How best to do it

Question: which is the best model for a public service radio station to use for making a valid contribution to general national listenership ignorance?

Answer: follow the current PBS Radio Malta One Saturday morning schedule.

In essence, it goes something like this:

Wake-up time till 9am: silly pop music plus an anchorman uttering inanities.

9am to 11am: another silly disc jockey with a crazy (again just pop discs and inanities) programme called Ferrovija Mużikali.

Then, from 11am to noon: another guy up against it (the gene­ral popular acceptance) with another discs-only programme called Maltin Biss.

Need one say that the Mondays to Fridays schedule only has a small gap to the above by way of a programme called Aħna l-Maltin?

If this is how Radio Malta is executing the educational component of its public ser­vice obligation, then the Broadcasting Authority is equally composed of “ignorant inanities”.

John Consiglio – Birkirkara

A sad state of affairs

I refer to the article about the culture watchdog’s call to protect a 19th century house (February 9). I understand that this application was recommended for refusal by the case officer, the superintendent of cultural heritage, St Julian’s local council, Din L-Art Ħelwa and others for a host of reasons.

What prompts my writing is that this proposed development is a microcosm of what is happening largely in St Julian’s and Sliema but effectively all over the island, which is the destruction of our architectural heri­tage and building development that is completely unsuited to our environs.

Focusing on this development, what the article doesn’t adequately bring out is that this is a narrow and very high trafficked street. The property is essentially an island on Triq is-Sorijiet, corner with Sacred Heart Avenue, with the former street being so narrow that there isn’t even a kerb around the perimeter of this property. This is the street accessing Casa Leone and the Sacred Heart Convent where, twice a day, the residents are subjected to the maddest traffic congestion with hundreds of cars and buses disgorging and picking up children from what is a fairly large school.

Granting a permit to this property is an aberration and displays an utter contempt to the quality of life of residents in the area, the environment, our architectural heritage and any sense of aesthetics. Sacred Heart Avenue is a cul-de-sac in one direction and one way in the other, with parked cars lined up the length of it and, naturally, overflowing into neighbouring streets.

We talk about Malta being destroyed in the present tense; this is a falsehood – Malta has been destroyed and the only remedy at this stage is to arrest the continuing destruction, uglification and attendant health implications of this unabated destruction and construction. Such a prospect may be wistful given the record of this administration’s corruption, appalling governance and the extent to which it has emasculated local councils and its regulatory bodies, with the Planning Authority and Environment and Resources Authority being prime examples. And then, of course, the prominent importance it places on the economic contribution of the construction industry and its utter disdain for the common good.

But what is happening is also a reflection of the greed of property owners, developers and the seeming lack of principles or any sense of civic pride of those aiding and abetting such development. For all the government bluster of attracting high-income earners, I have expat friends who have been living here for decades and they are leaving in droves.

But forget wealthy foreigners we are trying to attract; I have family and friends who, given the chance, are desperate to get out of here in the face of the deterioration they see in our physical environment, the lack of suitable recreational open spaces, the normalisation of corruption in our daily living and the gradual erosion of our democracy.

In conclusion, short of an independent and expert local environmental assessment which should be mandatory in such cases, a cursory inspection of the site will show its utter unsuitability for the proposed development and the ensuing collateral damage, should it proceed, to the quality of life of neighbourhood residents, their health and the environment.

This planned development will only serve to exacerbate this sad state of affairs in the knowledge that recourse to appellate bodies and our law courts is an utter waste of time.

Joseph Tabone – St Julian’s

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