Doctor Alfred Sant, I have no doubt, knows the meaning of "prognathous", as would I, probably, had I been fagged to plough my way through his precociously precious press pronouncement last Wednesday.

What Doctor Alfred Sant does not know, it is clear, is that you should never stick an adverb between a verb and the "to" that precedes it, as in "to strongly criticise". This is a barbarism on the lines of "to boldly go where no man has gone before", which is forgivable because it used to come at the beginning of Star Trek, which in due course will rival (not) Shakespeare as a defining parameter of the English language.

Nor is he supposed to initially think anything, even if what he was thinking, initially, was that the switch to Dr Gonzi from Dr Fenech Adami was a good thing. What our hero was supposed to do was think, initially, rather than to initially think, if you see what I mean.

If you don't, then you have as much of a grasp of the subtleties of the English language as the Great Man Himself, who intends to spend his summer break studying German.

OK, fine, I'm being snide and picky, taking swipes at a column, written by no less an intellectual giant than the Leader of the Opposition because of a couple of split infinitives. Tough, I like being snide and picky. Incidentally, I have actually ploughed the whole of Doctor Alfred Sant's princely promotion and I am still none the wiser as to the meaning of "prognathous", though from the context the word seems to invoke visions of a large beast astride a trough.

The dear fellow goes on to pose the question "why has this storm of criticism been unleashed on the hapless Prime Minister?".

Fully conscious of the risk that I will be called all manner of names, might I just point out that one of the reasons why this storm of criticism (more properly defined as "deluge of whinge and wine", to be frank) has been unleashed is because it can be.

Not all that many years ago, if you were to dare to criticise the powers that were, you were prosecuted for criminal libel, your commercial activities were put at risk, your physical integrity was threatened and your personal liberty failed to have much of a future.

Even less years ago than that, the populace at large felt uneasy at criticising the Nationalists in government because of the risk that the other lot would get in and wreak havoc on the newly-liberated body politic.

Now, you can say what you like about the government. More to the point, there isn't the perceived threat that if we are too hard on the Nationalists in government, the other lot might get back in: In the first place, all things being equal, even the merest chance of that happening is four years away (and four years is an eternity in politics) and, in the second place, not that many people remember what it was like under the other lot, so the danger is not as pronounced as all that.

Even though we got quite a snappy reminder of what it was like during Doctor Alfred Sant's blip in power.

So, in answer to the gentleman's question as to why people are going about criticising the PM, I would just repeat: Because they can. On the other hand, does Doctor Alfred Sant think that this means that he's going to be PM next time we get asked?

Rock it up

By the time you read this, it will be almost, but not quite, too late. Too late, that is, for you to go out and buy tickets to attend the Malta Classic Rock Festival 2004, which is going to go down at Manoel Island tonight and tomorrow night.

You may be too old to rock and roll, or even, too young to rock and roll, and you are certainly much too young to die (it's a song title, not a reflection on the current morbidity rate) but you are just the right age to go to the show.

There's no way you are going to get to hear elements of Marillion, Supertramp and Genesis, along with the full current complement of Jethro Tull, with the Beangrowers and Winter Moods to complete the mix, in two evenings anywhere else in the known universe, so you have only yourself to blame if you miss this one.

Horrid man

I was amused, some time last week, to read a headline above a piece (where else would a headline be, pray?) relating something Doctor Alfred Sant said to the massed ranks of coffee slurpers that had arranged themselves tastefully in front of him in order to catch the words of wisdom that would fall from his lips like the leaves in autumn.

Will that last paragraph win a prize for the biggest load of effluent ever to hit the newsstands, I wonder?

Whatever (irritating phrase) what the dear man said to the ladies who sip was that "MLP will continue to tell the truth", for all the world as if this was some heroic declaration made on the ramparts while the utterer held at bay the hordes intent on sacking the town.

Which prompted me, horrid man that I am, to wonder to myself "interesting, when did they start to tell the truth?". Because, you see, when you say you are going to continue to do something, it implies that you have been doing it previously and intend to carry on doing it. If you haven't been doing it before, then you can't say you're going to continue doing it.

It's like when a witness is asked "yes or no, are you still beating your wife?" If he says "no", which is the immediate reaction, it means he used to, if he says "yes", well, he's even further up Effluent Creek without an oar.

Is that moderately clear? You see why I call myself "horrid man", now? It's what we lawyers call fun, when we're not drawing up lucrative contracts because we're running dog apologists for the regime, or whatever it is I've been called recently.

And while on the subject of running dog apologists, please allow me to thank the fearless Saviour Balzan for being such a beacon of untrammelled righteousness. If it weren't for journalists like him, who don't speak for anyone but themselves, the truth as seen by Saviour Balzan would never come out.

After all, Saviour Balzan is beholden to no one and speaks for no one.

Does he?

Gozogate

No, I'm not going to tell you all about a land scandal or anything like that. This is just an amusing incident that happened at the gateway leading out of Gozo last Sunday morning, at the unearthly hour of 00.30, when I was trying to get on the boat after a good dinner (guess where?).

There were two coachloads of bandsmen and their camp-followers, clearly having fetched up at Mgarr after participating in the festivities somewhere up north and the mob was crowded round those snazzy new turnstiles, stuffing tickets into every slit they could see.

A Gozo Channel employee, with more than a little justification, thought it would be a good wheeze to try to instil some order into the proceedings and positioned himself strategically to help the lambs through the gate.

The only problem was that thereby he blocked another turnstile, obstructing those of us who knew from doing the obvious. Sometimes I wonder if people that can't get out of Gozo should have got into Europe.

Thinking ahead

A few thoughts to be going on with. If unemployment is the problem, as the MLP is fond of intoning at every single opportunity, does this mean that every other problem is going to get swept under the carpet?

In other words, is the MLP going to carry on refusing to give any meaningful contribution whatsoever to the debate that has to be had, to a conclusion, on whether or not the current social security system is viable?

I know it is political suicide for any government to monkey with pensions, but someone has to do it and it is the duty of both the government and the opposition to do it constructively.

If the opposition intends to sit on the fence chucking cheap shots into the mix, fomenting panic among the great unwashed, that seem to think that the Nationalists in government are intent of stripping them naked and chucking them out into the snow, then it is neglecting its duty and that's all there is to it.

On another argument, though it is connected because it involves thinking beyond the next general election, would it not be a good idea if some people with brains were to have a bit of a think about the amount of land we have and whether we are making the best use of it possible?

Instead of all this tree-hugging stuff about golf courses and such like, shouldn't land reclamation be an agenda item?

Warden hero

The world and his brother has been going about painting wardens as the root of all evil, recently.

Well, here's a short story about a warden that was less a devil and more a guardian angel.

A friend was involved, some time ago, in an altercation down in the ditch along the side of Valletta where people park their cars while they are toiling away within the capital's walls.

A denizen of the ditch had been asked to move his ladder so the car could be parked with a touch more ease than if the ladder were to have been left in place. Apparently, for the good burghers of Valletta, being asked to move a ladder is tantamount to their manhood being impugned, and a knife was produced and brandished, instilling in my friend something of a fear for the continuation of life.

A warden was in the vicinity and she threw herself onto the thug's back, preventing him from going ahead with his plan, whatever the plan was.

My friend's life was not necessarily spared by the intervention of the warden, but the intervention was far beyond the call of duty: Wardens are not cops, after all.

I just thought I'd share that with you.