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It is 2025 or just 18 years from now. In other words, the same number of years the Nationalist party have been governing for.
Grand old Dom is 108 and is still very lucid but concerned about his image and his ‘savings’. Lawrence Gonzi is a sweet 73 and Alfred Sant will just be 76, and both are still leaders of their party.
The Nationalist Cabinet will not have changed, other than those who have departed and fallen in the arms of the good Lord.
The Malta Environment and Planning Authority has finally changed its name to the Malta Reconstruction Authority, while the Malta Communications Authority is now the Malta Security Service.
To escape the claustrophobia of an over-built Gozo, many Gozitans have made Ryanair their favourite airline from their airport at Ta’ Lambert, Xewkija to somewhere cooler in the North of Europe. Air Malta has ceased to exist.
Unfortunately the new underclass is now established in Sliema and Birkirkara, because the housing estates are no man’s land.
There is no public transport. There are power cuts and water shortages, and sewage flows freely into the sea. Asthma is a national illness present in eight out of ten children. The birth rate is down by 25 per cent.
The manning of hypermarkets, and street cleaning, is seen to by naturalised immigrants who have replaced Maltese who previously occupied lower-scale jobs. Even our wardens are first-generation Somalis who politely stop you to fine you in their strong accent: “Skuuzzi sinjur, ghandek karrozza mahhmugga, se jkolli ntikk mullta ta’ hammsin lira.”
The Bank of Valletta is no longer – it’s now called Banco di Paradiso, which prides itself in catering only for wealthy clients, with just one employee in each branch. Many miss the friendly cashier.
Tigné towers has just been inaugurated by the outgoing Minister of Tourism, Dr Francis Zammit Dimech. In the presence of good old Bertie Mizzi OBE, now at the venerable age of 98, Zammit Dimech imparts an axiom which is devoid of irony because it is no longer as absurd: “The community should be forever grateful to those people who have contributed to making Malta what it is today, a concrete jungle.”
The bombed opera house in Valletta is now a cultural centre, but it still resembles a parking lot.
Dolores Cristina is seen congratulating the new Commission on Pensions Reform (segment five), thanking them for their latest report and asks Georg Sapiano to fine-tune his conclusions and send the bill.
Many hotels in the north of the island have closed down and now serve as homes for the elderly – Winston Zahra calls for the Prime Minister’s resignation.
To avoid UV burns and jellyfish bites, the newly appointed Minister for Recreation, Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, opens the seventh air-conditioned national pool, declaring in record temperatures of 44 degrees C: “This government is close to the people, our commitment to an air-conditioned swimming pool is proof that this government wants everyone to have a taste of the real world, for everyone to have a better life.”
With his dashing mop of white hair, Minister of Finance Tonio Fenech announces Malta will soon solve its deficit problem and that the electorate will be forever grateful to the PN.
Jesmond Mugliett is 60, his cherubic looks still heaving through the old age that has ripened him, and still donning his sunglasses, announces that the new road resurfacing programme for some 400 roads needs to be completed since the roads where last resurfaced in 2006.
The Ministry for Environment and Rural Affairs has been abolished and replaced by the Ministry for Golf. Even the Minister of Foreign Affairs is no more (since foreign affairs is now the sole responsibility of the European Union since the Constitution came into force).
The US embassy in Ta’ Qali is being rebuilt after a suicide bomb, the first of its kind on Maltese soil, by three Palestinians who lost their families in an Israeli raid in the Promised Land. Construction workers who had demolished the asbestos-ridden site 20 years ago are today complaining of constant illness: their families sue for damages.
BirdLife Malta and the hunters’ federation fold up after coming to terms with the fact that there are no more birds to watch or shoot at, depending on their interests.
It is also the year Richard Cachia Caruana, 67, is appointed President of the Republic, the first to address the Maltese parliament in English. The Opposition is furious: Toni Abela, at 67 is finally on Labour’s front bench, and leaps from his chair, yelling, throwing a fit: “Mur lura minn fejn gejt u hallini bi kwietna!”
At Super One TV there is little or no change, even the pleasant appearance of 48-year-old Miriam Dalli has not changed. It is amazing what cosmetics can do to your looks.
At MLP HQ the new editor for Maltastar.com is Joseph Muscat, who has just decided to re-enter politics.
In the newspaper The Independent, now downsized to a monthly newspaper, the 60-year-old Daphne is still growing strong and has lost none of her spirit but has since changed her opinion about Alfred Sant and thinks that he is a great man after all.
In-Nazzjon is no longer In-Nazzjon, but Fil-Gvern (ghal dejjem), and it warns its readers that if Alfred Sant is elected he will ruin Malta forever.
Sant has been in opposition for the last 36 years, yet he still laments over the golden years in Malta (which if my memory does not fail me, were 1997 and 1998).
