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MALTATODAY 3 January 2021

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maltatoday | SUNDAY • 3 JANUARY 2021 COMMENT What are we skinning? The year 2020. We are skinning it alive and illegally roasting it over a warm countryside fire while a surly hunter looks on, hating us for scaring away the birds and robbing him of his spot of rural onanism. Why are we skinning it? Well, it's just passed us by, and it's worth saluting like any other year. But of course, there was the small matter of a global pandemic causing a mass array of deaths worldwide, destabilising economies and preventing us from seeing our relatives and going on that Ibiza summer rave we've been saving up for since at least 1998. So you're saying – death to 2020? Yes, I am. Isn't that the title to Charlie Brooker's latest Netflix mockumentary? You're just blatantly ripping it off to use as a slogan… Look, if 2020 taught us anything is that a lot of the old truisms don't really matter much anymore. So I'll rip off the title to that film and you'll all just have to deal with it. Apparently it's also something of a disappointment… which was apropos enough, I suppose. But what about the local scenario? Okay well… there's the small matter of our government reshuffling itself after imploding spectacularly over the winter. Nothing like a political crisis to presage the coming of a fast-spreading deadly virus, eh? In fact, I'm surprised no Labourite jannisaries suggested that the 'Nazzjonalisti' and their factions were somehow responsible for both concoting and spreading the virus through their mass gatherings. True. Going by their typical rhetoric, mere 'hdura' is a sublime force of incorrigible evil that cannot be reckoned with. We also never quite got a respite from political drama. Yes, that was disappointing. We did get a new Opposition leader eventually though. Who got screamed at by the Prime Minister for not falling in line with his effectively far-right stance on migration issues. I guess that's the way the covid- shaped cookie is gonna crumble from here on out. But Abela's supposed clampdown on impunity – his own riposte to Trump's alleged attempts to 'drain the swamp' as it were – did bear some fruit, though, right? That's partly true, yes. I mean we could add Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri's courtroom appearances to our roll call of remote lockdown entertainment. Do you honestly think they will amount to anything concrete, though? We'll see. Like all TV series, they will sink or swim on the strength of their final seasons. So whether it'll all end up more like the tail end of Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad remains very much to be seen. No bars open either, so we'll have to wait it out at home. Yes, while severely underpaid delivery-people ferry over food and drink to our cosy lockdown homes. Well, trips to the countryside assuage the mind, then, surely? Of course. Only the largest stretch of them have now been given over to the hunting and trapping communities, so you gotta watch your back. Gosh. Living in Malta is quite the 'clenched' experience, isn't it? Yep. At the best of times. Now wait till the anti-vaxxers come out in full force next year… Do say: "A global pandemic has certainly ravaged our way of life in 2020. Which honestly, was the last thing Malta in particular needed after a winter of political upheaval." Don't say: "Vision of the future: Vaccine – Remote work – maskless and drunk after a pub crawl. Repeat." Charles Mallia Azzopardi INTERVIEW PAGES 8-9 The Skinny Malta, shrunk down JOSANNE CASSAR Looking back and looking ahead PAGE 5 MICHAEL FALZON The war on truth PAGE 7 No. 68 – Death to 2020 SAVIOUR BALZAN Changes... PAGE 5 EDITORIAL There is no 'vaccine' for corruption PAGE 2 We might face new variants that do cause more severe symptoms; or which, for instance, affect younger people. Even if that does happen, however, it doesn't mean that the vaccination 'will not work'

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