It was good old Malcolm Muggeridge who once said ‘public relations is organized lying’. Precisely. You read certain columnists who are excellent at weaving words and attacking people obliquely or directly and who have an obsession with wigs and elves and you will know what I mean. Take a global look at Bondiplus and if some academic would bother to make a study of it he would find that right from when it started, on the whole, it’s a heavily biased programme although Larry Loo Bondì tries very hard to convince that he is fair. Of course we’ve had the sensational programme now and then, just to put us off the scent, the Freemasonary programme comes instantly to mind; when, we were told, someone with a hidden camera had attended one of their meetings. The film was then reproduced in a programme of Bondiplus. It turned out, if you remember well, that it was a putup job. Nobody had attended anything but sensationalism from the gurnalismu ta’ veru people is inevitably a crowd puller.

The Labour Party should take my advice and ban Bondiplus it completely from their lives. They should never, but never, accept an invitation to go on it again. And the people at PBS should be allowed to produce their own programme. They are capable of it and they should be given the chance to use their extensive experience to present viewers, who after all pay a licence, a more balanced viewpoint and a fairer one. It will also be a good deal cheaper than the Lm2000 LarryLoo is paid weekly.

I forgot to mention in the interview with the British High Commissioner in today’s First that he speaks a very understandable Maltese. Most of you would know this already. It is the ultimate courtesy for someone to make an effort and speak in your own language and this is what impresses; the willingness to please us and the effort put in, before he came here, to learn our language. He did not have to of course but he did and it gave me pleasure to hear him speak in my language.

And this leads me to something which goes on annoying some of us. I had at least five communications after Remembrance Sunday from Maltese readers who commented that Mass at St John’s Cathedral and the ceremony were wholly conducted in Maltese. Considering that Remembrance Sunday is a Commonwealth event and held in honour of all those who died in two world wars and post conflicts throughout the world, Mass at St John’s should have had at least the sermon in English. Many of those present came to Malta specifically to honour their comrades who died in the conflicts. A large part of the congregation were not Maltese speaking. Common courtesy is no longer ‘cool’ but it should have been shown to the veterans who bothered to fly out if at least part of the ceremony in our beautiful cathedral was conducted in English. English is our second language here – what an asset is has proved to be for us all. Please could we consider speaking some English, wherever there are foreign visitors, whether it is at the theatre or on occasions such as Remembrance Sunday, giving some explanations in English for their benefit. Let us make common courtesy ‘cool’ again.

I went to Maria Fleri Soler’s exhibition of photographs at the Old University, now the offices of Heritage Malta. Maria and George never seem to age and they looked elegant as usual for the occasion. There was also a short fashion show of some of Maria’s creations which reminded us how stylish she is and what a contribution to she has made over all these years. There I met Josephine Vassallo, the Prime Minister’s right hand, who has the proportions of a model and who indeed did model in the past when she had more time on her hands. A little girl snapped a photo of us – I told her mother that she has a great future as a social photographer. I come up to Josephine’s navel, even with the chip on my shoulder. Several friends contacted me to say that surely, the columnist who referred to a Sant groupie from Sliema with a chip on her shoulder was you. I did not read the column so wouldn’t know. If it isn’t wigs, it’s elves or chips, which I enjoy eating. ‘Non ti curar di lor my guarda e passa,’ my father used to say, quoting Dante. So much rubbish is written in the name of public relations. I am reading Leonard Cheshire’s Where’s God in This? in the little spare time that I have and I am certainly not going to bother reading some of the rubbish that is written disguised as harmless prose by anyone. I peel my potatoes on these pages full of vitriol and written with hate in the heart.

I met Wilfred Kenely who was our General Manager at one time and then zoomed off to follow John Lowell at the Manoel, with another high-flying post or two in between and is now setting up our high commission in New Delhi. It was a surprise to see him in Malta and a meeting with Wilfred is never unpleasant. I know that he doesn’t like curry and asked him what it was like to be surrounded with it in New Delhi. He said he was slowly getting used to it although it still burns his lips.

There wasn’t much time for more exchanges than this but he should know that curry doesn’t have to be hot and he must start eating curry which doesn’t have chilli in it. He will like it better.

Have you noticed that the word ‘footprint’ has suddenly entered in everyone’s life and certainly in many press releases that I receive. It is as if it has just been discovered so everyone is using it. Like the word ‘gay’ it has changed it’s meaning.

KRS kindly emailed me and told me that since I was such a fan of Edith Piaf it is now showing at the cinema at St James Cavalier, which I love. My 1980 baby, who has been brought up since she was in the womb, on Cadbury’s, Carmen and Piaf said she would go with me with pleasure. This is the carrot of the week and I

am looking forward to it

immensely.

Ah yes on my way in to Maria’s exhibition after having parked my car where there weren’t any yellow or blue lines and no small signs saying you could not park there because it was for residents and so on, I noticed that a warden was busy, placing the usual disgusting bits of paper, on each and every car outside the Old University. Guests had not realized, in the semi darkness, that they were parking in boxes marked in blue and which are reserved strictly for residents. I spoke to her and pointed out that the blue was barely decipherable in the dim light of St Paul’s Street. She pointed to the small notices, also barely decipherable unless you carry around with you a pair of binoculars and I told her so. She went on scribbling and making certain that she had collected enough money to make sure she still had a job.

The blues and the yellows and whites and goodness knows what other colours used in Valletta should be made darker forthwith. And those tiny notices should be scrapped and made more evident. And wardens should be decent and try to educate us first of all.

Had the warden been decent, she would have gone in to that reception and made an announcement that those cars had to be removed. It is only after that, that she should have started dishing out her bits of paper. But decency is not cool either. I’m now off to lunch to talk with friends of nothing and everything and empty my mind in preparation for another two magazines.