The other day I watched some of the Musumeci/Cini talk show on Super One TV. Albert Marshall, who was chairman of the national broadcaster during Alfred Sant’s government of 1996 to 1998, was their guest

The chat was all about how wonderfully independent of the government PBS was in his time, and Simone Cini interjected to say that, wow, it was so independent that Xarabank actually started during those years, the Labour government years.

Yes, Marshall agreed, indeed – Joe Azzopardi, who he will always know as Joe and not as Peppi, had approached him with this amazing idea for a show and he thought, wow, fantastic, I like it. And he said that PBS would take it on and run with it. Cini interjects again to say, gosh, how independent is that? Wow, amazing. So independent, and it’s great that we should point this out because people are forever talking about the state broadcasting years of the Labour 1980s, and they never mention the terribly independent broadcasting of the Sant years.

Enthusiastic nods all round, and there I am, on my sofa, thinking ‘What the hell are they on about? Joe Azzopardi voted Labour in 1996. He made a point of telling everyone about it. When he approached Albert Marshall and PBS back then, he was a Labour voter, and those two false so-sos, on the screen in front of me, know this.”

So much for the fiercely independent Albert Marshall/PBS/Sant years, and so much for Ms Cini’s credibility in pretending that Joe Azzopardi was some big Nationalist supporter in 1996 and that taking on Xarabank was a show of political impartiality towards producers. It really wasn’t. It was a Labour government/Labour-run state broadcaster taking a show from a Labour voter.

There, now that I’ve got that off my chest, or my ‘pectore’, as the prisoner of Brussels would put it, on to the next bit of tosh. Marshall then described how Joe Azzopardi, their relationship established, approached him about considering a programme pitch from Lou Bondi. “Isma, għandi ħabib, jismu Lou Bondi, li għandu idea tajba ghal programm.” And Marshall says that he had no idea who Bondi was because, you know, he had been in Australia for 15 years.

Right. He didn’t seem to realise, being sort of Labour, what this said about his suitability and qualifications for the role of chairman of the state broadcaster. It’s sort of like the man who was secretary-general of the Labour Party, for years, saying under oath that he never knew I write a newspaper column. He thought I just write ‘cook books’, even though the ‘cook books’ come in the newspaper which features my political column.

Anyway, Marshall took Bondi’s idea too, because he thought it was really good. And here I have to point out that he was right on both counts, and that the survival of both shows with top viewership figures until the present day is evidence of that, even though, let’s face it, Lou Bondi had been presenting a discussion show for a couple of years already, with proven success, so it’s not as though Marshall had identified a new star or anything like that. Xarabank was new in 1996/1997, but Bondi’s show certainly was not. I think he started in 1994.

So anyway, the point of all this meandering talk was to tell us how aggrieved and perplexed “others” were when Marshall told them that Bondi would be hosting a show. “Bondi? Bondi? Mela ma tafx min hu?” So Marshall felt he had to go to Prime Minister Sant and seek his advice (yes, tragic, I know) and Prime Minister Sant, being the grand man that he is and more concerned with matters of state than with TV shows, told Marshall that it was his decision to take and not the prime minister’s. So Marshall toddled off, content.

But there on my sofa, I had something to say about this, too. What on earth was Simone Cini on about, nodding with satisfaction as she heard this wonderful tale of Labour broadcasting independence, while failing quite significantly to point out that she was Lou Bondi’s co-host on a show called BondiCini on PBS in 2001?

I’m guessing it wouldn’t have served her political agenda to mention that. Lou Bondi on PBS under Labour was a big story of fascinating independence, but Simone Cini on PBS under the Nationalists was not worth mentioning and best forgotten.

This segment of the show came immediately after that criminal lawyer, Manuel Mallia, told us how he would run the police force. Interesting, I thought, so he’s gunning for the ministry of home affairs portfolio. I wonder how Anglu Farrugia feels about that.