Roamer's column

Sadly, I missed the International Conference on Anglo-Italian Literary and Cultural Relations that took place at the University last Thursday and Friday. It was the fifth since the series began some 15 years ago, the brainchild of Professor Peter Vassallo, head of the Department of English and director of the Institute of Anglo-Italian studies, and the late Rev. Alfonso Sammut, who was then head of the Department of Italian at the University of Malta.

Last week's two-day conference was convened by Professor Vassallo. It brought eminent scholars together from all over Europe to discuss aspects of the nature of the literary and cultural love affair that has so long existed between England and Italy. It was, if you wish, a cerebral celebration of that affair.

Most of us are aware of the sheer cultural and creative wealth to be discovered in Italy and Sicily, if only we bothered; and anglophiles no doubt abound in the debt they feel and profess to the English language and the remarkable literature it has produced over the past seven hundred years. Some of us were to Shakespeare and Milton born as others were to Dante and Petrarch. The Anglo-Italian Question saw to that!

I suspect, with no empirical proof to back my suspicion, that the lure of Italy, that "beaker of the warm south", for English men and women of letters is a shade greater than the attraction of England and its "autumn mists and mellow fruitfulness" for their Italian counterparts. There is little doubt, however, that the Italian passion for Shakespeare, Byron and Shelley, to name but three, is no greater than the English fascination for Dante and Petrarch, never mind the countless seductions exercised over the Anglo-Saxons by Rome and Venice, Florence and Naples.

You only have to rifle through the pages of Varriano's Literary Companion to Rome, or John Julius Norwich's Paradise of Cities, or Christopher Hibbert's Cities to sample the veneration in which much of Italy is held (and sometimes denigrated by some disgruntled travellers) by the English man of letters and many more besides.

The first quotes, among many others, Mary Shelley: "But my letter would never be at an end if I were to try (to) tell a millionth of the delights of Rome - it has such an effect on me that my past life before I saw it appears a blank and now I begin to live - in the churches you hear the music of heaven and the singing of angels." Norwich inevitably turns to Byron who seems "to have preferred riding in the Campagna..." to "poring over churches and antiquities". He did, however see "a live Pope and a dead Cardinal... both of them looked very well indeed". He thought "public beheading", which he made a point to witness, "altogether more impressive than the vulgar and ungentlemanly 'new drop' as practised in England..."

Here is a titivating sample of lectures selected at random from the two-day programme to give you some idea of the extensive ground covered by eminent scholars: 'From Leon Battista Alberti to Jane Austen by way of Giacomo Leoni and Television Drama' - Professor John Woodhouse (Oxford); 'Wyatt's Petrarchism and the anxiety of influence' - Dr Gloria Lauri Lucente (Malta); 'Presence and Absence in Byron's The Prophesy of Dante" - Professor Valeria Tinkler Villani (Leiden); 'Evelyn Waugh's Visits to Italy' - Dr Mark Roberts (The British Institute, Florence); 'English Romantic Visions of Italy' - Professor Manfred Pfister - (Berlin); 'Mary Shelly's Anglo-Italicus' - Dr Maria Schoina (Thessaloniki); 'D.H. Lawrence and the Sicilian myth of Persephone' - Professor Peter Vassallo (Malta); and 'Shakespeare and Goldoni' - Professor Carla Dente (Pisa). Invidious to choose and name; inevitable if one was not there to savour the experience.

It struck me as I read through the programme what a nightmare it must have been to put the conference together, to get the central theme just right (Anglo-Italian cross-cultural influences), to come up with subjects as varied, to raid the learning centres (Oxford to Berlin, Bristol to Pisa to Thessaloniki) from which each scholar was chosen to make this or that case in the vast field of literary and cultural relations that exist between England and Italy. Once out of the nightmare, however, the reality must have been deeply gratifying for Professor Vassallo and the University, which hosted this prestigious academic event.

Be prepared!

For months now scientists and healthcare bodies have been telling us, and the media have revelled in the telling, that if the H5N1 influenza virus (which causes avian 'flu) were to mutate, the world was unprepared to handle the pandemic that would sweep across it. The number of deaths that would occur as the equivalent of the Four Horsemen charged around the world is rounded off to 50 million, which, come to think of it, is less than 1 per cent of the world population.

The second European Influenza conference, held in Malta last week, told us pretty much the same. The world was not prepared for a pandemic. The pandemic is "overdue". It is confidently forecast that, when it breaks out, it will make what happened in 1918, when millions died of Spanish 'flu, seem like a minor outbreak. It is all very unsettling and the media has been happily unsettling us with tens of thousands of column inches' worth of dire warnings.

So it was with some relief that I read Ross Clark's contribution to The Spectator on the subject earlier this month. The dreaded H5N1 has so far killed 57 people since 2003. Spectral warnings about SARS, branded a worldwide threat by a former director general of WHO, materialised at 774 deaths. The magic figure of 50 million was also tossed around at the time.

As for Spanish 'flu, the number of fatalities must surely take into account the fact that in Europe, anyway, "constitutions were weakened from four years of war and by the unsanitary conditions which followed it... To believe that a virus would be capable of killing as many people in 2005 as one did in 1918, it is necessary to believe that there has been no improvement in palliative care in the meantime."

