Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/618165
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 20 DECEMBER 2015 28 S orry to break the news, folks, but it looks like all your ex-girlfriends had it wrong over the years. All that pillow talk about the 'motion of the ocean'? All lies, I'm afraid. It really is 'the size of the wave' that counts… Hey, don't look at me. I ain't no oceanographer myself. But like most male human beings alive on this planet – with the possible exception of Rocco Sifreddi and a certain Long Dong Silver (both in showbiz) – I, too, have inevitably pondered the most imponderable question of all time. Does size matter? My interest, I hasten to add, is entirely philosophical. But I do, um, have a friend who is somewhat troubled by the question. I keep telling him, of course, that he has nothing whatsoever to worry about. Three and a half inches is perfectly normal by any standard… but you know how it is with women these days. If your TV screen is any less than seven millimetres thick, you can just forget ever getting laid again… So even though my intentions were entirely honourable, the fact is that I shamelessly lied to my… um… friend. It is a painful truth for all those who are preoccupied by the dimensions of their telecommunications devices… but yes, size does matter. It matters a very great deal. The events of the year that is about to end – and above all, the week that has just ended – have emphatically settled the matter once and for all. It matters greatly to the authorities, for instance, whether your illegality or planning contravention is roughly the size of, say, an illegal washroom on the roof… or as big as the terminal at Gudja International Airport (which reminds me… can anyone direct me to the Gudja Domestic Airport? Can't seem to find it anywhere…) In the former case, you will almost certainly be slapped with an enforcement notice, and find an army of law enforcers behind your door if you fail to comply. In the latter case? You will most likely end up with the Prime Minister literally eating out of your hand, at a gala dinner to inaugurate the latest illegal extension to your private empire. That, at any rate, was the subliminal message we got from a whole series of unfortunate incidents that took place in 2015. Like the one involving a tiger and a three-year-old boy in the Montekristo private zoo. I won't go into the details, because they're all still fresh in our minds. But had that child been injured in a car accident involving an unlicensed (or drunk) driver, there would almost certainly have been criminal charges to face. Instead, the child was mauled by a tiger – i.e., a supposedly 'protected animal' that had been imported illegally, then kept in an illegal zoo which was allowed to operate commercially without a licence for years... so naturally, there is no chain of responsibility anywhere to be seen. In 2015, we also learnt that 'size' is not only relevant, but also relative. In the case of Montekristo, the illegality is not just large: it is an over-bloated Leviathan, gobbling up acres of open space. In the analogous 'Paqpaqli Ghall- Istrina' incident – in which over 20 were hospitalised after a car spun out of control into the crowd (through non-existent safety bariers) – the 'size' aspect was more of a political than physical variety. Other, lesser events are subject to stringent permit conditions. This event was exceptional, in that it was held under the auspices of the President's Office – the 'biggest' institution in the land. Even in the more recent Paceville incident – where 70 people were injured in a stampede – a similar (albeit not identical) pattern emerges. Many, if not most, of the casualties proved to be minors who should not, in theory, have been there at all. Note: I stress 'in theory' because, a) we all know that the law is hardly applied, if at all; b) we all (myself included) have been guilty of pretty much the same thing in our teens. But the reaction of the club owner caught my attention. Nightclub staff could not be expected to card every single person to check their age, he was reported as saying. "We're not shirking our responsibility but with a turnover of thousands of people every night and most entering in big groups it's simply not realistic." Strange, isn't it, that this unrealistic scenario is precisely what happens everywhere else in the world… even places where the turnover is much higher, and the groups much bigger? But no matter: the important thing is what he is subliminally telling us (and which is also self-evidently true). In a nutshell, the problem cannot be solved because it is too big. And it became too big because it was left unsolved for too long… Besides: it is symptomatic of the other case as well. Like the bother of checking people's ID as they enter a nightclub, it's just too much hassle to take action against an infringement which is several times larger than Malta's combined law enforcement capability. Too much paperwork involved. Much easier to simply ignore it, and come down like a tonne of bricks on all those illegal scrapyards and interior modifications… In any case: I myself thought those three examples – and there were others – would have been more than sufficient to rub our collective noses into the ugly truth underlying this shambles. But no. Looks like those incidents were just not enough to prove to us that the bigger the crime, the more it pays to actually commit it. This week, the government took the entire paradigm to its next logical level. It has just manifestly by-passed all its own planning and public procurement laws, to hammer through an agreement that might just usurp the coveted 'Malta's Biggest Illegality' title from Montekristo Estates. That's saying something, you know. Montekristo has Opinion 28 Raphael Vassallo So, size really matters after all… ...The bigger the crime the more it pays to actually commit it... This week, the government took the entire paradigm to its next logical level, by-passing all its own planning and public procurement laws