News • 29 December 2002

L-Istrina returns triumphant in record charity bonanza

By Matthew Vella

G’Mangia - Whilst everyone else at PBS were reeling in the donations and making merry and going mental in the name of charity, the sombre and grainy vision of Super One TV was broadcasting a shoddy Charlie Chaplin reel. Labour thought that their boycott was going to be the stuff of political statements this year, but both MLP’s politicians and Super One’s favourite celebrity cast were down at Gwardamangia, relishing in transvestitism and playing the fool for a good cause.

With yesterday’s record collection of over Lm700,000 (until going to print), political and charitable TV productions have amassed over Lm1 million in donations for political campaigns and charitable organisations in the month of December.

Give, generously

It seems a shame that Labour seemed to have turned their back on such an important annual event by planting the excuse that Azzopardi’s alleged Nationalist agenda is giving Labour bad PR. If anything, it is Labour’s own cultural revolution that has their PR machine backfiring with too much paranoia stuck in its spokes.

Two breakaways who could not give a flying toss about the boycott were Labour MP’s Mr Karmenu Vella and Dr Louis Buhagiar.

Even the freemasons have now come into the open, in what is probably the first public appearance of the beleaguered society

But yesterday’s kitsch bonanza defied all possible odds, lasting twelve hours and amassing record sums of hundreds of thousands not even halfway into the day, turned out to be a festival of sorts with celebrities switching gender roles, miming aimlessly to songs and battling it out in a gladiators-style arena.

It was a good performance all round, with around 300 celebrities giving their due by dancing to muzak anthems, and although some of L-Istrina’s tired performances show no sign of waning, the people have given, generously. Within the first 45 minutes L-Istrina had already reeled in over Lm40,000. Halfway through, L-Istrina were less than Lm100,000 away from their half-a-million goal with Lm416,734 collected by six ‘o’ clock.

Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami, sporting conservative dress-down gear, gave L-Istrina’s audience a rudimentary message to dig deeper in their pockets and said that the programme would be registering record figures this year. Politicians, ex-politicians and trade unionists were present at the TV festival to take to the ‘phones and collect the money that poured in minute after minute.

The boycotts don’t work

The critics, Labour included, denounced WE?’s charity-grabbing techniques for bribing their audiences with lavish prizes, which ranged from kitchen appliances, mobile phones to computer software and even brand new cars. Indeed, it was a skewed example of the way charity works in Malta. So it was television after all, and not charity that was sending everybody crazy and sending in the donations yesterday – television for a good cause, but television nonetheless.

Sending their siege tactics to high gear, Labour organised a phone-in charity production at Bay Street just a day before L-Istrina, but their figures were nowhere near yesterday’s record figure.

So it was the WE? team who showed the Labour Party that charity and politics do not mix, or do they? A sly Where’s Everybody? sent their kind regards to the Labour Party by planting their cameras on Karmenu Vella, MLP tourism spokesperson, who manned the phones besides UHM Secretary General Gejtu Vella and Speaker of the House Anton Tabone.

MLP health spokesperson Louis Buhagiar too made his appearance and took to the ‘phones, but not before calling for the people to forget their political differences and the political pique.

If that wasn’t a dig at the scribes of arcane socialism at Mile End, it was certainly a smack on the wrist – boycotts and charity do not mix.

matthew@maltamag.com

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