen, Nigel Farage (we have our own but the radio went on to talk about him), spout racist mantras about wanting their country back and getting out of Europe at the same time.
Maybe it’s the time of the morning and my brain isn’t fully in gear but it strikes me that if Farage and his oiks get their way and the UK gets out of the EU (given that the Tories have to appease the isolationists too, it might happen) it might be the time the for EU to open its borders to the people seeking sanctuary.
This would mean opening the borders with the UK, by then considered a Third Country, just like the places from which the refugees are escaping.
Any guesses as to whether the people fleeing Farage would outnumber the people heading in the other direction?
We visited a couple of old favourites over the weekend.
At Maldonado, in Victoria, good stuff, even better because it’s locally sourced, is available with an Italian flavour. Trabuxu, in town, given that we had to remain south on Friday to vote No on Saturday, was darn good, as always, though I wish someone would do something to engineer the sound levels down a bit, even though it was probably our table contributing to the din. The excellent service and food more than make up for that small inconvenience, though.
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