J'accuse : I.M. Jack (The Uncouth)

I’ve got a running series of posts in the blog that goes by the name of “I.M. Jack”. The title came around as a bit of a spoofy nod to the rotund columnist who graces the pages of a rival paper every Saturday. Every time I blog an “I.M. Jack” post it’s more of a round-up of different stories that serendipitously find themselves sharing the same post and limelight. I normally do that out of expediency and to save myself from posting a series of mini-posts, and also because by the time the third “I.M. Jack” got out I sort of got used to the little “round-up” idea possibilities that it afforded.

So yes, this week’s effort comes to you in a disjointed, I.M. Jack-ish sort of way, that is it can be read in little snippets or (for the well-trained in J’accuse loghorrea) all in one go. The quality of the articles, incidentally, should be improving exponentially (modestly speaking of course) as the cold weather begins to bitch-slap the Grand Duchy earlier than usual. Like Terry Pratchett’s golems and trolls, I tend to function more sharply as the weather begins to get colder. (Speaking of Pratchett, do get your hands on his latest novel I Shall Wear Midnight – it rocks). Let us then begin the I.M. Jack tour.

On the dignity of Parliament

Is it just me or is Parliament really becoming government’s bitch? I know, I know, I should be more reverent towards the hallowed institution that is fundamental to our very democracy but hey, if our very own representatives seem to be having a tough time understanding the importance of their roles, I don’t see why we should bother – right? Austin Gatt usually figures high on my list of valid politicians in this country of ours but he took the lead in the dismissal of the request for hearing of witnesses in the PAC on some wobbly excuse that the Auditor General had already carried out much of the hearing.

Bollocks. Even the kind of papers that do not usually lend themselves easily to government criticism carried harsh editorials condemning the lacklustre sense of wanton disrespect that everybody under the sun could read into the happenings at the PAC. We did not even have to fight off the temptation to be balanced and to apportion a fair share of criticism to the Labourite side of the benches by questioning their constant nagging and moral convictions. The message Austin et al were sending was plain – they refused to submit the BWSC process to a parliamentary level of scrutiny that is normal in most parliamentary democracies. The words of Franco Debono come back to haunt the mind now – the dignity of Parliament is being seriously diluted and something must be done quickly to repristinate a good working order.

On money

It is not just our sense of democracy that is being put into serious question. This week, EU leaders sat around a table somewhere in Luxembourg and agreed to revise the rules on budget deficit. Meanwhile, in the House of Commons in London, George Osborne delivered a budget that was described as a “historic attempt to turn around the juggernaut of state public spending”. The Daily Mail headlined Man Who Rolled Back The State on Friday, as the Con-Dem coalition embarked on a programme that would savage benefits, axe jobs, slash budgets and attempt to reverse 60 years of public spending.

An interesting article in the International Herald Tribune took in these latest European reforms at both EU and national level and questioned whether the Keynesian formula has been ditched once and for all. European governments no longer seem to believe that the solution to the recession is to pump more money into the economy and let the economy fix itself. Probably this has much to do with the distrust in the key power centres of the economy and how they seem to have brought about this recession themselves with their unethical way of thinking.

So yes, capitalism as we know it is in a bit of a fix. Which is when the loony left goes out on the streets and begins to whine. Fairness, as they know it, is about to go terribly wrong and the welfare state in which money seems to grow on trees for those who qualify for the big safety net in the sky is suddenly shrinking before their very eyes. Which is why we have angry men in streets preparing to raise barricades and fight with the riot police. Like the money will come flying from the sky once the capitalist monster is dealt the final deathblow. Go figure. Baroness Thatcher was hospitalised this week so she was saved the horror of having to see reminders of the age of her iron hand when minors and other representatives of the leftist workforce took to the streets.

