The remains of the day

Astrid Vella’s current beef is that were it not for her intrepid heroism, the ‘remains’ beneath St John’s Square would have been ‘bull-dozed’. On timesofmalta.com, this constant use of the word ‘remains’ set my teeth on edge and I begged to differ. Of course, this was Not Allowed.

Daphne Caruana Galizia (5 hours, 27 minutes ago)
Define ‘remains’, Astrid. Wells and cisterns which are an integral part of existing buildings are not remains. Nor is the original underground system of service passages and drains – also an integral part of the original city-planning. Just because something happens to be built underground – when it was always meant to be underground – does not mean it falls into the category of ‘remains’. The underground service system is no more ‘remains’ than are the buildings above it. Remains would be the foundations of earlier buildings on which the present buildings went up – in other words, an earlier settlement layer. In Valletta, there is no such thing. The city was built more or less in toto on a virgin site some 450 years ago. It is no London or Paris, or for that matter, Mdina, with different settlement layers offering vital clues to the development of the city over thousands of years.

Astrid Vella (2 hours, 9 minutes ago)
Before you rush to rubbish me as usual Daphne, may I point out that I was merely quoting Perit Claude Borg and Honourable Minister George Pullicino in my sentence referring to “remains”. Rather than quibbling over vocabulary and semantics, as is your wont, would it not be better to celebrate the fact that the Ministry acted so fast on FAA’s highlighting the existence of these tunnels through its initial exploration of the tunnels. This has now led to the unearthing of a whole network of structures that gives us a better idea of the engineering wonders that lie beneath Valletta’s streets. A national heritage that might have been lost if it were not for this fruitful cooperation between the authorities and civil society.

Daphne Caruana Galizia (not yet uploaded)
It’s not a crime to be a perfectionist, Astrid. You should try it some time. And it makes no difference how many people use the word wrongly. It is still wrong. By using the word ‘remains’, you are encouraging people to believe that there is a whole undiscovered world down there, something straight out of Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, complete with trolls and goblins and with clues to Valletta’s 3,000-year-old past. There isn’t. There are mapped structures, and if you wish to see precisely how well mapped they are, there is to be a talk on this subject by Edward Said at the offices of Din L-Art Helwa in March. Mr Said – a ‘perit’, as you put it – researched the subject exhaustively for his thesis, and spent rather a lot of time down below. I don’t think you should be claiming the merit for having ‘discovered’ anything, quite frankly – shades of Girl Guides and amateurism.