New Year’s eve crackers

New Year’s eve used to be the time of the year when we wish each other the most prosperous year to come and the President, the Prime Minister and the Archbishop used to deliver their annual messages to the people.

Things are different this year, not in the sense that Joseph Muscat will not repeat the Construct Kitchens debacle of last year, but because others have taken to the net to broadcast to all and sundry their ‘casually’ recorded Christmas/end-of-year message.

Simon Busuttil acted as if he was in informal mood at his abode when suddenly he had this premonition that led him to sit down and look into a TV camera (surprise, surprise: where did it come from?) and wish us all the best for the festive season while telling us also what he thinks about this and the other.

Konrad Mizzi does an even better act, sitting near his laptop near his fireplace when suddenly he also discovers that nearby there is a TV camera (surprise, surprise: where did it come from?) to announce that this has been a good year, while next year will be even better. He may be a minister without a portfolio but he is undoubtedly a minister with a laptop and a TV camera.

Mark these words, by next year all those in Malta who think they are someone influential with a very important message to tell to the rest of humanity will be recording end-of-year messages and post them on the net.

I certainly look forward to Norman Lowell, Emmy Bezzina and Tal-Ajkla to join the fun next year.

Conspiracy theories

The Libyan jet hijack incident last week has led to several conspiracy theories, fake videos and incredible suspicions, if not allegations.

So the Libyan hijack was a put up job, presumably for the fun of it.

The fake video even made it to the editorial of ‘The Malta Independent’ – just another oversight, of course.

All Maltese like conspiracy theories – even those who think that Elvis Presley and John F. Kennedy are really dead. Those are foreign conspiracy theories and foreign conspiracy theories are not to be believed, while the local home grown ones are the sacrosanct truth.

One particular conspiracy theory is about Malta’s oil reserves. They are so enormous that their official discovery would upset the oil market. So Muammar Gaddaffi, Dom Mintoff and Guido de Marco made a secret pact to ensure that Malta’s oil will never be discovered and marketed. The three gentlemen are now all dead and, presumably, they have taken the big secret with them. The search for Maltese crude oil must therefore start anew, I suppose!

Unfortunately Minister Joe Mizzi is so busy trying to solve traffic problems that he has apparently mislaid the secret map that indicated where to find these oil deposits.

However, nowadays we have other more imporatnt things to worry about – such as the problem regarding all irregular migrants who must be terrorists with a plan to convert all Malta to Islam within 20 years or so. 

Alleging that this is a conspiracy theory, will make you very unpatriotic, of course.

Inferno

I have just finished reading Dan Brown’s ‘Inferno’. As usual Brown’s literary efforts are unputdownable: once you start reading one of his books, you keep on at it until you know how it ends.

As he did in his other novels, Dan Brown puts in a disclaimer regarding his work, saying that all artwork, literature, science and hustorical references are fact – from which one presumably concludes that the rest is bullshit.

His ‘Da Vinci Code’ centred on Paris, his ‘Angels and Demons’ happened in Rome while ‘Inferno’ happens in Florence with a tail end in Venice.

As Dan Brown took me through all that Medici’s Florentine secret passages and outstanding buildings, a great idea (or is it just a silly thought?) occurred to me.

I think the Ministry of Tourism should entice Dan Brown to visit Malta and stay for some six months as our guest during which he will be shown and given all the intricate and minute details of all our historical sites. Caravaggio, Fort St. Angelo, and Verdala Castle come to mind. I am sure that he can be enticed to write another of his impossible novels about the incredible things that happens when his professor visits Malta for a conference on Archeology or whatnot.

I am sure that he can produce a good novel centred in Malta.

This would be the greatest advertisement ever for Malta’s touristic attractions.

The government can even persuade Dan Brown to call this new novel ‘Paradiso’!

Come on Joseph! It can be done because – as you must know – money talks.

Happy New Year

By the time this contribution is published the new year – 2017 – would have already begun to roll on.

The number 2017 is based on the Gregorian calender instituted in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, with the numbers starting from the year of the birth of Jesus Christ – even though, it was later found out that Christ was not born in year 0.

According to a recent edition of ‘The Economist’ Saudi Arabia has decided to shift from the Islamic to the Gregorian calendar as a sign that it is entering into modernity, in spite of its ban on women drivers. This move is part of a transformation plan being introduced by Saudi Prince Muhammad Bin Salman who has called it ‘Vision 2030’ and not ‘Vision 1451’ as he would have had to do if he followed the Islamic calendar.

The consertave Wahhabi sect who seek to be guided by the Prophet’s every act and who continually strictly monitor the religious vocation of Saudi Arabia have not welcomed this move, asking whether they are now required to follow Jesus.

Saudi Arabia, of course, is not the only country following ancient – or even more recent – calendars. In Malta we are celebrating the beginning of the new year 2017 but it is 1936 in Iran, 2686 in Kurdistan, 5776 in Israel’s Knesset and 2559 in Thailand.

Whatever number you choose to go by, may I wish a Happy New Year to all the editors and staff as well as the readers of Maltatoday.