I.M. Jack – the one with arriva

I’d like to apologise for the lengthy delay between posts but as many of you may know by now J’accuse has moved house (physically) and is currently living in quasi-total chaos as a variety of EU workers have been scripted for works in the domus. To cut a long story short my house looks a bit more like a war zone and I have little or no access to blogging space. Anyways, as normally happens, much that is bloggable has been happening in our absence so here is a round up of thoughts in I.M. Jack style:

1.  Akkuza on Tumblr

Thought that I’d remind you that little snippets are always available on the J’accuse Miniblog that can be seen at the foot of the blog main page or on it’s own tumblr homesite at www.akkuza.tumblr.com. If brevity is a form of wit then this version of media commentary and photoblog is the wittiest Malta has to offer. Modestly speaking of course.

2. Arriva?

The eventful launch of the Arriva service would merit a blog post all for itself. Instead we will have to make do with a bullet list of observations:

• The business of the shifts has exposed the real ċwieċ maltin of Tonio Fenech fame. It did not take an Einstein to guess from the start that Arriva weren’t that stupid as to impose law-breaking 12 hour shifts on employees. They did ask for split shifts – a common enough solution in transport systems that also prevents drivers from being behind the wheel for long stretches (not only for their safety but also for that of passengers). Enter the ċuċ malti who combines with the Times’ quest for village paper reporting (Austin’s source in his “rajtha fuq l-internet”) and you have a threatened “strike” by workers who still have not understood what a split shift is after 6 weeks of training. Bring on the “foreigners” then.
• There is the usual sense of political exploitation in the Arriva saga. Obviously an Arriva success is considered to be a feather in the government’s cap. Again there is an unofficial Labour position. It is not trumpeted as a party position but there is a general buzz around all the failures that is dying to attribute any slip to GonziPN by vicarious liability. Once again the stupid logic of solving national problems (yes, by our standards an efficient transport system remains a national problem) creates more handicaps than efficiencies. Emmanuel Delia has faded into oblivion following the Bisazza Street gaffe – presumably unable to take the flak as his corner of the feather in the cap turned irremediably sour. Austin Gatt, ever the misunderstood bulldozer was right in saying that miscreant drivers should be sacked but what were they thinking taking them on in the first place? The Labour buzz will be happy with the Times’ Village Newspaper reporting about stranded commuters, mysterious machine break ups, and tattoed drivers fuming about having to wear long sleeves. While that speaks volumes about Labour’s opportunism we are yet to hear some form of encouragement to the whole scheme of improvement of transport from their corner. Does that mean that come Joseph Muscat we will have the yellow chuggers back on the road? One man seems to think so.

3. New “kids” on the blog

Somebody has found something to fill his time and avoid the degeneration of his “boredom threshold”. J’accuse welcomes the belated foray by Lou “Can’t Read” Bondi into the interactive world of blogging. You’ll find the babystep blog here: loubondi.blogspot.com. At least Bondi will finally get some first hand experience at running a blog – and handling the comments (though I am sure he will be just as predictably selective as in other media… but who knows?). It was amusing to watch Lou trying desperately to get his readers to leave comments on the blog and not on facebook…. babysteps indeed.

The first foray with “Hey nigga.. you’re an asshole” was an amusing defence of Malta’s traditional standards of journalism and we were pleased to see that it was in direct contradiction to our take on the Times Journalist vs Snoop Dogg” event as exposed in our Sunday Sermon on the Independent. Of course Bondi would think that the journalist had been disrespected… how could he even begin to fathom the expert publicity stunt that modern day rockers/rappers (superstars) can pull just like that out of a mickey mouse-ish hat?

4. DSK released, Inter prescribed

It turns out that Mr Strauss Kahn was (quite probably) a victim of a frame up. In Italy procuratore Palazzi clearly pointed out that Moratti’s Inter were not the clean virgins they made themselves out to be. They are, in my words, GUILTY AS FCUK. It turns out though that enough time has passed since the decisions in 2006 mysteriously set aside much evidence regarding calls by Facchetti and Moratti to allow the facts to be subject to prescription. Here’s a note for Intercettati fans: Prescribed means that you are still dirty bastards but that the law cannot get you. Like Berlusconi for example.