On values and relativism

Maltese relativism is back with a twist. The House of Lords (UK) this week opened up a new world in the universe of marriage law by accepting the validity of a prenup. That’s short for prenuptial contract and has been the stuff of movies and murder stories across the pond for quite a while, but it may surprise you that its legal validity is very much a novelty this side of the Atlantic. What a prenup does is that it stipulates what will happen in the unfortunate eventuality that a happy couple that is about to engage in lawful matrimony should somehow fall out.

It’s a divorce settlement signed when things are still rosy, when the amours are still love struck and when altruistic lovey-doveyiness still pervades the inner sanctum of the quasi-conjugal unit. It takes advantage of the goodwill of the parties to pre-draft and establish what can still be considered to be an amicable settlement as to the division of all property. Thusly, later, when the better half is reaching for the short and curlies armed with a knife, and it is clear that it will not be death that will “us part” but rather the manifest impossibility of future cohabitation, the couple will find that the prenup they signed in what must seem another life will come into force and the pre-ordained division of assets as per prenup will take place without too much acrimonious battling.

The House of Lords hath ruled that such prenups will always apply unless they are manifestly unfair (leave it to the men of law to argue whether charm by fatal attraction could sufficiently qualify as having succumbed under sexual duress). Meanwhile, back in Malta (and back is the operative word here) we are still facing the discombobulating farce of wondering whether or not to introduce divorce by popular suffrage. As I said last week, this is a result of our testicle-less politicians (sanscouillistes) wanting to hide behind the “will of the people”. What next? A referendum on Income Tax? I wonder how that one will go.

Then, as fellow columnist Caruana Galizia pointed out on Thursday, there was the blatant contradiction between on the one hand all the disquisitions as to the morality of voting for divorce and on the other hand, the facility with which some parliamentary committee had no qualms in proposing the freezing of embryos. Climb up walls? We do that… every five years. All we needed was the LGBT movement complaining about the prohibition of IVF accessibility for gay couples. Sure – this country is having problems coming to terms with the idea of divorce but it will have no problems with little Capslock (I’m sure someone, somewhere has that name) being raised by mummy and … mummy. (The ghost of Beppe shudders).

On the strong arm of the law

The next time you are angry with someone and your anger leads you to the uncontrollable urge to punch that person, just remember one thing: it comes at a price. And if you can afford €100 then go ahead and do your Mohammed Ali. That is the going rate for a punch, as the man who assaulted the CABS officer discovered. Not that expensive, is it? As for letting loose with a gun on officers of the law and putting their life in manifest danger (vide HSBC hold-up and shootout) – that still does not disqualify you from bail.

Sarcasm aside – it is pissing off isn’t it? I mean, what the hell? Personally, I am not of the very physical kind and my best weapon in a punch up is my wit that sends one three-letter word to the brain: RUN. So if ever I risk being on the receiving end of someone’s clenched fist, I would like to think that there is also a sufficient disincentive in the form of a legal deterrent that will allow me to bargain my way out of such fury without having to resort to the Coward’s Gentlemanly Exit. It should be so for any law-abiding citizen, who would prefer not to have to calculate at which point throwing a punch or two towards the rabid bully could constitute valid self-defence (assuming he has a punch or two he can throw). The news from the Law Courts is not promising in this respect.

Traitors and idols

When some members of the black and white community of which I form part labelled Zlatan Ibrahimovic a gypsy whore, I tended to turn a blind eye and deaf ear and glossed over the possibility of tut-tutting such unsporting behaviour. I despised the lanky, self-pompous oaf all the more for leaving Juventus bang in the middle of what is now evidently a frame up to play for the saddest of teams ever to have disgraced Italian football grounds. When he actually moved on to another team a few complaints later, I did not shed a tear of sympathy for his latest dumped girlfriend but confirmed my earlier suspicions that here we were seeing the epitome of modern footballing greed. He’s moved on again (go figure) and is still worthless when it comes to crucial games on the European football stage but I’m not here to talk about Zlatan.

