As I write this I am shaking with anger. I’m not the only one shaking. The whole building is trembling as the idiots down on the rusty barge floating in the middle of one of our favourite bays let off another barrage of their infernal petards.
They’ve been doing this for the last four days now. We’ve been subjected to their horrendous cacophony at different times of the day, evening and night. What could have been a peaceful day at the beach was turned into a lengthy period spent gritting our teeth and bracing ourselves for the next explosion. In the afternoons we were jolted out of our siestas by ear-splitting bangs. The nights were the worst of all, as the “devotees” of St Julian (in this case) maintained the most awful racket until late. My three-year-old daughter was reduced to tears as she was woken up time and time again by the blasts.
We heaved a sigh of relief on Sunday night. The Monday following a festa is traditionally the “xalata” day, when the same persons who had pranced in all their bare-breasted and beer-drenched glory supposedly in honour of their patron saint, go and spend a day on a beach in the northern part of the island. Their absence means that we get at least 24 hours of much-deserved respite at least until the following weekend, when another parish in our neck of the woods gets to celebrate its feast.
This time we were not so lucky. As the evening wound down, the twerps who should have been nursing a bad case of sunburn were back on their barge letting off more petards. And it makes me mad. I can’t take the way we are subjected to this enervating, relentless racket on hours on end, summer after summer.
I don’t know if the din-making is covered by a permit. It’s not that easy to find out. There are permits which are granted by the police and others which are granted by the local council. When it comes to festa-related nuisances I’ve had little joy from either of these bodies. I remember my frustration, some years back, as I called the local police station repeatedly asking them to pull the plug on an open-air festa disco which showed no signs of abatement at two in the morning. The police constable on duty first tried to placate me by telling me that this was only a once-yearly occurrence (As if that has anything to do with the price of eggs. Is a contravention less of a contravention if it is committed just once a year?) Then he tried to fob me off by telling me that a permit had been issued (albeit until midnight) and that a fellow policeman had been dispatched to the site. Finally when I turned up at the police station, fuming and red-eyed because of the lack of sleep, he sheepishly admitted that he was alone and could not leave his post unmanned. Fat lot of good that was.
As for the way the local councils dish out permits for kiosks and other structures during the festa weekend, without sparing a thought for the convenience of residents, this strengthens my conviction that they are utterly useless entities which have done nothing much to improve our quality of life and are more intent on twinning programmes with obscure Sicilian villages where the councillors can feast on “arancini” and other typical fare when they’re on their fiftieth exchange visit. Read the letter from a Mosta resident who was practically imprisoned by an eight-foot-high nougat kiosk during the feast to see how permits are given out with disregard for common sense and plain civility. Whoever it was at the Mosta local council who gave out that particular permit should be shut up behind a high wall for the weekend to see just what it feels like to be on the receiving end of official idiocy. Then there are all the other things which make me clench my teeth with rage at the way the festa has to be such an annoying event. The way streets pedestals and statues seem to be proliferating and taking up parking space, the cars making the rounds blaring out ditties insulting the rival parish and of course, the constant racket of the petards – they all make the festa season an ordeal to be endured rather than enjoyed. This coming from someone who used to find feasts colourful and joyful communal events and who used to hope that their traditional celebration would continue. With the way that things have evolved I now regard the festa tradition in much the same light as Japanese foot-binding and female circumcision – traditions which should be stamped out. By constantly turning a blind eye at loutish, yobbish and distressing behaviour, the authorities – both civic and ecclesiastical – have allowed the situation to degenerate to such an extent that the feasts now generate a sense of resentment rather than community. Maybe the crowds of revellers jumping up and down under umbrellas during the morning march will belie this statement. But believe me, there are far greater numbers of us trying to block out the din and waiting for the noise, the bloody noise, to finally cease.

Fellow columnist Pamela Hansen has conducted a long-standing campaign against the letting off of petards and unnecessary noise. She presented our members of parliament with a petition signed by thousands of people asking for some action to be taken in this respect. It was ignored. An incident involving the Labour Deputy Leader Michael Falzon sheds some light on why our politicians are loath to tackle this problem. The Malta Independent on Sunday reported that Falzon was carrying out his door-to-door visits in Sliema. He happened to ring the door of Hansen’s residence and was greeted by the columnist, who asked him if he intended doing anything about the fireworks. To which Falzon, who is also the President of the Stella Maris Band Club and definitely not the epitome of tact, defiantly replied “This year we will have more and more”. There’s sympathy and concern for constituents for you. He probably made his calculations (as his fellow politicians have done) and figured that there is a greater electoral advantage to be had from the pyromaniacs who will sulk and refuse to vote if their “hobby” is controlled, than from the rest of his constituency who will grin and bear it and still vote anyway. More fool them. Put up with these pyromaniacs and their MP patrons and they’ll put up with anything. The pity is that we have to live alongside them.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt