You will be forgiven if you missed the pasta night organised to raise money for the victims of the Naxxar blast. Yes, you heard right: a spaghetti feast for the victims of the fireworks folly.
I am not exactly a catering entrepreneur, and nowhere in the lost list of how to raise funds for charity does a pasta orgy come into it.
But let me rewind a little wee bit.
It was a week I will never forget. My late wife was in bed fighting for life and just metres away in Naxxar, a Christian enthusiast was playing with fireworks. Suddenly the ground shook, windows rattled, cupboards swung open, the smoke filled the air and homes crumbled. I rushed upstairs to find a bewildered woman.
Unknown to me, a man had blown himself up and in his folly an innocent mother, unaware of what was going on, died too. It could have been worse, as good Fatima Deguara, Naxxar mayor, was kind enough to tell us.
Hours after, police gathered, ambulances screeched and army personnel looked busy. And then the bulldozers and the dust replaced the tragedy site.
Families had lost their loved ones, and now are maimed – mentally, forever – their homes and possessions gone. I cannot express the pain some still experience. Walk down that street and see that monument to years of incompetence from government, police and the church for allowing these bastards to get away with murder.
Year in year out, people die from blasts and yet we have all these silly romantic fools eulogising fireworks as if they were part of the corporate image that makes Malta what it is – a noisy place.
It was a week after the election and as is to be expected, the politicians made their appearance at the Naxxar site, looked into the cameras, for once did not smile and then disappeared. Yes, disappeared.
The victims, I can tell you, are scarred and forgotten.
But to the rescue came not Tonio Fenech’s good causes fund, but rather a pasta fund-raising night by the local council. How silly can they get?
No one has pointed a finger at the band club that was the recipient of these fireworks. Not even when some weeks later fireworks were found hidden in the Peace Band club in Naxxar. The club was closed down, but not gone. The repetitive pleas for warped justice from the puliti of Naxxar to reopen the Naxxar Peace Band club is sickening.
If you have lap dancers wriggling their backsides in your establishment, everyone expects the police to close you down; but if you have fireworks hidden away in a building next to an inhabited area then we should expect people to be forgiving.
Now, correct me if I am wrong, but the only damage a lap dancer can possibly cause is a sensual and biological explosion: a very personal thing that really and truly can hardly harm anyone. But fireworks are a different matter. Fireworks go up in smoke and usually cause damage, and by damage I mean the taking of lives.
There has been an almost Mickey Mouse-like reaction to the Naxxar blast. The greatest contribution is the last message of the Naxxar mayor, the one and only Maria Fatima Deguara – she is to be remembered for her great waffling contribution on the subject.
Really I cannot really reproduce what she said, but on the front page of Il-Kuntatt, the council’s newsletter, she talks of the great tragedy without even pointing a finger. Sicilian politicians had the habit of talking about the evil thing but never mentioning it by its name, and that was the mafia. Maltese politicians of yesteryear have the same problem. Thank God she lost so many votes in the last election.
Instead of pointing an accusing finger at the band clubs for having left their enthusiasts get away with “murder”, she gets lost in hyperbole: a trait so distinct among Nationalists.
If anyone in Naxxar wants to really help out the victims they should turn to the government and ask them to commit the band club, which was possibly going to serve as a recipient of the illegally made fireworks, to fork out all the money to support the victims.
But if there is crackling and burning evidence that the government is not that hell bent on putting all the blame on the band clubs, the proof of the pudding has to be in the eating.
And rest assured that sooner rather than later, the Naxxar populace will see the band club open, which by the way leans so heavily to the Nationalist party that only God knows why the Nationalist party club in Naxxar has not constructed an annex to the Peace Band Club.
Now, I will be damned to know who was behind all the fireworks going off in Naxxar after election day. Surely they must have been the “ghost military wing” of the Nationalist party and no one remotely related to the band clubs. It would be interesting to know.
On Naxxar’s feast on 8 September, the band clubs not only have an orgy of fireworks but some also let off petards from the roofs for days on end. I look forward to all this, a perfect tribute to the Naxxar victims, and I trust both band clubs will do what they know best – a pasta night to raise money for the dead.

Cry for me Mater Dei
Well, as we collect stories on Mater Dei, the Ministry for Social Policy collects stories and feeds them to The Times about the great leap forward for mankind: a hospital that has more cement in it than Chernobyl.
Last Sunday, as the John Dalli ministry was calling this newspaper sensationalist because people experience lousy service at Mater Dei, the Sunday Times – the newspaper that loves to bend over backwards for the government – reproduced a picture of someone’s eye duct being opened.
Now times have changed. Some four years back the STM was busy landing daggers in Mr Dalli’s back. Now the Times have a-changed and guess what… they have the green light from the Gonzi Jesuit service to paint Mr Dalli as the nice guy after all.
The little eye operation at Mater Dei, seen on the Sunday Times, was perhaps a very appropriate picture. Considering the time it takes for a cataract operation to take place at Mater Dei – not weeks, not months, but four years.
I suggest we open all our lachrymal ducts, for if anyone really gets to know the answers for the date of their cataract operation, you will need all the tears you can ever imagine.
But more on Mater Dei next Sunday, and I promise you I shall not be crying. Someone else will.

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