I am handicapped, a touch, by the fact that I consider Toni Abela, soon to be grilled by whoever it is who does these things, to see whether he is fit and proper to be a member of the European Union’s Court of Auditors, as a friend. We don’t see eye to eye on politics, it need hardly be said, and when he is in rabid mode, I find him as off-putting as a particularly off-putting episode of Xarabank but we go back a long way, to when he was in the year just behind mine at Tal-Qroqq, so there’s still something in me that prompts me to pull my punches.

Not that the newspaper he used to edit, KullĦadd (or still does, for all I know, it’s such a turgid rag that I don’t even click on its portal) ever pulled any punches in my regard but I doubt he ever read the thing before it was published, so he’s only technically to blame.

All of that said, I have to wonder out loud what in the name of Apollo possessed Premier Joseph Muscat to nominate Abela to the Court of Auditors.

It’s not that he (Abela) hasn’t the brains for it, he is blessed with a good mind, but he carries so much baggage that I can’t see how his grilling will go well. It may well be the case that it will all end in tears - what with having to clear up the messes that Premier Joseph’s party clubs seem to have had lying around, all that white powdery stuff getting all over the place, and with having to appease the masses by acting like a lousy talk show host all the time (why does Xarabank come to mind again?). How can it not?

Shouldn’t Owen Bonnici resign for this gaffe?

Of course, these grilling sessions can’t really be taken as the be-all and end-all of the vetting process, given that John Dalli had gone through it and see where that all ended up, with him jetting off to the Bahamas or wherever for such a short visit that he met himself coming back.

And then there’s the overriding stench of political patronage that permeates Abela’s nomination by Premier Joseph.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with governments nominating people they trust but this bunch of clowns got elected on the platform of changing this sort of thing, which three years into Premier Joseph’s tenure of Castille hasn’t exactly been the case, now has it?

If I wanted to be evil, I’d ask publicly what Abela has done to deserve what is, when you come down it, quite a plum appointment. On the other hand, it’s also possible to ask at the same time what Abela did to annoy Premier Joseph so much that he’s kicking him upstairs. But that’s if I wanted to be evil. Or, to put it in the Urquhart fashion, you might well say that this is all pretty occult, but I certainly couldn’t.

As occult, and I’m not bound by any scruples of friendship here, is Premier Joseph’s apparent unbridled enthusiasm to have the husband of Sai Lang, Konrad Mizzi, currently minister for everything you can think of (though he’s not exactly making sparks fly to put it mildly) take up the additional role of deputy leader for party affairs.

Now, I know that the Labour Party administration has been absorbed into the public service, lock, stock and two smoking barrels and that Premier Joseph’s largesse has been doled out to such an extent that the jolly old party has no worries that MaltaToday will have to headline its financial travails but surely the post of deputy leader, party affairs is more than a part-time, every so often of an evening, job.

And that’s quite apart from the fact that this appointment shows that, as far as Premier Joseph is concerned, there’s no difference between ministerial and party roles, because he wants to lumber his henchman with both of them, whether or not he has the time for it.

On the other hand, Mizzi is pretty much at a loose end in his free time, the missus being away in her homeland doing so, so, so much to justify her princely (princessely?) stipend off the backs of we the great unwashed taxpayers, so one has to assume that he’s going to knuckle down and do to the party what he did to the country.

You know, promise the earth, the moon and the stars (a shiny new power station within months, for instance) and then fail to deliver and fail to takethe consequences.

Yes, why don’t we judge Sai Mizzi Lang’s husband on his achievements and see whether he’s even up to the job of being minister of one thing, let alone a plethora and deputy leader, party affairs, all at the same time? He’ll have to give up on the affairs, I think, without even starting them.

I’m not saying that Premier Joseph’s other nominations to the Bench of Magistrates is another manifestation of a Caligula complex, that’s for history to decide on, but seriously!

A lawyer who technically might not even be qualified, time-wise, to take the oath unless it’s delayed to at least a minute after midnight on the seventh anniversary of her being warranted to practise and another whose experience is, well, let’s say not the broadest. And that’s quite apart from having her nomination to run out to be downright unconstitutional. Shouldn’t Owen Bonnici resign for this gaffe?

Yeah right, but don’t holdyour breath.

Do you remember, and if you’re a legal professional you should, the furore when a well-respected and eminently qualified lawyer, Andrè Camilleri, had been nominated to the judiciary?

There was much harrumphing and huffing and puffing about how his range of experience was not broad enough that he didthe decent thing and pulled out. This is where a hollow laughis appropriate.

Do you remember, and if you’re sentient, you should, how Bonnici had solemnly appointed a panel of eminent jurists who had recommended that care should be taken with judicial appointments and that the system should be given an overhaul?

It was all part of the meritocracy twaddle that the Tagħna Lkoll (Malta for all) crowd were prattling about before they became Tagħna Kollu u Biss (all ours and ours alone) and I have to ask Bonnici, who I know reads this, whether he thinks that these two nominations live up to the hype he had promulgated.

I think not, and that’s without going into the personal attributes of the nominees, who now have the responsibility to ensure that their nomination does not result in we the people becoming even more cynically disposed towards Premier Joseph and his apparent failure to have even the slightest respect for the conventions that predicate governance in a country that respects the rule of law.

If they think they’ve been honoured by Premier Joseph’s government, that’s fine, personally, I think they’ve been handed a pretty lousy chalice.

And so to the end bit: Terazzo in Xlendi and Fu Hua in Victoria were visited over the weekend and most enjoyable they both were. If I had to whinge, Fu Hua should cut back a bit on the portion size and the level of heating but, all in all, good stuff.