The silly season starts here

Published: August 2, 2009 at 11:43am

pirate_black_briefs

The battle over Renzo Piano’s briefs – I’m sorry, I couldn’t help that; it’s all so ridiculous – continues.

Now that FAA has been told the obvious, that there was no written brief because people of Renzo Piano’s calibre are engaged as creators and not as executors, its members have retreated to the tea-table once more to come up with a fresh line of attack.

FAA has yet to tell us what it actually thinks about Renzo Piano’s project, and forget the brief.

Fussing about the brief is just an elaborate exercise in obscuring its members’ incompetence in discussions about architecture and real environmental issues. That incompetence is revealed in sporadic comments which they post on the internet, like that of the FAA member who sought to give Renzo Piano some style advice, no doubt after a successful redecoration of her drawing-room, much admired by her friends.

He should use sheets of bronze instead of sheets of steel at the entrance to the city, she wrote, because they would ‘tone’ more with the bastion stones.

By demanding the (non-existent) brief so as to prove to The People that Piano’s hands were tied by the nasty ogre who lives in the palace on the hill – Booooo! He’s right behind you! – FAA’s members have shown a lack of clear thought.

I assume that they have been following this increasingly tedious saga since the day the prime minister announced that the opera house site would be used for Malta’s first-ever parliament house, and we all began to bicker at once over what it should be: parliament house or theatre/opera house/museum/national arts centre.

We carried on bickering until it was pointed out to us, by none other than the architect whose hands were supposedly tied by the ogre, that there’s room for both.

Parliament house can fill up that gap which the original planners of Valletta never intended to be empty (in fact, it never was) and the opera house ruins, a place of spirit and memory, would be incorporated into a contemporary theatre.

So it was in the news more or less from day one that Renzo Piano effectively wrote his own brief, placed parliament house in Freedom Square and a theatre in the ruins.

FAA’s leading lights are incensed when they are accused of having ulterior motives. Yet they are the ones painting themselves into this particular corner.

They keep shifting the goal-posts. First they demanded a theatre on the site of the ruins, saying that parliament house could be located elsewhere. When they got that, they began objecting to parliament house itself, saying that it is a waste of taxpayers’ money.

Are these the concerns of a self-described environment group? I hardly think so.

I would expect an environment group to discuss, instead, the environmental aspects of what will be Malta’s first and probably only fully ‘green’ public building: parliament house. There hasn’t been a word about that.

Instead, FAA has rejected the ‘green’ building out of hand and is demanding instead that the government knocks a few ‘palazzos’ together, possibly after requisitioning them from some hapless owner, and adopts a Blue Peter “here’s one I made earlier” approach to the creation of a makeshift parliament house, in hopelessly unsuitable quarters and with no ‘green’ infrastructure.

The maxim that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing has been borne out by the behaviour of FAA and its more assiduous members. Their tenacity is to be admired; the same cannot be said for their incompetence and their utter lack of focus. If they are an environment lobby group, they should stick to the environment.

Where and how tax-payers’ money is spent is a political argument and not an environmental one. That is just one reason why they are being accused of political motivation.

Labour controls inflation by importing food and nappies

The Labour Party has told us what it plans to do about inflation. It’s all more of the same and could have been written by an A-level student. Labour’s simplistic approach to life and its myriad difficulties invariably rubs me the wrong way. You’d think the party’s regiment of silly people would have got over their basic housekeeping approach to economic policy, but no.

I especially loved proposta numru tlieta, which tells us that the government should import products and services huwa stess and then sell these b’mod differenti.

Are these people for real?

So a Labour government is going to be one that goes into the importation business (been there, done that, never want to relive the experience), distorting the market and competing with the private sector, while distracting itself from what it really should be doing, which is looking after matters of government.

I’m not sure we should be surprised. After all, it was Labour deputy leader Toni Abela who suggested, in all seriousness, that the Labour Party should create different streams of revenue by setting up a Labour supermarket. His reasoning was that the Labour Party has the support of half the electorate, and that this would automatically translate into half the market.

If you vote Labour, you’ll drive for miles to the Labour supermarket from wherever you live, to buy your Labour groceries there.

Ah, but here’s the conundrum for Toni Abela. What would be the raison d’etre of a Labour supermarket: to make money for the Labour Party, or to provide an inflation-busting supply of non-profit or low-profit goods to starving Labour supporters who are living in absolute poverty because of the ogre in that palace on the hill?

