On the Dot

• A very dangerous, prickly, succulent-type shrub overhangs a wall abutting a pedestrian pathway along St Andrews Road, Swieqi. People have two choices, either crouch down to avoid being hit in the face as they pass that area or else walk along the road and take their chances with the traffic. Would the Swieqi local council kindly contact the owner of the garden and ask him/her to prune the plant?

Finer

• A man who described himself as a green warden intimated that a householder would be fined if she threw an old-style plastic bag, emblazoned with the name of a shop and filled with household rubbish, into a skip. He said the rubbish, including the bag itself, must be in a biodegradable bag. So the plastic bag will, therefore, end up in the landfill anyway, together with the aforementioned black bag. The woman noted the skip was nearly full to the brim with old clothes, shoes, assorted household belongings and boxes, none of which was in a black plastic bag.

Abandonment

• The residential side street near St Michael’s school in Qormi appears to be the ideal place where to dump abandoned or, perhaps, stolen cars. No sooner is one removed – usually after it is mentioned in this column – than another takes its place. The latest vehicle, which had been there for over two months now, is a dark green one.

Clocked

• A number of clocks at fare stages have not been indicating the correct time for several weeks now. One of them, ironically, stands right across the dispatchers’ office at the City Gate bus terminus in Valletta. One hopes this is indicative of the state of public transport and not a taste of things to come.

Bottleneck

• To remain at City Gate, surely the powers that be, including, of course, the local council, must have noted the restricted main entrance to the capital. The right hand entrance is already blocked by hoarding and half of the centre passage is occupied by a vendor. It seems it does not matter inconveniencing most people some of the time as long as some people are never bothered!

Placing

• One wonders how long it will be before all buses are fitted with a tracking system. This would show where they are at any given time. There would be no more bus drivers who decide not to make a trip because it is “not really used”. Neither will there be others who decide to cut across a town or village because “usually” no passengers would be waiting at particular fare stages. As it is, passengers have to file reports themselves and they are not allowed to remain anonymous “lest they have a private agenda”.

Incomes

• Finance Minister Tonio Fenech indicated the government would launch a drive to collect more tax arrears as one of the ways of collecting monies due to it. However, before this is done, there has to be a massive exercise involving the bringing up-to-date of all income tax, social services and VAT records and correspondence. Some people have received an acknowledgement to their claims but that is as far as it has gone despite the fact that many months have passed from the date on the forms.

Monies

• The Accountant General has announced the issue of €100 million Malta Government Stocks. This may mean either of two things. Either the government feels it is so trusted that people will flock to subscribe to this issue or else that money in the state coffers is running low and public subscription is the only way to oil the wheels of the country’s economy. One hopes it is the former scenario that applies.

Watered

• Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici thanked the forces of law and order, and other entities, for their sterling work during the flooding obtaining in the overnight storm. It would be interesting to discover how much of the water that fell was diverted into reservoirs and how much ended up in the sea, whence we shall extract it again through expensive reverse osmosis.

Overflow

• One notes that where rainwater drains into sewage systems never designed to cope with such a great volume of water it is not the first time there have been overflows. This gives rise to the need for a more expensive cleaning up because of the possibility the water-borne pathogens will cause serious dieseases.