Ring Piece

The Lord be with you if you should ever need the Maltese health service, for as Louis Deguara’s column today shows, it is run by a Class-A nitwit. Truth be told, I’m not sure if I’m more disturbed or amused by the Ralf Wiggum-style flow of banalities, but I do know that it looks too much like a child’s scrapbook scribblings to be ignored. The message, however, looks suspiciously like it has been written on the basis of a checklist issued from the Pieta' HQ.

So, for any budding PN drones looking for tips on how to write the perfect start-of-year puff piece, of which you may find the highest puke-inducing expression here, some tips follow:

1) Wish your readers a happy new year, because this will endear you to the readers and make you appear more human than your political rivals. Also, make the new year a theme for your article, being sure to develop the concepts of renewal, continuity, improvement and change. However, suggest that as desirable as it may be to aspire to amelioration (a word we propose will make you appear more intelligent), this is hardly possible given how good things are already. Dr. Deguara gives an excellent example:

"On the local level, 2005 was not such a bad year. It is not only the government that is now convinced that it has mastered the budget deficit. The whole population is so persuaded. In fact, nobody is mentioning it any longer as a national problem. As all are won over that the programme of road upgrading is being executed according to plan, thanks to Italian protocol and EU funds! Those who still believe it was an exercise for the CHOGM event will have to eat their words this year."

2) Making sweeping statements like “the whole population” has the additional fringe benefit of making those who disagree with you look stupid, or just simply crazy. This dovetails neatly with the next task, which is to subtly undermine the credibility of opposition forces. Claim that valuable reforms are not being undertaken because the recalcitrant opposition refuses to agree with every single thing you say. When you're talking about the unions just say “social partners”, as this will make you appear like a consensus-building technocract instead of a party yes-man.

3) Speak about improvement, or amelioration, in the following areas, being mindful to disregard common sense when it inclines towards taking the shine off our achievements:

i) Employment

ii) EU money

iii) Electricity bills – They went up, but not as much as we wanted them to

iv) Restoration of democracy from the iniquitous dark days of bully-boy Labour Party thuggery to which we will never return. Never!

v) Boast about some infrastructure project we have executed over the last twenty years. Dr. Deguara offers a great, if unusual, example, along with a fragrant literary sleight of hand:

"Imagine confronting the challenges of the new economy without the investments in ... a perennially leaking and overflowing drainage system. It is true that the investment cost us hundreds of millions of liri but it was not money down the drain."

4) Try and end on some high-flowing note about the youth being our future, but if you will bring up education try not to make a tit of yourself, as Dr. Deguara did:

"Education aims not only at personal fulfilness..."

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My advice would be for the PN stooges that write this stuff for their ministers to take English lessons, or at least re-read their catatonic-prop. That might avoid the eventuality of Dr. Deguara appearing to express unbridled paroxysms of joy at this:

"The year was crowned with the announcement that at least a net Lm194 million will flow Malta's way between 2007 and 2113."

But don't worry, this guy is only some bigmouth journalist... oops, no, it turns out he runs the thing that might save your life, if you get get run over by a car racing along one those smooth, smooth CHOGM roads.