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This article and accompanying Bertoon was published on last Sunday’s edition of The Malta Independent on Sunday (01.10.09).

It has definitely been a weird week chez J’accuse. It’s mostly been all work and no blog for Jack. The main victim has been the blog as well as the general following of news that allows this correspondent of yours to keep your reading interests satiated on a weekly basis. As I sit down before my PC late on Wednesday evening, I am engaging in what can be described as a tour de force of what has been on in Malta and beyond in order to be able to provide you with the weekly digest notwithstanding my “out of sync status”.

Before you posit that most pertinent of questions allow me to pre-empt your query, pregnant as it is with demented curiosity, by informing you that as of Thursday I will have quit the mainland on what has become my annual trip to Albion. My annual visit coincides with the period when the foulest stench is in the air, that funk of forty thousand years with grizzly ghouls from every tomb that close in to seal your doom – and although the unwelcoming villagers of the most haunted village of Pluckley have decided to renege on the Halloween festivities this year, I intend to be have a well-deserved rest after the over-drive of the past few weeks.

All of which means that it is of the essence for you to know that most of the news that I report happened up until the eve of the 28th of this month (and with a bit of hindsight I add on the eve of the 29th – there’s an Internet connection at the Lodge!). That should suffice as insurance lest subsequent events have the unpleasant effect of nullifying any of the arguments made hereunder.

Ghadni Kent, midfun f’nofs il-kampanja hlejja. Ironikament is-sistema tat-telefon qajla twassal dawn in-nahat pero b’xorti tajba hawn il-wireless ta’ dar vicin li tippermetti xi forma ta’ komunikazzjoni. Wara tlett ijiem sbieh ta’ xiri gol-belt inkredibbli ta’ Canterbury, u gol-konkrit devastanti ta’ Ashford, u wara li ntlift gol-pjaciri tas-Cinque Ports fl-ahhar waslet il-maltempata illi kienet ilha imwieghda tul il-btala. Hafna ilma, hafna xita u l-ilwien jinbiddlu. Illum jum il-qaddisin kollha – toussaints kif jghidu il-Francizi.

F’dal erbat ijiem mort it-tijatru darbtejn. Darba rajt il-kumpanija komika Spymonkey go “Moby Dick” (eccellenti) go Canterbuy imbaghad rajt lill-imitatur Alistair McGowan gewwa Royal Tumbridge Wells (inkredibbli). Tijatri helwin, ifakkruk fl-ghoxrinijiet u Jeeves u Wooster, prezz accessibilissimu u serata garantita.

Jien se nzur il-kosta u niekol ikla twajba go xi pub iehor. It-toroq ta’ Kent kollha tlajja’ u dojoq – panorama sabiha imma jghajjuk fis-sewqan. L-aqwa li illum toussaints – ghax ghat-telgha kull qaddis jghodd!

In case you had not noticed… I’m on holiday… in Kent (as usual in Halloween). See you on Tuesday.

From October 2009 Kent

This article and accompanying Bertoon appear in today’s edition of The Malta Independent on Sunday (25.10.2009).

It may have dragged on for much longer than it was worth, but this whole apology spin has not yet been milked dry by the masters of marketing and campaigners of progress alike. That should therefore mean that, as an opinion columnist (and I choose my words very carefully here), I am fully entitled to dedicate a whole column to the very issue that is fast turning into yet another scene in the big road show that is our local political arena.

The bespectacled poet of dubious dress taste once wrote (and performed) a whole song declaiming the various difficulties that we encounter whenever we are pressed to announce our contrition for acts we have committed (or for acts to which we feel in some way connected). Elton John, for that is the poet of whom I speak, concluded that the five-letter word rhyming with lorry seems to be the hardest word. It’s sad. So sad. A sad, sad situation too, but when it comes to saying this word, we stumble on all sorts of problems and even the most talkative of persons might become a convinced stammerer before the merest hint of the initial consonant departs from betwixt his tightly held incisors.

The apology buzz is still reverberating around the world of news and “opinion columnistry” and shows no signs of abating. Such reverberation is for all the wrong reasons as the two tribes have dug their trenches and are now busy expecting apologies from the other side only to nix them as soon as they arrive. It’s not just the very idea of nats and labs having this “Sorry War” that is nauseating but also the very idea of its catching on elsewhere. Cue the MUT and its “expect an apology” from the Education Ministry for not having been allowed into a playground. Expect Malta to crash to a standstill soon as drivers, shoppers and pedestrians everywhere will find any infinitesimal excuse to expect an apology of their own.

Elsewhere in the real world, it’s the annual appointment with the day of reckoning in the blogging world as the yearly “State of the Blogosphere” report is out. There’s some interesting conclusions and to put it in the words of Technorati’s CEO – “the State of the Blogosphere is strong.”

…and we’re not sorry!

another post in the “Generation Y?” series

It’s out today and it’s supposed to be simplified. It’s probably a good lesson in admitting past mistakes though it falls short of being an apology for the aforementioned past mistakes. Anyone who has had to deal with the pyrotechnic logistical impossibility that is Windows Vista will know what I mean by “past mistakes”. Vista is a nightmare. Yesterday night as I tried to tune in to (perfectly legal) streaming of the Juventus – Maccabi Haifa match, my mini-laptop decide to perform a series of unabortable, unblockable updates to the windows system.

My attempts at informing the system of my desire to posptone said updates until the termination of the afoementioned match proved to be futile and I was lucky to get Chiellini’s equally fortuitous goal before being completely cut off from the rest of the sketchy transmission. Yes, Vista sucks and as Microsoft crawls a step-further towards Apple-inspired Valhalla it is legitimate for all of us to hope for the best.

The marketing campaign promises to be an interesting affair and slogans such as “Simplified” or “1 billion = 7” prove undoubtedly that Microsoft are on the right end of the learning curve. They’ve got the packaging right… but as we all know the proof of the pudding lies in the tasting.