Being by nature a man of great hope, I used to collect my VAT fiscal receipts diligently and tried my luck at the draw every month. However, since that January draw where the same person won two prizes, I have stopped collecting them.
Experts calculated that for one person to win twice in the same draw, the chances were only 0.005 per cent, based on 10,000 receipts. I have stopped taking part in the lottery.
Being a vegetarian, I live mostly on fruits and vegetables and take great interest in knowing where they come from. So when I shopped for potatoes and the label showed no sign of origin, I called the importer and protested that European law stipulates that importers and distributors must tell customers where the potatoes were grown. Either from Holland or from Italy, came the reply.
In my younger days, I used to visit Holland and Germany often and each time I was amazed at how esteemed the humble Maltese potato was. At the market, one could always see Dutch, German, Cypriot and Maltese potatoes, and the Maltese ones were always the most expensive. They ate them as a delicacy, Germans and Dutch have told me. In fact, there are certain restaurants in Holland that cook only Maltese potatoes.
I called the Agricultural Department and I was referred to a certain ‘potato expert’ with whom I had a long, candid discussion.
My contention has always been that able-bodied persons on social assistance and prisoners serving time ought to help farmers work their land.
Since Maltese potatoes are of the highest quality and the only vegetable squeezed successfully from our soil, why not grow more of them and increase their export and thereby the revenue? But the ‘potato expert’ shot my idea down and said that by doing so we would be flooding the market and the potato would as a result lose value. This I found very distasteful and devoid of enthusiasm and innovation. Would we perhaps overflood the Chinese market?
Better still, could anyone in the government explain what kind of wheat we are eating in our daily bread? It is said that it is ‘hard wheat’ imported from the US. But which State or states was it grown in? Were artificial fertilisers, pesticides and/or herbicides used? Is it normal or GMO wheat?
Please, sir, we would like to know what we are eating!
My grapevine on my roof garden was attacked by some mysterious insect a few weeks ago and I was at a loss on what to do about it.
So I called the Agricultural Department again and was informed that the only ‘expert’ in that area was on leave. I found it very hard to swallow that the whole viticulture of the nation rests on the shoulders of one expert. So I dusted the grapes with sulphur powder and the worm or fungus seems to have died away or gone into hiding.
I wondered whether this is real or surreal
Having twisted my ankle playing football when I was young, I was now finding it difficult to walk properly without limping. The doctor sent me to the Birkirkara health clinic for a foot scan. As a 70-year-old man without a car, I shuffled painfully from Valley Road all the way to the clinic only to be told that I needed an appointment. I shuffled back on the day of the appointment and they informed me that the podiatrists were on strike. Come back next week.
Once again, I trudged and shuffled painfully to the clinic only to be told that the scanner was out of order and sent to England for repairs. Call next week.
They then gave me an appointment to be at the reception desk at Mater Dei Hospital, where someone would pick me up and take me to the University for my foot scan. On the appointed day, I waited at the desk but no one turned up. Then, the receptionist called the Birkirkara clinic and they replied that the podiatrists were again on strike.
This time, we will call you, came the reply. I am still waiting.
Turning from bugs to inefficient service, then to crass carelessness and now to noise, I find it surprising that after years of almost daily complaints by concerned citizens the government seems stone deaf and refuses to lift a finger in this area.
The European Environment Agency has lately issued a report denouncing Malta as “one of the noisiest places to live in the EU”. The Ombudsman himself has decried that “noise is degrading the quality of life”.
An Italian environmental expert has called on us to calm down as the excessive noise on the island was making the population sick in both body and mind.
As secretary of the Cottonera Residents Association I complained to the general manager at Palumbo Shipyards that too much noise was coming out of the dockyards. He assured me that he would look into it. I checked with Minister Joe Mizzi and he said that it was a matter for the police to handle. Months later, the terrible noise sounding like ‘giant generator’ was still coming day and night.
I made a report at the police station and they said that they would look into it. They advised me to check with Mepa but Mepa told me that it was not their concern. Next, I wrote to the local police inspector and to the Prime Minister who duly sent a superintendent so that I help him out with a special report. Weeks and months later, the noise kept coming. Finally, the Mepa ‘expert’ on this matter came back from her long leave and she sent me an e-mail saying that they have now instructed Palumbo to look into this matter himself and to report to them.
Can you believe it? The accused is told to make a report about his misdeeds.
After this last step, I gave up my hope for any peace and quiet in Malta and I am thinking of moving to somewhere else. And this without having touched upon the subject of the law courts, where one is forced to experience the torments of the damned until the case comes to an end. As the Italian diving specialist complained when a Maltese diver went down into the drydock all alone and drowned a few weeks ago, Malta is being looked down upon as a third world country by the rest of Europe.
At a police station in the Cottonera area, I went lately to register a report about the neighbour’s threatening attitude. How did he threatened you, the officer asked. My reply was that since I owed him some money, he was going to break down the door of my house and take what was his. That is not a threat, replied the officer. A threat, he told me, is when an aggressor comes at you holding either a knife or a gun.
Well, couldn’t you at least call him and warn him that if he busted my door he would be breaking the law. No, we cannot do that, we just take down the report. Well, I am very concerned as I am a 70-year-old pensioner and have no family to back me up. What if he comes and beats me up?
Come and make a report was the answer. Yes, but if I will call you up for help, it would already be too late, as I cannot undo a beating, I said.
Call us and if I am still asleep I’ll give you a couple of punches myself was the incredible reply.
I wondered whether this is real or surreal. No, this is 21st century Malta.
Topping it all, a young Spaniard told me a few months ago that we are 30 years behind the rest of Europe. Worse still, a German youth who spent six months in prison for being in possession of one cannabis joint, said we are still living in the Stone Age.
Frank Theuma is secretary of the Cottonera Residents’ Association.