I.M. Beck - quote unquote

So, Lehman Brothers have been chosen to advise the government on the privatisation of Maltacom, have they?

Who was responsible for this choice, may I ask? Which friend of whose niece of which brother of whose aunt's second cousin thrice removed, who had bought the copybook from which the paper was taken on which to design the drawing table on which was drawn the outside toilet of which Cabinet minister's granny's maid's summer house in Bugibba was the one who chose Lehman Brothers for this nice little earner?

I demand to know. The Auditor-General had better rouse himself and investigate this one and pretty darn quickly, too, otherwise I will sulk and stamp my foot and hold my breath until I die. And it will be all his fault, so there.

I mean to say, it must be a scandal that Lehman Brothers were chosen to do this job. They are absolutely useless at this sort of thing, after all, they've never done this work before. To make matters worse, once they're not Malta Labour Party activists they were obviously chosen by the Nationalist government because they must be Nationalists sympathisers.

Why else would they have got their hands into this little cookie jar, a bit like Pooh Bear and his nose and the honey pot?

Scandal, I tell you, scandal.

The Prime Minister, who is also Minister of Finance, has to take responsibility for this scandalous choice and answer to the court of public opinion. I will be convening the massed ranks of ladies who imbibe coffee and telling them, every day for the rest of the year, that this is a scandal and that it is scandalous that such a scandal should be allowed to remain a scandal without anyone investigating it.

And my faithful little henchmen will be doing the same thing, all the time.

The end of the world is nigh

Sometimes, I have to wonder if religious fundamentalism hasn't gone too far. Perhaps fundamentalism is too strong a word: Maybe the more appropriate word would be intrusion, the intrusion of religion (and by that I mean Organised Religion, not religious faith, which is private) into every corner of our lives.

Then I realise that I don't have to wonder at all: It has gone too far, and that a long, long time ago. Organised Religion, which metamorphoses into fundamentalism and its attendant horrors all too quickly, has got into everything and everywhere and I don't much like it.

I'm not only talking about peculiar notions such as the one espoused by the Islamist (or, more accurately, allegedly Islamist) group that kidnapped and threatened to kill those French journalists over the last few days. These weirdoes think that depriving someone of life and liberty is a nifty way to stick up for human rights. Follow the logic on this one, if you will: The French government, sticking to its own mildly fundamentalist logic that all external religious signs are a bad thing, banned Islamist girls from wearing the headscarf in schools. So some other fundamentalists kidnapped the journalists to strike a blow for human rights.

You can come a bit closer to home, if you like. Page one of this very newspaper last Monday, confirming that it was August and the silly season, dedicated itself to reporting on the discontinuation of an announcement at the airport that Mass was about to be celebrated. The disestablishment of the Protestant Church in Wales in the last millennium could hardly have created such a stir and it doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone that no one should really be interested in this sort of thing.

Just as a thought, wouldn't it have been a bit less newsworthy if, instead of banning one type of announcement, a more generalised public service announcement about the availability of a space for prayer, where services are also conducted, had been made? After all, people who genuinely want to hear Mass don't need a Tannoy announcement to remind them but travellers who want to commune with their god would need to know about the space where they can do this with some peace.

And what about this overabundance of religion on the air-waves? Sometimes all you seem to be able to hear on the radio is religious programming, to say nothing of the number of television channels that are taken up by some Yank or other telling us how great his particular brand (and I choose that word with care) of faith is and exhorting us to send him dollars.

I know, as I always tell people who are annoyed by this column, I can switch off or tune out or whatever it is that one does with things one isn't remotely interested in, but given that the world's woes, or many of them, come from the frictions caused when one type of Organised Religion rubs against another, perhaps we have to start attacking the electronic manifestations of the phenomenon.

And we need to start protecting the more gullible from themselves, too, because I suspect that many people are being duped by the so-called religious ministers that infest the airwaves.

Government wants, government should get

A young lawyer of my acquaintance got her dander up last week because the PM gave the impression that just because the government thinks there should be more golf courses in the country, the government should get its way.

I might be mistaken, not having studied constitutional law as recently as my friend, but isn't it the function of a government to govern?

And isn't the process of government carried out by identifying goals (including deciding how many golf courses are needed) and then working towards achieving them? On the other hand, I suppose we could just let everyone give his opinion and then decide on the basis of trying to reconcile these opinions.

Oh I forgot, that's what governments are also supposed to do. The thing is, of course, everyone thinks his opinion, especially if it has a greenish tinge, is the right one and any other point of view is that of a running dog lackey of the governing cabal.

Yawn

Just so that he won't think I didn't notice his latest attempt to get this column removed from circulation, allow me some of your precious time to let Mr Franco Farrugia know that I did, in fact, spot his little effort last Monday.

According to this exponent of the deployment of the bludgeon as opposed to the rapier, he went to university for much longer than I did. That's as may be, I thought six years was enough for me. Please accept my humble apologies for not wasting more of my time and my father's pension. Why Mr Farrugia thinks this is something to boast about, however, escaped me.

Mr Farrugia seems to think he has some brownie points being saved up in Heaven because the courses he attended were not designed to bring money to him (his words, not mine) and because he was not choosy as to which university course he attended (again, his words not mine). Again, he thinks that his lack of foresight or discrimination is a matter for self-praise.

While we're about talking about this Farrugia person and his educational exploits, it is clear from his manner of expressing himself, he didn't attend any courses on logic or, for that matter, English.

But as long as he has the courage to attack me, that's all right then.

In the ditch

It's that time of the year again, when Etnika strut their stuff for us. This summer's show took place in St John's Ditch, a magnificent setting if ever there was one. Someone has to take a good long look at the bastions and fortifications around the cities and turn them into cultural experiences (you will note I am not using capital letters).

The show was enjoyable enough, though the consensus around me was that last year's was just a bit better. Not that there was anything wrong with this year's, far from it, it just suffered a touch from the comparison with the 2003 masterpiece.

If they will forgive me, the Etnika crew might be well advised to be sure to avoid seeming a bit too pleased with themselves. Back in the 1970s, bands like Genesis, Yes, Pink Floyd and such like had started producing theme albums that took the best part of three weeks to listen to, with arty farty covers that meant all things to all men.

Etnika haven't gone down this road (and they do bear comparison with the great bands, because they are a great band) but the portents are there, a small cloud no larger than a man's hand.

But enough carping, the show was very good all the same and I'm already looking forward to next year's, when I am sure that the sponsors will be sure to have something other than lukewarm water and orange juice, which I can't stand, available to poor sods like me who can't drink alcohol lest the dreaded lurgies strike them down.

bocca@waldonet.net.mt