• The billboard announcing the elevation of Bishop Prospero Grech to cardinal on February18, 2012, is still standing on the road leading to Marsa. Surely we can find a better way to show how proud we are of His Eminence.
Pong
• In the general area of the Mariam Al Batool Islamic School and the Corradino Correctional Facility in Paola, there is an all-pervading stench of drainage. This has been extant for several months now, so it is clear that the problem is not a temporary one. There is obviously something wrong with the system.
Players
• Trawling the Town is an initiative by a British regional newspaper, meant to scout for potential players for the football club’s School of Excellence teams. This, effectively, skips the Football Nursery students who work hard towards being selected. However, it would might also attract those who would never have bothered to attend lessons and yet have a lot of potential. Would this be worth trying here?
Petty
• It was reported that there were some fireworks at the House Committee for European and Foreign Affairs when an opposition member enquired about the pay package of Malta’s Permanent Representative in Brussels. This may have been irrelevant to the topic being discussed, but why all the fuss? What’s wrong in saying what a public functionary earns?
Punishment
• Each time someone who abuses animals is fined, he either pays up or pleads that he cannot afford the fine. Fines may not be the answer, certainly not alone. All animal abusers must be made to serve time by way of community service, preferably in a position in which they would be actually helping animals.
Poverty
• The state frequently issues schemes that offer housing to those who are in need of it for different reasons, as well as subsidies. And, yet, many people are still living in sub-standard housing, even if they want to better their situation. Why is it that despite everything, they have fallen through the cracks?
Postage
• The postal service must be one of the most efficient in the world; letters sent by local mail rarely take more than two days to get to their destination. It would be a good idea for the company to organise another art competition for the summer, when children who would be on their school holidays would have the chance to create a painting that would later be used in postage stamps, as has been done in the past.
Partitions
• It has become fashionable to paint strips of continuous and interrupted white and yellow lines on roads, at times when traffic has to be diverted. Surely this can be done during times when research would have shown that the traffic flow would not be so heavy? Different hours would mean that the workers are not exposed to the sun as much and as often.
Patches
• It has also become the practice to cordon off areas meant for buses to stop at by making them look like red carpets. This gives a surreal look to certain street surfaces that appear as if there are more white, yellow, and red areas than actual tarmacked road. Moreover, grit is placed on the red parts and, at times, this is already being worn off by tyres of vehicles that pass over it nonetheless.
Peril
• Certain roads are marked as accident black spots. This, supposedly, makes motorists and pedestrians doubly vigilant when passing through certain areas. One place that is not marked as such is the junction between Immaculate Conception Street in Ħamrun and Mimosa Street in Gwardamangia. Cars congregate there from at least five streets and as many different directions. There are many near misses and the occasional accident.
Panic
• School minivans are still driving children to their schools at speed, despite all the warnings given to them not to do this from heads of school and company owners. Considering the fact that passengers, except for those in the front seat, are rarely restricted by seat-belts, it is clear that an accident could have fatal consequences.
Policing
• It is understandable that police officers on beat duty in their cruising cars have a duty to hurry to where they have been summoned. However, this does not excuse them from turning on to main roads or cutting across lines of traffic without using indicator lights. Vehicles would stop for them automatically if they would have been using sirens or lights. Otherwise, it just seems to be an abuse of authority.
Possessions
• When are we going to understand that the pavement and parking berth in front of a house are public property? Is it not illegal for people to take out chairs to reserve parking for themselves and to “decorate” pavements with plants, restricting access such that people using wheelchairs or pushchairs have to take to the streets? Can wardens fine these persons for creating risks, if not actually for being selfish?
Patriotic
• The official commemoration of the June 7, 1919 riots, better known as Sette Giugno, was this year held on the eve rather than on the day proper. Can somebody explain what motivated this? Apparently the two big political parties agreed. Whose idea was it?
Pageant
• The Maltese flag was among those of Commonwealth countries flown on small boats in the Thames 1,000-boat river pageant marking the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Couldn’t Malta have had a more pronounced presence given the affinity and long-standing relationship between us?