SPORTING ELVES

The advantage of writing a blog is that conventionally it is unbound by the strictures of deadline that main-stream journalism imposes.

This is a pretty way of saying that you can goof off and let your blog swing in the breeze that blows through the ‘Net if you’re so inclined, especially when you’ve put one up with which you’re quite happy and which is still making people comment.

My last little effort, dumping somewhat on Mr Maurice Mizzi and his pronouncements from on high about how to solve the immigration problem (and that evocative manner of putting it is his, not mine) was on these lines, and the comments, some good, many inane and a few downright racist, rolled in with desultory regularity.

That, combined with my being occupied with other things, like lazing around or working (no prizes for guessing which took precedence) caused the blog to be left up for what now appears to be an unconscionable duration.

Which is not to say that this won’t, either.

Now that the torpor of August is over, our well-beloved politicians are rousing themselves from their well-deserved rest (in whose opinion it is well-deserved I will, of course, leave to you to debate) and making their presences felt.

We have the guys on the Nationalist side gearing themselves up for the Independence Day celebrations and the guys on the Labour side cranking the machine into action so that they don’t get left out of the news.

The sight of Dr Joseph Muscat touring the Playmobil factory, happily, allows me the luxury of an inane crack on the lines of “is he looking for some new people to run the Labour Party?”, but let’s leave that aside.

Then you get the guys who occupy the tiny spaces outside the real political spectrum, such as Josie Muscat, trying to persuade the media that they are worth giving a few moments to, though if the best these people can come up with is having two National Days, then it’s time for a radical re-think on their part and on the part of the media.

This time of the year always renders the Nationalists, and consequently the Government, open to charges of “bread and circuses” or of acting in the manner of Nero.

The country isn’t at its very best, I think it is fair to say, what with the world economic crisis (or should that be crises?) having an effect on us and domestic affairs also not exactly being such as to give the PM and his band of Ministers restful nights. As always, if you take the Orizzont/Torca/SuperOne/MaltaToday lens as the one through which to examine our immediate surroundings, you would have to conclude that all is for the worst in the worst of all possible worlds, and the antidote that is provided by Nazzjon/Mument/101NET is wearing a tad thin.

The reality is, of course, that Maurice Mizzi’s ludicrous 50,000 below the poverty-line notwithstanding (where the man got that figure is lost in the mists that no doubt drape his garden at this time of the year) we’re not having such a torrid time. Things are not great and people have lost their jobs, which is never anything to be made light of, for all the thinly-disguised glee that the anti-Government media sometimes displays, but there are green shoots of optimism showing, here and there.

Not if you believe the Lil’Elves, though, of course. These charming little creatures, identifiable either by their names or by their horrendous grasp of spelling, syntax and grammar, (or, very often, a combination of both) first made their appearance during the last General Elections, when they tried, unsuccessfully as we all know, to bolster Labour’s chances of winning, chances which were, according to the polls before the campaign started, on the lines of a shoo-in.

That was before Alfred Sant had his effect on the race and from then on, all the Lil’Elves in the world couldn’t save it, though that’s as may be, now.

We’re seeing a resurgence of the dear little creatures now, their having had a boost to their ecology by the EP Elections just past. They seemed to get a second wind before then and Labour’s undoubted success (well, let’s say relative success) has given them even more power to their fingers (you don’t use elbow typing)

There is a clear campaign running to make sure that the comments sections of the Times are full of negative jibes against anything the Government tries to do, whether it is bad, good, neutral or whatever.

Even when something happens that is not within the Government’s control, you get a whole slew of erudite comments being made, generally in lousy English (or more precisely, in Maltese but using English words) and with spelling that clearly benefits from spell-check but not from syntax-check. And that’s to say nothing about the depth of thought that goes into some (most) of the negative comments. If you want evidence, as Wren had said, look not around you, in this instance, but below, where I’ve no doubt that the Lil’Elves will jump in.

There’s nothing wrong with political parties having strategic and tactical machines in place: it is the essence of democracy as we know it that broad-brush strokes are applied in order to get swathes of the electorate marking the ballot-papers on the correct side. Whether this is the sort of democracy that we want is a whole other argument, of course, but while it is the one we have in place, there’s nothing we can do about it.

But please, guys, try to get your act together and not be so tedious. And do take some lessons in basic English, too.