Gaffarena Gate has been the black hole of news and information over the past week or so. Anything else newsworthy was sucked into the vortex of the spinning black hole of Falzon’s resignation, Muscat’s double-speak on governance and the n-th celebration of disgraced politicians by...

Somehow it does not have the same appeal as the “American University of Malta” does it? It’s Arab, not American, it’s a Mosque, not a University, and its Msida… as in, since when does Msida have more appeal other than being a huge roundabout adorned by a garish...

The Għarb Local Council have gone all hot under the collar about what they call “allegations” made by Katie Holmes, mother of convicted Welshman Daniel Holmes. In yet another appeal to have Daniel’s punishment shortened from the draconian 10 years, Katie Holmes mentioned...

Michael McFeat is a Scot gold miner in Kyrgyzstan. A couple of days ago, during the holiday celebrations, he posted a photo on Facebook showing his mates at the mine queuing up to eat a Kyrgyz delicacy called chuchuk that is apparently a sausage made up of parts of horse. In his caption to...

An evil soul producing holy witness is like a villain with a smiling cheek, quoth the bard. In matters legal we are often confronted with devils citing scriptures for their purpose and recently there seems to have been quite an upping of the scripture-quoting ante, if you get my drift. The...

  The secret of comedy, they say, is timing. There is nothing funny about the making public of a launch of a magisterial inquiry into the amount of fuel consumed by the Leader of Opposition’s car. It is not funny at all. In actual fact it is rather worrying because it has all the...

Insofar as national tragedies go we had a couple of headline filling “incidents” over the last month that led to discussions on safety in different environments that are normally linked to entertainment. First there was the Paqpaqli incident where a supercar mowed into a crowd...

The language of war has returned ever since the Paris Attacks. The French PM has not held back the ballistic rhetoric and insists on qualifying this as a war between France and Da’esh (they hate that name). In doing so, Hollande steps into the shoes of George W. Bush who similarly had...

There has been quite a flutter in Malta since Francois Hollande decided to invoke article 42(7)  of the Lisbon Treaty. Even without the eccentric shenanigans of former PM Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, questions were being raised as to how and to what extent Malta would be committed thanks to this...

Saviour Balzan’s performance at yesterday’s Public Accounts Committee must have been a sight for sore eyes and Lord do we have sore eyes on the island. In many ways Balzan has become the champion of all the “hekk hu go fik” stalwarts who will never get enough of (as...

Let me tell you about Clever Hans. A few years before the end of the 19th century, 1895 to be exact, a horse who would be named Hans was born. Hans was owned by an eccentric guy called Wilhelm von Osten who had taken it upon himself to prove that given the right education animals could be as...

It’s been a long time since we’ve had a quick I.M. Jack take on the major news items. The theme this week is about WYSINWYG or what seems to be the apotheosis of the governmental policy of What You See is NOT What You Get. This blog has for some time now described Muscat’s...