I.M. Beck - quote unquote

On Monday, halfway during a work thing I was doing, my mobile went off and since it was showing that my son was ringing, I answered it.

He was calling me with the news that one of his colleagues, Alfred Giglio, a photographer with this paper, had died suddenly. I didn't know Mr Giglio at all, but I am told by Ben that he was one of nature's gentlemen. The evidence for this is not only the many tributes I read about him in the next day's paper but also the evidence of the way he treated my son when he (Ben) was just starting out in the photojournalism trade with The Malta Independent.

Apparently, Mr Giglio was generous in the extreme with his advice and friendliness, making sure the rookie started out in the right direction. For this, and many other reasons, the photographer pack held Mr Giglio in the highest possible esteem, regarding him as a man about whom nothing bad - and certainly plenty of good - could be said.

It's no wonder that there were tears in Ben's eyes when he was telling me this. Another of the good guys has gone, way too early.

A question

I have been told that St Catherine's Road, leading from the Ibragg side of San Gwann to Gharghur, has been made a "No Entry - Residents Only" road, even though it is not an alley or insignificant side-road and even though it is not maintained by the residents.

When one says it is not maintained by the residents, one means to say it is maintained from public funds, with dosh, in other words, that you and I fork out and into the government's coffers.

My informant on the above may be wrong, even though she got a ticket for daring to sully the hallowed tarmac with her foul wheels and even though she is pretty darned sure she saw rude mechanicals obviously compensated with the Republic's Shilling repairing the road in question.

If my informant is wrong, I am wrong, and I tender humble, nay grovelling, apologies.

If, on the other hand, my informant is right, then I am right and we have a formerly public road that has become one for the pleasure and convenience of its residents only, even though it connects two centres of population.

If, then, I am right, could someone please let us, the eager-for-enlightenment public, the great unwashed, know precisely what's what and why it's what.

Otherwise, we poor folk will have to blunder on in our blithe assumption that some nob or other infests the area and has managed to tug a few strings to get his or her immediate environment into a more green and pleasant land in which to live.

Not quite

A gentleman of apparently English extraction took exception, last Monday, to my gentle poking of fun at - he understood - Mr Joseph Muscat MEP and his feat of derring do in getting the government to repeal the tax on satellite dishes.

Not quite, Mr Turner - I wasn't, actually, targeting His European Honourableness Mr Muscat, though let it never be said that I wouldn't extract the Michael from said Hon. Gent if (more likely, when) I am given the chance to, but unless my memory is really failing me, my mickey-extraction on the occasion to which Mr Turner was referring was aimed more at the fusspots who thought that not being made to pay a few measly quid for the privilege of watching satellite telly (privilege?) was something worth writing to the papers about in a laudatory fashion.

Mr Muscat's achievement in getting the government actually to do something is no less stunning for all that. The inertia that grips public authorities - even more pronounced as it is in the public authority to beat all public authorities, the central government - is wondrous to behold and anyone who gets such authorities to do something that they plainly don't want to do deserves a medal.

It's just that such a great deal of effort should give birth to an elephant, rather than a mouse, because when the mouse pops forth, snide remarkers such as I get to have fun and people like Mr Turner get irritated.

Oh well, I'll have to live with Mr Turner getting irritated.

Go to Paola

This afternoon, forget doing it yourself (do you do it yourself?) forget doing the shopping, forget doing the gardening, forget doing anything at all (and forget having a nap) and get yourself down to the Hibs Ground to give a fillip to the national rugby team as they take on Denmark.

These guys are doing us proud and with a bit of encouragement (and backs who don't drop the ball at the wrong time) (not to mention line-outs that sometimes win the darn thing) they might pull off another win and keep our heads high.

If the soccer boys had got anywhere near having the sort of success the chaps with the funnily-shaped ball have got used to, we'd be giving them medals of honour and freedoms of the city and all manner of honorifics. These lads, on the other hand, just about get a quick mention in the paper the next day, a pat on the behind, as it were and a "run along now, we've got better things to do".

The match starts at three, so there's plenty of time for you to get down to the Inner Harbour Area to do your duty.

Wonders never cease

Is it really happening? Will it come to pass? Will we really see it, and therefore believe it? Meaningful electoral change, I mean.

The two main parties, without which nothing will change, it has to be said, seem to be moving, admittedly with glacial speed, towards establishing some sort of consensus that - and rocket science this ain't - the number of votes the various parties get should entitle them to a proportionate voice in Parliament.

Naively, I used to think that proportional representation meant just this and then 1981 came about and thanks to Mr Dom Mintoff's engineering skills, 51 per cent of the electorate translated into less than 50 per cent of the House, which was not exactly proportional.

The trials and tribulations through which the democratic weal went in the following years led, thankfully, to an amendment to the law that - at least - ensured that the party that got the majority of votes got to govern.

Now it's time to take the next step and expand the idea to include the smaller parties, hopefully leading to a situation where we will be mature enough not to care too much who is actually in government, as long as they make a decent fist of it.

There is the risk, of course, that this will lead to Doctor Alfred Sant being allowed to have another play with the game of government but this is the chance we'll have to take if we want to have a Parliament that reflects the will of the people more fully.

On the other hand, a hung Parliament will keep the PM, whoever it happens to be, on his toes and no mistake.

Night-time robbery

On Saturday, we had the perfidious Arsenal robbing Man U of the FA Cup in a penalty shoot-out which saw the third or fourth most inconsistent keeper in England actually save a penalty and then on Wednesday we saw Liverpool perform a Houdini-like escape, pull back a three-goal deficit and go on to win on penalties after the fourth or fifth most inconsistent keeper in England pulled off a pair of miracles and saved three penalties.

If you are an Arsenal supporter, you should be ashamed of yourself. Your team won a match in which they were outplayed and outclassed and there's an end to it.

If you are a Milan supporter, you have my sympathy, sincerely. No team should be allowed to come back from three goals down against an Italian defence - in fact, it has to be said that the match was almost as insanely fast as a Premiership battle of the titans and I simply can't understand what possessed Milan, who carried on attacking like crazy even when two-nil up.

Milan should be shot!

Nice nosh

A couple of quick ones to round off the evening, as it were (I've just come back from watching the match at Saracino's (correct spelling this time...) where a nifty big screen was erected outside, after the people in charge went through various trials and tribulations to get the thousand and one permits needed).

On Friday, we were invited to a launch of the new menu at Ta' Frenc in Gozo, where they have a rather fine wine cellar cum private dining room to show off, too. The people who run the place can stand up and take more than a few bows, the whole thing was very enjoyable - we will be back to try the à la carte, and soon.

On Sunday, we made a small, but very gratifying discovery - there's a new wine bar and restaurant in Attard, just up the road from the Nationalist Party club, on the corner.

It's called Etienne's Locum Vinim (or something like that - my Latin is not what it should be) and the fare is good. The food upstairs was reported to be pretty good, too, though we only had a plate of pasta downstairs.

bocca@waldonet.net.mt