It’s the Rooney saga that really lit up more red lights as to the general decline of the gentlemanly side of football. Where are the Ryan Giggs, the Francesco Tottis, the Rauls, the Maldinis – and above all the Alessandro Del Pieros – in modern football? The word mercenary does not even begin to explain the spirit of today’s breed of men of the leather ball. No matter that by the time I finished typing this article Wayne has signed a new, improved contract keeping him at United, as predicted solely by Luciano Moggi when everybody else was betting on his next destination. No matter that he has been appeased with some beefing up of the contract.

What I would like to know is how the little Scouser will walk into that changing room and face his “team-mates” from Giggs to Nani to Bebe to Fletcher without being overcome by a sense of shame. Forget fidelity to the club, forget respect for the supporters, forget gratitude to a coach who fathered him. What jarred most in the Rooney saga was the ease with which he could bad-mouth his fellow team-mates by going public and basically claiming that they are not good enough to play with him. It’s stuff that makes you sick and I seriously doubt how easily Rooney can win back the respect he blew away over two crazy days in October.

Milos Krasic, Juventus’ latest idol, is a step back out of this world of mercenaries. I was not sure whether his determination to join Juventus should be taken seriously but the stories coming from Torino day after day show an old-fashioned, dedicated footballer who is in love with his new environment and determined to show the kind of attachment to a club that is sadly becoming rarer and rarer. He has one captain he can look up to who has broken all kinds of records and won all sorts of trophies. Last Sunday he broke one of the latest barriers, reaching the great Boniperti’s goal-tally in the Campionato. He turns 36 next month but we could be lucky enough to see him in action for some time yet.

Grazie Alex.

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Reporters Sans Frontières

NGO Reporters Sans Frontières has released the 2010 Press Freedom Index. You can find this index by clicking here. Surprisingly, given the weird goings on in the field of censorship in the island over the past year, Malta’s performance is quite good. It features in the 14th place overall – which is excellent to be honest. Which got J’accuse thinking. How exactly is the information compiled? More importantly who compiles it? By following the link you can also se the pdf documents explaining what questions were asked of each country and how the questions were scored (marked). What we do not know is what answers were given for Malta.

Before you go ballistic, we are not trying to imply that Malta is some sort of third world state with no real press freedoms but think of these points:

1) Censorship of Realtà magazine

2) Dearth of investigative journalism on TV and press

3) the absence of independent TVs

4) the strong presence of establishment points of view and barriers to the market penetration

5) lack of scrutiny of such programmes as exist (they can afford to bumble on in limbo)

6) The facility with which a politician can be classified as a pressman for the purposes of political propaganda (see JPO)

7) the weakness of the freedom of information and data protection acts

8) the farcical conditions and conditioning with which our politicians allow scrutiny of their acts (can you really investigate a politician or must you submit to the conditions for interview?)

There’s more. But it does make you wonder who is sending the info to RSF. Who exactly made Malta sound like an idyllic state where the press is performing its functions of the fourth estate and fourth guardian of democratic principles? Interesting questions no?

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Moggi Gets Rooney Right

This morning I read my usual fare of morning news while following the roundup of Juve’s miserable performance in the Europa league last night. The last article I read before packing off for work was Moggi’s weekly contribution to tuttomercatoweb in which he once again attacked Saint Moratti and pointed out the Intercettato Magnate’s incongruities. The article then ended with a prediction on the current Rooney saga:

In chiusura dalla redazione di Tuttomercatoweb.com, mi hanno chiesto un pronostico su come finirà la trattativa Rooney; rispondo volentieri. Real? Chelsea? Inter? City? Penso che alla lunga resti allo United con un nuovo contratto: più lungo e più ricco. Almeno, di solito, il giochino dei “Campioni” è questo; basta saperlo.

Which is when I decided that no matter how right he can be about Moratti’s lies upon lies, Moggi had definitely lost it with regards to guessing Rooney’s future. I thought that there was no way ManU could keep Rooney after his misfit outburst and his insults to his teammates. Well. Turns out that Mago Moggi was right.

