Literal translation from Maltese to English does not even begin to describe the problems with this piece of ‘reportage’. English aside, what is it exactly?

A report on Malta’s use of EU funds, or a report on what Chris Said decided to say?

What’s the news here - that Malta has used up its entire EU funds allocation or that Chris Said said so?

I just want to hit my head against the wall repeatedly.

timesofmalta.com - 16:04CET
Malta spends all EU funds it is allocated

Malta has spent all the EU funds it had been allocated, even surpassing the amount allocated under the programme Equal, according to two reports, Parliamentary Secretary Chris Said said.

He said that in the first 10 years of EU membership, Malta would have acquired €1.3 billion.

Maltastar, earlier this evening - a hot news item:

Labour urges fireworks board of inquiry to complete report quickly

Labour leader Joseph Muscat and Labour MP Michael Falzon have urged a Board of Inquiry, set up to investigate the materials used in the production of fireworks, to work quickly.

Perhaps ‘Labour leader Joseph Muscat’ should invite the ‘Board of Inquiry’ round for tea at 52 Triq San Pawl Milqi - or is it 52a? - where they can sample deputy leader Michelle’s gingerbread men and chat to their token gay friends the French Sorbonne professor and his make-up artist boyfriend, who might drop by unexpectedly as in that (in)famous magazine interview.

No fireworks around, but heaps of Michelle’s teddies - the furry ones with two ears, and not the sexy ones you wear in bed.

From timesofmalta.com, beneath the story about how the Xaghra feast will go on as planned:

to those accusing the priest: Sorry to say, but I DO NOT AGREE with what you are saying. First of all, the church and those organizing fireworks are different organizations. Secondly, we paid thousand of euros, which were blown up like this, and now you’re asking for the feast to be cancelled as well, more thousand euros to be blown in vain too?? are you serious?? we will not be celebrating the death of these people mind you, but the birth of our lady!! we are a catholic village who celebrate feast with a religious aspect, unlinke most of your feast who swear, and celebrate feast with a very ateist side!!!

I symphatize with the families involved!! You’ll never be forgotten, and the people of Xaghra will keep you in their heart and in their prayers

we paid thousand of euros, which were blown up like this, and now you’re asking for the feast to be cancelled as well, more thousand euros to be blown in vain too?? are you serious??

And then they say that we shouldn’t allow people in from alien cultures because we can’t understand them and they can’t understand us.

Here’s Maltastar, making like a panting B-list starlet:

One of the victim’s relatives, Horace Micallef, a labour councilor in Fontana and the cousin of Peter Paul Micallef, one of the victims, spoke to Maltastar.com about the disaster which struck the nation.

“The disaster which struck the nation” - somebody tell them that four people dead and two critically injured in a fireworks explosion in a Gozo village is not a national disaster, though it has concentrated some minds.

As for the rest, Evarist Bartolo is a fine one to talk about mangled English when Labour’s mouthpiece is so BAD.

“The cousin of Peter”; “labour councilor”; telling us twice in the same sentence that Peter Paul Micallef was one of the victims and that Horace Micallef is a relative of his.

It’s a national embarrassment.

So they’re carrying on with the festivities in Xaghra, as planned. Our Lady of Victories should be thrilled.

This is not the time to make smart remarks about Gozitans, so I won’t. But I’m tempted.

The parish priest felt the need to point out that yesterday’s festivities were cancelled. Well, I should ruddy well hope so. What was the alternative: five truckloads of fireworks blow up at 6pm, killing four people including a pregnant 21-year-old and leaving another two with 80 per cent burns, and while rescuers are searching through the rubble the band plays in the village square?

I don’t think so.

Let’s see if I can follow the line of reasoning here. Issa la mietu, mietu. Imbilli ma naghmlu xejn, x’se niehdu b’daqshekk? Majtezewel carry on.

“From a sacred island, Malta has become a banana republic,” Norman Lowell said today outside the law courts.

That’s right. And it’s the reason the media have so much time for him. I guess he doesn’t understand that he’s part of what makes Malta so very strange.

For clarity’s sake, I’ve found out the exact details and you have them here.

