I disagree with your argument on why the Opera House site should become the new parliament. While I feel the palace is definitely unsuitable, I could think of a number of better alternatives than the opera house. Such a prominent position would be much better suited to attracting interest in cultural activities, both from Maltese and tourists entering Valletta.

I also disagree with your objections to using a building in the lower part of Valletta. To my knowledge, there is hardly an awful lot of people interested in visiting the parliament to “see and hear” the MPs. Same can be said of the UK MPs in their great palace – the tourists go to photograph the building – not see the sessions.

The main reason I am commenting is with regards to your mention of the Scottish parliament. I don’t know whether or not you have visited Edinburgh recently but you seem to have shot yourself in the foot with this example. Being half Scottish, surprisingly I have been a fair few times. The main touristic part of the capital is laid out on either side of the top portion of the Royal Mile in the old town. This is where the vast majority of the tourists visit, along with Princes Street across the valley in the New Town. The parliament building at Holyrood is right down at the end of the Royal Mile in a somewhat less interesting part of town. True, there’s the Queen’s palace, but you can’t exactly go wandering about inside and she’s never there anyway. Oh, and the Abbey doesn’t have much to show for itself. So there you have it – in Scotland, the parliament is housed in an unimposing building (compared to others, at least) in a quieter, out of the way, part of the city.

You also got it wrong on another point – they did allow a ‘cultural’ building to be sited nearby. Right beside the parliament is the ‘Our Dynamic Earth’ science centre housed in a modern tent shaped building. The reason there are no theatres down there – it’s too quiet. They’re in the busier parts where the footfall (therefore exposure) is greater and the public and tourists can be tempted in.

[Daphne – I was in Edinburgh a few months ago, and visited each of the areas you describe. There are tourist buses specifically laid on to take visitors down to the area of the Scottish parliament, the palace and the science centre, and thousands of people go there. I can’t understand why you describe the parliament house as ‘not an imposing building’. It is a stunning piece of architecture, as one would expect. The reason why it was built there, and not in the thick of things, should be obvious: building it on the Royal Mile would have meant demolishing an ancient building to clear the way. Fortunately, with Valletta we don’t have to do that because there is an open area right at the beginning of its ‘royal mile’.]

I’m all for symbolism, so long as does not make too big a hole in my pocket.

[Daphne – Deadpan people like me don’t use smiley faces; we’d rather wear a shell-suit and dangle fluffy dice from our rear-view mirrors. There’s no new Daphne; there’s always been the same one. Ask around.]

[Daphne – Sybil, you are clearly unfamiliar with the significance and importance of symbolism. And this from somebody who thrives on religion.]

I get exactly the same sort of feeling whenever I hear a local parliamentary debate – which is why I am against frittering millions on a new building to house parliament.

[Daphne – But of course! Why not do away with the parliamentary system altogether, because the MPs WHO HAVE BEEN CHOSEN BY THE PEOPLE AND NOT IMPOSED ON THEM are disliked by some.]

Now, re. theatre. Where to start? I once bravely ventured to sit through “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf” at the Manoel. It was the last play I ever watched in Malta. And it’s not the actors’ fault. Some deified playwrights are just plain shyte. It was all there: The suppressed sexual tension, the inevitable descent into chaos, the hidden lunacy, the sheer narcissistic supercilious intellectual arsewipery. I sat aghast throughout the whole charade. I usually think up more interestingly desperate stuff while waiting for the microwave to go ping. But I didn’t dress it up as theatre, become an instant celebrity and bonk a supermodel. I went to a psychiatrist and got fleeced.

Today’s artists are just like today’s football players. They’re still in their twenties, and they’ve already got their own fief. They’re demigods, and think they’ve nothing more to learn. And no one dares to utter the unspeakable, lest they be deemed uncultured yobs.

Then again, I loved watching Benjamin Lazar’s production of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. See, I’m not impossible to entertain.

‘There’s only so much I can take of people ham-acting in faux British or American accents. Some people are good in their roles, but others are just plain terrible.’

Apparently, only a select few are capable of performing in Malta. Well, I guess the opinion of foreign actors and directors (who Ms.Caruana Galizia so wholly admires and qualifies as the only people who can actually perform), who were more than impressed by local talented artists after working with them, doesn’t really count then…or is it the case that Ms.Caruana Galizia thinks she undertsands theatre even more than these people as well? I wouldn’t think this is the case though, as she so remarkably stated that:

‘the experience, variously, made me break out in hives, fall asleep, head for the bar across the road after the first act, leave at the interval and not return to my seat, amuse myself by reciting the alphabet backwards, wonder at the assumed accents of the performers,…’

which usually happens when the concept of the play is completely beyond the understanding of the individual!!!

[Daphne – Mrs Buckle, your husband/brother/.whatever has already made this point. It’s simply a matter of the law of averages. A population of 400,000 can’t possibly generate the same numbers of talented individuals as a population of 50 million.]

By the way, you’re really missing out in life if you don’t like at least one sport. Even taking interest in table games such as billiard or table tennis is enough. Don’t tell me that you didn’t even watch a bit of the Euro 2008 cup final?

[Daphne – Maltese/foreign: why do I find this opposition whatever the subject under discussion? Maltese/foreign wine; Maltese/foreign actors. Malta versus the rest of the world, from China to Tobago. Maltese actors are amateurs. They’re not professional. Some are good, the rest are of the kind of level you’d find at any amateur playhouse anywhere else. When I mentioned Broadway, I wasn’t talking about the stage-set; I was talking about the actors.]