BBC news just out has confirmed that Rooney has signed a new 5-year deal to stay at United. Now we wait for the rest of Moggi’s points to be finally confirmed in a court of law. Here’s a reminder (still Moggi speaking):

“Sono d’accordo con le sentenze del 2006”. Incredibile, ma assurdamente vero. Sono le parole di Massimo Moratti, il quale nell’atto di sfoggiare ed ostentare un’onestà che tutti avete avuto modo di vedere quanto gli appartenga, continua a dimenticare fatti incontestabili, provati ed evidenti, che cozzano con le sue professioni d’innocenza. Il presidente nerazzurro, non so se volontariamente o meno, tralascia di ricordare l’interrogatorio di Tavaroli, nel quale quest’ultimo confessava di aver ricevuto precise disposizioni di pedinare ed intercettare giocatori e dirigenti vari. Non ricorda di avere avuto a completa disposizione un colosso della telefonia (guardacaso)come Telecom; dimentica di aver dato mandato ad un suo dirigente di procurarsi un passaporto falso, attraverso la motorizzazione di Latina e con l’ausilio di un certo Baldini fece il resto. Non esattamente uno stinco di santo. Un passaporto che, tra le altre cose, pagò qualcosa come ottantamila dollari. L’onesto per eccellenza è lo stesso che ha rivendicato per anni lo scudetto del 1998, quello del famoso rigore su Ronaldo. A nessuno è però venuto in mente che quella partita sarebbe dovuta finire 3-0 a tavolino per la Juventus, dato che nella rosa interista c’era un giocatore che non avrebbe nemmeno potuto farne parte, figuriamoci giocare.

The full article on Tuttomercatoweb.

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Definitely not Bondi+

Here’s an interesting interview with Roberto Saviano. Look out (3 minutes plus) for the explanation on why it is important that investigative (and narrative) programs exist and more importantly that they are paid (and paid well, when they generate good returns from ads). But more importantly look out for how Saviano explains that the biggest justification for having people earning money from these programmes is that they can be judged, that we can expect standards from them and that the job is well done. Next time you complain about Bondi+ don’t get stuck on the typical Maltese pettiness of who earns what and why – remember the crucial point : the obligation Bondi and his team have to provide a quality investigative programme of real journalism. J’accuse will keep on reminding Bondi of his obligation and we will continue to bask in the idea that he actually thinks he can get away selling the idea that he is unaware of any criticism because he can’t read.

“Essere professionale significa che lo spettatore puo giudicare anche in maniera severa. Perche sei stato pagato e quindi devi dare il meglio di te.” – Saviano

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Alert's Right of Reply

As I stated in the update to the previous post, Claudine Cassar of Alert Communications expressed her wish to make a few clarifications with regards to both the post as well as the stories circulating in the media about the launch of Trolleymania. The following is the full, unedited text of the email sent by Ms Cassar. Here at J’accuse we do not only believe in the freedom of speech but also in the right of reply. The forum is always open to whoever feels he has a point to make about anything said in this blog.

***

Hi Jacques,

Thank you for the opportunity to clarify some issues. There have been many ridiculous stories and ludicrous accusations floating around today and frankly I did not bother to reply to any of them. Your article, on the other hand, is a different story – I respect your opinion so it matters to me that there are several misconceptions that have been reproduced in your piece.

Let us start with this “e-venture capital” issue that apparently is going to send some dosh my company’s way. This is a falsehood that has been spread all over the comment boards and frankly it is getting beyond ridiculous now. The last comment I read put the figure at EUR 300,000 for a recycled project J It would be funny if it were not so sad that some people are willing to resort to spreading bare-faced lies simply because they are suffering from a very bad case of sour grapes.

Let me clarify. The portal was developed by Alert Communications and we are the ones who are bearing 90% of the costs related to development and all the costs related to hosting, maintenance and administration. We are not getting any hand-outs. We bought the servers, we are paying for the bandwidth, and we are paying the salaries for the help desk and all the technical and administrative support that we are giving our eShop operators. At the moment we are not making any dosh – we are just dishing it out!