Does Labour compete with the rest of the evil businesses who are running their cruel supermarkets and ripping off Les Miserables, so as to make enough money to pay Jason Micallef?

Or does it run a charity non-profit NGO supermarket in line with its socialist ideals? Hmmm – tough one, that.

This article appears in The Malta Independent on Sunday today.




15 Comments Comment

  1. H.P. Baxxter says:

    Those skiddies are FANTASTIC! Where can I get them?

  2. Andrea says:

    Hey, I hope they sell Diet Karl Marx Kinnie, Muscat Morning Coffee Digestives and Mintoff Kunserva in an antique memorial can in that Anticapitalidl.
    And why not building a wall like in Berlin to make sure that there isn’t any exchange of evil goods.

  3. M Vassallo says:

    Why all this hoo la ba loo about the new parliament? First of all the President’s Palace will be vacated and so we’ll have the armoury for its proper purpose once more. The original armoury was a beauty. Second, the parliament will have a purpose-built place u ma nibqghux inlaqtu like we’re doing now. Third, can someone mention a walled city where on going in you find a car park?

    Apart from the parliament, prior to the issuing of the plans of Renzo Piano Joseph Calleja had criticised the open theatre and the majority took a ride from his comment. After the plans and exhibition were made public he was quoted in The Times as saying that he’ll be more than happy to perform on the inauguration of the said open theatre. Has anyone taken note of this?

    PS not related to this subject, what about the oil depot at Kalkara?

  4. Il-Ginger says:

    “I especially loved proposta numru tlieta, which tells us that the government should import products and services huwa stess and then sell these b’mod differenti.”

    That’s why have a Monti, Joseph. We can buy our commie rubbish there, when we CHOOSE to.

  5. Victor Ross says:

    Ergajna hlomna bil-“bulk buying” jew? Mela dal qatta cwiec ma jitghallmu qatt?

  6. john says:

    So the FAA lady suggests bronze instead of steel. We’d best inform Piano pronto. No doubt she has a degree in metallurgy and knows that bronze exposed to the elements (like the Vilhena statue) doesn’t corrode?

  7. Mario De Bono says:

    This is what makes me afraid:

    1. Sunday, 19th July 2009 – 11:43CET
    Speaking in a radio interview conducted by Times journalist Matthew Xuereb, Dr Gonzi noted that inflation stood at 2.8 percent in Malta compared to 0.5 percent in the EU. However, between May and June inflation here had dropped by 0.6 percent he said, and it was expected to continue to drop in the coming months. Dr Gonzi said the government was working in line with its electoral promise to strengthen the institutions which monitored prices, and an organisation would be focused exclusively on alerting the government over irregular price movements. The Prime Minister said there would not be a return to price fixing and price orders except in particular exceptional circumstances as in the case of medicines, where the government might even import some products itself.

    2. Your article, Daphne: “I especially loved proposta numru tlieta, which tells us that the government should import products and services huwa stess and then sell these b’mod differenti. Are these people for real? So a Labour government is going to be one that goes into the importation business (been there, done that, never want to relive the experience), distorting the market and competing with the private sector, while distracting itself from what it really should be doing, which is looking after matters of government.”

  8. john xuereb says:

    I have been in the supermarket – mini market business for the past 25 years. Life’s been good for us since 1987, without the bulk buying system…….so please dear LP do not even think about opening your Progressive Labour Supermarket. We have enough competition.

  9. marika mifsud says:

    I can imagine the PM going home one day to find Kate in a mood. She tells him “Look here Lawrence, the price of xxxx brand coffee went up. Start importing it yourself please. And while you’re at it here is a list of some other stuff you might as well get.”

    Maybe the supermarkets will have certain products with a little sticker saying “Imported by your friendly government”.

  10. john xuereb says:

    How can I send you an interesting email I received today?

    [Daphne – [email protected]]

  11. Anna says:

    Allow me to send a shiver down the spine of those over 40+ like myself. Do you remember the announcer reading the price list of commodities just before the 8.00 o’clock news?

    Patata ta’ barra – 30 centezmu u erba’ millezmi il-kilo’
    Patata ta’ Malta – 20 centezmu u sitt millezmi il-kilo’
    Tonn taz-zejt ta’ 30 gramma………..etc etc

    Brrrrrrrrr

    To all the English-speaking-only people on this blog, I’m sorry but this had to be written in Maltese to have the desired effect, and believe us, “you don’t wanna know”.

    [Daphne – Insejt il-mekril biz-zalza u l-mekril bla zalza.]

Leave a Comment