The first ever newspaper column I had published was entitled ‘Just do it’. It had been one of those times when Malta was drowning in a morass of polystyrene takeaway boxes, junk mail, cigarette butts and half eaten pizzas. Not very different to the situation today, but for some reason or other, there was a bit of a public outcry about having to wade through a thigh-high filth every time you left the house.

I guess I was young and naïve back then – I still believed that some problems could be overcome with a modicum of common sense. Yes – there was obviously a problem, but not an insurmountable one. How hard could it be to find men (and women) to brandish brooms, sweep the junk into a bag and drive it off to a landfill or the closest skip?

The situation was bad – but hadn’t yet reached Italian ‘Emergenza rifiuti’ (garbage crisis) standards. Why didn’t the relevant minis­ter/depart­ment authorise some actions with those brooms? A sort of ‘Just do it’ cleaning-wise? I wasn’t accounting for the mad reasons given for the lack of action. The Leader of the Opposition at the time called upon the Prime Minister for a national consensus on an anti-littering drive.

I couldn’t understand this at all. Why should there have to be a cross-party consensus for an anti-littering front? Was there a powerful pro-litter lobby that had to be appeased? Would a national clean-up be a vote-loser? Well anyway, in the long run, no national consensus was reached, no brooms swept the place clean and it had to be one of those Noah-type floods and storm to wash the rubbish into the sea. And the situation has remained unchanged ever since.

The rubbish accumulates, we vent about it, our politicians tell us they are going to embark on an awareness campaign and then we depend on clean-up campaigns by volunteers and kind-hearted visitors such as the wonderful Hans Jocham who comes to Malta and cleans up our beaches.

I guess I was young and naïve back then – I still believed that some problems could be overcome with a modicum of common sense

What are we waiting for to enforce those anti-littering laws? Why can’t we have more green wardens instead of the ones who lie in wait to pounce upon unsuspecting motorists for nonsensical infractions such as not switching on your lights in tunnels?

I’m all for the positive awareness campaigns. But we’ve got to add a little stick to that carrot – preferably in the form of many broomsticks.

• Last week we received the welcome news that the application for development at Ħondoq Bay in Gozo had been firmly rejected. There was clapping and cheering in the hall when the decision was an­nounced. It was a fitting reward for the NGOs and the indefatigable Paul Buttigieg who had campaigned for the safeguarding of the bay for many long years. But what struck me most was how the news was greeted with widespread joy as the reports were shared online. It was an outpouring of relief and the feeling that something posi­tive had finally happened. I don’t know – it just feels a bit different to when another monster block is erected.

Then there’s very little “Oh fantastic, that’s another sunlight-sapping, concrete coffin. Just what we needed.” Maybe politicians should stop smelling the coffee and start reading the comments’ boards so they can realise there’s a grounds­well of popular support to put a stop to the construction frenzy.

• Everybody is following the psychodrama, the backstabbing and the whole Game of Thrones-like scenario of British politics at the moment. One question that keeps on popping up is what could possibly have motivated Boris Johnson to act as he did? Sheer naked ambition? Misplaced patriotism?

Scheming sidekicks? Possibly the answer lies in Johnson’s book about Churchill, The Churchill Factor – How One Man made History.

From the opening lines, readers will get the feeling that Johnson greatly identifies with Britain’s wartime Prime Minister. He writes: “When I was growing up there was no doubt about it. Churchill was quite the greatest statesman that Britain had ever produced. From a very early age I had a pretty clear idea of what he had done: he had led my country to victory against all the odds and against one of the most disgusting tyrannies the world has ever seen.

“I know he had a mastery of the art of speech-making. I knew that he was funny and irreverent, and that even by the standards of his time he was politically incorrect.”

That description sounds so much like the man Johnson envisages himself to be.

Still, read the book, if only to find out why Churchill was so much more fascinating.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt