In complete contrast to the thoughtful and "New Labour" demeanour Doctor Alfred Sant has a penchant for putting on before his adoring - if only English-speaking - public on a Wednesday in this very paper, last week said Doctor Alfred Sant came out in Labour's true colours, colours calculated to appeal to the types that actually vote for Doctor Alfred Sant's machine, not the ones who might think it's a good idea to kick the Nationalists in the teeth because, well, they've become a bit hamallu recently.
Apparently quite teed-off at the way the more thoughtful in his clan have started showing evidence of disquiet at his less than inspired socio-political grey matter expectorations, Doctor Alfred Sant drew himself up to his full imposing height last Sunday and made it pretty clear to anyone who had the thought cross the threshold of the outer hallways of his mind that he might express an opinion that is not fully and completely four-square with Doctor Alfred Sant's, that if this were to be the case, anyone found to be not on the square with the machine would find himself having words not only with Doctor Alfred Sant but with the whole party.
So there.
The way the message was passed over was not unreminiscent of the subtle way playground bullies the world over saunter over to their victims, generally with a simpering crowd of gloating hangers-on at their backs (they're not so tough when they're on their own, of course).
The victim is backed up against a wall with an arm tenderly applied to the wind-pipe and told to stop doing whatever it is he is doing or else he will become a part of the tarmac.
Precisely (note the PR there) why Doctor Alfred Sant thought that the early run-up to a general election (very early, but a run-up all the same) is exactly the right time to remind all and sundry that when Labour, New, Old or Middle-aged, starts to feel things closing in around it, it will resort to good, old-fashioned, intimidation, is not clear.
Pr'aps (PR!!) Doctor Alfred Sant has taken advice from his spin-midwives and concluded, in his infinite wisdom, that if his machine is to avoid another beating at the polls, it's about time a few (figurative?) beatings were promised, to assuage the blood-lust of the party faithful, the ones to whom all manner of graces and favours were promised in the aftermath of the last defeat, just as long as they stayed faithful.
Of course, the ease with which Doctor Alfred Sant resorted to invoking the spectre of intimidation and violence came as no surprise to those of us who have felt the toothless jaws of the dead sheep closing around our ankles. Personal insult, threats of penury, allegations of corruption and much more fly towards anyone who is perceived as a threat to Doctor Alfred Sant's machine and while he never (well, not up to last Sunday, anyway) descends to the depths to which his cogs have become accustomed to descending, the message is clear.
New Labour, old methods, is all I can say, as if I was saying anything that is not as self-evident as it always has been, to those of us who are not blinded by the champagne the socialists pour into our mouths.
Living abortion
Iam, as I have had occasion, in the dim and distant past, to state, opposed in principle to abortion, though being only human, I would refrain from handing down judgment from on high about anyone else's human frailty.
I am also of the persuasion that legalisation and regulation is preferable to sending things underground.
Having made that clear, even to someone of the meanest intelligence, I hope, I trust you will allow me to express my lack of appreciation, with all due disrespect, for those who have jumped on the bandwagon that rolled up ever so conveniently, when some organ or other voted to recommend that abortion be legalised throughout Europe.
If you were to believe the sayers of doom who massed their suddenly sanctified ranks into a phalanx of pro-life battalions (can you have a phalanx of battalions? Perhaps an historian of militaria will elucidate) as soon as we join the EU, an army of doctors and butchers armed with meat-hooks is going to descend on our virtuous women and deprive them of their off-spring, such of such off-spring that is not yet sprung.
This, as anyone of the meanest intelligence knows, is not going to be the case. Abortion, for better or for worse, is legalised in virtually all of Europe anyway, and all that happened recently was that the tree-huggers got together to while away the time a bit, as is their wont when things are getting a bit boring, so nothing much has changed.
But does the fact that this was a nothing event prevent the Anti-EU Lobby from getting all het up and spreading doom and gloom like there's no tomorrow?
Of course it doesn't. As their arch-guru, Doctor Alfred Sant, has said on occasion, he will sup with the devil, even without a long spoon, if it wins him votes, and just like him, the Anti-EU Lobby will raise the dead (or the idea of dead babies) if it suits them, even if they never made much noise about abortions and who they were performed by in Malta before now.
War jaw, jaw war
I missed it myself, but I heard that Dr KMB, not wanting to be outdone by Doctor Alfred Sant's own declaration of war on the dissenters, has declared war on the EU.
I paused, just then, in my indefatigable tapping at the keyboard to produce this stuff for you, to ruminate on the image of Dr KMB charging off to the Grand Harbour in his VW Beetle, lance poised, to tilt at the windmills to our North. I have to say that I was rendered almost tap-less by this quixotic picture.
Never let it be said, of course, that the law courts do not respond with electrifying speed to geo-political developments in this land. No sooner had Dr KMB made his fiery declaration of hostilities with the monster lurking up than the powers that be in the courts decided that the Registry, that hive of activity that sees multitudes beavering away, shuffling the papers that are the citizen's life-line to justice, should be secreted away in the depths of the building, where criminals and wannabe criminals used to be stored before their day in court.
