Xarabank is not exactly uplifting television and its producers, I am sure, do not pretend that it is. Like all good commercial operators, they are in it for the moolah, and in this and in their perspicacity in creating a vehicle and consistently choosing topics that draw in the punters, I cannot but admire them and hold them up as paragons of all the virtues of entrepreneurship and drive.

But I hope that they will not be offended when I describe last Friday’s edition as one which scraped the bottom of a pretty deep barrel. I don’t watch the programme often, indeed hardly at all, but when I’ve watched it (or, for my sins, participated in it, which I don’t by choice unless constrained by the call of duty) I’ve been virtually stupefied by the overall mediocrity.

Just for the sake of those of you who had better things to do last Friday, such as the ironing or watching paint dry or whatever, the show tackled that peculiar gentleman who seems to think that he can make the world believe that he is blessed by stigmata, that he owns a statue of the Virgin that weeps blood and produces salt (though not in commercial quantities) and that he has a direct line from the Virgin, who tells him what to do.

Apparently, this gentleman, who glories under the name Angelik Caruana (and that’s with a hard “g”, lest he be confused with a purveyor of mild titillation) struts his stuff at Borg in-Nadur and has quite a band of groupies, many of whom were at the studio clapping every utterance in his favour and hissing at every – perfectly reasonable – doubt cast his way.

Incidentally, when he says he does what the Virgin tells him to do, he doesn’t include stopping smoking, which apparently she’s told him to but without obedience being shown.

Mr Caruana was accompanied by a hard-faced Mrs Caruana, who looks like a sharp cookie, smartly coiffed hair and snazzy specs an’all. She was vehement in her put-down of Dr Abela Medici, who dared, horror of horrors, express the thought that the Caruanas’ messing around with a statue of the Virgin was, in fact, an insult to the Catholic Faith.

Dr Abela Medici, who is an acknowledged expert in these matters, has concluded that the salt, the blood and all the other tricks and stunts with the statue are evidence of plenty, but not of divine intervention.

Of course, as is the case whenever faith, loony or genuine, is confronted by science, the faithful (or terminally gullible) smugly riposte with the “oh Horatio, there are many more things in the Universe that are not discerned by your science” (you’ll forgive me for having messed up the quote)

This catch-all, and very convenient, response was resorted to, sadly for the credibility of the people involved, not only by the happy-clappy twits in the audience but also by some members of the panel of so-called experts, religious, psychiatric or otherwise.

I don’t include Drs Abela Medici or Mifsud in the list of so-called experts, who sat apart from the panel and had looks of sheer exasperation and what can only be described as disgust on their faces in response to many of the ludicrous statements being made.

On the subject of these two gentlemen, incidentally, might I suggest with all due respect to them that they should have thought long and hard before lending even the slightest degree of credibility to this circus? I know they were the voice of sanity and all that, and for the life of me I dread to think how the programme would have developed if they weren’t there, but a line has to be drawn somewhere.

I also suggest, with all due respect, that the Hon. Marlene Pullicino (Orlando) should have been more circumspect in giving the credibility of her position to this Caruana person. Frankly, I expect my MPs, of whatever colour they are or were, to show some slight evidence that they have some common sense and that they appreciate that pandering to the hysterical outbursts of the ill-informed is a dangerous occupation and certainly not an appropriate cause to espouse.

This sort of God-bothering carnival is rubbish of the first water. It is as offensive to people of faith or tolerance (admittedly not necessarily qualities that always find themselves residing in the same individual) as the fundamentalism of the various sects that pollute the scene, as the twee drivel that comes over the waves through EWTN and as the crass commercialism of GOD-TV, which whenever I surf over it in search of something decent to watch seems to be exhorting the gullible to part with money.

Expression is free, of course, so I can’t call for this rubbish to be banned but just as these people are free to express their chemical reactions, the rest of us are free to condemn them as apparent charlatans.