Just desserts

That wily literary cockroach Archy, in his memoirs Archy and Mehitabel, in perfect agreement with his alter ego Donald R.P. Marquis, said it all when he explained that Prohibition makes you want to cry into your beer, and denies you the beer to cry into.

This is the kind of feeling we all get when trying to find something, anything, to watch on television - especially during the summer months. Especially when Education 22 tells us that for the May-June Matsec examinations we will not be allowed to take programmable calculators and the like into the examination hall... when the results for the said examinations are already out.

Probably one of the worst items to be presented - and I use the word with intent - was the 'fat girl' appearing in Mini-Bugs (Net) showing children how to make what would otherwise have been a fantastic piece of collage.

Wearing hollow foam tubes to add girth to 'her' arms and match the centre-parting big wig complete with bows and a grating tone of voice, this character is supposed to make a welcome change from the other obnoxious one serving as a foil for the toys.

I abhor the fact that physical defects are used to earn cheap laughs; especially when this is done on a children's programme. Do we really need to ridicule people who are not, shall we say, standard models of humanity?

Speaking of which... Miss Cicciona is yet another contest... but here, beauty was in the weight that tipped the scales in favour of the winner.

Meanwhile, Net is taking bookings for L-Isfida, which from what I can understand is a Fame-cum-Maria de Filippi's Amici talent quest. The catch is that the age bracket is limited to 17-25 years old.

Super One has cast its net more widely; they are giving media-training and hands-on know-how lessons to youths from 14 years old and up, who would like to learn the ropes as part of the Team Qawsalla. We all know what a wealth of hidden talent there is around us, which voluntaries brings to the fore, and I welcome anything which keeps our young people occupied in a wholesome manner.

I am glad to see that Wake Up, Sleeper is being repeated on TVM (Friday nights). This God-slot, for those who have never seen it before, takes the Ten Commandments, starting from the end, and after a vignette illustrating its principle, presents a discussion accompanied by Bible readings.

When the programme went out originally, a telephone number appeared onscreen for those wishing to ask for prayers; I used this number on Thursday evening but no-one was at the other end, so I suspect that the service has been discontinued.

Another topical religious programme this week was Sejjahtli (Super One), which included an interview Gordon Pace made with Fr Alfred Grech, OCD, about the current leg of the pilgrimage of the relics of St Therese of Lisieux.

Mr Pace, unlike several other interviewers I could mention, had researched his subject thoroughly, and appeared to be enthusiastically interested in what his guest had to say. One hopes that some of his talent will rub off on those who are in it for the recognition factor or the money.

To listen to Super One bulletins about the introduction of the bus ticket vending machines, one would have thought it was one huge disaster, the fruition of a machination (!) shrouded in mystery. Net, on the other hand, informed us that there had been a slight glitch, which was immediately rectified by the technical people present on the spot.

Further insulting our intelligence, the people at Net later informed us that noxious gases are diluted when they disperse on contact with air, and Super One topped this by saying that there was a head-on collision ma' vettura li kienet gejja min-naha l-opposta tat-triq.

And the dauntless advertiser this week said that she had diversi xoghol to show (read sell to) us.

Trying to cash in on the visit of Sir Elton John, Centro Casalinga actually chose Candle in the Wind - more suited as a background dirge for a funeral parlour advertisement - to accompany news of its special offer for "build"(sic)-in appliances. I would have thought that Island Girl would have been a better choice, in title if not in lyric... but they probably gave it a miss since it is not one of the more familiar compositions of this pop star.

The weighted phrased pluralism of the media came up again this week, on Italian television. Now, it seems, whoever is "capable of publishing a newspaper" may also run a television station. A worst-case scenario would be having the newspapers both on-line and on-screen, with, perhaps, a talking head in front of the changing images to give us an opinionated opinion.

It all depends on how you look at it. One spokesman said that there are "only" 11 reti nazionali, when there could well be a hundred to give one choice (i.e. more of the same). Someone else said that this could create more ciambelle (doughnuts, meaning carrots) and bagnini (pool-boys, meaning sycophants) besides those that already exist across this particular stretch of the Mediterranean. And there were also boasts that this, not pay-per-view, was the "television of the future".

Not many parents begged their children to eat chewing gum - before the ones of the type marketed by a handsome Tuareg sheikh in the Sahara came on the market. For the same reason, not too many mothers would take kindly to children forsaking their two veg. for ice cream.

All this is set to change with the introduction of vegetable ice cream being currently served in five-star restaurants in Italy, as shown by one of the multitudinous foodie programmes (well, you have to fill in airtime somehow).

You can choose from broccoli and mascarpone, pea and leek, carrot and cream, marrow and parsley, and other flavours - a rather unfortunate choice of word for those whose idea of a square meal, literally, is boil-in-the-bag stuff with a side order of onion rings.

Another 'brilliant' idea this week was the Bionic Bambi with shining eyes; not your run-of-the-mill beauty contestant but a deer with a movable head used by American (of course) policemen in order to lure poachers into shooting at it (the eyes shine when the headlights hit them), and then it's simply a matter of asking them to freeze.