Saturday, 26th April 2008
ON SATURN'S DAY
The Premier League is looking more and more like the elections just passed than ever.
The blue lot are creeping up on the red lot, looking more and more as if they're going to up-turn all the predictions. There was even a JPO type incident, with that moronic fluff letting Shrek in to boost red hopes just a little. Then there was the late penalty, sort of like that last 1,500 voters getting in under the wire to let the blues get ahead.
There was even a late-late incident and a later-later one that looked likely to upset the whole apple-cart, like when those 500 votes were misplaced and made Austin Gatt and his mates go pale, which is no mean feat.
Unlike the elections, though, it's not all done and dusted, because it still needs Man U to drop a point and Chelsea to win all their games: given the way they tend to delight in frustrating their supporters, which they've been doing to me since I used to go down the 'Bridge with the old man in '71, that's hardly likely to happen.
But then, it was hardly likely that the Nationalists (blues, just in case you missed my laboured point) were going to win the elections and it took the MLP (reds, geddit?) to lose it rather than the PN to win, really, so the fat lady hasn't sung yet. And then you have to remember that in the Champions League, we're going to be home for the final. At least, the owner will, if they let him in to the Motherland.
RIGHT ATTITUDE?
I was listening to Fr Joe Borg, fellow blogger and expert broadcaster, on Campus FM last Friday and he was interviewing the bloke who is the MEPA Auditor, Joe Falzon.
It was an interesting enough interview, mostly because Joe Borg treats his guests, and the audience, like adults and isn't afraid to put in personal observations. No doubt the Broadcasting Authority has some sort of guideline that makes this a less than perfectly acceptable habit, but in the meantime, more power to the clerical gentleman.
Joe Falzon gave a pretty good run-down on the trials and tribulations of his job, which are significant to say the least, and on the similar vicissitudes which beset MEPA's staff when they tackle planning applications. This is not a job anyone with a thin skin should contemplate doing and MEPA people need to have standards which are rather extraordinary, especially in our sort of culture.
An episode related by Mr Falzon, though, gave me some pause for thought, for all that it illustrated that everyone is human, with human failings, at the end of the day. Apparently, there were two applications which were, to all intents and purposes, identical.
Applicant "A", let us call him, turned up for the relevant hearing lawyered-up and the brief, in the style of such beasts, let fly with high sounding oratory about human rights and the powers of the people judging and gave due warning to all concerned of all the breaches of the law that would be perpetrated if his client's application was refused. Predictably, the application was refused, apparently on the basis that so many breaches of the law had, according to the legal beagle, been committed that one more wouldn't do any harm.
The real reason was that the lawyer had irritated the people concerned and they did what many people do in such situations, extended not the hand of friendship but two digits thereof, instead.
Applicant "B", on the other hand, came over all humble and contrite, demanding not what MEPA could do for him but asking instead what he could do for MEPA. He was given direction and told to re-apply, whereupon, directions followed, his application was granted. Not a very salutary tale, frankly.
Certain types of lawyers should, truth be told, be told to can it, but people in positions such as the one concerned in this story should have the moral and intellectual fibre to resist the urge to punish people who annoy them, simply because they annoy them. Otherwise, all decisions taken by these people become suspect and people start wondering what the real reason for a position being taken really was.
And this is the sort of thing without which MEPA could really do.
IN A PUFF OF SMOKE
I wasn't going to write about the European Court's interim ban on spring hunting, because I didn't want to risk sounding triumphalist. As soon as I make this sort of resolution, though, up pop PR-geniuses like the FKNK (for those who don't know who they are, they're the people who stand up for the right to kill birds) to shoot themselves in both feet, as usual.
According to these luminaries in the field of lobbying, the interim ban is evidence of how Birdlife conspired with someone to besmirch the name of Malta and interfere in the way of life of hunters. Incidentally, the court, when informed that a ban would affect the lives of these people took a moderately robust view.
"It's a hobby, people, get over yourselves" was the Court's point of view about that one. Not content with sounding a little paranoid, the FKNK compounded the error of their ways by saying that the fact that Birdlife had broken the news of the interim ban before the Government was proof (proof, mark you) that "they" (Birdlife) had "inside information".
That is so likely: a Court of the stature of the European Court is so rife with informants and conspirators that it allows itself to be manipulated by an NGO and then, to make sure everyone knows this, gives the same NGO prior notice of a ruling. Really, really believable, that, though I suppose it is if you're somone who believes in the right to kill things indiscriminately.
Anyone can access court rulings as soon as they're published on the relevant web-site: the more interested the party concerned, the more they will be monitoring the feed. The same goes for interpreting international obligations and derogations: you have to read the relevant documents for yourself and form your own opinion, not let others do the work and then choose to understand what like about what these others are saying.
FKNK, on the other hand, seem to expect that the world moves to their tempo and they missed the bus.
Again. Whose fault is that?
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Comments
Blind? Do we really have to explain to an intelligent person like you the difference between great, as in dozens of trophies and mediocre, as in a paltry few? I'm soooooooooooo going to enjoy rubbing your nose in it come May 11th AND 21st....and hopefully tonight too :-)
With best regards, of course. Hbieb konna u mija nibqghu.
How is it you seem to manage to get politics involved with sports?????
Is it case of one track mind ???
Take care and chill out......
@ edgar rossignaud - goal difference measures the gap in quality. United are streets ahead of anyone on an average day whilst Chelsea hope and pray for a last-gasp own goal by the opposition, a late non-existent penalty or simply grind out a dire and boring narrow and frequently undeserved victory.