I was wondering where to start this week’s column, given that the veritable cornucopia of riches that was made available to us over the past week, but I came across this gem, which I lifted directly from the portal of this esteemed rag.

It was reported that: “The committee [the one set up to steer Air Malta into the future] is jointly headed by Air Malta chairwoman Maria Micallef and President Emeritus George Abela, Air Malta CEO Philip Micallef, Air Malta head of human resources Roberto Cristiano and Tourism Ministry consultant George Micallef.”

Now, I know all of these folk, except for the last mentioned (as far as I can recall, we’ve never met) and I take my hat off to them for their expertise in many and varied fields, but to have all five of them “jointly” heading the committee must be something of a record. If these are the “joint heads”, the chiefs, as it were, how many Indiansare there?

One must assume that the first decision they’re going to take is to delete from the record that ever so slightly ludicrous idea that some genius had dreamed up, that of having a spa service available to passengers. I actually had to google back and check whether it wasn’t April 1 when the report had seen the light of day, and I found that it wasn’t. It had been reported in all seriousness that KM pax were to have available to them the services of masseuses and other such operatives.

I can believe that no actors were involved, as no one could be that crass and awkward, including Premier Muscat himself

Presumably, this wasn’t an adjunct to the Five Mile High Club facilities that are rumoured to exist on all airlines.

Joking apart, one has to augur the committee well, however many chiefs itactually has.

Moving on to more serious things, does the Hon. Carmelo Abela, Minister for Home Affairs, Security, Catering and Public (Dis)Service Broadcasting live in the same universe as the rest of us? Not only is he apparently unmoveable (in a political sense, let me hasten to add) in the face of the fact that no fewer than three unfortunate souls have taken their own lives under his watch while in police custody.

He seems to think that appointing an inquiry under a (albeit highly experienced) human resources manager whose area of operations used to be hotels and is now within an educational institution is the right move in the aftermath ofthese suicides.

Frankly, that’s about as well-considered a move as appointing me to give judgement on the extent to which a translation of an arcane text from Pashtu into Japanese was well rendered, that is to say about as useful as a chocolate soldier standing guard outside the gates of hell.

I suppose that once you take into account this chap’s mirabile dictu that the monstrosity constructed by the army near the Excelsior Hotel beautifies the area, you begin to comprehend that he’s quite a number of nuggets short of a Happy Meal when it comes to self-awareness of the effects of his actions and statements.

It would have been charitable to say the same about that specimen Glenn Bedingfield’s tweet about the Archbishop and kiddies’ bedrooms, but Bedingfield knew exactly what he was tweeting and quite obviously cared the sum total of nothing at all as to the insolence and crude vulgarity of it. Not to put too fine a point on it, in a normal, civilised society, this sort of thing from an aide to the Prime Minister would have led to a sword being handed to the miscreant, with instructions for him to fall on it, immediately if not sooner.

With an abject apology.

But no, in Malta under Premier Joseph Muscat, at least as of 19:40hrs on Wednesday, January 13, when this is being written, Bedingfield remains unrepentant and uncensured, which must give us to understand that his boss does not think that what Bedingfield did was at all bad. Perhaps Premier Muscat will appoint another HR manager to produce a report and he prefers to wait until then before taking action against his aide.

Premier Muscat hastened – not to fire Bedingfield – but to tell us that in the pantheon of sham and play-acting that made up his New Year’s message, no actors were involved and that the video was produced by his office. It also, he tells us, cost something in the region of €8,600, regarding which I’ll reserve judgement until someone who knows what these things really cost (€40,000 circa) can comment. To be fair, if people and companies involved didn’t charge, the cash cost could very well have been €8,600, but we all know that payment isn’t only effected in cash when premiers are involved.

I can believe that no actors were involved, as no one could be that crass and awkward, including Premier Muscat himself, and call himself an actor. The thing is, once there was no one play-acting, the dear fellow is telling us, the awful thing was meant to be truthful, but now we know that it was pretty much a pack of lies from beginning to end.

Which itself goes to show that this actor-manquè must lack an important component in his political make-up, that is to say respect for the fundamentals, truthfulness being one of them. The only other explanation is that he really does think that he can fool all of the people all of the time, just as His Lady Spouse thinks she can play at being Evita Peron all the time and be fawned upon by us, her supplicant minions.

There was something of a tremor on Wednesday evening and so surprised were our Honourable Representatives that the earth actually moved for them that they suspended the House for five minutes, at least according to MaltaToday. It says something, though I’m not entirely sure what, about our MPs that even though they occupy one of the finest, most newly-built, structures in the country, designed and executed by a star of cosmic proportions, as soon as they felt a little shiver, they seem to have legged it out of the door.

I wouldn’t like to let this week go past without putting on record my stupefaction at the sheer nerve of that Franco Debono person, who maintains that when it comes to constitutional reform, he is a unifying factor.

Yes, right, of course he is, and Glenn Bedingfield is the Archbishop’s biggest fan.

I would also like to record my solidarity, for what it’s worth, with Victor Vella and his family in the face of the racist vileness that he’s received. Sadly, this country isn’t cleansing itself of the scum that espouse intolerance, bigotry and disgusting racism as their guiding lights. In fact, one of their heroes is given a platform, for shame. While we’re about it, can the twerps who are protesting against Muslims praying in Msida please get it into their thick skulls that we, unlike totalitarian or fundamentalist countries, enjoy freedom of expression and association?

On the other hand, perhaps it might be the right time to ban all public manifestations of religion, on the French model, consigning them to the privacy of one’s own home. That should get the oh-so-Catholic racists screaming and shouting and running about, it should.

On to happier things with which to end, it’s good to be able to put down in black and white that even in the aftermath of the Festive Season, certain places keep their standards. I’m able to do this because we had dinner at Beppe’s in Marsalforn and lunch at Chez Philippe in Gżira and both were nothing less than excellent.