So who would you choose to represent Brand Malta?

Fabrizio Faniello who came last in a daft contest, but remained polite, composed and charm itself in defeat, or Grace Borg, besides herself with rage and much more, refusing to let her protégé (you know, the good looking Maltese singer Keith Camilleri who represented Switzerland, and why not!) talk to the minister at the airport, and calling the Minister of Tourism and the man who succeeded her in her post, thank God, all sorts of undeserved names, and generally bringing shame on Malta as shown on Bondiplus last Tuesday?

Perhaps the promoters and organisers of Eurovision should be shown this footage of a former chairperson of a song festival to see if she should be allowed to manage anyone’s entry again? And what on earth was she doing shouting about who she would vote for? And why was she lying and shouting someone was drunk, when the only person who appeared to be behaving in an out of control way was her?

What a disgraceful nation this would be if we all were to behave like Grace Borg.

And what is all this ranting that Keith was representing Malta? What kind of funny, warped nationalism is this? It’s like Arnold Cassola claiming he is representing Malta in Italy. He isn’t. He is now the defender of the Italian Constitution not the Maltese one. We are all glad Keith did well, (why not!) but he represented Switzerland at Eurovision and that’s it.

Too many of us here just don’t know how to behave, tipo Grace Borg and lose it for nothing at all, but there are many who do not, and Fabrizio is one of them. It must be incredibly difficult for him, since there have been so many comments that “his career is over” and other similar negative statements, that to come back, and go first on Bla Agenda with Norman Hamilton and then on Bondiplus to analyse his defeat must have been tough, but I do admire him for doing so, for thanking all those who helped him, for criticising no one, if anything only blaming himself and saying it was just a “weird Eurovision”.

Let us please remember that when you consider all the countries that didn’t make it we came just over half way. Many good songs didn’t even make it to the final. Finland won because they rocked Europe, and perhaps for once we were tired of pop bands or romantic entreaties. Whatever, we came last out of those who made it to the finals. So did England last year I believe, (and they often hit rock bottom, you know England the country which produces more musicians and sells more music per head of population than anyone else), and there was no soul searching, no deep analysis, and most important no criticism of the singer.

I only saw the show recorded. I was privileged to be watching a great one man play at the Manoel that evening called Shylock the Jew, which had many themes, but perhaps the central one being “give a dog a bad name and hang him”, which I hope we won’t do with Fabrizio. Yes, I could have rushed home afterwards, but somehow comfort food (best cottage pie ever!) and wine at Trabixu in South Street with good friends was infinitely more welcoming. But I soon realised this was going to be bad night for Malta, as the almost sad SMSs from my friends showed.

So when I watched the recording I expected Fabrizio to sing terribly, to look terrible, to just be awful. Not because he came last but because of the comments from the media and others. But he wasn’t. He looked fresh and good. His dancing wasn’t wild. His voice was not powerful enough maybe, but it wasn’t terrible last place stuff, even though that’s how voters judged it. The backing dancers were a bit off, or let’s say they added nothing. He would have been better on his own, but otherwise there was nothing in it to make Malta feel ashamed, or less than proud and happy to have enjoyed another evening of Eurofun, Eurobrio and of course Eurotrash!

So many people said Fabrizio’s result is a bad ad for Malta. It isn’t. Let me tell you what’s a bad ad for Malta. A country that shoots every bird in sight. A country that contemplates a golf course instead of a national park at Ta’ Cenc. A country that spends money to rebrand itself and ends up with a woman with a George Cross chalked on her face!!! (Look out for this one) A country where “buildingsiteitis” is making very few very rich indeed. A country that is transforming every villa area into flatsvilles, tipo Swieqi! What will be next? When will we tear our hair out over real disasters like applications to build at Ta’ Cenc rather than a result at a funny but very silly song festival?