Mater Dei has turned out to be far too small to cater for the sickly population, and 73-year-old Health Minister Louis Deguara declares that it will take another 15 years for a new hospital to be finalised. It will be called Christus Rex and will cost 1 billion. It will be completed to coincide with the birthday of the caring and much loved Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi.
At age 58, Mario Demarco is the only sensible voice in the Nationalist Party, calling for some humility in the party.
Serving now as Maltese Ambassador to the European Union, the much respected and humble Joanna Drake, at age 60, is using her extensive experience to refurnish the palatial embassy in Brussels and of course to further Malta’s interests and sacrificing hers of course.
PBS has been closed down, the only thing that remains is a bronze statue of Austin Gatt, with the words: “I came, I restructured, I rid Malta of PBS”.
Heading the new TV channel, financed by the state but run as a private consortium, is the able… guess whom.
As Attorney General, Dr Gonzi sensibly handpicks Dr Peter Fenech, one of Malta’s most respected lawyers.
The EU Commissioner put forward by Malta is Michael Axiaq, just appointed in the newly set up Commission for stem cell research. Replacing the ageing Joe Saliba, the dynamic and enduring David Casa installs himself on the throne as secretary general of the Nationalist Party. He throws a party to celebrate his appointment at Dock One, which is now an open-air entertainment zone.
As UN diplomat and authority in conflict politics, Malta sends off its robust 68-year-old Austin Gatt to the Middle East to settle an issue between the Hamas and the Egyptians.
In what used to be the General Workers’ Union, a new bingo hall is now erected. To honour the last secretary general of the now defunct union, the hall is called the Zarb hall.
As for me, I have been long departed. The new editor at MaltaToday is a churlish lady who considered me irrelevant and not positive enough. The shareholders themselves bought me out after a bitter boardroom war.
At least the same good caring Gonzi is still at the helm flanked by his gracious and precious ministers. And I see the same karrozzini, the same white taxis, the same neglect and the same old faces. This is my Malta. Thank God for that.
The end of trapping
The front page features an article on the end of spring trapping and hunting at sea during spring.
Maltese hunters and trappers may be compared to white taxi drivers: they are the untouchables. But on this one, for once the European Union has come to our rescue.
That’s because in the areas of hunting and trapping, there is something they call the Birds Directive. It will take ages before the whole spirit of the directive is transposed, but I have faith that before 2025, I will be able to walk without seeing a hunter and a trapper in the countryside.
I have this creepy feeling that the reason hunters and trappers will be no more is simply because the whole of the island would have been converted to one mega development zone.
It is also very clear that enforcement this autumn and next year will be generally lacking – the PN does not want to unsettle the hunters and trappers more than they should.
That’s no good: the trappers and hunters know their days are numbered, and most take it out on the birds that fly past them by simply blasting them to kingdom come.
The next local council elections in March are reputed to be high in voters who are also trappers. Munxar, Gharghur, Kercem, Luqa, Mosta, Qala, Safi, San Lawrenz, Siggiewi, Xaghra and Zebbug will be sending a message and it is not good.
But the government should be steadfast and get on with the job.
Far right, and far out
What gets into other newspapers is of course not my bloody business, but I could never understand the Times and the importance it gives to organisations such as the ANR with their Islamophobia. This is what that Philip Beattie had to say on a right-hand page provided by the Times:
“It also showed how members of the political establishment and non-governmental organisations were ready to go to appease both the Arab world and the locally growing Muslim community without any regard of fuelling radical Islam and anti-Semitic sentiments in Malta.”
What a whole load of hogwash. As if expressing concern for the plight of the Palestinians and Lebanese equates one with being an anti-Semite.
The editor of a newspaper knows exactly the difference between a right-hand page and a left-hand page. For example Alfred Sant is invariably on a left-hand page but Beattie, whose colleague wished to wring my neck, is on a right-hand page.
The only politician, and a retired one at that who has the good sense of standing up for the good cause of the innocent Lebanese and talks about the Middle East with a passion and an authority, is Guido Demarco, a stalwart defender of the Middle East and someone who still has a genuine interest in the future of Allied Newspapers.
Well, it does not really matter does it, if the confused editorial policy of The Times is not to have any editorial policy at all.
Clarification
Reference is made to an opinion where I stated that the preferred wine at a garden party in Naxxar was Chablis. The wine was not Chablis but Sancerre. I apologise for any inconvenience caused and I commit myself not to repeat such a horrible mistake.
Welcoming the status quo
The proposal to decide on the future of the Opera house is no proposal at all. It simply works on the premise that since no-one can decide on the Opera house and since there is no money, we might as well use it as an open-air cultural centre.
The only job that needs to get done is to set up a placard with the words: “Valletta’s open-air cultural centre, left in the precise condition it was originally found – a bombed Opera house.” |
