Avoid mass gatherings
Now that the general election is looming, may I remind the authorities to keep large gatherings and meetings away from our towns and villages. There are enough open spaces with adequate parking areas for huge events to be held, such as Ta’ Qali and Ħal Far.
No one in his right mind would like the noise, excessive vehicles and garbage meetings cause. After all, whoever wants to know what politicians want to tell us, can always watch the news or buy the newspapers.
Alfred Gauci – Sliema
Gozo airstrip
The short take-off and landing Islander aircraft brought to Malta in 1969.The news that the government is setting off public consultations for a ‘small airport’ in Gozo is very welcome indeed even if it is some five decades late.
As an aviation enthusiast and a Gozo lover I always supported the idea of an airstrip on the sister island and made my views and reasons public in this paper a couple of times before.
It is very opportune at this moment in time, however, to take readers, in particular the younger ones, down memory lane even if the path is not that nostalgically a pleasant experience, as one would expect.
In 1969, a British expatriate by the name of Jake Arbuthnot bought and brought to Malta a STOL (short take-off and landing) Islander aircraft on the premise that an airstrip would be constructed at an area topographically known as Ta’ Lambert, in Gozo.
Arbuthnot was so convinced that the Islander was delivered readily painted in the livery of Malta Gozo Air Services (see photo, taken on June 20, 1969).
The Nationalist government of the time procrastinated and the aircraft ended up being flown solely for pleasure flights, losing money. The project was abandoned and the aircraft sold.
Forward to the 1990s and the AFM, during a PN government, submits a planning application for a Gozo airstrip. The Labour Party, in opposition at the time, was vociferously up in arms against the project, dramatically citing environmental reasons.
Come 1996 and the Labour Party is elected and, within two days of the result, George Vella, then minister, now president, asks the AFM to withdraw the planning application. The next day L-Orizzont splashes the news front page: Ta’ Lambert salvat (Ta’ Lambert saved).
Had the airstrip been constructed 50 years ago, millions of euros would have been saved in successive failed helicopter services. Gozitans, in particular, would have benefitted from a reliable and sustainable air service, similar to the ones in the Channel Islands, for the past half a century.
In this country, we really take a long time to get some things right – if we ever do.
Victor Pisani – Santa Luċija
Missing the point
The creators of Malta’s answer to ‘Wordle’ have somewhat missed the point, I fear. The game is meant to be a momentary distraction in the day not a forced march into the long grass of the language’s obscurer lexicon.
Why only the other day, the word we were supposed to guess was naħra, which means, I now know, the “act of slaughtering an animal by cutting its throat”.
Not that that is how I have ever used that word.
Peter Leonard – Pizzo, Italy
Holocausts
The Holocaust was the result of certain lives (Jews, disabled persons etc.) being considered inferior to other lives (Aryans). Universal condemnation followed.
Pro-abortionists maintain that the value of the human life in the womb is inferior to the life of the woman carrying it. And the resulting Holocaust is considered a right.
Carmel Sciberras – Naxxar
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