Austin, we have a problem

And believe it or not it concerns weight (of all things).

OK, probably not the sort of weight problem some of you out there may be imagining... even though, like most other human beings, I too suffer from occasional bouts of anxiety on account of the readings on my bathroom weighing scales.

But I would never dream of actually writing about such preoccupations, you know. For one thing I find it excruciatingly boring to have to read about other people's health concerns in a newspaper column. For another, I avoid discussing such matters in public because whenever I do, the reaction I get tends to be overwhelmingly... unsympathetic.

No, I don't quite understand it either. It's almost as though people just don't appreciate the deep-rooted psychological trauma involved in suddenly discovering that your 12-year-old cousin actually weighs more than you do... and that, come to think of it, so does the pet hamster you gave him for Christmas.

Yet confide this grave concern in others, and see how they react. Do they murmur words of quiet commiseration? No, they do not. Do they shake their heads and go tsk, tsk, tut, tut, x'wahda din, etc. (as they would if you'd just discovered you had Parkinson's, or told them you were going to vote Labour, or something equally outrageous and unthinkable)? Not quite, no.

In my experience, their reaction is rather similar to that of a Barakka lift operator when dealing with bespectacled German tourists. ('What? No Alpi tour? Biff! Sock! Kapow!') Some people I know even get jealous (no, I kid you not: JEALOUS, no less) whenever I inform them that I find it practically impossible to maintain a body weight above 60 kg.

I mean, seriously folks. The unfairness of it all. Evidently these people are unaware of the profound social stigma attached to being skinny in this day and age of corpulence and flab. Nor do they have any real idea of the endless discrimination we weedy types have to put up with on a daily basis, in a country where (let's face it) everything is geared up for the benefit of the improbably huge.

Don't believe me? You try asking for anything labelled 'XS' at any local retail outlet, and see what happens. Nine times out of 10 I get directed to the children's section...which wouldn't be so bad, if people didn't also ask me why I keep turning up to work in Winnie the Pooh tracksuit trousers. (My answer? Because I need a belt for everything else... and oh look, belts don't come in XS either...)

In any case, you'll be pleased to know that the last few times I've weighed myself, the readings were a good deal less alarming than usual. At present I hover around the 62kg mark - up from 56 last month - and... tell you what, why I don't I just let you in on my fabulous little secret? I was planning to write a book about it anyway, so here goes.

It's called 'food', folks. Yes that's right, you can get it from most supermarkets these days (note: in case of difficulty distinguishing 'food' from all those other products on sale, just make sure the packet has a little arrow pointing towards the image of a human mouth. Such labelling is now mandatory for all edible products on sale anywhere in the EU. So there's simply no more excuse to carry on inserting your shopping in all the wrong orifices...then wondering why you're still so goddamn hungry the whole time.)

In any case: like most scientists I used to be skeptical about the presumed link between 'food consumption' and 'weight gain'. But ever since I've been making it a habit of inserting 'food' into the right orifice at least once a day (being the nerdy type who always follows the instructions on the packet), sure enough the readings of those weighing scales are slowly beginning to look slightly more respectable with each passing week.

And this is great news because... hang on, didn't I just say I would never, EVER be caught dead writing about my own personal health issues? So why...?

Ah yes of course. Now I understand what led to this unlikely digression. It's those darn weighing scales. You see, part of the problem with developing a psychotic obsession with one's own body weight - and this applies to ALL people who suffer from such obsessions, regardless whether it's insufficient or excess weight that actually concerns them - is that you will sooner or later be forced to actually measure your weight on a regular basis.

And a dangerous thing that is, too. Half the time (be honest) you will do so with a certain expectation in mind - either to have put on, or to have lost X amount of kilos (or whatever other measure you use) over a certain number of days. And when that expectation is not matched to within at least a reasonable approximation... well, there is a sometimes that niggling little tendency to doubt whether the scales themselves are fully functional...

I won't go into the complexity of the psychological side to this conundrum. The rational part of my brain will usually tell me that... Oh, don't be daft. There's absolutely nothing wrong with those scales; I bought them just last week. But the irrational part? That's a different story. Not only will it have no difficulty whatsoever in blaming the scales... but it will also persuade its better half to go out and buy a new model just in case: only to doubt that one as well (after all, it will nearly always give you the exact same readings)... and on it goes ad infinitum.

So yes, I suppose I can safely say I have a weight problem. But it simply pales to insignificance compared that other national problem of ours when it comes to weights and measures (See? I told you I was going somewhere with all this...)

***

OK, let's cut straight to what this grossly overwrought excuse for an analogy is really all about. Remember how the 'irrational' side of my brain tends to reject measurements, when it just doesn't want them to be true? Well, that sort of thing works for issues other than body weight, too.

So when people react to identical sets of facts and figures in completely different ways - for instance, depending on whether the facts and figures concerned cast a positive or a negative light on their own preferred political party - well, as far as I am concerned that is every bit as worrying a symptom of mental disorder as, say, barking at the moon, or smearing your own excrement across the walls of your padded cell.

Allow me to launch directly into the most obvious example of the week: i.e., further revelations concerning Infrastructure Minister Austin Gatt, who has indirectly been implicated in alleged 'meetings' with people involved in the purchase of fuel by Enemalta, at a time when we all know (through reliable documentary evidence) that commissions had been paid on the same purchases.

Gatt obviously denies the allegations, but my concern at this point is not so much with his own reaction. Certainly there is nothing 'irrational' in trying to project the impression of innocence when one is accused of wrongdoing (quite frankly I would argue it is actually the other way round).