I would be lying if I did not state clearly that my hope is in fact that in due course my company will get “a boost in custom and sales”. That is why I have invested so much time and money in this venture. I make no claims to being Mother Theresa. However it is going to take a long time to get to the point where we are going to make a profit because the running costs of this portal are very high.

The Ministry is contributing by promoting the eMall – but they are not spending anything remotely close to EUR 300,000. This is a fundamental part of such a portal’s success and there is no doubt that without their contribution, TrolleyMania would probably fail. I know, because I had already invested in the development of an eMall several years ago that failed because I simply did not have the wherewithal to promote it effectively. Is it an excellent arrangement and one that will benefit my company? Of course it is. However it must be said that this is an offer that the Government made to all of industry – it was a public call for tender and guess what, only three companies bothered to bid for it. All these companies that are now spamming the comment boards with lie upon lie did not even bother to bid when the opportunity arose, and yet they are now angry because we did bid and we were successful.

Sour grapes? Yes, definitely.

Now the GRTU issue. This requires some clarification. The GRTU wanted to give us a list of companies to black list from the mall. According to them these competitors, notwithstanding the fact that they are SMEs, are simply too competitive. They wanted us to exclude those companies that could offer Maltese consumers the best prices. Well, with all due respect, this simply does not make sense. We are no longer living in the day when Catch was the sole choccie available for me to satisfy my chocolate cravings. So TrolleyMania remains open to all Maltese SMEs who want to use it.

Is TrolleyMania a necessity for small companies in Malta to get involved in eCommerce. Well, let me put it this way. The government has launched scheme after scheme, giving away thousands of euros to SMEs who wanted to invest in such technologies – and yet the take-up was very low. The main problem is not money, it is time. Most small shop owners simply do not have the time to set up a distribution mechanism and tackle issues such as online stock management. So we did it for them – and that is why TrolleyMania is and will be a success. It is not because of the technology, there is no rocket science there! It is because we have made the whole process really easy for the merchant. Whenever a sale goes through, the merchant receives an email telling him how to pack stuff (Maltapost has weight limits per package) and automatically Maltapost gets notified and they go to the store to collect the item. We are mollycoddling these small shop owners and the result is that they have taken to the web enthusiastically.

I will not quibble with you regarding the name – some like it, some don’t. I happen to like it, so we are going to have to agree to disagree on that one J

I will however comment regarding the speed and the downtime that we experienced today. You are right, we were caught with our pants down. Not in a million years did we expect the response that we got. I am an optimistic person who really believes in this project and I came nowhere close to predicting the traffic that surged to the site!

To give you an idea, between 8pm and midnight yesterday we had 3671 unique visitors, who viewed a grand total of 115,600 pages – that means an average of 917 visits an hour, with each visitor viewing 31.5 pages per visit i.e. a total of 28885 page views per hour. This morning the figures were even higher than that.

Were we prepared for this onslaught? No, we were not. It was like the crazy rush at Lidl when chainsaws are for sale for €5.00 J In our case, however, the stampede did not calm down after half an hour, it just kept going on, hour after hour after hour, as people searched and registered and purchased stuff – until finally the server konked out.

So this morning we had no choice but to switch off the server, regroup and upgrade. It took us a few hours to sort the matter out because we changed hardware, upgraded bandwidth levels, etc. However the site was online again by around 4pm. Incredibly the stampede started again and is still ongoing! However now we are prepared and the site can take it.

Bring it on say I J

Claudine Cassar
Managing Director

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Story of an IT Fiasco – Trolleymania

Minutes after publishing this post I received a message from Alert Managing Director Claudine Cassar in which she expressed her desire to give her company’s point of view and highlight a few inaccuracies that were expressed in the post. I have invited Claudine Cassar to send me a write up that will be posted as an unedited post on J’accuse in the interests of clarity and fairness.

