Author: Jacques René Zammit

This article and accompanying Bertoon appear in today’s Malta Independent on Sunday.

The clouds descended on the archipelago as the cut-with-a-knife humidity morphed into a stickiness that was pregnant with electric anticipation; meanwhile the millions of servants of Beelzebub set about tormenting the inhabitants in every cafe with their irrequietous presence. The sun vanished temporarily from the aestival horizon as sundecks and sunglasses were relegated to the position of superfluous accessories. The first droplets of water fell upon dust-encrusted vehicles and thirsty fields alike in a premonitory warning of the wet pleasures to come as the new season sent its early heralds on this reconnoitring mission.

It was not really a storm, more like a quick rendezvous with the autumnal elements – a Hollywood teaser for the Fall. It always happens around this time – while the citizens of the suburb of Paceville prepare for the Belgian saint who shares the same name with 39 other saints (as mentioned in the Roman Martyrology) and we gear up for the feast of Il-Vitorja (the victory) on the 8th of September.

It’s an annual appointment and test for the Road Works Department – the alluvion that hits the islands on or around the eighth day of the ninth month. It has been known to flood valleys and incapacitate traffic flows in a manner reminiscent of a latter day epochal event that should, for all intents and purposes, culminate in a Technicolor covenant spanning across the sky – a deistic affirmation of the more mundane “Lest we forget”. Incredibly, all temporal powers manage to inevitably screw up the preparation for the inundation and before you know it, the end of the silly season is being proclaimed live on TV by a Minister who is baffled by the lack of preparedness in the battle of Man versus Elements. Plus ça change…

A cartoonist’s take on the breakaway party that never was.

Only the dedicated, the avid readers and those who have nothing better to do at 13.00 today will probably turn up. Which probably means that it will be me and Bertu. In any case here are the details of the very spontaneous J’accuse meet (and pow-wow over the toon) that should have been announced yesterday night but are being announced today because I was pigging out at Avenue last night.

We will meet at an unnamed bar in Naxxar which Bertu describes as such: with your back to Naxxar Churchstart walking down the road and when you come to the road that turns into the Local Council road do not turn into it. Instead the bar in the corner opposite the entrance to the Local Council road is where we will be chatting over Kinnie and Twistees.

Time is 1300 hours. Today.

If you get lost, want to come or just want to phone in an idea for the toon in order to keep your treasured anonimity call me on 7975-1111 (jew ibaghtu SMS – standard rates apply).

Also, persons wishing to attend but maintain their pseudonymal anonimity are advised to either wear Burkas or sit at a separate table and raise their glasses in a collective toast at 1345.

This thirty-three year old (ok Chris?) is back from a splendid stay in Gozo. Having missed the last five Augusts in Malta I keep wondering how the hell I used to survive the heat at this time of the year. Actually it is not the heat that worries most but the humidity. As my friend put it very well this evening:  “There’s probably 2% air in this humidiy”.  I still went on to win the game of Pit after indulging in take-away chinese and a good glass of chilled Jacob’s Creek. Tomorrow we will fight the humidity from the sea. I am off on a boat trip for the day during which I intend to fully enjoy the pleasures of a deck-chair-less Comino and a dip in Mgarr ix-Xini.

As for the J’accuse rendez-vous … look out on this space for a possibly quasi-spontaneous meeting point in Naxxar during Friday’s lunch break – agenda of the meeting will be an open discussion on what Bartu’s toon could look like next Sunday. You will get to meet Malta’s greatest living cartoonist over Kinnie and Twistees. More news to be posted Thursday evening.

P.S. Bertu has no idea about this. All the better. We get to see how often he reads this blog. Tee-hee.

I’m off to melt in bed and rest before tomorrow’s boat trip. A bien tot!

Off to Gozo for a couple of days. Still trying to understand the logic behind the decision to relegate Vittoriosa Stars after the season kicked off. Not exactly cricket is it? I’ve been told by two different people who met me for the first time this week that they thought I was around fifty years old. Dos my blog really give that impression?

Looking forward to a good meal in the land of the golden ducks. A bien tot!

… then our children have it really bad. Two days into my stay on the island and one recurrent theme is the level of intolerance that is building up. First there was the shocking news item on the Times about the man who had his house broken into and “No to Gays” sprayed all over his walls. Then I was told about a particular estate agent’s brilliant marketing technique about the Balzan area. Apparently he told potential customers that houses there are losing their value because of the “blacks” in the area. Spiffin’.

What these idiots do not realise is that there is no line that can be drawn as to what this particular brand of relativism can tolerate. Some people don’t like spiders, others cannot stand fast cars – whose measure shall we use? I cannot stand intolerant oafs… does that make me one of them? Would my criterion get me killed in an hypothetical fascist-style cull of all things intolerant in the country?