WORRYING TIMES

It's Carnival time and we're in Gozo early, ostensibly to avoid the crowds who will be trying to get on the ferry all at the same time, though really, we just like to get here as soon as possible, work commitments permitting.

It's unlikely we'll be going to Nadur this year, because I don't particularly want to go through the hassle of winding a sheet around my less-than-sylph-like bod in order to annoy the forces of law and order, who will no doubt think I have the mens rea to break some antiquated law about insulting religion.

As if any religion worth its salt is going to be insulted by a corpus delicti such as mine, but that's by the by. I could, of course, go to Nadur sporting some anodyne get-up which will offend no-one, but that was never the point of the Nadur Carnival.

That was why it didn't used to be held on the same days as the "normal" carnival, but it seems someone with an eye for the main chance has twigged it to the notion that this is a rather good money-spinner for the locality. More power to their elbow, of course, and far be it from me to gainsay any entrepreneurial type, be he or she part of the Local Council or the mercantile community, but I won't be contributing to the general jollity by turning up, this year.

Quite apart from anything else, I have an aversion to being herded about by officious types, whether they are in the uniform of real policemen or the wannabes who wear green and brown, and some genius thought it would be a good marketing ploy to tell us that there would be an enhanced police presence "to ensure law and order" this year.

This in turn prompted a rather bizarre episode where the fuzz asked for the bands' proposed repertoire, which may have been misunderstood as asking for the lyrics, and then back-tracking after they realised that they were doing a pretty good imitation of Bottom (not a bottom, Bottom) Quite what the rozzers expected to achieve by having the running order communicated to them in advance escapes me: was a plod going to be stationed near each sound-stage, list clutched in hot little hand, poised to issue a summons if Fakawi (or whoever) played "Sunshine of Your Love" instead of "You are my Sunshine"?

On the basis of what provision of the law, I ask? The Songs (Running Order) Ordnance Cap. 13 of the Laws of Malta, promulgated by Grandmaster Lascaris? Even more amusing would have been the sight of a piglet standing near a soundstack, straining to hear whether the singer had sung the exact lyrics, but that was never going to be the case.

Verily, this country is descending into a morass of fundamentalist posturing and control-freakery. If you need any confirmation of this, take a gander at the comments under the report of the Rector's latest foray into the world of permissiveness and licentiousness. Asked for permission (why?) to have a condom machine installed at the University, he palmed off the request, directing it to be made to the KSU, that equally progressive body of men and women (http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100212/local/still-arguing-over-condoms-machine-at-the-university)

Deviating slightly, there are worrying aspects to this story apart from the Rector's failure to understand that we out of the Dark Ages. Why is it that in February 2010, there is NOT ALREADY a condom machine at the University? Is anyone labouring under the delusion that amongst a couple of thousand young adults, there is no-one who is sexually active? Or that they use a crash-helmet for protection, as that ludicrous bus-shelter poster campaign suggests?

And why is anyone asking for permission from Big Daddy to install one? To take Nike's tag-line for a useful purpose "Just do it" and ignore the silly pun constituted by the trademark if rendered in Maltese.

But to get back to those comments: many of them must have been satirical jibes at the Talibanesque mindset that besets many who seem to come over all queasy at the thought of sex, in any shape or form but mainly outside marriage. But some of them, and I have this horror that "some" is actually most if not all, must have been genuine and at this thought, despair engulfs me.

So there you have it: the Nadur Carnival has been emasculated, due in no small measure to the efforts of the Bishop of Gozo and his adherents and many people seem to think that University students will go on an orgy of sexual depravation if a condom machine is installed at Tal-Qroqq.