Everything is just swell (and swelling)
It is the Christmas season and we are all expected to be on our best behaviour and say nice things about each other. As a politician I feel this is an important unwritten rule and I will abide by it like many others have done. Or, at least, I will try.
Today I will look at some of the latest news headlines and try to be really positive about them. After all this IS the season to be jolly, isn’t it? Lately we heard that Air Malta is pulling out of Frankfurt and, in 2017, it will also pull out of the Manchester route. Am I expected to be positive about this news?
Forgive me for not managing to be positive about this one. But this cannot be good news from any angle. MHRA President Tony Zahra and his fellow hoteliers are voicing their concern about Air Malta and how the latest developments are affecting their business and the national economy.
Maybe we should be positive that Alitalia did not buy us out? Seeing it is itself on the doorstep of bankruptcy? But that’s not much to be cheerful about, is it?
Another piece of news which hit the international news agencies was the unusual hijacking incident. Some have defined this event as a hoax, purposely staged to distract. I will not be nasty.
But I have to admit that this is a very strange story indeed. Pilots take selfies while being hijacked... When the saga comes to an end, the passengers leaving the plane are seen smiling and chatting on their mobile phones...
The next thing we know is that a show of force is staged in Valletta while the hijackers are summoned to court. Our antiterrorist armed forces in full gear accompany the hijackers. And all this happens in full view of people walking through the streets of our capital city on Christmas Day.
How foolish of me to think there is a back door in our Court building, which is usually used for vehicles to drive in the most wanted and dangerous people of our country!
Of course the positive side to this story is that there were no fatalities and the story ended up well.
There is however a strange silence from Castille. Multiple questions are arising. Did we make international headlines with a pseudo hijacking event which could have been avoided? Or was this event, as this paper put it in its editorial on Wednesday, “The Xalata hijack”?
While everything is swell and dandy in Malta, let me take a quick look at the latest events on the international scene. I am struck by the list of stars who passed away in 2016.
Three of my favourite male singers passed away this year. All three are legends in their own right – David Bowie, Prince and George Michael.
Of course I must mention Sir Terry Wogan and fondly recall my brief encounter with him in the year 2000 during my Eurovision adventure.
The list also includes huge names like Alan Rickman, Muhammad Ali, Gene Wilder, Leonard Cohen, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Carrie Fisher (Princess Lea) and, just a day later, her mother, Debbie Reynolds. Men and women who gave their all to their talent and craft while leaving us all in awe, speechless and thankful.
So while “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year,” I suggest “we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.”