Bar bells

The inhabitants of Terry Pratchett's Discworld saga, some of whom would not feel out of place in Middle Earth, have a knack of juxtaposing the sublime and the ridiculous, and making them both look commonplace.

In the fragmentary continuum intrinsic to the weave of the stories, one of the characters comes by a lyre. He carries it around with him, not only to play the troubadour which its powers made him become, but also so that he could shout "Lyre!" at anyone who called the instrument a harp.

It's amazing what the post will throw up - literally and figuratively - some days, when those correspondents who never sign their names have nothing better to do.

This week, for instance, I was taken to task for using the phrases "law courts" and "cut up garbage bag" in the same sentence last week - albeit in a context altogether different from what made one of this week's main news headlines.

One good thing did come out of the charming missive, however; I was sent a copy of Fr Joe Borg's It-Tentazzjoni ta' Gona 2000: Riflessjoni dwar il-Knisja u l-Mass Media, with some phrases on page 20 [Chapter 3; How Jonah Sees Nineveh], duly highlighted, as follows: (i) if something is right and fitting (tajjeb) this is due to the media; if something is wrong, it's the media's fault; (ii) if St Paul were to return to earth, he would be head of Reuters; (iii) the Fourth Temptation of Christ would be an offer of a primetime show on the Roman Empire's television network.

Far be it from me to comment on the above, or, even to conjecture on why people who believe they have something to say (but resort to using the works of others to do so), do not sign their names to it.

All the while, I suspect, some colleagues were, as had been the aforementioned artiste, simply dying for even a minor legal (b)eagle to slip up, just so that they could play about with the syllables in juris-prudence and juris-diction and possibly just-ice.

Again, it is interesting to note how the different stations tackled the matter; it seemed to me that even the choice of photographs of the main two people involved in the issue was not simply a matter of picking out a snapshot from a file. And the third person was, once more, accorded folk hero status by having his nickname applied to his name and surname, several times in one bulletin.

We get off-the-record reminiscences about students and teachers going a.w.o.l. during lessons, and reminders of Desserta chocolate. The past, as they say, is prologue.

All that's left is for one of our talented cartoonists to make a play on the syllable "in" as it is removed from "independent" and applied to "justice" - or has this been done before?

The Asian blade wants to upgrade his Austin, preferably to a Peugeot 206.

So he plays the crash test dummy; he gets an elephant (ah, so that's why the advertisement was shot on location) to sit on the bonnet; he does a spot of welding, and backs his vehicle into a wall. Somehow, in passing, the car also acquires the alien-eyes headlamps. He is now ready for a night on the town, because in silhouette, at least, the car looks like the one he covets.

Thought: a car that withstands that treatment and still takes one from A to B must be good. Who needs a new doppelgänger?

This being summer, even the weather reports tend to look and sound as similar, day after day, as does not matter. The rest of the programmes on what could well now be called Puny Bis Station are repeats of repeats; it's funny hearing people refer to Eastertide, summer, and Christmas within 24 hours... and as for the repeats of the World Cup matches and the Festivals, words nearly fail me.

Since it is reasoned that "nobody" - except perhaps those who (i) don't have a life or (ii) have a column to write or (iii) a combination of (i) and (ii) - watches television, I am told, it is 'useless' actually having a schedule as such, i.e. one that has original items (apart from the news, which, also becomes repetitive on the second bulletin, where rarely is an iota changed from the news script of the one before).

If this is the reasoning behind this dreaded schedule (I know all stations are repeating things ad nauseam, but PBS is the only station supported by our licences - so far), ought we not to get a discount for the summer months?

This week one of the aforesaid repeats was of the Xarabank wherein a medium had charged Lm30 for seeing ghosts, or rather, purporting to have seen one that had never even been alive.

When I hear stories of how a medium would gladly provide me (against Lm20 or so) with a concoction of nondescript powder for sprinkling into a coffee, for a particular purpose, and hearing someone ask whether some people work for free (oh yes, some of us do voluntary work for which there is no earthly payment) I shudder to think of how many people fall under the category of "she's made a fool of herself" (sic).

As the alien said, when counting on his fingers.... One, two, three, many...

One of the silliest advertisements I came across had an important message to impart, nonetheless. It told us that the ideal way to kill mosquitoes was not to electrocute them, or to squash them flat with a rolled-up newspaper. Rather, we could starve them to death... by donating blood.

It came from Radio Telecolor, by the way, the same station that encourages foreigners listening in to go and spend, spend, spend, at a particular shopping complex.

And the Worst Song Award must go to the ditty about how you an' me baby, ain't nothing but mammals, and goes on to mention the Discovery Channel as well as graphic details that are irrelevant to the documentaries aired therein.

Speaking of songs... this week we had memories of Marilyn Monroe coming out of our ears. And sure enough, one particular d.j. (or d.d. as in disc dolly?) put the cherry on the icing on the cake by telling us she would be playing the song that Elton John had dedicated to her - and promptly spun the second version, i.e. the one dedicated to Princess Diana.