A lorry was left at the Hal Ghaxaq fireworks factory on Saturday evening. The explosives were loaded onto it during the night, then at 5am yesterday, escorted by one policeman, it was driven by a man from Gozo, who crossed over to the main island for the purpose, to the former Gozo ferry jetty at Marfa - and not to the jetty now used by the ferry at Cirkewwa.

There the explosives were transferred to a privately-owned boat - not a barge - and ferried across the channel to Hondoq ir-Rummien (which, incidentally, should give us a bit of an idea as to where some of the opposition to the Hondoq ir-Rummien project comes from, but that’s a side issue).

On the same boat, there were explosives from San Bastjan in Qormi, from Qrendi and from the Lija factory, also bound for Gharb.

The explosives were unloaded at Hondoq ir-Rummien, still under the policeman’s supervision - though quite frankly, how a policeman can stop explosives from exploding is beyond me, though he can certainly keep innocent third parties at a safe distance, even if he risks his own life to do the job.

Another lorry was waiting down at the beach and the explosives were loaded onto it. Still with that policeman in attendance, it was driven to the fireworks factory in Gharb.

The fee for the police escort - between Hal Ghaxaq and Marfa only; I do not have copies of the receipts for the other legs of the journey - was EUR19.13.

I can’t bring myself to comment on these photographs from www.ghajnsielem.com, uploaded under the heading:

SUNDAY AFTERNOON
Fireworks Preparations by local enthusiasts
29th August 2010
Photos taken by Manuel Zerafa

The words ‘local enthusiasts’ say it all. These photographs remind me, more than anything, of my sons and their friends when aged between eight and 10 building experimental projects in the garden shed. But these are grown men and teenagers, and at least one young woman, with dangerous explosives.

Am I from another planet? Because what’s the reasoning here: that it’s good, clean fun and that at least it keeps them away from sex and drugs?

Yes, the nanny state can be too much and health & safety legislation in the stricter EU member states has become a bit of a joke. But what in heaven’s name is all this?

Malta: the land of crackpot extremes. On the one hand you have a primary school teacher filing a suit - and being taken seriously - because she claims she was bullied by a five-year-old who poked her with a pencil. And on the other hand, you have this kind of thing, which just beggars belief.

Say what you like, they’re better off with a joint and some girl on the beach. Not that I’m advocating that kind of thing, but our definition of what’s safe and normal behaviour for teenagers and men in their early 20s is rather odd.

Pass me the smelling salts.

This country: it’s just unbelievable. Joseph Muscat’s father is one of the two main importers of fireworks chemicals. The business is called Saviour Muscat Fireworks and the official address and telephone number are given as:

Saviour Muscat Fireworks
31 St Andrew’s Street
Lija
Malta
Telephone: 21 57 12 65
Fax: 21 57 12 65

The 57 prefix does not indicate Lija. It is the St Paul’s Bay/Burmarrad prefix. But in these days of number portability, you never know. So for your next task, just log onto www.go.com.mt and perform a search on the telephone number.

It’s registered at the leader of the opposition’s home (he shares the address with his parents):

Muscat Salvu
52 San Pawl Milqi, (Burmarrad)
San Pawl il-Bahar
21571265

Here’s the Go on-line directory again:

Muscat Joseph, B.Com.,B.A.Hons.,M.A
52A Triq San Pawl Milqi (Burmarrad)
San Pawl il-Bahar
21584614

No doubt, the usual apologists and people who don’t know how to behave or where lines should be drawn will come out of the woodwork to say ‘Ah, but Joseph lives at 52A and not at 52′. Well, ha ha ha to that. If I build myself a little house, with or without a pool, in my parents’ garden at no. 25 and call it 25A, it remains the same address.

Do we now need a detailed explanation from on high, as with the outgoing attorney-general and the (unnamed) Consuelo Herrera in The Sunday Times yesterday, to tell us why not everything that is legal is acceptable when you occupy a certain position?

How can the leader of the opposition ever be considered credible and honest, or his political party transparent, if parliament gets down at last to tackling the terrible fireworks situation?

