Tuesday, 1st April 2008
SYMPTOMS
Sometimes the smallest things are symptomatic of bigger ones.
A couple of days ago, from a supermarket in Ghasri (possibly the Northernmost one in the country) I bought a case of Dr Pepper, a drink I've always enjoyed but which up to a few months ago you couldn't get retail for love or money. It's even in a can, which is a method of imbibing sweet fizzy drinks which I like, since it seems to keep cooler longer.
My satisfaction would be complete if I could source somewhere they sell the diet version of the stuff, a product which I am assured has been seen here. You might wonder what this singularly unimportant fact has to do with anything. To be honest, even while I'm writing this (while watching Man U struggling to keep Roma at bay) I'm wondering whether I'm painting myself into a corner and asking how I'm going to get out the conceptual cul-de-sac into which I've driven myself.
Well, it's like this. Not very many months ago, in order to slurp down a Dr Pepper, I'd have to be abroad. Culinarily speaking Malta was at the back of beyond, at least as far as soft drinks were concerned. Now we're well in the mainstream of the European experience.
Those of you with a memory will remember that once it wasn't only Dr Pepper we couldn't get our hands on. Apart from that foul concoction called Deserta, there was no legitimate chocolate of any description available in Malta. You'd sometimes get a grocer or bar-owner pulling you aside and in the low tones reserved for purveyors of filthy pictures or dodgy substances, let you know that a Mars bar was there for the scoffing.
Travellers would stuff their bags with toothpaste, pasta and every manner of simple luxury, hoping that the valiant boys from Customs wouldn't be too larcenous.
Things started to change in 1987, not coincidentally with the demise of the ludicrous socio-economic policies foisted on us by Mintoff and his anointed successor, Dr KMB. It's taken twenty years and entry into the European Union, but finally, those insane times are over, and we can get Dr Pepper.
I was contemplating the possibility of expanding the foregoing into a development of the allegory between the freedom to buy Dr Pepper and the slightly more fundamental freedoms with which we've been blessed since 1987. But then I thought I'd leave that to you guys out there, who can use the comments section to demonstrate your superior intellects and disdain for my shallowness.
Come on, you know you can do it.
ON ANOINTING
Although the MLP's many apologists and tame elves keep telling us that it's none of our business who they choose as their leader, I'm afraid we're going to have to keep pointing out that, yes, it is our business.
A democracy depends on the dynamics of Government and Opposition (now there's a platitude for you) and it is somewhat important that, for a change, we get an Opposition Leader who gives the Government a run for our money.
From the outside looking in, it's clear to someone of even my mean intellect that a tricycle made up of George Abela, Everist Bartolo and Michael Falzon would be a pretty jalopy to go up against. I would go as far as to say that the PN would probably have to expect to kiss the five years after the next five good-bye if these guys were running the MLP.
I've always said, if Labour had dumped Sant just after his defeat (don't ask which defeat, take your pick, he's had three before this last one) they wouldn't have spent the last ten years in Opposition, with another five to go. In fact, if they'd just only turned up for the last one, with Sant having been told to shut up and to ensure that his minions do the same, they'd have probably won it.
As it is, we all know what happened - a lead of 15,000 or so evaporated in a matter of weeks. So the obvious thing to do, IMHO, is the obvious thing to do - get Abela to lead, dump the rubbish and spend the next five years trying to make people forget what (who) they voted against.
If you're inclined towards wanting the PN to remain in Government, on the other hand, you'd probably want nothing of the sort to happen, of course. What you'd want to happen is for the people not to forget who they voted against, by having his anointed successor take up where Sant left off.
I've nothing against Joseph Muscat, for all his youthful arrogance a few years back, which has grown itself up into a less youthful arrogance, but is he Prime Ministerial material? Is he Leader of the Opposition material, for that matter?
In the dreams of PN supporters hoping for a free ride into 2014 and beyond, the MLP Dream Team would have Muscat as Leader and Toni Abela, with his hyper-energetic motor-mouth style of left(ish) policy-making on the hoof as one deputy. The other one could be Anglu Farrugia, since his clear and unclouded grasp of how votes are bought and sold would make him the ideal successor to Michael Falzon as Deputy Leader for Party Affairs (with responsibility for conducting electoral campaigns).
Naturally, this dream team would let Jason Micallef and E(m)anuel Cuschieri keep their jobs, though if I were the Labour Party's financial team, I'd consider charging their salaries to the PN, as that organisation gets much more value out of them than the MLP does.
In the dark depths of the minds of Labour's intellectuals, no doubt the thought is brewing that I'm pushing Abela and co because the Muscat triptych is unbeatable. Such is the paranoia engendered by the siege mentality that has gripped Labour's intelligentsia that the fact that Muscat is clearly Sant's choice will be completely and utterly ignored and they'll choose him.
Oh well, as they've said often enough, it's none of my business. Fair enough, just as long as they don't say I didn't tell them.
And Man U are no longer struggling, incidentally. Class will tell, even though it's Man U, not Chelsea.
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Nonetheless my advice still stands since I received an e-mail regarding artificial sweeteners which raised my hair on end. Bad stuff!