Everybody’s doing the ‘Gaffarena’…

Forget the ‘Locomotion’, folks. Nobody’s doing that anymore. And forget also that ‘brand new dance’ David Bowie once sang about, though he didn’t know its name (you know: the one that went: ‘oooh, aaah, toy-toy-toy-toy-toy-toy-toy-toy, fa-fa-fa-fa-fashion!”) As for the ‘Time Warp’… well, that is now firmly stuck in the past, along with the Twist, the Boogie-Woogie and the Ballo di Qua’ Qua’. 

No, indeed. There’s a whole new craze set to sweep the dance floors this summer. It’s called the ‘Gaffarena’, and it goes… like… THIS! (“Come on everybody, co-co-come on everybody…”).

Whoa, whoa there… let’s not get overexcited now. Before you learn this hip new dance, there are a few important musical considerations to bear in mind. One: any similarity to Los del Rio’s 1994 smash hit ‘Macarena’ is purely coincidental. Just because a tune uses the exact same melody (if such it can be called), beat, tempo and general ‘feel’ as another tune, it doesn’t follow that the second is a rip-off of the first. You can’t exactly copyright a groove, you know. (Just ask Will-I-Am next time he comes down here for ‘Isle of Empty-V’… he’ll tell you all about it.)

Two, before you learn the moves, you have to get into the general rhythm of the beat. Unlike most dance tracks (which tend to stick to the traditional 4x4 configuration), the Gaffarena is played in a 23,294 x 165 million tempo. In strictly musical terms, this means you have to buy a property for 23,294, then get compensated for its expropriation to the tune of 1.65 million just two months later. (For obvious reasons, it’s a popular time signature within the Expropriation Rock genre… used by all crowd anthems at the Café Premier League, for instance).

As for the tune itself, I find it works in any key really… though I personally recommend ‘B/A major flattened turd’. It goes well with the overall theme…

OK, now for the song. The basic beat (just to get you tapping your feet before learning the dance moves proper), goes like this:

‘Zubb-ala-zubb-ala-zubb-ala-zubbi…’

This gets repeated endlessly throughout the song, but on the fourth bar it changes to:

“He-e-ey, Gaffarena! (ah-HA!)”

Then it starts all over again. With me so far? Good. Already you know enough to improvise a little on the dancefloor by yourself.

But if you want to do the dance properly, the first thing you will need is a dancing partner. Ideally, someone tucked away somewhere in the parliamentary secretariat for planning… or, even better, at MEPA (Ministry of Endless Pirouetting Acrobatics). Having a partner in either department will greatly enhance the synchronicity of your moves, allowing you to always keep one step ahead of all competitors when it comes to wheeling and dealing on the dancefloor.

Speaking of which, it’s high time we got into the basic techniques used in this dance.

1. “You just jump to the right…”

Yeah, I know the first step is a little difficult, in a country where everyone seems to think they’re on the left of the political spectrum. Especially the present government, which still talks about itself as ‘socialist’… despite deriving all its political inspiration from Dubai. But if you want to get the dance right, you have to put aside all those principles about ‘serving the interest of the common people’, and all that jazz. No matter what you said before the last election about ‘meritocracy’ and ‘social justice’, when dancing to this tune you have to pay undivided attention to the handful of stinking rich party financiers who have always conducted the orchestra in this country anyway.

Altogether now: “He-e-e-ey, Gaffarena! (ah-HA!)”     

2. “…then you step to the side…” 

The ‘sidestep’ is an important technique in this dance. Among the obstacles you will need to circumvent in this elegant manner are all those idiotic safeguards, checks and balances contained in Maltese legislation concerning the involvement of politicians in supposedly autonomous institutions... and of course, any conventions regarding ‘ethical behaviour’ among government officials. 

Don’t worry if, like the first step, this sounds a little difficult to the untrained ear. Most of those checks and balances did the limbo dance a long time ago anyway… and the present government has only just ‘revised’ the Ministerial Code Ethics to remove what little of them remained. From now on, all manoeuvres in this country are technically ‘freestyle’… i.e., anything is permissible so long as it is “in the national interest” (which no one can ever define anyway). 

“He-e-ey, Gaffarena! (ah-HA!)”     

3. “…with your snout in the trough…”

Needless to say, there is nothing quite like being compensated by public money to get you waltzing all the way to the bank. And with your dance partner even accompanying you to meetings with the Government Property Division, you are not only more or less guaranteed to get Joe Public to foot the bill… but you can also dictate the entire musical score to which the country’s entire planning infrastructure will have to dance. How’s that for a well-choreographed scam, eh?

“He-e-ey, Gaffarena! (ah-HA!)”     

4. “…you take the folks for a ride…”

This is the really fun part of the dance, where you get to just trample over anyone who objects to your dancefloor antics. You see, the trouble in this country is that nobody really appreciates the therapeutic benefits of a good old-fashioned boogie. All those boring taxpayers who object to the use of 1.65 million of their money to compensate a chosen beneficiary? Spoilsports, the lot of them, I say. 

So don’t let their whining and moaning get in the way of the music, folks. Just remember that you’re the one dictating the beat and rhythm… anyone not dancing to your tune has no business to be on that dancefloor anyway.

“He-e-ey, Gaffarena! (ah-HA!)”     

5. “But it’s the elvish spin that really drives you insane…”

This part admittedly concerns your dance partner (and all his or her associates) more than you. Part of the charm of this choreographic experience involves the often complicated manoeuvres performed by government officials to defend and/or justify their actions. And just like the overall theme of the song itself, the moves to which your partner will resort may come across as… kind of repetitive, really. 

Try it out for yourselves. Ask that official at the planning secretariat something simple like… let’s see now… ‘why, exactly, did you accompany the beneficiary to meetings with the GPD?’ The answer you’ll get will always be the same: ‘No comment’. And it is in perfect harmony with the underlying beat of ‘Zubb-ala-zubb-ala-zubb-ala-zubbi’, too. After all, it’s not as though government officials are actually answerable to the general public they are supposed to serve, you know... 

“He-e-ey, Gaffarena! (No comment…)”    

6. “Let’s do the Gaffarena AGAIN!”

Ah, yes. This is the beauty of this particular dance. It just never stops. Doesn’t matter who’s in government, or what promises the party might have made before getting actually there… at all times, against all political backdrops, the tune in the background remains identical, and the same old show goes on forever: endlessly replaying itself on a loop in the background.

So what are you all waiting for, folks? Time to put all those newly-acquired dance moves into practice, as summer rolls in to the beat of…

“Zubb-ala-zubb-ala-zubb-ala-zubbi…

Ala-zubb-ala-zubb-ala-zubb-ala zubbi…

Zubb-ala-zubb-ala-zubb-ala-zubbi…

He-e-ey, Gaffarena! (ah-HA!)”