But it's the way this particular case has been treated - by government, by the media, by the man in the street - that indicates the existence of a serious problem.

***

Before proceeding let's clarify point a few basic, entry-level facts about the latest round of allegations. Did Austin Gatt have meetings with George Farrugia? The answer is clearly yes... by Gatt's own admission, at his press conference last Thursday. It's not the meetings themselves that Gatt denies; it's the allegation that he discussed oil procurement during those meetings.

I of course was not present for any of them, so I cannot confirm or deny this version of events. What I do know however, is this: the entire kerfuffle now boils down to a classic case of one man's word against another.

The emails were between Farrugia and people representing the companies from which Enemalta purchases its oil - and at various moments, they seem to suggest an interest on the part of those companies in the meetings that Gatt has already confirmed having had with Farrugia.

Small spot of bother: we only have Farrugia's word that the meetings were actually about oil. Yes, yes, I know they are unlikely to have been about, say, Italian football, or the feast of St Dominic in Valletta... but that is neither here nor there.

Austin Gatt has seized on the lack of any cast-iron, irrefutable evidence (at least, that has emerged to date) of what was actually discussed at those meetings... and having created this element of doubt, the rest of us have little choice but to give him the benefit of the doubt he has created.

In other words: it is possible (though how plausible is another question) that Farrugia may have lied to those companies about his influence on Minister Austin Gatt. And this he may have done to increase is own leverage with these companies, for reasons which are not too difficult to imagine.

Of course, the converse is equally possible. Austin Gatt may just as easily (some would say much more easily) have discussed oil contracts in those meetings with Farrugia; but the fact of the matter is that we just don't know.

All along, a police investigation (actually several police investigations) is slowly ticking away in the background. And that, as far as I can see, is the situation as it stands at present.

***

Now for the weights and measures. Predictably, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi has reacted to these revelations by defending his infrastructure minister tooth and nail. He has consistently deflected all calls for Gatt's resignation, describing such calls as 'mud-slinging', 'Labour tactics', etc.

At the same time he constantly reminds us all that it was he himself who called for a police investigation (though he usually stops short of pointing out that the police had already started their investigations when he made this request).

At this point, certain bells should be ringing rather furiously in the inner recesses of our collective memory. Excuse me, but... isn't this the same Lawrence Gonzi who told us, way back in 2004, that he "couldn't have a minister under investigation"? And isn't this the same Gonzi who also refused to extend the same level of Cabinet support and protection to former Foreign (and Finance) Minister John Dalli, when the latter faced remarkably similar allegations - i.e., of direct interference in a government tender?

Yes indeed. The allegations were very similar: in Dali's case as in Gatt's, there was a whistleblower claiming to have documentary evidence of foul play in the award of a government tender, this time for hospital equipment.

There was even a dossier which appeared to incriminate John Dalli... but which on closer scrutiny turned out to be a forgery.

Well, the man who concocted this 'evidence' ended up in prison for his pains, and the allegations against Dalli were totally discredited. Yet Dalli was nonetheless made to resign... and his resignation stood for four whole years, until he was 'rehabilitated' (and even then, for purely political purposes) only on the eve of the 2008 election.

Do I need to point out other instances to show how very differently the Prime Minister had handled these two cases? How he ruthlessly cut one minister loose and set him adrift on a life-raft... while almost scuttling the entire ship of government in his zeal to protect the latter minister from all insinuations of blame?

Nor was this the only blatant case of double standards in the way Gonzi treats different allegations of corruption. Again, the man at the centre of a much more recent case just happens to also be John Dalli - the same Dalli who had incidentally committed the unpardonable crime of running against Gonzi for the party leadership - this time in the guise of European Commissioner.

And on this occasion we were even told that there was 'unambiguous circumstantial' evidence to suggest that Dalli had been involved in a case of trading in influence.

I won't bother going into the specifics because I'm sure you all remember the case fairly well. What I don't recall, however, was ever seeing even the tiniest shred of this supposed 'unambiguous circumstantial evidence': which incidentally is supposed to be contained in a report that was first seen by the office of the Attorney General several months ago, and (apart from Gonzi, EU Commission President Barroso and the OLAF agency which compiled it in the entire universe) by no one else in the entire universe... not even Dalli.

Curiously, the AG has not yet acted on this 'unambiguous circumstantial evidence'... at least not with regard to Dalli himself. Instead, he has gone to considerable lengths to keep this report from ever being published... even to the extent of defying a direct court order.

Again, consider both the differences and the similarities between the various cases. Like Gatt, Dalli stands accused of having had his name used by third parties (with whom he also allegedly had 'meetings') as leverage to gain influence over lobby groups seeking to influence legislation. And as with the Gatt case, we cannot say with any certainty whether he himself knew of the use that was being made of his name.

Effectively, the dynamics are identical. Yet the popular reaction could hardly have been more different. As in 2004 - and entirely unlike his stand with regard to Austin Gatt - Gonzi once again refused to stick up for the former foreign minister who once challenged him for the party leadership. He did not fend off calls for Dalli's resignation, or argue (as he now argues in Gatt's defence) that Dalli should not have resigned at all.

Much more indicatively, this same disparate application of weights and measures is likewise spread out across the entire population - which, faced with such glaring contradictions, simply takes one side or the other mindlessly, for all the world as if watching a football match.

Is this the sort of behaviour one associates with a man who otherwise aggressively insists has always been 'on the right side of history'? History will no doubt be the judge of that.