Malta, 2010. No, I do not have another “medieval” sin/fire and brimstone/backward society story to tell. The reason I had to double-check the year on my calendar this time round was the resounding flop that the government’s latest IT baby seems to be. It’s called Trolleymania and its launching was in the news (or should I say in the Government Gazette?) yesterday.

In one of its latest attempts in what it believes to be its own crusade to drag Maltese society kicking and screaming into the century of e-commerce, the IT Ministry headed by IT supremo Austin “e-powers” Gatt took the initiative of creating an e-mall. I’ll leave the official description to the Government mouthpiece:

TrolleyMania.com, as the venture is called, is aimed at all local businesses which want to venture into the world of e-commerce and start selling their products online, the ministry said. The project is a public-private partnership between Government and Alert Communications.

So there you are. Let’s start by looking at the idea. Essentially insofar as governmental initiatives go this is a laudable one. Admittedly it does come 7-10 years too late (amazon & ebay went online in 1995 – you’d expect  a knee-jerk reaction to set after six years of the e-success story) but hey it IS the government we are talking about. What with all Smart talk you’d have expected some bright spark to open his mouth and say – how about some e-venture capital to put our little businesses on the map?

Let me put it this way. 5 years ago when the saudade was beginning to set in I could buy Kinnie online from a Dutch website (mall if you like, but I’m guessing you rarely use the word) but there were few e-shops in Malta. If my memory serves me well I first used an e-service to buy a bouquet of flowers from Zammit Nurseries (and that still had to be followed up by a phone call to ensure the hazy online transaction was ok).

So. It’s the year of the lord 2010 and the government wants to help small businesses. Well, originally the MITA wanted to rope in medium enterprises but the GRTU was not exactly thrilled by the proposal. This sort of blew up the IT ministry’s plans since, by its own admission, without the products of larger enterprises the site would in all probability fail to attract a “critical mass”. Darn.

Which left the Ministry with what exactly? Well it left the ministry with a “public-private partnership” with Alert Communications Ltd. Which is another way of saying that Alert Communications will get some dosh to set up a venture that is normally the kind of investment entered into by entrepreneurial risk-taking individuals. With the excuse of stimulating the e-economy Alert gets a boost in custom and sales – because you pay to enter the scheme and you pay for maintenance.

Which is alright if you’re Alert. And Ok for a quickie PR exercise for Minister Gatt and PS whatsisname and MITA Chairman Claudio Grech and the sandwich caterers engaged for the launch. BUt is it ok for a real boost of the Maltese e-commerce industry?

Bah. The website takes ages to load, gets confused easily with the cookie system and once you choose a category of products you seem to be unable to switch to any other. The range of products presented – bar some paintings which should be emarrassed by the company with which they are plonked  – gives the impression of a glorified tal-Lira shop. The marketability of the name “TROLLEYMANIA” is highly dubious and is the obvious result of a guaranteed government backing where the pr team does not have to really worry that much of attracting new clients – the gov will hand out the dosh ANYWAY.

Trolley? Trolley? Mania? And then since when do we speak of “Malls” in Malta? Or Europe? The half-hearted approach is evident all over the slow loading website. Whatsmore a quick look around the Maltese corner of the web would have shown Minister Gatt the results of Maltese entrepreneurial spirit. Take the book sector: you could sprint over to the garish but effective Malta Online Bookstore or the amazon lookalike at Agenda, lest I be beaten with an encyclopaedia I rush to mention Merlin (website coming soon).

There’s more in other departments. The ebay style websites have flourished, restaurant delivery sites have improved and it is possible to browse some perfectly reasonable individual retailer sites without being put off e-commerce for life. The contribution of the IT ministry-Alert public-private initiative to the e-commerce world will barely register in the future.

So if you have 250€ to spare you’re best advised to invest it in some sound online advertising. Alternatively open an account on ebay and become a recognised e-vendor. Barrier to trade? Highly unlikely.

P.S. The site in question is www.trolleymania.com – “Scheduled Maintenance” is underway as I type.

Duh

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