It was a good feeling I had, when yesterday, at the dead of night, as I was dreaming of my duvet and electric blanket while trying to cope with the constant avalanche of e-mails which assail every hack and hackette at this time of year, an email arrived which made a change from the usual Viagra and Cialis offers we get at this time of the night.

The Journalists' Committee and the Institute of Maltese Journalists (IGM) had come together ‘to express their serious concern at the way the state public broadcaster is being systematically stripped of its public service ethos for commercial and political expediency.’

It is about time that this whole matter of the highjacking of our national station came out in the open. Hats off to Malcolm Naudi and Karl Schembri who composed this statement and had the courage to make this sorry affair public and official.

Not only has PBS been taken over by a few companies, for their own financial benefit, as well as political expendiency, but now the registered editor, Sylvana Cristina, has been forbidden from speaking to her colleagues from the press to defend her own decisions. Every word she utters or writes, every statement she makes, every breath she takes almost, has to be vetted by the Ministry. This means she cannot go on any programme, on any station, and state what she really thinks and believes about PBS. If she participates in a programme on cookery, knitting or beauty then she may not have to consult her minister. She is, I am certain, allowed to talk about béchamel sauce, knit one, purl one and cable stitch as well as the pleasures of deep-cleansing facials and such, without the fear of being reprimanded. But when it comes to the decisions being taken at PBS and her thoughts on them, then her statements need to be vetted to make sure that she toes the official line.

A friend told me: why doesn’t she just speak out and disobey? Because, I told her, this is not the kind of country where you can afford to burn your boats and put your job on the line. Excuse all those cliches, but it is too late in the day for me to think of crisp, fresh phrases. When it comes to interesting jobs, there are a dozen wolves and more, out there, waiting for you to retire or drop dead and worst still, to make a false move and anger ye mighty gods, so that they will have a good excuse to get rid of you. And what then? But as the statement said, ministry or no ministry, Sylvana Cristina remains answerable to the editorial board of PBS and to the public and at law she remains solely and personally answerable for editorial content on PBS. As has been repeated time and again by so many of us, the public deserves a free, transparent and accountable public broadcaster, “unshackled from any suppression and able to expose and attack any attempts at its stations’ manipulation.”

The PBS editorial board is still without a chairman since the departure of John Camilleri, who was brave enough to leave. The PBS editorial board has made it amply clear through its public denunciations that its editorial decisions are constantly being ignored, overruled and nullified. Which self-respecting chairman can stand that kind of treatment?

Moreover, the last editorial board report was compiled two years ago and the Broadcasting Authority itself has declared it cannot fathom who is calling the shots at PBS. We can all take a wild guess of course but can this state of mandra and mayhem continue with an election just round the corner? We need a national station which is independent and informative and not one on which too many programmes have a PR gloss for certain people and certain political parties. I think that the cleaning up of PBS is one for the Christmas wish list of many of us. It cannot happen too soon. And I wish to reiterate: well done to Malcolm and Karl who took their courage in their hands and came out with this long overdue statement.

I was off to the Sterling Jewellers yearly show and exhibition which is now firmly fixed in our social calendars. This year we had the pleasure of hearing Lydia Caruana, who is the face of Sterling for 2007. She sang excerpts from opera and operetta, which added to the excellent spectacle put up by Felix and his team from Yada. The dancers, at first wearing black and in the second round, crimson dresses, carried stunning baubles for the boudoir and outside it. They were a captivating sight and made me wish that I had taken up dancing in my long lost youth as it is one way of keeping your waist down to 22 inches, instead of a massive 44.

We sat at damask-napped tables round the catwalk, in the Phoenicia ballroom, where in my young days, we would go to Carnival dances once a year much to my father’s consternation.

There was wine and sushi to keep hunger pangs away and Felix compèred elegantly in English, to my utter relief, as there were several in the audience who were certainly not Maltese. Well done to the Fenechs who had organised this wonderful spectacle. This was an evening to appeal to the senses, to the heart and soul. The exhibition was baptised Emozioni and it certainly lived up to its name with the beautiful arias from Lydia, who worse an exquisite black evening gown with a diamanté trim and herself was the picture of romanticism, with her hour glass figure. Does she have a personal trainer, my sister-in-law whispered, and we knew that she must have, and a nutritionist as well. At least you can see the results. I know that even if it were possible to have my very own personal trainer and suchlike I would still not be disciplined enough to get back to my size 16, my dream size.

One of the culprits of my bad eating habits is none other than my sister-in-law herself. Off she goes to Rome and at the Sterling show, informs me that she has some chocolate for me. I protest but mentally try to visualise what kind of chocolate. Not that it matters for I like it all. “Please don’t,” I plead, unconvincingly, I’m on a diet, before the onslaught of Christmas. I’m trying to get back to size 16. ” In a slightly hurt tone she responds: “Well, alright then…” I visualise the Roman chocolate being spirited away and consumed by someone less deserving, who will, perhaps not be quite so appreciative. I break into a slight sweat and mentally throw the diet out of the car window, as we arrive home after the show and blurt out: “Alright then, thank you so much, will you collect the chocolate now? I’ll wait for it.” The generous human being that she is, returns with two enormous blocks of Swiss chocolate which could easily be used as building material by Mr Polidano. I’ve consumed one bar, little by little, trying to follow the advice of her daughter “pace it Auntie Mar, pace it. Don’t eat it all at once.” And now, there is the other huge bar, looking enticingly at me dying to be consumed. I won’t disappoint it. I’ll never get into size 16 again, especially with Christmas round the corner.