As for Malta Today and the rest of them, including all those whining women columnists in the English language newspapers (include me out, please), just imagine their indignation if the prime minister’s son or brother or father - God rest his soul; he died today - were a major importer of fireworks chemicals with the business operating out of the prime minister’s home address, at a time when there are inquiries into substandard chemicals causing all these explosions.

We would never hear the end of it.

Look at the fuss they’re making because somebody related to him by marriage is on the Sliema Local Council and voted against deputy mayor Nikki Dimech.

Mur ara jekk kellu xi fireworks business jopera fid-dar tieghu. Incredible. This island just becomes weirder by the day.

I am sick to the back teeth of our newspapers’ total inability (reluctance?) to follow up a story. They report only the obvious and don’t follow up on leads.

They never tie up the loose ends to give us the total picture.

They rarely synthesise on-going sagas - like the Sliema mayor/fairylights brouhaha - or put them into context, so that readers are left bewildered by a plethora of statements and counter-statements.

But this? This really is the frigging limit.

After the Dwejra (not Mosta) fireworks factory blew up last month, somebody involved in the business was quoted by one newspaper as saying that the reason for the spate of accidental explosions this year is the poor quality of one of the chemicals used.

The fireworks manufacturers do not import their own chemicals but buy them from merchants who import them. This particular chemical, he said, is now being imported from China, where quality control is dubious, because it is cheaper and more profit can be made.

Did any newspaper even bother to follow up on this, find out who the importers are and question them - publicly - about the source and quality of the chemicals they sell to fireworks manufacturers?

Did they hell.

Did they even bother to uncover the fact that one of the two main importers is Saviour Muscat, whose son is the leader of the opposition?

As if.

Even if they knew, they certainly didn’t tell anyone. In God’s name, why not? The line that the son has nothing to do with the father certainly does not apply here.

The son has everything to do with the father in this case, because the son is a major legislator and the public is calling out for stiffer control of fireworks manufacturing, which will directly affect the father, who makes his money this way and passes that money - or will pass it - on to his only son.

Last night’s was the fifth destructive explosion this year alone. Another four people have died and another two have been seriously injured. The formal inquiries seem never to lead to anything, and we need to have our minds put at rest that nobody is being protected, that the reason these inquiries are never published has nothing to do with what might be one recurrent name.

More to the point, the Labour leader is the very same one who has made a brief career out of screaming for transparency. Perhaps it is time he turns transparent himself.

People have been clamouring for years for reform of the fireworks manufacturing system, and after this latest unpleasantness the pressure will increase. The government cannot even begin to think of any such reform without the full cooperation of the opposition, or - like bird-shooting and trapping - it will turn into a battleground of electoral blackmail and we won’t get anywhere.

How cooperative is the opposition going to be when this is how the leader’s father makes his living, and when it was the proceeds of fireworks chemicals that paid for the house with a swimming-pool that the Labour leader had given to him in his 20s by that same father?

While he takes a cruise on the MSC Splendida with his wife and his plaster cast, another four people - one of them a 21-year-old woman - lie dead. We need to know that they have not died because of some cheap Chinese chemical his father has sold them. I am tired of the way people are treated with such disdain in these matters, as though they are children who needn’t be told things.

There’s something else, too. That factory which blew up last night sold its fireworks all over Malta. Obviously, it did not transport them by special chartered flight from Gozo to Malta, but by sea. Did it use a private launch, or did it put them in a lorry and drive the lorry onto the passenger ferry along with many hundreds of unwitting people and their own vehicles. The sort of explosion which killed four people last night and one man in Dwejra last month - apparently caused by unstable chemicals - could just as well have happened mid-channel and killed hundreds, sinking the ferry, if the ferry was used.

It is INSANE that the transport of fireworks is permitted on passenger ferries. But now, at least, we know why the Labour leader has not joined the clamour for reform.

And here’s a hot tip for our reporters, who insist on claiming that this is the silly season when it is so patently not. Saviour Muscat Fireworks operates out of Lija, but the registered address for the business is 52a Triq San Pawl Milqi, Burmarrad. Does the address sound familiar? Indeed it does.