Soap dispensers

The media might not be the oldest profession in the world, but The Media vs. the Media is surely the longest-running soap opera, with this and similar columns as but bit players in it all (apart from high horses and cameo roles).

We tend to watch programmes like Striscia la Notizia to get the foreign perspective; but occasionally the tragi-comedy hits nearer home.

Practically minutes after the hitherto unemployed Ivan Bartolo (an MLP councillor from Mosta) was thanking, in print, Where's Everybody for their vote of confidence in him, namely co-opting him as editor of Fuq ix-Xarabank, the Labour Party was enjoining him to quit because, wouldn't you know, there's a boycott about; remind me, someone, what engendered it.

It was unfair, and unethical, to give Mr Bartolo what basically amounted to a choice between the party and the paper, especially since this person is known and loved in his home-town for his initiative and innovative work on behalf of those with disparate and desperate needs.

Be that as it may, the said newspaper claims to tohrog realtà cara about people. Just like The Mail on Sunday, in fact, which this week featured, once more, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his connections with the media - a more serious allegation than the one made last time about something utterly unimportant to the rest of the world. The question is whether British law, which guarantees freedom of the press, and the circulation war, are higher up on the editor's personal agenda than is respect for a person in authority.

The Financial Times weekend supplement's cover story was by (British) journalist Tobias Jones, who by virtue of living for six years in Italy considers himself the ultimate authority on the television fare dished out there. He mentions Mike Buongiorno and Eduardo Vianello as the oriflammes of the gerontology gang; he pans the exhibitionism verging on the pornographic masquerading as quizzes and game shows, damns San Remo as a pathetic showcase of mediocre talent, and says that Amadeus and Gerry Scotti induce delirium tremens in viewers (so I exaggerate; he really would have said these things, and not a watered-down version of them, had he been made to spend a couple of hours in front of TVM, Super One, Smash and Net).

No doubt, just as Gerry Scotti said that Italian television was "among the best in Europe", apologist representatives of local stations would likewise defend at least their own medium to the death.

Over in Italy, the aforementioned Striscia la Notizia took magician Giucas Casella once again to task for rigging up a lottery draw. Clips showed that he had some trick - literally up his sleeve; and so of course the Sunday after the programme went on air, he did the sweepstakes in a vest and a snazzy pair of boxer shorts, and the winning number was not drawn immediately.

This, of course, proved nothing; so the intrepid pseudo-newscasters procured their own drum and, sure enough, drew the predicted three 'winning' numbers. Lots are very, very easy to fix: a trick that works with kids is extracting a particular colour, or toy, the last from a bag, as one would have "promised".

Occasionally, however, the media praise some journalists and sometimes this is deserved. Below is an edited e-mail I have received from a friend who is also a part of the local media scene; unfortunately I have never watched the programme:

"Godfrey Grima's programme yesterday was as good as I was expecting it to be. For a change we have someone who is really trying to give us information about the EU. It is an all-rounder, for and against - well, OK, mostly for - and he spoke to people from all walks of life. I don't know who paid his travelling but he sure gave them their money's worth. Miles better than telling us ad nauseam that abortion will never be allowed if we become members, or that if we do become members, there will be redundancies galore (so why on earth would our European brethren come here to land jobs here if there won't be any to be had?). It is worth watching the repeat if you have not watched it."

Awards come and awards go, and this week we discovered that Jennifer Aniston was awarded a Golden Globe Award for her part in Friends, where all she has to do is deliver flat one-liners and look pretty (read thin and with not a hair out of place).

Meanwhile, not many people realise that the words I'll be there for you in the refrain so often whistled in the bath are followed by 'cos you're there for me too, which changes the whole perspective of the relationship, denigrating it into Scratch My Back and I'll Scratch Yours.

The Media vs. the Media sub-plot has appeared in many film productions; indeed this week the feel-good factor of Runaway Bride, said to be one of the few films where the audience waits for the credits to roll, was quoted by many... although the ending was a foregone conclusion.

Beyond Candid Camera, on this side of virtual reality, the film Il Protagonista has no script. The entire operation is intended to get someone to star in his own film, and then invite him, surprise-party style, to see the edited version in a cinema. I don't know how many of the projects were scrapped (it would never do for us to be told) when the 'actors' didn't do themselves proud (i.e. proved themselves Pillars of Righteousness and Warriors for Truth). So it's obvious that the 'star' would try to break up a marriage when he saw the would-be groom canoodling with the fiancée's best friend; that the other leading light would want to take part in a mission to abort a kidnapping, and so on.

Meanwhile, the wife, her husband, and three grown boys sit down to supper, with just one packet of McCain's roast potatoes to go round. No wonder the boys start squabbling about whether four small ones are worth as much as three larger ones, and whether broccoli would be a fair exchange. If the woman can't afford to get another packet, well, then, she could do worse than peel the spuds herself, and still have enough money left over for a café au lait at Peristyle.

Too much television leaves little time for boning upon what used to be called "General Knowledge". So the audience and the callers of a particular television show could not explain why the Savoy (of London) has a cat called Casper. I was under the impression that such a superstitious people as the Italians would; but this evening, they will find out, and possibly procure their own effigy for baker's dozen lunches.