You know that an issue has rocketed up to the top of the national agenda when it gets featured on Xarabank. After editions of the programme have been dedicated to the militant threat of Islamic State, the threat to Żonqor Point, the obligatory one about sex and swinging, we will be getting the one about Charlie Charlie.
Just in case you’ve been justifiably taken up by far more serious matters, Charlie Charlie is the most recent excuse to send the nation into panic mode.
Because Charlie is a Mexican devil who may be summoned from the depths of hell (or maybe Mexico?) by crossing two pens or pencils to create a grid (with sectors labelled ‘yes’ and ‘no’) and asking Charlie to answer certain questions.
If Charlie deigns to leave the netherworld, he rotates the upper pencil to indicate his answers. And if you irritate him in some manner, Charlie continues to haunt you for life. Or something like that.
Anyway, this has caused parents to go into hysteria mode as they envisage a vengeful Charlie swirling around the sock drawer or behind the laundry basket and possessing their children.
Because you know how it is – one minute you’re playing around with pencils and the next you’re possessed by the devil and it’s into exorcism overdrive and whatnot.
Yes, I know that very young children may be impressionable but stoking their fears with this Ghostbuster approach is so over the top. And then calling in Peppi Azzopardi is really a measure of last resort.
It would be far more preferable to adopt a scientific approach and see if it is only Charlie who can be summoned to enlighten us.
It is always the ordinary citizen who ends up bearing the brunt of politicians’ corruption and mediocrity
I tried the pencil trick and I managed to summon Sepp Blatter, Kim Kardashian, Sandro Chetcuti and the Sadeen builder man. That did prove to be a little too scary, so I just put the pencils back in the holder and they vanished. Problem solved. And Charlie is welcome to the sock drawer.
• So there’s been the publication of a 98-page report about what we always suspected – that the long drawn-out construction of Mater Dei was a saga of corruption and incompetence.
The concrete supplied was not up to specifications, some of it made up of soft stone porous aggregate. There was something odd going on with the samples being sent for testing – apparently they were fine when leaving the building plant, but were transformed into substandard stuff along the way.
Then there was the fact that whenever any questions were asked or irregularities flagged, nobody in the (very unclear) chain of command took any notice and things kept rolling on to their inevitable end – a hospital building that is way over budget and with departments showing structural weakness that will cost several millions to shore up.
I don’t have high hopes that the material culprits will be identified and found criminally liable. Too much time has gone by and the areas of responsibility are not clearly defined.
I suppose we should be thankful for small mercies and that the inadequate structure has not resulted in any accidents – otherwise we’d be adding the cost of fatalities to the material cost of this mess.
There are lessons to be learnt from the saga (aren’t there always?). In the first place, it is always the ordinary citizen who ends up bearing the brunt of politicians’ corruption and mediocrity.
I get the feeling that there is generally a rather laissez-faire attitude towards corruption – not only because it is so difficult to pin down, but because people think that it helps grease the wheels of the economy and if somebody is on the take, the ill-gotten gains eventually trickle down to the rest of us.
Except that it doesn’t quite work like that and we are landed with a €35 million bill for remedial works.
cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt