Newsreport by Saviour Balzan

Déjà vu sets in as summer settles with a vengeance

The newsrooms were crying for some action, the Tuna war was a reprieve from the same sad old news regarding Maghtab and the Swiss in the Med. The Prime Minister added some adrenaline with the motion on La Salle and his personal assistant cum chief negotiator, Richard Cachia Caruana had good reason to be smug.

There will be no exciting news for the time being. The Labour media says it believes that an election is on the cards – but none of those reliable unnamed sources could confirm such a thing. And the polls were still not exactly swaying completely in favour of another Nationalist victory.

And as Nationalist politicians promised to take a break, the Labour leader was offering to turn the Maltese summer into another campaign trail.

Dr Sant’s apparent lack of interest in swimming or summer recreation has contributed to the way the Labour Party looks at political campaigning in Summer.

But sincerely, the politicians’ bashing game is of little interest to the Maltese, who would prefer to indulge in a barbecue and talk about their children just returned from school or the excesses of Maltese society.

Because they will encounter plastic, dirt and filth on the beach they will consider a few alternatives.

Reluctant to wage a civic awareness campaign to keep the xtut indaf, the Maltese have chosen the easy way out.

Always great pragmatists, more people are turning to the communal lido or the private beaches – though most of them are abusively constructed – private boats and pleasure cruisers and believe it or not the home-spun swimming pools.

Such extremes are no longer restricted to the very rich – and today, many middle class families are not unwilling to indulge in such expensive pleasures.

The number of home swimming pools has shot up, as have the owners of pleasure boats and sailing boats.

But for the next three months, it will be ‘another summer’s night’, with the village fireworks rocking the windowpanes yet again, the foreign teenage students courting at Paceville with the Maltese sharks and the beaches getting uglier and filthier … until the first rains in October that is, when all the garbage is washed into the sea and politics returns once again to the fore.

saviourbalzan@maltamag.com