To all intents and purposes he could have stayed on as head of Radio 101, the head of AZAD, and to look after the Nationalist propaganda and spin machine. I do not see why he should not continue to pretend that he is longer associated with the PN. When he started his term on TVM years back, he was a party functionary. It did really matter then. Why should it now?
But last Tuesday, nobody could be fooled by the way he spun the whole City Gate debate.
Invited for the programme: Konrad Buhagiar, who is directly involved in the project but also has an opinion about how super-ideal the siting of the Mediterranean Conference Centre happens to be (in fact it is absolutely not);
Kenneth Zammit Tabona, who had some interesting points but was severely handicapped by his insistence on using English as a language instead of Maltese on TVM;
Former PN ideologue Peter Serracino Inglott, who has the proverbial balls to stand up and say it as it is;
And of course, Louis Galea acolyte Dr Peter Fenech, who is certainly not worthy of his post as politically appointed chairman of Manoel Theatre and the Mediterranean Conference Centre: he proved to all of us on Bondiplus that his political brief (once again from his close school friend Edgar Galea Curmi) was pinned to decimating the opposition to the City Gate project and to promote the Mediterranean Conference Centre.
What was supremely scandalous was Lou Bondì’s infantile attempt to belittle any suggestion that, for example, the open theatre should have a roof.
He showed a clip of an interview with Paris based architect Renzo Piano, who stated that there is need of humility and the need to listen to criticism.
I quite liked listening to Piano. A minute later back in the studio, the podgy-faced Bondì asked one of his guests whether the Maltese public was showing any humility. I was only on the verge at throwing my plate of risotto at the TV screen.
Bondì has no interest in debating an issue, but to erase any form of opposition and promote the government’s agenda, whatever it is or could be. He is the government’s petroleum jelly.
It would not be a problem had his programme been on a private station, whether NET TV or Super One. But on PBS, he should be rapped on his knuckles and stopped. The fact that Claire Vassallo Thake and Joe Pirotta refuse to do this is not because they do not feel uncomfortable, but simply because they cannot deal with the arrogance and rudeness of this PN frontman.
To get a preview of how the Office of the Prime Minister works, one need only have listened to Peter Fenech, the lawyer whose history takes us back to the scandalous manner in which the public land at the Jumbo Lido was rented, and he benefited over the years from political patronage. In his delivery he proved beyond doubt the ethos of the present administration that if culture makes no money, then it is not worth investment.
How sad.
When Peter Serracino Inglott suggested that it would a grand idea to have a theatre welcoming the thousands who entered Valletta, he sounded more credible than any of the other invited guests. And his insistence for a roof was correct. But when he pushed this point, Bondì retorted with a bar chart about the average number of days it rains in a year.
Needless to say, Bondì should also have had a chart to mark the decibel levels over Valletta for aeroplanes passing over, fireworks and mass meetings and other unexpected noise pollution; and perhaps a chart for the humidity levels throughout the year and more importantly a temperature chart and a wind chart.
For example this evening at around 9pm it will be somewhere around 8ºC. No problem for a cold-blooded hound like me. Perhaps Bondì likes it toastier.
And the cherry on the cake was his patronising comment at Kenneth Zammit Tabone’s humble suggestion that he would love to see theatre-goers multiply. “Dream on…” was Bondì’s answer (honestly, does this have to do with his fixation with Benny Hill?).
Anyway: just a note on Bondì’s choice for the ‘score of the week’ when he ends his programme. Could anything be worse than using four minutes of public television for a Phil Collins concert? I don’t want to rain on the parade for Phil Collins fans worldwide (he might have gone astray after giving up drumming full-time, just like when Hitler took up politics); but there is something despicable about Bondì’s love for muzak (he can’t get over himself), and the way he uses public TV to tell us what he’s playing in his living room. Can’t PBS stick his entire collection in some elevator? We can spend the entire day going up and down to the sound of Sussudio until we throw up.
Well done Charles Demicoli So last weekend, Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and partners were eating at a private restaurant in St Paul’s Bay. I would not have known, but I am told the Bidnija blogger relayed in real-time where they were eating out.
I do not blame them for eating out in restos, more so after Scerri Herrera’s experience with Lou Bondì, who as a rude dinner guest decided to organise a programme about his antipasto with the magistrate. Really, doesn’t he have anything better to do than playing air-guitar to Phil Collins?
What is more interesting is that at the same time, Charles Demicoli – the former ADT Chairman and the man who is renowned for his vast business interests – was dining at the same place with some friends.
I guess it was a coincidence, and one cannot point to what Charles Demicoli was doing with his mobile. All I can say is that Charles Demicoli has been very friendly with the Bidnija blogger for a long time.
What I also do know, is that when the blogger vilified my late wife, I phoned up Charles Demicoli and told him to kindly relay a message to his big friend Richard Cachia Caruana, that I would hold him responsible for the cruel bile of the blogger.
Demicoli got back to me and told me that RCC had no control over “the mad woman”… Demicoli’s words not mine.
Demicoli gave me another piece of advice, telling me on this occasion that “revenge is like dessert… best served cold.”
So there you go, the blogger thinks she can scare everyone with her verbal terrorism. I wonder if she has stories she cannot reveal about Charles Demicoli.
Any comments?
If you wish your comments to be published in our Letters pages please click button below. Please write a contact number and a postal address where you may be contacted.
The need to grill Two recent developments have underscored the gulf of difference that separates Malta from the rest of Europe: the first involved the recent hearings before the European Parliament to approve Barroso’s second Commission; the second was last Monday’s ‘grilling’ of Louis Galea by the European Parliament’s budgetary committee.....>>
