Having spent a week in London, as sod’s law would have it, my computer would not start up – for the first time ever. Luckily, the problem was not serious and after referring to the trouble-shooter section in the Apple booklet, I was soon typing away.

But my troubles were not over; I then could not access the Internet.

However, I decided to plod on. The worst that could happen was that I would have to hand-deliver my copy.

While I was away, I had followed some of the local news via the Internet, but there did not seem to be anything I could get my teeth into.

I could not understand why there has been so little reaction to the news that 12 state primary schools and three secondary schools are missing a head of school.

I read online that schools in Bahrija, Birkirkara, Gharghur, Luqa, Mtarfa, Safi, Senglea, Sta Venera, Zabbar and Zejtun, and Xaghra and Zebbug in Gozo, and Naxxar Boys’ Secondary School, Sta Venera Boys Junior Lyceum and Floriana Boys’ School do not have a head of school.

This at the start of the school year. Is the education of children whose parents cannot afford private education not important?

Can you imagine the outcry if vacancies for heads of private schools were not being filled?

It is appalling that calls for applications to fill these posts have not yet been issued. I cannot believe that all the heads have up and left at the start of the scholastic year.

Has the Director of Education not been keeping the Minister informed of the situation? It is not like Dolores Christina, a former teacher, to be out of the loop.

In any other country, heads would roll, but here we seem to be fazed by little. The Minister of Finance goes off on a jaunt with prominent businessmen and it just blows over after the initial outcry.

The political scene is dire. We have an arrogant government that thinks it can do what it jolly well pleases and an Opposition that still cannot seem to find its feet.

Joseph Muscat, the baby-faced Labour leader, is still experimenting with ways to win over voters who would not normally vote Labour. If only he would concentrate more on everything that the government is falling short on and less on trying to impress the voter with how smooth and middle-of-the-road he is.

He has a lot of growing up to do before he can start making an impression. It is true that he has stumped a ploy that the PN used successfully against the former Labour leader, Alfred Sant, ie that the latter was too negative. But Joseph Muscat has got to watch out and not be too appeasing.

I do not normally watch local television, but I was hungry for a tasty morsel to chew on and as I kept one eye on the TV, I was struck by a line of monks in cassocks with their rope belts dragging on the floor sitting in front of an orange and black background with the “Exorcists” writ large.

It was, of course, a teaser for Xarabank. It was to feature fortune-tellers, Satanism, exorcism and witchcraft.

Although it did not ‘tease’ me, I knew that the programme would give me enough to not only chew on but to also make me thoroughly sick.

I was not disappointed. Sorry Peppi. What a load of hocus-pocus. The only thing missing was a witch’s cauldron and Peppi dressed up as a sorcerer, his magic word being “Mela” – and it has nothing to do with an apple.

I struggled to stay awake even right at the start, while one of the monks told a story about a victim of a fortune-teller’s tricks with a little box, that made little sense.

Then a man in the audience told us how a workmate of his died after making fun of a Ouija Board.

The Ouija board featured prominently in the programme, with Peppi describing exactly how it is played with visual aids.

Next we had an anonymous woman addicted to the Ouija board. The music in the background was straight out of Most Haunted and the distortion in the voice made it sound shaky. You get the picture: we were meant to be really scared.

Every so often a message “the next scene might be distressing to some people” would pop up.

The programme then leapt into exorcism and we were shown a clip of a ‘real’ exorcism, which obviously did not work, because much later (the ‘afflicted’ woman was used as the climax, to keep us glued to the set) we heard her complain that she found her life increasingly horrendous, as did her husband.

In the clip, the woman was barking, swearing and crawling on all fours (her face was obscured) much like Rochester’s wife in Jane Eyre.

We then jumped back to the Ouija board, with accompanying creepy music, storm sound effects, darkness and lighting effects. That story ended with a young woman dying in a plane crash because she would not give herself to the spirit summoned by the board.

By this time the mêlée had completely confused me and I was not sure whether I was watching a very bad horror movie or an equally bad documentary.

A man in the audience said: “We are going round in circles”, and boy, had he hit the nail on the head. Ever increasing circles.

I think it was another woman who had been terrified by voices and knocking noises in the night and been freed of her nightmare by a prayer of liberation by a priest.

As though we had not had enough, we next moved on to schizophrenia, with an accompanying psychiatrist. We were shown a dummy brain and the doctor tried to explain the illness “fil qossor”.

So are the exorcist priests trying to deal with schizophrenia? “We do not deal with people in hospitals”, was one response.

I had to wait and wait for the woman possessed, as my bed beckoned. In the meantime we were being told repeatedly “Are you worried that the devil might posses you? Yes or No? Ring up and win”.

You could win a suitcase, a washing machine, two motorised beds and mattresses, luxury kitchens and more.

“Am I in danger if I am in a room where a Ouija board game is being played, even if I did not take part,”, asked a member of the audience.

“Tell us quickly, father”, said Peppi. “Yes, I have had an incident where we had to perform a liberation on such a person,”, said a priest. (There were two priests present, as well as the monks).

Viewers were told that possession by the devil is not catching and that the devil can lead a person to death.

The best among the non-sequitors was when one of the monks told us that his brother had died of an overdose a year after he was ordained. Whereas the priests were asked to give their answers to complicated questions very briefly, this non-sequitor about forgiveness, and the fact that he now works in the prison, rambled on and on.

I am getting tired just remembering all the topics that were featured. Oh yes, there was a man (we only saw his sneakered feet) walking in puddles at Buskett telling us all about Satanism, the black mass, masturbation, a form of gang rape and orgies.

We had a clip from a real horror movie, an ex-Satanist behind a screen with a distorted voice telling people not to go to fortune-tellers. “The devil gave me a lot of things”, he claimed. It’s a shame we were not told what the gifts were, as we were to entice us to take part in the programme’s televoting.

We also had a woman whose woes started with the Ouija board and ended up with Rosemarie’s Baby.

Oh, I nearly forgot, we were told about Voodoo dolls and how some fortune-tellers claim that they can even cast a spell that will induce cancer.

Believe me there was more and I deserve to be paid much more for enduring all that balderdash, but I would need much more than a column to get it all in.

Every so often, Peppi would very strongly urge people not to trust fortune-tellers, as they only rip you off. Now it is good that people are made aware that charlatans are taking them for a ride, but the programme was an overlong, sensational hotchpotch of black magic, exorcism, Satanism, witchcraft, religion and medicine, which led nowhere.

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