What’s your mission, dear Daphne?

[Daphne – I’ve said it before. I’m an entertainer. I am paid to entertain others.]

For your information, under section 8.5 of the application form for ERDF projects (Operation Programme 1, freely downloadable from the PPCD website – http://www.ppcd.gov.mt) one has to state whether a Planning and Environmental Permit is required and section 10.2 is all about Sustainable Development – Environmental Sustainability.

So if these two conditions were not met, the funding would have been withdrawn. This is one of the reasons why most of the projects that were applied for in September 2007 and January 2008 have still not started yet – one first applies, then if given the green light from the Project Selection Committee, applies for the necessary permits and only then can the project start (the project leader shold have envisaged the delay and indicated the project start date accordingly). This is also partly the reason why Joseph Love-in-the-Air Muscat is insisting that Malta has been a net contributor for 2007 and 2008(I am sure we shall hear this today in one of his Sunday morning’s sermon).

If what you say is correct, then why did the Foundation report to the police and MEPA the owner of an outlet next door who excavated his basement and in so doing caused irreparable damage to the underground protected heritage of St John’s a few years ago, if as you allege, THERE IS NOTHING BUT RUBBLE ANYWAY?

[Daphne – That’s what I mean about you not being able to distinguish between fact and opinion, Sybil. I’m beginning to wonder how you got your medical degree, and what sort of diagnosis you give your patients. “Oh umm, let me see: the neighbours said that if you have this kind of growth then it must be cancer. But Astrid Vella says this itchy rash is indicative of a fungal infection….”. I’m going to write in capital letters now: THE EXCAVATION WAS GOING TO TAKE PLACE UNDER ST JOHN’S SQUARE, NOT UNDER THE CATHEDRAL. THE CAFE YOU MENTION WAS IN THE CATHEDRAL STRUCTURE ITSELF, HENCE THE WELL THAT WAS DAMAGED WAS UNDER THE CATHEDRAL, NOT UNDER THE SQUARE. I hope all is clear now.]

And who was going to foot the bill for the EIA’s “technical aspects” anyway?

[Daphne – The cathedral foundation, Sybil. Not you. You are being asked to fund the Labour Party’s electricity bill and Jason Micallef’s salary. Perhaps you should ask Astrid Vella about the EIA. She described it as ‘already flawed’ in her petition, when it hadn’t even been published yet. And you tell me this woman has integrity? It’s bad enough that those who signed the petition did so without asking this fibbing, manipulative woman what those flaws were, and for a copy of the EIA that didn’t exist.]

As I final thought, and I hope that I won’t be slaughtered for this, would it be perhaps an idea to try and integrate the now-aborted St John’s Museum with the new building at the site of the Royal Opera House?

It seems that the FAA’s spectrum of interest is widening at a fast rate. I would not be surprised if they start commenting on the budget, and every other issue under the sun.

Your explanation above on tapestries was quite interesting. Thanks. I have visited a number of museums, but stupid me, never realised that UV rays were the main concern.

The elves commenting on The Times seem to be online 24 hours a day. It’s always the same people, same boring comments. They use the usual limited vocabulary: “gonzipn” (as if it is a word), etc. I wonder whether they have a job, or whether they’re just laid-back loonies who are not able to fit in a productive work environment.

[Daphne – Oh, they have a job, but being Laburisti and AD anti-capitalists, they screw the boss by doing it on his time.]

[Daphne – Of course it is. But it’s certainly not too late to tell her where to shove her opera house, if you will forgive the expression. Gejja bl-opera house, hej – as though she’s going to be in the front row every night, shelling out EUR250 each time, bil-qamel taghha.Typical Astrid: she dictates, others pay. Are the FAA going to subsidise this opera house they want? Are they going to buy tickets and hand them out to the poor and needy? U morru l’hemm, tridux. Look at her mentality: she’s happy to have stopped the museum project, and that’s where her interest ends. Now she’s already moved on to the next thing. Meanwhile, the tapestries whose incipient home she’s bombed still need somewhere to go. But Astrid isn’t going to stick around for the discussion of where this might be, and how it might be funded now that there isn’t the money to pay for it. No – because her interest was not the well-being of the tapestries. Her interest was the undermining of the project for the power-rush it gave her.]

[Daphne – I can’t believe you don’t know, Tim, given that he called a press conference to condemn me for criticising his daughter’s decision to take on the case of somebody accused of killing the prime minister’s PA – when her father was deputy prime minister. And he timed his press conference to coincide with the absence from the island of the prime minister, the prime minister’s PA and the top people in the PN – it was August – so there was nobody to stop his outrageous behaviour. Ghastly man – no wonder he has so much in common with Dom Mintoff. At least I didn’t suggest anything along the lines that he might have given her some tips on how to handle the case.]

[Daphne – In my life as a newspaper columnist, I’ve survived five governments (this is the sixth), three prime ministers, two night-time arson attacks on my home – the most recent one a case of attempted murder as it was the house itself and not the door that was set on fire, scores of anonymous letters, hundreds of obscene telephone calls, countless whispering campaigns, gossip and rumour-mongering, insulting cartoons, slanderous remarks, a libellous book by the present leader of the opposition, a rabid Nationalist deputy prime minister who had me sacked as a columnist with The Sunday Times after I had the temerity to question his daughter’s integrity (and then called my new employers at The Malta Independent to dissuade them from engaging me, “ghax imbaghad ma jkolliex fejn tikteb izjed”….he couldn’t have foreseen the advent of blogs) and heaven knows what else. I think I can survive a few semi-literate Labour and AD elves posting ill-spelt and ungrammatical comments on a news-site. As I used to tell them before I got bored of doing so, I would much rather be me than them, and their problem is that they would much rather be me, too. Then rattling their cage ceased to be entertaining. Astrid won’t become an AD candidate, because then she won’t be able to saunter round pretending she’s independent and motivated only by a sense of civic duty.]