Last Tango in Strasbourg…

I may have mentioned this before, but… very clearly, I must have missed out on my true vocation in life.

I should have been a dance instructor, damn it!  I should have made some good, practical use of all those decades of (if I say so myself: BADASS) experience on the dance-floor…

That way, I might at least have helped out our latest ‘Strictly Ballroom’ contenders – ‘Robert and Roberta, from Malta’ (honestly though: you couldn’t make this shit up if you tried) – to get their basic tango moves right: you know, before just waltzing off like that, on a red carpet in Strasbourg, to the tune of…

‘Rum… tum-tum-tum…. Tra-la-la-la-la!’

But wait… I’m racing ahead of myself here, aren’t I? So – in the unlikely event that you haven’t already seen the photo for yourselves – well, here it is, in all its preposterous (and, oh! So cheesy!) glory…

I imagine you can already see what I mean, too. For let’s face it: as far as I can make out, there are only three realistic interpretations to account for how two such high-profile Maltese politicians – who were both incessantly at each other’s throats, until almost literally just yesterday – could suddenly take time out of their busy, ‘mutual-annihilation’ schedule…

… for almost any photo opportunity whatsoever: let alone, for something quite as ‘glitzy’… and ‘glamorous’… and ‘cute’… and ‘cuddly’… and ‘sugar-coated’… and… (help me out, guys: I’m running out of adjectives)… ‘stick-your-fingers-down-your-throat-and-BARF!’… as…

….THAT! (And right before attending a funeral service, too. I mean, like I only just said: you literally can’t make this stuff up…)

But in any case: as far as I can see, the only realistic options are as follows:

Robert and Roberta decided to participate in a frame-for-frame reenactment of the ballroom scene from Walt Disney’s ‘Cinderella’… (in which case, they nailed almost every single last detail: right down to the camera angle, for crying out loud…)

Or perhaps they thought – for whatever reason – that they were standing on the red carpet outside Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre, on the ‘Night of the Oscars’ (complete with photographers, paparazzi, swooning celebrity-spotters… the works);

Or else, it’s what I personally hope it is (and what it certainly resembles the most): a rehearsal for a good old-fashioned spot of ballroom dancing… particularly, of the ‘Argentinian Tango’ variety.

If so… well, what can I say? They’re in luck. For ‘classic Argentinian tango-moves’ happen to be my own personal speciality: and even just by glancing at this photograph, I can confirm that both dancers did, at least, get a few of the fundamental techniques right.

Consider, for instance, the way Robert is firmly clasping Roberta’s right hand with his left. Both arms are bent at around 45%... good, good… and both held roughly level with the shoulder….

Hmm. Technically that should be ‘slightly higher’… but hey, let’s not judge our ballroom dancers too strictly, shall we?

More or less everything else, however, is – how can I put it? – WRONG. Take the male partner’s left arm, for starters. Sorry, Robert, but: this is the Tango we’re talking about here. We’re not sitting around a camp-fire, singing: ‘Kumbaya, My lord!’

No: what we are attempting to undertake a is visceral, powerful (and precisely choreographed) rendition, of the same basic ‘attraction-repulsion’ motif that underpins the most atavistic manifestations of the human libido.

And at the risk of making Lydia just slightly jealous: that also means that you – both of you, mind – have to make at least a tiny, weenie, little bit of effort, to make it look just a little bit…. ‘SEXIER’.

What I’m trying to tell you, Robert, is that… you have to ‘HOLD HER’, damn it! (And not merely ‘High-Five her’: this isn’t a Giovanotti video we’re making here, you know). So your right hand goes around Roberta’s waist… there, like that. Much better alreday….

As for you, Roberta: YOUR left hand gets planted firmly – but not too firmly – on Robert’s right shoulder. No, don’t ‘grip’ him by it… just press the shoulder with the tips of your fingers… with your wrist arched upwards, almost perpendicular... so that -  when the time  comes – you can ‘pull him towards you’, just as much as you can ‘push him away’…

And all this, not merely because ‘it is the proper way to do things’ (though I can assure you all:  it is.) But also because it kind of helps a bit, too: when we get to the part when you (Robert) flip her (Roberta), head-over-heels backwards, so that her legs end up flailing upwards in the air, and her head practically hits the ground below…

Sorry, but… it is going to have to happen, you know (specifically, on the penultimate beat of every fourth bar – depending, of course, on whether we’re in ‘marcato’, or ‘sincopa’, Tango time-signatures…)

And I don’t want to curb your enthusiasm, or anything, but… I’ve seen an awful lot of nasty ‘accidents’ back in my ballroom days, you know…

But tell you what: I was, perhaps, a little harsh on them there. Truth be told, both Robert and Roberta have long been exhibiting quite a degree of mastery, all of their own, in the fine art of ‘Tango Dancing for Publicity-Addicted Politicians’.

