It's amazing the way in which the conversation flows when the food is excellent and the company even better. No one minds when legs are pulled and dead donkeys flogged; it's all part of the camaraderie.

At one point, knowing my aversion to politics, the person on my right asked me what I'd call my very own coterie of politicians. This one was easy - it'd be Surprise Party, so I wouldn't have to bother with vacuous talk and backtracking, since I wouldn't have promised anything and no one would know what to expect. The people who compile news bulletins, moreover, would struggle to pin the terms 'turncoat' and 'opportunist' on anyone, as they have so delighted in doing of late.

The one about my own television station was even simpler - it would be a radio with option-to-view. In the same vein, I spoke about headhunting Julia Farrguia, Fiorella Pace, Miriam Dalli, Anna Bonnet and Norma Saliba for my all-female crack newsteam.

I can dream, can't I?

However, since this figurative and literal 'vision' is pie-in-the-sky, it's worth looking at what a couple of the aforementioned young ladies will actually be delivering.

Ms Dalli must have had a good laugh about how her return to One Television has been interpreted from certain quarters. The news broke shortly before the report concerning Jason Micallef's new appointment as head of PL Media - and definitely, this must have left the know-it-alls, who insist that they are at daggers drawn, scratching their heads.

Doubtlessly, most viewers would have been expecting a 'return' Trip; however, it's TX [media jargon for 'transmission'] that will be returning, apart from the newspaper analysis in the morning.

For those who never watched it last year, this is a weekly discussion programme that goes out every Wednesday from 8.45 till 10 p.m. The idea is to tackle dissimilar controversial topics with an in-studio panel of four opinionated guests.

This year we will see Pia Micallef taking live calls from viewers - and unlike what happens in other programmes, the guests will be invited to comment upon them, rather than having messages transmitted almost uselessly via the character generator, spelling mistakes and all.

Farrugia will also be on One Television. It is a well-known fact that her forte is one-on-one interviews. Indeed, Wiċċ Imb'Wiċċ (Face To Face) is a Monday-to-Friday 25-minute no-kid-gloves encounter with local personalities from the entertainment and political media (of course!). It is meant to gauge what makes them tick - and what makes them explode.

This very first 24/7 media production goes on air at 11.30 p.m., with research being done by Tonio Bonello.

For this coming schedule, Pandora, a Pro.motion production, will be including background information about local and foreign superstitions. Viewers are being given an opportunity to participate in this by sending any tales they would like to share to or by post to 'Pandora', One Television, Industrial Estate, Marsa. Pandora will be aired on Sunday evenings immediately following Tango.

• In past columns I have often spoken of my penchant for showing today's children that video need not necessarily kill the radio star, and that there is life away from any type of monitor.

Inevitably I cite Radju Malta's Ċama Ċama as an excellent example of this - and how, when it moved from its customary after-school slot to the mornings last summer, some children had been missing out on it.

Eileen Montesin's afternoon show, however, has put paid to this tradition, and the programme has been moved back to a time that is not as convenient for children, some of whom have told me this themselves.

Parents have enough of a hard time weaning children off their PC and reintroducing them to the better pictures of radio. I am sure that Ms Montesin's staunch fan-base will not zap to another station because she is off air for 10 minutes. In fact, within a week they will find themselves actually looking forward to this lovely programme.

• Most drama production companies have taken to boasting about the number of people in the cast, and how every single scene is shot on location.

I humbly suggest that they employ a continuity assistant and a research assistant. There is a limit to what suspension of disbelief will take. People don't normally stop by their homes and change their clothes when they travel from one place to another 'as soon as possible'.

They don't begin drinking mugs of coffee, down half of them, and have a full cup in front of them without topping it up. They don't hold something in their left hand while going out of a room, and enter another with it in their right hand.

And, finally - I thought health and safety regulations indicated that handguns must be kept locked and cocked, if not actually holstered.

Blood is thicker than water - and some of the blood and gore splattered about in several episodes of different series appears to be as thick as melted crayon or tomato ketchup. This goes perfectly well with the over-dramatisation extant in certain scripts, not to the mention the vulgarities. But at least, where there were subtitles, they were not literal translations; let us be thankful for small mercies.

television@timesofmalta.com