The Golden Girls is one of those candyfloss sitcoms one watches to kill time - and for the occasional one-liner. As could be expected, the characters were very different from one another, and this is what made it work.

The storyline involved three friends and the mother of one of them who shared a flat. A good number of what passed for conversations was shot at a round table. I always found it weird that a random three of the characters sat, and the fourth stood around, or was absent from the scene.

Moreover, the fourth chair that would have had its back to the camera was never, ever, in place - probably because of the director's idea of aesthetic reasons.

• Most Maltese wrongly call any brand of cake shoe polish that comes in tins 'Nugget' - whereas Americans would call it 'Shinola' (just as in Malta we 'Xerox' photocopies but in America they 'Roneo' them). One tends to use brand names without any thought of copyright infringement or advertising.

Indeed, Shinola found itself included in an alliterative adage that has a Maltese equivalent that, however, depends on rhyme for its effect. Both vulgar sayings, unfortunately, seem to be behind many of the advertisements being seen and heard currently on local media. Sometimes I wonder why certain companies insist on cutting corners and writing the scripts for their bumphs themselves, rather than leaving it to the professionals - unless, of course, they are convinced no one can hold a candle to them.

We have a slew of those pseudo-conversations where someone asks a question about a creation service or item - and by the end of the advertisement, is extolling its praises or giving out a telephone number.

Then we have a bumph for a Chinese restaurant, in Maltese, which is said to offer sa (even unto) 'Chinese food'. I always wonder what else a Chinese restaurant is supposed to offer.

We have a bunch of pseudo-medical mangled facts that lead us to believe we can eat and drink what we like, and slouch by the pool during our free time - because the 'machines' will remove every trace of fat, wrinkles, sagging, pigmentation, acne, as well as varicose, thread and spider veins.

These advertorials are rather hard to believe, since the models are never the 'before' and 'after' type. Indeed, as one manager of a beauty salon succinctly put it, "our models do not have cellulite" - not that this is not because they have undergone the treatment, but, probably, because the kneading and pummelling of orange-peel texture skin would look unsightly on camera, and might actually discourage people from making use of the service.

Then we have the advertisers who rush to clothe the likes of Miriam Dalli and Stephanie Spiteri - and anticipate that women will flock to their shops hoping to achieve similar results if they purchase the same brands (alas, in a much larger size if it is available).

I shall not comment about the advertisement that asked whether we would like to become proficient computer hackers, because I could not tell whether it was a spoof.

• Some radio and television presenters have a habit of boasting that they never play Maltese music - even if it is instrumental - because it may alienate listeners and viewers.

Others proudly do, even if it is just snatches in between different parts of a programme. The irony is that they do this by using their own portable hard-discs (which they call 'jukeboxes') - and therefore the names of the composers are not at hand, as they would have been if CDs were used.

Not too many DJs bother to print out a playlist before their programmes - especially those who use a station's playlist to select songs requested by callers.

Then there are occasions when, by force of the genre of a programme, a series of whole records are sung or played, live or canned. And that is where UKAM comes in. In layman's language, the conclusions reached at the end of Monday last's UKAM's Special Extraordinary Meeting was that the literal and figurative free-for-all obtaining locally in the use of Maltese compositions has to stop.

UKAM insists that the PRS (Performing Rights Society) "should liaise with all broadcast stations to make sure all playlists are obtained from all the stations to ensure a fair and accurate distribution. It is further suggested that PRS should offer incentives for the next two years to radio stations to send in their playlists. A radio station that sends in the playlist weekly would qualify for this incentive scheme."

In addition, "TV stations airtime royalty rates and logs need to be established and distributed accordingly. All other platforms making use of local music, such as cinemas, internet streaming, Youtube, etc., need to be accounted for..."

This is quite a tall order. As one of the very few people who bothered to reply to my queries succinctly put it, "... [The] PRR is using the local copyright farce to pay composers/authors a pittance. It seems that the monies declared as being paid to local artists are not actually being received. This to the extent that we are all investing money and never getting 'paid' by those using our 'services/creations'."

television@timesofmalta.com