• No time has been wasted to give schoolchildren yet another holiday, just because 1 May has fallen on a Saturday. Most of the schools are closed today, giving families where the husband and wife work yet another headache as to with whom they will be leaving their children. The situation with regards to the number of school-holidays is ridiculous. The number of full five-day weeks at school seems to be decreasing every scholastic year.
• Drivers passing through Mrabat Street in Sliema are finding it extremely difficult to manoeuvre their cars, especially in the area close to the Belmont Hotel. With other cars parked along the street, two moving cars cannot pass at the same time. One can imagine the chaos that is created when buses going in opposite directions meet. Parking should perhaps not be allowed in this stretch to make the flow of traffic smoother. Another solution would be to narrow the pavements. A few centimetres less on either side would make a lot of difference. This should have been taken into consideration when the road was redone a few months ago.
• Who had the bright idea of scraping the tarmac surface on at least two sections of the Birkirkara by-pass? This is a main thoroughfare, with no pedestrians crossing the road, and yet because of this scraping drivers have to slow down. This is also because the work was not carried out properly, leaving a rather awkward bump that could damage cars or lead to punctures. And, anyway, drivers do not think that such a measure was needed.
• The SMS text messages that are run on local television stations are the perfect example of the deterioration of the way we express ourselves, both in Maltese and in English. It is understood that the easy way out is to have abbreviations and phonetic spelling, rather than the correct spelling of a word. But this is not the right way of doing things. Youngsters are growing up with the impression that, for example, “the” is spelt “d”, and it is now feared that in the long run we will have generations of people who do not know how to spell even the basic words.
• Television stations are not giving the right example when it comes to spelling either. All that they receive via SMS is immediately transferred onto the screen with no corrections. What is perhaps worse is that the stations’ own graphics are not checked before they are broadcast. The number of mistakes in the credits is increasing in a rather dramatic way, both in Maltese and in English.
• The increase in VAT from 15 to 18 per cent seems to have induced certain bars and restaurants to add many extra cents on the consumers. A pint of beer and a soft drink that used to cost Lm1.15 has now been rounded up to Lm1.40 in some establishments. This is daylight robbery that should be immediately seen to by the VAT inspectors.
• Driving up to St Andrew’s is becoming a torture. Huge traffic jams are the order of the day because of the never ending works in front of the Luxol Grounds. The problem can easily be solved if drivers coming from Bahar ic-Caghaq are diverted through Pembroke from near St Catherine’s School to re-emerge on the main road near the traffic lights.
n The number of advertisements written on walls in public places seem to be on the increase. Many of them refer to the sale of building stone – tas-sejjiegh jew tal-fil – and are often accompanied by a telephone number. We have doubts as to whether these advertisements are legal. The authorities concerned could bring any offenders to book just be checking the telephone numbers listed on these adverts.
• Works on the St Julian’s promenade was supposed to have been “completed” before the last election, and yet there are still some finishing touches that need to be seen to. For example, there are no bus shelters in the stretch from Balluta to Spinola. As things are at present, passengers have to wait for the bus in the rain and are even at the mercy of sea spray. These shelters ought to be put up as soon as possible.