When giants ruled our world

What's with this world? As the giants of our public life go off to a pleasanter after-life, some of the ones who remain seem like little gnomes.

Censu Tabone and Peter Serracino Inglott have left this vale of tears—or rather left us to bewail our tearful situation. Strange that when the giants strode we hardly realised how they were changing our way of life and what giants they were. But then maybe the way of our life is to realise how much we love something only when it is taken away.

REBUILDING THE SLIEMA COUNCIL...

The circus at the Sliema local council goes on with a councillor resigning a few days after he was voted in by an electorate seemingly bent on inflicting more harm on itself than is inhumanly possible even in the vale of tears that is becoming Sliema.

At least this councillor had the decency to leave and not join the opponents. And he is not playing some other game more in tune with a Tom & Jerry cartoon as is happening in the more august and imposing parliamentary buildings.

Poor mayor of Sliema having to go through all this just a few days after his triumphant election to rebuild the pieces after the mess of the previous council. From past experience I can attest that the mayor is a most adept, capable and trustworthy person who will, I have no doubt, manage to succeed. But the situation has not been made easy for him.

And maybe this is where this seemingly insignificant event can be seen through national eyes—and the small man syndrome kicks in. Most commentators called for the exclusion of the Sliema councillor who erred terribly when he said pejorative stuff about his labour employees and all other labourites. But the party erred on: they just asked for his forced apology and kept him on the party ticket.

This to me smacks terribly of trying to add sugar and sweet syrups to apples which are bad. The party needs to wake up and whenever possible it needs to do some proper and serious weeding to avoid throwing bad apples at us.

...AND IN ATTARD

Just to keep this piece fully balanced: both parties seem to be hell-bent on causing themselves unending harm.. In Attard the local councillor who polled most votes on the Labour ticket was the self-same one who willfully, and in a rage, damaged the balustrades in front of the Attard church.

That the rest of the council, in a fit of fitting consensual fraternity, forgave the councillor for his past misdeeds is irrelevant. It is the party that has erred —and the electorate seems yet again intent on perpetuating the choice of these bad apples. Maybe we, the voters, have an innate love of anything surreal. I mean isn't it normal to go on a rampage and destroy parts of church property, get convicted and subsequently get voted as councillor of the village?

With such stalwarts and giants of destruction in our midst—especially the parties' candidate sieve—I do feel like having a good weep for the old times when the circus came to town just once a year and it was thankfully staged only in a tent.