For what I said earlier about ‘the Tango’, as a reflection of the constant turnarounds in male/female relationships – where first the man, then the women, ‘take the upper hand’ in repetitive dance-steps: each ‘frog-marching’ the other, as it were, up and down the ballroom floor …

… it’s just as true about political relationships, you know. This is why Robert Abela could first publicly ‘snub’ Roberta Metsola’s earlier appointment as EP vice-president… not just by refusing to congratulate her; but also by accusing her of ‘using her position [as MEP] to undermine the national interest’, and all the rest…

… only to (quite literally) make a whole ‘song-and-dance’ about the fact that the same Roberta Metsola has just won a much greater political victory... only this time round, he didn’t limit himself to merely ‘congratulating’ her; or just ‘showing up for the ceremony’, or anything like that.

Oh, no: he practically ‘swept her right off her feet’ – just like Prince Charming in Cinderella, in fact - for a colossally stage-managed, colossally fake, and colossally Disney-esque ‘Last Tango in Strasbourg’… and all against the fairytale backdrop of smiling, applauding European politicians, everywhere you look…

As for Roberta Metsola: I’m probably not the only one to have been reminded of a certain other (much-publicised) photo: in which her interactions with a certain other Maltese prime minister were… let’s say, somewhat ‘different’.   

And yet: in the eyes of the Nationalist party, at any rate… and certainly, in the rhetoric of its current leader, Bernard Grech – there has been no corresponding change, in the meantime, of Robert Abela’s status as the ‘spiritual successor of Joseph Muscat’.

In other words: the same Robert Abela, that Roberta Metsola now greets with so many ‘smiles and curtseys’, is still regarded by her party as a ‘continuation of the Joseph Muscat era’ (indeed, this has been the thrust of all the latest PN offensivse against Labour: pouring scorn on Abela’s recent attempts to ‘distance himself’ from his predecessor….)

So… um… what are we to make, exactly, of this sudden contrast between those two  (equally ‘classic’) photographs? Are we to understand that the same Roberta Metsola who had so abruptly cut short Joseph Muscat’s conciliatory advances, with a simple gesture of her hand… is now using the exact the same body-language, to tell us all that…

… ah, but Robert Abela is NOT such a ‘continuation of the Joseph Muscat administration’ after all, is he? Because let’s face it: how else are we supposed to interpret, what was very clearly – and very embarrassingly – a ‘publicity stunt’, to which both those politicians must have been voluntary participants?

It must have been intended for a purpose, you know… and if the purpose wasn’t to imitate a Disney movie, or to engage in a spot of random ballroom dancing… what was it, then?

To my mind, it can only mean one thing, really. That it is now in BOTH their interests to play the same ‘sugar-coated’, ‘cute-and-cuddly’, ‘stick-your-fingers-down-your-throat’ sort of game: Roberta Metsola, for the (rather obvious) reason that she found herself actually needing the support of the European Socialists, for a change… and Robert Abela…

Well, probably because he knows full-well that Metsola can now inflict FAR more damage to his own government, in her new position, than she ever could as a simple MEP.

And besides… it is obviously going to be in his own interest, to play along with a farcical charade that also (as it happens) paints himself as ‘one of the good guys’, for a change.

Yes, indeed: small wonder Robert Abela would be positively beaming, from ear to ear. For he knows, just as well as I do – and just as well as Bernard Grech does, no doubt – that Metsola’s public ‘endorsement’ last Tuesday, is also the direct equivalent of an ‘Ego Te Absolvo’… (and this time, coming from the new EP President, no less!)

But no matter WHY both Robert and Roberta engaged in this ‘two steps forward, three steps back’ sort of rhythmic dance; fact remains that it is exactly the same pattern of ‘advance/retreat’ – or ‘attraction/repulsion’ - that we’ve already just covered in our little Tango lesson, above.

So tell you what: let’s take it all over from the beginning, shall we? On the count of three, now: Ready? One, two…

‘Rum… tum-tum-tum…. Tra-la-la-la-la!’ [Repeat to fade]…