Man on the Moon

In writing about Maltese columnists one is drawn irrevocably to the gravitational pull of Joe Grima's ego. It's a dirty business to write about, not to speak of reading, his articles, but I was tickled by his latest effort. His latest installment on the di-ve web site is the second part of a veritable catachrestic refrain of soothseeing. Part of the image of himself that Grima has always relished in creating is that of the insider, privy to the shady secrets that the public must beg him to be told. It's a pity this suave guise is so crushingly deflated by an accompanying picture and English that would not be out of place in the Albanian Daily News. However, though no-one is in any doubt of how many secrets Joe Grima has shrouded within his capacious skull, it is unfortunate for him that they are mostly of a variety he would rather remained unknown. That which he does know, he shares ungrudgingly with his adoring fans, of which I am one.
From the very sub-heading one begins to fear for the sanctity of the man’s health; "Joe Grima argues about the outcome of the forthcoming general elections.” Who he argues with, we are not told. Certainly not with himself, because if there’s someone that agrees with everything that Joe Grima says, then that is Joe Grima.

But better to get stuck in, because disassembling these things is no mean task. Grima breezily informs is that the country's boardrooms' are conducting a "visible manhunt" (I hope he means headhunt) for individuals close to Alfred Sant. In the next breath he tells us that "much of this is hidden from view". He is also keen to dispel suspicions that he might be trying to besmirch reputations, not least because he would be unwilling to burn his boats. And I have no intention of implying that he burns things, God forbid:

"I am not suggesting anything untoward by these MPs or by other Labour or Nationalist professionals. I am just stating what I have been reliably informed by people in the know who have seen boardrooms expand with Labour-oriented personages, who have evidenced companies take in Labour exponents when these companies are quite self sufficient and when these exercises seem to be purely ones of self preservation in case of change."

And this pained tergiversation segues into a delicious weaving of fatal disease into an analogy:

"One can bet one's bottom euro that if the reverse happens, these new people will be jettisoned as soon as the election results are declared, faster than if they were ascertained to be avian flu positive."

This all serves as a premise for the fanciful theory that the Nationalist Party have been trying to buy mercy from a putative future MLP government by offering a report by Chief Justice Emeritus Giuseppe Mifsud Bonnici on the revision of the Standing Orders of the House of Representatives. If it sounds stupid, or even crazy, that’s because it is. The whole thing makes absolutely no sense, from beginning to end, and it’s difficult to suppress one’s malicious thoughts about whether Joe Grima has been reading all the recently published articles admonishing excess drinking.

Grammatically tortured paragraph after tortured paragraph, he finally crash-lands his gibberish with this thoroughly surreal image:

"There is one more sign that Labour may already feel that they are in. Some prominent members of the Opposition have turned quite cold and many noses are up in the air already. I would imagine that at the height of their nostrils the air must be freezing cold. Watch out for hypothermia guys!"

To quote the MasterCard adverts, "priceless".