I was tempted to start this week’s (and year’s) rant off with a defence of the imperial couple because, after going to Comedy Knights 2015, to spring thus was almost incumbent on anyone who doesn’t like to see vicious and unprovoked attacks on innocent folk go unremarked.
The operative words and phrases in the preceding sentence are: “tempted” (I overcame the temptation very, very easily); “vicious and unprovoked attacks” (they were neither); and “innocent” (the imperial couple are not, by a country mile, innocent of the charges brought against them in the court of the Comedy Knights).
The show was excellent, not to put too fine a point on it, the highlight being, for many, Pia Zammit’s send-up of her spousal gloriousness, Mrs the Prime Minister, Michelle Muscat. If it weren’t for the fact that I know that she is dead and buried in Buenos Aires and has been for many years, I’d have sworn that Evita Peron had modelled herself on our intrepid first mermaid.
For the sake of accuracy, Simon Busuttil was in the cross hairs too, with some cogent political advice being handed out to him: if you want to get on well in the polls, shut it and say even less than nothing. But, even here, there was a sting in the tail for Labour because the punchline was that if Busuttil does this, Labour will shoot themselves in the foot, and every other available bit of the anatomy, and get him elected.
The show was a good 120 minutes long and, with the litany of corruption allegations, blatant cronyism and sheer incompetence over the past couple of years and a bit, it could easily have attained Wagnerian proportions.
What was really amusing, for people like me, wasn’t so much the trenchant political content, which was darn good, but the thought that I was watching it from the heart of an audience of whom many must have been singing along to the “I wanna go back to Gonzi” number, knowing full well that it was their flipping fault that he had been booted out and that we’d been lumbered with this bunch.
So how was your Christmas? Mine was OK, thanks for asking, though it didn’t kick off too well with a Mass that demonstrated why the Catholic Church is losing audiences by the bucketload (I know the congregation shouldn’t be called an audience but I had to segue from the previous bit).
Not only were we saddled with musical accompaniment that was so leaden that no one was tempted to join in, even though the player ploughed through six numbers regardless, we also got a pre-Mass sermon of such turgidity and prolixity that I thought that, at least, we were going to be spared one at the usual point in the celebration.
We weren’t, we got a five- or so-minute one from the celebrant but then the guy who had imposed himself on us before Mass had even started apparently hadn’t heard enough of his own voice and again gave us another, equally lengthy, dose.
If it weren’t for the fact that I know she is dead and buried, I’d have sworn Evita Peron had modelled herself on our intrepid first mermaid
I will be charitable and draw a veil over the location of the Church, though ifanyone from the Curia, who I suspect read this, wants to drop me a text, I’ll blow the gaff.
As for the rest of the seasonal activities, they were pretty much the usual sort of thing, large doses of food, family, friends and down-time, all of which are welcome, though some not as much as some, if you follow me.
The political world came to a stop, or so we’re led to believe, though really it was all same-o from where I was sitting.
When it comes to Premier Joe’s politicians, it is now very clear, being found to have resorted to ‘Spanish practices’, as it used to be picturesquely described, is not an issue at all, in fact; it’s a cause for celebration when a quasi-judicial commission says that while there’s not enough evidence to go criminal on the issue, misfeasance (as opposed, therefore, to malfeasance) is confirmed.
Compare and contrast this with the unequivocal “not a shred of evidence” tag by the same commission in respect of squeals of corruption Labour had emitted in the general direction of Jason Azzopardi, who will have enjoyed Christmas knowing that he has been vindicated. Unlike Ian Borg, one of Premier Muscat’s bunch, who was allowed to live on by means of the technicality that what he did wasn’t a breach of criminal law.
Getting back to Mrs “Evita” Muscat, could I respectfully, knowing my place as an inferior subject of Her Imperial Highness, ask precisely what she thinks she was doing, interfering in internal issues within the army? I know that it’s a popular perception that, to get to the top in the AFM, you have to be quite a good buddy of the imperial couple’s but, from what has percolated into the public domain, you also need to invoke the sublime Ms M’s good offices to get ahead lower down the ladder.
Who takes political responsibility for the acts or omissions of a non-elected non-holder of public office if, more likely when, odorous stuff starts hitting the revolving blades because of her interference? She can’t resign from anything because she hasn’t been elected to anything or appointed to anything, so is her hubby to carry the can?
Sometimes, I wish I had the energy to sit down and write a novel – a work of fiction let me emphasise – which would have as its hero and heroine a fictitious disgraced minister gasping for a comeback and a fictitious spouse of the prime minister prettily posturing to position herself to elbow the incumbent out and trip daintily up the steps to the Auberge de Baviere (told you it was fictitious, Auberge de Baviere doesn’t have steps).
As the Comedy Knights made pretty clear, you can’t really make up the stuff that this bunch of clowns get up to, so would it be fiction?
What is certainly not fictional is the duty of care that the police owe to anyone who finds him or herself in their hands. The fact that the German guy who is said to have taken his own life while in custody may have been a less than desirable person or that he was a narco-dependent is entirely immaterial: the police owed him their protection even against himself.
I don’t think the Police Commissioner meant to give the impression that the guy was “expendable”, Michael Cassar is a better officer than that, but it might have been appropriate to make it clearer that the police do know that people in custody need to be protected.
Don Berto at the Vittoriosa Waterfront was the venue, regrettably, for our office lunch this year. Never again, it was abysmal.
From the glacially slow service, due to the fact that there were something in the order of two pretty inept servers catering for three tables of 30(ish), one table of 10 (us) and assorted smaller tables, through the equally snail-like speed of the food preparation (75 minutes for platters, involving opening various packets of cold meats and such?) and down to the very pedestrian (to be charitable) quality of the food, the whole experience was one tobe forgotten.
Not so the Barracuda in St Julian’s where we had the exact antithesis of the above-described debacle. Excellent food, equally good service and an overall feel-good factor that tells you exactly why this place has been going strong for 38 years with no sign of letting up.
Have a good New Year and may Premier Joey and the BoCs keep it coming.