This approach and reaction rather mollified me, but of course it will not stop media fear-mongers from playing the not yet mutated virus for all it's worth. Let us be clear, though, for many a shrug at death of this viral kind has boomeranged with vigour, we have to look to our - er, jab.

A speaker in the above-quoted conference remarked that only 50 countries around the world "had a preparedness plan, ranging from one page to 450-page documents". Where, many must be wondering and curious to learn, does Malta stand in the preparedness stakes?

I am as aware as the minister that 450 pages of preparedness is no guarantee of the efficiency proposed in them. One page, however, strikes me as a mite parsimonious. Knowing our way with policy documents ours will probably run to 100 or so pages. That's perfectly all right by me, but the most important element about such a document is surely that Tom, Dick and Harry are aware of those areas that directly affect him.

What should Tom do if the pandemic does strike? Where should Harry report to for his jab? On what day and at what time? Or will doctors go to people instead of vice-versa? Will Dick be told to avoid places that are stuffed, we are talking of mutated avian 'flu after all, with people - discos, wedding parties, mass meetings, churches even (a special dispensation for Mass to be heard at home on the telly during the infectious period?). Will isolation wards be set up - in empty barracks, if any still remain? Can men, women and children who have never covered their mouths in their lives when they sneezed or coughed be urged to do so? Will the clinical equivalent of smog masks be distributed?

Accept it!

I was not aware until last Tuesday that there are local councils that have no wardens in their areas. Well, there are two: Marsa and Birzebbuga. The mayor of the latter has threatened to resign from the Labour Party if a warden sets foot in his locality.

I thought this passing strange. People resign, normally, on a point of principle and there are many who do not even do that. There are some who do and take their word back. Well, the man at Birzebbuga, Mr Farrugia, has made the absence of wardens on his turf just such a point. He was all right with green wardens, mind you, but common and garden traffic wardens are something else again.

Earlier this month, Mr Farrugia compared the presence of an American embassy in his home town with an atom bomb, which I thought was well over the top. He regarded the Enemalta site, when it was there as such a weapon, too. He seems to be seeing weapons of mass destruction everywhere. He preferred it if the site were to "be developed into a modern estate where the younger generation can build its homes".

Why he thinks a fancy site would have homes for the younger generation to live in, when it is likelier that the market price of the properties on what one supposes to be a prime site would be outside their reach, is difficult to fathom.

So, no wardens and no US embassy in Birzebbuga if the mayor would have his way.

The president of the Local Councils Association has invited us to go to Birzebbuga to see for ourselves the cars that are parked illegally and also the boats, the infractions that take place all over this diminutive kingdom of the enraged mayor. Once wardens step on it and the mayor hands in his resignation, the Labour party should accept it tout de suite.

Flatten tax

Some months ago I wrote about the attractions of a flat tax. The prime and finance minister and his parliamentary secretary may have missed it, so I am returning to this novel, alarmingly simple idea.

Flat tax can bring thousands of exemptions, complications, deductions down to two commandments. You shall be taxed at one rate. You shall not kneel before the idolatry of tax wheezes. In much of eastern Europe the tablet has been handed and a new covenant is in place. A magic figure has been selected - it ranges from 18 to 25 per cent - and applies to all taxpayers, companies and corporations.

Given the propensity of our trade unions to regard tax as one way to rob the rich to give to the poor (remember that infamous exhortation of Mr Mintoff to his finance minister? Ahleb Gus!) the idea of a taxpayer earning Lm3,000 a year paying the same rate as another who earns Lm15,000 will, initially, be anathema. This reaction should be politely ignored and concentration placed on the pros that flow from the proposal. To start with, raise the threshold at which tax is first paid.

For one thing, it is simplicity itself to collect. For another, it has attracted huge foreign investment in countries that have adopted it. For yet another, the rich man can invest more of his money and the middling income man can save more and buy more. Tax revenues will actually increase and tax avoidance will go out through the window. Lower taxes translate into more economic activity, greater competitiveness.

If we really are serious about attracting foreign investment - as our competitors demonstrably have been by introducing this flat tax - then here is a tool that will do just that. We must hurry though, before all of Europe follows the example of places like Latvia and Estonia (shattered economies a mere decade ago and now very sprightly, thank you).

Death at the UN Corral

Nothing much, if anything, emerged from what was touted as being the most important reforming session of the world body since its inception. With Kofi Annan still in place it was going to be difficult anyway. "So what," wrote Mark Steyn in one of his more acid contributions to The Spectator. "So what if his brother and his son and his son's best pal are under investigation in the UN oil-for-food scandal? So what if his secretariat got a $1.4 billion oil-for-food administration fee, yet apparently couldn't afford an auditor for the programme?

So what if the head of Kofi Annan's budget oversight committee was too busy sluicing hundreds of thousands of dollars for himself to notice whether anybody else was on the take? So what if Saddam Hussein used the UN as a money-laundering operation to advance his geo-political aims? Paul Volcker's independent report has decided that even though Mr Annan knew of the kickbacks since 2001, the secretary-general is guilty of sins of omission rather than commission.

He and his deputy, Canada's Louise Frechette, simply failed to notice the world's all-time budget scam exponentially expanding under their noses and with the enthusiastic participation of their closest colleagues."

Strange, then, that The Economist preferred to run a front cover with America shamed on it to one that shamed the UN. Perhaps it has something to do with Mr Annan's spin man Malloch Brown, who went to New York from The Economist stables.