So far down into the bowels of the earth are they going, one hears, that the legal procurators, bless 'em, are to be given canaries in a cage, to ensure that they know the air is breathable.
Have a sprig
With almost breathtaking duo-visagery, the Spanish, for whom I have a more than significant liking for their laidback, though efficient, lifestyle and country, have come over all precious about a little rock just off the Moroccan coast, saying that it's theirs to do with what they will, while making eyes at Gibraltar, which is England's, not theirs.
The extent to which sovereign nations can get their lingerie in a twist never fails to amuse me. Less amused, however, was Doctor Alfred Sant, who laid down the law from on high in his column last Wednesday.
It being convenient so to do, instead of being tickled pink by the stupidity of the whole thing, Doctor Alfred Sant thought that he should use "the seriousness with which Spain (an EU member state) having an area of 540,782 square kilometres, regarded the 'loss' of an infinitesimal, some would claim worthless, bit of its sovereign rights" to demonstrate a contrast with "the lackadaisical approach adopted by the Fenech Adami administration in wanting to sign away rights over a vast area of seawater claimed by Malta, an island having an area of 316 square kilometres."
Precisely (note the use of PR again, even more skilfully than Doctor Alfred Sant) what he meant by this escaped me.
Spain, as is apparent to anyone with even an ounce (will I still be able to write ounce when we join the EU?) of common-sense, invaded the rock of parsley (horrible veggie, by the way) just because it wants to do the same to Gib, but this seems to have been lost on Doctor Alfred Sant, who thinks that Spain's getting all macho is what Fenech Adami should have done.
Don't even try to understand it. I've given up trying to figure Doctor Alfred Sant out, though I have to say that I am grateful for his closing remark, where he says that "you do not have to be opposed to Malta's EU membership to realise that something is wrong somewhere with the government's attitude", because he's finally come out with it.
He's against EU membership. Not just for now, but completely.
Foreign relations
While on the subject of foreign affairs, permit me a small foray, if you will, into events outside our shores.
Why is it that when Israel goes way over the top and kills innocent people, inexcusably and shamefully, the world comes over all prissy and issued condemnations left, right and centre and when the Palestinians do the same, time and time again, the condemnations are not exactly resounding?
Is it because when a civilised country does something uncivilised, it is condemnable, while when a mob of terrorist louts does the same thing, it's hardly even worth a press release?
Free speech
This is a country that prides itself on its human rights record. One such right is the right to express yourself freely, within the limits of the law of defamation.
Of course, this right stops at the Main Entrance to the Glasshouse in Mile End, where Doctor Alfred Sant's machine has its lair. If you express yourself in any way shape or form that displeases the machine, you will feel the fetid breath of E(manwe)l Cuschieri on your neck, making it crystal clear that you are being a bad, bad boy or girl.
The right to free speech also stops short when you try to express the idea that, just maybe, certain national or ethnic groups, especially those who adhere to fundamentalist modes of thought, do not behave in such a manner as to make them all that welcome in polite society.
Ms Zammit Endrich, with whom I have, on occasion, crossed verbal swords in the past, has become the latest victim of the fascist notion of Political Correctness. Just because she dared say that she has an opinion about Arabs that does not subscribe to the fawning attitudes struck by all and sundry when talking about other races, she has been cast into the outer darkness.
I suppose if I were to write, say, that in Zimbabwe, Mugabe's louts are behaving like neo-colonialist usurpers, demonstrating that you can take the lads out of the jungle but you can't take the jungle out of the lads, I will likewise be called a racist pig.
It's amusing the way the so-called oppressed minorities become oppressive control-freaks whenever someone uses his or her own freedom of speech to point out that said oppressed minorities are not as pure as the driven snow.
Infrastructural blues
If I were of a musical bent, which I am not (I can just about play the radio) I would compose a ditty in the manner of Robert Zimmerman, lamenting the state of Highway 61, and all the other highways and byways too.
Which genius, may I be permitted to ask, had the brainwave that the Coast and the San Gwann-Naxxar roads need a pavement? Who designed the centre strip that adorns the latter, making it impossible for ambulances or anyone else in a hurry to get anywhere?
For that matter, which traffic control savant thought it fit to paint yellow hash-marks (the ones that say you can't cross unless the exit is clear) across a flipping side-road in Balzan, where if you get more than one car at a time, you fall over in surprise?
And who, may I ask, is responsible for ensuring that someone answers 112, when you call to report a diesel-spill that could have killed someone using the Qormi-Hamrun road? I rang at least four times last week from my mobile and no one answered.
Oh well, I suppose on reading this, some Labour spokesman or other will demand an inquiry into why so much money was spent, only to have the power failing all over the place.
You'll forgive me if, having lived in Sliema for quite a time when Labour were in power, I give vent to a hollow laugh at this point.
Feeding time
Provender was taken at Nostalgia in St Paul's Bay last Monday, having been invited there by an old friend who thought he owed me one. Very nice of him, and he shouldn't have, and it was quite an enjoyable experience, though I chose less wisely than I could have, it being summer and time to ingest lighter fare than I did.
Good stuff, though, well served.
Touche
And Revel Barker found a dictionary, making me look a bit foolish. Good shot, that man.