Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1503368
OH, well. I suppose you can always tell there's something deeply wrong with the country you're living in... when your Facebook feed suddenly starts resembling the lyrics of a 1986 hit single by British reggae band, UB40. People my age will surely remember that track well, as it was a big hit on the dance- floors of places like Tiguglio, Styx, Axis, The Alley, and Co- conut Grove, back in the day. But for the benefit of any mil- lennials reading this – to whom 'UB40' probably sounds more like 'some kind of device you plug into your mobile phone' - it went something like: "There's a rat in my kitchen, what am I gonna do? There's a rat in my kitchen, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna fix that rat: that's what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna fix that rat..." Now: I am the first to admit that, as lyrics go, these don't exactly showcase the very best of 1980s pop songwriting tal- ent. Then again, however: they weren't exactly meant to, ei- ther. After all, people didn't lis- ten to bands like UB40 to be bowled over by the sublime artistry of their evocative lyr- ics. And it's probably just as well, too. For as far as I can remember, UB40's only other 1980s smash-hit went some- thing like: 'Red, Red Wi-i-i-i-i-ine! Stay Close to Me-e-e-e-e...!' I mean... not exactly 'Samuel Taylor Flipping Coleridge', is it now? But, well, that's also the whole point, right there. It was (and still is) perfectly under- standable, for a pop group to achieve instant chart success, with a song about something as mundane, commonplace, and entirely vacuous, as... ... 'a rat in the kitchen'. But to kick up precisely the same sort of exaggerated fuss, over a photograph of a REAL rat... just one, please note; and not even in anyone's 'kitchen', this time (where its presence might indeed be considered problematic); but rather, in the gardens of San Anton Palace, Attard... ... in other words, a place which (let's face it) has AL- WAYS been infested with pre- cisely the same sort of rodent, doing precisely the same sort of 'rodenty things' (i.e., 'am- bling about in search of food': you know, like wild animals usually tend to do, in what is after all their own natural hab- itat....) Sorry, but... that's not 'under- standable', at all. That is, quite frankly, idiotic. But for those who may have missed the original post (not for age reasons, this time; but simply because they're not 'friends with Arnold Cassola on Facebook'): I'm referring to the photograph uploaded by the former Green Party leader last week – reproduced above – accompanied by the words: "TAL-MISTHIJA! X'TELQA!" ('SHAME! WHAT NEGLI- GENCE!') Now: to be fair to Cassola, those words do not seem to be his own... but rather, a quote from the (unnamed) 'citizen' who originally sent him that 'shameful' photo for publica- tion. In fact, the rest of the cap- tion is so badly written that I very much doubt it could even be handiwork of someone with a PhD in History (and around a dozen academic papers to his name). Literally, it translates as: "If you like, put up this picture of this relaxed rat which wanders about, together with others of its kind, eating in the only Mal- tese garden of the President in San Anton! TAL-MISTHIJA! X'TELQA! etc.' And leaving aside the impli- cation that President George Vella may actually be the proud owner of several other 'gardens' (only one of which - San Anton – qualifies as 'Mal- tese'...) ... it also betrays an astonish- ing detachment from reality, of the kind that would be wor- rying enough, even if it only came from the semi-literate individual who took that pho- tograph in the first place. But no. Evidently, it also comes from politicians of the calibre of Arnold Cassola: who held that 'shocking' photo up, for all to see, as if it represent- ed some kind of disgraceful 'in- dictment', of the abysmal state to which our entire nation (represented, in this melodra- ma, by the 'Presidential' nature of the backdrop) has now – but ONLY now, it seems – sudden- ly 'degenerated'. And in so doing, he fired a starter-pistol for a plethora of like-minded reactions: ranging from 'tearful' (or 'irate') emojis; to comments lamenting the in- exorable decline in standards, that characterises the 'Apoca- lyptic' phase that our country is currently going through... To quote the one that most adequately sums up this entire attitude: "Everywhere you turn there is disaster. Everywhere!" OK, at this point, I feel a cou- ple of questions need to be asked. Starting with the most obvious of the lot: Erm... Guys? Hello? Have any you ever actually BEEN to San Anton Gardens - even once, in your entire lifetimes – be- fore suddenly deciding to go all 'shock-horror' on us, at the mere sight of one of its more common, everyday, non-hu- man inhabitants? Reason I ask is that... I've been visiting that place, every once in a while, for the bet- ter part of over 40 years now: and looking back, I don't think there's ever been even a single occasion, where I didn't at spot at least one (usually, several) member of the 'Rattus' genus, scurrying around the under- growth somewhere. And it bears mentioning that some of those occasions were more... well, 'dramatic', than others. One other thing I suspect that none of those 'scandal- ised' commentators ever did, was 'attend a performance of the MADC's annual summer Shakespeare play' (a tradition maltatoday | SUNDAY • 9 JULY 2023 10 OPINION 'There's a rat in San Anton, what are we gonna do?' Raphael Vassallo