If ever we needed proof that money makes the world go round, the fuss over the currency conversion to the Euro by Malta gave it to us.
While elections in the US and violence sparked by elections in Pakistan and Kenya hog the news, the Euro adoption here and in Cyprus has managed to muscle in on many of the front pages.
Now, I am not that naïve not to know that “minghajr flus la tghannaq u lanqas tbus”, (lack of cash gets you neither hugs nor kisses) but I also believe that “it is not all about the money”, the catchphrase used by the lovable rogue (a modern day Robin Hood), Mickey, in the TV series Hustle.
Besides, happiness, the goal everyone reaches out for, is not all down to money, as shown in a documentary, billed as one of the BBC’s best. (By the by, it is amazing how many BBC documentaries are billed as “one of the best”).
What I am trying to say is that there is a limit to how much news one can squeeze out of a currency changeover. Yes, I know that this time of the year here is bereft of front-page material.
Unless we have a new boatload of people, escaping to a better life, arriving on our shores; a fireworks explosion; a protected bird shooting, or any other shooting for that matter, there is nothing much to report.
Except to what the Opposition has to say about the government’s failings and the government’s retaliation by bringing up the spectre of the bad times under Labour and badmouthing its leader, Alfred Sant, in the sections of the press that so love to hate him.
Fate of course has rather changed the tactics on the latter topic. The leader of the Opposition has metamorphosed from being “bizarre” and an unstable threat to someone worthy of compassion. What really stood out, as the news of the Dr Sant’s condition came to light, was hypocrisy.
How can one have no scruples about destroying someone when that person is healthy, and then send messages of a speedy recovery, when they are ill?
Is that really compassion, or political game play?
However, Dr Sant’s health has really thrown the game into disarray on both sides of the fence.
Despite his consultant’s reassurance that “he could see him getting back to business and ready to face an election some 15 days after leaving hospital”, his future as MLP leader must be on top of the agenda at both Pietà and Hamrun.
The PN must be wondering whom to target next. Any attacks on Dr Sant now will not augment their image as a ‘caring’ Demo-Christian Government.
As to the MLP, any journalist worth his or her salt would give anything to be a fly on the wall at the glasshouse and at caucus meetings outside it right now.
A news item that did not make the headlines, except for The Independent, was the tuberculosis case that was not immediately diagnosed.
The elderly man, who had a history of TB, was not isolated when admitted with respiratory problems and was included in the Mater Dei migration.
I am not after a witch-hunt, but surely the public needs to know that the person responsible for not immediately diagnosing the man’s condition and acting accordingly is being disciplined.
Allowing 20 or so patients to share a ward in a hospital with a TB patient is of grave concern, especially since the incidence of TB is growing worldwide. It also put staff in attendance at risk.
Although people who had prolonged contact with the person with TB have been summoned by the health authorities for screening, concern is still raised about how procedures, which according to the consultant responsible for infectious diseases, did not follow hospital policy.
Namely, that of doing “its utmost to avoid the risk of spreading the disease by keeping patients in isolation in rooms purposely equipped for air to be sucked out.”

Roadmaps
The buzzword “roadmap” has suddenly caught on with a vengeance here. All of a sudden, everyone has a roadmap.
“Today’s upgrade (Moody) is the result of the government’s wise roadmap...” Tonio Fenech, Parliamentary Secretary for Finance.
“The e-learning strategy should incorporate a roadmap leading the country for the next three years”, IT Minister, Austin Gatt at the launch of a consultation process, which will lead to a national strategy on e-learning with Education Minister Louis Galea.
And “a roadmap” will include an audit and legal assessment of the Chamber of Commerce and the Federation of industry before the two organisations merge.
The people who have not yet thought of a roadmap are the hunters. Hunter’s Federation secretary-general Lino Farrugia is still hounding Education Minister Louis Galea with his complaint of the ‘brainwashing’ questionnaire. The man does not give up.
In a letter to The Times, last Wednesday he spells out his complaints. Firstly, with reference to a holy picture of St Francis, with the words “Saint Francis of Assisi loved nature, especially the birds. He never shot them or killed them in traps or caught them in nets”, and “… On the island of Malta there are up to 1.5 million migrating birds killed annually”, which was distributed at the Zurrieq primary school, last October.
Now while it is understandable that the federation should feel provoked by this, it happens to be true.
And Mr Farrugia’s response to the provocation is, as usual, banal. This is what he had to say about the author of the words on the holy picture: “What a pity this holy worshipper did not give this information to the Ministry for the Environment. He/she could have saved all the money being spent on the current study of Malta’s carnet de chasse by a foreign scientific institute.”
It gets worse. He had this to say about St Francis. “He never had muesli for breakfast and he never brushed his teeth with toothpaste every morning and night either. Should children copy him?” Is this man (Mr Farrugia) for real?
With reference to the Siggiewi questionnaire, he did have some valid complaints, one, which I referred to last Wednesday, i.e. asking children whether anyone in their family “is or was a hunter”, was inappropriate.
And it is questionable whether primary school children are in a position to answer questions on whether the police “are doing a good job to control illegal hunting in Malta”. But querying the educational value of the questionnaire addressed to the children because of the reaction of some readers of timesofmalta.com, is ludicrous, as is claiming that “any sane person knows that hunting and conservation go together.”
No wonder the minister is ignoring him.

 

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