Demonstrations are important because they stimulate and strengthen awareness among people about a given problem. But there comes a moment when one must feel surprised at how we remain stuck at the demonstration stage and fail to make progress towards solutions. Demonstrations then seem to have become a method by which to calm the guilty conscience we feel because nothing or too little has actually been done.

In the case of domestic violence and violence on women, the measures that need to be taken are well known. They do not require out of the way commitments, not in financial terms, not in human resources, nor in infrastructure. They need though real action and firm measures, which while not being spectacular in scope, must be implemented with coherence by legal services, police and the state’s social welfare apparatus. Administrative and security personnel should be properly trained and shown that in this area, action must be carried out with dedication and determination. Obviously top level support will remain essential to make sure that things are not allowed to slide.

The fact that the need is still felt to demonstrate about an issue indicates that there has been a lack of diligence in trying to reach these “simple” objectives.

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Rentals

Recently I attended a conference organised by the Malta Institute of Management about whether the Maltese rental market for houses and flats is developing into a bubble that could soon burst. That this matter is actually on the agenda of businesses in the sector is quite strange.

For such businesses, the increase in the sale, purchase and letting of houses and flats must surely be considered a positive factor. Their fear though is that it is too beautiful a scenario and sooner rather than later, it could soon darken, abruptly rather than slowly. If so, when and how?

Since we find ourselves in a situation for which few if any precedents exist, the reply to the question that one could give is likely to be different to what any body else might advance. So, few definitive replies are available.  Perhaps from the perspective of businesses, the most useful approach is for them to get organised in such a way that they can alter their modes of operation as soon as the economic climate that surrounds them changes.

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Delon

Actor Alain Delon gave a most interesting interview to the “Le Monde” newspaper. For a person like me who remembers Delon playing roles in the films of his time as a youthful man with a very attractive presence, there was the shock of realizing that Delon is now an old man of 83 years.

He has a lot to say about his life and career. For instance I did not know that as a boy, he spent time living with his father in law, in the prison quarters where the latter served as a warden – the prison where at the same time, Pierre Laval the Prime Minister who “led” Nazi-occupied France was executed by firing squad.

Delon insists on the strict difference between performers who in his days were trained actors, as was Jean Pierre Belmondo, and others like him who never studied to become actors but simply played their role out on the screen according to how they felt they should do it.