Letters to the editor – April 7, 2025

HSBC bidders

Those reading the reports of the recent bids for HSBC Bank will have many doubts as to what might happen to the present excellent service to customers.

I have been a customer of the HSBC in England almost since it started as I lived there about 60 years ago. Since I came to Malta 12 years ago, the service has been perfect and, in all this time, I have had no banking problems, including for international money movements.

HSBC head office in Qormi. File photo: Times of Malta

As a customer, I fear that standards are likely to be lower rather than better and that potential new owners from some countries may encounter many complications, especially if they are non-EU.

I would greatly prefer the bank ownership remains unchanged since I am very satisfied with it.

Christopher John Linskill – Ħamrun

The boiling frog syndrome

This anecdote describes a frog slowly being boiled alive, with the premise that if a frog is put suddenly in boiling water it will jump out but if the frog is put in cold water, which is then brought to boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death.

This story is often used as a metaphor for the inability or unwillingness of people to react or to be unaware of treats that arise gradually.

Depicting this scenario, in my opinion, is the indoctrinated, spoon-fed politically motivated person, more determined to be boiled alive rather than thump his feeble feet, being unaware of the danger, and jump out. This epigram considers the reaction or, better still, the inaction taken by such individuals.

This analogy does not apply to a cunning, slippery toad that knows how to skirt the water, knowing full well what the consequences would be. He forms part of the clique of the party’s hierarchy or someone very close, such as ‘friends of friends’, expecting high rewards. 

With an apology to George Orwell’s Animal Farm and, for that matter, the animal kingdom at large, I dare to venture and classify three types of animals when it comes to political indoctrination.

First is the proverbial hard-headed ostrich which buries its head in the sand with the scope of not wanting to hear anything about the misgiving, the unlawful deeds or dishonest behaviour.

Second, the subservient sheep that follow their leader heart and soul even to the precipice and, eventually, to their doom.

The third is the cunning and sly jackal, the artful dodger. He is deceitful and a manipulator and, when confronted, he gets angry and aggressive and is ready to pounce on you, negating any evidence brought forward.

Unfortunately, this is the systematic political indoctrination of a people, as I see it. 

Francesco Simon Mercieca – Fgura