Opinion • December 21 2003

Not in Christmas mode yet

Lord of the Rings fails to impress Saviour Balzan and off he goes on a head-on collision with Maltese banks for failing to ask for fiscal receipts from building contractors

I am trying very hard this time round to switch on to Christmas mode. Cynics find it very difficult to do so. It is simply, just too difficult. Don’t ask me why, I simply cannot. I even tried my luck with Lord of the Rings part three and yes, I did read the book many years ago. I fail to understand what is so exciting and riveting about the last sequel apart from piercing swords, rolling heads, crumbling bastions of Gondor and men dressed up in armour. It is really a boy’s film and anyone who argues that this is a U film with a PG in capitals must be joking. I know I have deeply offended countless Tolkien aficionados. But this is a film for boys who love to play with small plastic soldiers and mimic sounds of battle cries and exploding gunpowder.
All this is a clear sign that I am getting old, and nostalgic for the good old time when paedophilia apparently did not exist - but was probably rampant, and all priests were saints and ‘red’ meant Labour and ‘blue’ Nationalist. To me a kids’ film was a simple unadulterated Snow White and the Seven Dwarves - not a film with a Lord of Rings dwarf who is not content unless he bludgeons the next decomposing headless limping creature.
It seems that film enterta-inment just cannot move one step forward without some reference to violence. I have to admit that I too can sit down and watch these films although it will not leave a good feeling afterwards, despite having been a child brought up with war comics such as Victor. The logic behind all these films is dangerous. Entertainment is all about detaching oneself from the real world. Sometime it takes us too far to the darker side of human nature.
Back to reality and to something very much more relevant, where the ugly word ‘taxes’ is permeating every little gossip corner at Christmas parties.
One thing that is killing me other than over-feeding - perhaps not in the same gory fashion as the Rings epic - is banks providing millions in credit to hundreds of building developers and owners who continue to be allowed to provide fictitious receipts without a fiscal reference.
This state of affairs cannot go on and I hope that Minister of Finance John Dalli calls on the banks’ chief executives to ask them to adopt ‘good practices.’ I would also expect the procedures in banks to change in such a way that payment is issued directly to plumbers, plasterers, architects, builders speculators against presentation of a bona fide fiscal receipt and not to the proprietors.
If the banks, and this applies mostly to HSBC and Bank of Valletta, had to apply this simple procedure, the Maltese coffers would surely register an increase and those scores of tax-evading cowboys in the building industry would have to start paying their dues.
After all, if the government is asking John Citizen to ask for a fiscal receipt then why should the banks not do the same from that long list of Church-going tax evaders driving rundown escorts during the week but sporting metallic Peugeots on Sundays?
And by the way a Merry Christmas to you all.