In my younger days, a silly song related how video had killed the radio star. Poor radio guy. Today we have moved into different realms of communication, and something worse has been executed: satire and anything connected to humour.
Who is the killer this time? Reality, the life we are living, the people who are leading us and the people who are paying homage to their leaders. Both here and abroad, our politicians and our leaders have got hold of satire, marched it straight to the firing squad and done away with it forever. RIP satire.
How can anyone poke fun and invent funny situations if our Prime Minister and his Cabinet mini-stars live, breathe and create a hyper-reality of idiocy?
Who needs satire when we are living in its midst – and suffering all the consequences which, unfortunately, are closer to tragedy than comedy.
On 20 September, the Prime Minister and the Minister responsible for Transport and concrete inaugurated two flyovers. The pomp was unreal. It was so bombastic that TVM decided to regale us with a live broadcast of the occasion – or rather the North Korea-inspired PR machine at the OPM ordered the numbskulls who run our national TV to show it to the world.
Everyone – probably including people in faraway countries who think of us as a haven of liberty – made a point to watch the tarmac wonder of the world.
We, the tiny, but famed, isle in the Med, have managed to erect not one, but two, flyovers. And we wanted the world, especially the Maltese gullible dolts, to see how we have turned roads into flying highways.
Delivering his speech for the occasion, Ian Borg – the Minister who excels at widening roads and is vying to take the Prime Minister’s position when Joseph Muscat goes into retirement, announced that these are the first flyovers of many. I tried following how many but I lost track.
Maybe he is on something so high – definitely stronger than weed – that he hopes to build us all a highway to heaven?
To give a non-event like this such importance is beyond surreal. But to hold it when the project is not complete is beyond belief. So if this first phase was inaugurated by his Lordship the Prime Minister, who will deign to open the project when finalised, with all its flyovers and other tarmac wonders?
Will we invite the President of the Galaxies – some super-hero to outdo our own super Prime Minister?
The day chosen to inaugurate an unfinished project was also memorable for two more ironies. The Marsa flyovers were officially opened on the day massive protests were held the world over to put pressure on governments to do something about the climate emergency we are facing. The world marched in anger at tree-cutting, tarmac-laying and road-widening. We, the country of excellence, celebrated the government’s madness in building new, ever-wider roads and reaching out to the sky with them.
What further irony do we need?
And if you want to die laughing, watch Ian Borg deliver his speech. He spouted such bilge that I am surprised the flyovers themselves did not buckle with derision and howls of fun. If anyone had written his words (or at least the few I managed to listen to) in a spoof, the spoof-generator would have been executed for overdoing it.
Borg said he was proud of this historic day and that it was a victory for the people. He said that it showed the government’s vision, a government which cares about our quality of life. With a flourish, he called it an ‘environmental project’.
This is where I stopped watching as it was too much for my feeble mind. We have fallen into a pit of unreal words and madness really has taken over this land.
Could Dr Ian Borg be the executioner of our beloved satire? He and the reality he portrays are total slayers of humour.
Maybe Dr Borg’s doctorate is in killing trees, adding tarmac everywhere and reducing our true quality of life. Maybe he does, after all, have the credentials to take over the country’s reins from Joseph Muscat.